The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915-1916 9781782387701

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The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916

Edited by

Wolfgang Gust

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2014 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2014 Wolfgang Gust Published in association with the Zoryan Institute This book was originally published in 2005 by zuKlampen! under the title Der Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16: Dokumente aus dem Politischen Archiv des deutschen Auswärtigen Amts. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16. English] The Armenian genocide : evidence from the German foreign office archives, 1915–1916 / edited by Wolfgang Gust. pages cm “Originally published in 2005 by Zu Klampen under the title Völkermord an den Armeniern 1915/16: Dokumente aus dem Politischen Archiv des deutschen Auswärtigen Amts.“ Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-143-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Armenian massacres, 1915–1923—Sources. 2. Armenians—Turkey—History— Sources. 3. Genocide—Turkey—History—Sources. I. Gust, Wolfgang. II. Germany. Auswärtiges Amt. Politisches Archiv. DS195.5.V6513 2013 956.6'20154—dc23 2013015965 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Cover image: Exodus of 5000 Armenian orphans collected after the Genocide at Kharpert Old Mosque near Kharpert. Courtesy Zoryan Institute archives Printed on acid-free paper ISBN: 978-1-78238-143-3 hardback

This book is dedicated to my wife, Sigrid, without whose untiring work, the publication of this documentation would not be possible.

Contents

Preface

ix

List of Abbreviations

xiii

Foreword Vahakn N. Dadrian

xiv

Overview of the Armenian Genocide 1 The Armenians 3 Details of the Sources 4 Deportations and Annihilation Campaigns 6 Interrogations and Torture 10 Labour Battalions 12 The Murder of Adult Males 14 Acts of Extermination in Home Towns 18 The Annihilation of Entire Deportation Convoys 20 The Deportation Convoys 22 The Fate of the Women and Girls 25 Turnstile Aleppo 29 The Deportation Routes beyond Aleppo 31 The Armenian Auschwitz: Deir-es-Zor 33 The Armenian Birkenau: The Khabur River 34 Enrichments and Economic Consequences 37 The Pretexts for the Genocide 46 Hatred of the Armenians 46 Fear of a Rebellion by the Turkish Armenians 49 Weapons, Bombs and Evidence 52 Revolutionary Intentions of the Armenians and German Observations 56 The Supposed Uprisings of the Armenians 59 Zeytun 60 Dörtyol and the Mediterrean Coast 61

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Fundadjak 62 Musa Dagh 63 Urfa 64 The People Responsible for the Genocide 66 The String-pullers 66 The Executors 74 The Objective of the Genocide 78 Turkish Resistance to the Genocide 80 The Role of the Germans 82 The Reactions of German Politicians to the Genocide 82 The Attitude of the German Ambassadors in Constantinople and that of the Consuls 85 Germany’s Joint Responsibility for the Genocide 90 The German Armenian Policy of Central Headquarters in Berlin 92 The German Military in Turkey 97 German Officers in Action against Civilians 99 The German Military and the Example of Belgium 102 The German Officers Humann and Lossow in the Embassy 105 The German Officers at the Military Mission 107 The German Christians and Johannes Lepsius’ Role 110 Germany’s Turning Away from the West 111 Pro-Armenians Johannes Lepsius and Paul Rohrbach 114 The Turnaround of Johannes Lepsius 121 Conclusion 125

Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading

127

Notes on Using the Documents

132

The Documents

135

Glossary

770

Index

772

Preface

After the end of the Second World War, the world learned with horror how the Nazis had dealt with ethnic and political minorities in Germany, particularly the genocide of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust. It became a symbol of the barbarism of the Third Reich. This image of barbarism was picked up as a central theme in newspapers, magazines and other media worldwide. Much research was conducted and many scientific investigations were published over time. Only in Germany did this important work for a long time remain incomplete. For many years the Holocaust was nearly a taboo. Since the war ended with the total defeat of Germany, the ruling class, especially the government, could not deny the Holocaust openly; however, its regret remained more or less lip service and was reflected for decades neither in schools nor in universities. The mass of the German people remained uninformed. The frequent radio broadcasts of the Nuremberg trials had had little effect in changing public opinion because the Holocaust was not at the centre of the first legal discussions about the criminal national regime. It was the Eichmann trial of 1961 in Jerusalem that, for the first time, caused a significant reaction in Germany. Only the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt at the end of 1963 brought some of the thugs in front of a German court. A broad discussion on the phenomenon of the Holocaust started only with the student movement of 1968. This refusal of my compatriots to genuinely confront our own past and the most monstrous of all mass crimes, which I experienced during my adult development, was one of the reasons I was so deeply touched when I learned – amply late – of another genocide at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915-16. I was shocked to see the Germans again playing an important role in mass murder at the edge of Europe. This genocide was neither initiated nor committed by Germans, but was widely accepted by them. Imperial Germany was the closest ally of the Young Turks and had a formal military alliance with them. Was there a link between these two most important genocides in Europe? Did the Nazis copy the methods of the Young Turks, who had committed the Armenian Genocide? Were the two World Wars in reality one historical event, as some historians believe? Questions upon questions. Was Imperial Germany a driving force in the genocide of the Armenians, or possibly even the source of the idea, as some non-German histo-

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rians have suspected (‘Méthode allemande – travail turc’)? Did Imperial Germany view the Armenian Genocide with indifference or with sympathy? Did some Germans or part of the leading class resist the deportations and mass killings? And finally, did Germany have the power to stop the Armenian Genocide, and if they were able to so, why did they not make use of this power? There is still a strange ignorance in Germany about our role in the Armenian Genocide. No German university has picked the Armenian Genocide as a central theme, and no German historian has dedicated a book to the incomprehensible event. There is hardly a thesis by a German about an aspect of the Armenian Genocide. Why not? The German theologian and missionary Johannes Lepsius had a very close relationship with the Armenians. He was one of only a few Germans who reported about the suffering of the Armenians in the last years of the nineteenth century and during the First World War, and tried to help them actively. In 1916 he sent an outstanding report about the genocide to 20,000 German pastors which never arrived at its addressees – not because of the notorious Prussian censorship but obviously because of the censorship of the Protestant church, the church of Lepsius himself – a report which being made public could have changed the German policy. This non-publication was never investigated, either in Germany or elsewhere, until now. In 1919, just after end of the war, Lepsius published a book with documents from the German Foreign Office which proved that the German embassy in Constantinople – and thus the German government in Berlin – had all the necessary details to see that genocide had taken place in Turkey. German diplomatic representatives were the only foreign nationals who could send encrypted telegrams to their offices in Turkey – thus avoiding the Turkish censors – and were able to speak candidly to one another in their correspondence. While German diplomats and informers could not have had complete knowledge of the secret meetings of the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress and other even more important Turkish organizations for the preparation and execution of the genocide, the reports of German diplomats at lower levels – consuls and their informers from the German charity-organisations, German functionaries in Turkish ministries, and German officers as part of Turkish staff and the army itself – gave them quite a complete survey of the results of these secret plans. So the responsible German officials were much better informed than the neutral Americans, who often had to wait a long time for the dispatches of their consuls and informers, not to speak of the British and French, who had no officials in Turkey. So the documents published in 1919 by Lepsius gave a good summary of the genocide itself, but they lacked an important aspect: the role of Germany. Some sentences of the diplomatic texts were deleted or manipulated by the German Foreign Office and/or by Lepsius to hide the real intentions of Germany in Turkey. When my wife and I discovered this, we obtained all these documents and restored the original texts. We published the original texts and the manipulations at our Internet portal. A

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comprehensive selection of these original documents is now published in this book, about half of which were not mentioned by Lepsius. The accuracy of many Ottoman documents – sources of evidence being discovered more and more frequently by Turkish researchers – can be checked in comparison to these records. After publication of the original version of these documents in April 2005 in Germany, the editorial staffs of the most important German newspapers, radio and television stations selected the book as the best non-fiction book of the month. The German Bundestag (the national parliament in Berlin) published a resolution approved by the parliamentary groups of all parties – a rarity – accepting German coresponsibility in the Armenian Genocide, but without calling it ‘genocide’. Whatever this German co-responsibility exactly consists of can only be determined after the study of all relevant documents in Germany and elsewhere. We are concentrating on the official German documents of the Foreign Office in Berlin, which was the best-informed authority in Imperial Germany at the time. A large number of military documents were destroyed at the end of World War II because of bombings, but the German diplomatic archives include many reports by military attachés and other responsible military personnel to cover even this aspect of the German presence in Turkey. It is our intention to provide as many sources as possible for researchers on the Armenian Genocide. The interpretation of these sources is up to them. We discovered in the two decades of our work that much important information is found in the notes, footnotes, commentaries and remarks of the responsible politicians in Berlin, mostly handwritten and often ignored until now because they are difficult to decipher and written in the old German handwriting called ‘Sütterlin’, which is difficult to read even for young German historians today. Moreover, the German consulates were not as rich as their American or British counterparts and often had few typewriters if any. Consequently, many diplomatic sources of this level are handwritten, too, and sometimes extremely difficult to decipher. We have nearly finished the recording of diplomatic texts registered by the functionaries at that time in the Berlin Foreign Office as ‘Armenian affairs’. So we are extending our work to recording documents from other files which may explain the background of German decision-making regarding Turkey and the Near East in general. The enormous quantity of these texts makes it far too expensive to publish them as regular books. Therefore, we have established and are now expanding our Internet portal, www.armenocide.net, so that we can offer not only a multitude of different texts, but also features made possible by Internet publishing, such as searching, large indexes, and so on. This mode of publishing is not only much faster, but we also have the possibility of adding documents to editions already published and to correct texts if we find mistakes. My wife and I hope this work will be an inspiration for other researchers to bring to light other documents that are still waiting to be discovered, transcribed, analyzed,

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and published, so that future generations will be fully aware of this terrible history and with such knowledge not allow their own countries to play any role in mass murder again. As we receive no support from official or private German sources, I would like to express my appreciation to the Zoryan Institute and its President, K. M. Greg Sarkissian, for the institute’s support and assistance in the translation, editing, and publishing of this book. I extend special thanks to George Shirinian, Executive Director of the Zoryan Institute, who edited the translation with great care and precision and oversaw the preparation of the final manuscript. This book, with its 240 core documents, is the basis of the Internet portal and the only work of the German files on the Armenian Genocide in English translation. Hamburg, October 2012 Wolfgang Gust

Abbreviations

AA

Auswärtiges Amt, German Foreign Office

B.

Normally for ‘Botschaft’ (Embassy) as K stand for Konsulat (Consulate). Both had an internal numbering of all correspondence.

D.O.M.

Deutsche Orient-Mission, German Mission in the Orient

DE

Deutschland, Germany

Ev.

Evangelisch, Protestant

Geh.

Geheim, secret

H.

Herr, Mister

inst.

From Latin ‘instantem’, referring to the current month

Ltq.

Turkish pound (currency)

M.

Deutsche Mark (currency)

M.P.

Member of Parliament

Mgr., Msgr. Monsignor PA-AA

Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amts, political archive of the German Foreign Office

Pfr.

Pfarrer, Pastor

pp.

1. et cetera, etc. 2. praemissis praemittendis [Ew. pp. = Euer (Your), title and name must be added by the functionary responsible for taping and sending the concept], [3. stands for a paragraph which is - in a copy - not reproduced]

resp.

respectively

W.T.B.

Wolffs Telegraphisches Büro, founded 1849 by Bernhard Wolff; during WW I a quasi-official German news agency

Foreword Vahakn N. Dadrian

A General Statement The Armenian Genocide has the dubious distinction of representing the first major case of genocide in the 20th century. That dubiousness is accented by the fact that despite the enormity of the crime involved, it remarkably escaped punishment. This impunity accruing to the perpetrators is a condition that imparts to the Armenian Genocide another significant distinction. Indeed, as attested to by Hitler himself, it was one of the principal factors emboldening the Nazis to unleash their own massive campaign of extermination in WWII.1 The World War I Armenian cataclysm thus emerges not only as a precedent for the Jewish Holocaust, but is also seen in terms of having an organic connection to it.2 However, a particular feature of the former clearly separates and differentiates it from the latter. Whereas the Holocaust has been fully acknowledged, significantly atoned for, and measurably compensated by entities identified with the perpetrator camp, the Armenian Genocide continues to be denied with unrelenting persistence by Turkish authorities, past and present. In this syndrome of denialism converge the denial of all the principal components of genocide, namely, premeditation, intent to destroy the victim population, and the direct involvement of the central authorities in the organisation and implementation of the wholesale destruction of the targeted victim population. While the main purpose of the present volume is to document, as amply as possible, the genocide itself, the study will also be serving, it is hoped, the ancillary purpose of undermining and thereby demolishing, as completely as possible, the raison d’être of all manners and varieties of denials. In assessing the value of this tome, naturally the question arises as to its comparability with and differences from a similar tome produced by Johannes Lepsius in 1919. As I have noted elsewhere when discussing this matter, there are a number of 1. Gerald L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-39, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 610–12; New York Times, 18 June 1985, Weinberg’s communication to the newspaper’s editors. The reference is to Hitler’s declaration, ‘Who after all is today speaking of the annihilation of the Armenians’, made on the eve of the launching of World War II, i.e., on 22 August 1939. (Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier). For details see Vahakn N. Dadrian, Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide (Toronto: Zoryan Institute, 1999), pp. 32–34. 2. Vahakn N. Dadrian, ‘The Historical and Legal Interconnections between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust: From Impunity to Retributive Justice’, Yale Journal of International Law 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 503–59.

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problems associated with the selection and compilation of the documents comprising the Lepsius volume.3 First of all they are completely devoid of archival identification indices, thus making it difficult to check the originals. Second, there are hundreds of other documents, which, for some reason, Lepsius chose not to select and integrate into his volume. Most importantly, however, not all documents are faithfully and completely reproduced, contrary to the assurances given in this respect in the Preface of Lepsius’ volume. There are such irregularities, for example, as paraphrasing, excisions, and occasional deletions within given paragraphs.4

The Critical Import of Official German Documentation The sustained character of Turkish denials is such as to place a heavy burden on the task of documentation. What is needed here is not just an ordinary type of documentation, but one that has the power of being compelling. I would define compelling evidence with reference to four attributes: reliability, explicitness, incontestability and verifiability. As described below, the basic ingredients of the corpus of German official documentation are such as to merit the designation of compelling evidence. The reliability of German evidence on the Armenian Genocide issues from the powerful bonds rooted in the political and military alliance that bound Imperial Germany and Imperial Turkey together throughout World War I. The network of German diplomatic and military officials deployed throughout Turkey afforded them the rare opportunity to observe first hand the atrocities in progress. In reporting them to their superiors these officials had, therefore, to overcome the hesitations and inhibitions impinging upon them due to their fidelity to the Alliance. The verifiability of these reports – variably marked as ‘confidential’ (vertraulich), ‘very confidential’ (streng vertraulich or ganz vertraulich), ‘secret’ (geheim) and ‘very secret’ (ganz geheim) – is ensured through free and unimpeded access to the German State archives, mostly housed in Berlin, the new capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. Their incontestability may be readily ascertained with reference to a single but paramount characteristic. Namely, these documents were meant for ‘in house’ use and as such were never intended for public consumption. In other words, by an established system of prescribed function, they conveyed facts for the benefit of a small circle of officials; as such they were entirely free from any aim at influencing wider circles through propaganda. Inevitably, tensions arose not only within the German officials reporting the details of the genocide to their government, but also between these German officials 3. Dr. Johannes Lepsius, Deutschland and Armenien. 1914-1918. Sammlung Diplomatischer Aktenstücke [Germany and Armenia, 1914-1918: collection of diplomatic documents] (Berlin-Potsdam: Tempel, 1919). 4. Vahakn N. Dadrian, ‘The Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources’, in The Widening Circle of Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, vol. 3, Israel Charny, ed., (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 1994), pp. 77–78. See also Vahakn N. Dadrian, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide (Cambridge, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1996), pp. 5–6.

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and Turkish authorities. For example, German Colonel Stange objected to Turkish attempts ‘to conceal or to downplay’ (zu verheimlichen oder abzuschwächen) the ongoing mass murder of the Armenians, which he characterised as having been premeditated (einen lang gehegten Plan).5 Veteran German Aleppo Consul Walter Rössler, in an indirect challenge to his Turkophile superiors in Berlin and Constantinople (Istanbul), defined his primary duty not to ‘be favouring one or the other party. Rather, to present…the description of things which have occurred in my district and which I consider to be the truth.’ (Was ich für die Wahrheit halte.)6 In a rare outburst of indignation, another veteran diplomat, Johann Margrave von Pallavicini, the Turkophile Austro-Hungarian ambassador to allied Turkey, denounced the same atrocities as ‘a blot (Schandfleck) on the reputation of the Turkish government’.7 One month later Pallavicini, arguing that the Turks were ‘taking advantage of both the war and the Alliance with Germany and Austro-Hungary, as they kept using that Alliance as a prop (eine Stütze)’ to continue to liquidate the Armenians, again denounced them.8 For his part, Richard Kühlmann, the new German ambassador to Turkey and subsequently Foreign Minister, decried ‘the pretexts’ (Vorwände) the Turkish authorities were advancing to justify the deportations (Verschickungen), describing these pretexts as originating from ‘the already well-known inventory of the Turkish authorities identified with such pretexts’ (gehört zu dem schon bekannten Inventar der türkischen Behörden an solchen Vorwänden).9 These discordant and at the same time revealing notes notwithstanding, the architects of ultimate German policy towards the Turkish ally did exert every conceivable effort not to allow the by now all-too-evident Ottoman-Turkish design of genocide against the Armenians to impair in any significant way official and unofficial TurkoGerman relations. The problems arising from this complex situation are discussed below.

The Supremacy of State Policy Overshadowing the Functions of Official Documentation: The Historical Legacy It is a universal truism that facts often acquire significance by the manner in which they are interpreted as to their meaning and evaluated as to their implications. In the area of national and international relations involving human behaviour, the function of seeking and ascertaining facts is not always compatible with the function of evaluating and acting on them. More often than not, there is even tension between the 5. Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (German Foreign Ministry Archives) [henceforth PA-AA], Botschaft Konstantinopel, vol. 170, Military Mission entry no. 3841, report issued in Erzurum on 23 August 1915. 6. Ibid., R14089. K.No. 108/B.No. 2577. 16 November 1915 report (doc. 1915-11-16-DE-001). 7. Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives in Vienna), PA Türkei XII/463, no. 21/P.B. 10 March 1916 report. 8. Ibid., XII/210, no. 28/P.A., 8 April 1916 report. Aleppo’s German Consul Rössler expressed an identical view. PA-AA, R14087, K.No. 81/B1645, 27 July 1915 report. 9. PA-AA, R14094, no. 710, 17 November 1916 report.

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immediate evaluations of the fact-gatherers and those higher state authorities whose function it is to evaluate the same facts in line with existing state policies. Through this modus operandi, facts are calibrated to suit higher national interests as perceived and defined by these authorities. The ample documentation of the World War I Armenian Genocide by a whole gamut of subordinate consular officials deployed in the zones of genocidal operations received this kind of treatment on the part of the higher authorities in Berlin, especially Emperor William II and the Foreign Office he controlled. The net result was that the Genocide became fully and officially documented, despite the displeasure of these higher authorities, who studiously refrained from interfering effectively and thereby allowed the consummation of the Genocide to proceed unimpeded. It is, therefore, worthwhile to review briefly the details of this high-level German policy in order to underscore the cardinal fact that the documentation was achieved in spite of that policy. The German policy of aloofness – bordering on indifference – toward the plight of the Armenians can be traced to Bismarck, ‘the Iron Chancellor’, who already in 1883 criticised British efforts to intervene on behalf of persecuted Armenians in Turkey. He dismissed such intervention as a ‘philanthropical nimbus’ to the detriment of the then-reigning Sultan Abdul Hamit.10 Following the footsteps of Bismarck, Emperor William II solidified and cemented a personal friendship with Hamit, despite the horrific series of massacres the sultan had unleashed against the Armenians in the 1894-96 period. He then openly boasted, ‘I am the only one who still sticks by the Sultan’, as the latter was being condemned by the representatives of the other European powers.11 The Emperor was amply rewarded by the ‘Red Sultan’ for his benevolent attitude (wohlwollende Haltung), for which not only he himself but ‘the entire Turkish nation is grateful.’12 William II wanted subsequently to adopt the motto ‘I don’t care’ (geht mich nichts an), as when he rebuffed Armenian Patriarch Malakia Ormanian, who beseeched him to intervene in order to stop the persecution of the Armenians.13 During the height of the 1909 Adana massacre, the German emperor again refused to intervene – through the two cruisers which were cruising near the sites of the atrocities – with the same retort, viz., ‘We don’t care about the Armenians’. (Die Armenier gehen uns nichts an.)14 10. Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette, 1871-1914. (Collection of diplomatic documents of the German Foreign Office) J. Lepsius, A.M. Bartholdy, F. Thimme, eds., vol. 9, Der Nahe Osten, Berlin, 1927. Footnote to doc. no. 2183, p. 200. 11. Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism 1897-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 76. 12. PA-AA, Orientalia Generalia, no. 5, vol. 40, 3 March 1897, the date Sultan’s emissary Chakir Pasha visited German ambassador Saurma to convey those feelings of gratitude. 13. PA-AA, Türkei 183/24, Ambassador Marschall’s 14 September 1899 report to Chancellor Hohenlohe. 14. PA-AA, Türkei 134/22, Marschall’s telegram no. 152, 19 April 1909. For more details on the posture of the German Emperor relative to the Armenian problem see V.N. Dadrian, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide, op. cit. [see note 4], p. 183.

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These attitudes and declarations issuing from the highest government officials of Imperial Germany were redefined and encapsulated in a major policy declaration in the wake of the cessation of the 1894-96 series of massacres (i.e., November 1896). It was framed and expounded by Baron Alfons Mumm von Schwarzenstein, the chief advisor for Near East Affairs in the Political Section of the German Foreign Office. In twelve compact pages, he delineated the rationale, thrust and principal objectives of German foreign policy respecting the conflict between Christian Armenians and Ottoman-Turkish authorities, and the attendant massacres against the former. The two key tenets of this policy declaration were: (1) ‘Germany has no grounds to intervene on behalf of a race in which she has absolutely no interest, nor can it be the duty of German policy to embark upon a crusade against the Crescent for the sake of a Christian people…’; and (2) ‘given the dangers that are otherwise threatening the integrity of Turkey and the business interests of numerous Germans in Turkey, the bloodbaths in ‘Armenia’, as regrettable as they are, should be regarded as being the lesser evil in the overall picture. Hence, Germany can but only remain an observer’. After approving it, Foreign Minister Marshall von Bieberstein on the very same day, November 26, 1896, forwarded this policy declaration to Chancellor Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. The Chancellor, evoking Bismarck’s famous admonition that none of the subject nationalities of the Ottoman Empire are worth the sacrifice of the bones of a German musketeer,15 voiced his approval. He declared that he would resolutely oppose any proposal to move against Turkey for the sake of the Armenians.16

The Wartime Accentuation of the Bearings of the Historical Legacy Coinciding with the Enactment of the Armenian Genocide The legacy of indifference described above was severely tested during World War I. A change of circumstances and a new context accounted for this severity. Unlike in the case of the previous series of massacres, for example, there was now a war that was global and consuming in several respects. Moreover, Imperial Germany was politically and militarily allied with Imperial Ottoman Turkey. Most important, however, the calamity engulfing the Armenians no longer involved mere sporadic and temporary massacres, but a sustained and comprehensive inferno involving what in today’s terms is defined as genocide. Yet, regardless, the established policy remained unaltered and intact. The signal for this preservation of the basic policy line was given by Emperor William II months before the outbreak of World War I. During a special reception accorded to the members of the German Military Mission to Turkey, William II admonished the high-ranking German military officers who were 15. Die Grosse Politik, op. cit. [see note 10], vol. 5, Neue Verwickelungen im Osten, 1885-1887, Berlin, 1926, p. 117, footnote. 16. PA-AA, Orientalia Generalia, no. 5, vol. 30, Das Mumm Konzept. For details see Dadrian, German Responsibility, op. cit. [n.4], pp. 7–13.

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about to proceed to Turkey ‘not to interfere in Turkey’s internal affairs’. General Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorff, the designated Chief of General Staff of Turkish Armed Forces, who was present, stated that this declaratory prohibition covered the ramifications of ‘the Armenian Question’.17 In other words, long before the initiation of the holocaust, the supreme German Commander and Ruler allowed his Turkish ally optimum scope of freedom in the matter of handling the Armenians. In his memoirs, Ludwig Schraudenbach, the German Commander of the 14th Turkish Infantry Division, explains how this command of non-interference played out in the face of specific scenes of exterminatory atrocities he had witnessed. As he noted, these occurrences were ‘to be treated as noli me contendere’ (touch me not).18 Faithfully echoing his master (i.e., the ‘Kaiser’) in Berlin, German Ambassador to Turkey Baron Hans von Wangenheim, in a long report to his Chancellor in Berlin Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, opted for abandoning the Armenians to the fate awaiting them. As he stated, ‘we have to be specially careful. Otherwise, through the act of intervening for a perhaps hopeless cause, we may incur the risk of jeopardising interests that are more important and more vital for us’ (…mahnt zu besonderer Vorsicht. Andernfalls laufen wir Gefahr durch das Eintreten für eine vielleicht aussichtslose Sache wichtigere und uns näher liegende Interessen aufs Spiel zu setzen).19 Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann, Ambassador Wangenheim’s immediate superior, in maintaining the same posture averred, ‘our own sons and brothers are closer to us than the Armenians.’ Besides, he added, Turkish military help is needed because of the war (…näher als die Armenier stehen uns schliesslich unsere eigenen Söhne und Brüder).20 Perhaps the most blunt retort in this respect came from the Chancellor himself, who declared, ‘Our sole aim is to hold Turkey on our side until the end of the war, irrespective of the fact that Armenians may or may not perish as a result’ (gleichgültig ob darüber Armenier zu Grunde gehen oder nicht).21 This series of laissez faire declarations was rounded up by the Emperor again on the occasion of his third visit to Turkey, 15-18 October 1917. On the second day of this visit, he is reported to have told his Turkish hosts that ‘Armenia… should be dealt with by the Ottoman government at its discretion’.22 17. PA-AA, Göppert Papers, (Nachlass) file VI/I, p. 3 of General Bronsart’s seven-page personal letter to Dr. Karl Axenfeld, a leader in the German Missionary movement, 13 February 1919. Bronsart reiterated the fact of his receipt of this ‘strict’ order from his Emperor in 1939. See Christoph Dinkel, ‘German Officers and the Armenian Genocide’, Armenian Review 44 (Spring 1991): 103. 18. Ludwig Schraudenbach, Muharebe [War]. Berlin, 1924, p. 147. 19. PA-AA, R14085, no. 228, 15 April 1915 report. This part, like so many others, is deleted from Lepsius’s volume. 20. PA-AA, R14088, confidential 4 October 1915 letter to Dr. Friedrich Faber, Chairman of the Union of German newspaper publishers. 21. PA-AA, R14089, no. 711, handwritten notice attached to Metternich’s 17 December 1915 report. 22. British Foreign Office Archives, i.e., FO 371/4363, confidential, 25 May 1918 British Intelligence report.

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But there arose the problem as to how to handle the frightful consequences of the exercise of such discretionary latitudes. The answer was the creation of the Supreme Board of Censorship for the Wartime Press (Oberzensurstelle des Kriegspresseamtes), an outfit encompassing the representatives of the Foreign Office, the General Staff, the High Command (Oberkommando), and the Prussian Ministry of Defense. In a press conference held on 7 October 1915, for example, the German journalists were exhorted not to disturb Turkey with stories about Armenian massacres. ‘Therefore, for the time being, it is your duty to remain silent’ (Deshalb ist es einstweilen Pflicht, zu schweigen).23 In the course of another press conference held on 23 December 1915, the newspapermen were told, ‘It is better to remain silent over the Armenian issue’ (Über die armenische Frage wird am besten geschwiegen).24 The same task of confronting and dealing with the frightful consequences of the discretionary freedom the German Kaiser granted his Turkish allies devolved upon German diplomacy as well. Accordingly, the German Foreign Office, through its ambassadors in Constantinople, issued three formal Notes on 4 July and 9 August 1915, and on 4 January 1917. In all of them, the Ottoman-Turkish authorities were admonished to not transcend the boundaries of operations involving deportations and to refrain from exterminatory operations as well as from imposing upon the deportees compulsory conversions to Islam. But American diplomats dismissed these notes as ‘pro-forma’ exercises (Morgenthau),25 and ‘paper declarations’ (L. Einstein).26 Moreover, two German ambassadors, Ernst Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg and Paul Count Wolff-Metternich, were one way or another replaced on account of their inability and/or unwillingness to acquiesce in the Turkish anti-Armenian measures.27 But there was another type of German involvement in the organisation of the Armenian Genocide that, though limited in scope and incidental in its occurrence, deserves depiction.

The Incidence of German Complicity, Direct and Indirect, in the Armenian Genocide: The Instances of Suggestion (Anregung), Consent (Zusage) and Being Accessories (Mitschuld) As Bismarck in his time observed, when statesmen are facing critical decisions, the most important element of their decision is relayed informally, namely, in ‘confi23. Kurt Mühsam, Wie wir Belogen Wurden. Die Amtliche Irreführung des Deutschen Volkes [How we were lied to: the official acts of misleading the German people] (Munich: A. Langen, 1918), p. 76. 24. Ibid., p. 99. 25. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1918), pp. 374–75. 26. Lewis Einstein, Inside Constantinople (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1918), p. 176. He was former Minister Plenipotentiary U.S. Diplomatic Service, and during the war Special Agent at the American Embassy, Constantinople. 27. Ulrich Trumpener, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 125, 127. For more details see Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], pp. 87–88.

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dentially transmitted verbal communications which do not become part of archival documents’ (Das Wichtigste besteht immer in…konfidentiellen Mitteilungen, auch mündlichen, was alles nicht zu den Akten kommt. Das erfährt man nur auf vertraulichem Wege und nicht auf amtlichem).28 At the very time the Armenian Genocide was being initiated, German ambassador Wangenheim echoed this sentiment in a report to his Chancellor. He admitted to ‘often’ (öfters) using such informal channels, especially when he deemed the use of official channels ‘inappropriate.’29 But in a fast-changing world engulfed in political crises and consuming military operations, it is not always easy to exercise such informality and discretion. Whether inadvertently or by design, a host of high-ranking German military officers, by word or by deed, revealed their complicity at various levels relative to the organisation of the Armenian Genocide. In terms of projecting a geo-political strategy for Turkey, for example, German General (later Marshal) Colmar von der Goltz, in the aftermath of the 1894-1896 massacres, outlined a design for a future Turkey that would be strictly Islamic and Asiatic, thus purged of its Christian-Armenian component.30 He more or less repeated this view in his subsequently published memoirs.31 Even more significantly, Goltz not only reiterated this advocacy on the eve of World War I before a largely Turkophile German audience in Berlin, but in explicit terms targeted the Armenians as a major strategic liability for Turkey. Describing them as the potential ally of neighbouring Russia, and at the same time an alien ethnic element in a region almost entirely populated by Muslims, he went so far as to suggest the massive relocation of these clusters of Armenian populations to the deserts of Mesopotamia in order to create a religiously homogenous Muslim bastion and at the same time a bulwark against expansionist Russia.32 The wartime genocidal fate of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in these same deserts of Mesopotamia is grimly foreshadowed in the conception and articulation of this guidepost. Based upon his investigation, Otto Göppert, a privy Councilor at the Foreign Office and subsequently a member of the 28. Ernst Jäckh, Der Goldene Pflug [The golden ploughshare] (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1954), pp. 9–10. For details see Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], p. 14. 29. PA-AA, Grosses Hauptquartier, vol. 187, file Türkei 18/3, registry no. AS1705, 13 April 1915. For details see Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], pp. 14–15. 30. C. Freiherrn von der Goltz, ‘Stärke und Schwäche des türkischen Reiches’ [The strength and weakness of the Turkish Empire], Deutsche Rundschau 24, no. 1 (October 1897): 104, 106, 109, 110, 118. 31. Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, Denkwürdigkeiten [Memoirs], Friedrich v.d. Goltz, W. Foerster, eds., (Berlin: ES Mittler und Sohn, 1929), pp. 111–12. 32. Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], pp. 115–16. This lecture and its major outlines are confirmed independently – and besides Rev. Balakian – by an Armenian intellectual in an article he published during the Armistice. See Dzeroug, ‘Housher’ [Memoirs] in Jagadamard, no. 95 (2 March 1919): 1, 1st column. For Rev. Balakian’s source see Hai Koghkota. Trvakner Hai Mardirosakroutiunen. Berlinen Tebi Deir Zor [The Armenian Golgotha: episodes from Armenian martyrdom; from Berlin to Deir Zor] (Vienna: Mechitarist Publishing House, 1922), pp. 32, 64. A German professor who had attended Goltz’s lecture had confided to him about this lecture content. Another confirmation in general terms is provided in Eliot Grinnell Mears (from Stanford University), Modern Turkey: A Politico-Economic Interpretation, 1908-1923 (New York: Macmillan, 1924), p. 519.

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German Embassy at Constantinople, concluded that Goltz ‘apparently’ (festzustehen scheint) gave his consent to the Turkish orders of deporting the Armenians without reckoning with its enormous ramifications.33 As if to verify the functional utility of Goltz’s guidepost, another German military officer, Colonel Otto von Feldmann, who served as an advisor in War Minister Enver’s 1914-1915 military campaign in eastern Turkey, in his capacity as head of Department I, Operations, at the Ottoman General Headquarters, recommended the same kind of relocation for the Armenians. He was insisting on the necessity of ‘clearing certain regions…of Armenians.’ More importantly, Feldmann revealed that other ‘German officers’ were likewise involved in the push to have the Armenians removed from eastern Turkey (Es soll und darf aber nicht geleugnet werden, dass auch deutsche Offiziere-und ich selbst gehöre zu diesen-gezwungen waren, ihren Rat dahin zu geben, zu bestimmten Zeiten gewisse Gebiete…von Armeniern freizumachen).34 Furthermore, Feldmann, along with General Bronsart, the Chief of Turkish General Staff, were ‘the confidants of Enver, the de facto Commander-in-Chief of Turkish Armed Forces, daily consulting and exchanging views with him in minute detail’, according to noted German military historian Major Carl Mühlmann.35 These attitudes on the matter of the wartime handling of the Armenians with various degrees of emphasis were reiterated by three high-ranking German naval officers on duty in Turkey during the war. One of them, Admiral Guido von Usedom, Inspector General of Coastal Fortifications, told American Ambassador Morgenthau that ‘the Armenians were in the way, that they were an obstacle to German success, and that it had, therefore, been necessary to remove them…’36 Another naval officer, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, the Commander of the Ottoman-Turkish fleet, in his diary on August 15, 1915, wrote with relish that ‘Turkey is acting against the Armenians with thoroughness and utmost discretion. Three quarters of them have already been liquidated. I hope this drama will soon come to an end’ (Gegen die Armenier geht die Türkei möglichst verschwiegen und radikal vor. [3/4 von diesen sollen bereits bei Seite geschaffen worden sein]. Hoffentlich kommt dies Drama bald zu Ende).37 On 19 August, his entry read, ‘It will be salvation for Turkey when it has done away with the last Armenian…’ (Für die Türkei würde es eine Erlösung sein, wenn sie den letzten Armenier umgebracht hat…).38 The most consequential in this group of naval officers was, however, Hans Humann, Lieutenant Commander, Naval Attaché at Constantinople Embassy, and a 33. Christoph Dinkel, ‘German Officers and the Armenian Genocide’, Armenian Review 44 (Spring 1991): 80–81. 34. Ibid., p. 96. 35. Carl Mühlmann, Das deutsch-türkische Waffenbündnis im Weltkriege (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1940), p. 292. 36. Morgenthau, Ambassador [n. 25], p. 395. 37. Papers (Nachlass) of Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv, Koblenz, N156, no. 14; quoted in Dinkel, ‘German Officers’ [n.33], p. 117. 38. Ibid., no.15; in Dinkel, ibid.

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very close friend of Turkish de facto Commander-in-Chief Enver. Moreover, he enjoyed the personal trust and support of Emperor William II. In a handwritten note dated 15 June 1915, Humann declared, ‘The Armenians are being more or less exterminated. This is harsh but useful.’ (Die Armenier wurden jetzt mehr oder weniger ausgerottet. Das ist hart, aber nützlich.) Humann was reacting to a report in which Mosul’s German Vice-Consul Walter Holstein, was announcing the murder of more than six hundred Armenian men, women and children between Diyarbakir and Mosul.39 Two days later, Humann was more emphatic: ‘…the Turkish government is utilising the war and Europe’s preoccupation with it to settle the entire Armenian question by force’ (…die türkische Regierung die Kriegszeit und das anderweitig gefesselte Interesse Europas benutzt, um die ganze armenische Frage brevi manu [without further ado] gewaltsam zu erledigen).40 Humann’s powerful influence in his support of the genocidal policy of Talât and Enver, the Young Turk potentates, became dramatically evident in the recall of Ambassador Metternich in the fall of 1916. As the American diplomat Einstein observed in his diary on 3 June 1915, ‘Humann…is almost the most influential German here… He is Enver’s bosom friend.’41 Armed with a Memorandum jointly put out by Talât and Enver, Humann intervened in Berlin to seek and obtain the official German decision for this recall. Denouncing Metternich as ‘an Armenian ambassador’ who kept upsetting the Turkish leaders with his unnerving protests relative to the ongoing Armenian deportations and massacres, these leaders availed themselves of Humann’s leverage in Berlin to get rid of the veteran German diplomat.42 In most cases, German involvement in the organisation of the liquidation of the Armenians was covert, and at times indirect. But in the case of Lieutenant Colonel Böttrich, Chief of the Railroad Section at Ottoman General Headquarters, this studied practice of caution was completely abandoned. He not only ordered the deportation of Armenian railroad workers, but placed his signature on that order, at the same time urging the application of ‘strict’ measures in its execution.43 In describing a scene of a massacre of a ‘few thousands’ of these Baghdad Railway workers, a Swiss pharmacist stated that ‘they were all dispatched with the knife’ (Mit dem Messer wurden sie alle erledigt).44 Alarmed that a high-ranking German officer had put his signature on a deportation order, Franz J. Günther, the deputy director-general of the Anatolian Railway, bemoaned as follows: 39. Dinkel, ‘German Officers’ [n.33], p. 113. 40. Ibid., pp. 113–14. 41. Einstein, Inside Constantinople [n.26], p. 92. 42. Dinkel, ‘German Officers’ [n.33], pp. 112–15; Trumpener, Germany [n.27], p. 127. 43. PA-AA, Botschaft Konstantinopel 171, vol. 24, no. 6882. Böttrich’s respective order marked ‘Urgent’ and issued in French, is dated 3 October 1915. Enclosure no. 3. 44. Jakob Künzler, Im Lande des Blutes und der Tränen. Erlebnisse in Mesopotamien Während des Weltkrieges (1914-1918) [In the land of blood and tears: experiences in Mesopotamia during the World War (19141918)], Hans-Lukas Kieser, ed. (Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 1999), p. 99; p. 76 in the original 1921 edition.

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| foreword There will come a time when our adversaries will pay a lot of money to come into possession of this document because with the signature of a member of the military mission they will prove that not only did the Germans do nothing to prevent the objective of persecution of the Armenians, but that certain orders towards this objective were even sent out (i.e., signed by them). The Military Commissioner put his finger on Mr. Böttrich’s signature with a caustic smile.45

The alarm extended to German Foreign Minister Gottlieb von Jagow, who alerted General Erich von Falkenhayn, the chief of the German High Command, for action to be taken against Böttrich, but the general ignored the request.46 The same concern, bordering on apprehension, about German liability was expressed by Göppert, the legal counselor in the German Foreign Office. Commenting on the problem in general terms, he declared: This is a grave incrimination from which we must free ourselves for reasons that are also financial. Otherwise, we will be held liable for damages. (Das ist eine schwere Belastung, von der wir uns befreien müssen, auch aus finanziellen Gründen, denn man will uns für den Schaden haftbar machen.)47 In his posthumous memoirs, Interior Minister and subsequently Grand Vizier Mehmet Talât asserts that General Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorf, Chief of the Turkish General Staff, was the one who took the initiative in the matter of wartime Armenian deportations.48 Inasmuch as such memoirs are, as a rule, suspect in terms of the author’s pursuit of self-exculpation, some evidence, however, points to Bronsart’s direct complicity in the matter. In a cipher telegram produced by Turkish sources, Bronsart is seen referring to a ‘decision’ (mukarrerdir) to deport ‘the Armenian people wholesale’ (Ermeni ahali). Accordingly, Bronsart goes on to issue through the same cipher the order to deport the thousands of disarmed Armenian labour battalion soldiers against whom, he says, ‘severe measures’ (şedide) of security have to be adopted. The lethal function of the Turkish code word şedide became evident when the bulk of these soldiers perished through prearranged massacres.49 This power to co-determine the fate of the Armenians is explained by Colonel Felix Guse, German Chief of Staff of the Turkish Third Army, stationed in eastern Turkey. As he stated, ‘To Bronsart led all lines of authority. His job is primarily the application of Turkey’s 45. FO 371/5265/E7556, English translation by the Army of the Black Sea, General Headquarters, 6 June 1920, folio 240. The full text of Günther’s letter of concern is in folios 240-243. For the German text, the source is indicated in note 43 above. 46. General Hauptquartier [General headquarters] 194, Türkei 41/I, no. 209, 13 November 1915, and no. 930, ‘secret’, 19 November 1915. 47. PA-AA, Göppert Papers (Nachlass), vol. VI, file 5, 14 February 1919 letter to General Bronsart von Schellendorf; in Dinkel ‘German Officers’ [n. 33], p. 82. 48. Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], p. 17. 49. Ibid.

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power. During the war his name was hardly mentioned in public, but to those of us who worked for him, the other chiefs of staff, he was a model of “Accomplish much, be inconspicuous”’. (Bei ihm liefen aber schliesslich alle Fäden zusammen. Sein Verdienst ist doch die Kraftäusserung der Türkei in erster Linie. Sein Name ist während des Krieges in der Öffentlichkeit kaum genannt worden; er war aber seinen Untergebenen, uns anderen Chefs der Generalstäbe, ein Vorbild des ‘Viel leisten, wenig hervortreten’.)50 Bronsart’s active cooperation in the liquidation of the Armenians was due in part to his near-complete identification with Turkish national interests. Of perhaps equal importance was his pervasive dislike of the Armenians, who he deemed as being ‘nine times worse as profiteers than the Jews’ (9 mal schlimmer in Wucher wie die Juden).51 This hatred manifested itself patently when he rebuffed all appeals from other German officials, especially Scheubner-Richter, the vice-consul of Erzurum, to assuage the plight and suffering of multitudes of destitute deportees. ‘He went so far as to dismiss the deportees’ misfortune with incredible cynicism and refused them any help, even the most essential provisions for survival.’52 Finally, reference may be made to Count Eberhard Wolffskeel von Reichenberg, an artillery officer with the rank of Major and a member of the German Military Mission to Turkey. While serving as Commander of the 12th Army Corps, General Fahrettin (Türkkan) confronted the Armenian self-defence uprisings of Musa Dagh (August–September 1915) and Urfa (September–October 1915). Unable to overcome the resistance of the defenders of Urfa, he ordered Major Wolffskeel to bombard and reduce the city’s Armenian quarter, which was then blasted into the Stone Age. The survivors were destroyed through hangings, machine-gunning and other atrocities. Repeatedly denouncing them as ‘traitors’ (Verräter) and a source of trouble (Scherereien), he justified the Turkish exterminatory operations as merely an ‘internal Turkish matter’ (innertürkische Angelegenheit).53

The Singular Role of Those Germans Who Ascertained (Die Ermittler) the Genocide: The Intrepid Palladins of Outraged Humanity The tensions that arose between German consular officials deployed in the interior of Turkey on the one hand, and the policy-makers and policy-practitioners in distant Constantinople and Berlin on the other, were not due to the ordinary consular activities of fact-finding and fact-reporting. These tensions rather issued from the inordinate nature of the facts themselves. If reporting on a single case of a gruesome, cold-blooded murder may prove taxing, how much more taxing may prove the reporting of the murder of countless defenceless victims? One may gain a measure of 50. Dinkel, ‘German Officers’ [n. 33], p. 102. 51. Ibid., p. 103. 52. Ibid., p. 107. 53. See Wolfdieter Bihl, Die Kaukasus-Politik der Mittelmächte, Vienna: Bölhaus, 1975, p. 178; Dadrian, German Responsibility [n.4], pp. 136-37.

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the formidable nature of the task when one additionally takes into account the fact that the bulk of the victims were highly vulnerable women, children and old people, and that the mass murders were carried out, more often than not, through mutilation, for which purpose such instruments as daggers, axes, swords, hammers, etc., were used. In commenting on this, American Ambassador Morgenthau made the following entry in his wartime diary: I have by no means told the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic orgies of which these Armenian men and women were the victims can never be printed in an American publication. Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise…became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people. I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this.54 Morgenthau also underscored the strains and stresses that had engulfed many Armenians who were narrating these atrocities to him personally. For hours they would sit in my office and, with tears streaming down their faces, they would tell me of the horrors through which they had passed. Many of these, both men and women, were almost broken in health from the scenes which they had witnessed. In many cases they brought me letters from American consuls, confirming the most dreadful of their narrations and adding many unprintable details. The general purpose of all these first-hand reports was that the utter depravity and fiendishness of the Turkish nature, already sufficiently celebrated through the centuries, had now surpassed themselves.55 These conditions were of such gravity that none of the German consular officials could, even if they were tempted to toe the line of their superiors in Constantinople and Berlin, twist them to make them palatable for the latter. That gravity found its most telling expression when Walter Rössler, the veteran German consul in Aleppo, which was the epicenter of the effects of the Armenian Genocide, broke down and ‘wept bitterly’ (bitterlich geweint) ‘in face of the atrocities the Turks perpetrated against the Armenians’ (über die Greuel die die Türken an den Armeniern dort verübt hatten).56 The contrast between this German and another German, General Bronsart, the Chief of Staff of Ottoman General Headquarters, is both striking and edifying. While Bronsart in distant Constantinople was consorting with the architects of the Armenian Genocide to the extent that he allowed himself to be recruited into the 54. Morgenthau, Ambassador [n.25], pp. 321–22. 55. Ibid., pp. 327–28. 56. PA-AA, R14088, enclosure no. 1 to 1 October 1915 report, dated 22 September 1915 and prepared by German journalist von Tyszka, who was afforded a chance to conduct an inspection in wartime Turkey.

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Special Organisation (Teşkilati Mahsusa),57 a branch of which, consisting of ex-convicts, played a major role in the organisation and implementation of the widespread massacres, Rössler, in the very vortex of an ongoing mass murder, was enduring the agonies of first-hand lived experiences. The burden of ascertaining the facts and thereby documenting the genocide essentially devolved upon seven German Consuls and Vice-Consuls: Heinrich Bergfeld (Trabzon), Eugen Büge (Adana), Walter Holstein (Mosul), M. Kuckhoff (Samsun), Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (Erzurum), Walter Rössler (Aleppo) and Hermann Hoffman-Fölkersamb (Alexandretta). Overcoming all the handicaps inherent in the powerful bonds of the political and military alliance with Ottoman Turkey, they not only established the incontestable facts of the genocide, but in doing so they performed an ancillary function. Indeed, they felt impelled to challenge the streams of denials Turkish authorities were broadcasting to counter the respective charges and accusations. Even the more Turkophilic among them, Trabzon’s Consul Bergfeld, expressed his indignation when he reported ‘the near complete extermination of the Armenians’ (die fast gänzliche Ausrottung der Armenier), which, he said, ‘All my colleagues agree’ is tantamount to ‘mass murder’ (Massenmord).58 Other Consuls were more adamant in denouncing their Ottoman-Turkish ally. Adana’s Büge, for example, branded Interior Minister Talât’s denials as ‘brazen-faced deception’ (dreiste Täuschung).59 Mosul’s Holstein denounced these denials as ‘blatant lies’ (krasse Lügen).60 For his part, Aleppo’s Rössler expressed his dismay about another denial, exclaiming, ‘Indeed, I could not trust my eyes as I read this declaration of denial, and I find no expression to characterise this abysmal untruth’ (Fürwahr, ich habe meinen Augen nicht getraut, als ich diese Erklärung gesehen habe, und ich finde keinen Ausdruck, um den Abgrund ihrer Unwahrheit zu kennzeichnen).61 The most forceful denunciation in this respect came from Ambassador Metternich. Having failed to induce the top leaders of the Young Turk regime to relent in their campaign of extermination against the Armenians, he outlined for his government a new approach to be applied against the Turkish ally. In doing so, he also revealed for the first time that, according to confidential information which he asked to keep ‘secret’ (geheim) and which he received from the police chief of the Ottoman 57. P. Stoddard, The Ottoman Government and the Arabs, 1911 to 1918: A Preliminary Study of the Teskilât-i Mahsusa, Princeton University Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1964, pp. 57–58. A more authentic confirmation comes from a Turkish military officer, who as a member of that Organisation, verifies Bronsart’s respective involvement without providing details. However, he reveals that when dedicating his photo (wearing the uniform of a Turkish general) to Eshref Kushcubashi, the chief of the Special Organisation, he wrote in Ottoman script the following: ‘Turkey is my second fatherland and it is my wish to live and die together with Eshref whom I love very much.’ Major Yümnü Kalkanderli, ‘Open Communication’, Tarih Konuşuyor (monthly) 1, no. 5 (June 1964): 417. 58. PA-AA, Botschaft Konstantinopel 169, no. 7, folio 135, 29 June 1915 report. 59. PA-AA, Botschaft Konstantinopel 170, no. 22, 10 September 1915 report. 60. Ibid., no. 24, 14 August 1915 report. 61. PA-AA, R14087, K.No. 81/B 1645, 27 July 1915 report.

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capital Osman Bedri, there were plans to liquidate by stages its remaining 80,000 Armenian inhabitants, and that 30,000 such inhabitants had already been removed earlier from the capital Constantinople. He thus suggested that the only way to stop the mass murder was ‘to resort to more rigorous ways’ (schärfere Mittel). He stated his rationale as follows: …We should stop with our loathsome praises of the Turks. Whatever they are accomplishing is due…to our officers, our canons, our money. Without our help the inflated frog is bound to go to pieces. We don’t need to be so anxious about the Turks. (…soll man mit Lobhudeleien der Türken aufhören. Was sie leisten sind unsere Offiziere, unsere Geschütze, unser Geld. Ohne unsere Hülfe fällt der geblähte Frosch in sich selbst zusammen. Wir brauchen gar nicht so ängstlich mit den Türken umzugehen.) It is noteworthy that both Foreign Minister Jagow and his deputy Zimmermann urged Metternich to tone down and to come up with a conclusion that should sound friendlier towards the Turkish government. However, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg dismissed the idea and therefore rejected the entire plan.62 The exemplary performance of this galaxy of servants of the German state is testimony to the enduring and fundamental values of Western Civilisation, where truth has primacy over diplomatic manipulations and justice cannot or should not be compromised with the dictates of political expediency, especially in the case of a crime of such magnitude as genocide. Their valiant efforts to stop the comprehensive carnage proved abortive because of their subordinate position in the overall hierarchy in the state organisation, but they ended up rendering a great service at several levels. By documenting the genocide, they tore asunder the shaky foundations of Turkish denials in spite of the compelling bonds of the Alliance with Turkey. They in fact rescued the honor of Imperial Germany by contravening the restrictive manipulations of their superiors in Constantinople and Berlin. They also served humanity at large by emerging as the unsung heroes in defence of persecuted minorities and, as such, proved themselves champions of universal human rights. The main corpus of this volume supplies in minute detail the manifold aspects of the German documentation of the World War I Armenian Genocide, as ascertained, compiled and transmitted by this galaxy of German consuls and vice-consuls, as well as some ambassadors, military officials and missionaries. That corpus is the product of hard labour, diligence, discipline and, above all, tenacious persistence. Historical scholarship owes to Wolfgang Gust and his spouse Sigrid a great debt of gratitude. The very fact that both spouses are German by nationality imparts to this magnum opus special importance and significance.

62. PA-AA, R14089, no. 711, 7 December 1915 report.

Overview of the Armenian Genocide

On Sunday, 28 June 1915, criers were sent out through the two neighbouring East Anatolian towns of Mesereh (known today as Elazig) and Harput, and they called upon all Armenians – who represented just under half of the population – to leave their homes within the next five days and go to Urfa. It was the beginning of the most severe phase of a genocide in which the Young Turks, who ruled the Ottoman Empire at that time, expelled or murdered up to one-and-a-half million of their Armenian countrymen. Only two days later, Leslie A. Davis, the American Consul stationed there, described as follows just what the evacuation of the Armenians from the provincial metropolis of Mamuret-ul-Aziz (as Mesereh was called) meant for those affected. The full meaning of such an order can scarcely be imagined by those who are not familiar with the peculiar conditions of this isolated region. A massacre, however horrible the word may sound, would be humane in comparison with it. In a massacre many escape, but a wholesale deportation of this kind in this country means a lingering and perhaps even more dreadful death for nearly everyone. I do not believe it possible for one in a hundred to survive, perhaps not one in a thousand.1 One German had been intimately familiar for many years with the destination of Urfa, to which the inhabitants of Mamuret-ul-Aziz were to be sent: Johannes Lepsius. After the large-scale massacres of 1894-96 in which the Turkish sultan Abdul Hamid had had thousands of his Armenian subjects killed, the Protestant vicar had built up a relief organisation in Urfa by opening a carpet factory which provided work for Armenian widows, and a hospital headed by Swiss deacon Jakob Künzler. Although he was situated thousands of kilometres from the sites of the genocide, Lepsius was extremely well informed. He had written an excellent book on the 189496 massacres (Armenia and Europe), which had been translated into many languages. 1. U.S. State Department Record Group 59.867.4016/269. The most important US documents are found in Ara Safarian, ed., United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917 (Princeton and London: Gomidas Institute, 2004). See also Leslie A. Davis, The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat’s Report on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917, edited by Susan K. Blair (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1988).

2 | the armenian genocide

His international reputation as an Armenian expert had opened up sources to him from all over the world. On 22 June 1915, he prophesied to the German Foreign Office that the mass deportations – particularly from the northeast, which were carried out almost exclusively via Mamuret-ul-Aziz in the direction of Diyarbekir and Urfa – were ‘obviously an attempt to decimate the Christian population in the empire as far as possible under the veil of martial law and by putting to use the Muslim elation aroused by the Holy War, abandoning it to extermination by carrying it off to climatically unfavourable and unsafe districts along the border’. Lepsius also informed the German Foreign Office of the dimension of this extermination: ‘Such measures, which are paralleled only in the deportations of the ancient Assyrians, will surpass the massacres at the time of Abdul Hamid.’2 The local German consuls themselves also recognised the danger for the Armenians. On 15 May 1915, Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, the German ViceConsul in Erzerum, first reported on the expulsion of the Armenian population from the surrounding villages;3 three days later, he indignantly reported that the ‘misery of the expelled Armenians was dreadful’.4 On 2 June, Scheubner-Richter predicted, ‘An evacuation of such a size is tantamount to a massacre because due to a lack of any kind of transportation, barely half of these people will reach their destination alive.’5 His colleague Heinrich Bergfeld had reported the first arrests from Trebizond on 25 June. Two days later he reported, ‘About 30,000 persons are affected by the deportations just in the Vilayet of Trebizond’, and warned, ‘A mass transport of this kind for hundreds of kilometres along routes that are lacking in accommodation and supplies, and where 300 kilometres must count as being completely infested with typhus fever, would claim enormous numbers of victims, particularly among the women and children.’6 And again two days later, Bergfeld cabled, ‘I share the opinion of all of my colleagues that the transport of women and children borders on mass murder.’7 M. Kuckhoff, the elected German Consul in Samsun and director of the local tobacco control, saw the consequences of the deportations just as clearly: ‘The countermeasures taken involve nothing less than the destruction or enforced Islamisation of a whole people. The destination of those exiled from Samsun is said to be Urfa. It is certain that no Christian Armenian will reach this destination. According to news from the interior, there are already reports on the disappearance of the deported population of entire towns.’8 A German doctor with the Red Cross in Erzincan also stated ‘that it is not easy even for rich people to travel on horseback through Anatolia; this requires a strong constitution. Furthermore, it is often difficult to find food for 20 people in the small 2. 1915-06-22-DE-001. 3. 1915-05-15-DE-013. 4. 1915-05-18-DE-012. 5. 1915-06-02-DE-012. 6. 1915-06-27-DE-013. 7. 1915-06-29-DE-017. 8. 1915-07-17-DE-003, Enclosure.

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villages along the way. How, then, could anyone feed 20,000 or more women, children and old people for weeks in this deadly heat, not to mention finding lodging for them.’9 The German consuls in those areas in which the deportations affected only a few Armenians in the beginning, or were limited to certain villages, also reported that the deportations of the Armenians led to excesses and were tantamount to their annihilation. Consul Walter Rössler from Aleppo (located today in Syria) reported that the Armenians who were chased out of the vilayet of Adana were spread out among villages generally inhabited by the Arab population: ‘They must perish there.’10

The Armenians The approximately five million Armenians who had settled for thousands of years between the Caucasus and the Mediterranean, and were the first people of a nation to accept Christianity even before the Romans, were distributed among three empires: the Russian, the Persian and the Ottoman. After Germany and Russia went to war against one another from August 1914 onwards and Turkey joined the Central Powers around Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Armenians were caught between the Russian hammer and the Turkish-German anvil. For decades, the Russians had attempted to turn the Armenians within their borders into Russians and to decimate their culture, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century they changed their course and endeavoured to get along with the Armenians in their empire. At that time, the metropolitan centre of CaucasianArmenian life was the present-day Georgian capital of Tbilisi, while the catholicos – the spiritual leader of all Gregorian Armenians who was above the highest representative of the Ottoman Armenians, the patriarch in Constantinople – resided in Etchmiadzin, near today’s Armenian capital of Yerevan (at that time a rather unimportant town) and, thus, also within Russia’s dominion. The Etchmiadzin-based catholicos was superior to other leaders of the church, such as the spiritual leader of the Armenians who resided in Sis and was also known as Catholicos, the head of an area that is almost identical to the province of Adana, which was called Cilicia by the Armenians (as well as by the foreigners). The Armenians were left to themselves in only a few regions. Usually they lived together with other peoples, generally Muslims of both Shiite and Sunni orientation, but ongoing clashes took place mostly with the nomadic Kurds. They repeatedly raided Armenian villages and towns, kidnapping women, stealing possessions, and often leaving a long, bloody trail behind them. The Armenians, who, during the course of history, were often driven westward by invaders from the east, distributed themselves unevenly throughout the Ottoman Empire. While they settled in only a few villages in the west, building a noticeable 9. 1915-06-29-DE-005. 10. 1915-06-03-DE-011.

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minority only in the towns, they had a greater presence in the eastern countryside. There were regions such as the plains around the towns of Mush or Harput, but also those around Erzerum, where the Armenians made up a large part of the rural population while settling as tradesmen in the towns. Since military and higher civil service in the Ottoman Empire was reserved primarily for Turks, the Armenians – similar to the Jews in Europe – concentrated on professions and made up almost all of the doctors or lawyers, as well as the elite economic and mercantile society in the eastern towns. Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, the German ambassador, called the Armenians the ‘main supporters of economic life in Turkey’.11 Wherever foreign schools existed in the east – in 1914, apart from 800 purely Armenian schools with 81,000 pupils, there were also 675 American, 500 French and 178 British schools, which together had more than 100,000 pupils, but only few German ones – in the Armenian settlements both their clientele and their employees were usually Armenians. The per capita ratio of Armenian pupils was much higher than Turkish ones, and the Armenians’ willingness to learn was also exceptionally high. Their intelligence and talent for languages resulted in Armenians being the most important employees in foreign institutions, from consulates to companies. Ambitious Armenian parents not only sent their children to foreign schools, but later on also to foreign universities, usually American ones. Foreign observers unanimously determined that the Armenians were the most adaptive element in the Ottoman population. ‘The surprisingly high educational standard of the Armenians, both in the town and in the country, which they owe to the effects of their clergy and to their excellent schools’, said Vice-Consul ScheubnerRichter, ‘enables them to familiarise themselves with European culture and technology and to encourage the introduction of these in their home environment’.12 Shortly before the war broke out, the Armenians had achieved something they had only been able to dream of since the Berlin Conference presented by Imperial Chancellor Bismarck in 1878: the Great Powers had agreed upon reforms in the Ottoman Empire which guaranteed the Armenians mainly residing in eastern regions a certain degree of autonomy. The nationalist faction of the Young Turks, which was becoming constantly stronger, feared that this internal autonomy was the first step towards Armenian independence. Therefore, immediately after the outbreak of the war, the Young Turks suspended all plans for reform and sent the previously appointed foreign governors general home.

Details of the Sources In the eastern part of Turkey, the German Empire was represented by consuls only in the coastal towns and the northeastern town of Erzerum. The consuls, however, were 11. 1918-02-22-DE-002. 12. 1915-08-10-DE-001.

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in close contact with various German relief organisations that had been established after the massacres of the nineteenth century. The Frankfurt Hülfsbund für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient (Aid for Christian Charity in the Orient) in particular was present in many towns, while the employees from the Lepsius Mission in the Ottoman Empire could only report from Urfa. The female members of the organisation – among them foreigners such as Beatrice Rohner from Switzerland, Alma Johansson from Sweden and Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg from Norway – were especially able to give authentic eyewitness accounts of the occurrences. Apart from Künzler, Lepsius also had an extremely brave assistant in Urfa, Karen Jeppe from Denmark, who saved the lives of many Armenians, but left the reporting to the Swiss deacon, Künzler. Since the British, French and Russian representatives had to leave the country after the war broke out, only the neutral Americans were left in eastern Turkey, where the greater part of the Armenians had settled, to bear witness. Apart from their consuls, they also had an extremely good network of Protestant missions that had been built up over decades. Smaller, neutral countries such as Denmark and the Vatican played only a very minor role. Austria-Hungary and Italy had very few representatives in the eastern Armenian settlements since, traditionally, Austria had restricted itself to the Balkans and after their liberation, to the Western part of the Ottoman Empire. At that time, only the German diplomatic representatives, and not the representatives of its ally, Austria-Hungary, were accorded a privilege that gave German reports a unique authenticity. Both ambassadors and consuls were permitted to pass on coded messages by telegraph, thus keeping them secret from the Turks. This allowed them to give open descriptions of the facts they observed, even passing on important names of Turkish intermediaries. The situation was completely different for American diplomats. When the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with it (though the United States continued to be neutral towards Turkey), the American consul in Mamuret-ul-Aziz, Leslie A. Davis, burned ‘the copies of all reports’ which he had written during the past years on the genocide and the Armenians ‘in accordance with the Embassy’s instructions’, as he later wrote. This meant that valuable material was lost, for most of these reports had been intercepted by the Turks and were then kept secret by them. The experiences of his colleague in Aleppo, Jesse B. Jackson, were no better. ‘Many reports and details of massacres and racial disturbances were burned by me before my departure from Aleppo, following the instructions from the Department transmitted through the Embassy. As practically all of these had been products of my own efforts during my twelve years’ tenure in the Aleppo district’, he lamented later, ‘it was with great sorrow and regret that I watched the flames consume them, knowing that much valuable and historic information was thereby lost forever’.13 13. U.S. State Department Record Group 59.867.4016/373. Cf. Leslie A. Davis, The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat’s Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917, edited by Susan K. Blair (New Rochelle: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1989), 29.

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This is why many detailed American reports were written only after diplomatic relations were terminated in the autumn of 1917, when the American diplomats had returned to the USA and were free to write their reports. Historians believe that the great disadvantage of such documents lies in the fact that they lose their immediacy, and could contain interpretative errors because of the time lapse. Therefore, these German documents, especially those that have not yet been published, provide an excellent supplement to the American documents, which are cited almost exclusively in the English literature and have also been published in part. However, even at the time they were written, important information was missing in the German files because some documents had been deliberately destroyed. When German Ambassadorial Councillor Otto Göppert had a discussion with Ottoman Foreign Secretary Halil Bey in Constantinople at the beginning of 1917, the latter requested that he take his notes with him, ‘as it had been agreed upon with Count Metternich that nothing would be left behind in writing concerning such discussions’.14 Insofar as they concern the old records office (Turkey 183) and the files of the German embassy in Constantinople, the sources used in this book are based on the microfilm edition published by the German Foreign Office. (Today only the microfilm is made available to visitors to the archive and not the originals.) We also used the films distributed by the National Archives, and finally the author’s own films taken of original documents. The film copies made available today by the National Archives are based on originals filmed by the Allied Forces after World War II, but these are not complete. They do not include many eye witness reports or, in general, any foreign reports, such as newspaper articles or letters. The film edition of the German Foreign Office’s records is also incomplete, at least in one case.15 It is also surprising that among the files concerning the Armenians there are no reports on the genocide with comments by German Emperor William II, who normally made handwritten remarks on the more important documents he received. A short line of praise can be found on only one document, written by Ambassador Paul Count Wolff-Metternich, in which the latter makes a verbal attack on the British.16

Deportations and Annihilation Campaigns On April 24 every year, Armenians the world over remember the genocide because on the nights of 24 and 25 April 1915, the Young Turks started a wave of arrests throughout the entire country, but mainly in Constantinople, by which they eliminated the Armenian political, intellectual and ecclesiastical elite, dragging them off into the country’s interior where most of them died. The numbers of those arrested vary, but in the centres it was about 600 people. These arrests targeted not only Armenian politicians – party leaders or elected representatives – but often Armenians 14. 1917-01-05-DE-011, Enclosure 2. 15. 1918-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure 4. 16. 1916-07-10-DE-001.

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who were wealthy or more influential. The intention was clear: the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were to lose their leaders right at the beginning of the campaign of destruction being carried out against them. The Turks used a supposed rebellion in the most eastern Armenian town of Van as an excuse for this, where control of the town had been taken over by approximately 20,000 Armenians, who made up the majority of the rebels, after irregular Turkish gangs had attacked the surrounding Armenian villages for weeks and the Turkish governor (vali) of the town had used a false pretext to have the two leading Armenian politicians in Van kidnapped and murdered. A short while after the Armenians rebelled, regular Russian troops – among them also Russian Armenians who were serving in the Russian army – marched into the town during their advance against the Turks. From the very beginning, this rebellion in Van was atrociously exaggerated and still is today in Turkish historiography. Enver, the Turkish Minister of War, claimed in a conversation with Johannes Lepsius that out of 150,000 Turks only 30,000 Muslims were left alive after the rebellion.17 Therefore, the Armenians had killed 120,000 Turks. However, only about 30,000 Turks lived in the entire province, as well as 120,000 Kurds, who retreated to their hills after the Russian invasion, as Lepsius already noted during the war. The Turkish Ambassadorial Councillor in Berlin, Edhem Bey, went even further and claimed that no fewer than 180,000 Muslims had been killed.18 The Undersecretary of State in the German Foreign Office, Arthur Zimmermann, spoke to the Chairman of the Association of German Newspaper Publishers, Friedrich Gustav Robert Faber, of a ‘bloodbath’ and claimed, ‘Counter-measures were only taken after the Armenian rebellion broke out behind the Turkish troops marching against Azerbaijan, and in only a few days, more than 150,000 Muslims were victims of this attack.’19 Even after the war, the German naval attaché at the German Embassy in Constantinople and close friend of Enver, Hans Humann, who certainly knew better, claimed that the Turks had been massacred. ‘Of the approximately 130,000 Mohammedan-Turkish inhabitants of this Vilayet’, Humann said, ‘over 100,000 were massacred by the Armenians!’ His fantasy figure does not become any more bearable when he adds, ‘according to official Turkish figures’.20 The truth was that far fewer Turks died during the fighting in Van. Consul Scheubner-Richter, who observed the events in Van from Erzerum, first reported 400 injured and 200 dead Turkish victims to Constantinople,21 and a few days later that 1,000 Turks had died.22 Vice-Consul Walter Holstein in Mosul, who was also only able to evaluate reports, learned of 200 dead Turks.23 Minister of the Interior Talaat, who should have been the best informed person, reported to the German embassy that ‘400 Armenians 17. 1915-08-06-DE-001. 18. 1915-10-01-DE-004. 19. 1915-10-04-DE-001. 20. 1919-04-19-DE-001. 21. 1915-05-04-DE-011. 22. 1915-05-09-DE-011. 23. 1915-05-08-DE-003.

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were killed, but the [Turkish] troops also lost several hundred men’.24 The German observer in Constantinople von Tyszka reported in October 1915 that approximately 200 Muslim families had been massacred in Van, long after the fighting was over. Essad, the head of the Turkish Secret Service, had given him this information, but the former then also spoke of 200,000 Muslim victims. ‘There was no clear indication for such a figure’, Tyszka said, ‘therefore, the figure seemed to be well exaggerated’.25 Not only is the number of Muslim victims grossly exaggerated, but it is also questionable whether it was the Armenians at all who killed the Turks. Before the war broke out, there had been a Kurdish rebellion in the area around Bitlis which was put down by the Turks. ‘When the Russian troops approached, these Kurdish tribes believed that the day of retaliation on their part had come’, Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt informed the German Foreign Office after researching in Constantinople. ‘[F]ugitive Turkish public officials and officers from the area around Van had terrible things to report. It seems to me to be more than probable that these atrocities on the part of the Kurds will be blamed on the Armenians.’ On the subject of Van, Schuchardt was able to report from Constantinople, ‘According to oral reports by Spörri, our missionary from Van, Armenians also killed Mohammedans, but they did not carry out any atrocities against men, nor did they rape women and girls or commit brutalities against children.’26 However, the Armenians had attacked several Muslim villages and killed their inhabitants. Long before the acts in Van, the Turks had badly harassed the Armenians. ‘The systematic robbing of the Armenians already started when mobilisation began’, Alma Johansson, the Swedish nun in German service who lived in Mush, reported. ‘Not only were those items taken which might be needed for the war, but everything which was of any value at all. Any Turk could enter a shop or a house and take whatever he wanted.’27 After the war began, food needed had to be brought to the Russian border, but who was to do this? There were only the Armenians, and since the government had taken away their animals for other purposes, they had to carry the loads on their backs. Now the winters in the Mush-Erzerum region are very long and harsh, and the people often needed 2-3 weeks to reach their place of destination. The people were not dressed for this, as they had no money to do so, and anyone with anything on them had it taken away by the gendarmes accompanying them. Masses of these bearers died along the way due to cold and deprivation. It was a good thing if a third or even a quarter of each crowd which left Mush returned alive.28 24. 1915-04-30-DE-001. 25. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 26. 1915-11-12-DE-003. 27. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 28. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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Alma Johansson’s handwritten report gives an impression of the normal, everyday life of the Armenians in the months leading up to the genocide. Bad people who were unemployed allowed themselves to be signed up as gendarmes in the town and the surrounding area, giving them unlimited rights to rob, for the government had said, woe to anyone who refused the gendarmes or soldiers. The Armenians only defended themselves a few times in order to protect the women from the violence of the Turks, as a result of which a village would be burned down in part or entirely. And they all counted on the Russians coming at least as far as Mush, but it was said that before this happened they would first slaughter the Armenians, and then the Russians could come. In November 1914, it was officially admitted that they were only waiting for a reason to start a massacre and as soon as they found one, they would not leave even one Armenian alive. In March, we heard of unrest in Van. Officers and public officials proudly told us that the Armenians in Van were now annihilated, ‘everything hacked, hacked up into little bits’.29 The arrests of the Armenian elite in Constantinople and the large towns, as well as the arrests of the local notables, were the beginning of the actual genocide. The basic pattern quickly became clear to those affected, but also to foreign witnesses: to ensure that the Armenian people in Turkey would disappear forever, those responsible among the Young Turks had obviously decided to kill the men as quickly as possible. The women and children were made to starve to death, with the exception of the pretty young girls and women, who were destined for Turkish harems, as well as some of those children who were still so small that they would forget their Armenian origins if they grew up in Muslim families or state institutions. Generally, if Armenians survived in a rural Turkish environment, it was usually as a concubine or slave labourer; in exceptional cases, as a protégé of well-meaning Turks. Kurds played a very diverse role. Many allowed themselves to be hired as hangmen for the Armenians, waylaid deportation trains, killed the men, kidnapped the women and took all valuables with them. Then there were obviously real agreements between the Turks in favour of genocide and the Kurdish tribes. But there was one exception: the Kurds from Dersim, the successors of the historical Kizilbash, who were Shiite, rather than the majority Sunni, and, in fact, felt some kinship with the Armenians. These people turned out to be the most important saviours of the persecuted Armenians and organised regular escape routes to Russia. There was a difference in the way the genocide was carried out in the large cities of Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo, where a mixture of foreign protection – particularly in the capital of Constantinople and the most important harbour city of Smyrna – and the close interconnection between Armenian and Turkish interests 29. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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opened up escape routes for wealthy Armenians which were not open to their countrymen in the more remote and rural regions. It was also helpful for the Armenians, at least intermittently, that the region south of Aleppo was under the rule of Naval Minister Djemal, who, according to German sources, disapproved, in part, of the strict measures against the Armenians, or softened the rigidity of the deportations. Generally, criers in the cities and towns announced the intended date of departure usually only a few days in advance, without giving the destination for the deportations. After a few weeks, almost all exceptions to the deportation orders were revoked. Only in very rare cases did the government provide a means of transportation. Normally, the deportees – mostly in the east – left their homes on foot; only a few of the very wealthy were able to afford horses, donkeys or ox carts, which were quickly taken away from them. Whoever did not drop along the wayside reached an intermediate camp from where the deportees were moved on to concentration camps along the Baghdad Railway, but mainly they were sent to Aleppo, the turnstile of the genocide. The luckier ones, if this euphemism can be allowed, moved on to Palestine where a certain percentage managed to survive; the more unlucky were driven south along the Baghdad Railway or the road running parallel to the Euphrates River in the direction of Baghdad and through the Mesopotamian desert, where these convoys of poor people, consisting of the elderly, women and children, starved and died of thirst before the last miserable groups of several tens of thousands of the most robust Armenians were finally murdered on the banks of the Khabur River in what is today northeast Syria. A horror movie unfolds, mainly based on eyewitness reports; even Dante could not have thought of a more terrible scenario for his Inferno. It is a great disgrace for the perpetrators – Turks, Kurds, Circassians – and for those who attempted to delete this horror movie from their memories by denying or trivialising the facts and, above all, mocking the victims. It is no less of a disgrace for that powerful audience – the Germans – who did nothing to prevent these crimes, or even promoted them and, later still, approved of them. It is difficult to say who made themselves guiltier: the actors involved in the genocide during World War I, or those who denied the Armenian tragedy in later generations.

Interrogations and Torture The arrest of local notables was usually followed by interrogations, which generally included torture – especially the bastinado, which was still normally used at the time, particularly in the Orient. Frieda Wolf Hunecke, the German missionary employed at the former British mission in Everek near Kayseri until 28 April 1915, described what happened during this procedure: The prisoner is placed in stocks (as used during Roman times) with 2 gendarmes on each side and 2 at the foot end, who now take turns in beating the soles of his feet with sticks as long as their strength lasts. During Ro-

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man times, 40 blows was the highest, but here 200, 300, 500, even 800 blows were supposedly administered. The foot begins to swell enormously, then bursts open on top due to the repeated blows, and thus the blood spurts away. The prisoner is then dragged back to jail and put to bed by the remaining prisoners. Apart from beating the soles of the feet, different people have hand-sized burns on their breasts, made with a red-hot iron. I later saw the wounds of a blacksmith who was suspected of having forged the cases of the bombs, but was then set free: his toes had been burned with sulphuric acid (called ‘Kerab’).30 ‘A man was pumped up artificially and beaten 900 times in that condition’, Magdalena Didszun, the German nurse from Hadjin reported. ‘The wife of an Armenian pastor was beaten terribly because she was unable to give up a book demanded from her as it had been burned. Glowing coals were put under people’s clothes, needles stuck under their fingernails.’31 Alma Johansson of Sweden reported from Mamuret-ul-Aziz what she had been told by missionaries. The worst tortures began there at the beginning of May. The people who were arrested were clamped into pieces of timber, their feet shod with nails like horses, their beards, eyelashes, their fingernails and teeth pulled out; they were hung upside down and similar things were done to them. Naturally, many of them died, but some of them received medical treatment and were sent to the missionaries and so we saw what had happened. To stop the screaming from being heard during torture, drums and pipes were played around the jail.32 Künzler, a Swiss deacon, reported from Urfa, ‘Last night an imprisoned Armenian merchant was given 100 strokes of the stock, whereby he almost met his death. The most terrifying rumours come from the Vilayet of Diyarbekir, which quite reminds us of the Spanish Inquisition. In many places, the merciful bullet has been delivered only after torture. A particularly favourite method is said to have been pulling out finger nails.’33 Ernst Pieper, a German engineer, stated that he was told by a German woman ‘that many people were being treated for their feet in the hospital in Marash, toes were being amputated, etc., which was put down to the treatment by the soldiers (bastinado)’.34 In Mamuret-ul-Aziz, the Armenian men were taken out of jail directly after being tortured, and almost all of them were murdered on the way to Diyarbekir. Consul Davis was able to question one survivor from a group of 800 men who had managed 30. 1915-07-13-DE-001, Enclosure. 31. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 32. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 33. 1915-06-29-DE-002, Enclosure 1. 34. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 5

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to escape. They had been led into a valley where they were told to sit down. Then ‘the gendarmes began shooting them’, Davis wrote in his report. ‘After they had fired two or three rounds and killed most of the men the order was given not to waste any more cartridges, but to bayonet the rest.’35

Labour Battalions Already at the beginning of the war, but especially at the beginning of March 1915, most of the Armenian soldiers were disarmed. As a reason for this, the Turks claimed that Armenian soldiers had shot at their Turkish superiors. ‘They are said to have repeatedly turned their weapons against the Turks’, German Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim reported to Berlin, ‘a fact that is even being confirmed by German officers who were present during those combats’.36 There is no proof of this in the diplomatic files. The German commander of the fortress in the warfront town of Erzerum, General Posseldt, who was extremely well informed about events particularly on the eastern front, reported that while it was correct ‘that the Turkish Armenians repeatedly served as guides for the Russians in their advances against Erzerum, some of these were found among the prisoners who were seized from the Russians’. However, ‘he considers it to be out of the question’, according to the German expert on Armenia at the Embassy, Johannes Mordtmann, ‘that Armenian troops had fired at their Turkish comrades’ since ‘they had always used the Armenians behind the front’.37 Deserters were to be found among the Armenians as well as other nationalities in the Ottoman Empire at that time, but especially among the Kurds and the Turks. Towards the end of the war the Supreme German Commander, Otto Liman von Sanders, even claimed at the end of June 1918 that there were more Turkish deserters than soldiers doing their duty.38 Even if many of them only had the desire to avoid the war, Ernst Jaeckh, a German travelling throughout Turkey, reported after a visit from the German Commander on the Dardanelles, that there were also completely different longings in the autumn of 1915 that made Turks desert. ‘Turkish soldiers have been travelling for 64 hours’, he wrote, ‘bathed in sweat and covered in dust, deserters from Goltz’s army, just to join Liman to ‘kill the British, who we don’t come across with Goltz’. This happened so often that Liman was forced to punish such “desertion.”’39 On the other hand, with regard to the assertion of the Turks that larger numbers of Armenian soldiers deserted, the German Vice-Consul in Alexandretta (which today is called Iskenderun), Hermann Hoffmann-Fölkersamb, stated that ‘this claim is quite impossible, especially to such an extent, and has actually been proven wrong’.40 35. U.S. State Department Record Group 59, 867.00/803 36. 1915-04-15-DE-002. 37. 1915-04-26-DE-011. 38. PA-AA, R 13757, S. 103, AG 2801. 39. 1915-10-17-DE-002. 40. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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Despite this, the Armenian soldiers who had been conscripted by the Turks were classified as a security risk, disarmed and collected in labour battalions. Their main task was to build or repair roads, and at times this was actually done. The main reason was, however, quite a different one: the Armenians fit for military service were to be isolated and finally killed so that they could not put up any resistance during the deportations. Most of the Armenian soldiers in the labour battalions were already murdered at the beginning of the war and, in exceptional cases, some were killed later. ‘Crowds of young Armenians, who had been conscripted as soldiers to build roads, were taken to Mesereh, penned into a building and held under constant guard’, German nurse Klara Pfeiffer, who was stationed there, reported, Several days later, they were led away by armed soldiers – 1,200 men in total. It was said that they were to build roads again. Apparently they really did work for several days in Maden, two days’ journey from Mesereh; then they were led further on to Diyarbekir, bound together 4 and 4 or 5 and 5, and killed. On 23 June, another 300 men were taken away from the prison in the middle of the night. It cannot be assumed that even one of them is still alive. Escape was out of the question because they had been bound together, and if they had escaped, then where to?41 The missionaries in Mesereh reported on a later train to Alma Johansson from Sweden, On 1 July, the first crowd was sent off. There were 2,000 soldiers. It was said they were being sent to Aleppo to fix the roads. But these 2,000 were killed in the ravines only a few hours from Mesereh. A few of them managed to untie themselves and escape in the darkness. The next day another 2,000 were sent towards Diyarbekir, among them several of our orphaned boys who worked for the government. A few people out of this crowd also managed to get away. When the government saw that some of them managed to escape, they later let the people first suffer hunger and thirst for two days so that they would have no more strength.42 Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg, a nurse from Norway, and her German colleague, Eva Elvers, had passed such a place of execution. ‘There was still a lot of clotted blood on the ground’, they stated, ‘but the bodies had been removed’. The two nurses reported, That afternoon, we reached a valley and found three groups of road workers sitting on the ground: Muslims, Greeks and Armenians, each sitting separately from the other two. Several officers stood in front of the latter group. We continue to drive up a hill. The coachman points down into the 41. 1916-05-10-DE-002, Enclosure. 42. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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valley, where about 100 men are being marched off a country road and set up in a row next to a decline. We knew what would happen now, but we did not see it. The same drama was repeated in another place. We saw a man at the missionary hospital in Sivas who had escaped from such a massacre. He had been set up in a row together with 95 other road workers (all of whom were soldiers), whereupon the 10 gendarmes accompanying them began to shoot as many as they could; the rest were killed by the other Muslims using their knives or stones; 10 fled. This man himself had a dreadful wound on his neck; he had fainted at first, but after recovering he managed the 2-day-long march to Sivas.43 Deacon Künzler, a Swiss, reported from Urfa on 20 August 1915, ‘About 100 Armenians from the labour battalion were brutally murdered about 1½ hours to the north of Urfa. A day later, 400 from a labour battalion who were working in the south.’44 Three days later, he reported, ‘In Karaköprü, an hour north of Urfa, as well as on the Haran Plain, hundreds of Armenians are working in road construction; supposedly, they were all shot during the past few days. But this news has not yet been definitely confirmed. I pray to God that it is not true!’45 It was true. ‘The fear he voices in this, that hundreds of Armenian road construction workers on the Plain of Harran were also killed’, according to Rössler in a telegram to his embassy on the Künzler report, ‘has been confirmed to me in the meantime as being true by the operators of the Baghdad Railway. The Baghdad Railway for its part has received a report from the station-master in Tell Abiad, who was told by gendarmes that at the order of their superior authority they shot down the road construction workers.’46 A German employee of the Baghdad Railway reported, ‘A German cavalry captain told how he saw countless corpses lying unburied on both sides of the road on his ride from Diyarbekir to Urfa, all of them young men with their throats cut. (These were the road workers who had been conscripted into the army.)’47 Between the 10th and the 30th of May, about 700 young Armenian men were conscripted into the army, as reported by a witness from the Aid Organisation. ‘They had to build the KarabakhHabashi road. During this work, the young men were then shot down one day by the Zaptiehs guarding them, and not one escaped. The Obashi in charge boasted later that he had managed to shoot down the 700 men using only 5 Zaptiehs.’48

The Murder of Adult Males Practically all the deported adult Armenian males suffered the same fate as the Armenian soldiers. The only foreign consul who researched these acts of extermination in 43. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure. 44. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 1. 45. 1915-09-03-DE-002. 46. 1915-09-03-DE-002. 47. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 4. 48. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 6.

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Harput, the area for which he was responsible, was Davis. The American consul was able to question one survivor from a group of 800 men. This witness reported that the men were taken to a Kurdish village south of Harput. After they had fired two or three rounds and killed most of the men, the order was given not to waste any more cartridges, but to bayonet the rest. ‘They remained there that night, and the following morning were taken to a valley a few hours distant where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes began shooting them.’49 Johannes Mordtmann, the consul general at the German Embassy who was responsible for reporting on the Armenians, confirmed the American consul’s report. After a conversation with Swedish nurse Alma Johansson, who had passed through Harput on her way from Mush, he noted with regard to Harput, ‘The large-scale elimination of all males took place during the first days of July.’50 Consul Rössler confirmed the fate of the men from Harput, who had been separated from the women in a village several hours’ journey south of the town. ‘The men were slaughtered to death and lay to the right and left of the road along which the women then had to pass.’51 Vice-Consul Holstein reported from Mosul, ‘All of the men were murdered along the way.’52 Scheubner-Richter reported from Erzerum that out of 500 deported Armenians, ‘according to a statement made by the government, 14 of these people were murdered along the way; I have received private information that almost all the men were murdered’.53 According to Scheubner-Richter, part of a second group was ‘separated at Baiburt and I have been unable to ascertain anything as to their whereabouts. They were probably murdered.’54 Deportations were carried out in other regions even more rigorously than in Erzerum, Scheubner-Richter reported. ‘Almost all the men in Vilayet Trebizond have supposedly been killed. The Armenians in Sivas were treated in a similarly brusque manner.’55 Spieker, a German witness, reported on men whose hands were tied behind their backs; they were thrown down steep slopes and, when they reached the bottom, women attacked them with knives until they were dead.56 Carl Schlimme, a volunteer soldier, received confirmation for the general murder of these men while out riding in June 1915: ‘I was informed by Turkish country dwellers that most of the men from Trebizond were killed on the way to Gemischaneh.’57 German Lieutenant Colonel Stange reported on the fate of the men from Erzerum, ‘Out of the first convoy which left on 16 June on the direct route to Harput and which mainly consisted of Armenian notables who had a lot of baggage with them, all the men, with 49. U.S. State Department Record Group 59, 867.00/803. 50. 1915-11-06-DE-012. 51. 1915-07-27-DE-001. 52. 1915-07-16-DE-012. 53. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 54. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 55. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 56. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 57. 1915-08-05-DE-002.

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very few exceptions, have been murdered.’58 ‘The accompanying Zaptiehs then told us’, reported Laura Möhring, a German nurse, ‘that many of the men who had been taken away had been killed, and that this was the best thing for the Turks’.59 Sarkis Manukian, an Armenian who completed his Doctorate of Philosophy in Leipzig and was employed as a German teacher in Erzerum, had left his home town on 19 June together with about 500 other families. He reported that, already along the way, 200 Armenian men were led off and murdered. Almost all the remaining men suffered their hour of death in Surudj, in the presence of Seynal Bey, the brother of Hadji Bedr Bey, the leader of the Kurds. ‘All of the men were gathered in a narrow valley – there were 2,115 males there. (We had to give our Kurdish and Turkish leaders money based on the number of persons; for this reason we made up a list and this is why I know the exact figure.) The women and children were already gone’, Manukian reported. The Kurds and gendarmes explained to us, ‘You will now die, but this is not our fault; the government demands it.’ We were tied up. We did not attempt to resist out of consideration for our women and children. Seynal Bey took action; he had all of them brought individually to him by the Kurds and gendarmes, everything they had was taken from each of them and then they were executed barely ten paces further away. Their heads were cut off with knives and axes and their corpses thrown in a chasm.60 Manukian escaped because he was able to speak to the Kurds in their native language and they helped him flee. The fate of the men from 120 families in a deportation convoy from the west with 174 wagons was described by Consul Eugen Büge. On the way from Bogaslian to Erkelet, the 6 gendarmes who came along from Bogaslian as guards demanded money from the deportees’ caravan on 22 August. Together, the 120 families collected 10 Turkish liras in order to rid themselves in this manner of the danger to their lives. The gendarmes, angry because of the small sum, separated all the men, about 200 people, from the women and locked them in a khan. The gendarmes then brought the people out of the khan, tied up in groups, robbed them of all their cash and sent them, still tied together, to a nearby valley. The gendarmes later used rifle shots to signal the neighbouring Turkish murderous gangs, already waiting, to attack. All the men and the youths over the age of 12 were tortured and killed by means of blows with clubs, stones, sabres, daggers and knives, and all this happened in front of the women and children who had to watch the murderers do their horrific deeds.61 58. 1915-08-23-DE-013, Enclosure 2. 59. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 60. 1915-11-30-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 61. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 9.

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Other witnesses reported on similar events. After their arrival in the vilayet of Angora, 6 gendarmes took over the supervision and leadership of the deportees on the continuation of their journey. Several recruits and civilians, all of them Muslims, joined the caravan in order to take part in the planned atrocity. When the caravan arrived in Tépé Han, the gendarmes had the men separated from the women, interned in a khan and brought out tied in groups. Their cash was taken from them and all the men were handed over to the soldiers and murderous gangs. In this way, all the men and youths, about 250 people, were taken to a valley nearby and killed in the most hideous manner. The women had to watch all of this.62 According to another report drawn up by Consul Büge, On the deportation journey from Yozgat to Bogaslian (in the Vilayet of Angora), we were eyewitnesses as about one hundred Turkish soldiers shot several hundred Armenians from Yozgat and Sungurlu, all men, among them two priests, in a valley 4 hours south of Yozgat on 20 August of this year; they beat them to death with the butts of their rifles and annihilated all of them without exception.63 An ‘older, calm Armenian who weighs things up carefully, a Protestant pastor’ who was questioned by Rössler reported that, of the 35,000 to 40,000 Armenians deported from the north-east as well as Diyarbekir who arrived in Aleppo, ‘there are no males over the age of 11’.64 A group of Armenians expelled from Harput consisted of 1,500 people, who arrived in Arghen after 4 days. ‘The officer accompanying them told them there’, the Armenian witness said, ‘that orders had been given that the men should take part in the harvest, gathered together all males over the age of 11 and brought them to a khan. The women and children had to move on. After a 3-hour march he had them stop for a rest in the open while he himself rode back to Arghen and returned to the women and children 7-8 hours later towards evening and said to them, ‘The men have gone to the harvest.’65 ‘With the exception of a 12-year-old boy who threw himself into the water and escaped, the entire Armenian population, 82 people, in the village of Bölveren near Albistan was killed’, reported the German Baghdad Railway engineer, W. Spieker. ‘Kadir Pasha in Marash said to me, ‘I know that in the sector of the 3rd Army66 all of the male population has been killed in accordance with a government order.’’67 ‘Eye 62. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 6. 63. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 7. 64. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 65. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 66. That was practically the entire eastern region of Turkey. 67. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5.

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witnesses reported to me today’, stated Eugen Büge, the German Consul in Adana, in a report, ‘that on 20 August in the area north of Kayseri 120 men from Chorum were murdered in front of their families’.68 Vice-Consul Hoffmann from Aleppo summed up, It can be regarded as an established fact that in the actual Armenian Vilayets – quite apart from the war zone near Van – the deportation has been accompanied by the massacre of the adult male Armenians, but also partly of the whole population of Armenian towns and villages. The statements made by the survivors of such deported convoys are concordant with each other in such a way that a prior agreement to this effect is out of the question.69 In one of his reports, Armenian expert Mordtmann puts this simply: the ‘purpose of the deportation of the Armenians is the elimination of the men’.70 One of the standard excuses used by those committing this genocide to explain why male deportees were missing in the convoys was that the men had tried to escape. Hoffmann’s reply was, This admission, however, contradicts the well-known strong family sense amongst the Armenians. Whenever the men fled in large numbers into the mountains, such as in the area around Suediye by the coast, they took the women and children with them. I know of cases where Armenian soldiers, having deserted, did not flee into the mountains, but headed straight for their families so that they could be deported with them, although they already knew what deportation entailed for them.71 Naturally, the Turks committing this genocide knew very well that there were no credible reasons whatsoever for their action against the Armenians and that the excuses were pure propaganda. The Bavarian major and military physician Dr. Georg Mayer reported from his own experiences, ‘With a cynical smile on their lips, people at the Ministry of War told how all these thousands had died a natural death or of an accident.’72

Acts of Extermination in Home Towns Not only were men threatened with immediate death, but women and children as well. ‘Thousands were killed in Gemerek’, the head of the Home for the Blind in Malatia, Ernst Jacob Christoffel, reported. ‘In the area surrounding Yozgat, the population from 6 Armenian villages was massacred, all of them, even the infants.’73 An 68. 1915-09-06-DE-002. 69. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 70. 1915-12-21-DE-011. 71. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 72. Kriegsarchiv München, BHR, M Kr. 13841, Abteilung IV, p. 13. 73. 1916-04-01-DE-001.

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eyewitness gave the following report to the German Consul Rössler: ‘In Besniye, the entire population of about 1,800 women and children and only a few men was deported; they were supposed to be transported to Urfa. By the river Goeksu, a tributary of the Euphrates, they had to take off their clothes, were then all massacred and thrown into the river.’74 Consul Holstein reports that ‘bands of Kurds, who had been hired for this purpose by Fethi [Feyzi] Bey, the Deputy of Diyarbekir, massacred the entire Christian population of the town of Djeziré with the assistance of the militia and the tolerance of the local authorities’.75 In what is today the town of Cisre, more than 90 per cent of the approximately 5,000 Christians were Armenians. In the town of Tell Ermen in the Mesopotamian desert, a purely Armenian town, Rössler reported, ‘Major von Mikusch returned from Mosul and reported the following: Approximately one week ago in Tell Ermen and a neighbouring Armenian village, Kurds slaughtered the Armenians. The large churches are destroyed; Mr. von Mikusch personally viewed 200 corpses.’76 Vice-Consul Hoffmann noted observations made by his colleague, Holstein, who reported that in Tell Ermen, ‘everything had been destroyed, except for 15 to 20 people who were able to flee. Vice-Consul Holstein even discovered remains, such as dismembered heads and limbs, in the church.’77 One of the most dreadful chapters in the history of this genocide took place on the plain surrounding the town of Mush, with its many Armenian villages, as well as in the town itself. There, men, women and children were murdered, usually right on the spot, and this was carried out in the most atrocious manner. After a conversation with Swedish nurse Alma Johansson – who worked for Aid for Christian Charity in the Orient – on the events in Mush during the middle of June 1915, Mordtmann noted, The massacres began on the night of Sunday, 11 July, using rifles. The Turks claimed that several Armenians had attempted to break out in the direction of Sasun. A few well-situated Armenians were informed in the konak that they had to leave the city within three days, along with the entire population. But all their possessions had to be left behind as they now belonged to the state. Without waiting for the end of this period, the Turks had begun breaking into Armenian homes and plundering them. On Monday the 12th, light artillery and rifle fire could be heard the whole day. The local Turkish population participated in these events. The male Armenian population was murdered right in front of the town. The women, girls and children were carried off and taken on a further day’s march before being disposed of. Only three Armenian teachers from the orphanage were later set free. After the city was cleared, the Armenian 74. 1915-07-07-DE-001, Enclosure. 75. 1915-09-11-DE-011. 76. 1915-07-09-DE-001. 77. 1915-12-07-DE-001.

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Quarter was put to the torch and razed to the ground, along with the Armenian villages.78 In a report written in her own hand, Alma Johansson also noted, The women were taken with the children to the next villages, locked by the hundreds into houses and burned. Others were thrown into the river. Yes, even higher officers always came to visit us now and they proudly told the same stories. This much is true: except for a small number of women, who the Kurds or Turks took for themselves, almost everything in the entire Mush region which could call itself Armenian has been exterminated, and no one got beyond the district. There had been about 25,000 Armenians in Mush; in addition, Mush has 300 villages, most of which had been Armenian. When we left Mush after three weeks, everything was burned down.79 The province of today’s Kurdish metropolis of Diyarbekir in the southeast was a further scene of unrestrained killing right on the spot. Walter Holstein, the German Vice-Consul in Mosul, wrote that the former Mutessariff of Mardin reported to him that ‘the Vali of Diyarbekir, Reshid Bey, is causing havoc like an eager bloodhound amongst the Christians of his vilayets. Also just recently in Mardin, he allowed seven hundred Christians, mostly Armenians and including the Armenian Bishop, to be slaughtered like sheep in one night near the city’.80

The Annihilation of Entire Deportation Convoys Almost without exception, deportation convoys from the northeast were channelled through Erzincan to Harput and from there on to Urfa and into the Mesopotamian desert, if they managed to arrive there at all. Many convoys reached the final destination on their path of suffering shortly beyond Erzincan. ‘The misery was indescribable’, the two nurses, Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg and Eva Elvers, reported with regard to a deportation convoy they had seen in Erzincan. ‘Only 2 men were left, some of the women had gone insane; one cried out, “We wish to become Muslims. We wish to become Germans; whatever you want, but just save us. They’re going to take us to Kemagh now and cut our throats.” While saying this, she made an appropriate gesture.’81 The Armenian woman was well versed in the geography of death. ‘The location is very suitable for such things’, a German doctor from the Red Cross Hospital in Erzincan reported. ‘It is the ravine through which the Euphrates leaves the Plain of Erzincan to the west. The road follows the river for many kilometres; vertical rock walls make it impossible to escape to one side. A deso78. 1915-11-06-DE-012. 79. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 80. 1915-07-10-DE-011. 81. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure.

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late area (Dersim) inhabited by rapacious mountain Kurds lies along the left bank of the Euphrates. If anything happens there, one can always blame the Kurds!’82 The two nurses reported to the Armenian doctor, Kafafian, Together with the rest of the deportees, two young female teachers who were trained at the American College in Harput were on their way through the Kemagh Valley when they were caught in crossfire on 10 June, ahead of them Kurds and behind them semi-regular troops. Frightened, they threw themselves on the ground and pretended to be dead. When the shooting stopped, they managed to return to Erzincan. On 11 June, regular troops were sent out to punish the Kurds. Instead, they – the troops – slaughtered the entire defenceless crowd, the largest part of which consisted of women and children. From the mouths of Turkish soldiers who were personally present we had to hear how the women begged on their knees for mercy and how some of them threw their own children into the river.83 ‘The soldiers said that it was the 86th Cavalry Regiment, under the leadership of all its officers, which carried out this atrocious deed’, the two nurses continued. ‘They had required 4 hours to kill everyone. Ox carts were then waiting to transport the corpses to the river. That evening, you could watch the “warriors” come home, laden with stolen goods. “Haven’t we done a good job?” some of them asked. Our gendarme told us that he had just accompanied such a convoy of 3,000 women and children from Mama Hatun – 2 days from Erzerum – to Kemagh. “All gone”, “Hep gitdi bitdi”, he said.’84 A German doctor from the Red Cross Hospital in Erzincan confirmed the report. Early on 12 June, Gehlsen, the pharmacist who can speak Turkish, saw a troop of 20 soldiers move out, ready for action. He asked one of the soldiers whom he knew where they were headed. This man said they were going to the Kemach ravine. Armenians who were leaving had been attacked there. Yesterday evening the soldiers returned and Gehlsen attempted to find out what had happened. He acted very anti-Armenian and thus found out that a group of Armenian women and children had been surrounded in the ravine and, at a given order, all of them were shot down. The soldiers were sorry to shoot the pretty young women, but they had been ordered to do so. Many of the women had thrown their children into the river, while others were taken away by the Turks in order to bring them up in the Islamic faith. The women had not run away; they had all knelt down. The soldier stated that 3,000 people had been murdered in 82. 1915-06-29-DE-005. 83. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure. 84. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure.

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his presence and that only a few had escaped into the mountains, but that the Kurds knew all about that!85 ‘This account of the details concurs fully with that which [Austrian] Major Dr. Pietschmann told us, who made the journey from Erzerum to here at almost the same time as the ladies’, said Armenian expert Mordtmann, confirming the reports of the two nurses’.86 If Armenian deportees had successfully passed the ravine of death, they then entered what the American consul called the ‘Slaughterhouse Province’. Alma Johansson from Sweden reported that ‘the remains of the crowds from Keghi, Erzerum, Trebizond, Samsun, Erzincan, etc., also arrived. Of those, actually only the women and children were still alive, and those who were still alive when they arrived in Mamuret-ul-Aziz were finished off there. At the end of August, another crowd of 8,000 passed through Mamuret-ul-Aziz, and as far as we have heard from the Turks, they were all killed.’87 The largest of these places of death was located on Lake Goeljuk, south of Mamuret-ul-Aziz. The American Consul Davis, who, during his period of office in Harput, concerned himself almost solely with the protection of the Armenians, had ridden there twice – the first time with a Turkish friend and the second time with the American doctor Atkinson. ‘After about two hours we arrived at a large valley’, said the American Consul. ‘Here there were more dead bodies than I had seen in any other place on either trip. We estimated that there were not less than two thousand in that one valley.’88 Altogether, on their two rides, Davis and his companions counted about 10,000 slaughtered Armenians in the valleys surrounding this lake of death.

The Deportation Convoys Whoever managed to escape the murderous hustle and bustle, either in their home town or on the road, awaited death marches that, contrary to any actions with the sole purpose of annihilation, could not be kept hidden and were followed by foreign observers because the deportees also had to pass through towns in which other Christians or foreigners resided. At the end of June 1915, ‘crowds of deported Armenians from the area around Erzerum passed through our town in an indescribable, terrible state’, Klara Pfeiffer, a German nurse, reported from Mesereh. ‘There were no men or grown-up sons among the crowds, and when the women were asked, where are your husbands, they answered, “killed.”’ And, Again on 6 July, large crowds of deportees from Keghi arrived in a deplorable state. You have to have seen these poor people yourself to know just 85. 1916-06-29-DE-005. 86. 1915-07-21-DE-001. 87. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 88. U.S. State Department, National Archives, Record Group 59, 867.00/803.

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how great their misery was. They were penned in for a while in some of the houses belonging to deported Armenians. In droves, most of them died of illness. Every morning the hearse drove past the houses and the dead were then piled on top of each other and driven away. Often, entire hordes of deportees were locked in right at the cemetery. They had to spend day and night among the graves until death, like a saving friend, ended their misery.89 An Austrian, who was an eyewitness to a convoy of deportees marching past near Urfa, stated, Looking at the children, the old and otherwise weak people, one could usually observe that they had sore, swollen feet that were wrapped in rags. Many a group limps by, screaming in pain – as soon as they see a person, many of these wretched souls fall on their knees and beg for help and salvation or offer their children for adoption. Many die of exhaustion on these marches at 56° Centigrade and without water – anyone who is left behind can be sure of death.90 An Armenian questioned by Consul Rössler reported on 23 August 1915 remarked, The entire population from Mudurga, a village near Erzerum consisting of approx. 2,300 people, was expelled. Along the way, the men were separated from the women and the latter were led not along the proper road, but over the mountains, and on the entire journey they received 4 times 1 roll from the government. For 2 days they received not a drop of water to drink, although water was available, but rather the women and children, half dying of thirst, were driven further along by the gendarmes. Every day, 30-40 women and children were left to die along the way and some of them were shot to death by the gendarmes accompanying them. Of these 2,300, only 4 women, 4 girls and 3 boys arrived in Aleppo in a miserable state.91 Another witness, who was asked by Rössler to give a report, stated, Approximately 2,800 deportees from Gürün were robbed in Airan-Punar, 12 hours northeast of Marash. In Airan-Punar, the gendarmes had the people separate: the few men were separate and the women were separate. About 200 people were killed during an attack; 70 badly wounded had to be left behind, over 50 other wounded were taken away with the transport. During the attack in Airan-Punar, men and women were bound to trees and burned. Hekkash Effendi, a gendarme-sergeant accompanying 89. 1916-05-10-DE-002. 90. 1915-08-13-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 91. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4.

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the transport, stabbed a man who had remained behind with his bayonet. Near Bash-Punar, northeast of Aintab, opposite the village of Sam, men lay with their heads burned and women, their bodies cut open, for days. A man and a woman had been tied together.92 One method of increasing the suffering of the deportees consisted of leading them practically in a circle. Consul Rössler related, The account by the Armenians, which is told over and over again, that the convoys full of exiles were deliberately driven backwards and forwards in order to ‘run them to death’ is confirmed in this report by just one example. One group of deportees from Urfa was forced to take the following route: from Urfa to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka, from Rakka to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka. The distance from Tell-Abiad to Rakka is about 90 kilometres as the crow flies.93 Rössler reported the following on a convoy from Sivas: ‘Along the Muradsu, they were led in circles for 14 days in one place in such a way that during the daytime they had no water at all.’94 These deportee convoys were raided again and again. German nurse Paula Schaefer reported on such a raid on a small camp consisting of about 50 deportees: ‘I found men and women badly wounded, their bodies cut open, with broken skulls, or in a terrible condition through stabs with a knife.’ And, ‘Nearly everything was transported on foot; men, women, children carried their few belongings on their backs. I often saw them break down under their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with the butt-ends of their rifles, even sometimes with their bayonets. I have dressed bleeding wounds of women that resulted from these bayonet wounds.’95 She reported the following regarding another interim camp: About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouré. They were unable to proceed on account of misery and illness. In this rain the soldiers also did not feel any inclination to stir them up and drive them on, so they were lying about as if they were in a lake. The rags of their beds did not have a single dry thread in them. Many women had their feet frozen; they were entirely black and ready to be amputated. The wailing and groaning was horrible.96 Deportations from the western part of the Ottoman Empire began at a later date and, in part, proceeded differently from those in the east. Some of the deported Armenians were able to cover part of the distance by train, even if they were generally 92. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5. 93. 1916-01-03-DE-002. 94. 1915-08-13-DE-001. 95. 1916-01-26-DE-004, Enclosure 1. 96. 1916-01-26-DE-004, Enclosure 3.

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crowded together in cattle wagons. But the farther they travelled, the more their fate resembled that of those previously deported from the north and east. Rudolf Zabel, the German journalist from the Tägliche Rundschau, gives a very exact description of the convoys from West Anatolia into the valley of the Euphrates River, which Mordtmann depicted. The transports are first directed to Konia where there is a fairly large concentration camp. Accommodation and food-supply for the deportees is bad. There is a high death rate. In Eregli there is a large camp (approx. 3,000 people); it appears that those who have travelled by train are accommodated there as the people still had a lot of belongings with them; there is also a high death rate in this camp. In Eregli five railway trains arrive each day, each with 1,000-1,500 Armenians; Mr. Zabel has seen 8,000 moving along on foot. Ulukirchla is one of the worst stations. The camp there was formerly occupied by labour battalions, is infested with refuse, insects, etc. The conditions for the deportees there is very wretched. Beyond Ulukirchla there is no more transport by train. The deportees are herded on in individual groups like cattle. In Bozanti, the next station, there is neither accommodation nor bread; from there it is another 10 kilometres without a break to a refugee camp along the military supply and communication route. In Adana the emigrants arrive completely exhausted. The military route Adana–Osmanié–Hamidé is now only passed along on foot; the camps (in the open air) are in a terrible condition.97

The Fate of the Women and Girls The women and girls suffered in particular. Without male protection, they were at everyone’s mercy, especially that of the gendarmes, officers and soldiers accompanying them, but also the male population in general. Blank, a German missionary, reports on a Turkish officer who ‘finally gave his men the right to dispose of the women among these poor people by saying they might do what they like with them’.98 And that is what they did. This right of disposal was even documented in public notices. Vice-Consul Hoffmann describes detailed orders on young girls and women, who were deliberately deported for sexual reasons while their relatives were spared because they were still needed to build the Baghdad Railway. ‘I have searched in vain for an explanation to justify these orders; of being astounded at the recklessness with which the Turkish authorities issue orders of this kind in answer to petitions by a German company’, Hoffmann writes. ‘Anyone who knows about family life and morality in Turkey will not be able to free himself of the feeling of witnessing an outrage.’99 97. 1915-08-21-DE-011, Enclosure 2. 98. 1915-05-27-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 99. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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‘With regard to transports in small groups, it is the rule’, Ernst Pieper, an engineer, reported, ‘that the men who are still there are separated at night from the women to permit the soldiers to carry out nasty deeds against the latter without being disturbed. Almost without exception, the young girls are kidnapped by the soldiers and their Arab accomplices. A father close to desperation asked me to take his 15-year-old daughter with me as he could no longer protect her from being pestered.’100 ‘Without exception, all of the women were robbed’, an Armenian reported to the German Consul Rössler, ‘and several had to take off their trousers no less than 9 times and permit that they be searched and looked at by the different officers and gendarmes accompanying them’.101 ‘We also met several crowds of women and children; they were a miserable sight’, said Alma Johansson from Sweden on her ride from Mamuret-ul-Aziz to Constantinople. ‘The gendarmes riding with them spoke openly of what they did to the poor people along the way. When asked, “Where are they going?” they answered, “If no one else will take them and they don’t die, then we’ll just have to kill them.”’102 E. Neuner, the travelling companion of Maximilian Pfeiffer, Member of Parliament in the Reichstag, reported, ‘In Mosul 300 Armenian women were to be distributed among the Turkish harems, and when they absolutely refused they were all thrown into a large well and left there to die.’103 ‘According to information from the deputy chief operating officer of the Baghdad Railway, based on statements from two engineers employed in Ras-ul-Ain, a Dutchman and a Luxembourger’, Rössler reported, ‘a troop of 300-400 women arrived naked at the railway station there’.104 ‘A German I know saw hundreds of Christian farmers’ wives near Urfa being forced by the Turkish soldiers to undress completely’, the German teacher in Aleppo, Martin Niepage, reported. ‘To the amusement of the soldiers, they had to drag themselves through the desert in this state for days in the 40° heat until their skin was completely burned.’105 According to Magdalena Didszun, a German missionary, the piteous convoys of women and children were driven into the desert ‘where the Arabs are waiting to rob them of everything except the shirt off their backs and sometimes even that. If the women have gold fillings, their teeth are pulled out under great pain.’106 For Armenian women, rape was part of everyday life for a deportee. According to Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg and Eva Elvers, a gendarme accompanying a deportee convoy told them that the women ‘were robbed and raped in every new village’.107 An Armenian who was questioned by Rössler and known for his objectivity reported, ‘It must also be noted that apart from the young women and girls who were kidnapped, 100. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 5. 101. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 102. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 103. 1918-02-22-DE-002, Enclosure. 104. 1915-09-03-DE-002. 105. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 106. 1915-11-22-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 107. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure.

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25 per cent of those whose appearance was more or less pleasing were taken by force to one side during the day or night by the gendarmes accompanying them, by Kurds and Turks, and raped; some of those who were more beautiful even by 10-15 men, one after the other. In this way, a whole crowd of women and girls were left lying along the way.’108 In Erkelet, so other survivors reported, the Turks raided the convoy. ‘The Turks led all of the mature girls and young women away and violated them. Two girls resisted and were maltreated so badly on the part of the gendarmes that they died.’109 An Armenian from Diyarbekir reported to the German Consul Rössler, ‘The first victims were the president of the Dashnak together with 20 notables, among them the priest Aliponar. The people were taken into custody and ill-treated, and then Osman Bey and the Mudir of the police, Hussein Bey, had them murdered. The priest’s young wife was raped by 10 Zaptiehs and almost tormented to death.’110 ‘A woman raped by eight men threw herself on the railway line to end her life’, said engineers from the Baghdad Railway. ‘The train was brought to a standstill, whereupon she was then brought to Aleppo by a German engineer.’111 ‘In many houses in Aleppo in which Christians live, I found Armenian girls hiding who had escaped death by some coincidence, whether it was because they lay behind exhausted and were considered dead while their convoy was forced to move on, or because Europeans had the opportunity to buy these unfortunate girls for a few marks from the Turkish soldier who had last violated them’, Martin Niepage, a German teacher at the German secondary school in Aleppo, reported. All of these girls act as if they were deranged. Many of them had to watch as the Turks cut their parents’ throats. I know such poor creatures who speak not a word for many months and from whom even today it is still impossible to win a smile. A girl of about 14 was taken in by the storeroom administrator of the Baghdad Railway in Aleppo, Mr. Krause. The child had been raped so often in one night by Turkish soldiers that she had completely lost her mind. I watched her thrash about insanely with hot lips on her pillow and had difficulty giving her water to drink.112 The tormentors did not even shy away from girls who were still children. ‘The supervisor over the Armenians in Raz-ul-Ain, a certain Nuri Schauch’, Bastendorff, a German engineer, reported, ‘even declared in the presence of our Doctor Farah that it always gave him great pleasure to deflower Armenian girls under the age of 12’.113 The fact that some of the tormentors were simply sadists is evidenced by findings 108. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 109. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 9. 110. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 6. 111. 1915-09-03-DE-002. 112. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 113. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 2.

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described by witnesses: women whose breasts had been cut off.114 At the railway embankment near Tell Abiad and Raz-ul-Ain, Greif, a German witness from Aleppo, saw masses of raped, naked women’s corpses lying about. ‘Many of them had clubs forced into their anus.’115 The overseers often did good business by selling women. An Armenian clergyman in Diyarbekir reported to the German Consul Rössler that ‘young women and girls were kidnapped by officers and gendarmes’. When the troops left Diyarbekir, ‘the officer who had accompanied them there came with some gendarmes and picked out several pretty young girls and boys and left the rest with 6-7 gendarmes behind while he himself went off with his prey’.116 On the way to Mardin, the gendarmes sold ‘many young girls and boys to Kurds and others or gave them away’. Bastendorff, the German engineer, reported on the fate of Armenian women in Raz-ul-Ain, ‘The policemen carried on a flourishing trade with the girls: against payment of a few medjidies, anyone could take the girl of his choice either for a short while or forever.’117 The German Vice-Consul in Mosul, Holstein, reported that the maximum price for a woman in the area he travelled through was 5 piastres (95 pfennigs).118 Three engineers from the Baghdad Railway had had work to do in Tel Ebiad (100 kilometres east of the Euphrates River). ‘Towards evening, the Kaymakam came and offered each of them a young Armenian girl for the night.’119 The accompanying soldiers were even hard-hearted towards women giving birth to children. Generally, they were given no time to bring their children into the world and then recuperate briefly afterwards. ‘Two women fell down to give birth’, Rössler observed in Aleppo, ‘and were only protected from being whipped by the gendarmes by town dwellers, who rushed to help them’.120 A German reported that in Aleppo, ‘a woman gave birth to a child on the road; several steps further on, a dead woman was found with a living child at her breast.’121 ‘Women who bear children along the way suffer the worst fate’, a German civil servant of the Baghdad Railway wrote. They are hardly given enough time to give birth to their child. One woman had twins during the night. The next morning she had to move on on foot, carrying two children on her back. After marching for two hours she collapsed. She had to put the two children down under a bush and was forced by the soldiers to continue marching with her other travelling companions. Another woman gave birth during the march, had to move 114. 1915-08-13-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 115. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 116. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 117. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 2. 118. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 119. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 5. 120. 1915-09-27-DE-014. 121. 1915-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure.

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on immediately and collapsed, dead. Another woman was surrounded by American female missionaries near Aintab when she gave birth. They were only able to gain permission for her to ride on an animal, and she moved on with her child wrapped in rags. These examples were observed just on the stretch from Marash to Aintab.122 Mysterious and yet sinister is a document received in the form of a letter by Professor Becker in Bonn, which had been opened by German censors. It stated in Turkish, ‘On both sides of the road we saw Armenians who had been beaten to death. We counted 9 of them. Most of them were women. One of them had nails hammered through her hands and arms.’123 It is unclear whether this was a crucifixion carried out by fanatics of the Holy War called by the sultan (at the request of the German Emperor), which the Turks often understood as being a war against the Christian Armenians. At any rate, the letter was so explosive for the German authorities that they only permitted it to be delivered with a very strict entry of confidentiality.

Turnstile Aleppo Aleppo, the largest town in the southeast region, developed into a real turnstile for deportations; when a deportee convoy marched through Aleppo, hundreds witnessed the events. ‘Using whips, the gendarmes drove the wretched, emaciated creatures, many of whom had a death-look about them, through the streets of Aleppo to the train station without permitting them to drink a drop of water or to receive a piece of bread here in the town’, Rössler reported. ‘Two German Borromeus sisters witnessed a gendarme pulling an exhausted woman along by her hair.’124 Another eyewitness commented on the treatment of the deportees, A short while ago, the Armenian emigrants coming from the interior were led through the town, and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden to refresh those dying of thirst in the heat with a drop of water. Eyewitnesses confirm that an old woman, who collapsed from exhaustion, was forced to move along by a gendarme who kicked and whipped her. When a woman came out of a neighbouring house with a glass of water, the gendarme knocked the glass out of her hand and attempted to mistreat the old woman again. She dragged herself past another few houses and died there. Despite this, it is strictly forbidden to give the people bread or even water. Two men who attempted to do so in two different places received official letters threatening them with court-martial.125 Several spectators reacted despite this. ‘A German and an Austrian who were just on their way to the vali to see about a Turkish charity bazaar put up a defence against 122. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 4. 123. 1916-01-18-DE-001. 124. 1915-09-27-DE-014. 125. 1915-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure.

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the gendarmes and threatened them with the vali, thereby almost coming to blows with them. Two German officers’ batmen were so outraged that they slapped the gendarmes. A retired Turkish colonel, a Circassian, felt compelled on his part to let the gendarmes feel the whip.’126 Following this, the Armenians were led around the town in future. More and more, Aleppo turned into a huge cemetery for deported Armenians. ‘At first, the dead in Aleppo were taken to the cemetery in coffins provided by the Armenian Church. Hamals (porters) handled that and were given 2 piastres for each body’, the German Baghdad Railway official, W. Spieker, reported. When the hamals were no longer able to manage everything on their own, the women took their dead to the cemetery themselves, carrying the small children in their arms and the larger ones on a sack held by 4 women, one at each corner. I saw dead bodies laid across a donkey’s back and transported thus to the cemetery. One of my acquaintances saw a body bound to a stick and carried away in this manner by 2 men. The skin of one corpse stuck to the hamals’ hands, showing how far the decaying process had already progressed. The dying and the severely ill lay among the dead in the burning sun, about 1,000 people. The entire scene presented such a terrible picture as I have never seen before. Almost all the people had diarrhoea. The dying lay along gutters, which had been dug in the courtyard, their backs toward the gutters so that they could relieve themselves directly into the gutter. Whoever died was moved to one side and another person took his sad place. Often, those considered dead were carried away and still showed signs of life at the grave; they were carried to one side until it was clear that they were dead. A man buried one evening sat on his grave the next morning. Several dead are placed in one grave and he was the last one to be buried; in the dusk only a little dirt had been thrown superficially on top of him.127 Rössler wrote that he paid no attention to such stories until the dragoman who had been with the consulate for many years was buried in the Greek Catholic cemetery and Rössler himself saw the misery; he then reported, Several Armenian bodies were being buried. A row of open graves had been prepared. According to the gravediggers, 5-6 people were to be buried in each one, in which normally one person would have been laid. An Armenian priest – or probably a lay brother – kept a list of the number of buried. The church’s participation consisted solely of his making the sign of the cross from a distance at each funeral. The Gregorian church in Aleppo has succumbed to the force of events. It also seems that the 126. 1915-09-27-DE-014. 127. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5.

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despair over the doom of their people has won a victory over their faith. Two dying women lie near a grave. Around them stand gravediggers and street urchins, waiting for the moment of death to lay them in the grave. When the gravedigger wanted to carry out his duties he noticed that, of the five bodies, three were still alive. A boy whose death did not seem to be imminent was taken away from the cemetery, while the two women were kept there.128

The Deportation Routes beyond Aleppo The deportation routes to the south were split in Aleppo. The Armenians who were driven on to Palestine – since September 1915, mainly from the towns of Marash and Aintab – were far better equipped with means of transport than those Armenians deported along the Euphrates River. ‘At present, the deportation of 12,000 Armenians is being carried out via Damascus to the south: to be precise, to the southern Hauran and the areas east of Kerak on the Hedjaz railway line’, Max Baron von Oppenheim, the German Minister Resident responsible for propaganda in the Orient, reported at the end of August 1915. ‘I myself saw such a deportation pass Damascus late one evening. There were about 500 people of all ages; they had come from Aleppo on carts and all sorts of mounts; no one was on foot and their possessions were loaded on a considerable number of camels.’129 The larger part of the deported Armenians was, however, led directly into the desert, along the Euphrates River to Deir-es-Zor, which was generally the last station before the deportees were finally exterminated. Laura Moehring, a German mission nurse, travelled from Baghdad along this route with three companions during the middle of June 1915. She reported, The next day we met up with an entire Armenian camp during our midday break. In the manner of the Kurds, the poor people had made themselves primitive goat’s hair tents in which they were resting. For the most part, however, they were lying unprotected on the burning sand under the beating sun. You cannot imagine anything more wretched than such a crowd in the desert under the given circumstances. It was clear from their clothes that they had lived in a certain state of wealth, and now misery was written all over their faces. Everyone was of the opinion that none of them would reach Baghdad; they considered the desert to be their grave.130 The German Consul Wilhelm Litten, who encountered deportation convoys travelling from Aleppo to Baghdad while he was travelling in the opposite direction, described his impression of the route from Aleppo to Deir-es-Zor. 128. 1915-09-27-DE-014. 129. 1915-08-29-DE-001. 130. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 2.

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Beyond Der Zor the ‘Trail of Horror’ began. As far as I could see, it was divided into two sections: the first section from Der Zor to Sabha, along which I could gain an impression of what had happened here from the position of the bodies, the state of their decay and their clothing, as well as from the rags of linen, pieces of clothing and parts of household utensils that were strewn in the road: how the stragglers had been wandering alone in the desert, had finally collapsed and, with their faces tortured and distorted with pain, had met their death in despair; and how others were relieved more quickly thanks to the severe night frost and passed away peacefully in their sleep; how some had been unclothed by Arab robbers, whereas the clothing of others had been torn from their bodies in rags by dogs and other vermin; how others had only lost their shoes and outerwear; and others had only a short time ago finally collapsed and died next to their baggage, completely clothed … probably during the last deportation, while the bloody and half-bleached skeletons remind one of previous deportations. The second section was from Sabha to Meskene, where I no longer needed to guess the individual fates, but had to behold the misery with my own eyes: a large convoy of Armenians passed me by just beyond Sabha, driven by the gendarmerie guards to walk faster and faster, and then the whole misery of the stragglers became apparent in live form. I saw by the wayside hungry, thirsting, sick, dying, freshly deceased, mourners beside fresh bodies, and those who could not part quickly enough from their relatives, endangered their own lives because the next station or oasis was three days’ march away for those on foot. Weakened by hunger, disease and pain, they staggered on, fell and lay still on the ground.131 This was also confirmed by a confidant of Beatrice Rohner, a Swiss nurse in German service, who had ridden along this death route. In Meskene I saw more than 600 deported who had lived in Muara till now and who had spent a pitiful sojourn of nine months there. They were now once more persecuted and sent to different places. Exhausted, they moved on slowly with their possessions on their backs. As nourishment, they cook grass, press the water out, and make balls which they dry in the sun. On the first of May, I came to Debsy where I found the above-mentioned six hundred deported, all in despair. They had not even been allowed to rest once or even to gather grass but had been cruelly driven on. On the way I found people dying everywhere, exhausted from hunger and thirst. Every few minutes there was a death stench. The gendarmes beat these stragglers, saying that they pretend to be tired. In Hamam I found 7,000 deported, three thousand of them hungry and practically naked. Here 131. 1916-02-09-DE-001, Enclosure.

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there is no grass, the locusts have consumed everything. I saw the people gathering locusts and eating them raw or cooked. Others were looking for the roots of grasses. They catch street dogs and pounce like savages upon dead animals, whose flesh they eat eagerly without cooking.132 The confidant’s journey led him as far as Deir-es-Zor, before he turned back and reported on his return journey. I met new caravans everywhere. The people have the appearance of lost men. We often see a whole row of ghastly forms, rising suddenly out of a grave and asking for some bread and water. They have all dug their graves and lie waiting death. People of better standing who cannot make up their minds to beg for a piece of bread lie, when exhausted, on their beds, till death comes to release them. No one looks after them. In Sepka a preacher from Aintab told me that parents have often killed their children. The Government’s investigation showed that some people had eaten their children. It has happened that the dying have been fought over in order to secure their flesh for food.133

The Armenian Auschwitz: Deir-es-Zor In the beginning, it appeared as if it would be possible for the last survivors to build up an existence for themselves in Deir-es-Zor, even if this was under extreme conditions. A German sent by Rössler to the town reported, The entrance alone immediately displays the settlers’ main occupation: burying the dead, dull brooding, laborious, sick, half-dead movement. Der Zor itself is not an ugly city, with lovely, wide streets. Previously 14,000 inhabitants, currently 25-30,000. There are no organisational arrangements for the huge, accumulated mass of people. The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (according to the local doctor). Only in this way is it possible that thousands of settlers can still be brought in. No linguistic expression of thought can even come close to describing the reality of this human misery; so indescribable are the occurrences there. And this tragic heap is continually growing. The authorities carefully clean all the corners and streets every day, build new residential areas such as in Sabcha, distribute money among the people as well as bread and flour and yet, with some exceptions, death is preferential to life.134 Consul Wilhelm Litten had still regarded the situation in Deir-es-Zor very optimistically. 132. 1916-06-29-DE-001, Enclosure. 133. 1916-06-29-DE-001, Enclosure. 134. 1915-11-16-DE-002, Enclosure.

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Here were many Armenians – more than 2,000, to be sure. All the houses and khans were full of them. On the streets of the clean little town there are many Armenians of all ages and of both sexes in Turkish farmers’ clothes, but also many in European civilian clothing, obviously belonging to higher classes. Young girls in well-fitting European clothes. Der Zor is a friendly little town with straight streets and pavements. The Armenians were enjoying complete freedom there, could do just as they liked, also in the way of food, which they had to buy themselves. Anyone who had no money could not buy anything.135 But even this almost idyllic state in the midst of the Armenians’ misery quickly changed to a place in hell after it was ordered that only ten percent of the inhabitants were allowed to be Armenian – especially after the humane vali Suad Bey was transferred to Baghdad and replaced by the brutal Circassian Zeki Bey. Araxia Djibedjian, an Armenian woman, reported in a letter to Beatrice Rohner from Deir-es-Zor, ‘The people are slaughtering and eating stray dogs. Recently they even slaughtered a dying man and ate him. I saw how a woman ate the dried blood of a dead animal on the street. Up to now they all ate grass, but that has also dried up in the meantime.’136 Three months later, Rössler reports, ‘On 16 July, news was received from Der Zor that the Armenians had been ordered to continue their march. On the 17th, all clergymen and community leaders were arrested. By 22 July, according to the order, all Armenians were to be on the road again.’137

The Armenian Birkenau: The Khabur River Whoever managed to reach Deir-es-Zor had merely achieved a short postponement: the last Armenians met their fate in the Khabur River, which flows into the Euphrates south of Deir-es-Zor. Vice-Consul Hoffmann quotes a German officer who had travelled the route along the Euphrates for a long time and now noted, Of the largest stations, Sabcha has been completely emptied and Der-es-Sor has only a few hundred craftsmen left who were working for the troops, whereas at the latter place, only 8 weeks ago many thousands (estimated by someone else as being 20,000) were still in the camp. The spiritual leaders such as teachers, lawyers, clergymen are said to have been taken recently from the camps and imprisoned in government buildings (most likely prisons). The others – including those who had actually begun to really settle down in the more northerly stations – had disappeared. The official version was that they had been sent on to Mosul (i.e., a route along which very few of them had any chance of reaching their destina135. 1916-02-09-DE-001, Enclosure. 136. 1916-07-29-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 137. 1916-07-29-DE-001.

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tion alive), but according to the general opinion of the people they had been murdered in the small valleys to the southeast of Der-es-Sor, on the strip between the Euphrates and Khabur rivers. The Armenians are said to have been led away in groups of a few hundred at a time and butchered to death by Circassians who had been especially commissioned to do so. The nomads have left that corner between the Euphrates and the Khabur, supposedly because of the activities described.138 Hoffmann repeats the assessment of a German who visited all of the camps. ‘The 20-30,000 Armenians whom I saw during my last journey in Der-es-Sor have meanwhile been deported, except for some craftsmen and about 1,200 children. As far as I have heard, they have been sent to the area of the Khabur River. There, according to general opinion, they will be massacred.’139 This was what actually happened. While on a routine journey on the river in the autumn of 1916, Hellmuth von Muecke, a German lieutenant-commander, discovered the corpses of Armenians below the point where the Khabur flows into the Euphrates.140 Rössler transmitted a report by Buente, an academically trained engineer, on his observations along the Khabur River to Berlin. Rössler stated, ‘There is no doubt that the large numbers of human skulls and bones to be found there are from the Armenian massacres which took place the previous July and August.’ Buente had reported, ‘In the period from 1 to 6 April, I went up the Khabur on the river Euphrates together with Captain Loeschebrand and Sergeant Langenegger from Buseir and found large amounts of bleached human skulls and skeletons on the left bank; some of the skulls had bullet holes. In some places we found stakes, also with human bones and skulls. The largest accumulations were across from the Kischla Scheddade. The population spoke of 12,000 Armenians who were massacred, shot or drowned just here.’141 Beatrice Rohner, a Swiss nurse in German service, recorded three eyewitness accounts from Armenians who had escaped a mass execution. She had known Manuk Kyrmenikian, an Armenian, previously. His group had travelled along the Khabur as far as the village of Suware (Sauar). The order was given there to depart, ‘but after half of them had moved out’, he remembered, ‘the rest were held back, and so it happened that some families were separated. But who can describe the horror of those left behind when on the next day and the day after that the waters of the Khabur River washed up the corpses of their relatives.’ Then ‘the men were led individually along the narrow pass to the other side of the hill; the women and children under 10 had to go in the opposite direction to the bank of the river where they were left to their fate’.142 138. 1916-08-29-DE-001. 139. 1916-09-05-DE-001 140. 1916-09-20-DE-001. 141. 1917-05-14-DE-001, Enclosure. 142. 1916-11-05-DE-001, Enclosure 2.

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Beatrice Rohner was also personally acquainted with the Armenian witness, Nazaret Muradian. He came from the town of Zeytun, from which the first Armenians had been deported. At this earlier stage, the men were often not murdered, enabling males from Zeytun to travel to Deir-es-Zor. This was why there were still entire families among the deportees led to the Khabur River. After arriving at the place of execution, the head of the municipal government of Deir-es-Zor, Zeki Bey, had sent three gendarmes on horseback with the order to separate the men from their families in order to set up a special regiment of labourers. The men replied that they all wanted to carry out the earthworks together with their wives and children, but they refused to leave each other. Both sides insisted on their demands, and when the gendarmes began to beat the men with their whips the men held them back, beat them soundly and chased them away without their weapons. After a few hours, three new gendarmes arrived with an order from the Mutessarrif that the weapons had to be returned immediately, otherwise everyone would die. The people had already given up all hope and, believing they could still defend themselves somewhat, they sent the messengers back with a negative reply. The night passed. The next morning the people celebrate their last day; they give the poor the rest of their food and slaughter their draught cattle for a general sacrificial meal. The priests hold services and distribute communion. In the afternoon, 200 gendarmes arrive with Arabs and Circassians and surround the camp. They fire into the crowd from all sides. At first, the crowd does not defend itself; many fall. But as they come closer, the Armenians begin to use the weapons they took from the gendarmes. The gendarmes retreat, advance again and repulse the Armenians. They stand close together and allow the hail of bullets to wash over them. The gendarmes leave a path on the side towards the river; many meet their death in the water; some manage to swim across and escape.143 Hosep Sarkissian from Aintab was Beatrice Rohner’s third witness. He had worked in Der Zor for a year as a day labourer until Zeki Bey arrived. In July and August he had over 150,000 deportees brought to the village of Merad on the Khabur River. From there, they were driven further on in groups. Hosep’s caravan, about 1700 people, was driven along the Khabur embankment as far as Shedadieh. ‘The next morning, a band of Circassians on horseback came by and surrounded the caravans’, said the witness. They took everything away from them that they were still carrying with them and tore the clothes off their backs. The Circassians kept the money, jewellery, etc., and distributed the clothes among the Arabs who had appeared in crowds. Then the entire load – men, women, children – were 143. 1916-11-05-DE-001, Enclosure 3.

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driven along naked for three hours until they reached a plateau on the north side of the Karadagh surrounded by hills, where they stopped. There, the Circassians threw themselves a second time at their victims, striking into the crowd with axes, sabres, knives until blood flowed like a river and the entire plateau was covered in mutilated corpses. Joseph watched as the Mutessarrif of Der Zor observed everything from a wagon, loudly shouting, ‘Bravo!’ to encourage the butchers. Soldiers on guard had surrounded the entire plateau. Hosep threw himself under a pile of corpses and heard the leader of the gang call across the field of death, ‘My lambs, the Padishah has granted a general pardon; whoever is still alive may stand up!’ When nothing moved any longer after the entire regiment had ridden across the corpses several times, the Circassians made off. Three days later, 31 people who were still alive crept out of their gruesome hiding places. For another three days they had to keep wandering without bread and water until they reached the Euphrates River. One after the other remained lying down in an exhausted state; only Hosep finally managed to reach Aleppo, disguised as a dervish.144

Enrichments and Economic Consequences Apart from the motives of murder and annihilation for these crimes, a further motive of enrichment runs through almost all of the witnesses’ reports concerning the deportations. It was the ordinary citizens in the towns inhabited by Armenians who obtained all kinds of objects for far less than they were worth, or simply stole them, and who misappropriated the deportees’ goods when these people passed through their village. The accompanying gendarmes and soldiers enriched themselves by searching the deportees for money and goods; they threatened or even murdered them in order to obtain hidden valuables. The culprits were hired robbers or Kurds and Circassians, gendarmes, soldiers and officers, as well as lower- and mid-level government officials who had been called in. The higher their rank, the higher their demands. Top public officials, on their part, made use of laws that had been put into force solely to provide the state – and thus them – with benefits. On the other hand, the economic consequences mainly affected the poor among the Turks and Kurds, as well as the foreign creditors of the Armenian victims, mainly the Germans. The genocide served to bring about the greatest redistribution of wealth in the Ottoman Empire, from the Christians to the Turks. ‘The purpose of the deportation of the Armenians’, the Armenian expert Mordtmann wrote, apart from murdering the men was ‘the confiscation of Armenian property’.145 The Armenians called up for deportation had only a few days, sometimes only hours, to sell their possessions at the market, getting only ridiculously low prices. 144. 1916-11-05-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 145. 1915-12-21-DE-011.

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This provided an entirely new opportunity for the Turks in the town to appropriate a part of the Armenians’ wealth for themselves. ‘This time, the Turks are enriching themselves more than through any previous massacre’, Benno von Dobbeler, a German teacher at a school for the blind, wrote, ‘and they do not need to fight for the goods: they are simply dropping into their laps.’146 ‘A large part of the Armenians’ houses were simply torn down by the population after the deportations had been carried out; first, the windows, doors, stairs were carted away; later, the walls were torn down and all of the interior woodwork torn out and used for firewood’, the wife of the German head of the orphanage in Harput reported. ‘Right up until today, such wood is brought from the villages and sold.’147 Even the local policemen took part in this kind of robbery. Stange, a German lieutenant-colonel, reported, ‘The German volunteer, Schlimme, saw for himself in Trebizond how police officers in front of the police station took pitiful bundles away from the passing deportees’, and, ‘Things that had been left behind or even taken with them were confiscated by the escorting gendarmes and soldiers or stolen from the houses.’148 In Trebizond, Consul Bergfeld reported, the Armenians were forbidden to sell anything, even at a give-away price.149 A ritual then began along the deportation routes that is described in many witnesses’ reports. Using threats, the accompanying Turkish troops attempted to extract the rest of their money from the Armenians, which they had hidden in their clothes or carried on their person, or in their hair. One eyewitness reported to Rössler, ‘The women who arrived in Ras-ul-Ain had to undress completely several times during their journey before the eyes of the accompanying gendarmes. Their clothes were searched for money, even their hair and private parts were examined to see whether they had hidden money there.’150 A witness, who was requested by Rössler to give a report, stated, Approximately 2800 deportees from Gürün were robbed in Airan-Punar, 12 hours northeast of Marash, by 8 robbers, some of whom wore the uniforms of officers and some of soldiers. In Qysyl-Getschid, 1½ hours from Airan-Punar, the 8 robbers joined the gendarmes accompanying the transport and spoke with them for quite a while. In a narrow pass on Engissek-Dagh, the entire transport was completely robbed. An eye witness, an Armenian from Marash who was employed as a miller in a village near Airan-Punar and fled from there during the attack, told me how he saw 2 brothers fighting near his mill over the spoils, whereby one said, ‘I killed 40 women for these 4 loads.’151 146. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 147. 1917-05-23-DE-001, Enclosure. 148. 1915-08-23-DE-013. 149. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 150. 1915-07-27-DE-001, Enclosure. 151. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5

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‘A certain Manuk Shahbazian – a wholesale merchant in Adana whose family had been joined by Armenian friends of theirs, thus resulting in a train set of 33 wagons – was attacked one evening by Turkish robbers’, Consul Büge noted in a report. As it is assumed that those Armenians who leave by wagon are prosperous, these Mohammedan robbers have their eyes especially on such caravans. The Armenians who were attacked paid 1,200 Turkish liras to the robbers and were then permitted to continue their journey. Orman Katibi Levon Effendi’s wagons drove some distance behind the strung-out train set of Shahbazian. Due to the bad road, these wagons had difficulty moving ahead. The robbers, probably the same ones who had pillaged Shahbazian’s train, also appeared here. The number of robbers who took part in this attack is known: it was only two people. After the Mohammedans had at least partially satisfied their need for the blood of the Armenians by stabbing and beating them, they extorted 35 Turkish liras from Levon Effendi. His injuries were fairly significant, such that it was not possible for him to continue his journey, and he returned to Adana where he is still to be found at present.152 ‘On 29 August, the four gendarmes and two policemen accompanying the deportees’ caravan from Talas began their act of robbery along the way at an uninhabited place and in the darkness of the evening’, according to a further report by Büge. ‘They used loaded guns and beat the deported Armenians with the butts of their rifles and lashed them in order to intimidate them and press them for their money. One of those mistreated, Arabadshi Alexan, bled to death not far from Nigde (Konia). The entire amount paid to the gendarmes and the policemen comes to about 450 Turkish liras.’153 ‘On the evening of 22 August, our caravan consisting of 700 people arrived in Tépé Han (Vilayet Angora), where the men were first interned in a khan’, said another witness. ‘Then the gendarmes raided all of them, group by group, took away their cash and handed them over to the murderous gangs. The gendarmes took two people to their mother and promised her that they would be freed for ransom. Although they received fifteen Turkish liras, they shot them in front of their mother. All of the gendarmes who accompanied the deportees’ convoy took away all the cash bit by bit and gave all the valuables to the irregulars and rapacious gangs.’154 Food – even spoilt food – almost always had to be bought, as well as water, even if it was only from the muddy puddles of ponds. In the beginning, those accompanying the convoys enticed their female Armenian hostages to save their honour by paying for it; later, they threatened to murder their relatives. And even after the Armenian deportees had been murdered, the search for hidden money still went on. For ex152. 1915-10-01-DE-006; Enclosure 4. 153. 1915-10-01-DE-005; Enclosure 5. 154. 1915-10-01-DE-006; Enclosure 7.

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ample, many of the mutilations of female genitals or bodies that had been cut open were probably carried out while searching for money. Finally, some of those looking for gold burned the corpses of their victims in order to retrieve coins hidden in the body from the ashes. It was by no means just the lower-level ranks who enriched themselves. Consul Rössler received a report from an Armenian on how such actions were carried out. A group of about 1,500 deportees from Harput had arrived in a Kurdish village. The accompanying officer said to them there, ‘Any woman carrying gold or jewellery with her must give it to me immediately. Whoever keeps more than 40 piastres will be shot. The money and jewellery which you give to me now will be returned to you in Diyarbekir.’ After he had promised them that, the women gave him the largest part of their money and their jewellery. On the 2nd evening the same officer searched the clothes and bodies of the women and girls; he even took off their trousers and searched for money with his hands and his eyes. Having arrived in Diyarbekir, nothing at all was returned to them. As they were leaving Diyarbekir, the officer who had accompanied them there came with some gendarmes and picked out several pretty young girls and boys and left the rest with 6-7 gendarmes while he himself went off with his prey. On the way to Mardin, the gendarmes took the deportees’ few possessions, their bit of bread and the few pieces of jewellery they still had. Since the gendarmes accompanying them now knew that the deportees had no more money on them, they tormented them on the 4-day journey from Mardin to Ras-el-Ain by not giving them any drinking water. They sold many young girls and boys to Kurds and others or gave them away, so that of the 1,500 people who had been deported from Harput only 500 reached Ras el Ain.155 The German Baghdad Railway official W. Spieker reported on the attack of a deportee convoy that was carried out ‘with the consent of the kaymakam of Albistan’. The Armenians paid him 200 Turkish pounds for his promise of a safe escort; the administrative head of Gürün had even been paid 1,020 Turkish pounds. ‘I saw an Armenian teacher who, together with others, had given this amount to the Kaymakam in the club room in Gürün.’156 Upon the intervention of the German Baghdad Railway official Bastendorff, two Armenian employees were able to return to their workplace after it was previously ordered that they be deported. ‘But prior to this, they had been plundered. I later learned from older policemen that the Kaymakam had taken his share of the loot.’157 ‘In Ulu-Kishla, the gendarmes together with their superior act like an organised gang’, Consul Büge reported. ‘Each deportation procession must pay its tribute. The 155. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 4. 156. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5. 157. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 2.

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deportees from Nigde were hardly able to save themselves by paying 200 Turkish liras, and those from Ismid had to sacrifice 7 of their notables, among them Nerses, the vicar because they refused.’158 Paul Kern, a German engineer, reported that the Turkish authorities charge all Armenians who wish to enter their town a special tax. Road toll had to be paid just for crossing a small, connecting bridge between two camps of deportees.159 Shortly before mass executions were carried out on the Khabur River, the murderers enriched themselves in accordance with strict procedures, which Hosep Sarkissian, the sole survivor of his group, described thus: ‘The Circassians kept the money, jewellery, etc., and distributed the clothes among the Arabs who had appeared in crowds.’160 Manuk Kyrmenikian, an Armenian, reported on the tricks carried out by the mudir from the village of Suvara on the Khabur River, where the group had been sent. The mudir, a Circassian, had the most respected men brought to him and ordered them to select those families who could survive off their own means until the coming summer without the help of the state. About 400 were reported as fulfilling these conditions and they received orders to set up their tents close to the town, which they did immediately. Together with my friends, I myself was among the 400 families who had settled in Suvara and we made plans to build ourselves huts there for the winter. Then the mudir had the leading men brought to him and demanded two thousand pounds as a reward for the goodness he had shown them. The collection then carried out brought 840 pounds; these were given to the mudir, who rode with the money to Der Zor. Three days later he brought it back and returned it to those who had given it to him. The following day he demanded 10,000 pounds! A great deal of pleading and tears made him agree to 2,000. Everyone gave what they had and sold their last carpets, tents, beds, jewellery, etc. By the evening they had collected 2,000. The Mudir graciously accepted the money and ordered the leading men to him on the next day in order to give them receipts for the lovely sum they had given to the ‘Red Crescent’, so he said. But the men were kept prisoner there until the entire camp departed, the order for which was given the very next morning. The people took only the barest necessities with them; many were reconciled with one another before parting; they knew they were now going to die.161 It was the Turkish rulers who made the real killing with the goods confiscated from the Armenians. ‘The Turkish authorities use this good opportunity to increase 158. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 10. 159. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 1. 160. 1916-11-05-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 161. 1916-11-05-DE-001, Enclosure 2.

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their wealth as much as possible’, Büge, the German Consul in Adana, wrote. ‘On the other hand, strangers are severely hurt because transfers, etc., of Armenian property are only permitted to Ottoman people or, to be more specific, to Mohammedans.’162 These transfers were regulated in a complicated and extensive Loi provisoire (provisional law), a liquidation law commented on derisively by the director of the German Bank: It could have been expressed much more simply and clearly in two paragraphs, namely: Paragraph 1. Tous les biens des Arméniens sont confisqués. [‘All of the Armenians’ goods have been confiscated.’] Paragraph 2. Le Gouvernement encaissera les créances des exilés et il remboursera (ou ne remboursera pas) leurs dettes. [‘The government will collect the exiles’ claims and will reimburse (or not reimburse) their debts.’]163 This was exactly how things worked from a practical point of view. Technically speaking, the Armenians’ property was to be deposited. According to Consul Bergfeld, ‘Their shops and storerooms were to be sealed, all objects from their homes brought to certain places and placed under the supervision of the government. Money was to be brought to the post office to be forwarded gradually at a later interval.’164 In actual fact, what happened was ‘that the authorities helped themselves at will to the possessions that had been left behind (houses, shops, goods, households)’, Stange reported.165 No one at the ministries in Constantinople planned to return confiscated goods. Ambassador Wolff-Metternich made a request to the Ministry of the Interior that a certain group of Armenians be allowed to return. The person he spoke with explained to him, ‘The return of the individuals in question to their home town is inadmissible because they would no longer find any of their property there, since, in the meantime, the Liquidation Commission has taken possession of it.’166 ‘Today, only a few Armenians are left who have a larger fortune because the Turks confiscated the Armenians’ entire fortune’, said E. Neuner, who accompanied Maximilian Pfeiffer, the German Member of Parliament for the Centre Party, on a trip through Turkey. ‘They did so in a manner that has nothing in common with the format of a more or less civilised nation.’167 ‘According to the new law pertaining to abandoned possessions, the goods still withheld by the Armenians will no doubt be used by bad Turkish elements’, Count Spee, the German Consul General in Smyrna, 162. 1915-09-06-DE-002. 163. 1915-10-07-DE-002. 164. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 165. 1915-08-23-DE-013. 166. 1915-12-27-DE-002. 167. 1918-02-22-DE-002, Enclosure.

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wrote in a telegram, ‘as an opportunity to take possession of these goods and, at the same time, of the considerable fortunes of the Armenians’.168 Who the count was referring to by ‘bad Turkish elements’ was named by Consul Bergfeld: the members of the Young Turk Committee. ‘With few exceptions, they enrich themselves in the most shameless manner when Armenian houses are cleared out.’ Bergfeld was afraid ‘that the members of the Committee were pleased with such an easy way of enriching themselves’.169 They would hardly be bothered by the authorities, for ‘in view of the dependency of most administrative authorities on the Committee they will most certainly not have been wrong in their calculations’.170 According to a German informant for the Baghdad Railway, ‘A higher-ranking officer made a remark to the effect that such an opportunity to get rich would never pass by again and that anyone who did not take advantage of this moment would be a fool.’171 A German reported that the director of the Ottoman Bank in Eskishehir, a man of Armenian heritage but an Austrian protégé, had kept securities and jewellery for one of his Armenian relatives who had been deported in a strongbox. When such actions were forbidden, the Armenian had German friends register the contents of the strongbox and then took it together with the list of contents to the president of the local government. Two days later, he was ordered before the government, and the mutessarif ‘reproached him fiercely for daring to make such a fool of the Turkish authority. He [the mutessarif ] had opened the strongbox and found only old rubbish and two broken revolvers.’ When the Armenian explained that he had had German witnesses make up an exact list of the contents, ‘the Mutessariff yelled at him, asking how he could dare accuse a Turkish authority of lying, and threw him out. A few days later he was arrested.’172 Consul Büge calls the case of Mateos Nalbandian, the member of parliament from Kosan, the most striking example of bribery and acts of enrichment. He saw himself forced to offer everything to free himself in some way from the agonies and dangers of deportation, and saved his life in the following manner: he signed a two-year contract with the brother of the local Vali, Hamdi Bey, reaching an agreement with him that the Vali’s brother would have the right to half of this year’s harvest in exchange for Nalbandian’s enjoying complete freedom. It is said that, roughly, Nalbandian has 15,000 dönum [area measurement] at his disposal and that he is the only large-scale Armenian landowner in Kosan, so it can be assumed that the Vali’s brother has assured himself of at least 1,500-2,000 Turkish liras worth of pure 168. 1916-11-13-DE-001. 169. 1915-08-27-DE-013. 170. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 171. 1915-11-02-DE-001. 172. 1918-02-22-DE-002, Enclosure.

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profit for this year. The Vali’s brother’s share also has the advantage that cheap, yes, even unpaid workers from the ranks of the workers’ corps will be available for the harvest and the work in the autumn.173 Naturally, the rich Armenians attempted to buy themselves free with their money, and in some cases they were successful. ‘All known Armenian trading companies, the prosperous craftsmen and traders from the town of Adana, are being exploited by Djemal Bey, the Chief of Police, and Hakki Bey, the Vali’, Consul Büge reported. Negotiations had been carried out by the Armenian Hagop Ohanian. ‘But from the general situation and taking into consideration that the rich Armenians remained behind, it can be concluded that Ohanian succeeded in squeezing out several thousand pounds for the Chief of Police and the Vali.’174 As a means of enrichment, Consul Büge named ‘the new system for auctioning municipal taxes. In accordance with the latest regulation by the Town Council, whose Chairman is Djemal Bey, the Chief of Police, the deportation measures are not to apply to those Armenians who buy municipal taxes and take over the administration of taxes. Hoping to free themselves in this manner, the rich and well-to-do Armenians had to collectively pay in about 7,000 Turkish liras for municipal taxes. In the past year, the Town Council received barely one-quarter of the above-mentioned sum for these taxes.’175 However, not all of the richer Armenians managed to buy themselves off. Since most Armenians had to leave the town of Adana, ‘the sum of 1,800 Turkish liras, paid as a deposit and making up the last of their savings and the funds for travelling of those doomed to deportation, was for the most part lost’, according to Büge. Others were only able to use their money to obtain several weeks’ reprieve from the date of deportation.176 Vice-Consul Hoffmann assumed that the Armenians in Aleppo had obtained further exemption from deportation up to a certain point in time. ‘The Armenian population of Aleppo seem to owe the fact that they are still here mainly to the resistance of those local circles who would suffer great financial losses if they disappeared.’177 Turkish politicians or the state not only enriched themselves by stealing the Armenians’ estates; they also fleeced the deportees’ business partners. Vice-Consul Hoffmann speaks of ‘heavy losses which the creditors of the deportees are suffering and for which no one who is familiar with the circumstances is seriously expecting any compensation from that famous liquidation law’.178 ‘The property of those who were resettled is only transferred to Turkish citizens or, more specifically, to Mohammedans’, Wolff-Metternich wrote. 173. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 10. 174. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 10. 175. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 10. 176. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 10. 177. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 178. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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It is impossible for non-Turkish creditors to acquire the property of their debtors. The price set by the government for these properties is so disproportionately low that it does not nearly cover the former owners’ debts. As a consequence of the illegal behaviour of the Turkish authorities as described above, those affected by these resettlements lost their lives in most cases, and their property in all [cases], so that it is impossible for German creditors to satisfy their demands out of their debtors’ assets.179 The Mersin branch of the German Orient Bank AG (a public, limited company) spoke of a ‘most severe blow to economic life’ by the ‘more-than-primitive Turkish law concerning the administration and liquidation of the deportees’ movable and immovable goods’, a blow which was all the more severe because ‘no concession whatsoever’ was noticeable ‘on the part of the authorities’. ‘The attitude of the authorities in general can basically be regarded as opposing, yes, and even hostile.’180 WolffMetternich established the political context: It is true that with regard to a solution for the Armenian question, the Turkish government has shown not the least consideration for either its own economic interests, or the interests of foreign banks, railway companies and other tradesmen. Therefore, it is hardly possible to speak of a particular animosity towards the German Orient Bank; nor, however, can one speak of any particular concessions. Such concessions – which might be expected from a German point of view – would be regarded as preferential treatment of foreign interests and as a sign of foreign influence, and – therefore, taking into consideration the xenophobic atmosphere to be found in many circles – they are avoided as far as possible.181 Metternich analysed in a written, and signed, but withheld statement (Cessat) that, from a legal point of view, only those claims could be implemented against Turkey that had to do with claims Germany possibly held against Turkey, in which attacks and excesses committed by Turkish organs could be proven. However, according to German findings, this was often the case. Metternich made a detailed list of the ‘excesses against the property of those who have been resettled’. (1) Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers were involved in burning down the houses of those who were resettled. (2) The Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers played a prominent role in pillaging the houses of those who were resettled and took part in pillaging the convoys of those who were to be resettled. The gendarmes accompanying these convoys as well as other public officials often extorted money from those who were to be resettled. (3) The Turkish military and administrative officials spared certain rich 179. 1916-01-31-DE-003. 180. 1915-12-14-DE-001, Enclosure. 181. 1915-12-14-DE-001, Enclosure.

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Armenians in return for large bribes. In this respect, for example, the Vali of Adana, Hakki Bey, and the Chief of Police in Adana, Djemal Bey, are heavily incriminated. (4) The property of those who were resettled is only transferred to Turkish citizens or, more specifically, to Mohammedans. It is impossible for non-Turkish creditors to acquire their debtors’ property. The price set by the government for these properties is so disproportionately low that it does not nearly cover the former owners’ debts.182 Metternich’s conclusions, ‘As a consequence of the illegal behaviour of the Turkish authorities as described above, those affected by these resettlements lost their lives in most cases and their property in all, so that it is impossible for German creditors to satisfy their demands out of their debtors’ assets!’183 Naturally, an experienced ambassador such as Wolff-Metternich was also well aware of the drawbacks to German claims on Turkey. He wrote to the Imperial Chancellor, ‘However, we should be prepared that our enemies will accuse us, to whom joint responsibility is ascribed for the atrocities committed against the Armenians, of also seizing part of the spoils while no state funds are available to alleviate the poverty among the Armenians themselves.’184

The Pretexts for the Genocide Only Turkish sources will be able to elucidate what caused the Young Turks to exterminate the Armenians in their empire, provided they are ever shown to the rest of the world. In the case of the simple Turkish people, it was usually just a confused mixture of hate for the Armenians and fear of them. In the case of the politicians, this fear was joined by a fear of the Russian colossus, of Russia’s influence on the Armenians, of the close connection between Turkish Armenians and their brothers in the Caucasus. Conspiracy theories in the heads of the Turks are well proven in the German documents simply because they also spurred German fantasy.

Hatred of the Armenians For a long period of time, the Armenians had not been very well liked by the Turks, often for religious reasons, sometimes out of social jealousy, and probably also because of their efficiency. After the beginning of the war, this attitude quickly reverted to hatred. ‘The old hatred is rising again within the Turkish population’, Paul Schwarz, the German Consul in Erzerum, reported to Constantinople already at the end of 1914.185 182. 1916-01-31-DE-003. 183. 1916-01-31-DE-003. 184. 1916-04-03-DE-002. 185. 1914-12-30-DE-001, Enclosure.

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However, what shocked German and foreign observers most was the extreme hatred with which the tormentors proceeded against the Armenian deportees. Stange reports that the deportation of the Armenians from Erzerum was a prime example of the ruthless, inhumane and unlawful arbitrariness, the bestial brutality of all the Turks involved, vis-à-vis this category of people whom they hated deeply and regarded as being fair game and outlaws. There are a great number of reliable examples attesting to these facts. The government did nothing at all to help the exiles in any way, and since the police knew the mindset of their superiors, they therefore did everything in their power to augment the agony of the Armenians.186 Laura Moehring, a German nurse, reported on information she was given by military police who told her ‘that many of the men who had been taken away had been killed, and that this was the best thing for the Turks. Since the massacres [of the nineteenth century], the Armenians had hated the Turks so much that the latter had always lived in fear.’187 Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg and Eva Elvers, two other nurses, reported, The Hodja – the Mohammedan clergyman at our hospital – wanted to make it clear to us that the Turks were actually proceeding with great leniency; the Armenians had tortured the Turks because their religion was a less worthy one and they themselves were ignorant, but the enlightened Muslims were not permitted to retaliate; instead, they had to content themselves with simply killing their victims. He finished with the proverb, ‘This matter comes from God; if he does not have pity, why should you?’ The two nurses asked the gendarme who told them of these mass murders. ‘If you want to murder them, why don’t you do so in their villages? Why cause them first to suffer such misery?’ He replied, ‘This is the right way; they must suffer.’188 Bastendorff, a German engineer, wrote, In November, the women’s groups arrived from Urfa. One woman who recognised me again begged me to rescue her children. The supervisor pushed her back and shouted to her, ‘No one is going to be rescued here; you’ve got to walk until you drop dead. And wherever you may happen to end up, the dogs will eat you.’ Soldiers from Hama, who were accompanying this group, demanded that the supervisor arrange for some bread as the women had already been on the move for two days. His answer was merely, ‘They can drop dead; they’re not getting anything to eat.’189 186. 1915-08-23-DE-013. 187. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 188. 1915-08-21-DE-001. 189. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 2.

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An Armenian who was questioned by Rössler reported, ‘Two hours this side of Aintab, an Armenian, about 25 years old, was murdered in a khan situated on the Aintab-Kilis road. The body was propped up in the door of the khan, a cigarette in its mouth, a cigarette behind its ear and its moustache smeared with dung. The following was called out to those passing by, ‘Look at how this ‘hashash’ (ruffian) [deserter or refugee] can still smoke.’’190 ‘The population often call out to the coachmen’, one German stated, ‘and asked how many loads they had transported on that day; the higher the number, the more delighted they are’.191 The German observer von Tyszka reported that there were very few Turks ‘with whom one can speak openly about the Armenian question; anger immediately breaks out, even in people who are otherwise well educated and sophisticated, which lumps everything together and always ends with the same refrain, ‘All Armenians should be exterminated; they are traitors!’’192 This hatred was not only deeply embedded in the people, even in the educated ones, but it was probably the greatest among those who decided on the fate of the Armenians. Ambassador Wolff-Metternich spoke of ‘the fanatical hatred, especially among the leading public figures, against the Armenians in general and, in particular, against the leaders of the Armenian revolutionary parties’.193 At the beginning of 1918, the German correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Paul Weitz, reported from Gümüshane, ‘We stayed for a few hours in what was once a very bustling town. Sitting together with Kurdish notables in a coffee house, the most dreadful details of the Armenian massacres were told with rare frankness. The fact was mentioned again and again that there was not a single Armenian left in the area in question, something which we noticed more than once while continuing our journey.’ Weitz reported from Erzincan, The gendarmes told us how, in 1915, they drove the Armenian population, headed by the Bishop of Erzincan, to the Euphrates and drowned them. Kurds kept watch along both banks, shooting anyone who dared to save themselves. We were shown the places where the victims of this atrocious inhumanity were driven, almost naked in the wintry cold, by their tormentors into the floods. We also visited the huge barracks in the surrounding area, in which 1,500 Armenians were literally slaughtered, all at the same time. One of the gendarmes set the number of people he himself had killed at 50, another at 27. These people boasted of this as if it were a glorious deed, without our asking about it.194 190. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5. 191. 1915-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure. 192. 1915-09-05-DE-001. 193. 1916-04-02-DE-001. 194. 1918-06-20-DE-001.

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Fear of a Rebellion by the Turkish Armenians ‘According to information from a fairly trustworthy Armenian source, Russia has spent no less than 2½ million roubles on propaganda in East Anatolia alone’, Germany’s ambassador in Constantinople, Hans Baron von Wangenheim, wrote to his Imperial Chancellor in February 1913. ‘The entire Armenian population there is supposedly fitted out with modern weapons and prepared to launch an attack against the Turks at any time at a sign from Russia.’ Wangenheim, one of the most experienced ambassadors in the Ottoman capital, even recognised ‘a threatening danger to the empire’s property here’.195 Wangenheim referred to a report given at the International Congress of Socialists in Copenhagen in 1910 by the most important Armenian party, the Dashnaktsutiun, in which they ‘described their work in the provinces of Bitlis and Van’. There, quoted Wangenheim from the party’s report, ‘all of the rural population that was capable of using arms and organised in political groups followed our flag until 1908. This work was mainly political and revolutionary. It continues today, but already in a more open manner. Our party has its bands of fedayees in all of the centres of Turkish Armenia; their purpose is to watch and ensure that reaction does not raise its head again.’ Another passage in the report stated that in 1908, according to its own figures, the party had ‘collected more than 1,000 rifles in Van, a million bullets and masses of explosives’.196 It was no doubt inadmissible to make inferences regarding the entire Armenian population based on the provinces of Bitlis and Van, but it was the pro-Armenian Johannes Lepsius, of all people, who stirred up fear even among the Germans in order to put more pressure on the questions concerning the reforms. It should be considered, he wrote, ‘that the mass of Armenian people has already been won over by Russia, and that only a complete success in the matter of reform will make it possible to put up resistance against public opinion’. In addition, Lepsius wrote to the German Foreign Office that ‘after decades of disappointment, the mood among the Armenian people was overwrought’. According to Lepsius, the Dashnaktsutiun had ‘been building a political organisation for the past 24 years which included the largest part of the Armenian people in Turkey, Russia and foreign countries. At present, leadership of the Armenian people lies in the hands of this party, with which both the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople and the Catholicos in Etchmiadzin concur in all political questions.’ Lepsius continued, ‘Their organisation begins in the villages of all the areas in which Armenians reside in Russia, Turkey and Persia. The Dashnaktsutiun is represented in about ⅔ of all Armenian towns.’ Apart from these political party organisations there was also a ‘military organisation’, which ‘had the task of preparing (1) the defence of the

195. 1913-02-24-DE-001. 196. 1915-04-30-DE-001.

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population (should the Mohammedan elements start a massacre), and (2) to arm all the people should war break out’.197 Later, it was proven that this nebulous military organisation of all Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was more a matter of propaganda than reality, but despite this the idea was also embedded in some German heads – particularly in those of the German military. In the diplomatic files published here, the real or supposed fear of the Turks of an Armenian conspiracy is reflected almost exclusively in the accounts of Turkish statements. However, those German consuls on the spot who were informed almost never adopted the thesis of a conspiracy. Nevertheless, most German ambassadors and almost all politicians in Berlin repeated it persistently. After the bombardment of Trebizond by the Russian fleet in the late autumn of 1914, German Consul Bergfeld reported ‘that the Russians had hoped that the Armenian and Greek population would rebel, in which case they had planned to land’.198 Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim reported to Berlin at the end of 1914, ‘It is a matter of fact that Turkish officers do not see eye to eye with the Armenians and reproach them for being friendly with Russia and helping Russian troops get into Turkish territory.’199 In February 1915, Wangenheim passed on the next Turkish suspicion: ‘I constantly come up against an opinion among the Turks, which until now has not been refuted by the behaviour of the Armenians, that if Turkey is defeated, the Armenian population would definitely join the winner’s side.’200 A few months later, Wangenheim reported that the Armenians ‘are being accused of sympathising with the Empire’s enemies, of maintaining highly treasonable relations with them and openly revolting against the authorities of the country in individual places’.201 Furthermore, according to Wangenheim, ‘there are rumours that the Russian section of the Dashnaktsutiun Party is demanding the destruction of the Muslim population in those areas which are to be relinquished by Turkey, in case the war ends unfavourably for that country.’202 All the reports about supposed conspiracies came from Turkish sources, even if they were repeated by Germans in some cases. Scheubner-Richter reported from Erzerum that the vali believed ‘he had proof of a conspiracy among part of the local Armenians’.203 Based on Turkish information, Wangenheim also reported, ‘There are increasingly more signs that this movement is more widespread than was presumed up to now and that it is being encouraged from abroad with the help of the Armenian revolution committee. It cannot be denied that the Armenian movement has taken on a worrying character over the past few weeks, which has given the government cause to introduce severe repressive measures.’204 197. 1913-11-15-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 198. 1914-11-18-DE-001. 199. 1914-12-30-DE-001, Enclosure. 200. 1915-02-02-DE-001. 201. 1915-04-15-DE-002. 202. 1915-04-15-DE-002. 203. 1915-05-04-DE-011. 204. 1915-05-08-DE-001.

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After a discussion with Talaat, the Ottoman Minister of the Interior, Armenian expert Mordtmann noted that the Minister was of the opinion that ‘a plan existed to cause a rebellion when the Russians advanced and to attack the Turks from the rear’.205 In his next report, Wangenheim referred to Turkish minister Enver Pasha, who, ‘in order to curb Armenian espionage and to prevent new Armenian mass uprisings, intends to resettle in Mesopotamia all those families from the recently insurgent Armenian centres who are considered to be not quite unobjectionable by putting the state of war (or emergency) forward as a pretext. He urgently requests us not to hinder him in doing so.’206 Kuckhoff, the elected German Consul in Samsun – who, as head of the local tobacco control company had little experience with the rules of diplomacy – repeated Turkish assertions as his own opinion without adding any of his own observations in his area of competence. It is a fact that a great Armenian conspiracy was excellently organised in the whole of Anatolia and was in constant contact with foreign countries. In all towns the conspirators were well equipped with weapons, ammunition and bombs. Many of these were discovered by the authorities, but most of them must still be hidden. The government, therefore, has every reason to put an end to this dangerous revolutionary activity. Wangenheim then softens the report of his impertinent consul: ‘On the one hand, the report confirms again that an Armenian conspiracy did in fact exist, but that the rigorous measures of the Turkish government cannot be regarded as justified.’207 Just how far the fantasies of Turkish informers went – as well as some Germans’ willingness to take them seriously and even become accomplices – is demonstrated by the very influential German naval attaché Hans Humann, who reported after a discussion with his personal friend, Enver, ‘Enver is also aware of a conspiracy, whereby about 30,000 Armenians in the area around Adabazar-Ismid wanted to support a Russian landing at Sakaria.’208 Another notorious conspiracy theorist also chimed in, Resident Minister Max Baron von Oppenheim: ‘Russian weapons and bombs were supposedly found in the cellars of notables and even bishops (Mardin)’, the head of the Information Service for the Orient reported, whose reports were taken into careful account in Berlin, ‘as well as pieces of uniforms with which to make the Armenians recognisable as fighters for freedom and Russia’.209 Only once did a German officer (Lieutenant Colonel Stange) report from the interior on cases of espionage which he himself, however, had not personally experienced: The removal of the Armenians from the war zone around Erzerum was legally permissible and is being justified as a military necessity. Indeed, 205. 1915-05-29-DE-011. 206. 1915-05-31-DE-001. 207. 1915-07-16-DE-003, Enclosure. 208. 1915-08-06-DE-012. 209. 1915-08-29-DE-001.

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the Armenians in various areas had proven to be unreliable. With Russian support, there had been revolts and acts of violence against the Muslim population (e.g., by Lake Van, in Bitlis, in Mush). Occasionally, telegraph wires had been cut and there were not just a few cases of espionage.210 Ambassador Paul Count Wolff-Metternich reported for the first time at the end of 1915 that the Turkish government definitely planned to ‘punish’ all Armenians (i.e., to deport and annihilate them), and not just the real or supposed guilty parties. He also names his source, the Grand Vizier, who told him, ‘Entire districts had been organised for an uprising and supplied with weapons. It was not about the uprising of individuals, but of entire areas, which is the reason why not just individuals could be singled out for punishment.’211 Statements made by Minister of the Interior Talaat, which Wolff-Metternich repeats, have the same tenor: ‘In the districts along the Russian border and near Aleppo, mass displacements had been necessary on the grounds of military security. A Russian-engineered, large-scale conspiracy among the Gregorian Armenians in the border areas and near Aleppo has been discovered. Attacks on bridges and railways had been planned.’212 Finally, it was again one of the Young Turk leaders of the state, Djemal Pasha, who admitted in a conversation with representatives of German Christians in Berlin, ‘The Turkish government did not take action against the Armenians because they were Christians, but because they were Armenians and the continuance of the state was endangered.’213

Weapons, Bombs and Evidence Many Turks may actually have believed that the Armenians were a real danger to their empire. This was expressed in an almost fanatical hunt for weapons, bombs and evidence of a rebellion. Whether the supposed evidence for an Armenian rebellion later published had been fabricated from the very beginning, or was only made up subsequently is not clear from the German files. On the other hand, the lack of evidence on the part of the Turkish conspiracy theorists is easy to follow. It was only after a law was passed in 1909 that Jews and Christians – and thus Armenians – were allowed to serve in the army and for the first time officially permitted to carry arms – which, until then, only Muslims had been allowed to do. Not only that: because the Young Turks had originally been politically and also organisationally supported by the Armenian parties, particularly the Dashnaktsutiun, they even encouraged the Armenians to obtain weapons for themselves. The search for weapons and bombs, as well as incriminating documents and the accompanying interrogations were carried out with such brutality that they could hardly be dismissed as police investigations; instead, this was clearly already the first 210. 1915-08-23-DE-013. 211. 1915-12-09-DE-001. 212. 1915-12-18-DE-001. 213. 1917-09-06-DE-001, Enclosure.

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phase of the genocide itself. The objective was obviously to physically annihilate the male Armenian leaders in each village or to turn them into human wrecks, thus intimidating the entire Armenian population. Here, again, German diplomats passed on real or supposed reports of success from the Turks. ‘Bombs and decoding manuals were supposedly found in Kayseri during house-to-house searches’, Scheubner-Richter wrote. ‘These movements are put down to provocative agitation by enemy powers.’214 Also based only on Turkish sources, Wangenheim reports, ‘Larger stocks of bombs were discovered in Diyarbekir and Kayseri.’215 And two days later, ‘The Minister of the Interior recently quoted the number of bombs found in Kayseri as being 400; also some had been found in Diyarbekir and sent to Van to be used there by the rebels.’216 At the end of May, Wangenheim reports to Berlin, ‘The Minister of the Interior states that Armenians in Erzerum were heavily incriminated by discoveries of bombs and documents, and that they had planned to start a revolt behind the Turkish troops when the Russians advanced.’217 This statement of weapons finds in Erzerum was obviously wrong. ‘Bombs and similar objects were not discovered in Erzerum and the surrounding area, and this can also be confirmed by the Vali.’218 German observers were able to list only a small number of non-Turkish sources. ‘On the part of the Armenians, they only admit to about 300 to 400 Mausers being found among the Armenians in Adabazar’, Tyszka reported, ‘but they deny any kind of revolutionary movement in connection with the present war as Adabazar is situated even further from the theatre of war than Angora. The existence of weapons is explained as a constantly necessary protection against an oppressive, non-Armenian population which tends towards attacks’.219 One of the few German witnesses of these searches for weapons was Frieda Wolf Hunecke, a missionary employed until 28 April 1915 at the former British mission station in Everek near Kayseri, before she was deported by the local authority because she herself hid weapons owned by Armenians. After a conversation with the Armenian Patriarch, Mordtmann made a note concerning the discovery of bombs in Everek, near Kayseri: there was an explosion in the house of an Armenian who had immigrated from the United States. The neighbours who came hurrying in found the man, who had been severely wounded by an exploding grenade. He was able to indicate that there were three other, similar bombs in the house which they then hid at his orders. The police got wind of the matter; besides these three bombs they found 24 other, not yet loaded bombs under 214. 1915-03-03-DE-011. 215. 1915-05-06-DE-002. 216. 1915-05-08-DE-001. 217. 1915-05-30-DE-011. 218. 1915-06-02-DE-014. 219. 1915-09-05-DE-001.

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the tiled roof of the Armenian church; furthermore, some 62 rifles in Everek and the surrounding area.220 This was confirmed by the German missionary. After the experiences of 1896, in which the people were first disarmed and then massacred, it was a matter of course that the existence of other bombs, etc., would be denied. But right during the first week, a man was caught in the street in the process of burying 24 bombs, which seemingly had been made at the time of Abdul Hamid, but were filled in part more recently and in part were completely empty. Intensive house searches led to the finding of 3 bombs each in 2 other houses.221 Furthermore, a bomb exploded while another Armenian was making it; it tore off his hand. ‘Now it was, of course, the government’s duty to investigate the matter’, said Wulf Hunecke, ‘and it became clear in time that this had been the fourth bomb he had made. But about 70 further bombs were also found in Everek from the time of Abdul Hamid and perhaps 60-100 Mausers and revolvers. In Everek, they claimed to have found 5000 Mausers and revolvers; the young man supposedly made 95 bombs’. Finally, the government’s representative showed her a photograph which depicted about 80 rifles from Everek and about 200 from Kayseri. How such photographs were made was explained by the German missionary nurse in Mamuret-ul-Aziz, Klara Pfeifer. ‘Entire villages were surrounded by soldiers; many of the male villagers were tied up and beaten in the most terrible way because the authorities did not believe that all the weapons had been turned over’, she reported. ‘Many of them did then appear after such beatings; some bombs were also handed over. However, in those places where everything had been turned over the people were usually not left in peace. It was said that some of the Armenians who had no more weapons bought some so that their tormentors let them go after they handed these in.’222 ‘About this time it was rumoured that bombs and guns had been found in the possession of certain persons who were thought to be members of Armenian revolutionary societies conspiring against the Turkish Government’, the American Consul Davis reported from the same town. Looking at the matter in the light of subsequent events and comparing it with what happened in all other parts of Turkey at the same time, I think it is probable that in many cases, the bombs, which were found in the backyards of the persons accused, were actually buried there by the police so as to manufacture evidence against the Armenians. This was followed by systematic searches for arms and weapons in Harput and 220. 1915-04-26-DE-014. 221. 1915-07-13-DE-001, Enclosure. 222. 1916-05-10-DE-002, Enclosure.

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Mamuret-ul-Aziz and in all the towns and villages of that region. Before a town or village was searched it was surrounded by gendarmes in order to prevent anyone from leaving. Then other gendarmes visited each house, commanding the occupants to surrender their arms and often searching the premises thoroughly when they were not produced. I have seen many houses where the gendarmes had dug up the floors and torn away the walls in their efforts to find weapons which they thought were concealed there. The search was carried on with such severity that many persons who were ordered to give up their weapons, when they actually had none, went out and bought them or even paid the police large sums of money for some old gun or revolver which they could then surrender.223 An almost comical story was told by Künzler, the Swiss deacon in Urfa. During the past few days, several simple folk have been arrested and thrown into prison. In the case of a young Syrian whom the police considered to be Armenian, the police did not succeed. He was buying some goods at the market. While he was standing in front of a stand, a policeman put a Mauser cartridge into his jacket pocket without his noticing. As the young man was leaving the shop the policeman stopped him and told him to turn out his pockets. He did this voluntarily. But lo and behold! A Mauser cartridge was found in his pocket. The Syrian turned pale and the policeman began cursing him and hustled him into prison. A Muslim came to his aid. He had seen how the policeman had slipped the Mauser cartridge into the youth’s pocket. That is how the Syrian was saved. Toros, a 15-year-old Armenian working for the American Craftsman’s School, fell into the trap and landed in prison.224 Johannes Ehmann, a German missionary in Mamuret-ul-Aziz, had supported the Turkish authorities and instructed the members of his Armenian church to turn over all of their weapons because, in this case, the vali had promised them immunity. Ehmann was quite horrified when a short while later, photographs were sent back from Constantinople showing just these weapons, which were now being claimed by the Young Turks as evidence of an Armenian conspiracy. After researching in Constantinople, von Tyszka reported, ‘The weapons which the Turks found among the Armenians were mostly those which the latter had received from the Turks in 1908 so that they could help the Committee defend themselves against reactionaries.’225 ‘Weapons have occasionally been found among the Armenians which, of course, was used as evidence against them’, the German Consul in Adana, Eugen Büge, also reported. ‘If they had searched among the Mohammedans, 223. U.S. State Department Record Group 59, 867.00/803 224. 1915-06-29-DE-002, Enclosure 1. 225. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3.

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they would have found a great many more forbidden weapons, but it goes without saying that they did not wish to confiscate these so as not to rob the people of the necessary tools for a massacre.’226 However, these weapons were of no use for a rebellion. In a later report on bombs that were found, Ambassador Kuehlmann wrote, ‘The pretext for the deportations – the supposed finding of bombs and weapons at an Armenian cemetery – belongs to the already well-known collection of such pretexts by the Turkish authorities.’227 Yet, for such rigorous measures as deportation and mass executions, the Young Turks simply did not have proof of guilt to show an ownership of weapons that had, in many cases, often even been allowed. Therefore, they searched for other evidence of actions carried out against the state, particularly revolutionary documents or conspiracy plans, in order to claim that the deportations were a preventive measure against Armenian machinations. The Turkish investigators took everything they found in writing, including school and children’s books, of course always newspapers and magazines, and particularly private correspondence. ‘In some houses, papers were confiscated – apparently only because they were in a foreign language – as well as books – especially English ones.’228 The search for written evidence of conspiratorial activities often became grotesque. Consul Walter Rössler reported that memberships of Armenians in charitable organisations in Aleppo were used as evidence of a plot against the Turkish government.229 ‘It should be mentioned that the charitable society always refused to deal in arms and was never involved in politics, and never accepted members of the Dashnaktsutiun.’230 American missionaries in Mamuret-ul-Aziz were amused with the way in which, with the greatest mistrust, Turkish investigators examined their toilet paper – unknown to the Turks – for codes because there was, of course, no writing on it. Finally, the police burned it very carefully and attempted to discover hidden messages in the manner in which the burned particles drifted to the ground.231

Revolutionary Intentions of the Armenians and German Observations None of the Turkish statements regarding a danger to the Ottoman state by the Armenians coincides with the observations of Germans and diplomatic representatives on the spot. In this regard, their reports are very clear: there was no Armenian uprising worth mentioning, to say nothing of a planned revolution. ‘Until recently, in fact at the beginning of this year, the Armenians were regarded as the most reliable element, indeed the only reliable people within the Christian elements in Turkey’, 226. 1915-07-24-DE-001. 227. 1916-11-17-DE-001. 228. 1915-03-07-DE-011. 229. 1915-05-27-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 230. 1915-04-12-DE-001. 231. Henry H Riggs: Days of Tragedy in Armenia: Personal Experiences in Harpoot 1915-1917; Chapter 8.

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von Tyszka stated in a report at the beginning of 1915. ‘One could read it in all the newspapers, and the important Turkish dignitaries confirmed this on every occasion which presented itself.’232 The German observers were of the same opinion, even after the persecutions began. Vice-Consul Hoffmann reported from Alexandretta, ‘As far as I know about the character and doings of the small local population, I do not believe that they would commit treason.’233 On the basis of the reports by his consuls, Ambassador Wangenheim wrote, ‘Each side rejects the accusations of the other party as unfounded, or puts the blame for such events on the other side. There only seems to be agreement on one point: that the Armenians have given up their ideas of a revolution since the introduction of the Constitution and that there is no organisation of such a revolt.’234 Johann Mordtmann, who was responsible for Armenian matters, gave a report of a discussion with General Posseldt who was stationed in Erzerum and who ‘believes that the Armenians would remain calm if they were not suppressed by the Turks and provoked by them. It is often a matter of envy of competitors. The behaviour of the Armenians is said to have been excellent.’235 Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter reported from Erzerum on the deportations, ‘A riot is not to be feared on the part of the local Armenians. In this, the local Armenians differ greatly from the Armenians in Van and its surroundings. They are not organised and also have no weapons.’236 And barely two weeks later, ‘Measure cannot be justified for military reasons, since uprising by local Armenians not presumed.’237 The head of the orphanage, Johannes Ehmann, reported from Harput – in the absence of a German consul – on the situation and determined that ‘by far the majority of the population in this Vilayet is obedient to the government, and the Christians here are not even remotely considering rebelling against the government’.238 Two weeks later he wrote, Possession of legally forbidden weapons acquired years ago – which is not seldom among Mohammedans and Christians in the interior – should not yet be a sign of rebellious intentions, as the Turkish population still has a greater number of such weapons. According to relatively reliable statements by Christians, their weapons were solely for defence in case of an attack by the Mohammedan population. Incidentally, for the past 3 to 4 years, the eagerness to purchase weapons has supposedly diminished greatly, if not ceased altogether.239 232. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 233. 1915-03-07-DE-011. 234. 1915-04-15-DE-002. 235. 1915-04-26-DE-011 236. 1915-05-20-DE-001. 237. 1915-06-02-DE-012. 238. 1915-05-05-DE-011. 239. 1915-05-18-DE-003.

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Even the anti-Armenian Consul Bergfeld wrote from Trebizond in the middle of May 1915 that the Armenians were ‘averse to self-help. If they have made noticeable progress in secretly equipping themselves with weapons during the past few months, this, in my respectful opinion, should be regarded more as an act of increased caution, to be better armed in an emergency than was previously the case.’240 On the same day, Scheubner-Richter noted: a rebellion on the part of the Armenians in Erzerum and its surroundings is not expected despite the negligible numbers of Turkish military forces in existence here. The Armenians living in areas near the Russian border have long ago left their homelands; isolated incidents, such as armed resistance in the case of requisitions in far away villages, the killing of Turks who wanted Armenian girls and women handed over to them, or the cutting and sabotaging of telegraph and telephone lines and espionage, are not unusual phenomena during a war in border areas containing mixed populations. In the same report, Scheubner-Richter wrote, ‘As far as I know, the house searches have not yielded any incriminating material.’241 Three months later, Scheubner-Richter wrote that in his administrative district, ‘Neither weapons nor compromising documents were found. If a rebellion had been planned here, then the most advantageous moment for such an event would have been in January, when the Russians were stationed 35 km from Erzerum and Erzerum’s garrison held only a few hundred gendarmes, while in Erzerum’s labour battalions alone there were 3-4,000 Armenians.’242 Lieutenant Colonel Stange, stationed in Erzerum, backed him up: ‘The Armenian population in Erzerum had remained completely calm until this point. All Armenians who were fit for military service had been called up. In view of this, there seemed to be no particular reason to fear any effective uprising.’243 If the Turkish accusations of conspiracy referred to events that took place in the regional districts of German consuls, the latter were able to follow up such accusations specifically. Consul Rössler did so in a case in which the Turks claimed there was a connection between the Armenians of Dörtyol and Zeytun: In the meantime, I have tried to find out on what the attitude of the government to a widespread Armenian conspiracy is based. But I have only been able to discover one fact. A neutral personality who is in close contact with Armenians and well informed about them, has told me that at the beginning, letters had been sent by inhabitants of Dörtyol to Zey240. 1915-05-15-DE-002. 241. 1915-05-15-DE-012. 242. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 243. 1915-08-23-DE-013.

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tun declaring that the moment was favourable for an uprising. Contact had been established with the English warships. If his source was properly informed at all, this would prove an appeal to revolt. It is unknown how the addressees reacted to this request.244 Many of the impressions that German diplomats and local observers received as well as their experience with the Turkish ally finally led to their reaching a fairly unanimous conclusion in their summaries, namely that the Turkish theories with regard to a conspiracy were untenable. German Protestant Christians reported in their petition to the Imperial Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, ‘According to information in our possession, there is no evidence that the leading Armenian political and Church leaders conducted any treacherous activities.’245 Scheubner-Richter wrote: The fact that this extermination is possible, that tens of thousands of Armenians allow themselves to be slaughtered by a small number of Kurds and irregulars without defending themselves (as happened here), seems to be proof of how unwilling these people are to fight and to act as revolutionaries. The Armenians, especially the inhabitants of the cities, these ‘Jews of the East’, are certainly cunning tradespeople as well as short-sighted politicians, but as far as I have come to know them, most of them are not active revolutionaries. If they were, and had they had weapons, they would most certainly have violently resisted the evacuation, since they were superior in number and their death was a certainty. But this only happened in a very few places, probably where the revolutionary committees had their seat. Everywhere else the evacuation was carried out without any incidents, and later they meekly allowed themselves to be slaughtered. In only one sentence, his conclusion makes the supposed danger of a revolution unmistakably clear: ‘The timorousness of the Turkish Armenians is possibly only surpassed by the Turks’ fear of them.’246

The Supposed Uprisings of the Armenians To prove their theory about the dangerous Armenians, the Turks claimed that the Armenians had started uprisings in several towns. With the exception of Van, in which the German Empire had no representative and there was no contact with any German mission station, the German consuls and their informants were able to prove that these so-called uprisings were, in fact, nothing other than Armenians fighting to defend themselves. ‘According to my information, a revolution or an uprising prepared by Armenians had taken place only in Van’, the consul of Erzerum, Erwin 244. 1915-05-27-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 245. 1915-11-10-DE-011. 246. 1915-08-05-DE-002, Enclosure 1.

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von Scheubner-Richter, summarised the Germans’ conclusions, ‘in other places it was self-defence’.247

Zeytun Even before the uprising in Van, the Armenians in the Armenian town of Zeytun supposedly revolted against the state authority. The town of Zeytun (which, today, is Süleymanlı) in the backlands of Marash was particularly suitable to creating antiArmenian legends, for the Armenian inhabitants there had successfully defended themselves against massacres in the nineteenth century and, since then, were considered to be especially militant. In March 1915, Armenian – but also Turkish – deserters hid in a monastery above Zeytun and were besieged there by Turkish gendarmes and finally bombarded with artillery. Several deserters and some gendarmes – together with their leader, Suleyman, for whom Zeytun was named – were killed during this exchange of fire while many deserters were able to flee. For the most part, the Armenian inhabitants of Zeytun were not involved. Eugen Büge, the consul of Adana who was questioned in this matter, explained ‘that there can be no question of an uprising of the Armenians’, Wangenheim reported to Berlin.248 And his colleague Walter Rössler, who was responsible for the adjoining region from Marash onwards, added, ‘These unrests are rather fully explained by their seeds which exist locally and which stem from the deep suffering gripping Turkey.’249 In October 1914, the inhabitants of Zeytun had even handed deserters over to the government, for which they had been guaranteed immunity. But the president of the Turkish government had ‘those people arrested who had supplied information on the robbers and who had been promised immunity from prosecution’, Rössler said.250 In March 1915, Minister of the Interior Talaat reported to German Ambassador Wangenheim, ‘Despite the disarming of the inhabitants of Zeytun, which was ordered some time ago, the refractory Armenians have weapons, and the reason for these clashes lies in the resistance to conscription.’251 According to a very detailed report from Rössler, the disturbances in Zeytun ‘raised the question whether they were instigated from abroad. During my official trip to Marash from 28 March to 10 April, I could not confirm this. The chief judge of the court-martial told me, though, that there was foreign influence, but he did not provide any evidence.’252 It was only the German politicians in Berlin who picked up on Turkish assertions which had been refuted by their consuls in order to justify their passivity with regard to this genocide. At the end of September 1916, Zimmermann (who meanwhile had 247. 1915-11-09-DE-011. 248. 1915-03-26-DE-001. 249. 1915-04-12-DE-001. 250. 1915-04-12-DE-001. 251. 1915-03-29-DE-001. 252. 1915-04-12-DE-001.

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been promoted to Secretary of State) wrote in a note meant for a discussion with the Grand Duchess of Baden, who had inquired about the fate of the Armenians, The first signs of storm brewing up involved an incident in Zeytun. In this small town in southern Armenia, which was almost exclusively inhabited by Armenians and built like a fortress, a group of Armenian deserters had gone into hiding in March 1915 and put up desperate resistance to their Turkish military pursuers. This led to a siege and storming of the town, whereby considerable stores of modern weapons were found. As part of the population had made common cause with the revolutionaries, under martial law a regime of strict criminal prosecution was imposed on the town.253 The Armenians of Zeytun were the first to be deported and replaced by Muslim refugees from Macedonia. In a later report on the events in Zeytun, von Tyszka wrote, The Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople called upon Minister Talaat Bey to obtain first-hand information concerning the events there. Using this occasion, the Minister explained to the Patriarch that he was very satisfied with the attitude of the Armenian population in Zeytun. It must have been disconcerting for the Armenians to find that the entire population of Zeytun, including the women and children, had left Zeytun a few hours after the clashes, with 5,000 being deported to Konia and the remainder being forced to Sort, south of Mush. On questioning the Turkish Government, the Patriarch received the answer that this involved an offence similar to that which occurred 40 to 50 years ago and nothing could be done against it while the war went on.254

Dörtyol and the Mediterranean Coast But there was also unrest in the regions along the Mediterranean coast because Armenian deserters were followed with particular zeal. For example, Armenians working for the British disembarked from British warships in the town of Dörtyol – which was mainly inhabited by Armenians – in February or early March of 1915, and attempted to persuade the inhabitants to join the Entente Powers; this, without doubt, was not a particularly difficult task. However, no actions followed their appeal; instead, Turkish gendarmes appeared. They arrested not only the Armenian deserters who were hidden there, but also all the men, who were sent to work in the road gangs.255 Eugen Büge, the consul in Adana, gave a detailed description based on a report by the Armenian assistant civil servant Simon Agabalian. Büge certified ‘that everything has been truthfully described’ by his colleague. Agabalian reported, 253. 1917-05-09-DE-001. 254. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 255. 1915-03-13-DE-012.

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The inhabitants of Dörtyol had to serve or to pay bedel during mobilisation. Because of the general lack of money, these people could not help themselves and many – or, you can rather say all – of them deserted instead of responding to the military invitation. Some of the deserters fled far away and others stayed at home. The attention of the government was aroused by these circumstances and by the mistrust of the Turks living in this area towards the Armenians, moreso because the inhabitants of Dörtyol defended themselves against the Turks. During the arrest, the Armenians submitted and did not resist the officials. Three people were shot while trying to flee. Even they did not use any weapons.256 Supposed espionage activities were also reported from the Mediterranean town of Alexandretta, not far from Dörtyol. Just how much these occurrences were exaggerated was described by Vice-Consul Hoffmann-Fölkersamb, who was stationed in Alexandretta, in a later report in which he made particular fun of reports by Max Baron von Oppenheim, the German expert for the Orient, who had claimed to have discovered ‘traces of a militarily organised plot’ in Dörtyol, among other places. According to Hoffmann, such traces were neither discovered in Alexandretta nor in Dörtyol. In Alexandretta, a very thorough, massive search of houses uncovered neither weapons nor any other incriminating documents. According to reports, however, some arms were found in Dörtyol. But this was not surprising, since the inhabitants of this area had been able to defend themselves only with weapons during the so-called Adana massacre in 1909, during which they were in danger of being butchered by their Muslim neighbours. In a very amused manner, Hoffmann proved that Oppenheim – whom the British liked to call the ‘Lying Baron’ – made three traitors out of Agop Torosoglu, an Armenian who had been branded a traitor: Toros, Oglu and Agop. It was Oppenheim who claimed that Armenian traitors had caused trains to derail in Alexandretta, which, in truth, a British cruiser had achieved with no help whatsoever from the Armenians. ‘Without doubt, spying and other services took place during a brief enemy landing, which led to the destruction of the railway line of Alexandretta’, Oppenheimer had reported, whereupon Consul Hoffmann derisively remarked, ‘I have never heard this accusation, not even from the Turkish Muslim side, although I am fully aware of the details of the case.’257

Fundadjak A supposed uprising in connection with the hunt for deserters took place in the town of Fundadjak, one-and-a-half hours’ distance from Marash. Armenian deserters who 256. 1915-03-13-DE-012, Enclosure. 257. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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had probably fled previously from Zeytun had instructed the Armenian inhabitants of this town and used arms to force the inhabitants to join them in their resistance against certain death. W. Spieker, a German Baghdad Railway official, reported on this as follows: On 6 August, the village of Fundadjak near Marash and its approx. 3,000 inhabitants were shot to pieces. The population – almost all of whom were mule drivers – had often had to transport Armenians in the direction across the Euphrates River during the past 3 months. They had seen the dead in the Euphrates River with their own eyes, had seen how women were sold and raped. ‘Sew-gülü ölüm (desired death)’, the people of Fundadjak who had come to Marash had said to the Germans when talk turned to former massacres. Then, when about 30 Armenian robbers forced their way into the village and threatened to shoot anyone who wanted to surrender to the government – and they actually did shoot some who attempted to flee – the village was forced to oppose the government. At an Armenian school in Marash, I saw over 100 women and children from Fundadjak with their arms and legs shot to pieces and all kinds of mutilations, among them 1- and 2-year-old children. On 13 August, 34 Armenians, people from the villages surrounding Marash (Furnus, Shivilgi, etc.), were shot in Marash, among them two twelve-year-old boys. Again on 15 August, 24 people were shot and a further 14 hanged, also people from the villages surrounding Marash. The 24 men were bound to one another by a heavy chain around their throats and set up to form a circle (knot); they were shot behind the American College in the presence of the Muslim population. I was an eyewitness to how the corpses, still in the throes of death, were left to the mercy of a brutal civilian population who dragged those shot by their hands and feet, and, for the delight of the bystanding Muslim population, the police and the gendarmes continued for half an hour to fire off their guns at the corpses which were, in part, terribly disfigured.258

Musa Dagh With regard to the Armenians’ fight in self-defence at Musa Dagh – which the German author Franz Werfel used as a basis for his novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh – Rössler wrote, There are 6 Armenian villages near Antioch: Kessab on Mount Cassius and five on Djebel Musa, namely Bityas, Habably, Yoghunoluk, Khider Bey, Kabbusiye. Farmers from these villages who showed themselves near Antioch were put in chains and taken away to the town. Although the 258. 1915-09-03-DE-002, Enclosure 5.

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inhabitants of Kessab and Kabusiye then presented themselves upon the request to surrender, those of the other four villages fled to the mountains. Two battalions were sent out to catch them, but they have not yet had any success. The terrain is difficult and the troops are not yet trained. In the course of these days, 30 soldiers were wounded, among them eight by shots which they fired at each other out of clumsiness.259 Two months later, Rössler reported the following concerning the end of the fighting: The fighting in Suediye (from 4 villages in the vicinity of Antioch) ended, whereby the rebels embarked on a ship in a hidden bay, under covering fire from an enemy warship. According to the Armenian side, the number of women and children came to 6,000. Despite this fact, and despite the finally contrived connection to an enemy cruiser, there is no evidence whatsoever that the district had previously thought about an uprising. They were more likely driven to resistance by their imminent deportation.260

Urfa The best proof for acts of self-defence found in German files concerns the events in Urfa, particularly the reports by Jacob Künzler, a Swiss deacon working there. Even before the actual fighting began, he had already informed Rössler that the local Armenian prelate by no means denied the ownership of weapons, but that he had informed the governor these were ‘not in their hands to be used in the war or against the government, but against the ever-growing threat of a massacre by the heavily armed Muslim population. The Armenians are extremely scared. In 1895, they were also pressured into giving up their weapons with the official promise that they would be protected. And what protection was given? The slaughter of 7,000 people!’261 When, on 19 August 1915, a former Armenian soldier resisted having his house searched and shot three Turkish soldiers, the Muslim population attacked the Armenians in the town and, within a short time, killed about 200 of them, mainly in the bazaar. After only a few days of peace, the so-called uprising took place. Vice-Consul Hoffmann sent the following telegram: ‘14 days ago, the Armenian population in Urfa received deportation orders, but decided that an immediate end was preferable to the atrocities of death during deportation and barricaded themselves in. Fahri Pasha – who supposedly is in Urfa himself – has blocked off the Armenian quarter and ordered its destruction by artillery.’262 A short while later, Rössler describes the course of events in Urfa in detail and comments, ‘For the Armenian uprising in Urfa, it is also unnecessary to assume the 259. 1915-09-03-DE-002. 260. 1915-11-08-DE-001. 261. 1915-06-29-DE-002, Enclosure 1. 262. 1915-10-09-DE-011.

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influence of outside forces. One would like to think that outsiders arrived from Van and Diyarbekir to stir things up and make themselves leaders. It is sufficient to say that the government’s preventive measures, the deportations and, therefore, the inherent decimation of their race and each individual was in the forefront of their minds and was enough for the people of Urfa to reach the decision to put up resistance.’263 According to Rössler, the decisive factor in favour of the battle was that the Armenians ‘knew that the men would be murdered, the women and girls violated, at best put into Muslim harems, and that the rest, namely children and older women, would be abandoned to death by starvation. Thus their decision rather to die with their weapons in their hands and sell their lives as dearly as possible, rather than to let themselves and their families be destroyed or dishonoured.’264 Künzler’s remark should be especially noted, Rössler said to his embassy, ‘that between 500 and 1,000 Armenians had already been slaughtered before the battles began at the beginning of October’.265 Urfa was also used as an example by Vice-Consul Hoffmann to reveal one of Baron von Oppenheim’s lies: ‘How easily these kinds of events can be distorted by reference to ‘unquestionable facts’ is shown in the case of the machine guns of Urfa. On the grounds of a testimony which he regarded as being first-rate beyond doubt, Max Baron von Oppenheim, in my presence, treated the use of machine guns by the insurgent Armenians in Urfa as proven and pursued trails to Van and Russia.’ A German officer who, together with the Turkish General Fakhri Pasha, had shot down rebelling Armenians ‘dismissed the story of the machine guns as a tale belonging to a fairytale world’.266 Hoffmann then made a summarising comment on the topic of supposed conspiracies in the Mediterranean region. Apart from the case of Van and its adjacent zone, particular caution is called for relative to the charge of a ‘militarily organised plot’. Certain local insurrectionary movements cannot be treated as proof of such. For example, the fact that the revolt in Zeytun cannot be singled out as a case of a conspiracy of that kind is clearly evidenced in the reports of the Imperial Consulate in Aleppo. Also, the anger of the inhabitants of Fundadjak in August and in Urfa in October was probably, as one would put it, ‘militarily organised’ but locally restricted. It did not shape up as a by-product of a planned conspiracy, but developed spontaneously on the spot due to the threat of deportation. The uprising of the Armenians in the region of Suediye (to the south of Alexandretta) was, according to descriptions even on the part of the Turkish military, not a conspiracy but, according 263. 1915-11-08-DE-001. 264. 1915-11-16-DE-001. 265. 1916-01-03-DE-002. 266. 1916-01-03-DE-001.

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to a Turkish admission, a spontaneous uprising which was due mainly to the tactlessness of the Kaymakam of Latakiye in the proclamation of the order for deportation. The recovery of the revolutionaries from Suediye by French warships was also not a long-planned act. This is apparent from the circumstances and the opinions of well-informed Turks.267 In other words, in the eyes of German observers who were on the spot, the Turkish versions of uprisings – at best with the exception of Van – were pure propaganda in order to have a further excuse for annihilating the Ottoman Armenians.

The People Responsible for the Genocide Already on 12 April (i.e., before the uprising in Van), Rössler reported, ‘After my return, Djelal Bey, the Vali of Aleppo, let me know that apparently in the Turkish government a current is gaining the upper hand which is inclined to consider all Armenians as suspicious or even hostile. He thinks of this development as a misfortune for his fatherland.’268 Wangenheim had also pointed out ‘occurrences’ reported to him by the Armenians before the uprising in Van. ‘The irregulars and bands of marauders organised in military fashion and bearing the title militia; these are being blamed for numerous plunders, murders, for robbery and other acts committed against the Armenian population of the country.’ Furthermore, ‘the clubs affiliated with the Committee for Union and Progress, in which many dishonest elements are said to be present’, played an important role. The clubs in Erzerum ‘have set up formal proscription lists, and a series of political murders which were committed on various respected Armenians since December of last year are attributed to their activities’. Also among the tormentors were ‘various civil servants, in particular the governor of Mush (Vilayet Bitlis) and the Vali of Van’, who decided that ‘some 2,000 Muslim families from the Russian-occupied district of Alashgerd, who are hardly in a position to sustain themselves, were to be placed in Armenian villages in Mush’. In ‘two districts of Van, formal butcheries took place under the connivance of the Kaymakams’.269 This information from Armenian sources, except from Van, was widely confirmed by German consuls and their informants during the following period. All these occurrences took place before the uprising in Van.

The String-pullers While there was often mention in the various eyewitness reports of the murderous deeds of the gendarmes, military police and soldiers together with their officers, it was far more difficult for German observers to identify the string-pullers, especially 267. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 268. 1915-04-12-DE-001. 269. 1915-04-15-DE-002.

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since the Young Turks wanted to keep their plans for annihilation and their authors’ identities as unrecognisable as possible; accordingly, they did not inform their German allies – at least not the diplomats. Thus, the man who has meanwhile been identified by Ottoman experts as one of the main culprits, Behaeddin Shakir, appeared only once in a report by Scheubner-Richter as ‘Beyadin Sehakir, gang leader’, which the embassy corrected and changed to ‘Behaeddin’.270 Another time, nurses Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg and Eva Elvers wrote about a deportee convoy ‘on the way through the valley of Kemagh, when, on 10 June, they were caught in crossfire, in front of them Kurds and behind them, in their opinion, the semi-regular troops of a certain Talaat’.271 There are references in several reports to orders that came directly from Constantinople, whereby the authors did not know in detail whether these were given by the government, the Central Committee of the Young Turks, the Supreme Commander of the Turkish army, individual persons, or a combination of all of these. Nurses Wedel-Jarlsberg and Elvers wrote, ‘The owner of a hotel began a conversation with us and told us that orders had come from Constantinople to kill all of the deportees.’272 Scheubner-Richter mentions ‘a very respected and influential Bey’ who told him that the deportation of Armenians ‘was not being done by enraged mobs, but systematically and by the order of the government – ‘the Committee’, as he added with emphasis’.273 Information became more specific when the informant had direct access to the culprits; this applied in particular to Scheubner-Richter, whose residence in Erzerum was, for a while, the centre of the string-pullers. ‘Measures for the deportation of the entire Armenian population in the local area’, Scheubner-Richter wrote in the middle of June 1915, ‘have been taken at the order of the Supreme Commander of the Army and justified on the basis of military grounds’.274 On 7 July 1915, Scheubner-Richter made the following corrections: ‘In my opinion, massacres are being carried out with the connivance of the government or the promotion of the Committee. Committee members here are playing a very nasty role, like an alternative government.’275 Two days later, he was more precise and considered the local chief of police, Chulussi Bey, to be the ‘main instigator of this regrettable massacre’. He added that ‘a committee has been formed here which consists of Chlusi Bey,276 Chief of Police, Seyfullah Effendi, Deputy from Erzerum, Beyadin277 Sehakir, gang leader, Mürdar278 Zadé Achmed, Jounos Chinasi. This committee car270. 1915-07-09-DE-003 271. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure. 272. 1915-08-21-DE-001, Enclosure. 273. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 274. 1915-06-16-DE-011. 275. 1915-07-07-DE-002. 276. Note by the embassy: Halussi. 277. Note by the embassy: Behaeddin. 278. Note by the embassy: Muhurdar.

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ries on a disastrous alternative government and often thwarts the government’s perhaps well-meant intentions, such as, for example, regarding the resettlement of the Armenians.’279 Scheubner-Richter obviously did not know that Shakir’s ‘band’ was the notorious Special Organisation for the annihilation of the Armenians. He wrote the following regarding the role of the military: ‘The Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Army, Mahmud Kiamel Pasha, who has relocated his headquarters here, is also interfering harshly in the government of the Vilayets.’ The hardliners of the Committee, ‘to which almost all military and government civil servants belong’, according to Scheubner-Richter, ‘openly admit that the final goal of their actions against the Armenians is their total annihilation in Turkey. After the war we will not have ‘any more Armenians in Turkey’ are the exact words of an eminent person.’280 At the beginning of August 1915, after a conversation with Vali Tahsin Bey regarding those responsible for the deportations, Scheubner-Richter reported, ‘The Vali frankly pointed out that this was not his responsibility, but that of the army’s Supreme Command, and that he was at their command. They ordered the expulsion of the Armenians.’ Tahsin Bey tried ‘to ensure the safety of the expellees’, Scheubner-Richter wrote, ‘insofar as this was possible considering the opposing intentions of the Committee and other leading personalities. But neither his influence nor his energy was sufficient to counter the resistance with which he met both from the army’s Supreme Command as well as from the Committee in his endeavours to achieve this.’281 Bergfeld, the Consul in Trebizond, also pointed out the role of the Committee: ‘Without being able to produce any evidence for my opinion, I cannot help thinking that the Young Turkish Committee can be regarded as the driving force behind the measures being taken against the Armenians. The Central Committee seems to want to finally put an end to the Armenian question in this way.’282 One-and-a-half months later he wrote, ‘Apparently the Vali of Trebizond is a member of the Young Turk Committee, but he attempted to keep his independence, and he endeavoured to soften the measures against the Armenians as far as possible. It was probably his influence which led to the successful dismissal of the local inspector and Committee leader, Nai Bey.’283 In the south, Consul Rössler had the most reliable information whereby there was an added complication for his area of competence, namely that the Supreme Commander of the 4th Army, Djemal Bey, commanded part of the region and did not always agree with the Committee. ‘There are serious indications that the method for murdering the deportees on their march is also to be followed in the districts of 279. 1915-07-09-DE-003 280. 1915-07-28-DE-015. 281. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 282. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 283. 1915-08-27-DE-003. The correct name is Yenibahçeli Nail.

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Marash and Aleppo’, Rössler wrote. ‘Djemal Pasha’s orders are to the contrary, but the Committee is working in favour of this.’284 His colleague in Adana, Büge, also determined that the local Committees were responsible. ‘The local Committee leader, Ismail Safa,285 threatened general massacres’, he reported, ‘if the Armenians were not deported’.286 ‘Ultimately, it seems’, said Ambassador Hohenlohe-Langenburg, ‘as if the authorities in the interior are often under the influence of the leaders of the Unity and Progress Committee and other elements who are not responsible, who do not concern themselves with the Central Government’s orders, and organise the riots against the Armenians and other indigenous Christians’.287 Shortly after the deportations in Aleppo began, a new centre for deportations was established there. Consul Rössler discovered that the order to deport Armenians who arrived in Aleppo and the surrounding region was ‘as far as I could determine, not given by the Ministry of the Interior, but by the local Centre for Deportees’.288 According to Rössler, this organisation, called Sous-direction des déportés was originally led by Eyub Bey, ‘who was responsible for deportations before the commissioner arrived from Constantinople, and he was later assigned to him’.289 Vice-Consul Hoffmann quotes him as saying, ‘You still do not understand what we want: we want to obliterate the Armenian name once and for all!’290 This almost became a standing idiomatic expression for those responsible for annihilating the Armenians. After the war, Rössler recalled, When the Commissioner of Deportation arrived from Constantinople and I believed at first that this was an attempt to organise food for the deportees or even just to care of them a little bit, and I approached the Commissioner of Deportation with a request to release some Armenians who were employed by Germans. He refused this in the brusquest manner and said to me in an incredibly arrogant tone of voice which I will never forget, ‘Vous ne comprenez pas ce que nous voulons. Nous voulons une Arménie sans Arméniens.’ [You do not understand what we want. We want an Armenia without Armenians.] I have, however, forgotten the Commissioner’s name, but it must have been Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey, unless it was his superior, Shukri Bey, who was previously in Aleppo for a while.291 284. 1915-08-12-DE-011. 285. ‘Identical with the former Musteshar (Undersecretary of State) at the Ministry of the Interior’, according to Hohenlohe-Langenburg, - which was wrong. 286. 1915-09-14-DE-001. 287. 1915-09-14-DE-001. 288. 1916-01-28-DE-002. 289. 1921-04-25-DE-001 290. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 291. 1921-04-25-DE-001.

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Prof. Vahakn. N. Dadrian considers Shükri to be the author because Abdulahad Nuri did not speak French well enough, while Shükri had mastered this language.292 Even during their time in Aleppo, German observers reported on the work carried out by this organisation. Vice-Consul Hoffmann, who often stepped in for Rössler in Aleppo, reported that ‘according to statements made by the director of political affairs in the Vilayets’, the Armenians were ‘to be left to themselves at their destination and “will all die”’.293 Bastendorff, the German engineer at the Baghdad Railway, wrote in a report to Rössler, ‘All steps taken in respect of the Armenians, as far as I could see and observe, led to the conclusion described to me by the Director of Emigrants, Shukri Bey, “The final result must be the extermination of the Armenian race”’.294 And Rössler confirms, ‘The Vali and Commissioner of Deportation are working relentlessly on the annihilation.’295 Naturally, the ambassadors and their colleagues were best informed about those responsible in Constantinople. Armenian expert Mordtmann had a regular exchange of ideas with the Ministry of the Interior, usually with Ismail Jambulat, head of the Department for Public Safety, as well as his colleagues. Already at the end of June 1915 he reported, ‘As Jambulat Bey verbally confirmed to me several days ago with the map of Anatolia in his hand, the Turkish government recently decided to extend the deportation measures against the Armenians even further: the Armenians in the provinces of Djanik, Trebizond, Sivas and Mamuret-ulAziz are now also supposed to be deported.’ Mordtmann stated that this could no longer be justified: ‘It is a matter of destroying the Armenians, as Talaat Bey told me several weeks ago.’296 In a document he wrote and signed, but withheld, Metternich determined the following with regard to excesses against the lives of those who had been resettled: ‘In this respect, the Vali of Diyarbekir, Reshid Bey, the Vali of Erzerum, Tahsin Bey, the Chief of Police in Erzerum, Chulussi Bey, and a certain Mahmud Kiamil Pasha are particularly heavily incriminated. Private individuals were also often instigated by government officials to exterminate those who were resettled.’297 German diplomats soon discovered that the Ministry of the Interior was one of the centres for this genocide. This was directly confirmed later on when the Armenians were to be deported from Smyrna and some had already been deported. Radowitz, the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, reported that the vali of Smyrna stated with regard to the orders for deportation ‘that he received his orders from Con292. Dadrian, Vahakn N., ‘The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (August 1986): footnote 55. 293. 1915-10-18-DE-011. 294. 1916-01-03-DE-002, Enclosure 2. 295. 1916-02-10-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 296. 1915-06-30-DE-001. 297. 1916-01-31-DE-003.

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stantinople (Talaat Bey)’.298 The head of the German military mission in Turkey, Otto Liman von Sanders – who, as the highest commander of the region, forbade further measures after the deportation of several hundred Armenians – was even more direct. He reported to the embassy, ‘The Vali told me in confidence that he had enforced the rules in agreement with Minister Talaat Bey and other significant persons (Committee members) for those reasons previously mentioned.’299 In the opinion of German observers, Minister of the Interior Talaat was, in fact, the person chiefly responsible for the genocide. Consul General Schmidt from Jerusalem reports that the minister of naval affairs and associate in the triumvirate, Djemal, said about Talaat, ‘Talaat Bey decides how far the deportation should be extended.’300 German journalist von Tyszka said about Talaat, ‘Talaat is extreme. What he wants has happened up until now.’301 Ambassador Wolff-Metternich states more precisely, ‘Talaat Bey is the brain behind the deportation of the Armenians.’302 Von Tyszka characterised Talaat’s personality thus: A man like Talaat Bey, possessing such an iron will, tends towards the most extreme measures when he believes them to be right. He will not let himself be influenced by anyone and favours any kind of report if it brings him closer to his goal. For this man, the expulsion of the Armenians after the uprising in Van became a necessity. The resulting injustices and hardships are of no importance. Talaat Bey is the optimist par excellence, especially regarding his own decisions. In the same way he gives commands, he accepts all complaints quite indifferently.303 Not only did Talaat decree indifferently, but also cynically. According to the Armenian expert at the German embassy in Constantinople Johann Mordtmann, Talaat told him, ‘The deportations were a means of protecting the Armenians from worse, namely massacres.’304 After the majority of the Armenians had been deported or already murdered, Chargé d’Affaires Göppert noted that Talaat came to the embassy and declared the Armenian question to be settled: ‘The measures against the Armenians had, anyway, been stopped. ‘La question arménienne n’existe plus. ‘ [The Armenian question no longer exists.]’305 According to Ambassador Wolff-Metternich, Talaat informed him at the height of the killings in the southeast, ‘Only the deportation of all of them could ensure security.’306

298. 1916-11-13-DE-001. 299. 1916-11-17-DE-001, Enclosure. 300. 1915-09-09-DE-012. 301. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 302. 1915-12-07-DE-001. 303. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 304. 1915-05-29-DE-011. 305. 1915-08-31-DE-011. 306. 1915-12-18-DE-001.

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Just how abysmally Talaat lied is proven by the testimony of a German who was not a diplomat, but played a major role in Germany’s Turkish policy: Ernst Jaeckh, who had been made a professor by the Kingdom of Württemberg and was chairman of the German-Turkish Association in Germany and head of the influential Central Office for Foreign Services in the German Foreign Office, the man often called ‘Turkish Jaeckh’ because of his sympathy for Turkey. He had the best connections to the leaders of the Young Turks, particularly to Enver and Talaat. From the end of August to the middle of October 1915, Jaeckh travelled throughout Turkey and, according to his own statements, had several discussions with the top people in Turkey. ‘With regard to the Armenian question, Enver repeatedly took the point of view that it was necessary to secure the Turkish Empire against an Armenian revolution that had broken out behind the Turkish troops’, Jaeckh reported to Arthur Zimmermann, the undersecretary of state in the German Foreign Office in the middle of October 1915. ‘Talaat, to be sure, makes no bones about the fact’, Jaeckh continued, ‘that he welcomes the annihilation of the Armenian people as a political alleviation’.307 According to his own statements, Jaeckh had had these discussions in September 1915 (i.e., at a time when a great many Armenians were still alive and deportations in several larger towns had not yet begun). No statement in the German documents known until the present makes it clearer that Talaat’s objective was the complete annihilation of the Armenians. On the other hand, there were also Turkish statesmen at the top level who obviously disapproved of the Armenian genocide. One of these was Halil Bey, President of the Chamber, who, according to Ambassador Hohenlohe-Langenburg, seemed not to condone the government’s actions against the Armenians and ‘maintained that the massacres and other atrocities were not approved by the government, but the government was not always in a position to prevent the excesses of the masses; also that subordinate authorities had made mistakes in carrying out the deportation measures’.308 Meanwhile, Metternich wrote with regard to the other leaders of the Young Turks that Enver and Halil ‘take refuge behind the plea of necessities of war, that revolutionaries needed to be punished, and carefully evade the accusation that hundreds of thousands of women, children and elderly people are being driven into misery and ultimately to their deaths. Djemal Pasha says the original orders were indeed necessary, but that their execution had been badly organised.’309 Judgements on Djemal Pasha, the naval minister, varied. Ambassador Paul Count Wolff-Metternich said concerning him, ‘Djemal Pasha, who also belongs to those Turks who are ashamed, had up until now been met with resistance in the Committee concerning the fulfilment of his wishes. Recently, however, as has been communicated to me by his Chief of Staff, Colonel von Kress, they have now been granted.’310 Consul Rössler also reports, 307. 1915-10-17-DE-002. 308. 1915-08-12-DE-001 309. 1915-12-07-DE-001. 310. 1915-12-09-DE-001.

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Djemal Pasha, the highest commanding officer in the 4th Army Division, was not personally in favour of destroying the Armenians. His willpower was not strong enough to put a stop to it all, but it is a relief to be able to note a conciliatory gesture just once within this appalling picture. If the conditions among the ranks of the 4th Army – although they are bad enough – still cannot compare with those of the 3rd Army, then, besides the differences caused by the geographical and political situation as well as by the varying conditions of the communication routes, the influence of Djemal Pasha can also be taken into account.311 Metternich reports that Consul Loytved from Damascus had spoken with Djemal in connection with the question of forwarding American aid; the latter told me in confidence that he personally would like to relieve the lot of the Armenians within the scope of his possibilities, but that he had received strict orders from Constantinople to prevent any German and American participation in the assistance for the Armenians because the Armenians’ inner resistance against the Turkish government could only be overcome if they were taught that they could not expect any support whatsoever from any foreign government.312 However, Djemal’s influence with his colleagues in Constantinople did seem to be limited, and Consul Loytved Hardegg indicated this to Hussein Kasim Bey, the commissioner responsible for the Armenians: ‘I pointed out the anti-Armenian atmosphere among the leading Committee members in Constantinople, against which even Djemal Pasha was seemingly no match.’313 The transmission of genocide orders to those in power in the provinces by couriers from the central government was, for a long time, not as clear to the Germans as it was stated at the end of 1918 by the ambassadorial preacher Count von Luettichau after a longer journey through the east: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that an order was sent from Istanbul, not in writing or by telegram, but verbally through couriers with secret orders. I was told so in Malatia by Mustafa Agha, for example, who personally attended that infamous meeting in which a secret courier from Istanbul brought the order to annihilate the deportees.’314 German diplomats found out already in September 1915 that they had been deceived by Turkish politicians. At the insistence of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Talaat had supposedly given orders to the provincial authorities that resulted in more moderate treatment of the Armenians or even a revocation of the deportations. ‘Talaat Bey gave me the German translation of various telegraphic orders on the persecution of the Armenians which he sent to the provincial authorities concerned’, the ambassador 311. 1916-01-03-DE-002. 312. 1916-03-29-DE-002. 313. 1916-05-30-DE-001. 314. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure.

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stated. ‘With these, he wished to deliver proof that the central government is seriously attempting to end the riots, which have taken place against the Armenians in the heart of the country, and to see to it that those who have been deported receive provisions during transport.’315 However, those Turks responsible for the genocide were merely attempting to calm the Germans down. Consul Büge reported from Adana, ‘Measures against the Armenians have been tightened: widows, orphans and soldiers’ families, even the sick and the blind, are to depart immediately!’316 And a day later, ‘The notification concerning the Armenians and given to the Imperial Embassy from the Porte is merely an audacious deception of the embassy because, at the instigation of Inspector Ali Munif Bey who was sent here, the Porte later completely revoked this order. The authorities, of course, are only carrying out the second instruction and continuing with the deportations without considering denomination or creed.’317 On his part, Rössler cabled, The order given by the Porte to refrain from deporting those who were still in their homes is a complete illusion, as some of them can be termed as being suspicious, and this is often used as an excuse. Contrary to the order, the families of soldiers are not being exempted. Also, the severely sick are being transported away mercilessly. Despite assurances by the Porte to the contrary, everything is being directed towards the destruction of the Armenian people.318 ‘The well-known telegraphic instructions by the Porte for the improvement of the fate of the deported Armenians’, Hohenlohe finally had to admit to Berlin, ‘have not fulfilled their purpose due to the various exceptions to the privileges granted, which the Porte itself made at the beginning and later, and also due to the despotism of the provincial authorities’.319 Another statement made by the German ambassador was more exactly in accordance with the facts: ‘It is true that the privileges conceded by the Porte were later often restricted again.’320

The Executors Many eyewitness reports name the lower-level executors of the genocide. Ambassador Metternich summarised them in a document he wrote and signed, but withheld: Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers were involved in burning down the houses of those who were resettled; the Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers played an outstanding role in pillaging the houses of those 315. 1915-09-04-DE-001. 316. 1915-09-13-DE-011. 317. 1915-09-14-DE-001. 318. 1915-09-25-DE-001. 319. 1915-09-14-DE-001. 320. 1915-09-14-DE-001.

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who were resettled and took part in pillaging the convoys of those who were to be resettled. The gendarmes accompanying these convoys as well as other public officials often extorted money from those who were to be resettled.321 Soldiers and gendarmes could, at least, be recognised because of their uniforms. On the other hand, the Special Organisation, created especially for the purpose of implementing the genocide and headed by Shakir, acted in as secretive a manner as possible. Neither their social, nor their ethnic origins were easy to recognise. Nevertheless, there are also references to them in the German sources, sometimes obliquely referred to as irregulars, gangs or chetes, among them many criminals who had been released especially for this task. The first references came from the victims themselves. Wangenheim wrote that the Armenian side held the following groups responsible for the occurrences: ‘The irregulars and bands of marauders organised in military fashion and bearing the title militia – these are being blamed for numerous plunders, murders, for robbery and other acts committed against the Armenian population of the country.’322 Consul Bergfeld reports from Trebizond, ‘In fact, between Erzincan and Diyarbekir, Armenians have been massacred on the mountain road, allegedly by Kurds, and larger bands of ambushers … have been seen near Erzerum and Baiburt. After all, it is remarkable that in that area – which up to now was considered safe – such large bands can be formed.’323 Consul Rössler writes that the Turkish government ‘has called up Circassian volunteers and set them onto the Armenians’.324 In July 1915, Ambassador Wangenheim reported on the murder of Armenians in Tell Ermen; von Mikusch, the German major, reported, ‘The militia and gendarmes have at least tolerated the massacre and probably taken part in it. Replacements (released prisoners), including their officer, have spoken happily of massacres between Nisibin and Tell Ermen, and have completely plundered an Armenian village, the inhabitants of which were massacred.’325 Consul Rössler writes that the Turkish government ‘has released prisoners from the prisons, put them in soldiers’ uniforms, and sent them to the areas where the deportees would be passing through’.326 Pro-Armenian Lieutenant Colonel Stange reported on the fate of the deportees from Erzerum, ‘It is definitely a fact that these Armenians, almost without exception, were murdered in the region of Mama Hatun (Tertyan) by so-called chetes (volunteers), Ashirets and similar scum. These acts were, in fact, tolerated by the military escort cadres, were even accomplished with their assistance.’327 According to Stange, 321. 1916-01-31-DE-003. 322. 1915-04-15-DE-002. 323. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 324. 1915-07-27-DE-001. 325. 1915-07-09-DE-001. 326 . 1915-07-27-DE-001. 327. 1915-08-23-DE-013.

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the annihilation of the Armenians ‘was well organised and carried out with the help of members of the Army and of voluntary bands’.328 Vice-Consul Holstein reported that ‘gangs have massacred the entire Christian population of the town of Djeziré (Vilayet Diyarbekir) with the tacit connivance of the local authorities and the participation of the military’.329 Von Tyszka wrote, ‘The chetes, the old bashibazuks from the war of 1877/8, were found once again where easy spoils and murder were to be had without any risk involved. As brave and humane in thought as the Turkish soldier is when he is not spurred on by religion, so cowardly is the irregular. It will certainly be claimed that the chetes were instigated and led by Young Turks.’ And, ‘The chetes followed this caravan of defenceless people and robbed, raped and murdered as they pleased.’330 Consul Büge wrote that they especially had it in for the caravans: ‘in their opinion, they are hardly doing anything that is not right when they attack the Armenians, possibly killing them because the authorities have rather bluntly given them the order to massacre the Armenians’.331 Only once was a ‘special organisation’ mentioned in the German files. Questions by a Swiss charity organisation are answered by the consulate in Mosul, ‘The prerequisite for effective aid is that the deportees are first definitely permitted to remain in towns to be determined, and not, as has happened until now and is still constantly happening, restlessly sent hither and thither at the discretion of whichever Turkish ‘special organisation’ is dealing with those matters in a very unscrupulous manner.’332 Apart from the two large regional centres – Erzerum at the beginning of the deportations, and Aleppo, which was responsible during the following period for further transportation to Palestine and especially Mesopotamia – there were emissaries from Constantinople repeatedly deployed in regional committees for murderous acts against the Armenians. One ‘horrific pair’ was a duo nicknamed ‘Circassian’ Ahmed and Lieutenant Halil; Deacon Künzler, a Swiss, reported the following on them: ‘That it is no longer the Mutesarrif or the court-martial who make decisions in the matter of the Armenian question, but rather that two of the Committee’s emissaries, Halil and Ahmed Bey, are running a reign of terror’; whereupon Rössler wrote, ‘This has been confirmed to me by a well-informed, distinguished, local Mohammedan as being undoubtedly true.’ Rössler also spoke of a ‘deportation to Diyarbekir, autocratically brought about by the members of the Committee’.333 Other executors are also named. Sarkis Manukian, who completed his doctorate in Germany, reported on the murder of men by Kurds at a place two hours from 328. 1915-08-23-DE-013. 329. 1915-09-11-DE-011. 330. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 331. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 4. 332. 1916-06-23-DE-001. 333. 1915-08-11-DE-001.

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Malatia and, apart from Seynal Bey, the leader of the Kurds, named two Turks as being responsible: Ali Pasha attended the executions while his brother, Nuri Bey, had already gone ahead.334 Sometimes, even officers or public officials who were deployed as governors or sub-governors took an active part in the annihilation of the Armenians. For example, witnesses informed Consul Büge ‘that they saw no male Armenians along the way in the towns of Tshat, Burun-Kishla, Tshachmachsadé and Keller, and everywhere along the way they learned that all of them had been killed. It was supposedly the kaymakam from Bogaslayan who ordered the massacres in all of these towns.’335 Frieda Wolf Hunecke, who had previously worked for a British mission station in Everek, named ‘the cruel, violent-tempered Kaymakam (Zeki Bey)’ as one of the main culprits.336 The head of police in Aleppo and commanding officer in Djemal’s 4th Army, Fakhri Pasha, who was mentioned in several documents, was accused as follows by Rössler: ‘It is becoming ever clearer that the orders for the harshest and most merciless implementation of the deportation decided on by the government must be put down to Fakhri Pasha and come from him.’337 The governor general of Diyarbekir, Reshid Bey, was a vali who was particularly notorious for his brutality. When Vice-Consul Holstein from Mosul complained to the vali of his region about the deportees from Diyarbekir, the latter said ‘that only the Vali of Diyarbekir was responsible’.338 ‘Reshid Bey is causing havoc like an eager bloodhound amongst the Christians of his Vilayets’, Holstein reported shortly thereafter, ‘Just recently in Mardin he allowed seven hundred Christians, mostly Armenians, and including the Armenian Bishop, to be slaughtered like sheep in one night near the city. They had been gathered together by the gendarmerie sent especially from Diyarbekir.’339 Holstein wrote to his ambassador, ‘Everyone knows that the Vali of Diyarbekir, for example, is the instigator of the terrible crimes committed against the Christians in his Vilayet.’340 Vice-Consul Hoffmann wrote, ‘The worst seems to have happened in the Vilayet of Diyarbekir, where the Vali, Reshid Bey, has declared publicly that he will tolerate no Christians in his Vilayet. According to Vice-Consul Holstein’s personal knowledge – gained during his journey from Mosul to Aleppo – the people have been exhorted by gendarme patrols from Diyarbekir and Mardin to “finish off ” the Armenians.’341 After he had exterminated the Christians in his vilayet, Reshid continued his murderous acts in today’s capital, Ankara. ‘Vali Reshid Bey, known for his work in 334. 1915-11-30-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 335. 1915-10-01-DE-006, Enclosure 8. 336. 1915-07-13-DE-001, Enclosure. 337. 1915-07-17-DE-002. 338. 1915-06-10-DE-011. 339. 1915-07-10-DE-011. 340. 1915-08-14-DE-012. 341. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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Diyarbekir, is busy in Angora’, Wolff-Metternich wrote, ‘finding the last Armenians (solely Catholics) and driving them out’.342 Another butcher whose name was often mentioned by German observers was the mutessarif of Deir-es-Zor, Salih Zeki. Rössler reported that August Bernau, a German traveller, ‘is convinced that as long as Zeky Bey, the present Mutesarrif, remains in Der Zor, all the Armenians who enter his territory are doomed’.343 Rössler reported on the acts of annihilation that took place on the Khabur River; these were ‘implemented by the Mutesarrif Zekki Bey for no special reason’.344 Bernau spoke of the ‘brutal Mutessarrif, Zekki Bey, a Circassian’, who ‘deported’ all Armenians, ‘except some craftsmen and about 1,200 children. As I have heard, they have been sent to the area of the Khabur River. There, according to general opinion, they will be massacred or will perish somehow.’345 The German ambassadorial preacher, Count von Lüttichau, reported on his treatment of the Armenians, ‘He literally led all of them, without exception, into the desert and had them killed there.’346

The Objective of the Genocide If it was once Sultan Abdul Hamid’s objective to weaken the Armenians for decades in advance, the radical Young Turks had decided on the final annihilation of the Armenian people and carried this plan out. ‘A Turkish inspector said to me’, one of Rössler’s informants reported, ‘“This time we have done our job on the Armenians in a way we have desired for a long time; out of every ten, we have not left nine alive.”’347 The followers of the local Committee, Scheubner-Richter also reported, had their eyes only on the complete annihilation of all Armenians. ‘As long as this goal is not attainable through the various massacres, one hopes that the deprivation on the long journey to Mesopotamia and the unaccustomed climate there will finish the task. This solution to the Armenian question’ seemed to these hardliners ‘to be ideal’.348 ‘Only a violent extermination policy, a forcible destruction of a whole people, could lead the Turkish government in this way to its longed-for goal, to a “solution” of the Armenian question.’349 Ambassador Wangenheim, who usually tended to be more cautious, confirmed his opinion: ‘The way in which the resettlement is being carried out shows that the government is indeed pursuing its purpose of eradicating the Armenian race from the Turkish Empire.’350 An employee of the Baghdad Railway reported from Sivas that, with regard to the Armenians in prison, the Turkish officer who accompanied him said, ‘We will kill 342. 1916-07-10-DE-001. 343. 1916-09-20-DE-001. 344. 1916-11-05-DE-001. 345. 1916-09-05-DE-001. 346. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure. 347. 1915-07-27-DE-001, Enclosure. 348. 1915-07-28-DE-015. 349. 1915-08-10-DE-001. 350. 1915-07-07-DE-001

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them all.’351 ‘A man such as Ali Issan – who received his military training in Germany and speaks perfect German – the present Commander of the 6th Army in Mosul has stated countless numbers of times’, reported the ambassadorial preacher Count Lüttichau, ‘for the attention of German ears that within the boundaries of his command he will not permit a single Armenian to be left alive’.352 ‘A German Catholic priest reported’, Martin Niepage, a secondary school teacher, wrote, ‘that Enver Pasha said to the papal nuncio in Constantinople, Monsignor Dolci, that he would not rest as long as even one Armenian was still alive’.353 Thus, almost all German observers agreed: what happened to the Armenians in Turkey in 1915-16 was genocide. ‘The objective of the deportations is the extermination of the entire Armenian people’,354 Niepage wrote from Aleppo. Apart from Johannes Lepsius, he was the only German who attempted to draw the attention of German members of parliament to the genocide. The German vice-consul in Erzerum, Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, called the action taken against the Armenians ‘a violent policy of extermination, a violent annihilation of an entire people’ and ‘the absolute extermination of the Armenians’355 His colleague, Heinrich Bergfeld from Trebizond, also spoke of ‘plans to destroy the Armenians totally’, even if this did not take place in his town,356 and Vice-Consul Hermann Hoffmann-Fölkersamb from Alexandretta wrote, ‘There is not much difference between the deportation of the Armenians and their extermination.’357 The ambassadors made the same judgement regarding the situation. Already on 7 July 1915, Wangenheim had reported to Bethmann Hollweg, ‘This situation and the way in which the resettlement is being carried out shows that the government is indeed pursuing its purpose of eradicating the Armenian race from the Turkish Empire.’358 Ernst Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg called the Armenian genocide ‘the systematic slaughter of the Armenian people who had been deported from their homes’.359 Paul Count Wolff-Metternich considered ‘the real purpose of the Armenian deportations’ to be ‘the total extermination of the Armenian race’,360 and spoke in a further report of ‘destroying the Armenian race’.361 The Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission and later foreign minister Richard von Kühlmann spoke of an ‘annihilation of the Armenians which was carried out on a vast scale’.362 Finally, one of the heads of German foreign policy, Arthur Zim351. 1918-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure 4. 352. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure. 353. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 354. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 355. 1915-08-10-DE-001 356. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 357. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 358. 1915-07-07-DE-001. 359. 1915-08-12-DE-001. 360. 1916-01-24-DE-001. 361. 1916-07-10-DE-001. 362. 1917-02-16-DE-003.

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mermann, had to admit ‘that the execution of these deportation orders should lead to the destruction of a large proportion of the Armenian population’.363

Turkish Resistance to the Genocide There were several higher Turkish officials who did not agree with the procedures being carried out against the Armenians and were therefore removed from office. The most important among them was the vali from Aleppo, Djelal Bey. He ‘had previously not banned any Armenians from the Vilayet of Aleppo and had guaranteed that they would not cause any trouble’, Rössler wrote, but he already suspected, ‘the Government obviously wants to have a free hand here, too’.364 He was transferred in the middle of 1915. His colleague in Angora suffered a similar fate. ‘Despite repeated requests by the Central government, the Vali there, Masar Bey, had refused’, reported the German correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung to the German Foreign Office, ‘to extend the rigorous measures indiscriminately and summarily to the entire Armenian population, and he was then dismissed’.365 German observers were also full of praise for the mutessarif in Deir-es-Zor Fuad Bey. The Armenians ‘began to breathe a sigh of relief under the humane attitude of the Mutessarif ’,366 Bernau, a German, reported before his successor Salih Zeki took over his position, then began and ended an unprecedented act of annihilation. There were also leading Turkish officials who paid for their resistance against the deportations with their lives. ‘In the Vilayet of Diyarbekir, a Kaymakam was given verbal orders on the procedure against the Armenians. He refused to carry them out if they were not repeated in writing, whereupon he was dismissed and murdered on the way to Diyarbekir’, Rössler reported to his ambassador. ‘Not one, but rather several public officials were supposedly killed because they did not act mercilessly against all Armenians in their district.’367 Exceptions were also found among the officers. An official of the Baghdad Railway reported that a Turkish major who spoke German had told him, ‘I and my brother have each brought an Armenian girl with us from Ras-ul-Ain. We found them on our journey. Our Koran does not allow the sort of treatment that the Armenians are having to tolerate at present.’368 ‘A Turkish major told a German that the children left along the way by the Armenians could not be counted’, reported Ernst Pieper, an engineer. ‘He and his brother had each taken one into their homes to bring it up.’369 Von Tyszka reports, ‘A Turkish lieutenant colonel who had served in the Dardanelles and was in the capital city on a short holiday tearfully described what his relatives 363. 1917-05-09-DE-001. 364. 1915-06-21-DE-013. 365. 1915-09-05-DE-001. 366. 1916-09-05-DE-001. 367. 1915-07-17-DE-002. 368. 1915-07-27-DE-001, Enclosure. 369. 1915-08-20-DE-001, Enclosure 5.

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from Trebizond and Sivas had related to him concerning the Turkish massacres of the Armenians.’370 German observers also found simple Turks who disapproved. Blank, the German missionary, wrote about a train of deportees from Zeytun; the brutal action against the Armenians ‘had not met with the approval of many Turks. Some told me directly that it was incorrect to behave like this towards the poor people, but, they said, from our side we can do nothing about it.’371 Consul Bergfeld reported from Trebizond, ‘In honour of the Turkish population on the whole it must be said that very many Turks are not in agreement with the expulsion of women and children.’372 ‘I dare say that the deportation of the Armenians is too much even for the Anatolian Turks’, the head of the German Orphanage in Haruniye, Benno von Dobbeler, wrote, ‘those who now have the opportunity of enriching themselves as never before and who are also not averse to enriching themselves. But they detest the way in which this is now offered to them. They would really prefer not to besmirch themselves with this and are more than a bit surprised by the measures which they do not understand, and draw their own conclusions concerning the German government.’373 ViceConsul Hoffmann from Alexandretta wrote, ‘All kinds of Muslim voices can be heard condemning the atrocious acts – particularly those against women and children – as a sin against the commandments of Islam.’374 ‘It should not be forgotten that there are also Mohammedans who disapprove of the atrocities carried out against the Armenians’, an employee of the Baghdad Railway wrote. ‘A Mohammedan sheikh, a respected personality in Aleppo, said in my presence, ‘When people speak of how the Armenians are treated, I’m ashamed to be a Turk.’’375 ‘As I was also able to find out without a doubt, the Turkish Muslim population neither in the Mutessarifat of Erzincan nor in the Vilayet of Erzerum took part in the Armenian massacres’, Weitz, a German journalist, wrote after his journey throughout the east at the beginning of 1918. ‘Both here and often during the rest of my journey the true regret of the simple Turkish folk for the annihilation of the Armenians was expressed to me.’376 Fear for their own futures often played a role here. ‘The Turkish people themselves are by no means in agreement with this solution to the Armenian question’, Scheubner-Richter wrote, ‘and across the country they are now already experiencing the severe economic consequences of the deportation of the Armenians’.377 ‘Nor is this policy of extermination approved of by large circles of the Turkish population who still think reasonably, especially by the landowners’, said Scheubner-Richter in a 370. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 371. 1915-05-27-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 372. 1915-07-09-DE-002. 373. 1915-07-11-DE-002, Enclosure. 374. 1916-01-03-DE-001; Enclosure 1. 375. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 4. 376. 1918-06-20-DE-001. 377. 1915-07-28-DE-015.

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further report. ‘These circles, which have worked together with Armenians and gotten along well with them, recognise the great economic and political danger of this new system towards a solution of the Armenian question.’378 Consul Loytved Hardegg reported on a conversation with the former vali from Saloniki and Aleppo. He was deeply shocked by these occurrences and told the consul, ‘This cruel policy of extermination would greatly harm Turkey after peace had been achieved.’379 However, the vali was wrong. The Armenian genocide disappeared completely in the final peace talks with the Turks – and not only there.

The Role of the Germans Several groups had an influence on Germany’s Turkish policy and, thus, the Armenian policy. These included, of course, the politicians in Berlin, especially those at the German Foreign Office and other ministries, as well as at the Supreme Headquarters which, at the beginning of the war, became the central office for German policy. It consisted of the nominal Supreme Commander of the Army, Emperor William II, the Imperial Chancellor (who, at the same time, held the position of Head of the German Foreign Office), the top leaders of the army, the head of the admiralty staff, the heads of the civilian, military and naval cabinets, the Prussian minister of war, the permanent representatives of the German Foreign Office and the Imperial Naval Office, the military representatives of Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, as well as the liaison officers of the allied powers. During the decisive months of the genocide (April 1915 to February 1916), this leading committee was located at the Silesian castle of Pless. The actual centre of power, however, was taken over more and more by the head of the general staff of the army in the field, and very soon his command office came to be known by the name Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL). Without doubt, the most well-known head of the general staff was General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, while the most influential towards the end of the war was Infantry General Erich Ludendorff, for whom the position of First Head of General Quarters was created after Hindenburg was appointed.380 The political leadership lay far more in the hands of the military than in those of civilians; the emperor himself played a far less important role than his public speeches would have had people believe.

The Reactions of German Politicians to the Genocide During the months in which decisions were made concerning the Armenians, German diplomacy in Turkey lay in the hands of Ambassador Hans Baron von Wangenheim, who was, without doubt, the most influential ambassador in Constantinople. 378. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 379. 1916-05-30-DE-001. 380. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich and Irina Renz, Encyclopaedia of World War I, Paderborn, 2003, p. 544ff, 870 ff.

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In 1913, together with his Russian colleague, he had pushed through those reforms which gave the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire substantially extended rights as well as a certain level of autonomy. But Wangenheim was also the first to bring Turkey to Germany’s side from a military point of view. To do so, he had to make concessions to the nationalist faction of the Young Turks, thereby destroying the Russian-German reforms for which he was mainly responsible, which the Turks postponed immediately after the beginning of the war until an unspecified date. This meant that the Central Powers, including Germany, no longer offered the Armenians any kind of protection whatsoever. This was exactly what Wangenheim had suggested to his superiors in Berlin at the beginning of 1913. ‘The Armenians, who are spread out all over Asia Minor and northern Persia, who, for religious and ethnological reasons, stand in a natural conflict with their Mohammedan masters, are the given element for building up a tight political propaganda network in the Near East’, Wangenheim wrote to his Chancellor and Head of the German Foreign Office, Bethmann Hollweg. At that moment, when the liquidation of the Asian part of Turkey came within reach, it had to be of the greatest value to have such an instrument of agitation available for use. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Armenians are not sufficiently protected against despotism and suppression on Turkish territory. Whoever offers them this protection today will be the man for them, no matter what other, secondary objectives he may also be pursuing. ‘Whatever shape the fate of Turkey may take after peace has been made’, Wangenheim continued, one thing is certain: the Armenian element, strong in numbers and economically efficient, will emancipate itself more and more. Anyone pursuing economic or political goals in Anatolia will not be able to avoid taking this fact into consideration. If it should become evident in future that the process of dissolution in Turkey can no longer be stopped, then it will be of great value for us in the assertion of our rights in Asia Minor to have the indigenous Armenian element behind us.381 This was to be achieved by enabling German consuls to take on a kind of protective function for the Armenians. The Germans had, in fact, pursued economic and political objectives in Asian Turkey, even extremely imperial objectives: many Germans considered the area around the Baghdad Railway built by them – not only as far as Baghdad, but beyond there to Basra on the Persian Gulf – to be a future German colony; the diplomats liked to call it ‘our sphere of interest’, and also ‘our working area’. While leading German 381. 1913-02-24-DE-001.

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politicians merely thought of an economic German dominance in this region, others went as far as annexation. The key area of this sphere of interest was Cilicia, where Armenians made up the leading economic force. In previously unpublished private correspondence with Wangenheim in May 1913, Gottlieb von Jagow, Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, wrote, ‘It is a matter of course that we may not give the impression along the Asian coast that we wish to settle there permanently. For naturally, it is in our interest to postpone the moment of liquidation [of the Ottoman Empire] for as long as possible. Our interests have not yet grown enough roots and our sphere of interest does not yet have a strong border. The area in which we are most interested in the future is the Turkish. Should Asian Turkey also collapse – and I reckon strongly with this case – I always have in mind the idea of some form of a protectorate, by which we need not take over the direct rule and administration.’382 At the end of July 1913, Jagow added, ‘Turkey no longer has any active strength. There is only one interest left for us in Turkey: that it continues to exist in Asia until we have further consolidated our working areas there and they are ready for annexation.’383 On 13 May 1914 (i.e., closer to the outbreak of war), Jagow made it clear to his representative in Constantinople how he foresaw Germany’s policy towards Turkey: I never thought much even of Turkey’s ability to build an alliance, nor can I believe in this in the future, just as I do not believe in the reorganisation of Turkey. A state’s or people’s ability to build an alliance includes an active strength, whereas Turkey has been becoming steadily more passive during the past 2½ centuries. To me, it is nothing more than the bone which other dogs should not eat as long as I do not wish to eat as well. I consider it to be a great benefit if we maintain the hackney carriage for 1 or 2 years. Winning time means winning a lot. We cannot build something lasting in the Orient for a long time – in my opinion, this will only be possible after Turkey has been liquidated.384 On the other hand, Jagow showed no interest whatsoever in the Armenians. Upon Wangenheim’s request to win the Armenians over for Germany, he replied on 22 March 1913, ‘If we take on such a patronage, it entails the danger that we’ll be sitting between two chairs and achieve only the opposite of the intended effect: Turkey would feel tempted to make us responsible for the sins of radical Armenian elements, while our protégés would be inclined to make us pay if we do not implement their often utopian pretentions in Constantinople.’385 Thus, the starting point with regard to the future victims of the genocide was clear: the Armenians were to expect nothing from the Germans, even if, after Turkey 382. Letter from Jagow dated 8 May 1913; PA-AA, Wangenheim’s estate. 383. Letter from Jagow dated 28 July 1913; PA-AA, Wangenheim’s estate. 384. Letter from Jagow dated 13 May 1914; PA-AA, Wangenheim’s estate. 385. 1913-04-22-DE-001.

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joined the war, Wangenheim still gave the Armenian Patriarch the hope that German consuls would look after the Armenians ‘as far as this is possible’.386

The Attitude of the German Ambassadors in Constantinople and that of the Consuls There was a clearly recognisable grading in the people’s perception of the Armenian genocide. At the level of the consuls and their informants, there was a clear description of the multiple forms of this genocide. At the level of the German ambassadors in Constantinople who had all of these reports at their fingertips, there was a noticeable reservation in their presentation of events during the genocide, with one exception. Those responsible in the German Foreign Office – who were often directly informed by the consuls, but always by the ambassadors – already gave very different depictions of the genocide in their statements, which were usually very appeasing and, in many cases, even real denials. Finally, the top level of the Reich was only informed in fragments of the actual occurrences. Political or propagandistic calculations dominated at this level, and the Armenian genocide was not a subject of interest there. There was only one among the German consuls, Heinrich Bergfeld in Trebizond, who was in favour of the deportations of the Armenians, even still at the end of 1918 when he, too, was aware of all the consequences. ‘Based on the Armenians’ attitude and convictions at the beginning of the war, their evacuation – not just that of the men, but of entire families – was, in my opinion, a compellingly necessary military measure.’387 Bergfeld may have been led by his disregard for the Armenians (‘Anyone who knows the Orient will agree with me that the Armenians are blessed with hardly a trait that humans find attractive.’), yet even he himself concluded, ‘Despite this, the excesses that took place during their deportation – the mass murders of the men, numerous rapes of women and children, and theft of their possessions – cannot be condemned severely enough.’388 All of the other consuls criticised the murderous actions of the Turks at a very early stage. Wangenheim’s reaction to the warnings of his consuls was, however, extremely weak. ‘The deportation of the Armenians from the larger towns, where they are being replaced by Mohammedan immigrants’, Wangenheim said succinctly on 6 May 1915, ‘is continuing’. In particular, he reported to his superiors in Berlin that the government had ‘ordered extensive cautionary measures against the spread of the Armenian movement in the interior’.389 With his reference to the ‘Armenian movement’, Wangenheim was alluding to the rebellion of Armenian deserters in Zeytun, but especially to the events in Van. Although the supposed uprising – a result of the atrocities carried out against the Armenian in the other towns in the province – collapsed after several weeks and all 386. 1915-02-22-DE-001. 387. 1918-09-01-DE-001. 388. 1918-09-01-DE-001. 389. 1915-05-06-DE-002.

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of the Armenians were killed or driven out of Van, it now served among all the German ambassadors and politicians in Berlin as an authorisation for the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century. Although ever more alarming reports on the beginnings of this genocide arrived from the German consuls, Wangenheim only appeased at first. When his consul in Adana, Eugen Büge, reported, ‘With its barbaric methods, the government is obviously damaging the interests of the nation’, Wangenheim replied, ‘As regrettable and, in many respects, also detrimental to our interests as the persecution of the Armenian population is, however, the most recent events in the border provinces, such as the revolt in Van and other procedures in the country’s interior, do, in fact, justify the severe measures taken by the authorities. The Imperial Embassy is therefore not in a position to prevent these measures for the time being.’390 Upon the urging of Scheubner-Richter (‘Misery of the deported Armenians dreadful. Request instructions whether I can take steps in this matter with the Supreme Commander.’),391 he permitted his consul to protest at least locally. ‘Under the described circumstances you are authorised to approach your local Supreme Command about the deportation of the Armenians’, but immediately qualified this with, ‘unless reversal of the measures is inopportune for military reasons’. He instructed his consul, ‘However, you should keep your intervention within the limits of a piece of friendly advice and avoid giving your meeting the character of an official representation.’392 Wangenheim also appeased reproaches by Rössler, ‘The government is firmly determined to carry out these measures without regard for other considerations and I must, therefore, at present desist from further audiences, especially with the Minister of War.’393 Wangenheim’s reports to Berlin did not enable the German Foreign Office to suspect, at that time, what was really happening in Turkey. On 17 June, for the first time, Wangenheim reported to the actual leader of German policy in Turkey, Undersecretary of State Arthur Zimmermann, ‘The expulsion of the Armenian population from their residences in the east Anatolian provinces and their resettlement in other areas is being carried out without mercy’, and made the suggestive comment, ‘It has come to light that the banishment of the Armenians is not only motivated by military considerations.’394 This was the first time that there was talk of ‘military considerations’ in German diplomatic correspondence, which, in the eyes of the Germans, obviously justified the expulsions. In a ‘strictly confidential’ letter to the head of the German Christian CharityOrganisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt, the ambassadorial councillor in Constantinople, Konstantin Baron von Neurath, informed him as Wangenheim’s representative, ‘The resettlement of the Armenian population in East Anatolia was 390. 1915-05-18-DE-011. 391. 1915-05-18-DE-012. 392. 1915-05-19-DE-015. 393. 1915-06-03-DE-011. 394. 1915-06-17-DE-003.

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decided upon by the Turkish government mainly for military reasons, in order to prevent an insurrection of those districts that are heavily populated by Armenians. To my regret, this measure cannot be revoked at present or even stopped.’395 These deportations, said Wangenheim’s representative without giving any reason whatsoever, could be neither prevented nor limited. Neurath added that the press should not be informed of this. In a memo for the Turkish government written on the following day by Armenian expert Johann Mordtmann, he described how Talaat’s representative at the Ministry of the Interior, Djambulat Bey, had confirmed to him that the deportations of the Armenians would be expanded to include further eastern provinces. ‘This can no longer be justified by military considerations’, said Mordtmann, and added, ‘I believed that I should point out indirectly at the beginning of the new draft that we cannot agree to such an extent of mass deportations.’396 In his draft for the Sublime Porte, Mordtmann described the acts of murder committed against the Armenians, but only referred to the consequences abroad, particularly in the United States: ‘dont les représentants s’intéressent depuis quelques temps au sort des Arméniens en Turquie (whose representatives have, for some time, been interested in the fate of the Armenians in Turkey)’. On the other hand, in the accompanying text (for Wangenheim) he brought up the reaction to be expected by those Germans who were pro-Armenian and feared for the German mission stations. The personal fate of the Armenians themselves is not mentioned at all.397 On 6 June, Mordtmann presented the Germans’ note of protest to Talaat who, according to the bearer, ‘made a somewhat offended impression and promised a reply’.398 Finally, on 7 July, Wangenheim turned to the Imperial Chancellor for the first time. The expulsion and resettlement of the Armenian people was limited until 14 days ago to the provinces nearest to the eastern theatre of war and to certain areas in the province of Adana; since then the Porte has resolved to extend these measures also to the provinces of Trebizond, Mamuretul-Aziz and Sivas, and has begun with these measures even though these parts of the country are not threatened by any enemy invasion for the time being.399 Meanwhile, Ernst Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg – who represented Wangenheim until shortly before his death on 25 October 1915 – continued to appease the consuls. ‘All of our thoughts with regard to the decisions of the Turkish government to eliminate the indigenous Christians in the eastern provinces’,400 he cabled to 395. 1915-06-29-DE-001. 396. 1915-06-30-DE-001. 397. 1915-06-30-DE-001. 398. 1915-06-30-DE-001. 399. 1915-07-07-DE-001. 400. Struck out again from the manuscript, ‘until they are completely annihilated’.

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Rössler, ‘have proved to be ineffective. Therefore, for the time being I must refrain from taking further steps, particularly in favour of the Armenians.’401 In the meantime, Wangenheim had travelled to Berlin where he actually wished to recuperate, but the Turkish policy and the deportations of the Armenians kept him busy there also. When he returned to Constantinople, mortally ill, he told the American ambassador in no uncertain terms what he had already stated at an early stage and now confirmed, namely, that at the present stage in the inner situation in Turkey he would not intervene on behalf of the Armenians. The German ambassador added, ‘Our one aim is to win this war.’402 And Morgenthau remembered a further remark made by Wangenheim on the deportations of the Armenians. ‘Germany is not responsible for this’, his German colleague had said to him.403 After an interlude of three weeks, during which Konstantin Baron von Neurath ran the day-to-day business – who, in a letter to Bethmann Hollweg, had at least spoken of a ‘terrible need, which arose from these persecutions’404 – a new German ambassador arrived, Paul Count Wolff-Metternich, who at least spoke openly about the extermination policy. In a document that was written and signed but withheld, he examined possible economic claims by Germans against Turkey that were the result of the deportation and murder of Armenians. He ascertained that, in addition to the ‘excesses against the lives of those who have been resettled’, the Turkish authorities had themselves created reasons for persecution – such as the ownership of weapons – but that they had by no means prevented bands of murderers from carrying out their atrocious deeds, and ‘that the final target of the government’s measures is not the resettlement, but rather the extermination of the Armenians’. Furthermore, he recorded that Turkish policemen, gendarmes and soldiers ‘partly upon the orders of their superiors and partly without any authorisation’ took part in acts of murder against the Armenians.405 This meant that many statements made by German and other witnesses as well as by German consuls were virtually officially confirmed by the highest German authority in Turkey. But Metternich did even more, and undertook a serious attempt to end the murder of the Armenians. In December 1915, he presented a suggestion to the Imperial Chancellor that, if the ever more unrestrained acts of annihilation being carried out against the Armenians could not be checked, they should at least be condemned. Metternich stated that he had spoken to the leaders of the Young Turks in ‘an exceedingly sharp language’, but, ‘Protests are useless. Should a stop be put to this, then more severe means are necessary.’ Metternich therefore suggested that the following text be published in the semi-official government newspaper, the Norddeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung: 401. 1915-08-02-DE-011. 402. Morgenthau loc. cit., Chapter XXVII. 403. Morgenthau loc. cit., Chapter XXVII. 404. 1915-10-26-DE-001. 405. 1916-01-31-DE-003.

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In view of the numerous reports that have reached Germany, partly through the foreign press, about the sad fate of the Armenians of Turkey who have been evacuated from their former homes to be resettled in other areas, a growing concern is spreading among large segments of the German people. If every state should be free to decide, particularly in times of war, to proceed with all severity that is warranted under martial law against rebellious elements of its population, then every precaution should be taken in executing the orders, which are necessary for the safety of the state, to avoid an entire race, including old people, women and children, having to suffer through the fault of a few individuals. In view of the close friendly relations that exist between Turkey and Germany as a result of their alliance, the Imperial Government has felt obliged, as soon as the first news came through about the deeply unfortunate events which have occurred during the resettlement of the Armenian people, and which seem mainly to have been caused by the blunders of subordinates, to urgently direct the attention of the Turkish government through the offices of the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople, to the excesses and harshness and to repeatedly demand, both verbally and in writing, that a stop be put to them immediately. The Imperial Government earnestly hopes that in the interest of both Turkey itself and the Armenian race, these remonstrations will be complied with.406 According to Metternich, ‘Our displeasure over the persecution of the Armenians should be clearly expressed [in the German press] and an end be put to our gushing over the Turks.’ The German Ambassador said that, in order to be of real assistance to the Armenians, ‘we will have to inspire fear in the Turkish government regarding the consequences. If, for military considerations, we do not dare to confront it with a firmer stance, then we will have no choice but – with further abortive protests which tend rather to aggravate than to be of any use – to stand back and watch how our ally continues to massacre.’ The heads of Germany’s foreign policy appeared to be impressed by Metternich’s philippic. ‘It looks as though we shall have to do this. Your Excellency should, however, soften this article before publication. In its present form it would suit too well the purposes of the Entente’, Arthur Zimmermann noted in the letter, and his superior, Gottlieb von Jagow, assisted as well: ‘In particular, the end should sound friendlier towards the Turkish government.’ However, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, nominally also Minister of Foreign Affairs, completely denied his ambassador’s wish. ‘The proposed public reprimand of an ally in the course of a war would be an act which is unprecedented in history’, he wrote in a handwritten note on 17 December, furious with his ambassador. ‘Our only aim is to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, no matter whether as a result Armenians do perish or not.’407 406. 1915-12-07-DE-001. 407. 1915-12-07-DE-001.

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The words Wangenheim used in his statement to Morgenthau were exactly the words of Bethmann Hollweg. In other words, the German Imperial Chancellor had already uttered them many weeks previously to Wangenheim. Even Wangenheim’s protestations that Germany was not responsible for the deportations were to become true in part, even if they had a nasty aftertaste.

Germany’s Joint Responsibility for the Genocide On 22 December 1915, in answer to petitions from the Germany embassy, the Turkish government pointed out yet again that the measures against the Armenian population in the empire solely concerned internal matters in Turkey. Every country had the right, the Sublime Porte stated in its reply – which, as always, was written in French – ‘to take measures to extinguish subversive activities carried out in its territory’ (‘il est incontestable que tout État a le droit de prendre les mesures propres à enrayer un mouvement subversif propagé sur son territoire’). The Imperial German Embassy had also confirmed this point of view and, in its memo of 3 July, acknowledged that the measures taken against the Armenian population in the eastern provinces were justified for military reasons and represented a means of legitimate defence (‘que les mesures de répression décrétées contre la population arménienne des provinces de l’Anatolie Orientale sont dictées par des raisons militaires et constituent un moyen de légitime défense’).408 The quintessence of this Turkish letter was that, for military reasons, Germany had agreed to the deportation of the entire Armenian population – not only from the east Anatolian regions, but also within the entire imperial territory – since Germany had accepted the principle of non-involvement in interior matters and this non-involvement was valid for the entire territory of the Ottoman Empire. The recipient of this letter, Wolff-Metternich, agreed with this view inasmuch as he wrote in a report to the Imperial Chancellor dated 3 April 1916: ‘The Turkish government supports the view that resettlement measures were justified in the entire country for military reasons. Both the present government as well as those that follow, unless there is a complete change in the system, will hold this view doggedly.’ However, the letter contains a postscript that, for the first time, clearly determines Germany’s responsibility. It was not, as was usual, written by Consul General Johann Mordtmann, who was officially appointed responsible for Armenian matters, but by Otto Göppert, who had been at the Embassy in Constantinople since January 1915 and was mainly responsible for economic matters. Göppert now added ‘that resettlement measures were not only justified in the eastern provinces, as we have acknowledged, but also in the entire country’. This report was signed not only by Metternich in Constantinople, but also by Neurath; Rosenberg had it resubmitted twice in Berlin, possibly because of the claims for damages also mentioned in this letter.409 The ‘eastern provinces’ regularly referred to in negotiations on the Armenian reforms are synonymous with the so-called Armenian provinces. In a letter to Asia Mi408. 1916-04-03-DE-002. 409. 1916-04-03-DE-002.

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nor author Huge Grothe dated 4 October 1915, Lepsius’ secretary, Richard Schaefer, reported that Minister of War Enver, who had meanwhile spoken with Lepsius, had decided ‘to evacuate the entire Armenian population, for the moment in seven410 Vilayets’.411 And in his testimony before the criminal chamber of the regional court of Berlin in the case of the murder of Talaat against Solomon Tehlirian, head of the German military mission in Turkey Otto Liman von Sanders spoke of the ‘evacuation of the Armenians in East Anatolia’. Thus, the Germans had agreed to the deportations of the Armenians in eastern Turkey. According to Metternich’s document, although they were not the originators – as Wangenheim had also asserted to Morgenthau – the German Empire was jointly responsible for the genocide because it approved of the deportations. The addition of ‘for military reasons’ in the Turkish note, which is also used by German diplomats in several documents concerning deportation measures, was widely interpreted by those Germans responsible. In his reply to Schuchardt at the end of June 1915, Neurath practically adopted the Turkish version of the term ‘military reasons’, which were also considered applicable in those regions that were ‘heavily populated’412 by Armenians: therefore, ‘military reasons’ existed for deporting the Armenians from the entire region that was their main place of settlement. The Turks went even a step further and considered ‘military reasons’ to be appropriate wherever they believed to have discovered an Armenian ‘movement’ (i.e., practically everywhere) where even individual Armenians were to be found. Thus, it was only logical that they abolished regional borders completely and introduced a concept of time, ‘especially where this movement took place during times of war’ (‘surtout lorsque ce mouvement se produit en temps de guerre’).413 In this manner, according to the view of the Turks, everything that happened to the Armenians in Turkey during World War I was for ‘military reasons’, a point of view which the Germans had also confirmed to a large extent. ‘It must also be admitted’, Metternich wrote in a document that was written and signed, but withheld, ‘that the evacuation of parts of the Armenian population was justified by military interests and can be considered as having been an act of self-defence’.414 And, at the end of 1918, ambassadorial preacher Count Luettichau ascertained, ‘The deportation was a military measure. The reason for the measure is known to everyone and certainly justified’, even though he then qualified this statement, ‘But the annihilation of the deportees, 410. This refers to the six Armenian provinces listed in the reform programme as well as the province of Trebizond in which, apart from the Armenians, many Greeks had settled. 411. Deutschland, Armenien und die Türkei 1895-1915. Dokumente und Zeitschriften aus dem Dr. Johannes-Lepsius-Archiv an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Witten-berg [Germany, Armenia and Turkey, 1895-1915: Documents and magazines from the Dr. Johannes Lepsius Archive at the Martin Luther University of Halle Wittenberg], compiled by Hermann Goltz and Axel Meissner (Munich: 1999). Hereinafter quoted as LAH. Register number of this article: 653-6670. 412. 1915-06-29-DE-001. 413. 1916-04-03-DE-002. 414. 1916-01-31-DE-003.

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which succeeded only too well and too thoroughly, was a political measure by the government.’415 Even Undersecretary of State Arthur Zimmermann stated to the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin in September 1916, when renewed aggravations had been ordered against the surviving Armenians, that ‘while the earlier deportations of the Armenians could still barely be defended as being justified, taking into account the military situation at that time in the interest of national safety, the measures now planned against the last few pathetic Armenians consisting of women and children are in no way justified nor can they be excused’.416 The regional restriction to the eastern regions, which the Germans inserted in their agreement with Turkey, may explain why even the German Foreign Office in Berlin urged the Turkish government to intervene when signs pointed to the possibility that Armenians from the large western cities of Smyrna and especially Constantinople were also to be deported. Naturally, the German ambassadors oversaw this clause in the case of deportations of Armenians from the interior of western Anatolia.

The German Armenian Policy of Central Headquarters in Berlin German observers of the genocide who were on the spot had drawn a clear picture that left no doubt whatsoever of the criminal intentions of the Young Turks. With the exception of Metternich, even the ambassadors adapted the facts to the demands made by their superiors. Finally, the news was filtered again at the German Foreign Office, and the tendency was clear: to minimise the guilt of the Young Turks and increase that of the supposedly rebellious Armenians. Against their better knowledge, the leading German diplomats had adopted the fantasy figures of their Turkish allies with regard to the numbers of victims in the uprising in Van. Zimmermann only toned this down when appearing before the Budget Committee of the Berlin Reichstag, and spoke only of ‘a general Armenian rebellion’. Although he repeated the contents of this to the Grand Duchess of Baden – who had been informed by Lepsius – he added that the uprising ‘cost the lives of thousands of Muslims within only a few days’, which can almost be interpreted as a correction.417 ‘The sad events are generally well-known’, Zimmermann reported to the parliament’s Imperial Budget Committee on 29 September 1916, referring to the Armenian genocide. The German politicians knew nothing. When Karl Liebknecht, a Social Democrat member of the Reichstag, asked in parliament in January 1916, ‘Is the Imperial Chancellor aware of the fact that during the present war hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the allied Turkish empire have been expelled and massacred?’ he was given the following reply by the Director of the Political Department of the German Foreign Office, Ferdinand Carl Baron von Stumm: ‘The Imperial Chancellor is aware that some time ago, the Sublime Porte, compelled by the rebellious machinations of 415. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure. 416. 1916-09-25-DE-001. 417. 1917-05-09-DE-001.

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our enemies, evacuated the Armenian population in certain parts of the Turkish empire and allocated new residential areas to them. Due to certain repercussions of these measures, an exchange of ideas is taking place between the German and the Turkish governments. Further details cannot be disclosed.’ When Liebknecht pursued the matter and referred to Johannes Lepsius, who ‘virtually spoke of an extermination of the Turkish Armenians’, the president of the Reichstag interrupted the member of parliament by ringing the bell and would not permit any further remarks.418 Strict censorship of the press ensured that all information on the genocide was suppressed. The press departments of the German Foreign Office and other offices decided what the German public was allowed to learn. The government’s spokesman was, in this case, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, a newspaper that published only reports by Turkish agencies. Consul Walter Rössler was once beside himself because of the lies reported in this official government newspaper, which, on 13 July 1915, had published a statement by the official Ottoman dispatch agency Agence Milli which protested against statements that the Ottoman government provided protection for the excesses carried out against the Armenians living in Turkey, and that these excesses often consisted of slaughtering. ‘I was not able to believe my own eyes when I saw this explanation and I can find no words to describe the depth of this untruth’, Rössler wrote to his embassy. The Turkish government has driven its Armenian subjects – the innocent ones, mark you – into the desert in thousands upon thousands, under the pretext of having to remove them from the war areas, exempting neither the sick nor pregnant women nor the families of conscripted men; has given them both food and water in insufficient quantities and irregularly; has done nothing against the epidemics which have broken out amongst them; has driven the women to such desperation that they set out their babies and newborns by the wayside; has sold their adolescent daughters, with the result that they have thrown themselves even with their small children into the river. It has left them to the mercy of their guards and, therefore, to dishonour – an escort which dragged away the girls and sold them. It has driven them into the hands of the Bedouins, who have plundered and kidnapped them. It has had the men illegally shot in desolate places and has the bodies of its victims fed to the dogs and birds of prey. It is supposed to have arranged for the murders of the representatives whom it had sent into exile. It has released prisoners from the prisons, put them in soldiers’ uniforms and sent them to the areas where the deportees would be passing through. It has called up Circassian volunteers and set them onto the Armenians. But what does it offer as semi-official explanations? ‘The Ottoman government … is extending its benevolent protection to all honest Christians living peacefully in Turkey …’419 418. 1916-01-11-DE-001. 419. 1915-07-27-DE-001.

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The documents of the German Foreign Office that are reproduced in this book give fairly good coverage of the account and assessment of the Armenian genocide by German diplomatic and other sources. An extensive description of Germany’s Turkish – and thus, Armenian – policy cannot be carried out using these documents, and is left to later studies. Far more than the chancellor and the German Foreign Office, it was the German military – the general staff, the Supreme Headquarters and, to a small extent, even the Emperor – who determined German policy. Yet even the documents on hand make it quite clear what values Imperial Germany was committed to. On 1 August 1916, the Turkish government abolished the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople and thus, its institutions. Johann Heinrich Mordtmann thereupon drew up an elaborate document on the abolition of the Armenian People’s District Council and of the constitution which the Armenians had drawn up. ‘This constitution’, Mordtmann stated, ‘corresponded with the ultra-democratic spirit that had always existed among the Gregorian Armenians’.420 This was not praise, but – in the eyes of German politicians – a strong reprimand. Imperial Germany was an authoritarian regime, but was it really, as Morgenthau and many others in the West believed, characterised far more strongly by Prussian militarism than any other ideology? It was not a parliamentary democracy in the British, American and French sense; although it had a very progressive electoral law for the Reichstag, which could also make decisions for the budget, but had, in comparison with Western parliaments, not much of a say in matters. But most important of all: which spirit reigned in the Empire before and during this First World War, in which the fate of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was decided? The ideals of the French Revolution, which many Germans originally welcomed, no longer had any chance whatsoever of being realised after the Civilian Revolution failed in Germany in 1848. Most of those Germans who felt an obligation to these ideals emigrated: 2.8 million Germans left their native country in the nineteenth century and most of them went to the United States. Of the Western ideals of freedom, unity and brotherhood, only the idea of unity was left, and a brotherly concept which degenerated into soldierly comradeship. Perhaps the most important inheritance of the French Revolution – namely, human rights – disappeared from linguistic usage in German. This central concept of the Western world appears in none of the German documents. Its surrogate was the far less clear humanity, which German consuls and Wolff-Metternich attempted to call up in the face of the Armenian genocide. In October 1914, more than 4,000 German professors – practically the entire university world in the Empire – supported the ‘call to the cultural world’ issued by ninety-three great German minds, which culminated in the demand, ‘Without German militarism, German culture would be swept off the face of the earth. The former has been brought forward by the latter to protect it.’421 German culture versus West420. 1916-08-23-DE-001. 421 Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen von; Ungern-Sternberg, Wolfgang von, Der Aufruf, ‘An die Kulturwelt!’ [The appeal ‘to the cultural world!’] Stuttgart, 1996.

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ern civilisation: this conceptual pair showed the difference between the democratic countries of Europe and the German Empire. And the Armenian elite, generally educated in the West and, therefore, also oriented towards the West, showed little preference for the German variation. Already at the end of 1914, the German consul in Aleppo, Walter Rössler, noticed ‘an acute antipathy towards Germany’ in his field of work.422 In the same year, Wangenheim stated that his colleague in Adana, Büge, experienced an ‘unfavourable mood of the Armenian population of those territories towards the German cause.’423 ‘At the bottom of their hearts’, said German propagandist Baron Max von Oppenheim, ‘with few exceptions, those Armenians who think, irrespective of whether they are Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, were ‘always hostile towards us Germans: they knew that we wanted to strengthen the Turkish empire while they were working towards its destruction’.424 The undersecretary of state in the German Foreign Office, Zimmermann, stated in his notes for the 86th sitting of the Imperial Budget Committee on 29 September 1916, when the Armenian genocide entered its final phase that ‘a considerable hatred of the Germans was apparent in the Armenians’.425 This corresponded with a hatred on the part of the Germans against the Westernoriented Armenians. ‘This is first and foremost the consequence of the American and British missionary work, which began in the middle of the 19th century, as well as the rabble-rousing subversive activities of the Russian, British and French consuls’, Oppenheim stated with regard to the causes of the Armenians’ position. ‘The halfeducated Armenians who were then introduced to modern civilisation in Europe and the United States and who absorbed revolutionary opinions, the idea of raising a great Armenian kingdom once again which, in fact, had not existed for thousands of years, returned to their native country and inoculated their countrymen with the germ of listlessness and dissatisfaction with the present conditions.’426 The German Ambassador and later Minister of Foreign Affairs, Richard von Kuehlmann, took a more objective point of view. ‘The Americans have done a great deal to rouse the Armenians intellectually’, he wrote, and added maliciously that ‘in this way, they indirectly contributed to the sad fate of the Turkish Armenians’.427 Zimmermann, Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office, spoke to members of the German parliament of ‘agitations by the Armenians. The revolution against the Turks was keenly preached by those Armenians who were living in neutral and hostile foreign countries. The result was revolts.’428 A revolution against Turkey and, thus, against Germany, was constantly in Germans’ thoughts whenever talk turned to the Armenians. The danger of revolution 422. 1914-10-16-DE-001. 423. 1914-12-29-DE-001. 424. 1915-08-29-DE-001. 425. 1917-05-09-DE-001. 426. 1915-08-29-DE-001. 427. 1917-01-20-DE-001. 428. 1917-05-09-DE-001.

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and external remote control, especially from Russia, were essentially German topoi. And treason went practically hand-in-hand with revolution. ‘The complaints lodged about desertions and switching of numerous Armenians to the Russian side were ever increasing’, Zimmermann stated before the Budget Committee of the Reichstag. ‘Regretfully, a general Armenian rebellion finally broke out in Van in the rear of Turkish troops who were advancing against Azerbaijan. Anyone will find it comprehensible that the Turks then decided to evacuate the area, which was being plagued by the Armenian revolution. In addition, there was, of course, the fanaticism of the Turks and their hatred, which to a certain degree was justified by the acts of treason and the disloyalty of the Armenians.’ And the consequence, ‘The deportations took a deplorable course.’429 Just how much members of the German parliament were lied to is evident from reports by the German consuls, which contradicted all of Zimmermann’s statements. But the fiction of treason being everywhere and coming from everywhere was not just a constant among German politicians that had been inherited especially from the Prussians, but even more so among the German military, whether it was a question of German Catholics or Socialists or Armenians. The Empire had worked itself into a state of hysteria regarding a complot between the Entente Powers against Germany, and went to almost no ends to search for proof. ‘I remember an article in the Daily Chronicle in September 1915’, Zimmermann said to the representatives of the German people, ‘that was full of praise and recognition of the fact that the Armenian people, from the beginning of the war onwards, had accepted the matter of the Entente as their own, from the very beginning had fought on the side of the Entente uncompromisingly and had a right to be considered as the seventh ally of the Entente. The article is signed: The seventh Ally!’430 An article by a British daily newspaper served as an excuse for justifying the annihilation of more than one million Armenians. In Berlin, the Armenian genocide developed ever more into a means of propaganda. The Imperial Government attempted to present itself as aiding the Armenians and to blame the Entente for the fate of the Armenians. Finally, pro-Armenian WolffMetternich joined this propaganda campaign, receiving great praise for this from the Emperor himself. ‘Although – for various reasons – it is regrettable that we did not succeed in bringing the Armenian policy of the Porte onto a reasonable course’, he wrote to Berlin on 10 June 1916, ‘on the other hand neither our enemies nor the so-called neutrals have the slightest right to put the blame on us or even only to demand that we publicly pronounce our disapproval. The nameless atrocities of all kinds which were committed against German civilian and military prisoners in the course of the World War by the English, French and Russians – by those three nations who call themselves the champions of the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox faiths – were never the subject of protests on the part of any one of the Entente powers against another; there is just 429. 1917-05-09-DE-001. 430. 1917-05-09-DE-001.

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as little evidence that a voice was ever raised in the enemy press on behalf of trampled human rights.’ This was completely in line with the Emperor’s ideas, who graded the paragraph ‘very good’. ‘This circumstance is also known to the Porte’, Metternich continued, ‘which repeatedly countered our protests in the Armenian question by referring to it. Not we, as is so often claimed, but rather our enemies have shown the Turks the ways of rendering suspicious elements of the population harmless without any respect for human rights.’431 William II was in complete agreement with his ambassador’s philippic and wrote underneath the entire report, ‘Correct!’ It was the only time that William II, who usually made comments on even the most unimportant details, made any kind of statement whatsoever regarding the genocide in any of the German Foreign Office’s files that have so far been discovered. In his memoirs, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the United States ambassador, dealt not only extensively with Ambassador Hans von Wangenheim, but he also left no doubt about whom he considered to be truly guilty of Germany’s non-intervention on the part of the Armenians: the German military in Turkey. The US ambassador believed them to be the executors of the German Emperor’s policy, but in this case he probably conceded William II too much political leadership. However, his assumption was correct that, apart from the classical diplomatic track, there was also a military path of command and communication. Although important military files, possibly even the most important ones, were burned in the fire of Allied bombs during the final days of World War II, the diplomatic files permit at least a rudimentary sketch of the activities of the German military in Turkey, some of which were directly responsible for the death of hundreds if not thousands of Armenians, and indirectly perhaps even for the genocide itself.

The German Military in Turkey Almost all of the German officers who were stationed in Turkey during World War I – a maximum of about 800 – came to Turkey as a result of the German military mission that was agreed upon with the Ottoman Empire in 1913. They not only trained Turkish officers, as was previously the case, but were also an integral part of the Turkish Army. If a Turk was the commanding officer of an army, a German headed the general staff, and vice versa. This meant that German officers were to be found in all of the key positions. And since, with the exception of the Dardanelles, their sphere of action was usually on the Palestinian front or in Mesopotamia, many of them travelled on routes that were also allocated to the deported Armenians. Thus, more German officers experienced the effects of the genocide than did German diplomats, some of whom were even forbidden to stay in those areas where the actual acts of murder took place, and who could only report what they had seen themselves if, similar to Consul Wilhelm Litten, who was stationed in Persia, they had to travel to the West along typical deportation roads. 431. 1916-07-10-DE-001.

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Turkish officials even attempted to conceal the entire extent of their acts of annihilation from these officers. ‘There was a large camp of half-starved, deported Armenians near Djerablus when Field Marshal von der Goltz travelled to Baghdad and had to pass the Euphrates River there’, secondary school teach Martin Niepage reported. I learned in Djerablus that shortly before the Field Marshal’s arrival, the unfortunates, together with the sick and the dying, were driven with lashes of the whip a few kilometres over the next hill. When von der Goltz passed by, there was nothing left to see of the adverse sight. When we visited that place shortly afterwards with several colleagues, we still found the corpses of men and children, bits of clothing and skulls and bones, the flesh of which had only partly been eaten off by jackals and birds of prey.432 Few remarks are to be found in diplomatic documents concerning the general attitude of the German military in Turkey towards the Armenian genocide, and these were written solely by private individuals. ‘I often notice how embarrassed silence or a desperate attempt to change the subject took hold of their circles’, Martin Niepage wrote, ‘when a German with deep feelings and an independent judgement came to speak of the dreadful misery of the Armenians’.433 And someone who wrote an anonymous letter to the head of the Baghdad Railway, Guenther, noted, ‘It is wrong on Germany’s part, as was expressed by officers, to believe that the lives of thousands of Armenians don’t matter.’434 But there were only a few German officers who were openly against the deportations and acts of murder. Erzerum was an island of protest against the deportations, even if this was only internal, where Scheubner-Richter, a reserve officer who was against the deportations, ran the consulate. Apart from him, only three German officers were situated permanently in the town: the German Colonel and Turkish Major General Posseldt, who was the commander of the fort; the Prussian major and commander of the battalion in Infantry Regiment No. 21, Stange; as well as the Major and head of the reconnaissance staff of Pioneer Battalion No. 27, von Staszewski, who offered his observations on deportation to Lepsius after the war, but did not meet with any interest.435 These three officers, known through the files of the German Foreign Office, and probably Staszewski as well, were well-disposed towards the Armenians, but they had to pay a price for this. From then on, Scheubner-Richter was deployed as an officer only in the east and in Persia; Posseldt, according to insinuations made by German witnesses, was transferred because he spoke up for the Armenians; the same applied to Major Stange who, from then on, had to do duty 432. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 433. 1916-09-10-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 434. 1918-11-01-DE-001, Enclosure 4. The page with this statement is missing in the microfilm edition made available by the German Foreign Office for users of the archive. 435. LAH 2193.

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at the post office in Constantinople before being sent to the western front, where he died from poison.

German Officers in Action against Civilians ‘Germany gave Turkey three 15 cm field howitzers, the most modern ones available at that time: they had an air counter-recoil mechanism. These were missing on the western front, where they were desperately needed. We German officers in Turkey cursed solidly about how we were, for the most part, wasting time uselessly carting around valuable material and merely taking it for a drive’, Stumpf, a German captain later wrote to a stamp magazine, which was only interested in the field postmark of the German military mission, and this was probably why he spoke so openly. In Diyarbekir, even mud houses had to be torn down, he reported, to enable the ten to twelve pairs of buffaloes or the group of one hundred soldiers replacing them to pull these monsters through the town at all. Soldiers were even killed by the long rope.436 Captain Stumpf could have asked his colleague Eberhard Count Wolffskeel von Reichenberg about the use of such modern German artillery. The latter would have been able to tell him why this artillery was being taken for a ride here in this region, far away from the theatre of war: in order to shoot down rebellious Armenians or those who were simply fighting for their existence. On 30 March 1915 (i.e., long before the Armenian uprising in Van, which the Turks and the Germans gave out as being the trigger for the deportations), the embassy in Constantinople received a telegram from its representative in Damascus, Padel, where Djemal Pasha resided, the commander of the 4th Army, which was responsible for Zeytun. ‘Count Wolfskel informed me’, it says in the text, in which the German artillery officer’s name is spelled incorrectly, ‘that Consul Rössler in Aleppo plans to travel to Zeytun because of the events there, which have meanwhile developed satisfactorily. The military authority considers this journey to be extremely questionable and requests that he refrain from undertaking it. As requested, I telegraphed this to Rössler. On behalf of Count Wolfskel, I request that instructions be sent accordingly from there to Aleppo’, and this was then done. In a telegram dated 30 March 1915, the embassy instructed Rössler, ‘Please do not travel to Zeytun, but rather restrict yourself to a visit to Marash.’437 When Rössler arrived in Aintab late on the evening of 8 April, he reported later, ‘I learned that General Fakhri Pasha was in town, accompanied by the German Major Count Wolffskeel, in order to go on a tour of inspection of Marash, Zeytun and elsewhere.’438 Rössler was aware of Wolffskeel’s function as Fakhri Pasha’s deputy; concerning the latter, he wrote, ‘The harshest and most merciless implementation of the deportation decided on by the government must be put down to Fakhri Pasha and 436. Philatelie und Postgeschichte [Philately and postal history], Frankfurt am Main, Numbers 10 to 12, 1970, pp. 66-67. 437. 1915-03-30-DE-001. 438. 1915-10-25-DE-011.

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comes from him.’439 And it must have been clear to him what the two artillerymen planned to do in Zeytun: shoot down the monastery together with the deserters. Wolffskeel also took part in the pursuit of the Armenian refugees on Musa Dagh, Rössler reported: ‘I would like to add that Count Wolffskeel also accompanied Fakhri Pasha at the end of September during the military measures against the rebels near Suediye.’440 And finally, it was Wolffskeel who shot down the Armenian rebels in Urfa – in front of German witnesses. In October 1915, the two artillerymen invited Franz Hugo Eckart, the German head of the carpet factory that had been built up by Lepsius, to their shooting range above Urfa, from which point there was a good view of the Armenian quarter. Eckart was meant to ensure that neither the buildings of the German mission nor those of the Americans suffered any damage. Wolffskeel hit the Armenian Church and the leader of the rebels hiding in it so well that they gave up. His countryman’s accuracy made little impression on Rössler; rather, he wrote to his ambassador, ‘I respectfully leave it to Your Excellency’s worthy consideration whether it is expedient that a German officer takes part in an expedition against an inner-Turkish enemy.’441 Wolffskeel was not the only German officer who distinguished himself less in the war against external enemies and more in that against supposedly internal enemy. Another one was Lieutenant Colonel Boettrich, the head of the transport system (railroad department) at the Turkish Supreme Headquarters, and who was, therefore, from a military point of view, in charge of the personnel at the Baghdad Railway companies. Boettrich did not join in the shooting, as Wolffskeel did; instead, he did something that in the eyes of some Germans was even worse: he signed deportation orders and, therefore, death sentences for the Armenian employees of the Baghdad Railway. Since these well-educated Armenians were irreplaceable for the German operators, the deportation orders hit the company badly. ‘There will come a time when our adversaries will pay a lot of money’, the deputy director of the Railway prophesied gloomily as he sent one of the orders signed by Boettrich to the German Foreign Office in Berlin, ‘to own this document because with the signature of a member of the military mission they will prove that not only did the Germans do nothing to prevent the persecution of the Armenians, but that certain orders towards this objective were even sent out (i.e., signed by them). The Military Commissioner put his finger on Mr. Boettrich’s signature with a caustic smile, for the fact that this document, which will be cause for a lot of talk in future, carries a German and not a Turkish signature, is also precious for the Turks.’442 After the war, several high-ranking German soldiers described this signature as a grave error because it appeared to provide the opponents of a world war with propagandistic ammunition. They could not know that none of these documents would be 439. 1915-07-17-DE-002. 440. 1915-10-25-DE-011. 441. 1915-10-25-DE-011. 442. 1915-11-18-DE-001, Enclosure 2.

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published in the foreseeable future, but rather lie sleeping for over eighty years in the archives. And further files are probably also sleeping there, which bear witness to the true role played by German officers. If Wangenheim had wanted to do so, Morgenthau claimed in his memoirs, he would have been in a position to stop the deportations. The documents refute this theory, but they show another possibility: while German diplomats were powerless and often also simply lacked courage, the German military had the possibility not only to kill, but also to save lives. On 8 November 1916, ‘a number of arrests were made’ in the harbour town of Smyrna, ‘and the next day 300 Armenians were deported by train, irrespective of age and gender’, the chargé d’affaires in Constantinople, Radowitz, reported to the Imperial Chancellor. ‘Other transportations are to follow. The deportation is being organised by the Chief of Police in Smyrna, to whom the Vali has given a free hand.’ The vali had ‘declared for his own justification that the Young Turkish Committee in Smyrna was becoming more and more dissatisfied with his leniency towards the Armenians. The orders for the expulsion of the Armenians had come from Constantinople.’ Then the diplomat gave his estimation of the situation, ‘I regard it as quite out of the question that this order can be rescinded by protests to the Sublime Porte and must fear that in the not too distant future they will also begin with the deportation of the local Armenians here.’443 Even the secretary of state of the German Foreign Office, Jagow, obviously held no hope and therefore, although he routinely requested his deputy in Constantinople ‘to also work as far as possible towards stopping or at least delaying Armenian deportation from Smyrna’, he connected this request with an unusual offer: ‘As Germany is short of workers, it should be considered whether we suggest to the Sublime Porte that the Armenians be deported to Germany.’444 Otto Liman von Sanders, the German general and head of the military mission – who happened to be in Smyrna at that time – showed what the German military would have been capable of if they had wanted to. At once, he forbade the deportations and the provincial Turkish government complied with this order, despite strict orders from Constantinople and Minister of the Interior Talaat himself.445 Naturally, Liman was especially interested in ensuring the supplies for his troops, which were endangered by the withdrawal of the Armenians, as well as the planned withdrawal of the Greeks. Smyrna was the only case where the German military stopped the deportations. But German officers were also sent on other missions, and at least an attempt was made to deploy them against supposedly rebellious Armenians. ‘On the way to Mosul, we passed through the newly created area of command of the 6th Army. Omer Nadji’s and my units were given the order to attack and punish an Armenian village 443. 1916-11-13-DE-001. 444. 1916-11-13-DE-002. 445. 1916-11-12-DE-001; 1916-11-17-DE-001.

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near Hesak in which supposedly rebellious Armenians had barricaded themselves’, Scheubner-Richter wrote at the end of 1916 from one of his missions as an officer. I discovered in time that the so-called ‘rebels’ were people who had barricaded themselves for fear of being massacred and who would have gladly been prepared to give up their weapons if only they were assured of being left alive. An attempt at mediation offered by the administrator of the German consulate in Mosul and me was rejected on the part of the Supreme Command of the 6th Army, to whom I had presented the facts. I evaded the conflict I was threatened with by ordering the German officers and men under my command to Mosul, and by passing command of the Turkish troops entrusted to me to one of my Turkish officers, explaining that this was an ‘inner Turkish’ matter and, thus, I did not consider it to be correct that Germans should have command of Turkish troops carrying out ‘gendarme service’.446 He himself had been given such tasks. ‘As I have heard’, Vice-Consul Holstein reported from Mosul, ‘Baron v. d. Goltz has given the 4th Army orders to send troops to Midiat to suppress the rebellion.’447 Neurath, the Ambassadorial Councillor, stated this more precisely: ‘As the 4th Army (Djemal Pasha), which was originally given the order for this expedition, was too far away, the Field Marshal had given the order to restore order to a detachment of the 3rd Army.’448 In the end, German intervention was used to avoid this mission. However, this episode shows that Holstein did not consider it to be unusual to deploy German troops against Christians and Armenians in the interior. In the beginning, according to Otto von Lossow, the Embassy’s military representative von der Goltz had refused the order simply ‘in order not to stop the troops of the 51st and 52nd Divisions, which are to move to Baghdad as quickly as possible’.449

The German Military and the Example of Belgium German military officers in the field only had limited possibilities of influencing what occurred during the genocide. It was a completely different matter for the commanding officers in the cities and the top military leaders at the embassy. US Ambassador Morgenthau assumed that the German military was jointly guilty of deporting about 100,000 Greeks on Aegean islands along the Aegean coast to Greece. ‘The German Admiral Usedom’, he wrote, ‘told me that it was the Germans ‘who urgently made the suggestion that the Greeks be moved from the seashore’,’450 and went even a step 446. 1916-12-04-DE-001. 447. 1915-11-04-DE-001. 448. 1915-11-12-DE-013. 449. 1915-11-04-DE-001. 450. Morgenthau, op. cit., Chapter III, p. 49.

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further, ‘But the all-important point is that this idea of deporting peoples en masse is, in modern times, exclusively Germanic.’451 Mass deportations a German idea? In actual fact, after the conquest of French territory, the Germans had deported at least 10,000 Frenchmen to Germany and interned them there in empty barracks. Even more important were the deportations of Belgians. The Supreme Command of the Army had demanded that 400,000 Belgians be deported for industrial deployment, a deportation that was forbidden by the state war regulations of The Hague, which the Prussian general and governor general of Belgium, Moritz Ferdinand Baron von Bissing, refused to comply with. Despite this, several thousand Belgians – among them women and children – were deported to French industrial centres and Germany during the first year of war. According to Alan Kramer from the University of Dublin, these first deportations were ‘meant to be a collective punishment in cases of resistance and insubordinate behaviour’.452 Similar to the situation later on in Turkey, it sufficed to belong to the notables or even to be opposed to the occupation – as was the mayor of Brussels Adolphe Max – in order to be marched off. Finally, around Easter in 1916, about 30,000 Belgian women and girls were deported from their native country – often in cattle wagons – as previously the men had been. Altogether, 2,614 French and Belgians died during these compulsory measures. Among other things, the reason for these deportations was the supposed threat by franc-tireurs, or irregulars. In the opinion of the commanders of the German army, they had attacked German troops, particularly during the conquest of the Belgian town of Loewen from 25 to 28 August, who then shot back at them. In fact, it could not be proven in a single case that Belgian irregulars had attacked Germans. In truth, German troops had probably shot at their comrades themselves when the latter were driven back to Loewen by a Belgian counterattack. The Germans then shot 248 Belgian civilians, just as they had previously executed civilians during the conquest of Luettich by Erich Ludendorff, who was the head of the brigade at that time (and received the order Pour le mérite for this act). Similarly, the neutral, Western general public was upset by the fact that the Germans not only destroyed one-sixth of all the buildings in Loewen, but especially because they set fire to the extremely valuable university library with its numerous manuscripts from the Middle Ages, which then burned to the ground. Their strange excuse was that they had believed the library to be the university. The real reason for this destructive rage was probably because Loewen was the most important centre of education for both the Belgian military as well as civil elite. With a cruelty unknown until then, the German bands of soldiers also caused havoc among the civilians, which the Turks later used as an excuse to commit such cruel acts against the Armenians. When inhabitants attempted to flee after their 451. Morgenthau, op. cit., Chapter XXVII, p. 372. 452. Encyclopaedia of World War I, p. 434 f.

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houses had been put to flames, they were ‘thrust back into the flames or butchered like dogs’ by the German soldiers, according to Leon van der Essen, a Belgian professor who had been entrusted with drawing up a legal report. Van der Essen stated that a German officer on horseback had directed the arson in the Rue de la Station. At the railway station, the Germans separated women and children from the men and randomly selected men, whom they then shot. They acted particularly harshly against Belgian clergymen. Even members of neutral countries – Dutch, Spaniards and South Americans – became the victims of the Germans’ murderous frenzy. The Germans announced that the town would be bombarded, whereupon many inhabitants fled. According to van der Essen, the soldiers then forced their way into the houses and plundered them. ‘The burning continued simultaneously with the sack down to 2 September. On that day the last houses were set on fire in the Rue MarieTherese. In the evening, drunken German soldiers were still dragging heavy bags full of things stolen in the Rue Leopold to the station.’ Hundreds of Belgians were waiting at the railway stations to be deported. ‘While the human herd stood there’, van der Essen stated, ‘suddenly, without motive, some enraged soldiers began to fire into the crowd. Some were killed and wounded, including women and children.’453 Finally, the Germans drove the approximately 10,000 inhabitants of Loewen out of the town and deported about 1,500 of them to Germany, among them 150 women and children. In some cities, such as Cologne, the deportees were exhibited to the population. Other towns – among them Dinant – suffered similar fates. ‘We cannot deny that some of our war measures not only seemed terrible, but actually were terrible’, Paul Rohrbach had to admit after the war. ‘This includes the forced transport of Belgian workers to Germany, where they were then not even properly deployed. This also included the deportations from among the citizens of Lille, the excesses in the devastation of northern France, which were justified from a military point of view.’454 German proceedings in Belgium, which were supposedly observed by Turkish scouts, are important because they appear several times in the German files on the Armenian genocide as ‘Belgian atrocities’, and those Turks responsible for the genocide referred to German proceedings in Belgium and northern France. Armenian expert Mordtmann noted, ‘Talaat Bey pointed out to me a few days ago, as he has already done before, that we had murdered 40,000 Belgians in Belgium. I have also heard this from another source.’ Vice-Consul Hoffmann from Aleppo wrote the following concerning the fate of the Armenians: ‘General conviction that all deportees will meet their death. Moreover, agreement of Germany to this mass murder is being assumed not only by all Christians, but also by the Muslim population of the 453. All of the quotes from Leon van der Essen taken from ‘Source Records of the Great War, Vol. II’, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923, published under http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/ louvain_judicialreport.htm. 454. Paul Rohrbach, Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt [The German idea in the world], Karl Robert Langewischen Publishing House, revised 1920, p. 127.

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country, partly with approval, but also with disapproval.’ Hoffmann added, ‘These occasionally refer to Germany’s example (Belgium!).’455

The German Officers Humann and Lossow in the Embassy Morgenthau named only one principal witness as the originator of deportations in the Ottoman Empire apart from Guido von Usedom, who, according to German sources, held a key role that went far beyond his function: Hans Humann, Lieutenant Commander and Naval Attaché at the Embassy. Humann, who had grown up mostly in Turkey, was a close friend of the chairman of the German-Turkish Association, Ernst Jaeckh, who had been made a professor by the Kingdom of Württemberg and head of the influential Central Office for Foreign Services in the German Foreign Office; he was also a personal friend of Enver Pasha, the minister of war, almost all of whose contacts to Germany went through him. As one diplomat once said, everyone at the German Embassy in Constantinople had to decide for themselves whether to belong to the Weitz network or the Humann network. For the preceding three decades, Paul Weitz had been a correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung in Constantinople and a permanent adviser for German representatives. ‘Weitz was more than a journalist’, Morgenthau wrote about him. ‘He had the most intimate personal knowledge of Turkish affairs, and he was the confidant and adviser of the German Embassy.’ It was common talk that he knew every important man in the Turkish Empire, the best way to approach him, and his price. He probably knew more about affairs in the Near East than any other German.’ Wangenheim also profited from the journalist’s knowledge, who was always very reserved, with one exception: when it was about the Armenians, whose deportation Weitz objected to. ‘I remember that you told me at the beginning’, said Weitz to Morgenthau, ‘what a mistake Germany was making in the Armenian matters. I agreed with you perfectly. But when I urged this view upon Wangenheim, he threw me out of the room twice!’456 The officer Hans Humann was the opposite of Weitz the journalist, someone who stirred things up regarding the deportation of the Armenians. ‘I have lived in Turkey most of my life’, he confided to Morgenthau, ‘and I know the Armenians. I also know that both Armenians and Turks cannot live together in this country. One of these races has got to go. And I don’t blame the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians. I think that they are entirely justified. The weaker nation must succumb. The Armenians desire to dismember Turkey; they are against the Turks and the Germans in this war, and they therefore have no right to exist here.’457 Although Humann denied having made these remarks after the war, he denied many things that were on record.458 The special request to keep an eye (even ‘ein 455. 1915-10-1-DE-011. 456. Morgenthau, op. cit., Chapter XXVII, p. 372. 457. Morgenthau, op. cit., Chapter XXVII, p. 376. 458. PA-AA, R 13753, S. 95, A 31746a.

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zärtlich liebendes Auge’ [a tender, loving eye]) on the Turkish Eichmann says it all concerning Humann. Together with the Bavarian Colonel von Lossow, Humann was the most important officer in the German Embassy in Constantinople. It is clear from the manifold intrigues against Wolff-Metternich just how strong his influence on German policy was. Because Wolff-Metternich was the only German ambassador to really stand up for the needs of the Armenians, the Turks discredited him as the ‘Armenian Ambassador’, as Humann revealed after the war.459 During Wolff-Metternich’s term of office, the important correspondence from the German supporters in the Young Turk leadership, Enver and Talaat Pasha, was, in effect, channelled through the military representatives of the Embassy, Humann and Lossow, or directly through the German military in Turkey instead of through the ambassador, as was usual. ‘Thanks to the poor relationship between M. and the Turkish ministers’, Neurath informed the official in Berlin, Frederic Rosenberg, ‘almost the entire correspondence passes through military offices’. Finally, the German Foreign Office even permitted Ambassadorial Councillor Neurath to bypass his superior, if necessary.460 When Metternich found out about a very doltish discussion between Enver and von Lossow, in which confidential material from the German Foreign Office was used, he exploded. Lossow had ‘irreparably damaged the most important political interests by means of his indiscretions’, he railed, and prophesied, ‘If these uncomprehending outgrowths of militarism are not controlled we will lose this war politically.’ At the end of his angry letter to the German Foreign Office dated 16 July 1916, Metternich wrote, ‘If the military representative is not, to some extent, put in his place professionally, I can no longer carry the responsibility for the policy to be followed here. A sergeant who follows orders would be better suited than an Imperial Ambassador.’ Jaeckh repeatedly intervened personally in German-Turkish relations and even had his correspondence coded and sent via his friend Humann. Metternich reported in an almost amused tone to Berlin that he had given Jaeckh a friendly reception in Constantinople, and added a request: ‘Therefore, I recommend that he is advised in a friendly manner not to use the Naval Attaché’s code behind my back any more to send political reports.’461 In the end, upon pressure from the Turkish lobby, WolffMetternich – of whom Bethmann Hollweg actually held a high opinion (‘personally very close in a long-standing friendship’,462 according to Rosenberg) – was finally recalled by the German Foreign Office, which showed the power held by the German military.

459. 1919-04-19-DE-001. 460. 1916-07-27-DE-002. Neurath stated ‘I myself find it very embarrassing.’ 461. PA-AA; R. 1915, AG 2297. 462. 1916-07-27-DE-002.

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The German Officers at the Military Mission Humann and Lossow – although the latter only arrived in Constantinople in the summer of 1915 and, therefore, had nothing to do with the decision to annihilate the Armenians – were the military leaders at the German embassy. Even more powerful were those German officers who had arrived in Turkey before the war and were at the military mission headed by the Prussian general, Otto Karl Viktor Liman von Sanders. Some of the German military actors also had a chance to speak out in reports or comments found in the diplomatic files. One of the most important of them was the Prussian major general and, until December 1917, head of the general staff at the Turkish Supreme Headquarters (SHQ) in Constantinople, Fritz Bronsart von Schellendorff. It is clear from German diplomatic sources that Bronsart was also in favour of the deportation of Armenians. The embassy had presented him with a report by Scheubner-Richter, the vice-consul of Erzerum, which was commented on by the Ottoman Head of Planning. ‘I went in person to the evacuees who were camping around the town’, ScheubnerRichter wrote. ‘Sheer misery – great desperation and bitterness. The women threw themselves and their children in my horse’s path and begged for help. The sight of these poor, moaning people filled me with pity, and it was embarrassing – but even more embarrassing for me was the feeling of not being able to help. [Marginal note by Bronsart von Schellendorff:] Even more embarrassing is the murder of over 1,000 Turks by Armenian people near Zeytun!’ According to Rössler’s reports – which were also available to Bronsart – less than a dozen Turks were killed in Zeytun, and they were not killed by the ‘Zeytun people’, but by deserters, including Turks. When Scheubner-Richter wrote, ‘The Armenian population considers the representative of the German Reich to be its only protection at present and expects assistance from him’, Bronsart noted, ‘We simply cannot assist a population which is involved in dangerous rebellion against the Turkish Government.’ Concerning this, ScheubnerRichter had written in the same report, ‘I cannot rule out the possibility that this resettlement and the government’s measures, which must (or are meant to!) result in the economic ruin and the partial extermination of the Armenians, could drive the Armenians to an act of desperation, even if this is without hope of success, which would then naturally lead to a general slaughter. Should such an act not be carried out, the local Armenians would thus prove that they are the most obsequious and peaceable subjects of Turkey.’463 The step was not taken. Whether Bronsart had ordered the annihilation of the Armenians or was jointly responsible cannot be proven using the files from the German Foreign Office that have previously become known. The only historian who has made a thorough examination of the role of the German military in connection with the Armenian genocide 463. 1915-05-20-DE-001.

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is Christoph Dinkel, a Swiss. However, he has published only one article on this in the Armenian Review.464 According to Dinkel’s research, Bronsart, as head of the general staff of the Ottoman army in the field, was among Enver’s closest circle of advisers, and, in Dinkel’s opinion, Enver, the minister of war, always signed orders issued by Bronsart. But Bronsart himself had signed deportation orders, several times in fact; however, according to Dinkel, these orders were not against Armenians, but against Greeks who lived along the coast. In the beginning, Liman von Sanders stopped these deportations because they were of no military use. After the war, Liman emphasised that Bronsart, as well as the head of the operative department at the Turkish Supreme Headquarters, Otto von Feldmann, were both removed by Enver from Liman’s sphere of control, and were made directly responsible to Enver. Thus, in the Archives of the Foreign Office it has not yet been possible to find documentary proof of the roles played by Bronsart and Feldmann in the deportations, which were supposedly necessary for military reasons, and, therefore, the annihilation of the Armenians. On the other hand, another Prussian general, Colmar Baron von der Goltz, reports that he agreed to Enver’s deportation order. However, the source for this is not the German Foreign Office, but rather the ‘German-Armenian Correspondence’ headed by Lepsius dated 25 November 1918. ‘First and foremost, the deportations were a military measure and, therefore, could not very well be kept secret from the German army leaders in Turkey’, the correspondence stated. ‘In fact, the plan was also presented to Field Marshal von der Goltz and approved by him.’ According to Article 2 of this government order, ‘The commanders of the army of independent army corps and divisions may, in case of military necessity, and in case they suspect espionage and treason, deport individual or groups of inhabitants in villages or towns and resettle them in other places.’ According to the correspondence, von der Goltz must be accused of the following: ‘Considering his long residency in Turkey, he must be reproached for not having foreseen how such a measure would be carried out by Turkish officials, for not having become suspicious, taking into account the history of Turkish-Armenian relations and the ever-spreading Pan-Turkism. But Goltz lived with the same incorrect estimation of the nature of the Turks as everyone else who knows the Turks only as soldiers.’465 During the actual genocide, Lepsius was in close contact with the German Foreign Office and, therefore, was probably well informed by the office. The official ambassadorial preacher, Count von Luettichau, was close to the seat of power at the embassy in Constantinople; from May until August 1918, he travelled throughout eastern Turkey and reported his impressions in an extensive letter. He found it alarming ‘that higher German officers unfortunately made repeated remarks that caused se464. Christoph Dinkel, ‘German Officers and the Armenian Genocide’, Armenian Review 44, Number 1/173 (Spring 1991): 77-133. 465. 1918-11-25-DE-001.

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vere damage, without being aware of the political consequences, but simply applying a strategic military point of view’,466 whereupon the missionary scientist, Professor Julius Richter, wrote in the General Mission Newspaper, ‘It was German officers who advised the Turks during the advance of the Turkish Army against the Transcaucasian Federation, and even more so during their withdrawal to the large Armenian Vilayets, to evacuate the unreliable Armenian population in the border regions.’467 The chairman of the Orient and Islamic Commission, Karl Axenfeld, followed up on both publications and then reported, ‘In answer to my question, Professor Richter named Ambassadorial Preacher Count Luettichau as his source of information. The latter wrote me that he never said that German officers gave ‘advice’ (i.e., that they were the originators of the idea), so to speak. He carries on, ‘However, for military-strategic reasons, German officers did agree to the evacuation measures, and it may often have been the case, as I explained in my report, that the Turks twisted this agreement to seem to be a German request or order.’468 Was it really so? A German missionary had described this strategy for murder as follows: ‘Clean up, hang ‘em up, shoot ‘em down to the very last man.’ The Armenian victims suffered in this manner until their convoys of misery reached the desert. ‘The death rattle of the dying and the angry cries of insanity echoed in the exalted silence of infinity’, a German officer described his impressions of the people perishing in the desert. But this tragedy described by the two Germans did not take place on the Euphrates and Khabur rivers, but rather a decade previously in the southwest African Omaheke desert. The victims were not Armenians, but Hereros, the culprits not Turks, but the Imperial German Colonial Troops under General Lothar von Trotha, who had already ravaged with a German brigade the so-called ‘Boxer’ rebels in China in 1900. Trotha had chased the Hereros into the desert (‘I believe that the nation as such must be annihilated’, he wrote to Berlin) and then continued to use military measures to prevent them from leaving this place of death. Had German officers perhaps recommended their recipe for African genocide to the Turks?469 Whatever. This results in the following conclusion based on the various statements on the Armenian genocide, insofar as they have previously been confirmed by German documents from the German Foreign Office or credible witnesses: German officers had at least agreed with the deportation orders – naming or pleading military reasons – which were then construed in such a way that they included practically all the Armenians. The area from which the Armenians were to be deported with Germany’s approval was limited to the eastern part of Turkey, but, apart from Smyrna and Constantinople, the Germans did not oppose when those responsible among the Young Turks extended these to include all of Turkey. 466. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure. 467. 1919-02-06-DE-002. 468. 1919-02-07-DE-001. 469. Arne Perras, ‘Who owns the land of the Hereros’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 11, 2004.

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The German Christians and Johannes Lepsius’ Role How We Were Lied To was the title of a book published immediately after World War I on imperial censorship.470 Everyone was lied to: journalists, members of the Reichstag – in a parliament that was practically powerless, almost no one lifted a finger to assist the Armenians – and even those who were the only ones prepared to do something for the oldest Christian people in the world: the German Christians. But ‘our pious, politically naïve people in the missions’, said the chairman of the Association of German Newspaper Publishers and head censor, Friedrich Gustav Robert Faber, to the undersecretary of state in the German Foreign Office, Friedrich Zimmermann471 were easy to manipulate. Shortly before his scathing judgement on the Armenians, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg had given the German Christians a formal assurance that ‘the Imperial Government, as it has done until now, will in future always regard it as its foremost duty to exercise its influence so that Christian races are not persecuted because of their religion. German Christians may rest assured that guided by this basic principle, I will do everything in my power to ensure that these worries and wishes conveyed to me are borne in mind.’472 This promise remained almost without any consequences because it was contrary to Germany’s Turkish policy, and the German Foreign Office official in Berlin, Frederic von Rosenberg, had the cynicism to dispel Christian doubts by arguing that the Armenians were not being pursued because of their Christianity. When the American embassy in Berlin called upon the government of the Reich to intervene on behalf of the Armenians in Turkey, who were being threatened with a new wave of persecution, the new ambassador in Constantinople, Richard von Kuehlmann, advised his government to ‘restrict our intervention to the non-political field of relief actions for the suffering Armenians’.473 Even this restriction did not correspond with political reality. The Ottoman Empire had an eye on all of the missions, including the American ones, which they presented as transmitters of foreign interests. According to the Ambassadorial Councillor in charge of operations, Konstantin Baron von Neurath, the German mission stations had ‘spent many hundreds of thousands of marks and done a lot of selfless work for this assistance, which could have been put to better use at home in Germany or for Germans residing abroad’. ‘I take the liberty of recommending that we work privately and by means of appropriate administrative measures to ensure that the volume of the collections for the Armenians in Germany does not become too extensive.’474 Undersecretary of State Arthur Zimmermann intervened during the following period on behalf of the Armenians for a collection to be carried out discretely, and 470. Kurt Mühsam, Wie wir belogen wurden. Die amtliche Irreführung des deutschen Volkes, München, 1918. 471. 1915-09-30-DE-003. 472. 1915-11-12-DE-012. 473. 1916-11-25-DE-002. 474. 1915-10-26-DE-001.

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justified this aid politically, ‘For they will give us a welcome handle with which to confront the defamatory statements of our opponents after peace has been made.’475 Thus, although the German representatives arranged for funds to be sent to the suffering Armenians, they increasingly came almost solely from Switzerland and the United States, and even these were ‘unofficial’, Zimmermann said to his minister in Switzerland.476 German politicians refused to accept the German Christians’ own relief funds offered for the Armenians; they argued that ‘in this way, German money would wander abroad that could be better used for German purposes inside the country’, Ambassador Kuehlmann said to his superiors.477 A deep ravine separated Imperial Germany from the West and its beliefs. For decades, a large part of the German intellectual elite had preached that Germans should follow a special route which would lead them away from people such as the Armenians, but especially from their opponents in the West and the elite in neutral countries. Already at the beginning of the war, intellectual Germany was completely isolated from the mainstream of development in the rest of the civilised world.

Germany’s Turning Away from the West Instead of a rationally effective society, the breach with the West after the failure of the Civil Revolution of 1848 brought an organic feeling of community to the foreground that developed ever more from Germanic ideas and which was to reach its zenith in national unity. The Germans thwarted the supposedly mechanical Western civilisation with their organic German culture. Shortly before World War I, German scholars opposed the French ‘ideas of 1789’ with their ‘ideas of 1914’ as a counter-position to the enlightened rationalism of the Western world. The democratic-parliamentarian society with its basic, supranationalcosmopolitan attitude was now contrasted by a world of adventure and feelings of a national body that was enough for itself. According to Klaus von See, an expert on Scandinavia, these ideas of 1914 were ‘the expression, reduced to a minimum, of an outlook which gradually developed during the four human generations between the French Revolution and World War I, and which did not experience its completion in 1914 but, at best, its first zenith’.478 It was already the humanists who had stylised the picture of the Germanic tribes and the Germans ‘to a kind of anti-type of a Roman’, according to von See. ‘Stated in an exaggerated way: Germanic people are respectable, faithful, sentimental, integrated in larger communities, in the nation, the clan, the allegiance to a leader, while Romans are talented as legal advocates and economic tradesmen, down-to-earth and individualistic’479 This was the ideological background of German arrogance, which was to accompany the Armenians in their downfall. 475. 1916-03-15-DE-001. 476. 1916-10-08-DE-001. 477. 1917-06-15-DE-001. 478. Klaus von See, Freiheit und Gemeinschaft (Freedom and Community), Heidelberg, 2001, p. 11. 479. Freedom and Community, p. 13.

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Many renowned authors and artists in Germany were pushing for a war in order to experience a new beginning. Even before it began, this war was called the Great War, which only very few wrote against, such as Arnold Zweig in his sequence of novels Der Grosse Krieg der weissen Männer [The great war of the white men], while his famous colleague Thomas Mann portrayed the Great War as the defence of a typically German intellect. According to New York professor Bernd Hüppauf, muchread authors such as Georg Simmel or Max Scheler in Der Genius der Krieges und der deutsche Krieg [The genius of war and the German war] considered the Great War to be ‘a homage to the war as the realisation of the vital principle of life’, while other authors considered it to be a ‘catharsis and departure to a new art and a new world’.480 ‘How could the artist not have praised God for the breakdown of a world of peace with which he was so fed up, so completely fed up’, Thomas Mann, the later Nobel Prize winner for literature, wrote.481 For Rohrbach, the war was a ‘German war’, because it would carry the ‘German idea’ into the world. This enthusiasm for war was widely spread among German scholars and artists, but by no means among farmers and workers. One of the fundamental ideas of these circles was that only through the war would it be possible for German culture to conquer the world. There was little room in this German culture for intellectuals, journalists, democrats, cosmopolitans and, in general, individualists. The inventor of the ‘ideas of 1914’ was Johann Plenge, a professor of political science. He wrote, ‘The 20th century is in us. We are the exemplary people. Our ideas will become humanity’s aims in life.’482 Rudolf Klellén, a Swede, condensed the principles of the ideas of 1914 into duty, orderliness and justice; Ernst Troeltsch, a theologian and cultural philosopher in Berlin, opposed civilisation with ‘German freedom’, which was fired by a supra-individual common spirit. In his book with the symptomatic title of Händler und Helden - Patriotische Besinnungen [Traders and heroes: Patriotic reflections], the co-founder of sociology in Germany, Werner Sombart, accused the ‘hollow British commercialised culture’, which he compared with the German heroes who defended the last ‘dam against the slimy flood of commercialism’. Paul Rohrbach had made out his German war to be a war of German values such as honesty, good humour and selflessness against the British values of materialism and individualism. ‘It should be a slap in the face to every person with Christian feelings that England and France march Senegalese riflemen and Congo Negroes into battle against the people who gave the world a Kant’, Arthur Zimmermann chimed in a letter to the chairman of the Association of German Newspaper Publishers Friedrich Faber. ‘It will only be thanks to our good sword if these hordes do not flood the Rhineland and Westphalia, dishonour German women and daughters, and destroy places with a thousand years of culture.’483 480. Encyclopaedia of the First World War, p. 632 ff. 481. Encyclopaedia, p. 630. 482. Encyclopaedia, p. 568f. 483. 1915-10-04-DE-001.

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The ‘ideas of 1914’ and German cultural chauvinism had far-reaching consequences for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, for they were part of the despised Roman-Levantine counter-world. Thus, German observers did not understand why Armenians had such little love for German culture. ‘Remarkable is the fact – as also noted in other countries’, Vice-Consul Max Erwin von ScheubnerRichter wrote from Erzerum in May 1915, ‘that we have few Armenian friends among those who were educated in Germany or received their education through German missionaries’.484 The Germans in Turkey soon realised that they had learned the fundamental principles of Western civilisation, especially at American schools, and, therefore, had little sympathy for such a German culture. Added to this was the influence of the West on the Armenian Diaspora organised in France, England and the United States, as well as Russia’s control of the most important Armenian party, the Dashnaks. The commercial competence of the Armenians is compared in almost all of the descriptions by German consuls or observers to the supposedly British ‘commercialised culture’. ‘Cunning trades people’, Vice-Consul Scheubner-Richter – who was usually so well-disposed towards them485 – called them, and, ‘Because of their extremely distinctive keenness to work and their avariciousness, they do not make a particularly pleasant impression.’486 The Armenians had to suffer in particular under the ‘tradesmen and heroes’ ideology. ‘Here in Germany we have become accustomed’, Wangenheim wrote in 1913, ‘to viewing the periodically repeated Armenian massacres as merely a natural reaction to the Armenian businessmen’s system of draining others dry’.487 Even Consul Scheubner-Richter, usually pro-Armenian, made fun of ‘their commercial capabilities, which usually go as far as being unscrupulous’. ‘Thanks to their naturally inborn mercantile capabilities’, the Armenians, he wrote, ‘would be in a position to monopolise the entire economic life and, just like the Jews, would play an often useful, but not always desirable role in it’.488 German diplomats, completely attached to the ideology so popular in Germany, compared the caricature of the Armenian merchant with the image of an honest, home-minded worker. ‘If every Armenian, as one occasionally hears and reads on the German side, were essentially a usurer and nothing else, then, of course, there would be no question of such a loss for the empire’, said Vice-Consul Hermann Hoffmann. ‘In reality, the hundreds of thousands of employable Armenians – whose total number on Turkish soil is estimated at being two million – are industrious and skilled craftsmen and energetic, hard-working and enterprising farmers.’489 484. 1915-05-15-DE-012 485. 1915-08-05-DE-002. 486. 1915-08-10-DE-001. 487. 1913-02-24-DE-001. 488. 1915-08-10-DE-001. 489. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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‘The Armenians were called the ‘Jews of the Orient’, and people forgot that in Anatolia there is also a strong tribe of Armenian farmers which has all the good characteristics of a healthy rural population’, Wangenheim wrote,490 and Hoffmann added, ‘Physically healthy, fertile, mentally active and industrious, they are too valuable an asset to the economic development of this backward country.’491 All of the leading classes in Germany were on this singular German course, including the Christians and even the pro-Armenians. Their international contacts had not resulted in a decisive influence on their thinking structures. The two most important people among the German friends of the Armenians, Johannes Lepsius and Paul Rohrbach, remained committed to this German cultural tradition throughout their entire lives: German thinking and German intellect should, in their eyes, ‘elevate’ the people of Asia Minor.

Pro-Armenians Johannes Lepsius and Paul Rohrbach During the middle of June 1914, the German-Armenian Association was founded at the Museum for Ethnology in Berlin. The most well-known founding members were Johannes Lepsius, who became the Association’s first chairman and the most popular political author at that time, Paul Rohrbach, who was one of Lepsius’ two representatives. In a call to potential members, the founders had directed public interest to ‘the political reorganisation of the Orient’ and, thus, especially to plans for the reform of Armenia which, at that time, promised to come to a good end. According to the call, in this way the Armenian people would have the opportunity to develop its possibilities. Germany also had ‘a direct interest’ in this, it was stated in the call. ‘By means of its great economic undertakings in Asia Minor, some of which are situated in areas that are predominantly inhabited by Armenians and some of which lead directly to such areas, the need to maintain closer relations with Armenians is pointed out, for in all of these areas they are the moving forces for both economic and cultural life.’ Undersecretary of State Arthur Zimmermann sent his thanks for having been sent the call and noted, ‘I expect that it would be most practical for the new association to begin its work in Cilicia, using the German interests that exist there as a foundation.’492 From the very beginning, apart from their purely missionary work and the relief programmes, both of the two friends, Lepsius and Rohrbach, both theologians, both with political ambitions, were interested in the political future of Germany and the Armenians in Asia Minor. Rohrbach was among the most prominent representatives of a group called the ‘governmental imperialists’ by historian Fritz Fischer. Like his friend of long standing Ernst Jaeckh, he was in favour of Germany’s expansion in Asia Minor, whereby Jaeckh definitely acted on the assumption of an economic expansion 490. 1913-02-24-DE-001. 491. 1916-01-03-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 492. 1914-02-22-DE-001.

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for which it was a prerequisite that Turkey be fully preserved. Rohrbach’s imperialistic objectives were vaguer; he pleaded for German occupation in Central Africa, but for a more economic expansion in Asia Minor. Those Armenians who settled in both Russia as well as Turkey also increasingly caught the eyes of German colonial strategists. On the one hand, they could be a safety chain against Russian ambitions towards the Mediterranean; on the other hand, they could build a bridge to the Mediterranean. For a long time, both the German military and the two pro-Armenians – Johannes Lepsius and especially Paul Rohrbach – had thought about this aspect. Rohrbach, a Balt who studied theology in Dorpat, had a special relationship with Russia, as did almost all Balts. Although, at first, he was not at all anti-Russian, as were most of his countrymen, towards the beginning of the war he completely switched over to the camp of almost fanatical Russian adversaries. In June 1913, he wrote in the Frankfurter Zeitung that ‘a very competent personality’ from among the Russians had promised the Armenians that the people in St. Petersburg had nothing against it if the Armenians revolted in self-defence against the Turks, and the Russian governorship in the Caucasus would probably then be inclined to assist them. According to Rohrbach, Russia could provoke such a case of self-defence at any time by setting hired Kurdish tribes on the Armenians. If, however, Russia had once freed the Turkish Armenians, all of Armenia ‘would immediately become Russian territory, just like Poland’. In this case, Rohrbach concluded that ‘all of the Near East, from the Persian Gulf right up to the Mediterranean countries and as far as the Aegean Sea would lie in front of this Russian Power, just like a glacial fortification that is controlled by the canons of the main rampart. You could not think of any position that would be more formidable against all of western Asia than the union of Armenia, the Transcaucasian Federation and northern Persia in the hands of Russia.’493 A Near East dominated by Germany from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean: that was the colonial objective, in any form whatsoever, of the German imperialists around Rohrbach. Lepsius’ arguments were similar to those of Rohrbach. ‘A Russian advance into eastern Anatolia can only be supported by the Armenians’, he wrote to Zimmermann on 15 November 1913. ‘Logically, if Russia had an option on Turkish Armenians, the future of Anatolia would be decided and the threat to the German field of work in Mesopotamia and Cilicia would become visible.’494 Lepsius then quotes an ‘intermediary agent’ from the Dashnaktsutiun. This party had been ‘creating a political organisation for the past twenty-four years that included most of the Armenian people in Turkey, Russia and abroad. At present, the leadership of the Armenian people lies in the hands of this party.’ Apart from this political party, there was also a ‘military organisation’, whose task it was to defend the people or, in case of war, to arm them. According to Lepsius, this military organisation of the Dashnaks believed that it was in a position to organise an armed resistance in Turkish 493. 1913-06-22-DE-001, Enclosure. 494. 1913-11-15-DE-001.

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Armenia, all the more ‘because, in any case, they can be sure of preferential treatment, probably even assistance from the Caucasian government in the form of money and weapons, as soon as they submit to their directives. The Dashnaktsutiun is prepared for whatever way things turn. It can bring its power to bear either in favour of the Turks or the Russians.’ Only desperation would cause the Dashnaks ‘to throw themselves into the arms of Russia. As soon as they have reached a decision here, an uprising would be organised in Armenia and it would break out at a moment that would suit Russia’s wishes. Russian propaganda has already succeeded in making most of the people forget the former hostile attitude and in playing the role of ‘liberator’.’495 Lepsius wrote all this at the end of 1913, clearly with the intention of exerting pressure on the German government to pass reforms that were acceptable to the Armenians. ‘Opting for Russia would only be an act of desperation for the Dashnaks’, he quoted his intermediary agent. The Armenian people can count on autonomy neither in Russia nor in Turkey; therefore, it must make use of the advantages of an equilibrium between these two powers, so that it can at least protect its national character, which would be endangered if it were to be completely absorbed into Russia. No other nation is as interested in the existence of Turkey as the Armenians are. The Armenians themselves should create a Turkey, if it did not already exist, in order to be supported by it against Russian expansion.496 However, his reports, which he also sent to the German ambassador in Constantinople, had to be fatal if the Young Turks as well as German circles considered his description to be a warning, should – as was then the case – the reforms for the Armenians be passed, but then immediately revoked after the beginning of the war. This could have led to an orientation towards Russia, the situation heralded by Lepsius, and to an excellently organised uprising in the Armenian vilayets. Wangenheim was also observing these prospects when he warned the Imperial Chancellor at the beginning of 1913 about an Armenian uprising. In March 1915, he was able to refer to a report by Louis Mosel, an agent working for the German Foreign Office along the Turkish-Russian border, who had reported to his superiors, ‘In my opinion, the entire Armenian population on Ottoman territory is organised and waiting only for Russia’s success and its advance, respectively, before rising up against the Turkish rulers. The well-known Armenian party, the Dashnaktsutiun, controls the leadership of the Armenian movement, which appears to have extensive financial means, weapons, ammunition and bombs at its disposal.’497 Yet Lepsius did not wish to play just the role of a Cassandra in case of an attack on the Turkish-Armenian population; he obviously also wished to take an active role 495. 1913-11-15-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 496. 1913-11-15-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 497. 1915-03-26-DE-003.

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in politics. And this led to a conflict of interest between the pro-Armenian who, in the past, had always placed the greatest emphasis on humanitarian acts for the Armenians, and the advocate of imperialistic German power politics, who strove for colonies for his native country. Johannes Lepsius quickly reached the limits of his possibilities and his skill. Lepsius, who was also an internationally reputable pro-Armenian, was obviously very certain that he could strongly influence the Armenians to accept the imperial policy. Comparable with French imperialists, the export of their culture played an important role for German imperialists such as Rohrbach and Lepsius. To bring the German way of life to supposedly less developed peoples was also part of their missionary work. ‘What a loss’, Lepsius wrote in November 1913 when he wanted to prevent the Russians from advancing in eastern Anatolia, ‘if we would have to leave the only area that is not yet occupied by a foreign language to the Russians. Using the Armenian school, Russia would conquer all of Asia Minor for the Russian language.’ Lepsius believed that he was in a position to ‘conquer the school system of the Gregorian-Armenian Church with its approximately 100,000 pupils for the German language’.498 It was not the only illusion that Lepsius fostered. Still in June 1915, when the first Armenian convoys were already marching towards the Mesopotamian desert, Lepsius demanded that ‘we should encourage the Armenians who listen to us even more in their loyalty towards Turkey and support their harmony with the Sublime Porte. It should certainly be possible to prevent our Turkish friends from being peeved by Armenian sympathy, which should be all grist to their mill.’ In case the Turks were to stop their annihilation campaign against the Armenians, Lepsius believed that he could also make the following suggestions: ‘Our efforts should not be limited to reconciling the Turkish Armenians with the Sublime Porte. Turkey should also win the sympathy of the Caucasian Armenians. It is ten times more valid to regard the Caucasians – or at least Kars, Erivan and the Araxes Valley – as irredenta of Turkish Armenia, rather than passing off Upper Armenia as a Russian irredenta.’499 A considerable overestimation of his own possibilities of winning the Turkish-Armenians over for Germany, but also a considerable underestimation of the determination of the Turks to annihilate the Armenians as a people led Lepsius to campaign far too long for a German policy with regard to Turkey, and this was to prove fatal for the Armenians. The German Foreign Office in Berlin made use of Lepsius’ great reputation, about which Zimmermann wrote in a letter to Wangenheim, ‘The personality of this easily tractable gentleman should offer a guarantee that he will not undertake anything in Constantinople that would not meet with the approval of Your Excellency and the Turkish statesmen.’500 In this, he was to err decidedly, but it remains a fact that Lepsius did not notice that his nationalism had robbed him of 498. 1913-11-15-DE-001. 499. 1915-06-17-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 500. 1915-06-13-DE-001.

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his sense of reality. How else is one to understand why he sent military documents which his colleague, Liparit Nazariantz, had put together for him – some of which were from newspaper articles from the Armenian press in Bulgaria – to the German Foreign Office with the express request that it pass these on to the German general staff?501 At the end of December 1914, Lepsius had sent Liparit to Constantinople, justifying the latter’s orders according to agreements with the German Foreign Office as follows: In accordance with the guidelines given to us verbally during a meeting, we have instructed Dr. Liparit to work on the Armenian Patriarch, the leaders of the Dashnak Party and the leading Armenian circles in Constantinople so that the Armenian people, in close connection with Turkey, will use its national strength to achieve a victory for Ottoman arms and, wisely realising its own interests, support the Turkish government with all its strength in the implementation of all measures and military operations in the provinces occupied by Armenians.502 What Lepsius understood by ‘all measures’ is not clear from the document, but it was certainly not mass deportations, which, at that time, had probably not yet been decided upon. However, things were different when Lepsius decided at the end of May to undertake a journey to Constantinople. Wangenheim had not only informed his department of the planned deportations, but also that the minister of war planned to ‘shut down a large number of Armenian schools, suppress Armenian newspapers, prohibit Armenian postal correspondence’. And he added, ‘Please inform Professor Lepsius and other German Armenian committees accordingly that, unfortunately, the measures mentioned cannot be avoided considering the political and military situation in Turkey.’503 Lepsius himself obviously did not wish to oppose these intended measures. ‘Dr. Lepsius wishes to journey there, not to apply pressure on the Porte, but rather to bring the Armenians to their senses’, Zimmermann cabled to his ambassador. ‘If the Porte agrees, he is prepared to go to the provinces and make it clear to the Armenian leaders there that their loyalty towards the Turkish government is a necessity.’ There were also no objections to the journey, Zimmermann said, ‘as Lepsius would gladly subordinate himself ’ to the embassy’s directives.504 Even two weeks later, on 17 June 1915, Lepsius still wrote, ‘The fact should not be underestimated that, from the very beginning, we have rooted German sympathy for Armenia in Turkish soil.’505

501. 1915-06-12-DE-001. 502. 1914-12-24-DE-001, Enclosure. 503. 1915-05-31-DE-001. 504. 1915-06-06-DE-001. 505. 1915-06-17-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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With regard to Wangenheim’s report, which was shown to Lepsius at the department, the latter had written, ‘Harsh measures against Armenian subjects, which appear to be necessary to suppress espionage and local unrests, are of only episodic importance and do not affect our German interests.’ And, ‘I do not take the measures of the Ministry of War against the Armenian schools, press, etc., to heart. The closing of the American Colleges will meet with the least resistance from the Patriarchate. Deportations would also be harmless if it were not for the fact that the Turkish administrative techniques (as proven by the Circassians) usually led to the demise of the deportees.’506 Even after the Armenians had already been expelled from Zeytun and other towns, Lepsius still generally considered deportations to be acceptable and only feared disastrous consequences for the Armenians in Turkey. An explanation for this can only be that Lepsius accepted deportations such as those carried out by the Germans in Belgium, for Lepsius very obviously not only approved of the occupation of Belgium, but also its permanent conquest, as his later work would prove. In his most important speech during the war, he renamed ‘Berlin-Baghdad’, Germany’s most prestigious project, ‘Antwerp-Baghdad’.507 However, there are also comments made by Lepsius on the deportations of the Armenians in Turkey that are more than confusing. Immediately after the war, Lepsius quotes Article 2 of the Turkish government’s order to deport the Armenians in his German-Armenian Correspondence, and comments, ‘However, the official version looked harmless enough.’508 A deportation order that was harmless enough? In a 1925 article prepared in connection with his argument with the German Mission for the Orient’s board of trustees, Lepsius wrote, ‘How can anyone give up a mission because of the Armenian matter, a people who (whether rightly or wrongly) were wiped out by our allies?’ The Armenians ‘rightly’ wiped out?509 A slip of the tongue, perhaps, but a fatal one. ‘The orders’, Lepsius said in retrospect in 1918, ‘allowed for the deportees to be sent to areas owned by the Baghdad Railway, where new property would be surveyed for them. Von der Goltz agreed to the plan in this form, which was reasonably consistent with the necessary military measures of civilised nations’.510 Was it this passage which possibly misled Lepsius to agree to a plan if it had been carried out ‘reasonably consistent with the necessary military measures of civilised nations’? The Armenians immediately recognised the consequences of such considerations in Turkey, for by settling along the completed and planned Baghdad railway, they would have been available for that area which the Germans had selected for themselves as a colony. The Armenians did not connect this plan with Lepsius, but Rohrbach, whom Morgenthau also claimed in his memoirs to have been the originator 506. 1915-06-17-DE-001, Enclosure 1. 507. 1915-10-12-DE-001, Enclosure 2. 508. 1918-11-25-DE-001. 509. Der Orient, issue no. 8 (1925): 104. 510. 1918-11-25-DE-001.

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of such a plan. His source was an article in Le Temps, a Paris magazine, in which Rohrbach is quoted. However, until the present no speech and no manuscript by Rohrbach has turned up containing this plan. In an article published in his magazine Mesrop in the summer of 1914, Lepsius had also made insinuations that could have been misinterpreted, to say the least. He made a clear statement with regard to negotiations on reforms for Armenia, which were mostly carried out by Russia and Germany, that Germany ‘had driven its economic sphere of work along the Baghdad railway like a wedge between the British and Russian spheres’. His following remarks were less clear: ‘Germany and Russia know very well that railways are not built to turn agricultural land into steppe. To save the fields from the steppe means protecting the Armenians from the Kurds. The Armenian question will stop being a political question to the extent that it becomes what it is by nature: an agricultural question.’ According to Lepsius, Germany had replaced England in Anatolia, Cilicia and Mesopotamia, where it was ‘not out to gain more territory, but to expand economically’.511 However, this especially presumes that there is a population in the area of German economic interest that could be of use to this interest. The tenor of several of Rohrbach’s publications was that no other people in this region would have been more suitable than the Armenians, whereby Rohrbach had his eye particularly on Mesopotamia, which he praised as the possible main supplier for grain, and which could supplement or even replace the Ukraine as a granary. But this Mesopotamian region would first have to be developed. Reports by German witnesses show how deportations and resettlements even in Turkey could also have been carried out in Germany’s interest, and had possibly been hoped for by Rohrbach and Lepsius. After this, it was also possible to carry out deportations in Turkey in a manner that was considered orderly according to German standards. Neukirch, a German doctor from Erzincan, wrote the following concerning such an ‘orderly deportation convoy’: ‘The inhabitants of Erzerum were the last to pass in huge, well-equipped oxcart caravans. The people (all of the men were obviously also present) looked very well, travelled in short treks and were protected by a great many gendarmes under the leadership of officers.’ According to Neukirch, the convoys had ‘proceeded in a fairly orderly fashion for Oriental conditions’.512 Above the town of Sabkha, located on the Euphrates route from Aleppo to Baghdad, a German sent by Rössler to Deir-es-Zor saw a ‘settlement set up in straight alleys, laid out at right angles; thousands of hands were working with the greatest diligence; long rows of quarry stones are stored there, over 100 new houses have been built. A further 250 houses are to be completed shortly. The authorities provide the ground for building and permit stones to be quarried. One of the settlers is a blacksmith; a butcher’s shop, 1 plumber and 2-3 small general stores have been set up.’513 511. Mesrop (July/August 1914): 22 f. 512. 1915-11-06-DE-011, Enclosure. 513. 1915-11-16-DE-002, Enclosure.

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Although many Armenians had died of illness and the sick were mercilessly sent by their countrymen into the desert to die there, it appeared to be a real settlement, the German witness reported, particularly since both up- and downriver there was fertile ground. However, beyond Erzincan the previously protected deportees marched from Erzerum directly to their deaths. And one year later, when a German officer travelled along the Euphrates route, he reported, ‘Of the largest stations, Sabkha has been completely emptied.’514 The connection between the deportations and a settlement in Mesopotamia after the end of the war was so sensitive for Lepsius that he manipulated an article by the German newspaper correspondent, Harry Stürmer: ‘The Turkish plan of forcing all Armenians out of the provinces and relocating them in Mesopotamia has been superseded.’515 In 1920, Lepsius published the article in his magazine, The Orient, but left out the phrase ‘according to a brochure by Dr. Rohrbach’.516

The Turnaround of Johannes Lepsius Up to June 1915, Lepsius pleaded in favour of Germany’s Turkish policy. But on 22 June, he informed the German Foreign Office, ‘Courses are open to negotiate with the leaders of the Russian Armenians in order to obtain compensation from them for suspending the measures against the Turkish Armenians.’ After Persian provinces were recaptured, he argued, ‘There is a danger that the Bitlis and Mush area will also be occupied by Russian Armenians with Russian assistance.’ He suggested, ‘In return for the release of the approx. 120 arrested Armenian leaders and intellectuals and the waiver of further deportations, the Russian Armenians will cease operations in the Van area and separate their cause from Russia’s cause.’ And he went even a step further, ‘I was assured that the leaders of the Russian Armenians share these views and can be won over to German-Turkish interests in future.’517 However, Lepsius had greatly overestimated his influence here. Mordtmann noted, ‘At the present stage of the question, I consider it unlikely that the Porte will pay any attention to the suggestion’,518 and Wangenheim disposed of Lepsius’ suggestion by remarking, ‘I consider his view of the possibility of winning over the Russian Armenians by revoking or mitigating the compulsory measures taken by Turkey to be utopian.’519 However, several days earlier, with regard to the assessment of the deportations which had begun, Lepsius had already turned away completely from the official German line of placation. Reports from his own sources had convinced him that ‘this is not a case of deporting individual families, but rather of mass deportations of large parts of the Armenian population from Anatolian areas and from Cilicia to various 514. 1916-08-29-DE-001 515. 1915-10-01-DE-001, Enclosure 3. 516. Der Orient No. 1/2 (1920): 27. 517. 1915-06-22-DE-002. 518. 1915-06-22-DE-002. 519. 1915-07-02-DE-001.

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districts, especially to Mesopotamia’. ‘These measures’, Lepsius said, ‘cannot be justified for military reasons’.520 So it was ‘measures for military reasons’ which Lepsius had obviously, until that time, been prepared to endure or to which he had agreed. Although Wangenheim attempted to prevent Lepsius from travelling to Constantinople (‘I consider his journey to be inopportune’),521 the German friend of the Armenians had already departed. On his outward journey, Lepsius visited his Swiss friends in Geneva and the Dashnaks in Sofia. By now already extremely worried about the entire extent of the deportations, he informed himself after his arrival in Constantinople on 24 July by speaking with the Armenian Patriarchate, but especially also with American Ambassador Morgenthau, who allowed him to see the reports of his consuls, information which the German embassy largely refused to give him. After a meeting with Minister of War Enver, which had been arranged by Jaeckh and his friend Hans Humann, it was clear to Lepsius that, at best, the German Christians would be able to influence German policy and achieve more moderateness for the Armenians, a hope that was not to be fulfiled. At the beginning of October 1915, all of the Protestant mission stations working in the Orient had met at an Orient Conference at which Lepsius gave a brilliant speech in front of his brothers in faith as well as journalists who had been sworn to secrecy. After this, his friend Paul Rohrbach was very agitated. ‘These occurrences make it impossible for us to continue to bear the joint responsibility for the Turkish alliance’, he stormed afterwards. ‘When these facts become public, the German people will stand in front of the entire world in the deepest shame.’ After this, Lepsius called Rohrbach ‘the prophet of our entire German-Turkish policy’ and thanked him for his reaction: ‘I take off my hat to him!’522 During the following months, Lepsius drew up the ‘Report on the Situation of the Armenian People in Turkey’, which was published after the war under the title ‘The Death March of the Armenian People’. In July 1916, he sent about 20,000 copies of this to members of the national and state parliaments, which was stopped by the censors, but especially to his friends in the missions and Protestant vicarages. Even today, this work is probably still the most profound report on the Armenian genocide written in German. After this, Lepsius travelled to Holland, supposedly to cure his diabetes there, but in fact as part of a political mission. From there he contacted Armenian groups abroad, especially in Switzerland and France, to continue his support of the Armenians. Mainly, however, he worked for a new employer in the German Foreign Office, the head of the Propaganda Department, Hans von Haeften, who was a tool of the new strong man in German politics, Erich Ludendorff. Chancellors such as Bethmann Hollweg, but also Michaelis and Herting, as well as Secretaries of State of the German Foreign Office, such as Kuehlmann, were the victims of his intrigues. He supported extensive annexation and was also the driving force behind the German520. 1915-06-22-DE-001. 521. 1915-06-09-DE-001. 522. 1915-10-12-DE-001, Enclosure 1.

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dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk, which gave the German Empire more new territories in the east – and opened the sluices for Turkey to Russian Armenia. The political figurehead of the new leadership was the last Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, who held Lepsius in high esteem (‘an important scholar with the soul of an artist, an artist with the will of a missionary’.)523 Even today, the heir to the Baden throne owes his liberal image to the concessions he was forced to make towards the end of the war because of the political situation (he even dismissed Ludendorff), and especially to his closest employee Kurt Hahn, a Jewish liberal and later pedagogical head of the Salem school and teacher to the British prince consort, Philip of Edinburgh, who always admired Hahn and who generally led his mentor. It was only recently that the close friendship became known between Max von Baden and Richard Wagner’s son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain,524 who created the idea of universal Germanness and was the intellectual father of Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and also Adolf Hitler. Lepsius praised Chamberlain’s script ‘The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century’ in the highest tones (‘great! great!’),525 and Emperor William II – who was highly respected by this German friend of the Armenians – read to his entourage every evening from the main work of this preacher of German master-race mentality. Lepsius evaluated British newspapers in Holland for von Haeften, but, in particular, he had been selected together with Kurt Hahn as the liaison to the British Union of Democratic Control, a British association of radical-liberal and socialist politicians, whose organisation eventually numbered 750,000 members in 1918 and who were in favour of peace through negotiation with Germany. Several pro-Armenians, such as James Lord Bryce and Arthur Ponsonby, were also members; Lepsius had good contacts with them from the pre-war days. On behalf of the Germans, Dutch politicians also had discussions at a high level, but this did not end in close contact with the British because Germany showed no willingness whatsoever to retreat from Belgium, a policy which Lepsius fully supported, while Hahn was in favour of concessions in Belgium or the country’s restoration. The fact that Lepsius seriously believed he would be able to wring from his old friend James Lord Bryce the abandonment of Belgium makes it clear just how naive Lepsius was with regard to politics, for before Lepsius completed his brilliant documentation of the Armenian genocide, Lord Bryce had written a no-less-brilliant charge against Germany’s crimes in Belgium. Lepsius was still highly regarded by the German Foreign Office even after the war. In October 1918, the long-standing head of the Imperial Colonial Department, Wilhelm Heinrich Solf, was appointed Imperial Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 20 November 523. Prince Max von Baden, Erinnerungen und Dokumente [Memories and documents] (Berlin, 1927). 524. Karina Urbach and Bernd Buchner, Prinz Max von Baden und Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Aus dem Briefwechsel 1909-1919 [Prince Max von Baden and Houston Stewart Chamberlain: From their correspondence, 1909-1919], in Viertel-jahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte [Quarterly journals for contemporary history] 52, no. 1 (January 2004). 525. In a letter to the Danish friend of the Armenians, Aage Meyer-Benedictsen; LAH 1484 (3).

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1918, Johannes Lepsius offered to work for him. ‘The application must be taken into earnest consideration’, Solf wrote on the letter, ‘Lepsius has a reputation abroad!’526 Lepsius had previously applied to Solf with a request to grant me permission to inspect the files in order to refute the outrageous slanders which were not only circulated throughout the entire press in both foreign enemy and neutral countries, but also honestly believed, as if the German government had ordered the Turkish government to annihilate the Armenian people and, with the assistance of German consuls, high and top-ranking officers, organised and implemented this with German thoroughness.527 Solf authorised Lepsius to publish documentation on Germany’s Armenian policy. Thus, Lepsius’s own project to justify Germany’s Armenian policy with the aid of a White Book became obsolete. The latter had been drawn up by Ambassadorial Counsellor Alexander von Hoesch according to exact instructions from Zimmermann. ‘As requested, a lot of space has been given in this record to the guilt of the Armenian element of the population against the Turkish Empire and the attempts of the Imperial Government and its representatives in Turkey to improve the lot of the Armenians’, Wolff-Metternich wrote in an accompanying letter. ‘Special emphasis has also been placed on the responsibility our enemies have burdened themselves with towards the Armenian people.’528 Until today, the extensive bundle of papers of the man who later became Germany’s ambassador in Paris and London has been lying unpublished in the files.529 Lepsius considered Solf ’s order – the result of which was soon published by Tempel Publishing House under the title Deutschland und Armenian 1914-1918: Sammlung diplomatische Akenstücke [Germany and Armenia, 1914-1918: A collection of diplomatic documents] – to be a wonderful opportunity to finally make a larger audience in Germany aware of the Armenian genocide, and he made use of this. According to the state documents he selected, there was not the slightest question of doubt that the Young Turks wanted to kill the Armenians, and did so. However, the main purpose of publication for the German Foreign Office was to rebuff Germany’s joint responsibility, an aspect with which Lepsius also agreed. He wrote that he had followed the principle ‘of keeping an eye [on] exonerating Germany from Turkish and international slanders when making my selection’.530 This was only possible by striking or amending passages in several documents that proved Germany’s joint guilt. However, it is unclear who carried out these deletions and forgeries: the German Foreign Office itself (perhaps even former Consul Rössler, who had returned to 526. 1918-11-20-DE-001. 527. LAH 13533. 528. 1916-09-18-DE-001. 529. 1916-09-18-DE-001, Enclosure. 530. LAH 14213 (6).

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Berlin and put together the documents for Lepsius) or Lepsius with the permission of the German Foreign Office. It was understandable that Lepsius worked only with copies, for during a large part of this task he was still living in Holland, where the German Foreign Office would hardly have sent original documents. However, the fact that he passed off these copies as originals was, without doubt, a grave offence against the rules for source books, as was the fact that he did not compare them with the originals, which were accessible to him. It can no longer be determined today what the copies used in Germany and Armenia looked like, for upon the instructions of the German Foreign Office, they were all burned on 18 June 1920. A remark by the central office of the German Foreign Office makes it clear that these were only copies: ‘Originals were not amongst the material.’531 But not all the copies made available to Lepsius have disappeared. Some of the copies from the files not used by Lepsius can be found in the Lepsius Archive in Halle, large parts of which were published as a microfiche edition. Among the copies stored there are several that are incomplete (i.e., that were already amended or deleted in part by the German Foreign Office). One copy even proves that the German Foreign Office did not even shrink from forgery. In this copy, Undersecretary of State Zimmermann is named as the author of the quote by Bethmann Hollweg on the Armenians,532 who, in truth, had even agreed to telling off Turkey, as proposed by Metternich. But Lepsius had also made changes, as is clear from the documents. All of the manipulations have the same purpose: to hide Germany’s guilt or at least to minimise it.533 Whoever carried out more manipulations – Lepsius or the German Foreign Office at that time – the response to the documents published was disappointing for both. ‘The Times sees in it the documentary proof of Germany’s joint responsibility’, the German Foreign Office complained in an answer to Lucius von Stoedten, the minister in Stockholm, ‘and is using it in a smear campaign against our present policy’,534 or even as ‘proof of Germany’s guilt’, Göppert wrote to Lepsius.535 Complete or almost-complete translations into English and French made by the German Foreign Office were withdrawn by it.

Conclusion The attempts of the Germans towards the end of World War I to place themselves in a favourable light for the negotiations in Paris by secretly supporting relief actions 531. 1919-05-26-DE-001. 532. LAH 1368-13824. 533. These manipulations are described in detail in an article entitled, ‘The Magical Quadrangle’, on the Internet edition www.armenocide.net. All of the manipulations of individual documents, insofar as they are of importance, that have been proven can also be found there. 534. 1919-08-21-DE-001. 535. LAH 14341.

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for the Armenian victims or, after the war, by manipulating the publications of files were in vain, for during the debates in Paris on the future of Germany which led to the Treaty of Versailles, there was practically no mention whatsoever of the Armenian genocide. After the Russian Communists refused to give the Armenians military protection when the former came into power in 1917 and withdrew their troops – whereupon Turkey stormed into the territory of what is today the Republic of Armenia – the remaining former allies, gathered in Paris, also withdrew their political protection from the Armenians and allied themselves with the victorious Kemalists in Turkey. Even the Armenians’ most faithful partner during the World War, the United States, left the Armenians to their fate. A treaty that foresaw Armenia as being independent – something which could only have been ensured by the Americans – was not finalised; instead, a treaty was drawn up with Turkey in which the few surviving Armenians continued to remain without protection. Although German diplomats already used the word Völkermord during the First World War, the term genocide that is internationally accepted today was first used by the Polish lawyer and Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin in 1944. It was at his instigation that the United Nations agreed on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948. According to this, the culprit must act ‘with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’; he must also commit certain crimes such as ‘killing members of the group’ or ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group’. According to this definition – and the documents drawn up by German diplomats all agree on this – the actions against the Armenians fulfill the definition of a classic genocide. The reports by American diplomatic representatives in Turkey, which have only been treated in passing in this book, reach exactly the same conclusion. ‘However, the files on the catastrophe have not yet been closed, and it must be strongly hoped that we, too, will speak out again’, Count von Luettichau, the German ambassadorial preacher, concluded his chapter on Germany’s guilt. A time must come in which that which has been neglected must be made up for, otherwise the Turkish captain who sits between Malatia and Sivas and meticulously records in a chronicle all the shameful deeds carried out by his countrymen would, in the end, turn out to be right when he says, ‘If the German government does not cleanse itself of the shame that rests on it, then I must despise it even more than my own.’ No doubt he is right, and such a cleansing will have to take place, for the sake of our German name and the name of Christianity.536 There is nothing more to add to this.

536. 1918-10-18-DE-001, Enclosure.

Bibliography

Baden, Prince Max von. Erinnerungen und Dokumente [Memories and documents]. Berlin, 1927. Dadrian, Vahakn N. “The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (August 1986): 311–360. Davis, Leslie A. The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat’s Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917, edited by Susan K. Blair. New Rochelle: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1989. Dinkel, Christoph. “German Officers and the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian Review 44, no. 1/173 (Spring 1991): 77–133. Goltz, Hermann and Axel Meissner, comp. Deutschland, Armenien und die Türkei 1895-1915. Dokumente und Zeitschriften aus dem Dr. Johannes-Lepsius-Archiv an der Martin-Luther Universität Halle Wittenberg [Germany, Armenia and Turkey, 1895–1915: Documents and magazines from the Dr. Johannes Lepsius Archive at the Martin Luther University of Halle Wittenberg]. Munich, 1999. Hirschfeld, Gerhard, Gerd Krumeich, and Irina Renz. Encyclopaedia of World War I. Paderborn, 2003. Mühsam, Kurt. Wie wir belogen wurden: Die amtliche Irreführung des deutschen Volkes [How we were lied to]. München, 1918. Perras, Arne. “Who owns the land of the Hereros,” Süddeutsche Zeitung (August 11, 2004). Riggs, Henry H. Days of Tragedy in Armenia: Personal Experiences in Harpoot, 19151917. Princeton: Gomidas Institute, 1997. Rohrbach, Paul. Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt [The German idea in the world]. Düsseldorf/Leipzig: Karl Robert Langewischen Publishing House, 1920. See, Klaus von. Freiheit und Gemeinschaft [Freedom and community]. Heidelberg, 2001. Ungern-Sternberg, Jürgen von, and Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg. Der Aufruf “An die Kulturwelt!” [The appeal “to the cultural world!”]. Stuttgart, 1996. Urbach, Karina and Bernd Buchner. Prinz Max von Baden und Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Aus dem Briefwechsel 1909-1919 [Prince Max von Baden and Houston Stewart Chamberlain: from their correspondence between 1909 and 1919). Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte [Quarterly journal for contemporary history], no. 1 (January 2004).

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Suggestions for Further Reading Selected General Works on the Armenian Genocide Akçam, Taner. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006. ——— . “Deportation and Massacres in the Cipher Telegrams of the Interior Ministry in the Prime Ministerial Archive (Başbanlık Arşivi).” Genocide Studies and Prevention 1, no. 3 (2006): 305–325. ——— . From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 2004. Bloxham, Donald. The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Bryce, James and Arnold Toynbee. The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce. Princeton, NJ: Gomidas Institute, 2000. Dadrian, Vahakn N. “The Armenian Genocide: An Interpretation.” In America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, edited by Jay Winter, 52-100. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. ———. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence, RI & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995. Gust, Wolfgang. “The Question of an Armenian Revolution and the Radicalization of the Committee of Union and Progress toward the Armenian Genocide.” Genocide Studies and Prevention 7, no. 2–3 (2012): 251–64. Hovannisian, Richard G. “The Historical Dimensions of the Armenian Question, 1878-1923.” In The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, 19–41. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1986. Kaiser, Hilmar. “A Scene from the Inferno.” In Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Und Die Shoah [The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah], edited by Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik J. Schaller, 129-186. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2002. Kévorkian, Raymond. The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Melson, Robert F. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Rodrige, Aron. “The Mass Destruction of Armenians and Jews in the 20th Century in Historical Perspective.” In Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Und Die Shoah [The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah], edited by Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik J. Schaller, 213-244. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2002. Suny, Ronald Grigor. “The Holocaust Before the Holocaust: Reflections on the Armenian Genocide.” In Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Und Die Shoah [The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah], edited by Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik J. Schaller, 83-100. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2002.

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Winter, Jay. “Under Cover of War: The Armenian Genocide in the Context of Total War.” In America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, edited by Jay Winter, 37–51. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003

Selected German Sources and Studies “Un Témoignage Allemand Des Massacres Arméniens.” L’Asie française no. 166 (July–September 1916): 122–127. Dadrian, Vahakn N. “The Armenian Question and the Wartime Fate of the Armenians as Documented by the Officials of the Ottoman Empire’s World War I Allies: Germany and Austria-Hungary.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 59–85. ———. “Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German Sources.” In The Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by Israel W. Charny, 93-95. Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, 1994. ———. “Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources.” In Widening Circle of Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, vol. 3, edited by Israel W. Charny, 77–125. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Künzler, Jakob. In the Land of Blood and Tears: Experiences in Mesopotamia during the World War (1914-1918). Arlington, MA: Armenian Cultural Foundation, 2007. Wegner, Armin T. “An Open Letter to the President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson, on the Mass Deportation of the Armenians into the Mesopotamian Desert.” Translated by Silvia Samuelli. Journal of Genocide Research 2, no. 1 (2000): 127–132. Vierbücher, Heinrich. Armenia 1915. Arlington, MA: Armenian Cultural Foundation, 2006. Selected Sources and Studies on German Involvement in the Armenian Genocide Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. “‘Down in Turkey, Far Away’: Human Rights, the Armenian Massacres, and Orientalism in Wilhelmine Germany.” The Journal of Modern History 79, no. March (2007): 80–111. Atkinson, Tacy. The German, the Turk and the Devil Made a Triple Alliance: Harpoot Diaries, 1908-1917. Reading: Taderon Press, 2000. Bloxham, Donald. “Power Politics, Prejudice, Protest and Propaganda: A Reassessment of the German Role in the Armenian Genocide of WWI.” In Der Völkermord an Den Armeniern Und Die Shoah [The Armenian Genocide and the Shoah], edited by Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik J. Schaller, 213–244. Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 2002. Dadrian, Vahakn N. “The Armenian Genocide and the Evidence of German Involvement.” University of West Los Angeles Law Review 29 (1998): 79–122.

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———. German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity. Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1996. ———. “German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: The Role of Protective Alliances.” In Genocide Perspectives II, edited by Colin Tatz Peter Arnold and Sandra Tatz, 79–125. Sydney, Australia: Brandt & Schlesinger with the Australian Institute for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, 2003. ———. “German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: The Role of Protective Alliances.” International Network on Holocaust and Genocide 12, no. 3 (1997): 4–9. ———. “Germany and the Armenian Genocide: A Response to Hilmar Kaiser.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 8 (1995): 143–150. ———. “Germany and the Armenian Genocide, Part II: Reply to Hilmar Kaiser.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 9 (1996-1997): 141–148. ———. “Response to Robert Melson’s Review of German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 13, no. 2 (1999): 343–348. Dinkel, Christoph. “German Officers and the Armenian Genocide.” Armenian Review 44, no. 1/173 (1991): 77–133. Erickson, Edward J. “Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame.” Middle East Quarterly (Summer 2006): 67–75. Gerlach, Wolfgang and William Templer. “Document: Armin T. Wegner's Letter to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Berlin, Easter Monday, April 11, 1933.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 8, no. 3 (1994): 395–409. Hull, Isabel V. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2006. Kaiser, Hilmar. “The Baghdad Railway and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1916: A Case Study in German Resistance and Complicity.” In Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide, 67–112. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. ———. “Denying the Armenian Genocide: The German Connection.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 9 (1996-1997): 37–53. ———, ed. Eberhard Count Wolffskeel Von Reichenberg, Zeitoun, Mousa Dagh, Ourfa: Letters on the Armenian Genocide. Princeton, NJ: Gomidas Institute, 2001. ———. “Le Génocide Arménien: Négation « À L’allemande ».” In L'actualité du génocide des Arméniens, acte du colloque organisé par le CDCA à Paris-Sorbonne les 16,17 et 18 avril 1998, 75–91. Paris: EDIPOL, 1999. ———. “Germany and the Armenian Genocide: A Review Essay.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 8 (1995): 127–142. ———. “Germany and the Armenian Genocide, Part II: Reply to Vahakn N. Dadrian’s Response.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 9 (1996–1997): 135–140. Montgomery, George R. “The Massacres of Armenians in 1915.” New York Times Current History 17 (October 1922): 25–28.

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Niepage, Martin. “Quelques mots aux représentants officiels du peuple Allemand. Impressions d’un Allemand, maître d’école en Turquie.” La Revue franco-étrangère, (January-February 1917): 1–11. Ohandjanian, Artem. 1915 Irrefutable Evidence: The Austrian Documents on the Armenian Genocide. Yerevan: Republic of Armenia National Academy of Sciences Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide, 2004. Stuermer, Harry. Two War Years in Constantinople: Sketches of German and Young Turkish Ethics and Politics. New York: J.C. & A.L. Fawcett, 1970. [Original German edition published in 1917.] Trumpener, Ulrich. Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P., 1968.

Notes on Using the Documents

Layout Each document has a heading based on its date (e.g., 1913-02-24-DE-001). The format represents year-month-day; DE indicates the document is from Germany (Deutschland); and a series of sequential numbers for each document from the same date.

Sender and Addressee We have provided the names of the sender and addressee as a convenient method of titling each document, but they are not part of the originals.

Source Information Directly under the heading of each document is its source information. PA-AA stands for Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (Political Archives of the German Foreign Office). The R stands for Reich; the number following it represents the official number of the file in Berlin. BoKon stands for Botschaft Konstantinopel (German Embassy Constantinople), followed by the number of the file in Constantinople. Occasionally one finds NL, which stands for Nachlass (bequest), for documents given by the heirs of the owners to the Foreign Office, with the name of the person. ‘pr’. with date and time indicates the moment when the document was written down in the central register in Berlin. The type of document is indicated (i.e., Report, Telegraphic Directive, and so on). In Berlin, all political documents have the letter ‘A’ and the number of the annual registration. In the embassy at Constantinople there were two subdivisions: A53a for general Armenian affairs with documents not sent to Berlin and 1012 (in the German edition written 10/12) for Armenian individuals and companies. This is followed by the current registration number.

Other Numbering The number at the beginning of each document (e.g., J.No. 54) is given as it is found in the originals and this differs from document to document. Normally, each

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consulate or the embassy gives two figures to each document: the current number for every year with a letter (mostly J for journal, sometimes with an additional B for Botschaft [Embassy] or K for Konsulat [Consulate]); and an additional reference Nr for Nummer (number), for each document, depending on the addressee, separately for telegrams and reports. But there are other numbers if the documents came from a private source (e.g., a company) or a military source. So these figures cannot be harmonised.

Signatures Signatures on the documents generally take one of three forms, as follows: 1. If the author signs the text, usually written by one of his experts, only with a flourish, normally the first letter of his name, we print the first letter and add the rest of his name in square brackets. 2. If the author signs with his full name, we indicate his full name. 3. If the author did not sign the document personally (never in telegrams, and rarely when the author of the text wrote it for his superior and indicated it, for example, ‘in the name of the ambassador’) the name of the author is in square brackets. If the author is unknown or was not possible to identify, the word signature is italicized and given in square brackets (i.e., [signature]).

Spelling and Orthography There was no convention for transcribing Turkish names and words from Ottoman script into the Latin alphabet at the time these documents were written. Therefore, spelling of personal and place names in the original documents is inconsistent, sometimes even within a single text. One may find, for example, Talaat, Talat, and Talât, or Erzincan and Erzindjan, or Terjan, Tercan and Tertyan. In addition, transcribing Ottoman words into the modern Turkish alphabet would have introduced new complications for an English-language publication. While the many variations in spelling have made it challenging, we have tried to adhere to the following rules: 1. The German mutated vowel with umlaut (ä, ö, ü) is utilised in this edition. Often umlauts were added by hand in typed German manuscripts in the English manner because frequently the Germans had no German typewriter and used English ones. Mutated vowels were never used in telegrams. The German ‘ß’ is replaced by ‘ss’ (e.g., Rössler instead of Roeßler). 2. Local and personal names are generally maintained as written in the original, with the following exceptions: a) Capital cities are translated into English (e.g., Constantinople instead of Konstantinopel; Baghdad instead of Bagdad; Vienna instead of Wien).

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b) Well-known European towns are translated into English (e.g., Munich instead of München). c) Well-known Turkish place names are translated into English (e.g., Alexandretta instead of Alexandrette, Erzerum instead of Erserum, Harput instead of Kharput or even Kharpert, Kayseri instead of Kaissarie, Marash instead of Marasch, Zeytun instead of Seitun, etc.). d) In German, the typical Ottoman sibilant ‘dj’ is mostly written dsch, which we have rendered dj (i.e., Djemal instead of Dschemal).

Use of Brackets 1. Angle Brackets The addressee of a document often forwarded parts of the document to ambassadors or other diplomats. In order to indicate the different passages, he marked these parts with angle brackets (‘< >‘ or sometimes square brackets ‘[ ]’), which the secretaries recorded in the telegrams to the different people. These angle brackets are preserved in our edition. 2. Square Brackets Square brackets (‘[ ]’) are customarily used in our edition to indicate that the enclosed words have been added by us and are not part of the original document. For example, in document 1915-10-22-DE-002, Mordtmann noted something in handwriting on 26 October, which we indicated by enclosing it as a heading in square brackets, ‘[Note by Mordtmann, 26 October]’. So there are two forms of square brackets with different meanings. 3. Other Uses a) Round brackets or parentheses, ‘( )’, are used only when the enclosed text is part of the original document. b) Curly brackets or brace brackets, ‘{ }’, are used when the Foreign Office added the A-Number of the document with the additional words, ‘liegt bei’ = ‘is added’, which we do not print.

Italicized Document Numbers in Footnotes In the footnotes, some of the cited documents appear in italics. This means that the documents referred to are not included in this collection. They may, however, be found at www.armenocide.de.

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Documents 1913-02-24-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14078; A 04311; pr. 01.03.1913 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 58 Pera, February 24, 1913 The nationalities question in the Balkans has only just been decided to Turkey’s disadvantage when a new and no less grave danger to the empire’s Asian property arises due to the Armenian question’s becoming urgent. Although, unlike the southern Slavs and the Greeks, the Armenians cannot rely on the help of their own national, independent state for their special efforts, they have found in neighbouring Russia an ally that is just as active and single-minded. The motives which led to the association of two such heterogeneous elements are, of course, quite clear, at least as far as Russia is concerned. The Armenians, spread out all over Asia Minor and northern Persia, who, for religious and ethnographic reasons are in natural contrast to their Mohammedan masters, are the obvious element for building up tightly meshed, political propaganda in the Near East. At that moment when the liquidation of the Asian part of Turkey came within reach, it had to be of the greatest value to have such an instrument of agitation available for use. This is why the system of Russification, carried out since 1878, has lately no longer been followed, and the Armenian people, previously suppressed, are now being pampered. The Russians certainly have enough organs with which to establish relations. The mere fact that the head of the Orthodox (Schismatic) Armenian Church has his seat in Etchmiadzin on Russian territory allows several threads to have been spun back and forth. But Russia also has no less than 15 consulates and consular facilities in Anatolia and north-western Persia. This means that there are just as many Russian

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propaganda centres from which the idea is to be suggested to the Armenians, both with money and sweet talk, that under the sceptre of the Tsar the members of their tribe would enjoy a constitutional state in which law and order prevailed and, thus, the admission of the entire Armenian nation to the Russian association of subjects was a goal worth striving for. According to information from a fairly trustworthy Armenian source, Russia has spent no less than 2½ million roubles on propaganda in Eastern Anatolia alone. The entire Armenian population there is supposedly fitted out with modern weapons and prepared to launch an attack against the Turks at any time on a sign from Russia. If one recalls the difficulties encountered by the Turkish government in defeating the Armenian gangs who came over from Russia in the year 1904, one can appreciate the threatening danger to the empire’s property here. The Armenians know very well what motives are behind the attention shown to them by Russia. In 1903, they saw what awaits them under Russian rule when the property of the Armenian Church was confiscated and the Armenian Revolutionary Party was brought forth by Pobyedonoshev’s systematic work of Russification. The Armenians want to become Russian no more than they did Byzantine, Arab, Persian or Turkish, against which they defended themselves for hundreds of years. If, despite their former bad experiences, they have followed the Russian call, then it is only because the Russian government has been the only one up to now which has shown more interest in them than giving them merely platonic advice and promises. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Armenians are not sufficiently protected against despotism and suppression in Turkish territory. Whoever offers them this protection today will be the man for them, no matter what other, secondary objectives he may also be following. An Armenian compared the present situation of his people for me with that of a drowning man. He will instinctively grab the hand of anyone who comes to his aid, even if this rescuer only assists him for the purpose of taking him prisoner afterwards. Here in Germany, we have become accustomed to viewing the periodically repeated Armenian massacres as being merely a natural reaction to the Armenian businessmen’s system of draining others dry. The Armenians were called the Jews of the Orient, and people forgot that in Anatolia there is also a strong tribe of Armenian farmers which has all the good characteristics of a healthy rural population and whose entire wrongdoing consists of doggedly defending its religion, its language and its property against the foreign peoples surrounding it. The Turks’ lack of organisational talent, their inability to carry out a truly radical reform in the modern sense, has become so clear over the past few months that the relationship between the Turks and the Armenians must be influenced by this. Naturally, under today’s conditions the creation of a large, independent Armenia will continue to remain a dream. Almost nowhere is the Armenian element in possession of unified, self-contained language areas; rather, the majority is scattered among foreign tribes. Thus, it would be completely impossible to determine the borders for an autonomous Armenia on an ethnographical or historical basis. Even the imple-

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mentation of municipal self-government in areas where the Armenian element is in the majority would meet with difficulties today. Level-headed Armenians freely admit that among their people there is a complete lack of a regular group of persons trained in administration, so that permitting the Armenians to administer themselves could only lead to an unwanted fiasco. On the other hand, it is unthinkable that in their variegated empire the Turks could continue to play the part of the nation ruling autocratically, thanks to the right of the conqueror. Whatever shape the fate of Turkey may take after peace has been made, one thing is certain: the Armenian element, strong in numbers and economically efficient, will emancipate itself more and more. Anyone pursuing economic or political goals in Anatolia will not be able to avoid taking this fact into consideration. Such considerations must lead us to change the position we have taken thus far with the Armenians. Naturally, we must continue to keep at bay those radical elements which pursue utopian goals and use nihilistic means. Rather, it must be our goal to win the trust of the Armenian farmers and merchants by supporting the attainable wishes of those Armenian circles which have a peaceful attitude—and this still includes the large majority of the people. These wishes can be summarised in two points: 1. Effective guarantees for the safety of life, property and religion; 2. A share in the local administration that corresponds to the number of persons in, and the degree of education of, the Armenian element. These are claims which Turkey will no longer be able to evade in future. This is completely clear to the government now in control. Recently, Mahmud Shefket himself turned the conversation to the Armenian question and expressed his desire to me that the German government assist him in solving the difficulties involved here. Without doubt, it is the Grand Vizier’s intention to defeat the destructive Russian propaganda by achieving an alignment of the Armenians with the loyal German diplomatic missions, and thus enlisting the Armenian element in actively assisting in the reconstruction of the ruined state. In my opinion, assisting him in this matter would be a task that is both honourable and beneficial to our interests. I suggest a practical implementation as follows: 1. Seeking our advice if necessary, the Turkish government prepares a reform project which meets the above-mentioned claims of the Armenians. In order to assure that the project gets off the ground—which so many before did not—or is not even turned in the opposite direction by lower civil servants who are ill-disposed towards or do not understand it, all German diplomatic missions in Turkey will receive an order to show interest in Armenian matters; if necessary, to work towards the Turks and Armenians living together peacefully; and, if they learn of obvious infringements against the reform laws, to investigate the cases in question and to report to the embassy on their findings, so that through its intervention corrective action can be

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taken. Naturally, this advisory action on the part of the consuls must be carried out in an extremely tactful manner and in complete agreement with the Turkish central government, but also with so much emphasis that the Armenians will come to know the German authorities as being impartial but, in case of emergency, truly effective protectors. 2. In order to carry out this plan effectively, the number of German diplomatic missions in Anatolia must be increased. Possibly, this could be achieved without increasing the number of German consulates if the peace treaty brings about the expansion of financial control, which cannot be avoided, making it possible in this way to bring several suitable German personalities into Anatolia as employees of the Turkish government. Should it not be possible to achieve this, I would like to point out the necessity of keeping a German diplomatic mission at least in Erzerum, as this town is important both as an observation post and a trading post. The nearest German consulate in Trebizond is very far from Erzerum and also, during the winter months, almost completely cut off from the Armenian plateau. 3. We are being rightly reproached for the fact that our system of education in Anatolia has in no way kept up with the development of our interests there. Furthermore, based on our scarce resources, it will probably not be possible to fight against the1 French within their own sphere of interest. However, in future we must definitely take more decisive action in focusing on our own interest. It is a great drawback that there is still no German school in Adana. Establishing a school would serve two purposes simultaneously. On the one hand, we need German educational establishments in the region of the Baghdad Railway in order to train the native personnel for our great economic undertakings. Furthermore, as the main focus of the Armenian people today lies more in Adana than in Upper Armenia, and a German school established there can most definitely expect very good attendance from this educable element which is eager to learn, we would win influence in authoritative Armenian circles or with the majority of the merchants and businessmen there (which amounts to the same thing) by means of a German educational establishment. The costs of the school would soon be covered not only by the increase in German prestige, but also by an increase in German imports. 4. The German press would have to give up its previous negative attitude towards everything Armenian and make its interest in the wishes of the Armenians known by means of moderate and understanding comments. This would make a great impression on the numerous Armenians educated in Europe who live in France, England and America, and have their own press organs there. Today, the Armenian question is definitely at a crossroads. If, in future, the Armenians continue to be left standing on the doorstep with regard to their justified wishes, they will throw themselves willy-nilly completely into the arms of the Russians. Should that happen, there will be little hope left for a peaceful solution to the 1. Deleted: English and

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Asia Minor problem, or even for a regeneration of Turkey. If, on the other hand, we win influence over the Armenian movement in the manner described above, we will have a useful instrument in our hands with which to support the Turks in their reform work and to obstruct those forces working in secret on the subversion of the Ottoman Empire, while safeguarding and extending our own interests. But if it should become evident in future that the process of dissolution in Turkey can no longer be stopped, then it will be of great value for us in the assertion of our rights in Asia Minor to have the indigenous Armenian element behind us. Wangenheim

1913-04-22-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14078; 4311/4707. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 369 Berlin, 22 April 1913 To Report No. 58 dated 24 February of this year. I can only agree with Your Excellency and the Grand Vizier that upon the collapse of the European part of Turkey, the Turkish government will have the important task of winning over the Armenian element to assist in a practical way in the reconstruction of the empire in Asia by means of effective reforms and enlisting their services in municipal administration. As we are just as concerned about the preservation and the consolidation of the Asiatic part of Turkey as the rulers at the Golden Horn, it is in our very own interest to assist the Supreme Porte in carrying out this task. We have both the right and the duty to do so under Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin, which enjoins the Sublime Porte to introduce reforms in the Armenian provinces and grants the Powers the right of supervision. However, true to our previous policy, we must refrain from seizing leadership in the Armenian question. In doing so, we would arouse the distrust of the Entente Powers and put ourselves in opposition against Russia, without being of any use in the Armenian matter. Together with the other powers, we will gladly advise the Turkish government on drawing up the reform project, but in general it would be better to refrain from taking a special role as advisor. Together with Your Excellency, I consider it to be desirable that the Imperial diplomatic missions in Turkey give their constant attention to the Armenian matters and continuously report to the Imperial Embassy on all their findings. On the other hand, I would consider it questionable whether our consuls should be entrusted with

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the safeguarding and the protection of Armenian interests. The assumption of such a patronage carries with it the danger of our falling between two stools and achieving the opposite of the planned effect: Turkey would feel tempted to make us responsible for the sins of the radical Armenian elements, while our charges would be inclined to make us pay if we could not enforce their often utopian pretensions in Constantinople. We should also take all due caution when influencing our press in favour of the Armenian movement. On the other hand, the development of the German school system in Anatolia and the increase in the number of our consulates there seems to be desirable to me also. Your Excellency has been informed elsewhere of my willingness to give full consideration to the establishment of a school in Adana. I will be pleased to receive suggestions for the possible establishment of further schools. In this respect, our limited means will naturally require a careful examination and consideration of the question of necessity and costs. In principle, I am also in agreement with the establishment of a diplomatic mission in Erzerum. I would also not be averse to taking into consideration the new establishment of another consulate in Anatolia. I look forward to a suggestion in due course from Your Excellency on the conceived location of such a consulate. J[agow]

1913-11-15-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14082; A 23042; pr. 19.11.1913 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 329 Pera, 15 November 1913 2 enclosures. Your Excellency, I have the honour of enclosing a report by the Imperial Vice-Consul in Erzerum, which deals with a talk by a Russian traveller on the Armenian question. The views mentioned in it, for example that the Kurds should be employed to wind up the Armenian question, are at least very close to the opinions of the Russian civil and military authorities in these border regions. The press in Tiflis also publishes articles often, which throw suspicion on Germany’s position in the Armenian question and present Russia as the only friend of the Armenians. Even if the loyalty of the government in St. Petersburg is beyond all doubt in this matter, in my opinion, such trends should not be overlooked. Wangenheim

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Enclosure 1 J.No. 54. Erzerum, 31 October 1913 Upon his return to Russia, a Russian political agent, Gospodin Berezowski, who travelled through Turkish Armenia for a few months at the beginning of this year with the support of the Russian consulates, has given a lecture in Tiflis on his findings on the conditions in the Armenian vilayets, which is enclosed in an English translation and entitled, “Disappearing Armenia.” The opinion which is made clear in the lecture is typical of the Russian trends which rule in Tiflis. Of particular interest is the open demand of the lecturer that Russia support the Kurdish movement in order to assist the Armenians. The appeal to the Russian Armenians present to assist their brothers-in-faith is also very obviously a part of the Russian plans. The lecturer calls the British and French policy in Armenia egotistical, although it is evident that the Russian plans are far more in their own selfinterest. When the lecturer speaks of two-and-a-half million Kurds, he is exaggerating tenfold, for there are only about 240,000 Kurds in Van, Bitlis and Erzerum, to which a maximum of 140,000 Kisilbashi in Harput, Dersim and Erzerum can be added. Even though the lecturer vastly exaggerates the conditions, some of the information does seem to be true; for example, the complete defencelessness of the Armenian women especially, as the Armenian Patriarch recently assured me, in Vilayet Bitlis. The Turks cannot be blamed for not wanting to do anything to assist road construction in the Russian-Armenian border area, as in doing so they would only assist the Russians in moving their canons from the border to Erzerum. On the other hand, the “Compagnie des Routes” [the “Road Company”] which operates here is very busy repairing the roads from Trabezond and Sivas to Erzerum. Anders Enclosure 2 Disappearing Armenia What I have seen convinces me of the justice of the above chosen title. Turkey has not been so weakened by the Balkan War as is thought, but is still strong in Asia and is since the war strengthening her fanatical Moslem element there. This awakened fanaticism is now spreading to the Caucasus, and the Armenian question has become a serious Russian question. An essential element of this question is the Kurdish element, an element very little known, especially by Russians, though it is now beginning to be seriously studied by Europeans, especially English and Germans, whose example should be followed by Russia. The Kurds, descendants of the original conquerors, are hopelessly uncivilizeable. They were brought into this country in 1504, and, though remaining to a great extent

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independent, gave no trouble to the Turkish Government. Only after Russian influence began to spread in Asia Minor in the earliest part of the 19th century did the Kurds begin to stir, and there were several Kurdish revolts against the Turkish Government, notably those of 1814, 1829, 1832 and 1854. These revolts were put down by Turks with the help of England. There was another uprising in 1878, directed by the famous Hussein Pacha (apparently him of the Bear Hunjaily, who has died recently). After 1878, however, Abdul Hamid followed the successful policy of winning over the Kurds, especially by his organisation of the Hamidiye regiments, and of turning them into instruments against Christians and against Russia. After his fall, the Young Turks at first seemed to adopt a contrary policy, but soon showed their true colours. [Illegible] some Young Turks of European education entered the service of the Turkish Government, and used their positions to make propaganda for Kurdish independence among their tribes. Abdul Reza, one of the sons of Bedr Khan, started his propaganda among the tribes near the Persian frontier, and next, it was started by his relations near the centre of Kurdistan. In the north it has been carried on chiefly by Abdul Kair. This propaganda was against the Turkish Government, but now another movement approved by the Turkish Government, has begun amongst the Kurds against the Armenians. I have myself seen two members of the Turkish Government, going about among the Kurds and preaching death against the giaurs! I possess an anti-Christian and an anti-Armenian paper, distributed by these two members. The Armenian villages have begun to suffer, and are in an intolerable position. The government, fully alive of the danger to itself from this Kurdish movement, has as usual been exciting one element of the population against the other. The result of the Kurdish movement cannot [have] been predicted, but, in any case, it will come much bloodshed, especially to Armenians. Already the Kurds of Van and Bitlis have ceased to pay taxes, and have driven out the officials of the Turkish Government from many places. But a serious outbreak of the uprising has still been put off by the skilful intriguing of the Turkish Government, which, to confuse the minds of the Kurds, has a powerful helper, named the British Government. The British Consuls in the different districts of Turkish Armenia, by instruction of their Government, are carrying on an analogous propaganda among the Kurds. Towards the middle of May, there was to be a meeting of Kurdish chiefs to arrange a general rising. The Kurdish movement is progressing just at the moment as Russia is trying to commence an active policy in Asia Minor. The Kurd, though a bri[gand], thanks to the conditions created by the Turkish Government, is still apt for better things, and is of a fairly reasonable nature. Of course, the fall of Turkish power in Europe has not escaped the notice of the Kurds. They have seen the gradual [illegible] of the [illegible] monstre and have understood that the dismemberment is only due to the moral help of Russia. Hence, they lean towards Russia, as they know that they can do nothing without her. The stronger the Kurdish movement grows, the stronger grows the idea among the Kurds of a rapprochement with Russia. The Kurds also see that Turkey, having left all her youth on the battlefields in Europe, has no longer any strength in Asia Minor.

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The situation of the Armenians in the Vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Harput, Sivas, Erzerum is critical. Exact figures of populations cannot be obtained, but the Armenia of old days no longer exists—only fragments. Only in the Vilayet of Van the Armenians form 18 percent of the population, in the Mush sandjak of the Vilayet at about 70 percent, in the other regions their number does not exceed 30 percent. The Armenians formerly were in all the regions the majority. The three Armenian organisations are the Dashnak, the Hinchak and the social democrats. Since the fall of Abdul Hamid they have been reduced to inaction by the Young Turks, deceiving their leaders by empty promises. Just now, since the beginning of the Turkish reaction, a vast field has been opened for their activity. But there is no union among them—only hatred, jealousy and all sort of dissensions. According to some Russian newspapers, the cause of the economical situation is purely agricultural, but this is not so. It is useless to raise the question of restoring to the true Armenian owners the lands that have been seized from them by the Kurds. The Armenians must give up all such hope. It is tale to talk of wiping out two and a half million Kurds, who now hold those lands. Before the constitution, the lands of the Beys, who were generally the landlords of the country, were cultivated by the Armenians as tenants without any contracts. But after the constitution the Beys demanded contracts of a monstrous kind. Besides the payments under the contracts, the Armenians had to pay half or even three quarters of the harvest. Moreover, there are land taxes. Thus the Armenian is at the Bey’s mercy and can make no profit for himself as all the profit goes to the Bey. The situation of the Armenian landowners are still worse as he is being deprived of his land, his only means of subsistence. In addition to the legal direct and indirect taxes there are a series of arbitrary impositions, for instance a tax: “Mer Dorma” (“give and ask no question”) paid on dairy produce. Again, there are the taxes for roads, schools, though no Armenian school gets any subvention from the Government. The Government has invented an infernal device to take the lands away from the Armenian land owners. This is the Government agricultural bank, which with fair speeches press on the Armenian, who wants in advance of ten, fifteen or twenty pounds, to be repaid in 1 year with heavy interest. The poor, simple villager consents and loses all his land. In the region of Ekhlat, 92 percent of the lands of the Armenians are thus pledged to the bank, and 87 percent in the region of Malatia. Nothing then remains but emigration. According to Russian Consular statistics, in the month of April more than 1,000 Armenians emigrated from the region of Harput, and in a single month 1,870 Armenians emigrated from the Vilayet of Erzerum. The military service of Armenians has given a great impulse to the emigration. They are always put in the forefront of the battle, and ill-treated in the barracks. I have myself seen Armenian soldiers with their tongues cut out. From the Malatia region alone some 400 Armenians between sixteen and twenty years of age have run away and thus the most vigorous element of the population is being lost, and in fifteen or twenty years it will not be disappearing Armenia but vanished Armenia. The Armenians in Russia,

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America and elsewhere should at once set about seeking remedies. One would be an Armenian national bank to compete with the Turkish agricultural bank and save the land from falling into the hands of the Kurds. The advances to the villagers should be without interests, and the national bank should found various cooperative unions, which by opening credits would partly relieve the economic situation. It is for you Armenians of the Caucasus to take the first step, you who are enjoying security of your life and property! The Armenians have owed their national existence to their church, but now there is a great change and there they are becoming indifferent to their religion and are ready to change it to obtain means of life. According to consular information, thousands are formally requesting that they might become Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. A part of the Armenians have already lost their language. For instance more than 26,000 in Cherik (?) in the Vilayet of Harput no longer speak Armenian. The missionaries— French, German and English—are under the mask of benevolence, working for the ruin of the Armenian nationality, while the [illegible] of the Turkish Government are going about spreading discord among the different Christian nations. The smallest [several words illegible] that it will to the Christians. One [illegible], considered well-educated, has visited in a presence of an Armenian, whose three sons were soldiers at the war. The father asked for news of them, and the [illegible] said, “are there not enough dogs in the street already without you coming to ask about other dogs?” The constitution is supposed to have brought equality, but the truth is shown by the following figures: Vilayet Erzerum: 2,193 officials, 18 Christians, population of Vilayet 362,000 Moslems, 560,000 Christians; Vilayet of Van: 1,160 officials, 13 Christians, more than half of the population being Christians. In judicial proceedings the judges are invariably hostile to the Christians; hardly one half percent of the judgements are in favour of Armenians. Lately, a law has been passed making null Armenian testimony against Turks. The Turkish provocative activity has increased lately. Since the Balkan War, a great number of agents has been sent into various regions of Asia Minor, where they are carrying on a violent propaganda against the Christians. In one sandjak, the Russian Consul complained to the Turkish Government of the anti-Christian attitude of the chief of police, who in consequence was promoted to the chief town of the Vilayet. Ordinary crime is growing. In the region of Van on the space of a month, there have been seventeen assassinations, which is not excessive for a population of about 300,000. Such things happen also in the Caucasus in the Government of Elizavetpol. But the dangerous factor is, that crime committed against Christians is considered in Turkish Armenia as heroism: if [it] is a crime committed by an Armenian, then even the family of the accused is at once arrested. The Armenians of the Caucasus should aid their brethren by means of intellectual culture. The Great Powers should raise the question of a change of the entire system of taxation. Two years ago the Young Turks made a rule that the Armenians should pay in cash the tithe, paid hitherto in kind.

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The reforms are useless. They are to be directed by certain Powers, which are only interested in maintaining the existence of Turkey. Thus in a recent debate, the English Parliament has supported Sir Edward Grey, who insisted that England must guarantee the integrity of Turkey, which means oppose Russian influence in Asia Minor. The British Consuls are all working for this, and showing delicate attentions to the Turks. For instance, for fifteen years these Consuls have not hoisted their flags on the occasion of Moslem feasts. Now, by order from London, on each Moslem feast, they hoist their flag. Many of them are making open propaganda against Turkey’s adversaries, especially against Russia. At one time, it is true, Gladstone and one or two writers raised their voice for the Armenians. But these were simple personal philanthropies. Quite different is the English policy towards Armenia. This policy is egotistical and [self-] interested, and results from fear of Russia. The natural leaning of the Armenians towards Russia, strengthened by the Balkan War, has excited the Armenophobe activity of the English. The English and French are equally selfish. France has no sympathy for Armenians, but only wishes to exploit them; and Armenia, being poor as a productive country, has no importance for France. One crosses hundreds of kilometres, seeing nothing but rocks and nakedness. The designs both of [the] French and the English are purely political. On the other hand, Russian commercial relations with Armenia in her frontier country [are] progressing in spite of the persecution of Russian commercial travellers and Russian commerce by the Turkish authorities. For example, Russian sugar has been officially denounced as injurious. The Turkish Government does nothing to improve means of communication near the frontier. The Powers of Europe wish to keep up a barrier against Russia. But Russia should consider the Armenian question as a Russian one. All the population, even the Muselmans, even the rising generation of Circassians, are leaning towards Russia. An old man in an Armenian village rises every morning and weeps towards the east, saying: “the Muscovite Uncle is not coming.” An Armenian peasant offered the Russian Vice-Consul one rouble to help the Tsar send an army there. In another place, an old Armenian kneels daily before a Russian tomb in the local cemetery to hear the word “Yes,” which has been promised him in a dream. Portraits of the Tsar and the Empress are everywhere. The anti-Christians of the Turkish Government will soon force Russia to intervene in Armenia, to save the persecuted race. Unanimity and reasonableness are on the other hand required of the Armenians themselves. Any reforms, introduced at the insistance of the Great Powers, [must] be applied by the Turks, and in the past, the series of treaties and reform schemes including the Treaty of Berlin show what that means. The Protestant pastor Orimm says, “Turkey is impotent to reform herself.” He proposes the indispensable conditions of great reforms:

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1. The different Armenian parties must unite and active intellectual forces must be created. 2. The Armenians must defend themselves, though there is probably no present danger of the repetition of a general massacre. The Armenians of the Caucasus must induce the Russian Government to intervene without hesitation to safeguard the lives and goals of the Armenians in Turkey. 3. Schools must be spread over Armenia. The people long for them. At present only the United Society occupies itself with the spread of instruction. The Armenian women in Turkey are deprived of all rights. Generals Paskevitch and Lazareff have been in favour for an active policy in Armenia. Lately, when Sheikh Obeid-Ullah took Urmia, the Russian statesmen unfortunately declined the offer of his support on the ground that he was a brigand chief, but the English had no such scruples. Russia should lend her moral support to the Kurdish movement, as she has aided Mongolia. Thus we could give to the Armenians of Turkey the opportunity to breathe freely. The danger to the Armenians is not from the Kurds, but from the Government. I have been eyewitness to the mischievous anti-Russian propaganda of the Turkish authorities. An autonomy under European surveillance might be given to Armenia. As through Austria, [illegible] has been given to the half-savage Albania, why not also to Armenia, the neighbour of Russia? The Armenian element by its industry would be of great use to Russia as history progresses. It is our duty to save it from destruction, with which it is threatened in the infernal land of the Young Turks. As the Russian poet says: “Comest thou,” and she answers, “I come.” J[agow]

1914-01-15-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14083; A 00943; pr. 15.01.1914 p.m. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 19 Berlin, 15 January 1914 According to a statement by the Russian ambassador, there is news in St. Petersburg from Erzerum that meetings are being held there in which there is open talk of massacres. At the order of the Mullahs, the population has put on white turbans.

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Everything has been prepared for massacres, which are to begin at a sign from Constantinople. Ittihad is collecting signatures for protest against any kind of control, emphasising that the responsibility for the massacres lies with those powers who want to interfere in the reforms. The Russian ambassador in Constantinople has been ordered to give these events his most serious attention. Please do the same and instruct the consul in Erzerum to send a report by telegraph. J[agow]

1914-10-16-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 28983; pr. 01.11.1914. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 2480/K.No. 107 Copy Aleppo, 16 October 1914 German female missionaries from Marash are reporting that the hitherto active and passive opposition by the inhabitants of Zeytun against the enlisting into the army of the conscripts of this Armenian city has been broken by the Turkish side. Their leader, Nazar Tchaush, head of those deserters who were roaming the mountains for months and who became, in time, a brigand chieftain and was regarded even by the Armenians as a plague because of his tyranny, was captured by Turkish troops around the beginning of October through cunning and perfidy, and was brutally tortured to death. The inhabitants of Zeytun blame German officers for the implementation of conscription in their town, too, and revile the German name. The acute antipathy towards Germany shown also by most of the Armenian inhabitants of Marash was fanned by the city’s French Vice-Consul. Even the American Mission, which views our mission as an inconvenient competitor, is surely not working to ensure us a friendly atmosphere among the populace. Only women remain in the German Mission now. Under these circumstances, I would appreciate it very much if the Imperial Embassy could provide leaflets in Turkish on the war, as well as elucidating articles to be distributed in Marash. The propaganda which is distributed by this consulate in Aleppo is in Arabic, which is no longer understood in Marash. [Rössler]

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1914-12-24-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 36210; pr. 26.12.1914 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack. From the President of the Board of the German-Armenian Society (Johannes Lepsius) to the Foreign Office Potsdam, 22 December 1914 We request that the enclosed letter, which contains our letter to the Armenian Patriarch, and the enclosed letter to Dr. Max Zimmer [Handwritten note by Zimmermann: “Letter to Dr. Zimmer and the Consulate in Smyrna sent by courier on 26 December.” Furthermore: “Also a letter to the German Consulate in Smyrna.”], as well as a letter to the German Consulate in Smyrna be sent by courier to the German Embassy in Constantinople. At the same time, we enclose a receipt from Dr. Liparit on the receipt of M. 900, which we received through the cashier’s office of the German Mission for the Orient. Yours faithfully, The Board of the German-Armenian Society Dr. Johannes Lepsius Enclosure Potsdam, 22 December 1914 In accordance with the guidelines given to us orally during a meeting, we have instructed Dr. Liparit to work on the Armenian Patriarch, the leaders of the Dashnaktsutiun Party, and the leading Armenian circles in Constantinople, so that the Armenian people, in close connection with Turkey, will use their national strength to achieve a victory for the Ottoman forces and, wisely realising its own interests, support the Turkish government with all its strength in the implementation of all measures and military operations in the provinces occupied by Armenians. As far as possible, Dr. Liparit will also take up contact with the Dashnaktsutiun’s foreign contacts. We request that the German Foreign Office inform the embassy in Constantinople of the purpose of Dr. Liparit’s journey and recommend him to the ambassador. The Board of the German-Armenian Society Johannes Lepsius

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[From Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 901), 26 December] Respectfully sent to the—title—Ambassador in Constantinople for his information. Dr. Liparit Nasariantz is leaving for Turkey today. The enclosed letter addressed to [Your … etc.] includes a letter from the German-Armenian Society to the Armenian Patriarch.

1914-12-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 00388; pr. 04.01.1915 p.m. Report. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 341 Pera, 29 December 1914 Because of the report of the Imperial Consul in Adana about the unfavourable mood of the Armenian population of those territories towards the German cause, I took the opportunity to approach the local Patriarch of the Gregorian Armenians to find out about his understanding of the relevant conditions. According to the report by Dr. Büge, the Armenians in his district are afraid that in case of a German victory, the existence of the Armenian people on Turkish ground will be annihilated because Germany supported—and even encouraged—the Turkish government during the persecution of the Armenians, but that if Turkey should fall into the hands of the English or the French, all these stricken Armenians would finally find peace, etc. I therefore assured the Patriarch that the reform action for the Eastern Anatolian districts, which was started before the beginning of the war, although stalled now, is not dead, and that as soon as peace is restored, I will arrange for the resumption of the reform work, just as the early attempts of the Russian government to this end were supported by us. It was obvious to the Patriarch that because of the prevailing war circumstances, this work was postponed and could not be resumed again before the end of the war. For the moment he complained about the mistrust of the Turkish authorities towards the Armenians, and especially about the fate of the Armenian districts close to the war zones, specifically around the area of Erzerum. All men between the ages of 20 and 45 who are able to bear arms were conscripted; the rest were engaged to help with transports and other related work, leaving the villages without protection from encroachment and assault from pillaging soldiers. Things seem to be calm in the other

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provinces with Armenian populations, but since the cut-off of correspondence, there has been no reliable news. Generally speaking, the Patriarch observed that every reasonable Armenian would wish to remain under Turkish rule and would reject an annexation of the districts concerned to a foreign state; but it is imperative that with the impending reforms in mind, equality before the law and protection of life and property for all Armenians in East Anatolia is guaranteed. Referring to the sympathies of Armenians for one or the other power which is at war with us, the Patriarch explained that through border traffic with Russian regions, Russian sympathies are often brought in. Each year in the spring, thousands of Armenians move to Russia to work there and return in fall to the Turkish homeland with their savings; at that point they draw a parallel between the treatment they receive abroad and their situation in Turkey, but they have no real idea how their destiny would be affected should they come under Russian rule. During the massacre of Armenians in Erzerum (1898), the Russian Consul Maximov is said to have turned away not only those Armenians who sought refuge in the consulate, but he is supposed to have instigated the fanatical mob by shouting encouragement for more atrocities. The Patriarch provided other details and added that the Russians entered into negotiations for reforms in Turkish Armenia out of consideration for the Armenian population in the Caucasus. If there are sympathies for France, it is mainly because of French being taught as a first foreign language; knowledge of this language is the basis for introducing French ideas and French sympathies. Up to now, German has been introduced only in a few schools due to a lack of suitable teaching personnel. Pronounced sympathies exist for the U.S., even though the practice of proselytising by the English and American missionaries often causes offence. The Patriarch avoided talking in detail about the Armenians’ unfavourable sentiments towards Germany and the underlying reason, but he meant that German politics under the rule of Abdul Hamid, which is viewed by the Armenians as hostile, was led by other considerations and that at present, due to different circumstances, there is no reason to reflect on the past and its occurrences. The extended and blessed activities of the Kaiserswerther deaconesses and other German associations meant to serve the Armenians in Turkey were rightly praised by the Patriarch. The above statements of the Patriarch should be taken as more or less correct and sincere. As far as I know, he, like the majority of the Supreme Council of the Armenian community, is a member of the moderate party (“Ramgavar”). But it seems impossible to influence the broad masses of the Armenian population in a pro-German direction through the medium of the patriarchate, since the Ramgavar party does not own a suitable party organ. It might be possible to win over one or the other party newspapers to our causes, and I hold out the possibility of coming back to this matter as soon as the steps I have initiated show a tangible result. Wangenheim

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1914-12-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 00389; pr. 04.01.1915 p.m. Report. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 342 Pera, 30 December 1914 1 enclosure. The following report about Turkish excesses against the Armenian population around Erzerum confirms the reports I received from the Armenian Patriarch; they caused me to mention these conditions to the Sublime Porte, and I urged them to see to it that those incidents are stopped. But the Grand Vizier pointed out that these incidents did not occur without Armenian provocation; as proof he pointed out that Armenians are openly taking sides against the Turkish cause in the war, and he mentioned that the Bulgarian Armenians send a troop of volunteers to Russia. Wangenheim Enclosure Erzerum, 5 December 1914 Re: excesses against Armenians in the district of Erzerum. The Armenian population of the Vilayet of Erzerum, especially the country people, is very worried because of a few incidents which they see as harbingers of new massacres. On the 1st of the month, three Turkish irregulars visited a distinguished priest in the village of Osni on the Erzerum plateau, where they ate and slept. The next morning they forced him to accompany them to the edge of the village, where he was shot to death with a shotgun. In the village of Tevnik, also on the Erzerum plateau, a group of 12 irregulars expelled all the males of the village, chained them and asked for 100 Turkish pounds in ransom. The village could not raise this amount of money. The men remained prisoners. Some women of this village came crying to the Armenian bishop in Erzerum and asked for help. There are similar reports from other villages. The Armenian bishop turned to the Vali, who promised to rid the Erzerum plateau of these irregulars. These reports come from respectable Armenians. The Armenian population maintains that the Turkish party “Ittihad” instigates this movement. It is a matter of fact that Turkish officers do not see eye to eye with

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the Armenians, and reproach them with being friendly to Russia and helping Russian troops to get into Turkish territory. Even with the Turkish population, as one can see from certain symptoms, the old hatred is rising again. I reported all these incidents to the commander of the fortress of Erzerum, General Posseldt, member of the German military mission. Schwarz

1915-03-07-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 1633; p. 17.03.1915. Report. From the Vice-Consul in Alexandretta (Hoffmann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) J.No. 226 Alexandretta, 7 March 1915 During the last few days, house-to-house searches took place at all the homes of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire residing here—Armenians, Syrians, Greeks—on orders from higher up (most likely from Constantinople). In some houses, papers were confiscated, apparently only because they were in a foreign language, as well as books, especially English ones. Nobody has been placed under arrest because of these occurrences so far. As far as I know about the character and doings of the small local population, I do not believe that they would commit treason. For this reason, many of the local foreigners who were not affected by these measures shook their heads in disbelief. By the way, the house searches were conducted in a polite manner. As I heard from the military, these actions were taken because of the rising mistrust which has lately been growing in government circles against the Christian (and especially Armenian) elements of the population in Syria and Cilicia—and I am sure elsewhere—and which has been fanned here and in the surrounding area by a few small incidents. For instance, there were two Armenians among the arrested gendarmes when the cruiser Doris landed. Once, an Armenian sergeant of a group of seven men (equipped with malfunctioning Martinis) in a trench (with no emergency exit) supposedly surrendered by waving a handkerchief. Even though it seems very plausible to explain this by the lack of martial characteristics in the Armenian character, the local military authorities saw this as treason; the common man would certainly have regarded it as such. Therefore, a sense of panic gripped the local Armenians. This was intensified by the actions of the military authorities near the small village of Dört Yol, which is 30 km away from here and belongs to Vilayet Adana. I have not yet been able to find out what actually happened there. According to the military authorities, a raid took place because of suspicions that it was a well-known refuge for deserters, robbers and troublemakers. According to other reports, all able-bodied

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people were forced to leave to do roadwork near Osmania. The fact is that Osmania is surrounded by the military and nobody can enter or leave without a valid permit. The interpretation given to the Turkish actions in Dört Yol is indicative of the feeling of the Armenians against Germany. It is said that a German who pretended to be English visited the villages in that area and told the Armenians that they, the English, intended to occupy this area; what would the Armenian reaction be? They answered “of course,” nothing better could happen to them. The German reported this to the Turkish authorities. Even if some better-off Armenians reject this interpretation, the common people are sure to believe it. This shows once again how deeply rooted the mistrust of the Armenians against Germany is, since friendship for Turkey is automatically interpreted as enmity against the Armenians. All evidence of new German “sympathy” for the Armenians failed to produce the hoped-for impression, as I can detect from conversations with the local Armenians. This intention was partly too obvious and the means used involved too crass a shift not to arouse more mistrust. Since being here, I, too, have attempted to dispel the Armenians’ mistrust, be it through a friendly manner towards them and private discussions, or through the use of opportunities for public speeches when they came up here during victory celebrations held by the Armenians, church services held upon the murder of Armenian civilians by British grenades, etc. Occasionally, I also attempted to show my sympathy by means of donations, visits to the wounded in hospital, etc. But I am well aware that these are only drops in the ocean of mistrust. It is an entirely different question whether Germany should trouble itself sympathising with the Armenians. Copy for the consulate in Aleppo is enclosed. Hoffmann

1915-03-13-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 1712; p. 20.03.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 2234 Adana, 13 March 1915 Enclosure. Your Excellency, I beg to present to you the following enclosure about Armenian activities in Dört Yol, which was put forward by Simon Agabalian, an assistant official at this consulate.

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I cannot in any way vouch for the reliability of the report, but I am sure that everything has been truthfully described. The opinion expressed by Mr. Agabalian at the end of the report to the effect that the current German-Turkish relationship has protective value for the Ottoman Christians hardly represents his personal conviction, even less that of the general discernible notion, which is that Germany is by no means to be considered a protective power. Büge Enclosure The Unrest in Dört Yol. The area in and around Dört Yol is, with few exceptions, inhabited mainly by Armenians and surrounded by Turkish residences. The population is growing oranges for their livelihood, but this year is unable to bring the only product of their work to market because of the war. The inhabitants of Dört Yol had to serve or to pay “bedel” during mobilisation. Because of the general lack of money, these people could not help themselves and many—or, rather, you could say all of them—deserted instead of responding to the military invitation. Some of the deserters fled far away and others stayed home. The attention of the government was raised by these circumstances and by the mistrust of the Turks living in this area towards the Armenians, more so because the inhabitants of Dört Yol defended themselves against the Turks. Several times after the bombardment of the Turkish harbours by the English warships, the British came on land without any difficulty and went to the Armenians in Dört Yol to do their shopping. Some Armenians dealt with the English out of greed, while others were disgruntled on account of this, since they realised that the government would watch all this and would eventually blame all for the actions of a few. A few weeks ago, a former deserter by the name of Saldjian, who received his education from the local Jesuits and who later taught French at the Armenian school, went to Dört Yol. Two years ago he had gone to Cyprus and at present most likely has joined the English. He went together with an Armenian from Alexandretta to Dört Yol and stayed there for 6-7 days. You could almost say he tried to recruit the inhabitants for the Foreign Service. It is not known how far he succeeded, and some merchants claim the trip involved Saldjian’s private business and had nothing to do with the general public. The notables of the village did not know about the visit and some of them were not even present at that time. Saldjian managed to obtain identity papers and introduced himself as a merchant. Even the police were informed of his presence. By sheer coincidence, after Saldjian returned to the English warship, the police became aware of the fake merchant, and could only arrest the man who had accompanied him.

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A few days later, another Armenian by the name of Köshkerian from the village of Odshakli left the warship to come on land. After the murder of his wife during the massacre by the Turks, he went abroad. This man is supposed to have carried money with him in the amount of 40 Ltq. From all these actions and occurrences one cannot deduce that the Armenians had any kind of organisation for the purpose of a conspiracy or revolution. But one can surely say that the arrival of the warships and their aggressive behaviour generated joy among the majority of the Christian populace and especially Armenians, and if it should ever be possible for the English or French to reach land, they would be extremely welcomed by the Christians. During one night all the male Armenians of the village were arrested and sent away from this area due to the emphatic request from the Turkish population of the neighbouring residences to remove the Armenians from Dört Yol, and because they wanted to arrest deserters and avoid any unforeseen actions. They were sent to Aleppo under strict supervision and are now doing roadwork. During the arrest, the Armenians showed submission and did not resist the officials. Three people were shot while trying to flee. Even these did not use any weapons. We do not know too much about the weapons of the Armenians. An ongoing investigation will clarify this. It is said that the Vali of Adana expressed his satisfaction because the Armenians did not resist and the apprehension of his critics (one of them Akiah Bey in Osmania) did not materialise. The actions of the military during the arrests took place without misdeeds or excesses. At this time there is nothing to worry about regarding the fate of the women and children left behind. Poverty is a common occurrence in the country. The Armenian community and their representatives, as well as the head of the district council and the Catholicos, are simply onlookers and disapprove of any imprudent deed of individuals. They only try to support the helpless women and children; otherwise they refrain from any action and wait for the decision of the court-martial. Here and there is some talk about massacres. But one is glad that it is a happy chance that the Turks allied themselves with the Germans. They would disapprove of any brutal and unjust act and prevent it from happening. We cannot find out anything about foreign propaganda. Mr. Chambers carries out only religious propaganda and is not only not tolerated by the Armenians of Gregorian confession on account of the negative things he said about the Armenians during and after the massacre, but he is also being avoided because of his fanatical Protestant activism. He has more influence over the Protestant Armenians and does not even socialise with the head of the district council. Adana, March 12, 1915 S. Agabalian

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1915-03-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 1833; p.25.03.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) J.No. 250 Adana, 18 March 1915 1 enclosure. Your Excellency, further to my telegram of 15th inst., I have the honour of respectfully enclosing a report on the events in Zeytun. I respectfully wish to repeat that all the preconditions for the possibility of a riot by the Armenians are missing. What is experienced as hostility by the Armenian side towards the Turkish government is basically no more than an outburst of the bitter mood caused by the fact that at the moment and possibly in the future of an intervention by Christian powers in favour of the Armenians has been ruled out. In the year 1896, Zeytun became famous, in a sense, on the occasion of the first official Armenian massacre, insofar as the population there succeeded in capturing the troops and their commander sent to destroy them. Büge Enclosure Report on the events in Zeytun. Adana, 16 March 1915 The town of Zeytun, inhabited solely by Armenians and situated on the upper Seihun River, belongs, administratively speaking, to the Vilayet of Aleppo. Its high, mountainous location, difficult to reach, particularly in winter, makes the work of the Turkish authorities more difficult. The inhabitants of the town and the approximately thirty villages surrounding it, of which half are Armenian, live on agriculture and livestock breeding. Many of them are mule drivers who handle the heavy traffic in the mountainous part of the surrounding vilayets. Some of the poor elementary schools supported by the Armenian community cannot do anything to spiritually and culturally lift the people, so that the people live in a lack of knowledge and spiritual deficit, almost cut off from the rest of the world. Governmental measures to levy taxes and recruit conscripts are met with stubborn resistance on the part of the locals, who do their utmost to escape from their duties.

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Military service, in particular, appears to them to be too difficult and, thus, desertion is a common phenomenon. The deserters flee into the mountains and survive on ambushing travellers and caravans. They carry out their rapacious acts without distinction for race or creed of those being ambushed. The attempts of the government to arrest them are usually without success because their arrest would lead to the creation of new, vengeful deserters and bands of robbers. About six months ago, while the country was being mobilised, the inhabitants of the town of Zeytun once again did not follow the government’s demand that they enlist, so that it was forced to take hard measures. Several persons were taken to Aleppo, the centre of the Vilayet, and arrested there. For this reason the Armenian Catholicos also drove to Aleppo to work on behalf of the innocent among them with the government. The government treated the prisoners so severely that one of them died from the lashes. Despite this, the inhabitants of Zeytun were not intimidated and continued to refrain from doing military service. Several days ago they even fired some shots at the military commander there, but without the serious intention of killing him. It is said that they were only attempting to intimidate him. During these past few days, a gendarme was killed in Zeytun. Because of the inadequate transportation, it is not possible at present to determine exactly why and by whom this deed was done. It can, however, definitely be assumed that the question of recruitment was once again the leading motive which drove the locals to resistance against the government. The inhabitants of the town of Zeytun, about 1,200-1,500 houses, live in discord with each other and have no sense of public spirit. Only the general poverty and danger joins the individuals in common action. They are, in part, equipped with old, inferior weapons, which they use for their defence. They do not have the necessary organisation and leadership for offensive action. The refusal to pay taxes and to fulfil military service is not an isolated occurrence in the large Ottoman Empire. It is everywhere, and you could say that it is to be found in each vilayet. Some tribes in Lazistan, Kurdistan and in the areas where Arabs, Circassians live by themselves also usually do not pay taxes, nor do they do military service. The Armenians in Zeytun wanted to give in to the government insofar as they suggested doing military service in their town, but this suggestion was not accepted by the government. In justification, the Armenians said that they did not feel safe because of the Muslim population living in their neighbourhood and, thus, could not permit that those men able to carry arms be removed. They assured that there was no need to fear aggressive behaviour on their part, particularly now that they had delivered their weapons to the government and were almost defenceless. The fear of military service is generally found here everywhere, so that both Christians and Mohammedans attempt to free themselves of this in any way possible. One man pays “bedel” while another deserts. In other words, there is no enthusiasm among the population, be it Christian or Mohammedan, for military service.

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Recently, the aversion among the Christians has been even greater because they are used without exception as common construction workers, and no weapons are given to them. S. Agabalian

1915-03-26-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 11682; pr. 02.04.1915 p.m. Report. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 191 Pera, 26 March 1915 On the 12th of this month the Imperial consul in Aleppo reported an uprising which took place in Zeytun, a well-known Armenian flashpoint from times past, but whose scope presently remains unknown. Even though the Vali warned of it, the military commander did not leave troops there. When asked about it, the consul in Adana responded saying that it cannot be a question of an uprising of the Armenians, but that in all likelihood it involved an isolated expression in reaction to recruitment procedures. The local Armenian Patriarch agrees and adds that the government some time ago had taken away all weapons from the inhabitants. Here is yesterday’s telegram from Consul Rössler: “In Zeytun some Armenian deserters who were to be arrested shot a couple of Turkish gendarmes; the Muhammedan population of Marash clearly was going to use this incident as a reason to start a massacre but remained calm since the setup of a court-martial was announced. A German mission brother from Marash was sent to Zeytun as mediator. If the inhabitants do not hand over the ring leaders, military intervention will be used. In this case it might be difficult to keep in check the lower classes of the Muhammedan population of Marash. Please obtain strictest orders to prevent excesses. Armenian population of Marash is entirely peaceable. The strike against Zeytun should be swift and overwhelming to avoid the spreading of the insurrection. The mission, with eight Sisters living there, sent one of them to ask me to come to the help of the Germans in Marash. Asking for permission to leave. Trip there alone takes 3 days. Reply by wire.” I arranged for the imperial consul to start the trip to Marash as long as he arranges for a suitable replacement in Aleppo and informs the consul representative in Alexandretta about his temporary absence. Wangenheim

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[Answer from Wangenheim, 26 March] Agree to journey to Marash. Take cipher along. Please ensure suitable representation and inform consul in Alexandretta. [Notes by Mordtmann, 26 March] News from the Armenian Patriarch (discussion with him today) 1. Zeytun: Some months ago Armenian “deserters” (i.e., individuals who had escaped the levy by fleeing), were hanging around in the area around Zeytun and resorted to highway robbery, whereupon the Mutessarif from Marash, accompanied by several Armenian notables from Marash, proceeded to Zeytun. Several respected inhabitants of Zeytun acted as mediators and induced the refugees to surrender to the authorities after the authorities had assured them that they would not be punished. Despite having been given their word, they themselves, as well as those people from Zeytun who had intervened, were incarcerated and are still in jail today; there are about 7080 individuals. Ultimately, a Turkish gendarme, Abdullah, was disarmed and wounded by the people of Zeytun (the cause is unknown); other gendarmes were greeted by having stones thrown at them. A court martial then went from Marash to Zeytun and the town was surrounded by troops. Although the people of Zeytun have always been known for their independent and rebellious characters, this is now not a case of a planned, general riot; above all, they do not have the weapons for such an act; even knives and similar items were taken away from them. The Catholicos of Sis, whose diocese includes the district of Zeytun, has repeatedly used his influence to caution the people of Zeytun to remain calm; he would probably go there now personally, but is worried that the role of mediator would not agree with him anymore than it did with the people of Zeytun, who are now sitting behind bars as assistants of the deserters. 2) Dört Yol. The Patriarch’s news does not add anything to the report received here (1712) from the consulate in Adana. 3) Adana. During these past few days the Patriarch received telegrams from there which lead him to fear that there will be unrest against the Armenians. The Patriarch added that for the past some two weeks the Armenian troops have been disarmed, even those who had served previously, and that both they and the recruits are being used to build roads and for similar services, even though Enver Pasha himself spoke in praise of the attitude of the Armenian troops during the battles in the Caucasus.

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1915-03-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 1959. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Damascus (Padel) to the Embassy in Constantinople Damascus, 30 March 1915 Urgent. Count Wolfskel informed me that Consul Rössler in Aleppo plans to travel to Zeytun because of the events there, which have meanwhile developed satisfactorily. The military authority considers this journey to be extremely questionable and requests that he refrain from undertaking it. As requested, I telegraphed this to Rössler. On behalf of Count Wolfskel, I request that instructions be sent accordingly from there to Aleppo. Padel [Answer from Wangenheim, 30 March] 1. Cons. Aleppo Referring to the telegram from Consul Padel for Consul Rössler. Please do not travel to Zeytun, but rather restrict yourself to a visit to Marash. Have informed Padel accordingly. 2. Cons. Damascus Reply to telegram dated 30 March. Consul Rössler will only travel to Marash, where German nuns have urgently requested his presence; he has been instructed not to go to Zeytun.

1915-04-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 14801; pr. 30.04.1915 p.m. Report. From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 39/J.No. 764 Aleppo, 12 April 1915

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The unrest in Zeytun raised the question if it was instigated from abroad. During my official trip from 28 March to 10 April to Marash, I could not confirm this. The chief judge of the court-martial told me though that there was foreign influence, but he did not provide any evidence. These unrests are rather fully explained by their seeds which exist locally and which stem from the deep suffering gripping Turkey. Led by a certain Nazareth Tshaush, a sinister brigandage of Armenians developed near Zeytun. In October of last year, Mutesarrif Haidar Pasha of Marash staged an attack against it. He promised the inhabitants of Zeytun, on his word of honour, not to harm those who would hand over the brigands, and he achieved their surrender. But instead of starting a trial to execute the culprits, he had Nazareth Tshaush clubbed to death in prison (see report No. 2480 from 16 October of last year); 30 co-prisoners were sent to Osmania where they are still waiting in prison without a trial, while he let others go free in order not to have to punish Islamic robbers. Instead, he had those people arrested who had supplied information on the robbers and who had been promised immunity from prosecution. At the beginning of the war, General Fakhri Pasha removed the company of soldiers stationed at Zeytun against the advice from the Vali of Aleppo, Djelal Bey, and replaced them with Islamic gendarmes from Marash, who were partly personal enemies of the inhabitants of Zeytun. The latter were handed over to them; Zeytun is an exclusively Christian town. Several times men were mistreated and women molested while both the captain of the gendarmerie and the Kaymakam tolerated and even favoured such abuses. The suppressed population of Zeytun appealed to the Mutesarrif of Marash to recall those two officials. At the advice of the Vali, Haidar Pasha was replaced in November by the Mutasarrif Mumtaz Bey, who was non-partisan and fair in his dealings to size up the real situation. He asked for proof of guilt of the two officials. But the inhabitants did not dare to give proof against officials. Each and every witness would sooner or later suffer unrelenting consequences. So the gendarmes continued to create havoc and caused further embitterment. There is another reason fuelling the unrest. A group of Armenian soldiers, stationed in Marash, poorly supplied with food and tormented and mistreated since they were from Zeytun, deserted. At the beginning of March, the government took away uniforms and weapons from the Christian soldiers for reasons having nothing to do with the local area. Since this was perceived by the uninformed troops as a prelude to more and stronger actions against Christians, more Christian soldiers deserted and joined forces with the robbers living around Zeytun. When gendarmes were sent out to catch them, they resisted and shot six of the gendarmes to death around 9 March. A Muslim muleteer on his way to Zeytun was also killed. The inhabitants of Zeytun, fearing that the robbers would possibly carry out assaults on the town, asked for protection and received it. When the different quarters were patrolled by gendarmes, shots were fired from a house at a patrol in the Yeni Dunya quarter in which Nazareth Tshaush used to live. Instead of surrounding this

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house and catching the culprits, the captain of the gendarmes, who had harassed the inhabitants, chose not to go back into the city, but remained in the barracks on the upper side of the town. As a result, the insurrectionary movement expanded. The brigands and deserters entrenched themselves in the former cloister (Tekke) on the outskirts of town, which is a place of pilgrimage. Attempts to have them turned over by the inhabitants failed, since nobody believes in the promises of the government anymore. Now they had to pay for the fact that Haidar Pasha had broken his word in October and had punished those who turned over the deserters and robbers. Naturally, Mutesarrif Mumtaz Bey accepted the offer of the Missionary Blank from the German relief work in Marash to go to Zeytun and try to achieve a peaceful surrender. Blank left for Zeytun on 23 March, but failed in his efforts, since no one was allowed close to the cloister any longer; instead, the dispatched local emissary was threatened with a weapon as soon as he mentioned surrender. They declared they would have to die anyway. They would rather do that with weapons in their hands than surrender to the government. Thereafter, the local commander surrounded the cloister using an insufficient number of troops. Had he proceeded in a proper military manner, he would have captured all of the robbers. He only had to wait for the arrival of the artillery, or to starve the robbers into submission. But he launched an attack. The major of the gendarmes of Marash rode towards the cloister and was shot with a few other soldiers. The robbers numbering approximately 150 broke through, losing a few dead and injured who fell into the hands of the attacking troops, reached the town and went to the mountains. It is worth mentioning that apparently they cut off the heads of 2 of their own to make it impossible for the Turks to identify them. Afterwards the cloister was destroyed by artillery fire. It will be nearly impossible to capture the robbers in the mountains. In the meantime, Mumtaz Bey rushed to Zeytun where he discharged first the captain of the gendarmes because he did not take proper measures after the patrol was shot at, and then the Kaymakam because he refused to come down from the barracks to do his duty in the town even after the Mutesarrif arrived. The actions in Zeytun are steadily acquiring greater importance, inasmuch as they have an impact upon nearby Marash as the next biggest town. There are 50 to 60,000 inhabitants; about 36,000 of them are Muslims and about 24,000 Christians. They subsist partly on trade and industry, but mainly on agriculture, cultivation of vines (turning grapes to raisins and the preparation of grape honey), rice, cotton, silk and others. Even though the soil is fertile and there is enough water for the corn, the population is still poor and right now close to extremely hard times, partly due to the political unrest and partly due to the very poor transport conditions. For over 18 years, they have been working on the only street connecting Marash with the rest of the world by way of Aintab, and have hardly finished half of it. When the Aksu was in flood it used to cut off traffic, but since the wife of a Mutesarrif almost drowned in it, it now has a bridge crossing it. People who hoped to keep their influence while transport traffic remained cut off and who wanted to work against the progressive Mutesarrif burned this wooden bridge, which was rebuilt after one year. The inhab-

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itants are peaceful and do not consider resisting the government. The mobilisation and the widespread confiscations were hard on them; as a result, there is hardly any transportation available. The car I arrived in from Aleppo was the only one in the whole town. By the end of March there were altogether 2,000 horses and mules requisitioned. On 5 April, 500 donkeys were requested. Christian muleteers were forced to work for 4 weeks for military purposes without pay or requisition papers, while the Muslim muleteers were let go after a few days. Even though they were released with papers to show that they did their duty, they were nevertheless often picked up elsewhere. The situation was already strained when the events in Zeytun took place. Now the Armenian population also lost their weapons, mainly through preferred nightly house raids; soldiers beat Christians, women were molested under the pretext that they were going to be searched for weapons, children were stoned. The rumour was spread that Christian soldiers poisoned the bread of their Muslim comrades; Muslim women openly threatening massacres, a Muslim offered his house to his Christian friend as shelter. Influential Muslims decided to send a telegram to the central government saying that the Armenians had occupied a mosque. This stupid charge shows the inferior level of education of the local Muslims. The telegram was first shown to the Mutesarrif in Zeytun who prevented it from being sent and who lodged a complaint with the court-martial, which, however, did not take action against the instigators. The court-martial’s chief judge, Colonel Shükri Bey, denied to me that a telegram was planned, but admitted that there was a request from the Muslims to have the Mutesarrif deposed. The court-martial, therefore, arrested the author of this request, Hamdi Bey, for meddling in official matters. While the Armenians had to surrender their weapons, the Muslims had the opportunity to buy powder and small shot. The inhabitants of the village of Tekerek sent a message to nearby Marash indicating that they would have to convert to Islam or lose their lives. The German mission in Marash doubted that the government would be able to control the inhabitants of Marash if conditions became worse and especially if more fighting took place and more Muslim blood was shed in Zeytun; it was also doubtful whether the government would be able to keep the people of Marash in check; it was also doubtful which of the local officials would get the upper hand: the sensible ones represented by the Mutesarrif, or the stronger ones, who included a few of the notables, particularly the head of the criminal court Muhammed-i-Djemal, the pharmacist Lufti Effendi, the Muslim deputy Kadir Bey, and one of the leading officers. Since all mail, including that sent by messengers, was strictly censored and the letter sent to me from the mission 4-5 weeks ago by courier never arrived, the relief association decided to send one of the Sisters from Marash to Aleppo to ask me to come for a visit. I respectfully enclose excerpts from the letter of the school principal, Helene Stockmann,2 which is especially important, since it describes the inhumane 2. Enclosure 1.

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methods of corporal punishment. The American mission also asked their consul in Aleppo for a visit. I also beg to inform you of the enclosed letter of Dr. Shepard from Aintab.3 Generally speaking, the inhabitants and the mission expected a lot from the visit of a consul. In the cast-off regions of the interior, which includes Marash, such a visit is very impressive not only for the inhabitants, but also for the local officials. Even the announcement of his coming, which I made in a telegram to the Mutesarrif on 27 March, had a calming and positive influence. Clearly, it also calmed the inhabitants and made an impression on the military. Since my arrival, no more people were beaten in the streets. I beg to inform you of a letter from the American mission of the 31st of last month4 on the effect of my visit. All of the Armenian population of Marash was very thankful for the visit and felt it eased the situation. One can say it also enhanced the prestige of the Germans in those areas tremendously. The enclosed letter from Djemal Pasha5 was only published on the 31st of March; in it, the inhabitants were asked to remain calm. By the way, he could not prevent an incident on 3 April, when a patrol forcefully entered the house of a single Armenian living in the Muslim quarter by smashing the door with a butt strike and forced him to convert to Islam. In the meantime, the incidents in Zeytun continue and there seems to be no end in sight. Major Khurshid Bey has been appointed commander of the troops, and he is supposed to be energetic and to have experience in the pursuit of robbers. The government is asking all deserters to surrender. By the end of March, 450 surrendered from Marash and 125 from Zeytun; part of them are being used in a penal company and part are waiting for their verdict at the court-martial. By the way, the proceedings at the court-martial are mostly against all rich and respected Armenians, most of whom apparently never had anything to do with the incidents in Zeytun and who would prefer to have all robbers removed so that Marash can become a safe area again. The son of Hosep Effendi Kirlakian, an Armenian deputy, was arrested and first accused of smuggling arms. When that charge did not stick, he was accused of bribing a man to fire a gun in the streets in order to start unrest. Finally, they had to set him free. House searches were conducted at the following places: the Armenian Protestant pastor, the Catholic Armenian priest, the Armenian director of the German Boys’ School, and the Armenian doctor from the German hospital. Apparently, this was done because they were on a list obtained from Zeytun identifying the members of the Armenian charitable society (in Turkish: ermeni djemiyet kheriye umumiyesi; in Armenian: parekorskzagan). This society, with its seat in Egypt, does exist and is recognised by the government; first by Abdulhamid and, in 1910, by the constitutional government. The society aims at supporting Armenian schools and the establishment of model agricultural institutions. No one had to go to Zeytun to get a list to find the members; they could have asked the chairman to come from Marash. It would be understandable if they feared that the society, having its seat in Egypt, 3. Enclosure 2. 4. Enclosure 3. 5. Enclosure 4.

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would be misused for foreign political purposes during the war. One could not object to an impartial inquiry being conducted on this basis. But I doubt very much that there could be an impartial inquiry conducted by this court-martial. Its performance creates the impression that due to the lack of a purposeful activity it is indulging in fictitious behaviour and, as it cannot catch the true culprits, it seems to cast suspicion on the entire Armenian population and picks on certain people in order to enrich itself. I would like to point out one incident: the ruthless house search of the director of the boys’ school, who lives in the building itself, which was not announced to me or to the leader of the mission. I protested to the head of the court-martial, pointing out that the Germans are an allied nation and should be treated accordingly, and asked if he really believed that Germans would tolerate hostile activities from their houses. He insisted he did not know that the director lived in the school and apologised. One bag with confiscated papers and letters, which I had sealed during the house search, to which I had hurried, and which I did not allow to be handed out to the police, had to be given to him upon his request and was opened while a consulate member was present. After this he refrained from arresting the director; the confiscated papers of the hospital doctor were also opened in the presence of a consular member. It would have made more sense for the court-martial to proceed against the Dashnaktsutiun, which does not shy away from arms smuggling, and the Hintchak. But this was not the case. It should be mentioned that the charitable society always refused to deal in arms and was never involved in politics, and never accepted members of the Dashnaktsutiun. This state of affairs has a bad impact on the economy at the moment. A state of siege has been declared. From dawn onwards, nobody is allowed out in the streets. For a few days the inhabitants were not allowed to leave Marash. This order has been lifted, but for fear of the soldiers, the Christian inhabitants do not dare leave the town to go to their vineyards to tend to them, which is absolutely necessary in the next few days if they still want to have them bear any fruit this year. This would deny the population a vital source of food. The danger of other massacres has temporarily passed, even though the Muslim instigators are still busy at work. On 31 March, they sent a telegram asking the central government to move the inhabitants of Zeytun (around 10,000 souls) elsewhere, and to level the town to the ground. It is certain that in the long run, this would lead to more unrest. The instigators put pressure upon the rich Armenians in Marash to sign this telegram. But they refused by asking to have it shown to the Mutesarrif first. The Mutesarrif objected to it, as did the Mufti of Marash. On 3 April, house searches took place at the said Armenians’ residences. Since 5 April, there seems to have been a split in the Muslim circles. Some advise peace, such as the notable Kadir Pasha (not to be confused with the deputy, Kadir Bey) and Shükri Bey, former deputy (not to be confused with the head of the courtmartial). All others want to continue inciting.

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Since there was no immediate danger for the Germans in Marash—and because I could not wait for further developments to evolve—I left Marash after nine days. I succeeded in dealing with the officials on a friendly basis. The Mutesarrif is still in Zeytun. I did not meddle in internal Turkish affairs. Only once did I protest unofficially, without the counter-argument that I had no right to meddle, when I intervened after hot coals were put down the dress of a mother visiting her son in jail to bring him food—all prisoners had to be fed by their relatives. From the very beginning I never intended to go to Zeytun since there were no German interests to protect; but the military surmised that I wished to go and did everything possible to prevent me from doing so. According to the missionary Blank, all robbers and deserters who had fled to the mountains would still surrender, if only they were reassured by an official, who came to them, that the conditions of the surrender would be adhered to. However, the officials do not want any foreigner to succeed where they have failed, besides not wanting to have foreigners interfering in internal Turkish affairs. Until now, it has not been possible to render the robbers harmless. At the beginning of April, the small conical mountain, Ala Kaia, halfway between Marash and Zeytun, was their refuge, a very inhospitable and rough country. Here they were supposed to be attacked. It was rumoured in Marash that the inhabitants of a small village left their homes and joined up with the robbers in fear of the oncoming troops. If this news should be true, it would be a sign that the movement could still expand in this direction. On the evening of 8 April, Fakhri Pasha arrived in Aintab and moved on to Marash and Zeytun on the 10th of the month. Count Wolfskeel, who is accompanying him, will know whether his inspections will produce good or bad results. After my return, Djelal Bey, the Vali of Aleppo, let me know that on the Turkish side of the border with Russia, some of the Armenian villages occupied by Russians showed sympathy towards Russia; that some inhabitants of Armenian villages on the Turkish side were killed by Muslims; and that apparently in the Turkish government a current is gaining the upper hand which is inclined to consider all Armenians as suspicious or even hostile. He thinks of this development as a misfortune for his fatherland and begged me to persuade His Excellency the Imperial Ambassador to counteract this trend. This same report will be sent to the Imperial Ambassador. Rössler Enclosure 1 Excerpts from letters. Marash, 21 March 1915 … We agree with the government that insubordination needs to be punished, and I know that our German government would severely punish such things, but here

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punishment is not dispensed objectively. Innocent people suffer and atrocities are committed which make you shudder deep inside. It is true that the inhabitants of Zeytun have a difficult character, and at any time there were elements among them who opposed everything violently; but they were led astray more and more through their unwise treatment by the government. When the actions began to take place a few months ago, Haidar Pasha went there and, with the help of the inhabitants, succeeded in capturing the worst of the people, the robbers. But under what conditions! The cruelties were indescribable; even women were beaten. Now the robbers were captured, but instead of openly hanging the main ring leader as a means of deterrence because he was a very bad man who had many people on his conscience, he was secretly tortured in jail. Now he is a martyr in the eyes of the people. And the other captured robbers? Well, they all escaped from prison and now the inhabitants are supposed to hand them over. But they have already done this once; why did the government not guard them better? … … The more you go into the interior of the country, the worse it gets, and I think the government in Constantinople does not have any idea what it is like in the interior. For instance, there was a murder a couple of days’ journey from here. A man was put into jail under suspicion of being the murderer. A witness was questioned and since he didn’t know anything, he was also thrown into jail and beaten till he agreed to say “yes” to everything out of pure fear. Now the first one could be executed and the other one went insane in the knowledge that he caused the death of an innocent victim. Do you know what it means to be beaten? A few months ago we had people in here whose toes had to be amputated; Haidar Pasha beat them that badly during the investigations. They receive caning on the bare soles of their feet, sometimes more than a hundred strokes. [Sister Helene Stockmann] Enclosure 2 Aintab, 24 March 1915 Dear Mr. Jackson, I was in Marash for 48 hours from noon of Tuesday till noon of Thursday 18 March last week. There had no doubt been a plan to stir up a massacre at Marash over the Zeytun disturbances. It had gone so far as to send out messengers to call in the Koords from the mountains; but the Government had frowned upon it and it seemed to me to be definitely defeated, especially as I understood that the attitude of the leaders and a large majority of the people in Zeytun was correct. Now Miss Roner comes with the statement that hostilities are imminent between that place and the Govt., in which case it will be somewhat difficult to control the Moslim mob at Marash. I sincerely wish that a representative from the German or American Consulate —or better still, from each—might be sent to Marash (not to meddle in the least with

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the Zeytun matters, but to look after the large German and American interests in Marash). Miss Roner will be able to tell about the state of feeling among the Germans and Americans of that place. Everything is very quiet here in Aintab. [Dr. Shepard] Mr. Jesse B. Jackson, American Consul, Aleppo Enclosure 3 31 March 1915 Let me congratulate your Consul through you on the success thus far since coming to Marash. There is a distinct improvement in the general condition which we are very ready to attribute to his influence. We hope he will be able to remain here long enough to secure that any pledges given to him will be faithfully carried out. Kindly express our gratitude to him. With kind regards, Yours cordially, E.C. Woodley Blank, Marash Enclosure 4 16 March 1330 (29 March 1915) [Date of publication:] 18 March 1330 (31 March 1915) Contents for advice6 Circular 1. A revolt has taken place at Zeytun requiring military action, which is still continuing. 2. It is the duty of the Ottoman government to defend the prosperity, life and honour of its peaceful population, whether Armenian or Muslim. Therefore, the population may be sure it will not be attacked and that it can pursue its work peacefully. 3. Those Muslims who, for whatever reason, attack an Armenian will be regarded as rioters and will be sent immediately for court-martial. No one should mix in the affairs of the government, either directly or indirectly, for the slightest reason. 4. I recommend that the peaceful and innocent population adhere swiftly to the instructions of the military authorities, so that no one may be victim of suspicion or of undeserved punishment because of the persistent actions of brigands. 6. As regards content, the same order is equally found as Enclosure 1 of Doc. 1915-08-29-DE-001, however with differences in wording.

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Signed: Commander of the IV. Army Corps Djemal Pasha

1915-04-15-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 13922; pr. 22.04.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 228 Pera, 15 April 1915 From the news from East Anatolia it is obvious that the relations between the Turkish Muslim population and the Armenians, which were already tense beforehand, have worsened even more in the course of the past few months. The mutual mistrust is growing and dominating the people and official circles, both in the interior as well as in the capital. The complaints about the alleged and actual persecution which the Armenians are suffering as a result of the war are increasing in number and volume; on the other hand, they are being accused of sympathising with the Empire’s enemies, of maintaining highly treasonable relations with them and openly revolting against the authorities of the country in individual places. The ill feeling towards the Armenians is being enflamed by news of the attitude of the Armenians abroad; thousands of them are said to be joining the Russian army voluntarily, not only from the Caucasus but also from the United States, Bulgaria and other countries, and there are rumours that the Russian section of the Dashnaktsutiun Party is demanding the destruction of the Muslim population in those areas which are to be relinquished by Turkey, in case the war ends unfavourably for that country. Finally, the reports about the behaviour of the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army during the campaign in the Caucasus are particularly serious; they are said to have repeatedly turned their weapons against the Turks, a fact that is even being confirmed by German officers who were present during those combats. Each side is dismissing the accusations of the other party as unfounded, or the blame for such events is being put on the others. There only seems to be agreement on one point: that the Armenians have given up their ideas of a revolution since the introduction of the Constitution and that there is no organisation for such a revolt. Without doubt, excesses and acts of terror have taken place against the Armenians in eastern Anatolia and, in general, the events have probably been related correctly

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by the Armenian side, even if they were somewhat exaggerated. In many cases they have been sparked by the distress and suffering that every war, even in industrialised countries, brings with it; however, in other cases, the blame was actually on the Armenians, and one can only accuse the authorities of not taking the necessary precautions in good time and of taking unnecessarily rigorous measures afterwards instead. The material made available to me from an Armenian source (Patriarchate and reports by Dr. Liparit Nasariantz) refers mainly to the actual theatre of the war (Vilayet Erzerum) and the bordering areas (Vilayets Van and Bitlis). For the events in these areas, the following are being held responsible by the Armenian side: 1. The irregulars and bands of marauders organised in military fashion and bearing the title Militia; these are being blamed for numerous plunders, murders, for robbery and other acts committed against the Armenian population of the country; 2. The clubs affiliated with the Committee for Union and Progress, in which many dishonest elements are said to be present. It is said that these clubs, in particular the one in Erzerum, have set up formal proscription lists, and a series of political murders which were committed on various respected Armenians since December of last year are attributed to their activities. It is added that the Ministry of the Interior is said to have been warned some time ago by the Armenians about the activities of these clubs, which had already played a disastrous role during the events at Adana in 1909. 3. Various civil servants, in particular the governor of Mush (Vilayet Bitlis) and the Vali of Van. It is stated amongst other things that some 2,000 Muslim families from the Russian-occupied district of Alashgerd, who are hardly in a position to pay for their own keep, have been accommodated in the Armenian villages of Mush; the Armenian farmers were being used like draft animals to transport ammunition and provisions, and many of them died from this inhumane treatment; the least of them—it is said hardly a quarter—returned to their villages. In two districts of Van, formal butcheries took place under the connivance of the Kaymakams. In the provinces which are further away from the theatre of war, the situation of the Armenian population seems to be fairly bearable, although even from there we have received individual complaints; but on the whole, these are only cases of minor importance, such as house searches for prohibited weapons and deserters, whereby occasionally there are said to have been excesses and similar occurrences. More notice should be taken of two incidents in Vilayet Adana, about which the Imperial Embassy has already been closely informed in consular reports. At the beginning of March, after Englishmen from the fleet had repeatedly landed and made some purchases undisturbed, there were two Armenians staying in the Armenian town of Dört Yol who originated from that area and who were acting on behalf of the English. One of these emissaries fell into the hands of the Turkish authorities and was executed in Adana. A further consequence was that the whole of the

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male population of Dört Yol was enlisted and led to Vilayet Aleppo where they were set to building roads; three individuals because they tried to flee, were shot down. Another fact was that at the time of these occurrences numerous deserters were in hiding in Dört Yol; also, it had not been forgotten that the townspeople had defended themselves against the Turks with their weapons in their hands during the massacre of 1909. We have already reported on the events in Zeytun, which were aroused by the resistance of the Armenians to enlisting; also in this case, no other accusation can be made against the authorities except that they did not intervene in time. With reference to the circumstances described above, the request has been expressed by the Armenian side that the Imperial Embassy and our consulates should exercise their influence on the Turkish authorities in order to put a stop to the further persecution of the Armenians in the parts of the country in question. Mentioned as particularly important is the appointment for the provinces involved of Valis and Mutessarifs who are experienced in Armenian affairs. Also, it is believed that the presence of German Consuls in Van, Bitlis, etc. would suffice to prevent the worst excesses. Here, as well as in the interior, such a utilisation of our influence in their favour is regarded by the Armenians as a “nobile officium” [noble duty] for us as a great Christian European power, and expected as a natural result of our alliance with Turkey because it is in Turkey’s own interest, and therefore also in ours, to protect the Armenian element and retain its sympathies; it is emphasised that the Armenians—a fact which, one might note, is contested by the Turks—despite all the suffering they have been subjected to, are behaving loyally and correctly, but at least passively. However, under a continued, systematic persecution it can be feared that this peaceful attitude may take a turn to the contrary; the parties loyal to the government, such as the Dashnaktsutiun, would no longer be able to hold back the masses and there would be a danger that, if the Russians advanced, not only the Armenians in the invaded area would go over to the side of the enemy, but also possible insurrections would be aroused behind the backs of the Turkish Army. The appeal to the nobile officium of the German representation in Turkey is understandable following the development of the Armenian question, but especially now when, as a result of the war, the Triple Entente is eliminated as protector. But an attempt at complying with this appeal and taking on the role that England, and most recently Russia, has played as protector of the Armenians after the Berlin Congress would be regarded by the Porte as an unjustified and annoying intervention in their internal political affairs. The moment is even less suitable, since the Porte has just made the effort to eliminate the protective rights which other foreign powers have exercised over Turkish subjects. The Porte must also have respect for the national awareness of Turkish elements, which has drastically increased over the past few years. As far as the considerations otherwise presented by the Armenian side are concerned, they deserve serious attention. I have, therefore, previously taken the repeated

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opportunity before the Porte, as well as with the Patriarchate, of urging a conciliatory policy and an upkeep of good relations with each other. In doing so, the further consideration was foremost that our enemies will not fail to make us responsible for the injustice done to the Armenians and to stir their animosity towards us. But the present atmosphere in government circles, which is most unfavourable for the Armenians, is putting even narrower limits on the use we have for them and reminds us that particular care should be taken. Otherwise there is a danger that, through our defence of a perhaps hopeless matter, we are putting at stake more important interests which are of greater significance for us. For this reason I also believe that the increase in the number of German consulates in the so-called Armenian provinces, initiated in this connection, would not fulfil its purpose. It is probable that the Porte would see in this the attempt on our part to have their own authorities supervised, similar to how England in former times and more recently Russia tried to control the carrying out of the Armenian reforms in those parts of the country by appointing consular representatives; a procedure of this kind would have the consequence of setting the authorities against the Armenians even worse than ever and, therefore, of achieving results of just the opposite kind. Wangenheim

1915-04-26-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 2473. Translated by Linda Struck. Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Pera, 26 April 1915 A. Audience with the Patriarch (24 April) 1. According to a telegram that arrived two days ago from Erzerum, the Armenian dignitary Aratus Tchilusgirian had been murdered on the street. The murderers of Pasdirmadjian Effendi, who was shot to death on 29 February in Erzerum, have not been found. 2. Talaat Bey denies that the government’s policy is hostile towards the Armenians, but the Patriarch is of the opinion that Talaat is not honest; he prefers Enver Pasha, who expresses his opinion openly. 3. During a meeting with the Patriarchate on 23rd inst., it was suggested that the dignitaries should speak to the ministers and should sincerely assure them that the Armenians are loyal and are not thinking of any revolt. The thought of a pacifying commission to be sent into the interior was welcomed by the Patriarch. The deputy Zohrab Effendi is taking the matter into consideration.

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B. the same applied to General Posseldt, on 26th inst. 1. He believes that the Armenians would remain calm if they were not suppressed by the Turks and provoked by them. It may also be a matter of envy of competitors. The behaviour of the Armenians is said to have been excellent. It is correct that the Turkish Armenians repeatedly served as guides for the Russians in their advances against Erzerum. Also, some of these were found among the prisoners who were seized from the Russians. On the other hand, he considers it to be out of the question that Armenians troops had fired at their Turkish comrades; they had always used the Armenians behind the front. 2. He confirms the activities of the [CUP] clubs in Erzerum; the conscription list includes the names of 22 Armenians. Tahsin Bey, the Vali, has done his utmost to prevent slaughters from being carried out. The heads behind this anti-Armenian movement are said to be a certain Shakir Bey (amongst other things, he led a band of volunteers near Artvin), his acolyte Halil, and the Director of Police in Erzerum. Pasdirmadjian was murdered because his brother, a former deputy, had intervened in Vilayet Van in the interest of the Russians; he was shot by two soldiers. The names of the murderers were revealed anonymously to the authorities, but although he, Posseldt, had taken an interest in the matter, they were not arrested.

1915-04-27-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 15059; pr. 03.05.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 258 Pera, 27 April 1915 Further to his report to Your Excellency dated the 12th inst., Consul Rössler sent a report here by telegram on the 20th inst. that according to the latest reports from the principal of the American College in Aintab, Dr. Merrill—whom Mr. Rössler terms as reliable—the Armenian population of Marash, Zeytun and all of the villages as far south as Hassan-Beyli will be deported by the authorities if they are wealthy or influential. 35 families have already been taken away from Zeytun and two further sections are on their way. The men are hereby separated from the women; the women are escorted by soldiers. Mr. Rössler notes in this connection:

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These measures by the Central Government are obviously based on false reports from Marash. They are a disaster for the country and calculated on the systematic ruin of a part of the population. They are based on a basic conception that is false; it considers the entire Armenian population to be suspicious or even hostile. The only information at the local Armenian Patriarchate was that the Armenians from Antioch and Suediye had been taken away, apparently already some time ago. Wangenheim

1915-04-28-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; zu A53a, 2540; p. 30.04.1915. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Consulate in Erzerum Pera, 28 April 1915 With reference to the final sentence of the telegram dated 26 April. Intercession on your part in favour of the Armenians will take the form of preventing excesses by the mob, such as massacres and plundering, and of encouraging proper proceedings against politically suspicious persons. In doing so, it is important to avoid this appearing as if we have a right to protect the Armenians and intervene in the activities of the authorities, and possibly also emphasise this in the face of the authorities. For your own information: the local authorities have arrested several hundred Armenian dignitaries over the past few days and deported them to Anatolia, allegedly because there were some signs of a revolutionary movement. [Wangenheim]

1915-04-30-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 15363; pr. 07.05.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg)

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No. 267 Pera, 30 April 1915 During the night from Saturday to Sunday, 25th inst., and from Sunday to Monday, 26th inst., numerous arrests of Armenians have taken place here. Altogether around 500 persons from all classes of society are said to have been arrested, including doctors, journalists, authors, clergymen, also some deputies. The offices of the newspaper Azadamart, an organ of the Dashnaktsutiun party, to which many of those arrested belong, were closed down by the authorities. During the following days, most of them were deported to the interior of Asia Minor. There were all kinds of uncontrollable rumours going around in public concerning the reasons for these measures. Among other things, it was said that explosives, bombs and weapons had been discovered in Armenian houses and churches, and that the Armenians had planned attacks on the Porte and other public buildings for the day of the Coronation festivities (27th inst.). When the Armenian Patriarch asked the Grand Vizier and the Minister of the Interior about the reasons for these mass arrests, he received the reply that the organisation of the Armenian people in political parties could be used at the present time by individual, influential persons to disturb the public peace, and that it seemed to be in the interest of the welfare of the state to prevent such possibilities by removing the leading personalities from the capital. The Minister of the Interior explained the following to the first dragoman: The government had now decided to put an end to the present situation whereby each religious community made their own special “politics” and could found and maintain special political associations for this purpose. In Turkey, only one “Ottoman policy” was to be pursued in future. Among the local Armenians there were a number of personalities who were politically not quite safe; these were, of course, to be found in particular among the members of the clubs and editorial offices. The fear that in case of an unfavourable change in the war, these elements could take the opportunity for stirring up trouble was not to be overlooked. The time seemed favourable for removing all these suspects from the capital. Many people would definitely be among the deportees who were by no means guilty. The government would not deny this and he—Talaat—would grant permission for these to return of his own accord and without needing any special intervention. Talaat Bey declared that the claim that there was evidence available of a coup being planned for the day of the Coronation festivities was incorrect. The events in Van and the recent attacks by the Russians on the Bosporus and by the united French and English troops on the Dardanelles would not be without influence on the decision of the government. Wangenheim

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1915-05-08-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14085; A 15877; pr. 13.05.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 286 Pera, 8 May 1915 Despite efforts by Armenian circles to diminish the significance of the riots which have broken out over the past few weeks in various places or to put the blame on the measures taken by the Turkish authorities, there are increasingly more signs that this movement is more widespread than was presumed up to now and that it is being encouraged from abroad with the help of the Armenian revolutionary committees. The fighting already reported in Van, during which the rebels sometimes even seemed to have kept the upper hand, indicates that the Armenian people living there were sufficiently equipped with weapons and explosives; according to information provided by the Turkish authorities, many individuals had been found in Russian clothing among the dead and it is not being denied by the Armenians that one of their compatriots, a certain Pastirmadjian, has intervened severely in the interest of the Russians. Formerly, this dangerous agitator had become well-known even more widely through the attack he led on the local Banque Ottomane, but he then returned here after the re-introduction of the Constitution, became a Member of Parliament and later because he was not re-elected, went to Russia. According to the latest news (of 8th inst.), Armenian volunteers succeeded several times in uniting with the Russians from their location in Van. Concerning the bombs found in Kayseri, the Armenian Patriarchate states that one Armenian who had returned from America and settled in Everek near Kayseri began to take an active part in their production, and after he had finished three of them, had an accident with the fourth one; the three finished bombs were hidden by his fellow people, but were discovered by the police, who had heard about the matter by chance. Upon further investigation, 24 empty, not-yet-loaded shells were brought to light under the tiled roof of the local Armenian church. This happened at the beginning of February. Since then, even more findings of bombs appear to have been made; the Minister of the Interior recently quoted the number of bombs found in Kayseri as being 400; also some had been found in Diyarbekir and sent to Van to be used there by the rebels. The fact that the Armenian population in the eastern provinces has access to weapons is being admitted by the Armenians; allegedly these weapons are being used in defence against the armed robberies by Kurds and other riff-raff; it can be assumed

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that they had already been accumulated there a long time ago, mainly by the Armenian revolutionary committees. The authorities most likely presume that the Armenians from Zeytun have also been agitated by foreign subversive activities to put up armed resistance to the government. It cannot be denied that the Armenian movement has taken on a worrying character over the past few weeks, which has given the government cause to introduce severe repressive measures. The mass arrests both here and elsewhere (e.g. in Erzerum), where the Vali believes he has evidence of an Armenian conspiracy in his hands, or in Aintab, etc., are directed against the Committees, which in this way have been robbed of their leaders, but first and foremost against the party of Dashnaktsutiun. In Zeytun, a part of the population has been removed, mainly to Konia; the same measure has been resolved for Sivas and some North Syrian places and is currently being carried out. Here in the capital, the whole population was told a few days ago to surrender weapons of all types which they still had in their possession. With the excitement, which has also come over the Muslim population, it will not be possible to prevent the oppression of the quiet elements and excesses on the part of sub-officials. But despite the worry prevailing in many cases, there has been no massacre so far, either in Zeytun or in Marash, or in Aintab or Erzerum, and it should also be possible for the government to prevent such occurrences in future. Wangenheim

1915-05-15-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 3224. Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) Secret No. 9 Erzerum, 15 May 1915 Your Excellency, In my telegrams of 26 and 29 April and 8 May and following, I had taken the liberty of reporting on the unrest enveloping the Armenians of Van and on the attendant agitation in this part of the country. I deem it necessary to add the following to these telegraphic reports: As I already reported, the apparent cause of the troubles in Van is the arrest and murder of some Armenian public personalities, especially that of Mr. Ishkhan and

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the Armenian deputy of Van, Vramian, who both enjoyed great respect within the Armenian community. It remains to be seen whether these incidents have occurred with the knowledge of the authorities there. But the government should have known that through these actions they had finally caused the outbreak which had been brewing for a long time, but particularly since the beginning of the war, and which could only be suppressed by the leaders. A strong sense of discontent was evident not only in Van and the surrounding area, the border zones adjacent to Russia, and in the local Armenian regions severely affected by requisitions and troop concentrations, but also in those Armenian towns that were mostly situated deep in the interior of the country. In many spots weapons had been assembled for some time now—in the earlier stages for the purpose of selfdefence only against an eventual massacre, but later also for the purpose of an armed uprising. That ongoing mistakes have been committed by the Turks in the handling of the Armenian question is known only too well by Your Excellency, and likewise that these mistakes were exploited by the Russians long before the outbreak of the war to achieve systematic incitement. In particular Van, and the Russian consulate there, has always been the centre of Russian subversive activities, which could be carried out with even less interruption, as there was no German representation to counterbalance them. The new Consulate in Erzerum—due also to the distance involved—was not able to extend its influence to a sufficient degree; an intervention during the present time that requires here absolutely full attention seems to be out of the question. Moreover, communication with Van is currently interrupted. Whereas the Armenian circles here, due to better postal connections and the facilities of the local consulate (newsroom, reading room, newspaper articles, posters about the war situation) are well informed about the general situation in the world and the setbacks of the Russians in the European theatres of war, their compatriots in Van on the other hand will probably have not been put in the picture. The Armenians there, being naturally suspicious about all Turkish publications, gathered the rest of their news only from Russian sources, which were by no means impeccable. Like many other peoples of the world, they therefore have a totally false picture of the situation in Europe. One more reason to express the already existing sympathy with Russia through an uprising. Your Excellency is aware that Armenians living in Turkey always considered Russia to be their natural protector, and Russia always claimed for herself this right to protection and took advantage of it. The fact that Russian Armenians, besides their enjoying greater security of life also enjoy better living standards, is also a strong attraction for the great masses. However, on the other hand, it should be taken into consideration that stronger Russian influence would have resulted in a danger of denationalisation, limited only to the spiritual leaders of the Armenians. There are two

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different currents among those leaders: one of them places a high premium upon the need to safeguard the national identity that is deemed possible only in Turkey; and the other emphasises economic interests and the maintenance of religious ties with the Russians. German influence on the Armenians has been negligible until now. Only a small fraction of educated Armenians were aware of Germany and the Germans. The majority of educated Armenian youth have been educated in French schools and later on in France and Russia. When the war began, the Armenian population even had doubts whether the Germans were “Christians,” since they had allied themselves with the Turks. The fact that Germany was already a friend of the absolutist regime in Turkey, under which the Armenians had suffered considerably, still fills them with distrust. The responsibility for the war is attributed also to the influence of Germany, and the economic losses resulting from Germany’s influence are particularly annoying to a people who are very keen on preserving and augmenting its possessions. More remarkable is the fact—as also noted in other countries—that we have few Armenian friends among those who were educated in Germany or received their education through German missionaries. To my knowledge, the only exceptions are the former students of the Sanassarian School, which was transferred to Sivas a couple of years ago, as the fear grew that Erzerum might be occupied by Russia! This friendship existed, however, only to the extent that they carried out their higher education in Germany. The general feeling of the Armenians towards the Germans was less friendly at the outbreak of the war, but it has perceptibly changed in the course of the last few months. Cause for this change of mood could have been partly the German military successes on all battlefields as well as the presence of German military officers in Erzerum. This shift of mood was especially noticeable when the local Armenians believed to be sure—and this was in the middle of March—that the outbreak of a massacre was prevented only by the presence and activity of the Consulate here. The Armenian Bishop thanked both General Posseldt and myself a number of times for protecting the Armenians. With regard to the present situation here, I would like to observe that a rebellion on the part of the Armenians in Erzerum and its surroundings is not expected, despite the negligible numbers of Turkish military forces in existence here. The Armenians living in areas near to the Russian border have long ago left their homelands; some of them fled to Russia where they are said to have joined the Russian troops—as was the case in Van—to fight against the Turks. Some of them came to Erzerum. Isolated incidents, such as armed resistance in the case of requisitions in far away villages, the killing of Turks who wanted Armenian girls and women handed over to them, or the cutting and sabotaging of telegraph and telephone lines, and espionage are not unusual phenomena during a war in border areas containing mixed populations. In my opinion, the calm attitude of the Armenians here is due to: 1. Their being well informed on the overall world situation as described above, which no longer allowed them to hope for a “swift victory” by the Russians.

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2. The reasonable attitude of the local government, which so far has avoided drastic cases of oppression. Besides the murder of Mr. Pastirmadjian, Director of the Banque Ottomane, in February, there have been no other political murders. The Vali, Tahsin Bey, due to his previous involvement in Van, has valuable experience in the handling of the Armenian question and, contrary to some military circles who see the time ripe to settle scores with the Armenians, has a moderate point of view. The measures adopted by the government have been limited up to now to searching houses and arresting people. The majority of the arrested persons has been set free, and some of them are said to have been sent to the inner parts of the country. As far as I know, the house searches have not yielded any incriminating material. This attitude of the government does help much to calm the Armenians. One may barely anticipate the outbreak of a massacre here unless Turkish military setbacks on the front were to necessitate a retreat to Erzerum. As for the attitude of the German Consulate here concerning the Armenian question, in compliance with the instructions of Your Excellency, I have avoided a direct intervention on behalf of the Armenians. I have also turned down all their respective supplications. On the other hand, I have not failed to confront energetically all thoughts relative to the wish to “settle scores” and to point out the evil consequences inner unrest could have on Turkey at the present time. The presence and activities of the Consulate, combined with a good functioning of its news service, should in no small way have contributed to the hitherto calm attitude of the local Turks and Armenians. Scheubner-Richter

1915-05-18-DE-003-E Source: PA-AA/BoKon/169; A53a, 3343. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Head of the Orphanage in Mamuret-ul-Aziz, Johannes Ehmann, to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) Mamuret-ul-Aziz, 18 May 1915 Your Excellency! The undersigned would like to apologise to Your Excellency for sending a new report following his report of 5 May, but the seriousness of the situation forces him to do so. Although after the discussion on 5 May, the level-headed and benevolent Governor General undertook very commendable steps to calm the population, the house

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searches and arrests which have taken place during the past few days have once again been of a more serious nature. Until now, 70-80 people have already been arrested in M. Aziz and the surrounding area, while the undersigned has no exact reports for the districts of the vilayet which are further away. But the situation in Egin and Arabkir is supposedly even more serious. The Turks say, and probably fairly correctly, that some of the Armenians at the front have deserted to the Russians, that the Armenian people are against the Turks, that Armenian irregulars in the area around Van and in Persia were fighting against the Turks, that propaganda was made in Dersim by the Armenians under the Kizilbash that the latter join with the Russians, that bombs were found in Diyarbekir and dynamite in Egin, and the Armenians in the interior would immediately go over to the enemy should there be a Russian invasion. Based on all these thoughts, the government’s strict measures to completely disarm the Christians while leaving the Turks and the Kurds theirs, despite the formal order to hand over all weapons, can be understood. On the other hand, the local Christians—without distinction as to nationality and denomination (among those arrested there are Armenians and Syrians, Armenian Gregorians, Roman Catholics and Protestants)—are in a very serious situation. As much as they regret any incidents in Van and grant the government the right and the duty to impose the strictest punishments upon political criminals, they do believe they could not be held responsible for the actions of the Christians in Van or of the few guilty people in this vilayet. Men, women and children are trembling at the thought of the beatings used occasionally during the interrogation of those arrested, and the obvious conclusion for the Armenians is that the end of all these measures will be a general massacre, even more so since rumours are already flying about here of a heavy judgement passed against the population of Van. The mutual trust between Mohammedans and Christians has been breached almost completely. Until now, no heavily incriminating evidence for the disloyalty of many Christians has been found in our town and the surrounding area. But it is possible that there are several guilty ones among those arrested. Whether the reports on the machinations of the Armenians among the Kurds in Dersim are true or exaggerated cannot be determined by the undersigned from here. But exaggerations are very possible, given the added strain on the nerves and the lack of mutual trust. Some of the information in the reports on finding dynamite in Egin may possibly also be discounted, as different persons recount the matter in somewhat different ways. The government is taking particularly harsh measures against the members of the “Dashnak” and “Hintchag” organisations, which, however, have been a blessing neither for the Turkish state nor for the Armenian people. In view of the conditions in the interior—which are completely immature for a constitutional nation—it might have been better if the Turkish state had never acknowledged them, and their dissolution would be gladly welcomed by even a large part of the Armenian people. But after they have once been acknowledged by the state, membership in such a party may not

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be branded a crime unless it can be proved that the individual organisation or the individual person has leanings and activities which threaten the security of the state or are rebellious. Possession of legally forbidden weapons acquired years ago, which is not uncommon among Mohammedans and Christians in the interior, should not yet be a sign of rebellious intentions, as the Turkish population still has a greater number of such weapons. According to relatively reliable statements by Christians, their weapons were solely for defence in case of an attack by the Mohammedan population. Despite all this, however, the acquisition of legally permitted or forbidden weapons arose in part from a great short-sightedness—yes, an almost unforgivable foolishness—because in doing so they provoked the Mohammedans and endangered the government’s trust in the Christians, all the more considering that both the government as well as the Mohammedan population tended to attribute other intentions to the Armenians’ acquisition of weapons. Incidentally, for the past 3 to 4 years, the eagerness to purchase weapons has supposedly diminished greatly, if not ceased altogether. Representatives of the various Christian denominations gave assurances 3 days ago to the Governor General of the loyalty and devotion of the Christians and requested that he extend the date for handing over weapons, which was kindly granted to them for a further 8 days. The Governor General, of whose goodwill and sense of justice people are generally convinced, is presently not in a very easy situation because strong anti-Armenian elements enjoy highlighting the Christians’ guilt all too glaringly, and to all [appearances] they are in favour of the government’s most drastic measures. Recalling the Vali—and this possibility was discussed at great length about a week ago—would probably only aggravate the situation and would be highly regrettable, considering his great competence and sincere friendliness towards the Germans, so that it can only be hoped very much that he remains. The fact that despite all harsh measures by the government (digging up the floors of the houses and churches) there have been no crowds or riotous assemblies against the police or the Turkish population, nor has any use been made of a weapon by Christians anywhere in the town or the surrounding area, also shows that the exceptionally peaceful Christians of this area had not planned any machinations against the government since the outbreak of the war. At any rate, the situation is very serious. The higher public officials, particularly the Governor General, give assurances that they plan to punish only the guilty persons and that there is no danger for the general Christian population. However, as it cannot be foreseen how circumstances will continue to develop, I once again request of Your Excellency that you kindly take steps to inform the Turkish central government of the local conditions. In reverence, Johannes Ehmann

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1915-05-18-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 3032. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Embassy in Constantinople Adana, 18 May 1915 The whole Armenian population in Vilayet Adana is extremely frightened due to the actions of the government. Hundreds of families are being exiled, the prisons are overfilled, and again early this morning several people were executed. With its barbaric methods, the government is obviously damaging the interests of the nation. In particular, the Deutsche Orientbank [German Orient Bank] has suffered considerable damage and has asked me to put a stop to the deportation of the Armenians. [Büge] [Telegraphic Reply Wangenheim, 21 May] As regrettable and, in many respects, also detrimental to our interests as the persecution of the Armenian population is, however, the most recent events in the border provinces—such as the revolt in Van and other activities in the country’s interior—do in fact justify the severe measures taken by the authorities. The Imperial Embassy is, therefore, not in a position to prevent these measures for the time being.

1915-05-19-DE-015 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/168; A53a, 3034. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Consulate in Erzerum Pera, 19 May 1915. Reply to telegram dated 18th inst. Under the described circumstances, you are authorised to approach your local Supreme Command about the deportation of the Armenians and, if reversal of the

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measures is inopportune for military reasons, to advocate humane treatment of the deported, defenceless people. However, you should keep your intervention within the limits of a piece of friendly advice and avoid giving your meeting with the Supreme Command the character of an official representation. [Wangenheim]

1915-05-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3323; p. 01.06.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 12 Erzerum, 20 May 1915 Secret My Report No. 9 dated 15 May7 on the Armenian unrest in Van and the situation here had hardly been sent off when the news reached us that orders had been given to clear all the Armenians out of the entire Plain of Passin to the north of Erzerum and take them to the Terdjan area. I immediately inquired of the Vali if this were right. The Vali confirmed the news and added that he himself did not agree much with this measure, but that it had been ordered by the army and he had to obey. He promised to be as lenient as possible in carrying it out, and to protect the property left behind by the Armenians. Orders had also been given to clear Erzerum itself of Armenians; this order, however, was cancelled for the time being. According to private information, the Vali sent a telegram to Constantinople requesting that the order to clear the Plain of Passin be cancelled, but received the answer that he was to obey military instructions. As I have already emphasised to Your Excellency in my telegrams on this subject, this entire measure appears to be useless and unfounded. An uprising is not to be feared on the part of the local Armenians. In this, the local Armenians differ greatly from the Armenians in Van and its surroundings. They are not organised and also have no weapons. In addition, the male Armenian population between 17 and 48 has been enlisted in military service. Those who sympathised with Russia crossed the border long ago. Thus, this measure mainly affects women and children who are now, at the beginning of the rainy season, forced to leave their villages and, due to the lack of means of transportation, usually emigrate on foot to the Plain of Terdjan, a journey of 6-8 days. They took their livestock with them, but had to leave their provisions of 7. Note by Neurath: The report General von Bronsart [Bronsart von Schellendorff] had presented.

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fodder behind, and these were immediately confiscated by the government. Some of the livestock being driven along will probably die due to the lack of fodder. Thus, if the relocation measure appears to be useless, the way in which it is carried out is foolish. Accompanied by only a few gendarmes, the masses of evacuated Armenians march in a wide stream across the fields which have been freshly tilled with great difficulty, and camp on them. The livestock grazes off all the seeds. Thus, a large part of the sown fields around Erzerum have been destroyed. Not only do the Armenians suffer from this, but also the Turks. A large part of the local large landowners are Turks. Their workers are Armenian. Their fields are sown by Armenians, now mostly by women. Many of the fields already sown will probably be lost due to the lack of workers. One of the results: the threat of starvation for the army and the population. Thus, the local Turkish merchants and landowners are also very dissatisfied about the relocation of the Armenians, if only for economic reasons. I went in person to the evacuees who were camping around the town. Sheer misery—great desperation and bitterness. The women threw themselves and their children in my horse’s path and begged for help. The sight of these poor, moaning people filled me with pity, and it was embarrassing—but even more embarrassing for me was the feeling of not being able to help.8 The Armenian population considers the representative of the German Reich to be its only protection at present and expects assistance from him.9 The only thing I could do was to arrange that the bishop and the inhabitants of Erzerum collect bread for the deportees, who are without food. They did so, and this will be continued. It is, however, forbidden for anyone without special permission—which is not given to the Armenians—to leave the town. Consequently, as I do not consider this ban to concern me or my employees, I send out the consulate’s cars to take this bread and distribute it daily up to a radius of 10 km among the poorest of the deportees.10 News has just reached me that rumours are being spread in the town by the Turks that these measures for the relocation of the Armenians were taken by the Turkish government as a result of German advice. I will take energetic steps immediately to counter these rumours. I cannot rule out the possibility that this relocation and the government’s measures— which must (or are meant to!) result in the economic ruin and the partial extermination of the Armenians—could drive the Armenians to an act of desperation, even if this is without hope of success, which would then naturally lead to a general slaughter. Should such an act not be carried out, the local Armenians would thus prove that they are the most obsequious and peaceable subjects of Turkey. Scheubner-Richter 8. Marginal note by Bronsart von Schellendorff: Even more embarrassing is the murder of over 4,000 Turks by Armenian bands near Van! Note: this edition corrects an error in the corresponding passage in the German edition. 9. Marginal note by Bronsart: We simply cannot assist a population which is involved in dangerous rebellion against the Turkish Government. 10. Marginal note by Bronsart: The Consul should send the bread to the poor Turkish people instead!

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1915-05-22-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3426; p. 05.06.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 13 Erzerum, 22 May 1915 Secret. Your Excellency! Further to my Report No. 12 dated 20 May, I would like to report the following: The villages abandoned by the Armenians are being occupied by the muhadjirs (Turkish emigrants from the villages at the battlefront). In many places, these people are also plundering the Armenians’ property. There are grounds for the supposition that possibly even from the very beginning the purpose of the relocation was to make room for these emigrants. With the exception of the molesting and rape of the Armenian women and girls, which is nothing unusual here, the behaviour of the gendarmes accompanying the expelled Armenians is otherwise little suited to ease the hard fate of the expellees. The gendarmes’ behaviour could not be brusquer if it were directed at the subjects of enemy nations. I enclose the translation of a letter addressed to the local bishop and signed by the priests of 6 villages, which he also gave to the Vali for his information. Unexpectedly, the distribution of bread by the consulate among the evacuated Armenians has made a large and good impression among the Armenian population. I believe that, without being intended, this also achieved a politically favourable result. No obstacles were placed in my path on the part of the government. Scheubner-Richter Enclosure To His Holiness, Bishop Sambat of Erzerum. Holy Father! For centuries, we have faithfully served the powerful Ottoman Empire and lived under its high protection. During the last mobilisation we also obediently followed its orders by sending soldiers and giving everything we had during the requisitioning: wheat, barley, oxen, sheep, butter, cheese and other things. It has even happened that

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we took over the duty of our Turkish neighbours and gave in their place during the requisitioning, and accommodated their guests, Turkish emigrants from the battlefield who were put up for a while with the Armenians and treated as guests. We asked nothing for all of these sacrifices. The Turkish officers spoke in praise of the hospitality practised by us Armenians and did not want to stay in the homes of the Turks. We did all this gladly and willingly out of love for our Vatan (fatherland), and what has it got us now? Banishment, persecution, plundering: see what depresses us so much in our hearts. One evening at sundown in May, messengers came bearing the bad news and proclaimed the order for our banishment. Two hours later, all of us—old people and children, brides and girls, poor and crippled people—were outside under the open sky, crying because of our hard fate. Early in the morning we saw our houses being plundered by the soldiers who were in the village, and by our neighbours. They were still camping close to their villages. We were not permitted to re-enter our houses, and some of the families among us barely had a chance to get some food and a few blankets, and thus, we moved off from our village under the most loathsome curses, abuse and beatings by the gendarmes. As already stated, we were driven completely unexpectedly from our homes: the sour dough was still in the tubs and now we are without bread because we are forbidden to enter the villages along our way. We are starving, our animals are starving, our dead remain lying practically unburied along the way, and we are constantly being driven ahead; along the way we are also subject to plundering. Who knows where we are going to, perhaps to a black grave. Holy Father, we do not know what we should do: should we, perhaps, accept the suggestions of the gendarmes to become Turks in order to save ourselves from this misery, as they want us to believe? There were enough people who accepted these suggestions, as you will learn in the village of Hyntik. We have heard that the 16-55 year-olds who must enlist in the army are to be separated from us: who will then protect our namus [honour]? Strange areas, strange places! What will become of us? We are sending this report to Your Holiness through the mediation of the Germans, who distribute bread to us, so that you can be an interpreter of our suffering. We kiss your holy hand and remain your obedient sons. 7 May 1915 [Various names of those signing] For Hintyk. For Kezelkilisse. For Tzitog. For Trandy. For Dinarikom. For the Catholic Armenians. All the Armenians from the villages on the plains have been expelled. The travellers passing by as well as the Turkish farmers take away the last things we have. Some women and girls have also been raped. Signature: the same.

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[Wangenheim’s Answer from 6 June] To the reports nos. 12 and 13 from 21 and 23 May. With regard to these, the Porte informed in a different connection that it has been determined that the rebellious movement of the Armenians in the Anatolian border provinces, which finally led to the known occurrences in Van, was the work of the Armenian revolutionary parties which are presently located in Paris, London and Tiflis and supported by Russia in particular. Among other things, the following was cited: After the outbreak of the war, the former Turkish Member of Parliament, Karekin Pastirmadjian, took over the leadership of a gang which had been set up by the Armenian party leaders, Dro and Hetsho, and supplied with weapons by the Russians. After the seizure of Bayazid, he destroyed all of the Mohammedan villages which he came across on his march and massacred their inhabitants. He was wounded during the withdrawal of the Russians from these areas, and a certain Suren, Member of Parliament for the Dashnak Party in Erzerum, was killed at his side; at present, he and his gang are at the Caucasian border. A photograph showing him together with Dro and Hetsho while swearing a solemn oath before going off to war was published in the newspaper Asbarez, the Dashnak’s organ in the United States. These and other occurrences, such as the finding of bombs and weapons among the Armenians in Everek (near Kayseri), Diyarbekir, Egin and other places, justify the harsh action taken by the authorities against the Armenians, particularly also in Erzerum, and excuse the occasional excesses of the Mohammedan civilian population. I would like to add that during the past few days, the two deputies, Vartges (Erzerum) and Zohrab Effendi (Istanbul), were arrested here; they are strongly suspected of having connections with the revolt in Van. The aforementioned reports are merely for your personal information. I request that Your Honour sees from this that the Armenians’ attitude is making it increasingly ever more difficult for us to stand up for them, despite our interest in them and despite our sympathy for those among them who have to suffer as innocent victims.

1915-05-27-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 17735; pr. 03.06.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 324 Pera, 27 May 1915

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I would like to comment on the final sentence of the enclosed report of the Imperial Consul in Aleppo that, in my opinion, it is necessary to make it a condition of the handing out of Blank’s letter that the contents are not disclosed, either by the press or in any other way. Even under the condition that the facts contained therein are correct, there is still no cause for us to publicise them, let alone in a version which appears to be disadvantageous to the Turkish government and the Muslim population; we would only supply the enemy press with welcome material in their campaign against the Turkish government, make the position of the German welfare missions in the interior more difficult, and hardly be of any use to the persecuted Armenians themselves, but only harm them. Wangenheim Enclosure 1 Aleppo, 10 May 1915 K.No. 55 / J.No. 1000 Supplement to my report of 12 April, K.No. 39 (J.No. 764) Enclosed I would like to hand over to Your Excellency the copy of a letter by the missionary Blank from Marash, which I have only just received today and which is dated 14 April, addressed to Mr. F. Schuchardt, Director of the “German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient” in Frankfurt am Main, as well as an excerpt from the letter addressed to me dated 15 April. I left Marash on 8 April. The letters give a clear picture of how things have continued to develop during the following week. Since then, according to reports from other sources, the expulsions from Zeytun and the surrounding villages have assumed greater proportions. Furthermore, deportations have now also begun in Marash, according to a telegram from Blank dated 9th inst. The real estate of the deportees is valued by a specially formed commission and is supposed to be refunded to them. But time will tell whether this intention of the government will actually be carried out. The resettlement is said to be planned in Vilayet Konia and apparently in Tyrus. But if they continue to be treated in the way described by Blank, then the deportees, provided they have not lost their lives in the mean time, will arrive in a wretched and sick state and will no longer be capable of re-establishing themselves economically again. In place of the deportees, Muslim refugees from the Balkans will be resettled in Zeytun and surrounding areas. In the meantime I have tried to find out on what the attitude of the government to a widespread Armenian conspiracy is based. But I have only been able to discover one fact. A neutral personality who is in close contact with Armenians and well informed about them has told me that at the beginning letters had been sent by inhabitants of Dört Yol to Zeytun declaring that the moment was favourable for an uprising. Contact had been established with the English warships. Whether the letters had reached

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their destination is not known to my informant. If his source was properly informed at all, this would prove an appeal to revolt. It is unknown how the addressees reacted to this request. If, from the English side the addresses of members of the charity organisation, which were in fact accessible in Egypt, were used in English interests, then it would have been fair; if, from the Turkish side, proof should be presented of a disloyal attitude or disloyal acts on the part of the same, before punishing the addressees. It appears, however, that this was not regarded as necessary. Also in all other respects, the government seems to have regarded the conspiracy through a magnifying glass. I am convinced that the greater majority of the deportees is suffering innocently. The members of the charity organisation have always acted openly towards the government. And now they are having to pay the price for this. The government also seems to be insisting on the archaic opinion that a whole people must be punished in solidarity for the deeds of an individual or of a few, for its punishments extend to the destruction of the Armenians in whole districts. All Armenians with possessions, education or influence are to be removed, so that only a leaderless herd is left behind. There is danger of undermining any hopes that it will be possible for the Armenians to live peaceably with it and, therefore, is itself providing the basis for confusion. I will be passing the original of Blank’s letter to Director Schuchardt to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople and leaving it to his discretion to decide whether and under what conditions it can be handed out to the addressees. It will also receive a copy of this report. [Only Rössler’s report to Bethmann Hollweg is in the files.] Rössler Enclosure 2 Excerpt from a letter by the missionary Blank in Marash dated 15 April to Consul Rössler. … If you could see in what sort of a condition the people are arriving from Zeytun. One does not like to behold such misery and when one even sees what kind of devilish joy it arouses in the Turks and that they are not even satisfied with what they see—they would most like to see the blood of those people flowing. The people who have arrived are reduced to beggary and, as it seems, have lost all their possessions. At least everything has been confiscated by the government. Would it not be possible for the Embassy to do something about it? Because, as an ally of Turkey, we can hardly approve of this way of dealing with matters. As I already explained to you recently, the government is partly to blame for the repeated excesses occurring in Zeytun. If the promises made had at least been kept, then a great step would have been taken towards gaining the confidence of the people. This time again, it appears that those who have been led away from Zeytun were not told the truth, but, as I have heard from the people themselves, they were told that they would be brought to Marash and in the hope that they will be able to stay here, they accepted it all in silence. Once

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they were here, they were simply put in a khan and transported on after only one day of rest. While they were being transported away, I saw with my own eyes how the soldiers drove the people on by digging in their ribs although they were so very close together that it was impossible to march even closer together. The soldiers were encouraging each other. It just looked as if a herd of animals was being driven along. But I was pleased to see how the people simply swallowed all this. [Blank] Enclosure 3 German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Marash Station, 14 April 1915 Dear Mr. Schuchardt, Today I wish to report again to you on some of the events between April 9 and 13 and hope that I am successful in getting the letter to you with the assistance of the Consul and the Embassy. Since the Consul left us, many things have occurred that are actually almost impossible to describe. We always hoped that the Zeytun affair and its atrocities would soon be over, but this is not the case to date. On 10 April, we had a new visitor, Major Count Wolffskeel. He came with Fakhri Pasha from Damascus. The Major is living here with us in the hospital. On the 11th, we invited Fakhri Pasha to lunch, and so I had a better opportunity of presenting certain matters to him, in particular also about Zeytun. The Major has also enquired in detail about these matters and then reported to Fakhri Pasha. Yesterday, on 12 April, they both left for Zeytun, and we expect them back again tomorrow. The Pasha does not appear to be satisfied with the related facts. But I wish to wait until he returns and then make a decision. During these past few days, many a thing has happened which one can no longer describe as being humane. During the night of 7th to 8th April, Hagob Agha Kherlakian was fetched out of his bed at 10.30 in the evening by 4 soldiers with the excuse that the Chairman of the Court-martial wished to see him. When he did not hasten to get ready, they threatened to shoot him. He went with the aforesaid soldiers, but was not brought before the Court-martial, but out of the town. Beyond the town they surrounded him and demanded 300 Lire or they would shoot him. When they realised that nothing was of any use, they called for the officer, by whom they appeared to have been sent. When he arrived, he began to scold the soldiers with the most beautiful words he knew and said: Was it he I demanded; I wanted one of his relatives, to which the soldiers had no objections of course. But it was quite clear whom they were supposed to bring. When Hagob Agha said to him that he could not simply accept this matter as a member of the Imperial Parliament, he began to

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ask him for forgiveness and kissed him as much as he could, saying it was a mistake, he had not wanted him, he had been brought here by mistake, and he now wanted to pay him all kinds of honours, even had a horse fetched and brought him home on it, through the midst of those very same soldiers who had fetched him beforehand. On the way, one of the soldiers is said to have told a comrade: We only acted on orders and if something should happen now, it will all be our responsibility. The officer involved was a captain. For him, it was the last night he spent in Marash because the next morning he left with his soldiers for Aintab before this affair became known. Hagob Agha applied to the Court-martial, but nothing more has been heard about the matter since then. It was obviously just a deed to make money, but which had failed. But over the past few days, other things have occurred, too. On 11 April, a transport of families (25) arrived in a sorry state in Marash from Zeytun. When they approached the town, the Muslims from Marash went out to meet them and took fiendish joy in seeing the hated people of Zeytun captured. They could not refrain from adding to their misery by pestering them with words and abuse and the others had to calmly submit to all this. Driven from all sides, they were brought into a khan where they were kept under strict surveillance. Almost no one was allowed to bring them some food, even if they were close relatives. They had almost nothing at all with them and in the eyes of the Turks, they were worth nothing anyway. When recently the government gave the order for some of the stray dogs on the street to be shot dead, many Turks took them into their houses quickly because they considered it to be a sin, but on the other hand to kill a person is still a merit, not a sin. The Christians are less than dogs in the eyes of many Turks. Penned together in the khan, they spent one day and two nights. Their food was the subject of derision by the Turks. The belongings they had had to leave behind in Zeytun and, as I know for certain, their houses were locked up by the government. It therefore appears to me as if the officials, who are doing these things, are not sure what they are doing and perhaps those who they are now having led into exile, would be brought back into their homes by someone else, or even they are doing it in order to enrich themselves after the job is done. According to my experience, those are the reasons. Our sisters from Bethel wanted to give the poor people something to eat, but they were only able to do so with great difficulty. Amongst the arrivals there was not one who had rebelled against the government, but instead they were all from the better, wealthy people. During the second night before they were transported on, one woman gave birth and, despite many pleas, was not even allowed to stay here for at least a day, but without any mercy she had to continue the next morning with the others. The Turks fiendishly enjoy seeing these poor people herded together like a flock of sheep and led away, being pushed by the rough soldiers. Upon leaving Marash, the Bimbashi Said Bey laid yet another special trump on top. He said to the soldiers who had to transport them that they should be aware of how bad these people are that they had

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in front of them because each of these would wish to kill at least one more Muslim if it were possible. If one of them should put up any resistance or run away, they should shoot him down immediately. If not, the other would do this to him. Finally he gave them the right to dispose over the women among these poor people by saying they might do what they like with them. He also gave vent to his anger on these poor folk and the Muslims standing around were not just slightly delighted at this. He was even proud of his “heroic deed,” as he felt his actions could be called. These 25 families, as I was given to understand by the government, were brought to the Konia district and resettled there. On 13 April, a new transport arrived from Zeytun. This time the Muslims were held back slightly because the way in which they had behaved towards the first transport had not met with the approval of many Turks. Some told me directly that it was incorrect to behave like this towards the poor people, but, they said, from our side we can do nothing about it. They too were put in the khan. This time it was a little easier to arrange some food for them. The guards were not so strict. When I heard exactly who had arrived today, it hurt me because they included people who had done everything to fulfil the wishes of the government, and still they had to be deported. But why? Because they are wealthy! I am convinced of it. And among these there were no Eshkians.11 This morning I could not wait and wanted to see whether the Commander would use such mean words again when he passed them over for further transportation. I went and stood near him among the Turks who were present and who happened to be watching the events. When he saw me, he looked me up and down critically, and I noticed that he was not pleased to see me here. He stopped and, due to my presence, he refrained from his godless blessing. He only passed them on to an officer and went away. But one could see that he was not in a good mood, at least because he was not able to let off steam. He is absolutely cowardly if he sees someone whom he thinks could pass on his words to others. On 14 April, another group of people arrived here from Furnus who were also to be deported. The reason is as follows: on the road from Furnus to Tshuhur-hisar a Turk had been murdered by 3 people from Furnus. The people of Furnus surrendered the murderers immediately, but they found no mercy through this and, although innocent, they are now being deported as hostages. There is just no law and justice here at all. 15 April 1915. Also today many people arrived from Zeytun. Most of them on foot with their children on their backs. A pitiful sight. But pity is something that is not present in the Turks in Marash. Most of them were without any footwear. What can anyone say? One just has to keep quiet and swallow it all, as there is nobody here who will listen. When will the time come when justice rules the day? With best regards, [Karl Blank] 11. Translated in a copy as “robbers.”

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1915-05-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3464. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Vice-Consul in Alexandretta (Hoffmann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 551 Alexandretta, 29 May 1915 Transcript Part of the Armenian population already moved away from here earlier on when the news had spread of the deportation of the entire Armenian population of the village of Dört Yol, situated nearby—from what was heard to be an area south of Aleppo (!). It is clear to the Armenians that the government wishes to use the opportunity of acting ruthlessly against them now that their former protectors are no longer there. Out of Fakhri Pasha’s own mouth I heard that they will not shy away from violence and even injustices. It seems that this time the end is to justify the means. The opinion of the local Armenians towards Germany under these circumstances need not be emphasised. [Hoffmann]

1915-05-31-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 17493; pr. 01.06.1915 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Foreign Office No. 1268 Pera, 31 May 1915 In order to curb Armenian espionage and to prevent new Armenian mass uprisings, Enver Pasha, by putting the state of war (or emergency) forward as a pretext, intends to close a large number of Armenian schools, to suppress Armenian newspapers, to prohibit Armenian postal correspondence, and to resettle in Mesopotamia all those families from the recently insurgent Armenian centres which are considered to be not quite unobjectionable. He urgently requests us not to hinder him in doing so.

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Of course, the Turkish measures will again cause great excitement in the whole of the enemy world and will be used against us. The United States, in particular, will be affected in its many Armenian schools. Also the measures will certainly mean great hardship for the Armenian population. But I am of the opinion that we should moderate the measures in their form, but not basically hinder them. Those subversive activities of the Armenians which are supported by Russia have taken on such dimensions that they are menacing to the existence of Turkey. Please inform Professor Lepsius and other German Armenian committees correspondingly and make it clear to them that, unfortunately, the measures mentioned are unavoidable in view of Turkey’s political and military position. I have informed the Consulates in Erzerum, Mosul, Adana, Aleppo and Baghdad in confidence. [Wangenheim]

1915-06-02-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3358; p.03.06.1915. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 6 Erzerum, 2 July 1915 Subsequent to Telegr. No. 1 and No. 5. As the only representative of a Christian power, the Armenian population sees its natural protector in me. Situation difficult and embarrassing. I request that Your Excellency support me if possible by taking steps accordingly with the Sublime Porte. [Scheubner] [Answer from the Embassy, 3 June] I confirm my telegram of 30 and 31 May and must regretfully refrain for the moment from interceding once again with the Porte on the Armenians’ behalf. Also request that Your […etc] take no further steps in this matter with the military authorities there. W[angenheim]

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1915-06-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 18524; pr. 11.06.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 342 Pera, June 4, 1915 (Dated 5 and 18 May) Johannes Ehmann, the parish priest in Mamuret-ul-Aziz (Harput) recently reported in-depth to the Imperial Embassy on the Armenian circumstances in those areas. It is clear from his accounts that the Vali there, whom he describes as level-headed and benevolent, has succeeded in keeping the peace in Mamuret-ul-Aziz itself. The house searches and arrests which were carried out during the past few weeks appear not to have brought any particularly incriminating evidence to light. On the other hand, Ehmann cites from Turkish sources that dynamite was found in Egin and that the Armenians under the Kizilbash Kurds in the district of Dersim were making propaganda for an association with Russia. He seems to be of the Turks’ opinion that “the Armenian people were against the Turks” and “that in case of a Russian invasion the Armenians in the interior would immediately go over to the enemy.” I would like to emphasise the following passage from Mr. Ehmann’s further remarks—a man who gives the impression of being a level-headed and well-informed observer—which refers to the political associations of the Armenians; he writes: The government is taking particularly harsh measures against the members of the “Dashnak” and “Hintchag” organisations, which, however, have been a blessing neither for the Turkish state nor for the Armenian people. In view of the conditions in the interior, which are completely immature for a constitutional nation, it might have been better if the Turkish state had never acknowledged them, and their dissolution would be gladly welcomed by even a large part of the Armenian people. But after they have once been acknowledged by the state, membership in such a party may not be branded a crime unless it can be proved that the individual organisation or the individual person has leanings and activities which threaten the security of the state or are rebellious. Ehmann also correctly judges the weapons found in the Armenians’ possession, which, purchased years ago, were supposedly solely for defence against attacks by the Mohammedans; he remarks on this:

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Even so, the acquisition of permitted or forbidden weapons arose from a great short-sightedness, yes, an almost unforgivable stupidity because it awoke the distrust of the Mohammedans and the government who imputed other intentions to the Armenians with regard to the acquisition of these weapons. Incidentally, for the past three or four years the enthusiasm for buying weapons has supposedly died down greatly, if not stopped altogether.12 Wangenheim

1915-06-04-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3404. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack. From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 10 Erzerum, 4 June 1915 Secret. [Scheubner-Richter sent several reports by telegram from the local Armenian Bishop Sembat to the Armenian Patriarch Zaven in Constantinople, requesting that they be delivered to him.] [Wangenheim’s Telegraphic reply, 4 June] Given the present circumstances, I cannot inform the Patriarch here as such of the telegram from the Armenian bishop there without compromising our Embassy towards the Turkish government. In future, I must request that you politely decline sending such direct messages between the Armenian ecclesiastical authorities, using a fitting excuse because in accordance with instructions, the official cipher-code is not to be used for such matters. For your personal information: a former Turkish deputy from Erzerum was among the leaders of the Russian troops consisting largely of Armenian deserters which occupied Van. This fact was determined without doubt by the Turkish government, and the Armenians must blame themselves if innocent people must also suffer under the measures which the Turkish government is forced to take—now elsewhere as well—against rebellious elements which threaten the security of the state. 12. Marginal differences from the original document 1915-05-18-DE-003.

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When the opportunity presents itself, please inform Armenian circles there that, with all goodwill for them, we are not authorised to represent their interests according to general principles of constitutional law with their own government. But I will attempt to bring the contents of the bishop’s telegram to the Patriarch’s attention without mentioning the place of origin. To Consul General Dr. Mordtmann for appropriate, careful use. [Note by Mordtmann, 11 June] Informed the Patriarch on 10 June: 1. of the deportation of the population from Erzerum with some details, particularly Consul Scheubner’s intervention on behalf of the deportees and the thanks of the Murakkasa there for this; 2. of the incidents in Khinis, where some villages were attacked by the Kurds. I did not mention the Murakkassa telegram.

1915-06-05-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 18530; pr. 11.06.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 349 Pera, June 5, 1915 2 enclosures. As already reported by telegram, the statement, published by Agence Havas, of the three Allied Powers concerning the persecution of the Armenians in Turkey has been answered by the Supreme Porte in detail and it informed its embassies in Berlin and Vienna of its answer. However, nothing has been published on this subject in the local official and unofficial press, and I assume that the Porte is refraining from doing so, at least for the present, in order not to draw the population’s attention to this matter. The answer given by the Porte, a transcript of which was given to me by the Grand Vizier and which I enclose, is significantly more explicit than the brief draft which I had given it for this purpose, but otherwise it followed the train of thought in the draft. Incidentally, this document contains various details on the Armenian movement which were not known here until now; for example, the information given on the

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activity of the former Member of Parliament, Pastirmadjian, and the leader of the Dashnaks, Suren, from Erzerum, gives the key to the deportation of the Armenians from Erzerum decreed by the government. The number of Armenians arrested in Constantinople (and banished to Anatolia) is given as 235 on page 6 of the enclosure; in reality it is probably far more, over 400. The former figure probably refers only to those Armenians who are members of one of the revolutionary parties and are also in prison in the town to which they were banished, while the freedom of the rest was not limited in any special way. Of these latter people, some twenty have meanwhile received permission to return here. Wangenheim Enclosure 1 Translated from French by George Shirinian Agence Havas announced on 24 May the following: France, Great Britain and Russia have come to an agreement to publish the following declaration: For approximately one month, the Kurdish and Turkish population of Armenia have acted in collusion, often with the support of the Ottoman Authorities, to massacre the Armenians. Such massacres have taken place towards mid-April in Erzerum, Dertshun, Egin, Bitlis, Mush, Sasun, Zeytun, and throughout Cilicia; the inhabitants of some hundred villages in the district of Van have all been murdered, and the Armenian quarter is under siege by the Kurds. At the same time, the Ottoman Government in Constantinople has dealt severely with the harmless Armenian population. In the face of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilisation, the allied Governments are letting the Sublime Porte know publicly that they will hold personally responsible for those crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of its agents who will be found implicated in similar massacres. The Imperial Ottoman Government opposes these assertions and allegations contained in the preceding declaration, with the most formal denial. It is completely false that there have been massacres of Armenians in the Empire. The following clarifications are given to establish the facts in their truthful light: The Armenians of Erzerum, Dertchun (Terdjan), Egin, Sasun, Bitlis, Mush and of Cilicia have not been the object of any measure on the part of the Imperial Authorities, since they have not committed any act of a nature to disturb the public order and peace. The consuls of the neutral powers hardly know this truth. The accusations of the governments of the Triple Entente on this subject are, thus, nothing but lies. Those who are current with matters of the Orient know perfectly well that it is the agents of the Triple Entente, particularly those of Russia and England, who, taking advantage of every opportunity, excite the Armenian population to revolt against the

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Imperial Government. These continual goings on have been aggravated since the start of hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and the aforementioned governments. Thus, their consuls and other agents in Bulgaria and Romania have sent bands of young Ottoman Armenians to the Caucasus by way of Varna, Soulina, Constantza, etc. The Russian Government has failed neither to enlist these young Ottoman Armenians in its army, nor to introduce them in the Armenian centres of the Empire, after having provided them with arms and bombs and having furnished them with proclamations and revolutionary programs. Their mission was to create in these centres a secret revolutionary organisation and to lead the Armenians in these regions, and particularly those of Van, Shatak, Havassur, Kevash and Timar to rise up against the Imperial Government. They pushed them, at the same time, to massacre the Turks and the Kurds. It is useful to cite the following example: Following the opening of hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, the former Ottoman Deputy Karakin Pasdirmadjian, known by the name of “Armen Garo,” joined a band formed by the Armenian committee leaders Tro and Hetsho. He crossed the Ottoman border at the head of Armenian volunteers armed by Russia in concert with the two above-mentioned leaders. Since the occupation of Bayazid by the Russians, he destroyed all the Muslim villages he encountered en route and massacred their inhabitants. When the Russians were chased out of these regions, he fell wounded and the one named Suren, representative of the Dashnaks of Erzerum, was killed by his side. Pasdirmadjian is to be found now active with his band on the Caucasian border. The newspaper “Asbarez,” organ of Dashnaktsutiun, appearing in America, published his photograph taken with Tro and Hetsho at the time they celebrated a religious ceremony of swearing an oath before departing for the war. This separatist movement was soon affirmed in a more positive manner by the action of Armenians (of which Toros oghlou Aghop, on whom were found papers proving incontestably the criminal goal being followed), whom the English authorities brought from Cyprus and landed in the area around Alexandretta. The disturbances thus prepared had, among other results, that of causing the derailment of trains. From another side, the commanders of the Anglo-French naval forces began corresponding with the Armenians of the region of Adana, Dort-Yol, Youmourtalik, Alexandretta, and other areas of the littoral and have instigated them to revolt. As to the Armenians of Zeytun particularly, it is after this propaganda from the English and French that the Armenian revolutionary organisation went into action at Zeytun since February. The Armenians of this city took up arms against the Imperial authorities and surrounded the Governor’s residence. In view of these facts, a duty imposed itself on the Imperial Government, that of suppressing the revolution and of maintaining the public order. The right of the Imperial Government to take all measures necessary to suppress such a revolutionary and separatist movement flows directly from the right of sov-

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ereignty, with which no one can argue. Besides, these measures in this case assume a character of particular urgency and importance in time of war. The Imperial Government saw itself, therefore, obliged to resort to military suppression on one hand, and on the other, to arrest the Armenian revolutionaries who were in league with foreign revolutionary committees and the agents of the Powers of the Triple Entente. Contrary to the assertions of the three aforementioned governments, the repression by the Imperial Government took place without the least involvement of any elements of the population. The searches of homes of the Armenian revolutionaries led to the discovery of revolutionary flags and important documents concerning the insurrection they were fomenting, as well as the separatist aims of this movement. These documents prove, moreover, that the revolutionary committees which are based actually in Paris, London and Tiflis effectively enjoy the protection of the English, French and Russian Governments. The searches conducted at the same time in the provinces led to the discovery of thousands of bombs and Russian rifles among the Armenians. Those Armenians arrested were naturally handed over to the competent jurisdictions at the time, as, at the instigation of English, French and Russian agents, they had escaped military service and, towards this end, had attacked the gendarmes. The Imperial Government is also in possession today of documents which prove that the movement about which it is concerned was set up under the auspices of the Russian, English and French Governments, and the last Armenian revolutionary conference, held at Constantza, decided to take action at the propitious moment, even though it wished to appear publicly as having renounced a movement of insurrection. The Sublime Porte will publish at an opportune time, all these documents in detail, with a view to clarifying public opinion. Thanks, therefore, to measures for public order taken by the Imperial Government in the fullness of its rights, the revolutionary movement of the Armenians was able to be suppressed without any massacre taking place. These measures have in fact been necessitated by circumstances and in no way constitute a movement against the Armenians, considering that out of the 77,835 Armenians who live in Constantinople, only 235—charged with complicity in the revolutionary movement in question—have been arrested, while all the others are going peacefully about their business and enjoying the greatest security. If certain Armenians had to be displaced, it is because they lived in areas situated in the war zones, where their presence, given what just happened, filled the Imperial Government with legitimate worry, from the point of view of the national defence. The Sublime Porte considers it also its duty to adopt such measures as it deems necessary to ensure the security of its land and maritime borders, and that it has no obligation to give an explanation to any foreign government. Is it not a paradox to hear the English, French and Russian Governments appeal to the sentiments of humanity, when the commanders of the Anglo-French naval forces

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at the Dardanelles fire on ambulances and hospitals, and that for its part, the Russian Government has caused the massacre by the Armenians of thousands of peaceful Muslims in the district of Kars and lets them die pitilessly from hunger or thirst or being beaten to death with a cross by the same Armenians who were Ottoman prisoners captured in the Caucasus? It is not in Turkey, but rather in Russia where the Consuls of the warring countries were submitted to the worst treatment. The English, French and Russian leaders were not satisfied to have thus prepared the uprising of the Armenians; they have also attempted to cause an uprising of Muslims against the Government of his Majesty the Sultan. To attain their ends, they even arranged for the perpetration of personal crimes, proof of which has fallen into the hands of the Sublime Porte. These indescribable actions have not been seen even in the distant past or as the most besmirched acts of cruelty. The English, French and Russian Governments which, after uprisings and agitations in the Caucasus, Morocco, Egypt, India, etc., had them suppressed in the most violent manner and by absolutely inhuman acts, have the nerve to reproach the Ottoman Government for repressive measures which it found itself forced to take and which it applied, generally, with the greatest moderation and fairness. The Ottoman Government, having only exercised on this occasion the most elementary of its sovereign duties, for which the assertion that the members of the Imperial Government and the other officials of the empire would be held responsible as head of the abovementioned measures of suppression does not merit any response. It is rather enough that the entire responsibility falls to the Powers of the Triple Entente for events which they believe they have to complain, given that it is the Powers themselves which have organised and directed the revolutionary movement, and their declaration itself constitutes support and open encouragement for the Armenian agitators. Enclosure 2 (German Draft for the Sublime Porte) Translated from French by George Shirinian Agence Havas announces the following: France, Great Britain and Russia have come to an agreement to publish the following declaration: For approximately one month, the Kurdish and Turkish population have acted in cooperation with the Ottoman Authorities, and often with their assistance to massacre the Armenians. Such massacres have taken place towards mid-April in Erzerum, Dertshan (Terdjan), Bitlis, Mush, Sasun, Zeytun, and throughout Cilicia; the inhabitants of some hundred villages in the district of Van have all been murdered. At the same time,

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the Ottoman Government in Constantinople has dealt severely with the harmless Armenian population. In the face of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and against civilisation, the Allied Powers notify the Sublime Porte publicly that they will hold personally responsible for those crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of its agents who are implicated in similar massacres. Here is the response of the Sublime Porte to this notification: It is false that since the beginning of the war there have been massacres of Armenians in Erzerum, Bitlis, Sasun or elsewhere by Turks or Kurds; these imaginary massacres exist only in the imagination of our enemies; on the contrary, it is true that since the opening of hostilities, Russian and English agents have tried every means to stir up the Ottoman Armenians against the Ottoman Government; it is equally true that in Van and its region, the Armenians fortified with arms provided from outside and supported by bands of irregulars, have finally risen en masse and have massacred without pity the Muslim inhabitants; finally, it is true that the inhabitants of Zeytun, in spite of the clemency which the Imperial Government has used towards them several times in the past, have persisted in their disobedience towards the orders of the Government and have even attacked the imperial troops. The proofs for the above facts are found in the hands of the Imperial Government. Now, if the Sublime Porte took certain police measures to assure the public order, it only obeyed the duty which falls to any government in similar circumstances and especially in time of war; and it will continue on this path without being intimidated by the threats of its enemies. As to the regrettable results these repressive measures could have for the peaceable elements of the population, it casts the responsibility for them on those who, with the aim of creating difficulties for the Imperial Government, have provoked and fomented disorder and revolt. If, finally, our enemies have judged it convenient to speak in the announcement of humanity and civilisation, these words are misplaced coming from the mouth of those who have handed themselves over to all sorts of atrocities on prisoners of war and civilians who have fallen into their hands; we are reminded particularly of Russia and the terrible treatment that it has inflicted on the personnel of the German Consulate in Russia, and the deportation last decreed of the entire Israelite population in its western provinces, measures which were neither called for by military necessity nor inspired by sentiments of humanity and civilisation.

1915-06-06-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; zu A 17493; BoKon/169; A53a, 3467. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Vera Draack

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From the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 1106 Berlin, 6 June 1915 Answer to Tel. No.1268 [Doc. 1915-05-31-DE-001]. Dr. Lepsius wishes to journey there, not to apply pressure on the Porte, but rather to bring the Armenians to their senses. If the Porte agrees, he is prepared to go to the provinces and make it clear to the Armenian leaders there that their loyalty towards the Turkish government is a necessity. The journey would have a soothing effect on the Armenians here and seems to us to be unobjectionable, as Lepsius would gladly subordinate himself to your directives. Please telegraph whether you agree. Z[immermann]

1915-06-06-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3451. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Embassy in Constantinople Aleppo, 6 June 1915 Reply to Tel. dated 4 June. With all respect I again beg you to allow me to raise a protest. The larger part of the Armenian deportees are women. They would be defenceless and liable to be violated during transport and in the villages. Would it not be possible to deport only the men and leave the women and children in Aleppo? Numerous children have already fallen victim to the deportations. [Rössler] [Telegram to Aleppo, 7 June] The Minister of the Interior has agreed to make enquiries with the local Vali concerning the situation of the Armenians deported from there. [Wangenheim]

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[Note by Mordtmann] NB. I had the opportunity of presenting the matter to Talaat Bey in a manner that precluded the possibility of misreading the sense of the demarche. At the same time he mentioned that the American Ambassador had recently shown him the well-known note by Agence Havas and without reservation he touched upon the intentions of the government to take advantage of the World War to make a clean sweep of its internal enemies—the indigenous Christians of all confessions—without being hindered in doing so by diplomatic intervention from other countries.

1915-06-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 18287; pr. 09.06.1915 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Foreign Office No. 1338 Pera, June 9, 1915 Answer to Telegram No. 1106.13 Dr. Lepsius would be too late with regard to the Porte’s measures, which are already being executed and which appeared to be justified on the basis of different facts, which have been determined beyond doubt, and his endeavours would be ineffective. Furthermore, I consider his journey to be inopportune, particularly as Dr. Liparit’s activities have not been cleared up (Report No. 329),14 and because it could disturb the Porte’s sensitivity, which, as I have sounded out in confidence, does not want this journey to take place, either. Furthermore, I am doing my best to alleviate those measures of the Porte, which are too rigorous. Wangenheim

1915-06-13-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 19783 (zu A 18628). Directive. Translated by Vera Draack 13. A 17493, Doc. 1915-05-31-DE-001. 14. Doc. 1915-06-01-DE-001.

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From the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 461 Berlin, 13 June 1915 In the enclosed petitions,15 supported by the managing boards of the German Mission for the Orient and the German-Armenian Association, Dr. Lepsius, with whom Your Excellency’s obliging telegram of the 9th inst. was used confidentially in an appropriate manner, refers to his wish to make a personal visit to Constantinople. It is far from Mr. Lepsius’ mind to cause the Porte any kind of difficulty. He believes, however, that his appearance in Constantinople, even if it does not achieve anything at all, would alleviate the apprehensions of the pro-Armenians in Germany and be regarded by the Armenians themselves as proof that Germany does not propose to sacrifice its cause to the political constellation. It would be unfortunate if the sympathy, which our alliance with Turkey enjoys among large circles of the population, would suffer under the Armenian question. We must also endeavour not to lose the Armenians’ trust completely, both for our own interests as well as for Turkey’s. Thus, I would appreciate it if Your Excellency was successful in overcoming the Porte’s resistance to Dr. Lepsius’ journey. The personality of this easily tractable gentleman should offer a guarantee that he will not undertake anything in Constantinople, which would not meet with the approval of Your Excellency and the Turkish statesmen. After hearing the elucidations given here by Dr. Lepsius, the mistrust which Dr. Liparit’s activities caused in Sofia is unfounded. I would be grateful to Your Excellency for once again examining this matter and sending a telegraphic reply at your earliest convenience. Zimmermann

1915-06-17-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 18628. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Johannes Lepsius to the Legation Councillor in the German Foreign Office, Rosenberg Potsdam, 17 June 1915 At the instigation of Mr. von Tiedemann, I enclose a copy of two letters sent to His Excellency von Wangenheim on 11 June for the German Foreign Office files. Respectfully, Johannes Lepsius 15. For copies of both letters see Doc.1915-06-17-DE-001.

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Enclosure 1 Potsdam, 11 June 1915 Your Excellency, Further to the exchange of dispatches with the German Foreign Office, please permit me to present the reasons why a visit to Constantinople at the present time appears to me to be useful for both German and Turkish interests. Harsh measures against Armenian subjects, which appear to be necessary to suppress espionage and local unrests, are of only episodic importance and do not affect our German interests if, at the same time, it is ensured that the normal relationship between the leading Armenian circles and the Sublime Porte is maintained and reinforced even more. When plainly assessing the Armenians’ situation in Turkey, it must not be forgotten that only half of the Armenian population lives in Turkey; the other half lives in Russia. It cannot work well if the one half, namely the Russian, is constantly being flattered and courted, while the other half, namely the Turkish, is only exposed to reprisals. In the end, the Armenian nation as a whole will go to that side which, just as in a tug-of-war, uses more strength to pull the other side over. Cutting the rope is impossible. Language, literature, church, customs all form a bond which cannot be torn. Abdul Hamid’s extermination policy has only tightened the rope. A nation of 4 million cannot be treated as a negligible quantity. The history of Albania has taught us what happens if this is done. The present war will not end the clash between Turkey and Russia. Before 1895, the fate of the Russian Armenians in the Caucasus was the same as that of the Turkish Armenians in Upper Armenia. Here it was the Kurds, whereas there they were at the mercy of the Tartars. When Vorontsov Dashkov was made governor of the Caucasus in 1905, his precondition for accepting this office was a change in the policy on the treatment of the Armenians. He immediately began to wind up the Armenian rope onto the Russian drum and the outcome was that the Caucasian Armenians now enthusiastically went to war for Russia, something they would have fanatically refused to do in 1895. The leading Armenian circles in Constantinople must be greatly credited for the fact that, despite the nastiest incidents such as in Adana in 1909, and despite the perceptible lack of approval, they continued to stand up for the Committee Party and to give unqualified support to Talaat’s and Enver’s policy. Their fundamental point of view is and remains that the Armenian people can only preserve its national character in language, church and customs as a part of the Ottoman Empire, but not if it is thrown as food to the Russian hunger for nations. It should be one of the principal objectives of Turkey’s domestic policy to strengthen this fundamental philosophy and plant it as a banner for all Armenians. The present war has forced the Entente to disclose their intentions to divide Turkey, an immeasurable benefit for Germany’s policy, directed at preserving Turkey. In future, the Armenian question can also no longer be used for phoney manoeuvres. This is why, all the more, it demands a satisfying solution in favour of Turkey.

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Your Excellency’s successful defence of the Armenian reforms effected a noticeable shift to the Turkish side in the Turkish-Russian tug-of-war, while the dismissal of Hoff and Westenenk caused things to go just as strongly towards the Russian side. The inspectors’ presence would have been sufficient to cut the ground from under the Russian machinations. It is a long road from Constantinople to Erzerum and Van, but only a short one from Tiflis, an evil, which also restricts the influence of the leading Armenian circles in Constantinople. Often they cannot do what they want because the Russians are there ahead of them and take the wind out of their sails. In those places where there are not enough regular Turkish troops to maintain order, the Armenian villages are ground between the Russian and Kurdish millstones. For this reason, self-defence cannot be held against them. Often enough, Kurds and Russians are in league with one another. During a war, this inside information could be left to sort itself out alone if, apart from this, the Sublime Porte would give the Armenians support against Russia and instil them with the confidence that everything will be all right again after the war. The lead that Russia has gained for the past 10 years by pointedly flattering the Armenians has been used by the British, French and Russian pro-Armenia committees (to which no Armenians even belong) to the best of their ability. Agents have been travelling back and forth between Paris, London and Petersburg, trying to obtain large liberation programmes for the Armenians from the Entente governments. Russian and British interests, however, were also divided here. Russia wanted to extend its share of the spoils as far as Alexandretta without granting autonomy, while England demanded autonomy in return for all of the Russian spoils (having at the back of its mind the thought that it would later get the autonomous Greater Armenia back from the Russians). Now, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush to any reasonable Armenian. But unfortunately, the bird (the Armenian reform plan) had already flown away. Whether or not individual Turkish Armenians or even Armenian gangs are to be engaged from Russia and England by means of love or money will do as little to change the overall situation as the corruptibility of individual Turks and the attempts by the liberal Unionists to overthrow the government. With regard to the latter, only the Hinchaks among the Armenians were involved, and they have hardly any followers in Turkey. The Dashnaks have no connections with the Turkish opposition party and had nothing to do with the plans to overthrow the government. The leading Armenian circles, Patriarchate, National Assembly, Dashnaks are still willing to be made use of by Turkey and to win over the Russian Armenians. From Sofia, Dr. Liparit also influenced the Armenian Balkan Committees in this sense and worked against the encouragement of sympathy for Russia. It seems that the pro-Russian movement in the Caucasus is also beginning to wane because much is promised, but nothing done in any given case. I do not take the measures of the Ministry of War against the Armenian schools, press, etc., to heart. The closing of the American Colleges will meet with the least

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resistance from the Patriarchate. Deportations would also be harmless if it were not for the fact that the Turkish administrative techniques (as proven by the Circassians) usually led to the demise of the deportees. This is all the more reason why care should be taken to ensure that the Turkish Armenians’ confidence in the government is not undermined by measures, the military value of which I cannot judge. Turkey must continue to live with the Armenians after the war, and Germany’s economic policy cannot make do without them. The well-known saying can also be turned around, “Si vis bellum, para pacem” [If you want war, prepare for peace]. In my opinion, the following conclusions can already be drawn from the situation: 1. Nothing is to be achieved by closing English-American and French schools; the same number of German schools must be opened, or at least the prospects for a German school policy should not be ruined. If the Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, etc., do not learn German in future, they will continue to speak and think in French and English in future. 2. If the influence of the French-English-Russian pro-Armenia committees is to be stopped, the efforts of the German-Armenian companies and associations must be supported. They work against these for Turkish interests. We are in danger of losing the sympathy of the Armenian leaders and ethnic groups allied to us if we remain indifferent and passive in critical situations used feverishly by the Entente committees, and have to give up the enforcement of our influence. Just the fact that I would have had the opportunity of having a calming effect in the Patriarchate and among the leading men in Constantinople would suffice to ensure our previous influence and build bridges towards further understanding. 3. If the Entente brings together its Armenian friends with the Turkish opposition, as Sheriff Pasha is doing in Paris, then we should encourage the Armenians who listen to us even more in their loyalty towards Turkey and support their harmony with the Sublime Porte. It should certainly be possible to prevent our Turkish friends from being peeved by Armenian sympathy, which should all be grist for their mill. 4. Our efforts should not be limited to reconciling the Turkish Armenians with the Sublime Porte. Turkey should also win the sympathy of the Caucasian Armenians. It is ten times more valid to regard the Caucasians, or at least Kars, Erivan and the Araxes Valley as irredenta of Turkish Armenia, rather than passing off Upper Armenia as Russian irredenta. 5. The fact should not be underestimated that, from the very beginning, we have led German sympathy for Armenia onto Turkish ground. Germany still raises approx. ¾ million annually for orphanages, clinics, schools and workshops, which were founded in the 90s for the victims of Hamid’s period of terror. Even today, every village and every town in Germany still contributes to these institutions. These circles should be spared the alarms of conscience that our German-Turkish alliance could force us to abandon the Christians of the Orient and to withhold from them the support, which they can expect from us as their brothers in faith.

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It would also have a calming effect in this respect if I could respond out of my own knowledge to the slanders concerning German Christianity, already being liberally poured out by the Entente press, that Turkey has not surpassed the boundaries of military measures and, furthermore, that it attaches great importance to keeping up a harmonious relationship with its Christian subjects. Your Excellency’s most respectful [Dr. Johannes Lepsius] Enclosure 2 Copy Potsdam, 11 June 1915 The managing boards of the German Mission for the Orient and the GermanArmenian Association, gathered today, would like to express their thanks to Your Excellency for the support often given to their attempts, and trust that in the present critical situation Your Excellency will work towards a fair and moderate treatment of the Christian elements of the population who have been made part of the turmoil. In order to keep up our relationship with the Patriarchate and the leading Armenian circles and reinforce them in their loyal attitude towards the Sublime Porte, it appears to us to be desirable that our Chairman, Dr. Lepsius, travels to Constantinople and, in agreement with Your Excellency, advises our Armenian friends. Dr. Paul Rohrbach Rödenbeck, Superintendant. Prof. D. Deissmann Lürssen P. Winckler Dr. Johannes Lepsius Dr. James Greenfield

1915-06-17-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 19743; pr. 24.06.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 372 Pera, 17 June 1915

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The expulsion of the Armenian population from their homes in the East Anatolian provinces and their relocation in other areas is being carried out ruthlessly. According to reliable information issued by the Catholicos of Sis, up to now 30,000 Armenians have been deported from his diocese alone. Zeytun and surrounding areas, Albistan, Dört Yol, Alabash, Hassan-Beyli and even some smaller places have been completely cleared. Here, the same as in other districts, the inhabitants are being scattered around the interior of the country and resettled with the Muslims, partly in areas which are far from one another, as for example the residents of Zeytun, who have been sent partly to the areas around Konia, partly to Der Zor by the Euphrates river. The Armenians from Erzerum have been delegated to Terdjan (Mama Hatoun). The exiles are forced to leave their homes either immediately or within a few days so that they have to relinquish their houses and a large part of their movable possessions. They are not even able to provide themselves with the necessary supplies for their transportation. On arrival at their destination they stand helpless and defenceless among people who are hostile towards them. In some places there have already been excesses during their march; the Armenians who were deported from Diyarbekir to Mosul are said to have all been murdered on the course of their journey. It is impossible to expect the government to support the exiles with money, food and other things; in Erzerum the Imperial Consul and the American missionaries have intervened in giving their help, in other places the local Armenian Patriarchate. It has come to light that the banishment of the Armenians is not only motivated by military considerations. The Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, recently spoke about this without reservation to Dr. Mordtmann, who is currently employed by the Imperial Embassy. He said “that the Porte is intent on taking advantage of the World War in order to make a clean sweep of internal enemies—the indigenous Christians—without being hindered in doing so by diplomatic intervention from other countries. Such an undertaking will serve the interest of the Germans, the Allies of Turkey, which thus in turn could be strengthened.” A few days later, the Armenian Patriarch explained to the same official that the measures of the Porte were intended not only to make the Armenian people temporarily harmless, but to expel them from Turkey or rather to eradicate them altogether. Deportation is just as bad as massacring, and it would not be surprising if the Armenians finally retaliated, even if they had no chance of succeeding, “like a tormented animal that turns against its tormentors.” He appears to have given up hope of being able to bring about a change for the better with the Turkish government by taking certain steps. He did not reply to an intercession on our part in favour of the Armenians. He is still convinced—probably like all Armenians, provided they have knowledge of the occurrences—that the excesses, for which the government blames the Armenians, have been brought about by the action taken by the authorities. Wangenheim

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1915-06-21-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; zu A53a, 3714; p. 19.06.1915. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) No. 12 Pera, 21 June 1915 Reply to Telegram No. 33. I would like to ask Your Excellency to point out to the Vali in a friendly but insistent manner that such ignominious occurrences damage the image of the government in neutral foreign countries and among Turkey’s friends and undermine the authority of the officials in the country’s interior. Reprisals and acts of vengeance on the part of the Russians and the Armenians in the areas occupied by them are inevitable. Also, this provides fresh grounds for foreign intervention in Armenian matters and will make Turkey’s position unnecessarily difficult in future peace negotiations. Even if we cannot raise any objections to the deportation of the Armenians, as far as this is justified by the state of war, we must be all the more forcible in insisting, also in our own interest, that a stop be put to the massacring of the defenceless people. It is the duty of the local authorities to prevent such occurrences with all available means if they are not willing to burden themselves with such a serious responsibility. For your personal information: I will be making intercessions of a similar kind to the Porte. W[angenheim]

1915-06-22-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 19605; pr. 22.06.1915 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Johannes Lepsius to the Foreign Office Potsdam, 22 June 1915 According to information from the Imperial Ambassador in his telegram of 31 May, Enver Pasha plans “to settle in Mesopotamia those families from the currently insurgent Armenian centres who are not irreproachable.”

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As I have already stated in my letter dated 18 June, this is not a case of deporting individual families, but rather of mass deportations of large parts of the Armenian population from Anatolian areas and from Cilicia to various districts, especially to Mesopotamia. These measures cannot be justified for military reasons. They are out of all proportion to the unimportant reasons which motivated them. They are also in contradiction to the official statement made by the Turkish Government on 4 June (W.T.B. to Constantinople),16 that “the Armenians from Erzerum, Derdjan, Egin, Sasun, Bitlis, Mush and Cilicia were not subjected to any measures whatsoever by the Imperial authorities because they had committed no acts which would disturb the public law and peace.” For mass deportations have also taken place in these areas and they are gradually being extended to all the Armenian areas. Even the passage, “If certain Armenians had to be removed from their places of residence, this was done because they lived in a war-zone,” cannot be used as a lever, for generally speaking this concerns areas which lie in central Anatolia, far from the war-zone. The news so far is that until now about 200,000 Armenians have been affected by the deportation measures. The areas of the upper Euphrates River (Erzindjan, Kamakh, Baiburt), the Taurus and Amanus area (Zeytun, Hadjin, Aintab, Marash) and Cilicia are named in particular. In other areas, such as Erzerum, the same measures are being prepared. As the Greek population in the villages of Thracia between Adrianople and the Sea of Marmara was also deported, this is obviously an attempt to decimate the Christian population in the empire as far as possible under the veil of martial law and by putting to use the Muslim elation aroused by the holy war, abandoning it to extermination by carrying it off to climatically unfavourable and unsafe districts along the border. Here is an example of how this is carried out. Of the approx. 27,000 inhabitants of Zeytun in the Taurus Highlands, the male population was deported to the hot Euphrates marshes of Deir es Zor, right in the middle of Arabic Bedouin tribes (500 kilometres to the southeast), while the women, girls and children, on the other hand, were transported to the Angora area (500 kilometres to the northeast); thus, the men were separated from their families by 1,000 kilometres. During transportation the young girls were abducted to Turkish harems and the women were exposed to violation in the Mohammedan villages. While 20,000 Turkish pounds were transferred by the government to make Mohammedan Bosnian settlements in the evacuated area of Zeytun, the Armenians were robbed of their possessions and sent to foreign parts without any means. Such measures, which are paralleled only in the deportations of the ancient Assyrians, cannot be justified by military purposes; rather, they amount to the veiled massacre of Christians. It is expected that their expanse will surpass the massacres at the time of Abdul Hamid. 16. W.T.B. = Wolffs Telegraphisches Büro [Wolff’s Telegraph Office].

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I consider it my duty to point out the consequences of these Turkish measures. 1. As soon as the facts are made public in Europe and the United States, they will not only “once again cause great agitation in all of the world which is our enemy and be used against us,” as the Ambassador already assumed in his dispatch of 4 June, but they will also evoke an indignation in the entire Protestant Church of Germany which cannot be moderated by the most sincere sympathy with the Turkish people. 2. Because of the extermination policy of the present Turkish rulers, a hatred will be systematically bred against Turkey in the entire Armenian nation (i.e., 2 million Russian and 2 million Turkish Armenians), which is only in the interests of the Entente powers and which must be extremely damaging to Germany’s influence on the economic development in Turkey which rests, for the most part, on the shoulders of the Armenians. For example, the evacuation of the Armenians in Cilicia has left the German companies there (cotton companies and so on) with no workers whatsoever. 3. It is inevitable in a country in which the government has always used terrorist means that the policy of extermination drives those affected to become terrorists themselves. It must not be forgotten that there is a strong and dangerous opposition to the present government among the Turkish and Arab subjects, and the previously loyal Turkish Armenians are being driven into its arms. As the Turkish opposition (the liberal Union) is working with the Entente, it is in our urgent political interest not to drive the Turkish Armenians to a terrorist opposition and to allow them to escape German influence. About 120 leaders of the Dashnaktsagans, who were quite loyal, were placed under arrest, and it is feared that they will all be executed. The elimination of these loyal intellectuals will give the terrorist elements among the Russian Armenians a free hand, and in Turkey as well. The loyal Armenian Committees have made requests through the corresponding ambassadors to the American, Bulgarian and Greek governments to use their influence in favour of the Armenians. These have all replied consistently that it is only the German government which is in a position to put a stop to this evil because it alone has influence on the Turkish government and, thus, is also made jointly responsible from abroad for the internal state of affairs in Turkey. Johannes Lepsius [Note by Zimmermann, June, 22] Transcript of Pera No. 494 respectfully sent for your kind attention and it is left to your discretion to comment.

1915-06-22-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 19697; pr. 23.06.1915 a.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack

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From Johannes Lepsius to the Legation Councillor in the German Foreign Office, Rosenberg Potsdam, 22 June 1915 Avenues are open to negotiate with the leaders of the Russian Armenians in order to obtain compensation from them for suspending the measures against the Turkish Armenians. The following suggestions are considered to be executable. In return for the release of the approx. 120 arrested Armenian leaders and intellectuals and the waiver of further deportations, the Russian Armenians will cease operations in the Van area and separate their cause from Russia’s cause. There is a danger that the Bitlis and Mush area will also be occupied by Russian Armenians with Russian assistance. (Urmia and Sautshbulak were captured by the Russians in the middle of May.) The Armenians from the Van area are basically prepared to separate their cause from that of the Russians as they prefer Turkish sovereignty to Russian. They are not fighting for the Russians, but rather for their countrymen’s safety against Kurdish attacks. I was assured that the leaders of the Russian Armenians share these views and can be won over to German-Turkish interests in future. The prerequisite for the success of all negotiations is that judgments to execute Armenian leaders and intellectuals must cease. I would like to note that it might be recommendable to telegraph these suggestions to Constantinople. Johannes Lepsius [From Zimmermann to Pera (No. 1209), 23 June] Dr. Lepsius believes that in return for the release of the approx. 120 arrested Armenian leaders and intellectuals and the waiver of further deportations, the Russian Armenians will cease operations in the Van area and separate themselves from Russia. He claims to know the course leading to negotiations with the leaders of the Russian Armenians. [Note by Mordtmann, 24 June] On occasion, I will make use of the contents, should Dr. L. not come here at some foreseeable time, but at the present stage of the question I consider it unlikely that the Porte will pay any attention to the suggestion.

1915-06-27-DE-013 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3939; p. 28.06.1915. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Consul in Trebizond (Bergfeld) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 5 Trebizond, 27 June 1915 Further to Telegram dated 26 June. About 30,000 persons are affected by the deportations just in the Vilayet of Trebizond. A mass transport of this kind for hundreds of kilometres along routes that are lacking in accommodation and supplies, and where 300 kilometres must count as being completely infested with typhus fever, would claim enormous numbers of victims, particularly among the women and children. This would cause damage to the moral image not only of Turkey, but also of its allies. I am absolutely no friend of the Armenians, but I consider myself to be obliged to point out to Your Excellency the dangers of this mass deportation from the standpoint of humanity and prestige. The local vali simply refers to instructions from Constantinople. My Austrian colleague is telegraphing a similar message to his Embassy. Also, there is a danger of the deportees spreading the typhus fever. Perhaps the Sublime Porte can refrain from deporting the women and children and suffice itself with accommodating them nearby, provided they do not wish to follow their men voluntarily. [Bergfeld]

1915-06-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 20791; pr. 06.07.1915 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Embassy Councillor in Constantinople, Neurath, to the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient (Friedrich Schuchardt) No. 3898 Pera, 29 June 191517 With reference to your petition to the German Foreign Office dated the 9th inst., I would respectfully like to inform Your Honour that, as far as is known here, the town of Van and parts of the surrounding area have been in the hands of Russian troops and the Armenian volunteers who joined them since the middle of May. To protect your mission station there, it would be advisable to approach the American Embassy in Berlin and request its intervention. 17. Presented to the German Foreign Office (“further to Decree 480”) by Neurath.

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The relocation of the Armenian population in East Anatolia was decided upon by the Turkish government mainly for military reasons, to prevent the insurgency of those districts heavily populated by Armenians. I regret that this measure cannot be cancelled at present or just stopped, and its implementation will lead to great hardships; occasional riots have also taken place. Our consuls in the interior are doing their best to protect the lives and property of the deportees. I certainly hope that once peace has been negotiated there will be an opportunity to speak up on behalf of the Armenians and bring about an improvement in their situation which, as you so rightly state, is both in our own interest as well as in the interest of the Turkish government. The aforementioned information is merely for Your Honour’s personal information and strictly confidential; please refrain from passing it on to the press or other means of distribution. On behalf of the Imperial Ambassador, [Neurath]

1915-06-29-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 22125; pr. 23.07.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 67/No. 1382 Aleppo, June 29, 1915 Your Excellency, I respectfully forward to you copies of a letter from Deacon Künzler dated the 20th and a letter from Karen Jeppe, a missionary from the German Orient Mission, to my wife dated the 18th of this month. Both deal with the conditions in Urfa or further into the interior and were delivered to me by couriers. Mr. Künzler, who was recuperating after a serious illness in a vineyard outside the city of Urfa and only occasionally entered the town, had from there paid special attention to Armenian matters. The only report concerning a Kurdish revolt in the north of Urfa is that submitted by Ms. Jeppe. One can only gather from it that the Circassian volunteers, who are regarded as government troops, met with stiff Kurdish resistance against their plundering, so that the Kurds were convinced that they were defending themselves against government troops. Mr. Künzler did not experience personally the march of the Circassian volunteers through the town which lasted only two days. In Diyarbekir, as Mr. Künzler describes, the most gruesome things have taken place against the Armenians, and indeed as a consequence of the stance of the Vali.

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We have been in possession of reports concerning this since the beginning of June. I had put off writing a report about this as I had hoped to receive a letter from Diyarbekir. The letter never materialised. I deduce from an occasional remark made to me by the local vali, Djelal Bey, including a reprimand from the Vali of Diyarbekir, that something terrible must have happened. The insurrection in Diyarbekir, which in the meantime has been reported, is therefore probably a result of the mistreatment of the Armenians. Atrocities have also occurred in other places, as has been reliably reported to me. Just above Rumkaleh, a well-known Swiss national here, who was on a journey to buy wood fuel for the Baghdad Railway, saw six pairs of corpses tied together back to back floating down the Euphrates. Furthermore, he writes that he saw other terrible things. The prisons were overcrowded, but overnight the prisoners disappeared. This concerns the Mutesarriflik Malatia (Vilayet Harput) - Rumkaleh itself still belongs to the Vilayet Aleppo, an area in which up until now total calm has predominated. The local vali had even accomplished that, during the settling of Armenians, every 20 families could stay together as long as this was carried out in villages in the Vilayet Aleppo. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler Enclosure 1 Transcript Urfa, 20 June 1915 Highly esteemed Consul, The events here and in our surroundings force me to write again in order to keep you well informed. In the meantime, you will have received my postcard, in which I informed you about the arrest of our reliable chemist, Abraham, who has always been loyal to the Ottoman government. Mr. Eckardt and I went indeed on the same day to the governor to obtain temporary release and if necessary to act as guarantors, but alas without success. The governor said that charges had already been made against him. On this day 50 Armenians have been arrested. These remaining leaders of the Gregorian-Armenian and Protestant-Armenian community are mostly very calm and nationally loyal elements.18 Last night an imprisoned Armenian merchant was given 100 strokes of a stick whereby he almost met his death. The governor denied this in front of the Armenian prelate, who asked him how it was possible that corporal punishment had been used. Two days later I visited the governor again. I took the liberty of telling him that I feared that the Armenian question would end in such a way that the German ally 18. Some had been arrested previously and taken to Rakka. They have been treated well.

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would be disgraced if the innocent among the Armenian people should continue to be punished alongside the guilty and if they should suffer or even die, as is thought to have happened in the entire area of the Vilayet Diyarbekir. This outburst affected him visibly. Despite this I repeated it to the Chief of the Gendarme who swallowed it like bitter medicine. I have not heard anything more about further beatings; in the end, the reward for my efforts. The day before yesterday the governor requested the presence of the Armenian prelate and advised him that the Armenians should deliver all weapons; otherwise the entire Armenian population would be dispersed and like the other Armenians from other areas and cities, resettled in other parts of this vast empire. The prelate did not deny that weapons were in their possession. But he said that they were not in their hands to be used against the war or against the government, but against the ever-growing threat of a massacre by the heavily armed Muslim population. Today, two wagons full of weapons are said to have been delivered, but the government wishes even more. The Armenians are extremely scared. In 1895, they were also pressured into giving up their weapons with the official promise that they would be protected. And what protection was given? The slaughter of 7,000 people! I could not find out why the whole city was blocked by soldiers for 3 hours yesterday. The most terrifying rumours are coming from the Vilayet Diyarbekir, which quite reminds us of the Spanish Inquisition. In many places, the merciful bullet has been delivered only after torture. A particularly favourite method is said to have been the pulling out of finger nails. Unfortunately, concerning the incidents there, we are dependent on the accounts of the inhabitants, Christian and Muslim. The reports coming out of this area do indeed rather concur. Following these reports massacres have taken place in cities and villages. The situation in Van is reported by a Muslim coming from there as follows: “In Van, Kurds from the surrounding areas came into the city and began killing Armenians. The Armenians defended themselves. But immediately the soldiers stationed there came to the aid of the Kurds, whereupon after a bloody fight the Armenians put both the Kurds and the soldiers to flight and took control of the city. They blew up a few public buildings and brought about a great blood bath out of revenge against the Muslim inhabitants.” Also very sad is the clearance of entire Armenian towns and their relocation to infertile, death-bringing areas. Almost every day, throngs of Armenian people come through here from the cities of Zeytun, Hadjin, Albistan, etc. All of them are in the most pitiful condition. The sick and dying are left to their own fate along the way. I saw myself an eighty-year-old man who had been paralysed by a stroke left lying there. The government has decided to give no help to these Armenians in any sort of way. And where should these poor people go? They are expected to settle in the unfertile and waterless Djebel Abdul Aziz! What sacrifice of human life will all this demand of innocent men, women and children!

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Yesterday, the Armenian prelate of Urfa gave information to the government that there were heavily armed Armenians from Severek and Diyarbekir in the mountains surrounding the Armenian village of Garmudj near Urfa. People who had indeed given up their lives, but wanted to defend themselves against the Turks, who again martyred and murdered many of their brothers in their towns. These revolutionaries had now begun to incite the people of Garmudj and Urfa. The government sent six police officers there for the purpose of reconnaissance. As they approached the village they were received by shots. One policeman fell dead immediately and four others were wounded; one fled back to Urfa. Now two hundred soldiers were sent to those mountains. Twelve of the rebels were killed and the rest fled. Highly esteemed Consul! When I view the situation of the Armenian people and then remember the words of the famous Turkish major, Nafiz Bey, who said that after this war we must eliminate the Armenian people or force them to emigrate, then I fear that the duration of this war will be used for the purpose of decimating, as much as possible, this people, although tainted with many faults, but no doubt intelligent. It is my opinion, considering the deep friendship and the very strong alliance of the Central Powers with Turkey, that a subtle sign of the former to Turkey to deal with the Armenian people in the most just way possible would bring about unpredictable blessings. Justice enhances a nation! The Central Powers should be a bulwark of freedom and against any form of suppression. Here is an area of fertile activity! [Künzler] Postscript How traps are set! Over the last few days several simple folk have been arrested and thrown into prison. In the case of a young Syrian whom the police considered to be Armenian, the police did not succeed. He was buying some goods at the market. While he was standing in front of a stand a policeman put a Mauser cartridge into his jacket pocket without his noticing. As the young man was leaving the shop the policeman stopped him and told him to turn out his pockets. He did this voluntarily. But lo and behold! A Mauser cartridge was found in his pocket. The Syrian turned pale and the policeman began cursing him and hustled him into prison. A Muslim came to his aid. He had seen how the policeman had slipped the Mauser cartridge into the youth’s pocket. That is how the Syrian was saved. Toros, a 15-year-old Armenian working for the American Craftsman’s School, fell into the trap and landed in prison, where he will stay a long time. He was crossing the street and there was a policeman in front of him. Toros found a cartridge on the ground, which a policeman had dropped, and picked it up and put it in his pocket. Soon afterwards the police arrested him and took him to the police station and as a policeman suspected him of having ammunition on his person, the youth was searched. His suspicions were correct and, therefore, the youth was temporarily put in prison.

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On the occasion of a newly reported victory, Turkish musicians went through the market playing music. An unwise Armenian youth took the liberty of asking if the news of the victory was really true. Immediately, the youth was beaten up good and proper by the musicians and afterwards taken to prison by the police, where he still is, although more than a month has passed. [Künzler] Enclosure 2 Transcript Urfa, June 18, 1915 To Mrs. Rössler, the wife of the Consul in Aleppo. … The Circassian volunteers, who are at present marching through here, are behaving quite like Cossacks and do not respect the government at all. From reliable sources it is known that they even struck the commander of the regular forces. What else has happened here I do not wish to mention, but you can imagine for yourself. The worst thing that has come to my notice which, although not official, I am inclined to believe, is that these bands encouraged a Kurdish revolt further north. At any rate, one has been killed not too far away by the Kurds and we hear terrible rumours. This would certainly be the end of the matter. If the Kurdish revolt spreads from Van to here, then it will not be long before we have the Russians here. The Kurds do not understand that the government is as much in despair about the behaviour of these people as they themselves are. They believe that the government gave the orders. The Armenians in this area, on the other hand, understand this quite well. They have always remained loyal to the government and it would be a great mistake to continue mistreating them as has been the case during the last few weeks. The strong protests of the local better-educated Turks gave sufficient evidence of this and, in my opinion, the central government in Constantinople should have taken this more into consideration. They have become resentful after all, and who knows whether that would not come to the surface if the Kurdish revolt should extend to here. In any case, I believe that it would be absolutely essential to prevent more of this rabble coming through here. Otherwise, we can truly prepare ourselves for the worst. Our Mutesarrif is, I believe, a well-meaning man; if he is up to dealing with this difficult task remains to be seen. In any case, in my opinion, the local population is not to blame if things go wrong, neither the Christians nor the Muslims. It is the poor leadership of those above in Constantinople. Why incite, for example, the Christian population through persecution when nothing has ever happened before and all have lived together in peace? Why send such unruly bands through the Kurdish areas when there are enough other problems? Truly, such a thing is ridiculous. So now I have poured out my heart to you. It may be possible for the Consul to place a word in the right quarters. He will also be annoyed to find that the Russians

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had been given encouragement. It was Mr. Eckart who told me that the Commander had been struck and he is really not someone who speaks loosely. So many rumours are circulating that one really does not know what to believe. I will try to confirm the incident by tonight as it is the worst abuse which could happen. After this it is of little significance to explain more. It goes without saying that, as a matter of course, they break into houses, plunder shops, violate women. In fact, the most astonishing thing is that they have respected our property. The Mutesarrif was unable to retrieve a horse, which they had unjustly commandeered; they refused to give it back. But they put our horse back into the stall on the strength of the Armenians’ word that it belonged to the Germans, long before any of us arrived. The story about the Commander has been sufficiently confirmed; a policeman who saw it with his own eyes has just told us. The Mutesarrif has requested military help and three units should arrive today … [K. Jeppe]

1915-06-29-DE-005 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/96; 10/12, 6278. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack Doctor’s Report from the German Red Cross Hospital in Erzindjan19 Transcript On about 1 June, it became known in Erzindjan that individual Armenian families were to be deported. Originally they spoke of five, then 150, and finally: all Armenians must leave. At the same time, the camps of Armenian families from the area surrounding Erzerum were seen in the area here. These people were camping in open fields, guarded by gendarmes. Gehlsen, one of our medical orderlies, wanted to speak to the people, but he was forbidden to do so. During the next few days the situation became clearer: the Armenian women sat everywhere in front of the houses and offered all of their household goods for sale. Everything went for pennies. Crowds of farmers and Kurds pressed their way into the Armenian quarter and took away as many household goods as their donkeys could carry in between ox carts piled high. The buyers obviously came from the farthest radius of the town. On 10 June, this picture changed and the town was empty. Armed guards were everywhere in the Armenian quarter. The Armenian women came out of their houses with donkeys, household goods and children, leaving in small caravans. The female element was predominant because most of the men had been conscripted as working soldiers. 19. Probably a letter from Neukirch to his brother.

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Even the sick and ancient women were seen hobbling off. No exceptions were made: the wife of one of our soldiers, who lay there half unconscious suffering from typhus fever, was put on a horse on 11 June, despite my having stated in a forceful medical certificate that transportation would be the death of the woman. On 12 June, the second half left, and since then the Armenian quarter has been empty; all of the 10-20,000 inhabitants (not including the inhabitants of the Armenian villages) have left. Everything was carried out in an orderly fashion, as least as far as outsiders could judge. However, it was strange that no definite destination was given for the journey; Arabia was mentioned, southern Kurdistan, etc. But we know, however, that travelling in Anatolia is not easy, even for wealthy people with horses, and it demands a healthy constitution. Furthermore, it is often difficult to find food for 20 people in the small villages along the way. How, then, are 20,000 or more women, children and old people to be fed for weeks in the heat of the sun, let alone finding accommodation for them. I never seriously believed in the government’s intention of doing so. The following may indicate which method was, in truth, carried out: we were already told by a Turkish doctor at the beginning of the expulsion that the Kurds would probably not let the opportunity pass to rob people. On 11 June it was already said that individual women had returned and stated that they had been attacked at night. Early on 12 June, Gehlsen, the pharmacist who can speak Turkish, saw a troop of 20 soldiers move out, ready for action. He asked one of the soldiers, whom he knew, where they were headed for. This man said they were going to the Kamakh gorge. Armenians who were leaving had been attacked there. Yesterday evening the soldiers returned and Gehlsen attempted to find out what had happened. He acted very antiArmenian and thus found out that a group of Armenian women and children had been surrounded in the ravine and, at a given order, all of them were shot down. The soldiers were sorry to shoot the pretty young women, but they had been ordered to do so. Many of the women had thrown their children into the river, while others were taken away by the Turks in order to bring them up in the Islamic faith. The women had not run away; they had all knelt down. G[ehlsen] suddenly dropped the charade and threatened to report the soldier to the police if not every word were true. Despite this, the soldier stuck to everything he had said. He stated that 3,000 people had been murdered in his presence and that only a few had escaped into the mountains, but that the Kurds knew all about that! The place where all this happened is well suited for such things. It is the ravine in which the Euphrates River leaves the plains of Erzindjan on the Western side. The road follows the river for miles there and vertical rock faces make it impossible to get away on either side. There is a desolate area (Dersim) on the left bank of the Euphrates River, inhabited by rapacious mountain Kurds. If something happens there, the Kurds can always be blamed! pp. Thus, it came about that a massacre could take place two hours away from the seat of a German Red Cross mission, without the missionaries being able to do anything about it.

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The government must admit that massacres have taken place. But it places the blame on the Kurds and states that it has even sent troops to protect the Armenians. In contrast to this, the soldier’s statement! I hardly need to mention that there are many other rumours concerning the massacre flying around town. Should the massacre spare parts of the procession of those expelled, then epidemics, heat and the Kurds will ensure that not too many of them are left over. Our psychological situation is terrible: due to the allied relationship we are forced to watch everything that is happening without being able to do anything other than write reports. In order to determine my point of view exactly, it must be said that I, too, believe that it is necessary to proceed strictly against the Armenians in the military interests of both the Germans and the Turks. There is no doubt that, under the existing conditions, every Armenian would go over to the Russians at the first opportunity. The army’s back, the base, must be secure. In addition, it is said that the Armenians raged terribly against the Muslims in the rebel area of Van and other smaller towns (Karahissar). Despite this, the present raging by the Turks against the Armenians is so bad that we must ask ourselves whether it is still appropriate for a German Red Cross expedition to remain in an area in which any kind of humanitarian effort is simply a mockery. For example, why should we heal the Armenian working soldiers lying here, if they could soon be killed after being released? Would it not be better if the expedition were transferred to the Dardanelles? The reason I am so much in favour of transferring the mission is not because the expedition’s situation, with its 7 female members, might be dangerous, but because I am aware that events such as those I have described which take place right in front of the eyes of a powerless German delegation will not assist in raising Germany’s reputation. I hope we will be recalled. However, I can only speak up for this privately. pp. It may be that all of this will almost disappear in the face of the general sacrifices of the world war; it may be that the many friends of the Armenians all over the world will one day start up a great movement based on the occurrences which I have described. My personal conviction is that the treatment given here to the women and children is worse than anything that the registers of atrocities of both sides of the world war have previously attempted to carry out. There is no doubt that our representation in Constantinople is generally informed of the deportation measures. But it cannot have previously known the details, and if it had, it would have been unable to sufficiently influence the local Turkish authorities. As far as our expedition is concerned, there would be a solution: a transfer from this compromising area to another theatre of war under a suitable excuse. However, the members of the expedition are not of one mind on this point, and the transport of the hospital would be extremely difficult. Thus, we will probably have to stick it out. pp.

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As an addition to my reports, for the sake of fairness, I would like to add what the Turkish authorities told us concerning the reasons for the measures taken. I would like to state in advance that this information does not hit the real mark. No one doubted that unusually severe measures had to be taken against the Armenians. This does not excuse the actions taken against women and defenceless people. I am passing on the information from the Mutessarif without comment: 1. The province of Van was handed over to the Russians by means of an incredibly bloody, Armenian riot. All of the Turks were murdered; no one was spared because of their age or sex. This also included the director of the Austrian bank. (from another source). 2. A riot which was both bloody and treacherous took place in Karahissa. At present, the town is being defended by Armenians against the military and the artillery. 3. Orders were found to carry out a riot here on 28 June (yesterday) in the same manner as the one in Karahissa. The large barracks around the town were to be the first target and, thus, our hospital as well. These orders were given by the Armenian Committees. 4. About 300 carbines were found, most of them new, and it is believed that more weapons depots will be found. 5. Underground tunnels running through the entire Armenian quarter were discovered. These join the houses with one another and go as far as the area housing the government building. We have inspected the entrance holes in several houses and satisfied ourselves that the tunnels exist. The system will be dug up because there are still armed Armenians down there who have shot at several people. (One wounded and 1 dead among us.) It cannot be determined how old the tunnels are, but at any rate they are not brand new. 6. Bombs were discovered in the kitchen cellar. They were exploded during the attempt to remove them (or perhaps out of fear of taking them away). We ourselves have carefully inspected the site where the kitchen was completely destroyed by a large explosion. Should you have passed on my first reports, then it is only fair that you pass today’s additions on to the same office.

1915-06-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 4018. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) I would like to note the following with regard to the enclosed draft: 1. As the telegrams from Samsun, Trebizond and Harput (the latter from Pastor Ehmann) show, and as Djanbulat Bey orally confirmed to me several days ago with the map of Anatolia in his hand, the Turkish government recently decided to extend

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the deportation measures against the Armenians even further: the Armenians in the provinces of Djanik, Trebizond, Sivas and Mamuret-ul-Aziz are now also supposed to be deported. This can no longer be justified by military considerations; rather, it is a matter of destroying the Armenians, as Talaat Bey told me several weeks ago. I believed that I should point out indirectly at the beginning of the new draft that we cannot agree to such an extent of mass deportations. 2. It must be expected that the destruction of the German-Armenian institutions will cause great agitation in the pro-Armenian circles in Germany. I was not able to achieve anything on behalf of the Armenian personnel from the charity organisation in Marash (in particular, this concerns rural workers); with regard to Harput (Mission Institution Ehmann), a telegram was supposedly sent there yesterday in accordance with our petition. I consider it advisable to make the Porte particularly aware of these institutions and have thus added a paragraph in the new draft which refers to this. First Draft [For the second draft, which was given to the Porte in the form of a memo, see Doc. 1915-07-07-DE-001, enclosure]20 Translated from French by George Shirinian The German Embassy has just been informed that the Armenians of Erzerum who were supposed to have been deported to Harput through Erzindjan were attacked en route by groups of Kurds and by marauders who cut the throats of the men and children, and who carried off the women. Almost at the same time the Armenians expelled from Diyarbekir and who were sent toward Mosul have disappeared en route. The rafts onto which they were loaded arrived empty at Mosul, and the waters of the Euphrates carried for several days the mutilated bodies of those massacred. Partial massacres took place in the region of Khinis. These events are regrettable by all reports. It should be noted that the enemy forces are taking advantage of the situation by stirring up tension among the Armenians, and the news that will be sent abroad will not fail to provoke general indignation in neutral countries, especially the United States, whose representatives have been interested in the fate of the Armenians in Turkey for some time. Aside from this, it is to be feared that following these massacres which coincide with the execution of about twenty Armenians in the capital, the Armenian popula20. Note from Mordtmann with regard to this: Given to Talaat Bey on 6th/7th, who gave a somewhat offended impression and promised a reply.

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tion does not give itself over to acts of desperation by openly rebelling against the government and by making attempts on the lives of those found at the head of the government, whom they accuse of being the instigators of these persecutions. The German government believes in its responsibility as a friendly Power and ally of Turkey to draw to the attention of the Sublime Port this situation and its consequences, which could result in the detriment of their mutual interests, both during the current war and after, during the peace negotiations. The Embassy believes that it is urgent to give immediate orders to the provincial authorities to stop by all means the recurrence of similar incidents. It also believes that it would be advisable at present to grant a reprieve from the implementation of the death warrants already issued, or to be issued against the Armenians by the Courts Martial in the capital or in the provinces, especially in Diyarbekir and Adana.

1915-06-30-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4217; p. 13.07.1915. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Catholicos of the Armenians in Cilicia, Sahak II, to the German Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) Aleppo, 30 June 1915 Dear Mr. Ambassador! In the 66 years of my life this is the first time that I am writing to an ambassador; not as to a stranger, but as to the honoured representative of the German Empire, which is the friend and ally of the Turkish Empire. My letter is neither a complaint nor a plea, for I regard it as my duty to write complaints and pleas only to our gracious government; for as Turkish subjects we can only turn to the Ottoman government to handle our difficulties. I do not suffer from personal difficulties. On the contrary, I hold the government’s trust, and my loyalty has been confirmed by the two highest decorations: Medjidié and Osmania, and by my high religious position as the Catholicos of Cilicia. The reason for my sadness and astonishment is the false opinion that is held here and there as if the Armenians would not wish for Germany’s success. What sort of influence should this wish of the Armenians, if it actually existed, have on the strong and unconquerable power of the Germans, which is admired so much by the entire world and even by their enemies! What value would the Armenians’ praise have on the widely advanced education and science of the Germans!

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The Armenian, who has lived for centuries under the high protection of the Ottomans, owes the previous existence of his religion and his language to him alone. He was given no hope whatsoever from strangers that he should ally with them or, in the opposite case, that he should oppose them. This is the honest opinion of every civilised Armenian. If religion ties a bond between nations and peoples, then the Germans are just as much Christians as the Armenians. And the Germans mainly have a great advantage over other peoples, it is that they do not work in the dark, but rather let the light of their religion shine freely. Because the love of mankind joins weak peoples with strong ones, I can say that both in Anatolia and in Cilicia it is the Armenians who most enjoy the charitable and educational institutions of the Germans. German universities also gladly accept young Armenians who arrive thirsting for knowledge. And the Armenians are not excluded from the advantage of the Baghdad Railway. I was the bishop there when His Majesty Emperor William II, King of Prussia, visited Palestine and I had the honour of being presented to His Majesty at the German consulate by our Patriarch. And again, during a visit to our monastery, St. Jacob, I had the honour of showing Their Majesties and their entourage the ancient Christian books and antiquities located there; and the entire Armenian people were filled with gratitude towards Their Majesties for this visit. Just as this visit is sealed in my heart, so is it also sealed in the heart of every Armenian. Berlin, the capital of Germany, is dearer to the Armenians than their place of birth. The Armenians who are bound to the Germans through the German people’s humanity, civilisation, education, religion and charity, are not so mean as to be ungrateful. As already mentioned above, the good or bad opinion of the Armenians has no influence on the power and glory of the victorious German people. But the widely spread suspicion which rests on the Armenians causes our unhappy, dying people one of its greatest griefs. In the hope that Your Excellency will believe the truth of my letter, I request that Your Excellency uses his great influence to direct this suspicion away from us, which is one of the greatest of our many griefs. We ask Your Excellency to continue intervening on our behalf as you have done in the past. We pray for Your Excellency’s and your wife’s precious life, for the Ottoman government and for the powerful empire allied with it. Catholicos of the Armenians in Cilicia Sahag II [Note by the Embassy, 14 July] U.R.[Um Rückgabe; “to return”] For the information of the imperial consulate in Aleppo and with the request to thank the Catholicos orally for expressing his views.

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[Note by Rössler, 10 August] Respectfully returned to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople upon completion of the order.

1915-07-02-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 20525; pr. 03.07.1915 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Foreign Office No. 1523 Constantinople, 2 July 1915 Dr. Lepsius’ statements on the Armenian question, of which we have been informed, lead us to fear that his journey here at this moment could cause us a great deal of inconvenience, particularly also through knowledge of the Armenians’ terrible situation, and harm our other, more important interests. I consider his view of the possibility of winning over the Russian Armenians by revoking or mitigating the compulsory measures taken by Turkey (mass deportations and executions) to be utopian. I also doubt that he will succeed in calming down the local Armenians, as the Turkish government is determined to implement these measures and, in the end, has intensified them. Thus, I submit that Dr. Lepsius seriously be advised against carrying out this journey. Report follows. Wangenheim [Answer from Zimmermann (No. 1276), 4 July] Lepsius is leaving on Monday and will arrive there in 10 to 14 days’ time. As he had already made all the arrangements and appointments, the attempt to hold him back was unsuccessful. However, he promised to report to the Imperial Embassy immediately upon his arrival and to follow their orders strictly.

1915-07-07-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 21257; pr. 12.07.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 433 Pera, 7 July 1915 1 enclosure. The expulsion and relocation of the Armenian people was limited until 14 days ago to the provinces nearest to the eastern theatre of war and to certain areas in the province of Adana; since then the Porte has resolved to extend these measures also to the provinces of Trebizond, Mamuret-ul-Aziz and Sivas and has begun with these measures even though these parts of the country are not threatened by any enemy invasion for the time being. This situation, and the way in which the relocation is being carried out shows that the government is indeed pursuing its purpose of eradicating the Armenian race from the Turkish Empire. In this respect I would like to add the following to my previous reports: On 26 June, according to reports by the Imperial Consul in Trebizond, the Armenians in that area were ordered to depart within five days; their possessions were to remain behind under the supervision of the authorities. Only the sick were excepted; later an exception was granted for widows, orphans, old people and children under the age of five years, also for the sick and for Catholic Armenians. According to the latest reports, however, most of the exceptions were revoked once again, and only children and those who were not transportable remained behind; the latter were brought into hospitals. Altogether, this involved about 30,000 people in the Vilayet of Trebizond alone who were to be deported via Erzindjan to Mesopotamia. A mass transportation of this kind to a destination many hundreds of kilometres away, without sufficient means of transport, through areas that offer neither accommodation nor food and which are infested with epidemic diseases, in particular by typhus fever, is bound to claim numerous victims, in particular amongst the women and children. Besides this, the route for the deportees led through the Kurdish district of Dersim, and the Vali of Trebizond made an open declaration to the Consul, who had pointed such observations out to him at my instructions, that he could only guarantee the safety of the transport as far as Erzindjan. From that point onwards, they are letting the deportees practically run the gauntlet through bands of Kurds and other highwaymen. For example, the Armenians who had been expelled from the plain of Erzerum were ambushed on the way to Harput, whereby the men and children were butchered and the women carried away. The Imperial Consul in Erzerum claims the number of Armenians killed there to be 3,000. In Trebizond, masses of Armenians have converted to Islam in order to avoid the threatened deportation and to save themselves and their belongings. Apart from the material damage incurred by the Turkish state as a result of the deportation and expropriation of a hard-working and intelligent element of the popu-

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lation, for which the Kurds and Turks who are preliminarily taking their places do not constitute worthy substitutes, our trade interests and the interests of the German welfare institutions existing in those parts of the country are also being severely damaged. Furthermore, the Porte does not realise the effect that these and other enforced measures, such as the mass executions here and in the country’s interior, are having on public opinion abroad and the further consequences for the treatment of the Armenian question in future peace talks. In order to effectively counteract any possible later invectives on the part of our enemies, as if we were jointly to blame for the rigorous Turkish actions, I have considered it my duty to point out to the Porte that we can only approve of the deportation of the Armenian people if it is carried out as a result of military considerations and serves as a security against revolts, but that in carrying out these measures one should provide protection for the deportees against plundering and butchery. In order to lend the necessary weight to these objections, I have summarised them in the form of a memorandum which I have personally handed to the Grand Vizier on 4th inst. I later sent copies of this memorandum to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior. Wangenheim Enclosure Copy Memorandum. Handed by the German Embassy in Pera to the Grand Vizier on 4./7. 15.21 Translated from French by George Shirinian The measures of repression decreed by the Imperial Government against the Armenian population of the provinces of East Anatolia, having been dictated by military reasons and constituting a legitimate means of defence, the German Government is far from opposing their being put into effect, as long as these measures have the goal of strengthening the internal situation in Turkey and protecting it from attempted uprisings. On this subject, the views of the German Government are in complete accord with the explanations given by the Sublime Porte in response to the threats which the Entente powers had last expressed following the alleged atrocities committed upon the Armenians in Turkey. On the other hand, the German Government cannot conceal the dangers created by these strict measures and particularly by the mass expulsions which include without distinction both the guilty and the innocent, particularly when these measures are accompanied by acts of violence, such as massacres and plundering. 21. This sentence was Hand-written by Rosenberg.

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Unfortunately, according to information reaching the Embassy, the local authorities were not in a position to prevent incidents of this kind, which are regrettable in every respect. The enemy powers will benefit from fomenting agitation among the Armenians and the news that will be spread abroad will not fail to stir up keen emotion in neutral countries, especially in the United States of America, whose representatives have, for some time, begun to take an interest in the fate of the Armenians in Turkey. The German Government believes it is its duty, as a friendly power and ally of Turkey, to draw the attention of the Sublime Porte to the consequences which could result to the detriment of their common interests both during the present war and in the future; it is foreseeable that at the time of the conclusion of peace, the Armenian question will again serve as a pretext for foreign powers to interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey. The Embassy believes it is urgent to give immediate orders to the provincial authorities so that they take effective measures to safeguard the lives and the possessions of the deported Armenians, both during their transportation as well as in their new homes. It likewise considers that it would be prudent for the time being to suspend the death warrants already issued against the Armenians by the Courts Martial in the capital or in the provinces, especially in Diyarbekir and Adana. Finally, the German Embassy requests the Ottoman Government to take into consideration the numerous interests of German trade and German charity organisations in the provinces where they are proceeding at present with the expulsion of the Armenians. The sudden departure of the latter seriously harming these interests, the Embassy would be grateful if the Sublime Porte would, in certain cases, extend the delays of departure allowed to the deportees and to permit those who belong to the staff of the welfare establishments in question, as well as schoolchildren, orphans and other persons who work there, to continue living in their old homes, except, of course if they have been found guilty of acts which would necessitate their removal.

1915-07-08-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/96; 10/12, 5758; p. 23.07.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) J.No. 536/No. 19 Erzerum, 8 July 1915 3 enclosures.

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The enclosures include the official correspondence that I carried out with the local Vali in the matter of the deportation of the house supervisor, Solighian, and the former honorary dragoman, Elfasian. Until now, I have not received any written and official answer. Your Excellency will see the further developments in this matter from my telegrams. I respectfully request that you overlook the telegraphic reports that may, in this case, be too detailed and the sharp tone of my first two dispatches, which are due to the excitement of the moment arising from the government’s actions. My statements only expressed and still express my convictions. I would respectfully like to state the following in this matter. I. On the people in question. 1. Director Solighian studied in Germany, is favourably disposed towards all things German, and was a professor of German at the Sanassarian School here for 30 years. Mr. Solighian has always been of great use to the consulate and certainly deserves its protection. All of the accusations against him (e.g., that he formerly belonged to the Dashnak Party), are groundless. The government believes that I possibly receive news through him on Armenians and occurrences in the country that are unpleasant for it—thus its drastic actions against this man. 2. Elfasian, employed by Vice-Consul Anders as the consulate’s “honorary dragoman.” In view of the political situation, I have not made use of his services here. On the other hand, he has not been charged with anything. Due to the striking form of his arrest, he has also earned the protection of the consulate. 3. Stableman Garabet—was already one of Mr. Anders’ employees and accompanied him on all his journeys. Again, there are no charges against him. At present, the government appears to be refraining from arresting and deporting him. II. On the matter in question. As I already emphasised in my telegrams, all of the government’s actions appear to have solely the following purpose: 1. To make it impossible for me or any other consul to associate with Armenians so that, as the Vali chose to put it, “the representatives of the consulate could not be influenced against the Turks.” 2. To demonstrate that, with the revocation of the capitulations, the German consulate is also no longer able to protect its members. III. On the method in question. The extremely abrupt way in which Solighian and Elfasian were deported had to be seen and was seen as generally being directed against the consulate.

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I, too, was of this opinion and informed the Vali accordingly. The Vali denied this and explained that his actions were motivated by the fact that the chief of police had informed him that I had said that I would not hand Solighian over. I made no such statement whatsoever and intimated to the Vali that the chief of police lied. The Vali stated further that I had “freed” the people in Ilidya “from prison.” This is also not true. Firstly, those arrested in Ilidya were not in prison, but moved about freely. Secondly, I inquired only about their welfare, and when I found out that orders had arrived that they be sent back, I no longer concerned myself about them. The only reason I inquired about them at all was because, after what I had experienced here, I could not deny the fear that these two people, both of whom were an embarrassment to the government, might possibly “disappear,” particularly since the Vali had said in one of our conversations that he could not accept any responsibility for the safety of these two people if I did not agree to their deportation. Under these circumstances I considered it my duty to show interest in the employees of the consulate. After the Vali had first refused all of my requests to let the persons under arrest go free, he sent for me on the afternoon of 5 July, suggesting I should undertake not to hinder the departure of these two on 8 July, in return for which he would let them go until then. I replied that in the meantime Your Excellency had requested that those in question be permitted to remain in Erzerum. I would have to wait for an answer to this. Should this answer or permission that they stay not have arrived by Thursday, I could not and would not hinder Solighian’s and Elfasian’s departure. In any case, I would request that the innocent persons arrested be released immediately. However, the Vali made their release dependent on my promise that I would give my agreement “in any case whatsoever” that the persons in question be sent away on 8 July. I had to refuse to give such a promise. The deportation of the persons in question was then decreed on the morning of 6 July, supposedly at the order of the Supreme Army Command, whereby the Vali believed that he was relieved of any further responsibility in this matter. I respectfully request that, in the interest of the reputation of the local consulate, Your Excellency has permission obtained that the persons in question may stay in Erzerum or return here. The entire police procedure showed that the local authorities do not yet understand how to let the consideration for representatives of a foreign, in this case even allied power that made the capitulations their duty, prevail as self-evident politeness, even after these capitulations have been revoked. Apart from that, I consider it my honourable duty to ensure as far as possible that the people who are now suffering because of their relations with the German consulate (and they have been informed of this, among others by the chief of police himself ), receive a certain satisfaction and justification. For this reason I also request that the people in question, should it not be possible at present to enable them to

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return here, at least be permitted to go to Constantinople or to Germany, so that they will not be subjected to the agonising, if not fatal deportation to Mesopotamia. Finally, I would like to emphasise that I have only officially interceded in this one case on behalf of Armenians affected by deportation, where members (so to speak) of the consulate are involved. Otherwise, I always restricted myself to private requests to alleviate the fate of the deported, and this only in special cases. Scheubner-Richter Enclosure 1 Transcript To His Excellency Tahsin Bey, the Vali of Erzerum. Erzerum, 3 July 1915 Your Excellency, I respectfully permit myself to inform you of the following in writing. Approximately 3 weeks ago I discussed with Your Excellency the question of whether Mr. Solikian, the owner of the house in which the German consulate is located, will also have to leave the town. Your Excellency gave a positive reply to this question, should all Armenians be deported, and added that Solikian would be able to stay until the roads were safe and that he and his family would not have to go to Mesopotamia together with the other deportees, but that he could travel alone to some other suitable place, possibly even to Germany, as he had requested. In order to make it easier for Your Excellency to settle this matter, I informed Your Excellency in my letter of 22 June that I had formally employed Mr. Solikian as a house supervisor from 20 June onwards, as until that time he had de facto been the consulate’s house supervisor. As I learned during a later conversation, Your Excellency was more than satisfied with having the matter settled in this manner. A few days ago I spoke to Your Excellency once again about this matter. Your Excellency informed me that orders had been given to deport all the Armenians. I then remarked that Your Excellency had permitted Solikian to remain here until a suitable and safe means of travel offered itself and emphasised that I myself would then ensure that he goes away. Your Excellency agreed to this as well. On 29 June, the chief of police visited me and asked, among other things, whether or not I agreed to the immediate deportation of Solikian. I replied that Your Excellency himself had permitted Solikian to stay until a suitable means of travel offered itself, and that I would speak to Your Excellency the next day about this matter. I requested that he inform Your Excellency of this. After this conversation, I visited the home of our consulate’s former dragoman, Mr. Elfasian, for the first time. My car and my cavass waited in front of the door, which is just a few steps from the police station; this door can be seen from the

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police station. I had only been there for a short while when a policeman appeared, demanded Mr. Elfasian’s vessica and informed him that, if he did not have one, he would have to leave town immediately. As the police must have known that Mr. Elfasian did not have such a vessica, but that, on the other hand, he had formerly not received any deportation orders, this sudden deportation appeared unjustified and particularly harsh, quite apart from the discourtesy of having such an order delivered while I was there. I took the opportunity of speaking to the chief of police about it. He apologised that the order had been delivered while I was there and furthermore, promised that Elfasian would be given enough time to prepare for the journey. On the next day, 30 June, I was already in the konak in order to visit Your Excellency when I was informed that Solikian had been arrested in the market square while carrying out my orders to buy wood, and that supposedly Elfasian had also been suddenly arrested. Your Excellency confirmed this news to me. I did not hide my displeasure about this occurrence from Your Excellency and emphasised that, under the attendant circumstances, this exceptional measure could be seen as also being directed against the Consulate. Your Excellency then promised to give immediate orders to release these men under the condition that I would not try to prevent their departure on Saturday, 3 July. I promised this on my part in order to accommodate Your Excellency. By the evening of that same day there had been no release; on the other hand, I heard that the gentlemen had been transported on foot to the town of Ilidya, approximately 16 km away. On the morning of the next day, I inquired during a ride whether the arrested men were still in Ilidya. I learned there that they were still there and that the order had arrived that they be brought back. When the arrested men had still not arrived in Erzerum by 4 p.m., I requested in a (private) letter to Your Excellency that order be given again to release the arrested men, as I assumed that the police had been careless in carrying out Your Excellency’s order. During this time, a gendarme verbally informed Mrs. Solikian through one of my employees that her husband was under arrest at a police station in town, where she could visit him. I then requested a second time in writing (private letter) that Your Excellency fulfil the promise given to me and order the arrested men to be released. While I then first received an answer via a commissioner of police that Your Excellency was still negotiating by telephone in this matter, and that the arrested men would no doubt soon be released, Your Excellency’s secretary later brought me a message that Your Excellency regretted that “because I informed myself in Ilidya of the prisoners’ well-being” and “because their release would make an unfavourable impression on the population” they could no longer be released. I permit myself to point out the following with the greatest respect to Your Excellency: The arrest of the owner of the Consulate building, who lives with the Consul under the same roof, and of the former dragoman of the Consulate—two people who were in close contact with the Consulate—under such conspicuous circumstances,

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without the accusations raised against them being based on any concrete evidence, the particularly harsh form of their deportation from Erzerum hurts and damages not only those people in question, but is also suited to give the impression that this measure was used as a demonstration against the Consulate. This opinion can spread particularly easily among the uneducated classes of the population. I am convinced that it is not Your Excellency’s intention to let such an opinion arise. The alliance between the two governments, which Your Excellency and I have the high honour to represent here, the joint objectives of both people, who spill their blood as loyal comrades-in-arms to defend their native country, should by itself prevent such an opinion. But it is my duty as the representative of the German Government to ensure that any possibility of such an opinion arising is excluded, just as I must ensure that no measures are taken against people who have had relationships with the German Consulate that are more severe than those against others. Thus, I continue to hold the more pleasant conviction that my aforementioned remarks, as well as my reference to possible unpleasant consequences in this matter will induce Your Excellency to put straight those mistakes possibly made by the police as a result of their over-enthusiasm, that the arrested men be released immediately, and that they, as well as the others, be given time to make their travel arrangements before leaving town. I look forward to receiving a note accordingly from Your Excellency and take this opportunity to assure Your Excellency once again of my deepest respect and devotion. On behalf of the Imperial Consul, [signed] Scheubner-Richter Enclosure 2 Transcript To His Excellency Tahsin Bey, the Vali of Erzerum. Erzerum, 3 July 1915: 8 p.m. Your Excellency! Based on news I received again today, the conspicuous method used in the arrest and deportation of Solikian and Elfasian is generally viewed as having been selected because the people in question were connected with the Consulate; thus, they represent an act of unfriendliness against the Consulate. Therefore, to my great regret, I must once again urgently request that Your Excellency answer my letter of today on this matter as quickly as possible, the contents of which I adhere to completely. Furthermore, I request that Your Excellency postpone the departure of the people in question until this matter has been settled in an adequate manner.

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I once again take the liberty of pointing out to Your Excellency the possible consequences the unpleasant development of such an actually meaningless matter could have, and hope that Your Excellency will find a way to settling this matter in a satisfactory manner. With the expression of my deepest respect, I remain Your Excellency’s faithful, [signed] Scheubner-Richter as Vice-Consul Enclosure 3 Transcript To His Excellency Tahsin Bey, the Vali of Erzerum. Erzerum, 5 July 1915 Your Excellency, With respect, I permit myself to inform you that according to a dispatch I received, His Excellency the Imperial Ambassador placed a request with the Ministry of the Interior in Constantinople that Solikian and Elfasian may remain in Erzerum. On behalf of the Imperial Consul, [signed] Scheubner-Richter [Note by Mordtmann, 5 August] Please enclose: 1. the personnel files of the consulate in Erzerum (see p. 3 of the enclosed report on Elfasian’s appointment as honorary dragoman of the consulate) 2. the administrative decision on the enclosure (telegraphic correspondence with Erzerum) [From the Embassy in Constantinople to the Consulate in Erzerum (Graf von der Schulenburg), 6 August] To the report dated the 8th of the previous month. Journal number 536. As I informed (person’s name) [replaced by Mr. von Scheubner] by telegram at that time, the three people in question had no formal claim to our protection, as they were not recognised as so-called privileged officials by the Turkish authorities. This also applies to Elfasian, whose employment and deployment as honorary dragoman by Mr. Anders first became known here as a result of this incident. His recognition by the local authorities would have to have been requested from the Sublime Porte through the intercession of the Imperial Embassy; however, this never happened, as the files prove. Nor can Solighian, the house supervisor, and Garabet, the stableman, be considered as public officials who, through their functions, are not at the disposal of the Turkish authorities; the consulates had—even under the rule of the capitulations—a

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right to be informed of plans to bring forward and arrest such persons. It can be inferred from the letter sent by you [replaced by Mr. von Scheubner] to the Vali dated 3 July, that such consideration was shown insofar as the Vali had already informed you [replaced by Mr. von Scheubner] several weeks earlier that Solighian had to prepare for his deportation. Apart from that, I must agree with you [replaced by Mr. von Scheubner] that the authorities’ actions against Solighian represent an act of unfriendliness, which can be explained in part by the fact that the authorities had a suspicion that the two persons in question influenced you [replaced by Mr. von Scheubner] in favour of the Armenians. In addition, the authorities first permitted exceptions and moderations, as was also seen elsewhere, for individual persons and even for entire categories of the Armenian population until finally—apparently upon orders from higher up—deportation to Mesopotamia was extended to all Armenians with no exceptions. Thus, if the Vali did not keep his promise not to have Solighian sent to Mesopotamia should he be deported, he cannot be reproached for this. Unfortunately, there is not the slightest chance that further steps by the embassy in favour of Solighian and Elfasian would be of any success; they might possibly even serve to worsen the fate of these people. Thus, at present, I must refrain from suggesting the matter to the Porte. Hohenlohe-Langenburg

1915-07-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 21483; pr. 15.07.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 437 Pera, 9 July 1915 In a report dated the 8th inst., the Imperial Consul in Aleppo reports the following: “Major von Mikusch has returned from Mosul and reports the following: About a week ago, Kurds massacred Armenians in Tell Ermen and a neighbouring Armenian village. The large churches have been destroyed. Mr. von Mikusch personally saw 200 bodies. The militia and gendarmes have at least tolerated the massacre and have probably taken part in it. Replacements (released prisoners) including their officer have spoken happily of massacres between Nisibin and Tell Ermen and have completely plundered an Armenian village, the inhabitants of which were massacred.

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In Djarabulus, corpses, often bound together, drifted down the Euphrates River.” Mr. Rössler reports in a further telegram dated the same day that Djemal Pasha has lately been giving strict orders in order to prevent the slaughter of Armenians in the area under his command and that he has requested here that similar orders be given for the area under the command of the 3rd Army. The latter includes, among others, Vilayet Diyarbekir, in which the Armenians are said to be persecuted with particular cruelty. The court-martial in Diyarbekir is presently carrying out an investigation against a number of the leaders of the Dashnaktsutiun Association on suspicion of treasonable activities. It is assumed that all of the accused, including those who formerly held close contact with the Young Turk Committee “Unity and Progress,” will be sentenced to death. Nothing more can be learned here about other events there. In his despair, the Armenian Bishop (Murachasta) of Diyarbekir is supposed to have committed suicide. On the 8th inst., Mr. von Scheubner sent a telegram from Erzerum that, according to the latest news from Baibourt, Erzindjan and Terdjan, the Armenian massacres have begun there once again. He is of the opinion that these atrocities by the committee, whose members there play a fateful role as co-government, are being supported under the connivance of the authorities. Wangenheim

1915-07-09-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 22559; pr. 29.07.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Trebizond (Bergfeld) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 35/J. No secret 316 Trebizond, 9 July 1915 After Turkey joined the war, the local Armenians began to fear the worst for their personal safety. Although there were no signs of imminent excesses, I still mentioned to the local Vali in a friendly way the question of protection for the Christians in Trebizond and surrounding areas. He gave me the most definite assurances that nothing would be undertaken against them as long as they behaved peaceably themselves and he showed me a telegram from the Minister of the Interior in which Talaat Bey recommended the Armenians to be given special protection by the authorities. Indeed, the Christians here enjoyed the very greatest safety at first and the house searches which were necessary in the homes of some Armenians were carried out with the utmost consideration, as I have been assured by the Armenians themselves.

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This deserves even more recognition, as Russian Armenians on the coast are fighting in bands, not only against the Turks, but have also stirred up severe excesses against the Russian Muslims. Thousands of Muslims, fleeing from them, have arrived here in the meantime and been transported on into the interior of the country. Their tales of suffering are enough to turn even non-Muslims against the Russian Armenians. The Christians have badly rewarded the unprejudiced treatment shown towards them by the Turks. They made no secret of their aversion to Turkey and their sympathies for the Entente, in particular for Russia. They are to blame for the most ridiculous rumours that are going around here, such as the fall of the Dardanelles, of Constantinople, of Erzerum, the Russian landing near Midia or even the escape of the Sultan to Broussa. Then came the exposure of the plot against the Young Turkish system and its leaders, the revolt of the Armenians in the province Van and the disturbances they caused in other places in Turkey. This probably incited the Sublime Porte to take exceptional measures against the Armenians. On 24 June, the local leaders of the Armenian committee were arrested and exiled to the interior of the country via Samsun. The same day I heard that the deportation of all Armenians was being considered and that there was a trend towards using this occasion to instigate excesses against the local Armenians. I have pointed this out to the Vali and received the briefest explanations from him that any possible expulsion of the Armenians, even under armed resistance, would simply be carried out by the civil and military authorities, excluding any irresponsible private persons. On 26 June, the Armenians were then told to prepare themselves for deportation into the interior of the country with only 5 days’ notice. Only the sick were allowed to remain behind and accommodation was planned for them in hospitals. The sale of any of their possessions was prohibited. Their shops and storerooms were to be sealed, all objects from their homes brought to certain places and placed under the supervision of the government. Money was to be brought to the post office for gradual forwarding at later intervals. About 30,000 people in the province of Trebizond were affected by the deportation. A mass transport of this kind on routes where there is a lack of food and accommodation and which is said to be completely infested with typhus fever along the first 300 kilometres, must have claimed numerous victims among the Armenians, in particular among the women and children. This must have provoked justified criticism of such extreme measures both abroad and perhaps also in Germany. I have therefore informed the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople of the situation and have at the same time approached the local Vali in an effort to mitigate the expulsion order. He showed willingness to listen to the representations, which I conveyed in a friendly manner, and made considerable concessions. So for the time being, the following were exempted from deportation: all children under 10 years of age, widows and orphans, as well as female persons who are currently without male protection, which also included the families of those in the armed forces, the sick and expectant mothers as well as the Catholic Armenians. The sick and the pregnant women

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were also allowed to stay in their homes and to keep a female member of the family with them to look after them. Children were accommodated with friends. Finally, the deportees were also allowed to sell valuable and household items after acquiring permission from the Director of Police. During the first two days the transportations were carried out in accordance with these principles, whereby leniency was largely practised in respect of the age of children and of women’s illnesses. Unfortunately, on the third day, apparently upon instructions from Constantinople,22 all the exceptions made so far, except for the permission for children to remain, were revoked. The deportation from the town of Trebizond and the immediate vicinity has been completed. Some cases of suicide and a case of arson were registered. Other occurrences have not been recorded. The Vali gave me reassuring affirmations for the safety of the deportees during their transportation. I also have faith in his energy and his good will to make sure that within his sphere of influence nothing would happen to the Armenians. In the meantime, there are signs that elsewhere there are plans to destroy the Armenians totally.23 In fact, between Erzindjan and Diyarbekir Armenians have been massacred on the mountain road, allegedly by Kurds, and larger bands of ambushers under Frenchspeaking leaders have been seen near Erzerum and Baibourt.24 After all it is remarkable that in that area, which up to now was considered safe, such large bands can be formed. Without being able to produce any evidence for my opinion, I cannot help thinking that the Young Turkish Committee can be regarded as the driving force behind the measures being taken against the Armenians. The Central Committee seems to want to finally put an end to the Armenian question in this way because only in exceptional cases will those Armenians who actually reach their destination return later to their former homes. Most of them will not have the necessary means. This will mean that in future there will no longer be any provinces with a strong Armenian percentage of the population. The local committees of the Young Turks hope to gain extensive private profit from taking over the possessions of the deported Armenians and in view of the dependency of most administrative authorities from the Committee they will most certainly not have been wrong in their calculations. In respect of the Turkish population, on the whole it must be said that very many Turks are not in agreement with the expulsion of women and children. On the other hand, it has become apparent that the Armenians have shown very little pleasant character in this matter. The first who asked for intervention in favour of their being allowed to stay were the priests; it never occurred to them that especially in times of need their place was by the side of their congregations; when it was clear that no exceptions could be arranged for the priests, the representative of the local Bishop, a deacon with a white beard, asked the Vali for permission to convert to Islam, whereby 22. “apparently upon instructions from Constantinople” deleted by Rosenberg for distribution purposes. -23. “totally destroy the Armenians” was replaced by: “proceed less leniently.” 24. The following passage was deleted up to the end of the paragraph (from “After all it…” as far as “their calculations.”

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the latter replied that there was no reason why he should not do so, he only needed to recite the Muslim creed and after that to agree to be circumcised. However, it was also explained to him that the expulsion was not being carried out against the Christians but against the Armenians, so that an Armenian who had converted to Islam would then also be due for expulsion as a Muslim Armenian. The male Armenians, after the declaration of the expulsion order, did not leave their homes at all, but always sent their wives; many government and bank employees managed to arrange for their expulsion to be postponed and let their families go on alone. Heart-rending scenes took place in front of the Imperial Consulate and the private apartment in the country, into which I moved since the serious bombardment of the town by the Russian fleet. Numerous women were begging for salvation for themselves or at least for their children. I have had to refrain from taking any25 steps whatsoever in the interest of individual persons and concentrate my efforts on achieving relief for the people as a whole. Only in one case was I forced to make an exception. In the night from 6th to 7th inst., the Armenian chairman of the local council, who lived next to the Consulate, climbed over the wall surrounding the Consulate grounds with his family, seeking refuge there. To avoid going into the issue of asylum rights, I persuaded the Vali to let him stay. The Vali allowed this on the condition that in his capacity as chairman of the district council, he would help the authorities with their measures for sealing the Armenian homes, house searches, etc. The Armenian agreed to do so. My colleagues here have informed their embassies in Constantinople of the expulsion orders by telegraph. The representatives of Italy and the United States, who are not allowed ciphered communication with their embassies, have had to limit themselves to a short message about the fact. The Consul of Austria-Hungary has drawn the attention of his immediate authorities to the great dangers for women and children which are presented by the mass deportation. My Austrian colleague has placed his intervention with the local Vali for some children, the American Consul for the Persian Armenians under his protection, both in vain. The Italian colleague has had a nervous breakdown for fear of uprisings against the Christians.26 With my Austrian colleague I have discussed the steps to be taken with the Vali. He has refrained from any intervention on his part. I declared my agreement with this because for one thing, I know that the Vali does not like him; then this official has extreme confidence in me, 27 which also enables me to discuss openly with him delicate governmental topics such as the expulsion of the Armenians, without endangering the good understanding which we two authorities have at present.28 Moreover, the Austrian Consul is also of a somewhat timid nature. On the second day of the expulsion 25. “any whatsoever” deleted. 26. “against the Christians” deleted. 27. “on the one hand I know that he is not well liked by the Vali, this official has…” replaced by “as the Vali has extreme confidence in me.” 28. Deleted up to the end of the paragraph (from “Moreover ..” until .. “my American colleague and myself.”)

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he went to the American mission where many Armenian children are accommodated, then he did not leave his shelter in the country for five days. This meant that the full burden of pacifying the Armenians fell upon my American colleague and myself. During the critical days, the police station in the immediate vicinity of the Imperial Consulate was given military protection, and my private apartment was observed inconspicuously by the military. For reasons of prestige, I have refused any protection for my person, also for my rides into the town and back.29 I do not consider it to be impossible that as a result of the expulsion of the Armenians from Trebizond attacks will be aimed against the Imperial Consulate by the foreign press and perhaps also by German newspapers. I consider it necessary to report in detail on the deportation and the steps taken by the Imperial authorities on this occasion. I have passed a copy of this report to the Imperial Consulate in Constantinople. Bergfeld

1915-07-09-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 4354; p. 23.07.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 20 Erzerum, 9 July 1915 Secret Report. No. 2030 Further to my Report No. 19 and in order to orient Your Excellency, I permit myself to respectfully report the following on the local conditions: In the matter concerning Solighian and Elfasian, the brusque action on the part of the local authorities is, in my opinion, particularly the work of Chlusi Bey, the Chief of Police. Since his return to Erzerum—he was in Terdjan and Erzindjan for approx. 5 months—an unfortunate feature has entered the method of deportation here. Generally, the opinion continues to exist (i.e., in Turkish and Armenian circles), and my information has confirmed this, that he is the main culprit behind the unfortunate massacres near Terdjan, etc. In addition, according to information from Turkish sources, a committee has been formed here which consists of 29. From here to the end of the document deleted for distribution purposes. 30. Note by the embassy: Very secret.

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Chlusi Bey,31 Chief of Police Seyfullah Effendi, Deputy from Erzerum Beyadin32 Sehakir, gang leader Mürdar33 Zadé Achmed Jounos Chinasi, and to which perhaps Hilmi, Chairman of the local department of the “Union & Progress” Committee, could also be added. This committee carries on a disastrous alternative government and often thwarts the government’s perhaps well-meant intentions, such as for example regarding the resettlement of the Armenians. The brusque measures used here and the massacres are no doubt due to the activity of these committee members, whose influence appears to be quite great. The first two gentlemen named do not stop at even the lowest blackmail. Scheubner-Richter

1915-07-10-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 4184;p. 11.07.1915. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 8 Mosul, 10 July 1915 The former Mutessarif of Mardin, at present here, informed me about the following: The Vali of Diyarbekir, Reshid Bey, is causing havoc like an eager bloodhound amongst the Christians of his Vilayets. Also just recently in Mardin he allowed seven hundred Christians, mostly Armenians and including the Armenian Bishop to be slaughtered like sheep in one night near the city. They had been gathered together by the Gendarmerie sent especially from Diyarbekir. Reshid Bey continued with this bloody deed against the innocent whose numbers have surpassed two thousand; confirmed today by the Mutessarif. If the Government does not take firm measures immediately against Reshid Bey, then Muslims amongst the common people of the Vilayets here will also begin with a 31. Note by the embassy: Halussi. 32. Note by the embassy: Behaeddin. 33. Note by the embassy: Muhurdar.

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massacre of Christians. The situation here in this respect is becoming more menacing daily. Reshid Bey should be called back at once whereby it would be documented that the Government did not condone his scandalous acts and thereby the general infuriation here could be soothed. Requesting a telegraphic confirmation of the receipt of this telegram. [Holstein] [Answer Wangenheim 11.7.] Telegr. No. 8 received, will inform the Porte.

1915-07-11-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 4250; p. 16.07.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Embassy in Constantinople J.No. 623 Adana, 11 July 1915 1 enclosure. Your Excellency, I have the honour of respectfully enclosing a petition from B. von Dobbeler, the director of the German orphanage in Harunia, concerning the persecution of the Armenians. I left Mr. von Dobbeler in no doubt that, according to the information on this matter from Your Excellency, I consider it unlikely that the Imperial Embassy will intervene. For the same reason I am also refraining from going any further into the sad consequences of this foolish penalising of the Armenian element for the country in general and for the already existing German interests here in particular, apart from the loss of respect. Büge Enclosure Harunia in the Vilayet of Adana, 10 July 1915 Your Excellency, I request with the utmost devotion that you take note of the following.

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Far away in Turkey, far away, I am tempted to say, from human assistance, we find ourselves here in the middle of a people, in the middle of the Armenians, and must watch as these people are crushed underfoot. [After two paragraphs of lengthy praise of Germany, Dobbeler continues:] I dare say that the deportation of the Armenians is too much even for the Anatolian Turks, those who now have the opportunity of enriching themselves as never before and who are also not averse to enriching themselves. But they detest the way in which this is now offered to them. They would really prefer not to besmirch themselves with this and are more than a bit surprised by the measures which they do not understand, and draw their own conclusions about the German government. They all know that Germany is the representative of a higher civilisation, but they have lost their faith in it because they say that Germany is saying nothing in answer to that which is approved of by no one and which its public officials, although they even have a pecuniary advantage from this, are forced to carry out and which they do so unwillingly. Yes, they go even one step further and say that it is not our government’s doing, but that it only has to carry out the will of the German rulers. Based on this train of thought, the Turks in the interior of the country console the Armenians by saying, now they are chasing you away and later on we will follow, for this is the German way of doing things and they want to have the country. But we stand by and are ashamed. Is that not deplorable? The proud saying, “Civis germanus sum” [I am German] almost becomes the basis for an apology in these proud and violent times. I have heard, “We are ashamed to be Germans,” more than once out of German mouths, and I have had this feeling myself. The first time that I heard it I was outraged and filled with indignation, and thought, how could they; but later I saw that they not only can, but they must. Without being shown any consideration whatsoever, the Armenians are forced to leave their houses and all of their belongings behind and are driven away. No one knows where to, off to an uncertain future. Thus, thousands and thousands of them march along the roads of Anatolia, arousing the greatest sympathy everywhere, for there are many pregnant women, many babies, many children, many sick and poor, even blind people among them, many who have only makeshift clothing, walking barefoot with sore feet on the hot and often stony roads. Many of them were rich; they had diligently tilled their fields and gardens; they had large herds; they had all kinds of household goods; they had even invested money. And suddenly, everything had to be left, and while the harvest in the fields waits for the reapers, these people must leave in order to lie around idle and watch how their wives and children go to the dogs. Apart from the purely human point of view, everyone must admit that, economically speaking, a crime is being committed here, that a nation is on its way to damage itself badly and permanently. Contrary to matters in the country, they are now different in the towns. What enormous values have been invested in the most varied commercial enterprises and companies and how many public officials are there who are practically impossible to replace. Thus, companies such as the Baghdad Railway and both smaller and larger

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bank institutions will be forced to close down after the implementation of the government’s measures for the deportation of the Armenians. The Turkish government is not in a position to offer a replacement for those employees, and it carelessly throws away the resources, which it withdraws from the government body. But this is its business; we are only protesting against measures which scorn any kind of civilised behaviour and humanity. Or is it not immoral to throw the educated population of a town together with their wives and children onto the road, to bear the blazing heat of the sun, in all kinds of wind and weather, with no prospect of accommodation, and leave them to a completely uncertain future? It is the responsibility of all nations to protest against such injustice, and since Germany is the only country at the moment which can be considered for this task, it must be pushed over to the German government. Objections will be made that what is happening is an internal matter in Turkey, in which no outsider should become involved and that it is up to Turkey what it does with its country; but these objections are as old as they are stale. In this case, it is first and foremost a matter of Germany’s having a responsibility for the deplorable situation of the local Christians, and secondly it is a matter of preserving Germany’s honour and increasing Germany’s influence. It goes without saying that a strong defence in favour of just measures, which could possibly consist of interning all of the suspected Armenian men during the duration of the war without expropriating them, would make the best impression on the Turks and win the sympathy of the Armenians forever which, considering that the majority of the Armenians are intellectuals, will carry great weight. What has moved me to these explanations? Firstly, my love for the oppressed, who are by no means a bunch of scoundrels, as one is easily led to think of people who are stricken; rather, there are characters among them who force us to respect them. Most of them accept the difficulties which have befallen them in a calm and collected manner, full of trust; without a sound of complaint or accusation, without a word of bitterness they watch as everything is taken away from them, and calmly, together with their people, they take up their walking staff. But in the nights and in the quiet hours the tears will flow and it will become clear to them and they will be aware of the size of their loss. What has moved me to these explanations? Secondly, my love for my native German country and the certainty that nothing better can happen to a people than that it be penetrated by the German nature, and that German influence must also dominate in this country for its own well-being, for one day the world will recover through the German nature. Finally, with reference to the above mentioned explanations, I request that Your Excellency take measures which will move the Turkish government to bring about a change in the presently existing conditions and to alleviate the hardships. I remain with the deepest respect Your Excellency’s most obedient servant, B. von Dobbeler Head of the German Orphanage in Harunia in the Vilayet of Adana

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1915-07-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 3967. Petition. Translated by Vera Draack From Two Armenian Women to the Wife of the German Ambassador in Constantinople Pera, […] June 191534 Your Excellency Madam Ambassador, Baroness von Wangenheim, We, the undersigned, have the honour of begging Your Excellency to have the goodness to grant us a few minutes for a discussion to explain the purpose of our method to Your Excellency. In the hope of having the honour of being received by Your Excellency, we beg you, Madam Ambassador, to accept the assurance of our greatest respect. A. Dagavarian [Note by Mordtmann, 12 July] To 3967. Today, with the consent of the Ambassador, I had a meeting with the Armenian ladies who recently requested an audience with Your Excellency and informed them of the decisions made. The ladies are: Dr. Daghavarian (Mrs.) and Mrs. Zartarian, who, in the name of the wives and relatives of the following Armenians, requested the protection of the Imperial Embassy: 1. Dr. Daghavarian, former Deputy for Sivas and inspector for the municipal prefecture; 2. Vartkes E., former Deputy of Erzerum; 3. Zartarian, Editor-in-Chief of Azadamart; 4. Sarkis Minahrian, teacher and journalist; 5. Djihangirian, member of the Lay Council of the Patriarchy; 6. Hajak, teacher, Russian subject; 7. Dr. Agnuni, likewise Russian Armenian. These people were brought away weeks ago, some of them from here and some of them from Ayash, to Diyarbekir to have sentence passed on them by the court-martial there; there is no further news of them. I informed the ladies 34. Because the letter has not been dated exactly, the date of Mordtmann’s note on the petition has been used for the name of the file.

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1. that Your Excellency is deeply sympathetic over the worries and the grief from which the families of these men are suffering; 2. that official intervention on behalf of those named is out of the question; 3. that the Imperial Embassy sincerely hopes that the court-martial will not pass a death sentence, resp. that such a judgement will not be carried out; 4. that I believed it to be certain that the Sublime Porte was aware of our view and that I hoped that the Sublime Porte would show consideration for this. Also today, I mentioned the above in passing to Aziz Bey, the assistant of Djanbulad Bey (the latter was not in his office) and asked him if the relatives of the aforementioned Armenians—naturally, under the usual restrictions—were allowed to correspond with them by telegram or mail. He answered the question in the affirmative. Haig Effendi has been appointed by us to inform the interested parties of this. I would respectfully like to advocate that, should His Excellency, the Ambassador, refer to the Armenian question at the Sublime Porte, he also draw their attention to the Armenians placed before the court-martial in Diyarbekir. [Note by Neurath, 14 July] I am not in favour of this. At present, we cannot do any more than has already been done. [Note by Mordtmann, 14 July] Note taken.

1915-07-13-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 21962; pr. 21.07.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 443 Pera, 13 July 1915 1 enclosure. Miss Frieda Wolf Hunecke from Rischenau (Lippe-Detmold) was employed at the former English Mission Station in Everek near Kayseri until 28 April of this year, but was then expelled by the municipal authority because she had concealed forbidden

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weapons belonging to Armenians. She first moved to the German-American Orphanage in Zindjidere near Talat, and came here from there at the beginning of July after the Imperial Embassy intervened with the Mutesarrif of Kayseri, who permitted her to leave; a few days ago she returned to her home country from here. Shortly before leaving, she submitted a report of her experiences in Everek to the Imperial Embassy, the original of which is enclosed. As attested by the note at the top of the report, she gave a transcript of it to the local American Embassy. It has been further determined that the Armenian Patriarch had previous knowledge of some parts of this report and, thus, it is to be expected that Miss Hunecke’s account will be circulated further.35 The bombs found in Everek are mentioned in the report from this side dated 8 May, No. 286.36 It is obvious that this matter is not as harmless as Miss Hunecke presents it; in a former letter to the Imperial Embassy she freely admitted having hidden a Mauser and a shotgun—supposedly a hunting rifle—in her home at the request of the Armenians and later assisted in getting rid of these two weapons. Wangenheim Enclosure The things one experiences.37 It was on 11 February 1915 when a bomb exploded in the hand of a good-fornothing Armenian who, if I am not mistaken, had returned from the United States in the summer of 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the war. As I learned from government officials, etc., at the proper office, he had been on the point of making the bomb in question, for if it had been finished, then the old hut in which he lived would have been blown up, and had he been a master at this trade, it would not have exploded in his hand. The young man died of his wounds about 6 hours later. Now it was, of course, the government’s duty to investigate the matter, and it became clear in time that this had been the 4th bomb he had made. But about 70 further bombs were also found in Everek from the time of Abdul-Hamid, approx. 23 Badman38 (6 okas each) of lead, a petroleum-[not deciphered] with powder and perhaps 60-100 Mauser rifles and revolvers. All of these bombs, however, were found only with the Huntchakians and Troshakians. As they also did in my case, the authorities are now attempting to enlarge everything 70 times: in Everek, they claimed to have found 5,000 Mausers and revolvers, the young man supposedly made 95 bombs, etc. I was told this at some time by the government about 3 months ago—4 weeks after the matter began—but there was no more talk of this afterwards. When 35. Note by Rosenberg: “Hopefully not by the press!” 36. 1915-05-08-DE-001. 37. Note by Wolf Hunecke: The American Embassy received a transcript of this in which the final days concerning Germany were left out. 38. Corrected: Batman.

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I spoke to the Mutesarif in Kayseri during my application for a Teskeri to travel here, he made the above-mentioned statements to me (i.e., that 80 bombs were found in Everek and 200 in Kayseri). He also showed me a photograph of the weapons found in Everek and one of those in Kayseri, and, based on these, I estimated the number of weapons mentioned.39 Now how was all this found? After the experiences of 1896, in which the people were first disarmed and then massacred, it was a matter of course that the existence of other bombs, etc., would be denied. But right in the first week a man was caught in the street in the process of burying 24 bombs, which seemingly had been made at the time of Abdul Hamid, but were filled in part more recently and in part were completely empty. Intensive house searches led to the finding of 3 bombs each in 2 other houses. Then the Kaymakam, Adil Bey, a marvellous man who stood decidedly against the maltreatment of the people by the brutal gendarmes, was transferred, and a blood-thirsty Circassian took his place, who did not rest until he saw blood wherever possible. One day I was called to a house and shown a quilt sent from the jail to be washed, one side of which was completely soiled with blood, in long stripes actually, as well as completely wet and dirtied clothes. It was a mystery to me what had been done to the prisoners in jail. But then I got to the bottom of the matter by means of 2 credible persons who experienced this themselves in part. The prisoner is placed in stocks (as used during Roman times) with 2 gendarmes on each side and 2 at the foot end who now take turns in beating the soles of his feet with sticks as long as their strength lasts. During Roman times, 40 blows was the highest, but here 200, 300, 500, even 800 blows were supposedly administered. The foot begins to swell enormously, then bursts open on top due to the repeated blows, and thus the blood is spurted away. The prisoner is then dragged back to the jail and put to bed by the remaining prisoners. This is the reason for the bloody quilt. As they have meanwhile become unconscious, probably due to the continued blows, cold water is poured over their heads to revive them, causing the wet and dirty clothes. The next day, or more correctly the night because these maltreatments always take place both in Kayseri during the night as well as in Everek, the treatment was repeated despite the swelling and despite the wounds. When Miss Gerber’s deputy at the orphanage in Zindjirderé (Miss Gerber is currently in the United States) was in jail in Kayseri (while I was in Zindjirderé) because of a Mauser rifle which was Miss Gerber’s property and used to protect the orphanage from thieving attacks in the area there, there were also 30 prisoners with completely battered feet, some of which had also been attacked by gangrene, as a result of which some had already been amputated or had to be amputated. Some of these people had been badly ill-treated in Everek and, after the courtmartial had moved on to Kayseri, some of them were mistreated again by the cruel 39. Note by Mordtmann: These photographs have supposedly been reproduced in the [Arabian characters – not deciphered].

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Muttesarrif in Kayseri. After I had been in Zindjirderé for 3 weeks, the latter seemed to have been transferred for disciplinary reasons to a lesser post. It was said that under the new Mutesarif things were carried on in secret: as soon as the Mutesarif appeared those prisoners who were to be ill-treated were sent away. But it seemed to me as if he knew all this very well, but did not want to know. 2 weeks later a young man was then again beaten so badly that he died after 5 minutes. (6 weeks previously, in Tomara, a town situated 6 hours away from Everek, a man had also died after being ill-treated.) The former lay next to an honourable priest I know, the representative of the episcopate in Kayseri, on the manure in the stable where the maltreatments were carried out; according to his own statement, the priest seemingly lay a further 3 days on the manure. After this case, according to eyewitness reports, the stocks were never used again in Kayseri, while this was continued in Everek by the cruel, violent-tempered Kaymakam (Zeki Bey). Apart from beating the soles of the feet, different people have hand-sized burns on their breasts, made with a red-hot iron. I later saw the wounds of a blacksmith who was suspected of having forged the cases of the bombs, but was then set free: his toes had been burned with sulphuric acid (called “Kerab”). Lately, the abdomen is inflated from below and people then use their feet and stomp on it; manure is stuffed into their mouths; supposedly, their fingernails are severed or nails stuck under them. I was not able to confirm the truth of these latter 3 types of maltreatment, but it is not improbable. About 4 weeks ago we received the news that, as a result of the authority given to the commandant, the Kaymakam in Everek shot 10-18 people whom he wanted to bring to Everek for interrogation in a valley between Everek and the town of Indjern, situated approx. 2 hours away. He stated that they had wanted to escape, but in fact the people were travelling unarmed and by donkey while the Kaymakam was armed and on horseback together with the gendarmes. Shortly thereafter, he expelled all the Christians in Indjern within 3-4 hours, among them very pregnant women who then gave birth along the way and, in their desperation, threw the children into the water. He then had some of the men from among those deported brought back, and it is impossible to prove how many have now been and will be secretly murdered. I would like to add here that the people of Indshern are very ignorant—I have never met such an ignorant village—and I do not believe that a single person resisted. In addition, I have never heard that either Christians or Turks resisted in these 4-5 months, but the Kaymakam is now claiming this in order to cover up his deeds. At the same time, he says himself that “no one can resist me.” When I went to him and lovingly protested with regard to the bloody quilts, he said afterwards, “Even if the law forbids it and the Padishah forbids it, I will continue anyway and do what I want to do.” While packing my belongings 3 weeks ago in Everek, 2 gendarmes hurried towards the mountain with one of the deported Indshern people who had been expelled and brought back, supposedly to search for a revolver. The gendarmes returned alone, saying that the young man had fled. In fact, the young man’s feet were all swollen up and he was riding on a donkey while the gendarmes were on horseback.

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Several days before my departure, a young man from the prison was buried; it is unclear how he died. Through the influence of the Kaymakam, the gendarmes there have become animals who seem to have lost all their feelings. Until the middle of April I was of the opinion—and said so to the people—that a revolver was sufficient for self-defence. Then, when I learned details of the massacres of 1896 in Kayseri from eyewitnesses, I realised that a revolver is of no use in such times. It wasn’t 2 and 3 people eager to murder who forced their way into a house, but rather, it was said that entire companies of approx. 300 men forced their way in. Even if it was only one-quarter of that number, one revolver would still make no difference. Bombs were also used in one of the two massacres of 1896 or 1909. For one house was spared by the fact that the owner himself stood prepared on the roof with several bombs, showing them to the blood-thirsty crowd, whereupon it dispersed. An American missionary who was then in Kayseri also confirmed that he had already heard of the existence of bombs at that time. The deportations were to be carried out in Everek after my departure. In Konia, I met a former colleague from Harput, Sister Laura Möhring, who had come from Baghdad and told me of the nameless misery of the deportees in the desert, where they were situated without bread or water. She met a preacher with his village inhabitants in a khan, where they were staying for several days because of the many ill. He told her that an average of five of his people died every day. During the first few days things went fairly well, as long as the food they had brought along lasted, but then things became more hopeless from day to day, particularly in the middle of the desert where the people were perishing. Some of the orphaned girls from the Germans in Marash had been there in this matter and had said to Sister Laura in a desperate manner, “Why does God permit such a thing?” The German Consul in Aleppo estimates the number of deportees at 30,000. 5,000 Zeytunli were brought to the unhealthy Sultani in the area around Konia. In the beginning, the government distributed bread there, but after this was all gone the misery there is supposed to be dreadful. According to statements by Dr. Dad from Konia, the wealthy people from there were also deported to Sultani; for the period in which their money lasted they shared their bread with the poor. Naturally, this only lasted for a while. Then Dr. Dad asked the government for permission to give the hungry people bread, whereupon the Vali answered that the government was handling this and the people were not in need! In Kayseri, the bribery and draining of the population on the part of the higher and lower public officials seems to be more in vogue than at the time of Abdul Hamid. I have no direct proof on hand with regard to the public officials, but this was confirmed by an honest Turkish official, who was against all the atrocities and expressed it by saying, “Nä sàn adersin, ben birlirim, happisir tejidji dirler”!40 The higher public officials simply do not do these things so publicly, but more in secret by 40. The first part of this phrase is not recognizable Turkish. The second part is also not exact, but is very close to “ben bilirim, hepsi çetecidirler,” which means, “I know they are all bandits.”

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using mediators. I have been told that according to the law, foolishly, as both parties are punishable (i.e., the taker and the giver), it never comes to light. For a long time I did not want to believe this because nothing was heard of it in Everek, but while I was there once again 3 weeks ago I inquired directly about this. They were only able to tell me about one single case in which 5 Turkish liras had been taken, despite which the person continued to be ill-treated. In Zindjirderé I got further towards the bottom of the matter through a Turkish worker in the orphanage. While I was there, Charan had to join the army, but he wanted to be free; the lower public officials, “Onbasebs,” etc. made suggestions to him, for which he gave them about 1 Turkish lira and then hid for a while. They had done this play-acting often and poor Charan had probably given them many a Turkish lira, but this time the call-up to military service was a fact, while until then it had seemingly just been machinations on the part of the lower officials who had wanted to earn money. This time, Charan really had to go after having been in hiding for about 14 days, and now he is supposed to be in Constantinople. An Onbaseb from Talbas, who was now finally dismissed for having acted without any authorisation, is supposed to have pocketed approx. 100 Turkish liras in this manner since the outbreak of the war. When I came to Zindjirderé about 2 months ago, there was a particular grudge against Germany. Two Greek soldiers who had been working on the road had been shot. One of them had taken 2 days’ leave as he was now not physically fit and also, if I’m not mistaken, his laundry hadn’t dried, it being winter, but he only came back after 4 days instead of 2. He was then put in jail and shot some weeks later. After the execution and in her great pain, the mother said, “if only they would at least give back the 15 Turkish liras,” from which it was clear that the lower officials had once again used this case as well to receive money. Just on the day before the execution, although the mother knew nothing of this, they had refused to accept food which the mother had still hauled along with the money to save her son. Naturally, the mother had had to borrow the money. The people then reached the conclusion, which, by the way, was the same everywhere, that “it was not like this at the time of Abdul Hamid; things were better then; they’ve only learned this from the Germans.” In addition, the Muhammedans also say as an excuse for their atrocities that “the Germans have ordered this done so.” The Germans order this and the Germans order that! According to the opinion of the Armenians in the interior, their rescue depends solely on the German Ambassador. If he so wishes, they will be saved, and if he does not so wish, they will be lost. In their opinion his power in Turkey is equal to that of Emperor William’s in Germany. I would also like to mention here that the order to hand over the weapons was given much later in the interior than here in Constantinople. It had already been written in the newspapers for quite a while before posters were put up there. Was it simply to be able to torture the people a little bit longer when the houses were entered by force, whip in hand, lashing away mercilessly at everything that stood in their path, or was there another reason? At any rate, people trembled if they even

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saw the gendarmes and the fear sent many to their sickbeds; I myself was at the end of my strength because I lived among the people as the only German and, thus, the influence on me was that much stronger. If, as friends of Turkey, we Germans keep silent with regard to all of this, then we are the barbarians of whom the newspapers write, “Tell me who you associate with and I will tell you who you are.” Miss W. H. P.S. As, despite all this, I still love the Muhammedans—not because they are virtuous, but because they are blind and because the Saviour also shed his blood for them—I would request that this information is treated in confidence. I am very concerned about the Muhammedan woman in her dreadful ignorance, and I do not wish to have learned the Turkish language for nothing. I have also named various persons who would not have given me this information if they had not trusted me completely. I now approach the German government with this same trust. [as above] [Note [unknown] from the Embassy in Constantinople, 8 July 1915] Miss Frieda Wolf-Hunecke from Everek sent the enclosed letter concerning her experiences (Armenian horrors in Everek) to my address. [Note by Mordtmann, 13 July] After reading the enclosure I have come to the conclusion that, apart from the American Embassy, Miss Hunecke must also have informed the local Armenian Patriarch of the contents of her report before she informed us. Several weeks ago, the Patriarch gave me an idea of the events in Everek which matches Miss H.’s description in some parts word for word, mentioning Miss H.’s name in his statement. In later discussions he told me other things which obviously come from the same source; I have marked the appropriate passages in red. It is just possible that the Patriarchate was not directly informed of the contents of the Hunecke report, but rather through the American Embassy. In the meantime, Miss Hunecke has left here, on the 10th inst. at the latest; a letter sent to her on that day with a request that she present herself to my office has been returned marked undeliverable.

1915-07-16-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 22101; pr. 23.07.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 449 Pera, 16 July 1915 1 enclosure. I have the honour of conveying to Your Excellency the enclosed copy of a report by the Imperial Consul in Samsun dated 4th inst., concerning the expulsion of the Armenians. I have informed Mr. Kuckhoff that I am in agreement with his opinion and his observations and have supplied him with instructions concerning the securing of the protection of the German interests. On the one hand, the report confirms again that an Armenian conspiracy did in fact exist, but that, however, on the other hand, the rigorous measures of the Turkish government cannot be regarded as justified. Unfortunately, my interventions with the Porte promise only little success. If I have recently reported in greater detail about these occurrences to Your Excellency, then this was done under the presumption, which is also shared by Vice-Consul Kuckhoff, that our enemies will later accuse us of being accomplices. With the help of my reports, we will be in a position to prove to the hostile world at an appropriate time, in particular through the press, that we have always expressly condemned the exaggerated measures of the Turkish government and even more so the excesses of local official bodies. Wangenheim Enclosure Copy Samsun, 4 July 1915. No. 349. On 25th June inst., I telegraphed the following message: “Due to a general conspiracy and treason as well as the destruction of some towns in Anatolia and the murder of their Muslim population, the government has ordered the expulsion of all the Armenian people to Mesopotamia, giving them five days’ notice to wind up their local affairs. As the Armenians both here and in the interior of the country have considerable German debts, I am requesting steps to be taken to secure these. If the governmental measures are carried out to the full, those war enemies who are allied with the conspirators are expected to take reprisals by destroying all coastal towns.” The main reason for these measures is said to have been the seizure of the town of Van on the part of the Armenians and the declaration of independence of the same, as well as the destruction of Shabin Kara-Hissar (Vilayet Sivas). Allegedly, the revolutionaries in both places have murdered the entire Muslim population, including the Greek Bishop in Karahissar who tried to hide Turkish families in his home.

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It is a fact that a great Armenian conspiracy was excellently organised in the whole of Anatolia and was in constant contact with foreign countries. In all towns the conspirators were well equipped with weapons, ammunition and bombs. Many of these were discovered by the authorities, but most of them must still be hidden. The government, therefore, has every reason to put an end to this dangerous revolutionary activity. However, the countermeasures taken—apparently valid for all Anatolian Vilayets—are of a severity and so conflicting with all humanitarian feelings that they cannot simply be treated with indifference: they involve nothing less than the destruction or enforced Islamisation of a whole people, whose relatives for the greatest part did not even participate in the revolutionary movement and are therefore innocent victims themselves. The way in which the expulsion orders are being carried out threatens to go to such extremes that it only finds parallels in the persecution of the Jews in Spain and Portugal: The government sent fanatical, strictly religious Muslim men and women into all Armenian homes to spread propaganda for converting to Islam, of course under threat of serious consequences for those who remain true to their beliefs. As far as I know, many families have already converted up to now and the number is increasing daily. The majority of those poor people managed to resist the temptation up to now and groups of them have been driven each day into the interior of the country. Hardly any of them had time to wind up their affairs. They had to leave their homes and their possessions, taking with them only the bare necessities. As I have heard, they are now being held in places which are not far away, in order to be prepared even more thoroughly for the Islamic faith; some of them even returned here for this purpose. In the area around Samsun, all Armenian villages have been converted to Islam, in Uniah likewise. Privileges were not granted to anyone except the apostates. All Armenians without exception: men, women, the old, children, even babies, the Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics—the latter never took part in any national revolutionary movement and were also spared by Hamid—had to leave. No Christian Armenian is allowed to stay here; not even those of foreign nationality; the latter are to be expelled from the country. The destination of those exiled from Samsun is said to be Urfa, according to a statement by the Mutessarif. For sure no Christian Armenian will reach this destination. According to news from the interior, there are already reports of the disappearance of the deported population of whole towns. In view of the circumstances described above, on 1 July I sent you the following reply to your two telegrams of 29th prev.: “Some of the debtors have converted and thus retain their rights; the largest part has left. Possessions and stocks are to be confiscated and the proceeds are to serve as security for German creditors. According to the statement by the governor, a commission is to be formed to attend to the winding up of businesses. Collect lists from banks and agency businesses of German companies and assets. Messrs. Torque Mada and Arbuez are working very hard in the interior collecting creditors. German life insurance companies there are very interested; therefore I urgently request their protection.”

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As I cannot transmit ciphered telegrams, I took the liberty of pointing out the currently prevailing conditions in an indirect way in my two final sentences. I have tried to influence the governor to limit the measures of the government to the temporary exile of the male population between the ages of 17 and 60 years, in order to be able to determine the genuinely guilty ones. I also pointed out to him the embarrassing impression his measures are likely to have on the Christian population in Germany and Austria. But all in vain: fanatics cannot be approached with sensible reasoning! What are the consequences? By wiping out the Armenian element, all doings and dealings in Anatolia will be destroyed and any economic development of the country made impossible for many years to come, since all the businessmen, industrialists and craftsmen are almost exclusively Armenians. I also explained this point to the governor; unfortunately, without any success. It is the firm principle of the current rulers to Islamicise the whole of Turkey and to use any available means of doing so. They have not the least appreciation of the enormous losses suffered by the country, as well as the local and foreign business worlds as a result of the destruction of the Armenian element. The German creditors must also be badly affected. For the time being, it is not possible to stipulate final measures for their protection, as it is not yet certain which of the debtors will be converting to Islam and thus staying here, and which of them will disappear. I have received lists of the debtors with details of the amounts owed from the Ottoman & Salonika Bank as well as from Hochstrasser. I have also spoken to the Mutessarif about the measures to be taken. It is said that a corresponding law is in preparation in Constantinople, which will clarify the matter. In the meantime, all the possessions of the deportees have been confiscated. It is foreseeable what consequences the Armenian question will bring about once the atrocities become known. A cry of indignation from the whole of the Christian world is inevitable. All the work of the Protestant and Catholic missions in Anatolia has been destroyed. Our enemies will be able to make excellent capital out of it and even among our fellow countrymen a feeling of deepest indignation is bound to arise. The worst thing about it is that the whole world will put the blame on Germany, as both friend and enemy believe that the power of the Sublime Porte is completely in our hands, and that such an extreme measure could only have been carried out with the approval of the Germans. The fanaticism enflamed in the Muslims and our unusual position in Turkey in the present state of the world, as well as the state of mind of the leading political circles of the Golden Horn, make it easy to foresee the problems which stand in the way of a satisfactory solution to the Armenian question from the humanitarian, practical and sensible point of view. Nevertheless, I hope that Your Excellency’s experienced flexibility will succeed in putting a stop to the total destruction of the largest part of one of the oldest and unhappiest peoples on this earth.

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I do not know whether my telegraphic messages have reached you, either at all or in good time. In any case, it would be recommendable to allow me the opportunity of sending ciphered messages in order to transmit exact reports in good time, for who knows how much innocent blood has even been shed during the conveyance of this report. [Kuckhoff]

1915-07-17-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 23232; pr. 06.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 79/B.No. 1553 Aleppo, 17 July 1915 Your Excellency, I have the honour of presenting some information, which has been passed on to me, which gives a picture of the inhuman manner in which measures passed by the Turkish government are being carried out against the Armenians. 1. In Djerablus, a corpse was washed ashore. When the military Kaymakam there was asked why he did not at least have the corpse buried, since the Koran stipulated burial, he replied that he could not determine whether it was a Muslim or a Christian. (The genitals had been cut off the corpse.) He would only allow a Muslim to be buried. It is also reported from other places that burials have been refused for Armenians who have died in the villages. A procession of Armenians, which reached Aleppo on the 14th inst. after having been underway from Hadjin for four weeks on a most arduous march in the burning heat, carried 12 corpses with it. 2. In the Vilayet of Diyarbekir, a Kaymakam was given verbal orders on the procedure against the Armenians. He refused to carry them out if they were not repeated in writing, whereupon he was dismissed and murdered on the way to Diyarbekir. At first, I only received this news from indigenous Christians, and for this reason I had deferred it. Now it has been confirmed to me by a very trustworthy Muhammendan source. Not one, but rather several public officials were supposedly killed because they did not act mercilessly against all Armenians in their district. 3. Some women who were transported through Aleppo hid their young children under blankets here and left them behind in order not to lead them to their probable deaths or certain misery.

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4. Numerous women gave birth along the way and suffered greatly, also due to the brutal treatment by the accompanying troops. Newborn and other young children were left behind along the way, as has been reported from all sides. A high-ranking Muhammedan took in two children who had been left behind in the desert to the east of Tell Abiad, thus saving them, although he will probably get into a lot of trouble on account of this. 5. Small pox has broken out among a troop of Armenians, which just passed through Der Zor. The sick suffered terribly under the burning rays of the sun. Nothing was done to help them. Another troop, which passed the Baghdad Railway east of the Euphrates River, is suffering badly from dysentery. One of the public officials in the building department sent a railway doctor to help them, while the government is not taking care of them. Typhoid has broken out among the refugees in Aleppo. It is becoming ever clearer that the orders for the harshest and most merciless implementation of the deportation decided on by the government must be put down to Fakhri Pasha and comes from him. Otherwise, it is reported that among the population of northern Mesopotamia and in the Vilayet of Diyarbekir pamphlets have been distributed which agitate against the Armenians. It seems that there is even an attempt to present their distribution as coming from the Germans, an attempt which is made easier because pamphlets have been distributed by the Germans. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler

1915-07-17-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a, 424 [last figure illegible]; p. 17.07.1915. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Pera, 17 July 1915 Yesterday evening, Dr. Davitian called on me on behalf of the Armenian Patriarchy to discuss Armenian matters. Among other things, he mentioned that the Patriarch had also called on the Grand Vizier during the past few days and made petitions regarding the deportation measures. The Grand Vizier had replied that the measures would be carried out to the end. Taking this up, Dr. D. made the request that the Imperial Embassy deal with the matter. I replied: We do not deny the economic and political consequences of these measures for the Turkish Empire and regret them in the interests of the Armenian population.

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It is to be assumed that the present rulers, all of them intelligent men, will have also carefully considered the consequences; they should also have exact information on the individual occurrences in the interior and know the difficulties of undertaking such a mass transplantation in these times. If, despite this, the government continued and expanded the deportations, this would indicate that we were faced with an irreversible decision, against which it would be useless to make further petitions. It goes without saying that we as Turkey’s allies could not exert any pressure and jeopardise our alliance relationship because of an internal Turkish matter. No one at the Patriarchate seems to have any knowledge of the Ambassador’s diplomatic protest on the 4th inst. Monseigneur Thoumayan also visited me yesterday on behalf of the Catholic-Armenian Patriarch. The Patriarchate was informed by the Gregorian Patriarch of the massacres in Mardin, which mainly affected the Catholics there; in the end, this news probably comes from the American Embassy. I replied that we had also heard of this, but were unable to check the news because we had no consul in Mardin. Msgr. Th. also added that all of the Armenians in Marzovan (Vilayet Sivas) and in Malatia (Harpa) had also been killed. I then informed him of my opinion that nothing could be done about this. The Catholic-Armenian Patriarch wishes to bring about a diplomatic protest directly from the Pope.

1915-07-21-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/169; A53a; translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Pera, 21 July 1915 Miss Thora Wedel-Jarlsberg (Norwegian) and Miss Eva Elvers who, until recently, were employed as nurses in Turkish hospitals in Erzerum and then in Erzindjan (most recently in the Red Cross Hospital in Erzindjan run by Dr. Colley), visited me today. Both of them know the country and its inhabitants in Turkish-Armenia and particularly Kurdistan from their own experience through many years of work with the missions of the Charity-Organisation, etc. Their opinion of the Armenian matters was that the Armenians themselves were to blame for the misfortune which had befallen them; the two associations, Dashnaktsutiun and Hintschak, which had systematically worked on and terrorised the

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Armenian population for years, were mainly to blame. The Turkish government was completely right to take action against these dangerous elements. But the two ladies also openly expressed their repulsion and indignation over the massacre of the defenceless and innocent population, in particular women and children in the area surrounding Erzerum and in the Vilayet of Sivas. This account of the details concurs fully with that which Major Dr. Pietschmann told us, who made the journey from Erzerum to here at almost the same time as the ladies. If, under the impression made upon them by the atrocities which they saw with their own eyes, they voiced their feelings openly and attempted to save individual children who were doomed to die, then at least from a humane point of view this is understandable and excusable. As already known, this careless behaviour led to the Mutessarrif of Erzindjan ordering them to leave Erzindjan, at first for Sivas. As far as Dr. Colley is concerned, he took the strictly correct point of view of non-intervention; if the picture presented by the above mentioned ladies is correct, then he has gone too far in this direction, inasmuch as in the end he did not prevent their having to undertake the journey at the Mutessarrif ’s order without sufficient protection; they were not even permitted to wait for Dr. Pietschmann, who arrived in Erzindjan on the following day, in order to travel with him. It had been both ladies’ intention to travel from Erzindjan to Harput (Mezré), where they had left all of their belongings. They met Count von Schulenburg in Kayseri.

1915-07-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 23905; pr. 13.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Trebizond (Bergfeld) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 36/ J.No. secr. 339 Trebizond, 25 July 1915 Further to Report No. 35 dated 9 July 1915—J.No.Geh. 316. [A 22559.] Soon after the Armenians were taken away from Trebizond, rumours began to spread that the massacre of these people had already begun, that the mouth of the Deïrmendere River which follows the road they took from Trebizond for about 100 kilometres into the interior and the area immediately surrounding the town was filled with piles of corpses, and similar things. Experience has shown that fantasies in Trebizond,

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which are hostile to the Turks, produce the strangest effects. Thus, the rumours were accepted by the Imperial Consulate with great caution. In the meantime, they increased to statements made with such certainty that in the interests of German and Turkish reputation I considered it my responsibility to examine the truth of these statements. In order to spare Turkish sensitivity, I informed the Vali of my intention, but I did so when it was too late to cover over any tracks of acts of violence against the Armenians. The Vali declared himself to be in complete agreement with my plan and my intention of taking an American colleague along as a neutral witness. Together with the latter, I rode for four hours on the 17th inst. on the path along the Deïrmendere River. We found one corpse which had been lying in the water for about 7 days, proof that the methodical removal of possible corpses had not yet been carried out. In addition, we met three workers who reported to us that they had been ordered that morning to search the river and bury any corpses found. According to their seemingly credible statements they had found four corpses, including a female one. Finally, the inhabitants reported to us that they had seen a corpse floating down the river. Due to the low water-level and the nature of the Deïmendere River, which flows in a broad bed of sand, often dividing into small and flat branches filled with stones, it is impossible that the current could have caused larger piles of corpses to drift into the sea before we arrived. In the meantime, news has reached us from those who were deported on the first day that their convoy, which was the most extensive, has arrived in Erzindjan without the loss of even one person. Thus, I consider all rumours concerning wrongs against the Armenians deported from Trebizond to be unfounded and I assume that those Armenians who died along the way met their end by means of suicide or illness. It has not been possible to verify rumours about the looting of the deported by accompanying troops. It seems to me that such cases cannot be discounted; on the other hand, based on my knowledge of the Armenian character, I consider it to be more than probable that they made rich presents to the gendarmes in an attempt to win their special favour and receive small services from them during the journey. The ill feeling against the leaders of the Committee for Unity and Progress in Trebizond with regard to the deportation of the Armenians has led to further repercussions among the Mohammedans. It is understandable that the old enemies of the Committee are gladly using this as a pretext to disrupt its position. But even the Committee’s supporters are openly disapproving the brusque action against the Armenians. They have various motives. Most of them are governed by purely humane reasons. But it must not be underestimated that some of the Committee members are indignant about the fact that they themselves must watch the leaders filling their pockets because of the deportation. At any rate, the position of the leaders of the local Committee seems to be very shaky.41 I have sent a transcript of this report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Bergfeld 41. This paragraph as well as the final sentence were deleted before the report was distributed.

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1915-07-27-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 23991; pr. 14.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 81/B.No. 1645 Aleppo, 27 July 1915 Confidential The following has become known to me since my last report dated 17th inst., - No. 79 - concerning the deportation of the Armenians and the way in which it is being carried out: 1. As was to be expected after the dismissal of the local Vali, Djelal Bey, the deportation has now been extended to the coastal strip of the Vilayet Aleppo. According to news from an Armenian source, the order for the clearance of Alexandretta, Antioch, Harem, Beilan, Soukluk, Kessab and other towns has been given, but a short term of notice has been granted for carrying this out. The Imperial Vice-Consulate in Alexandretta had not received any notification by 17th inst.42 2. According to news received by the Catholicos of Sis, 800 to 1,000 men who had been sent from Diyarbekir to the south, never arrived. It is presumed that they have all been murdered. This must refer to an event which happened weeks ago. 3. As was reported to me on 17th inst., it was observed in Rumkaleh, Biredjik and Djerablus that bodies had been floating past on the Euphrates for a total of 25 days. The corpses were all bound together in the same way, two by two, back to back. This regularity indicates that they were not the result of butchery, but had been killed intentionally by the authorities. Rumour has it, and this is probable, that the bodies had been thrown into the river in Adiaman by soldiers. As is reported below, the bodies had stopped floating past for an interval of several days and then began again, in much larger numbers. This time they were mainly the bodies of women and children. 4. As I heard from an elderly Swiss couple, who are definitely trustworthy and have until now been living in Tel Abiad, the Armenians in that town sold their daughters aged 8-12 years, first for 2 medjidis (one medjidi was equivalent to about 3.50 marks), later for 1 medjidi and less or they gave them away for nothing. Apparently they wanted to spare them the fate awaiting them in the desert as a result of the climate and of the Bedouins. The Turks in the village of Tell Abiad came rushing time and time again to barter with the deportees for their children. My informant told 42. 28 July. In the meantime, this news has been officially confirmed. Aintab and Killis are also to be cleared, even though they are not situated in the coastal zone.

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me the names of buyers. Those passing through Tell Abiad, the first groups of which came from Zeytun—preliminarily heading for Rakka—had been made apathetic by their fate and silently submitted to everything. Food has been given to them in sufficient quantities, but too irregularly. Where water is scarce to the south of Tell Abiad, the younger children are dying. In any case, many are falling victim to the strain. A whole group has already perished completely through lack of water. They were not able to take any agricultural implements with them. What are the survivors going to do once they reach their destination? 5. In view of the severity of the orders given by the government, the treatment of those on the move depends more or less on the good will of the individual officials and gendarmes through whose district they just happen to be passing. So sometime they are fed, sometimes not. At present in Aleppo, where the food supplied by the government was sometimes insufficient and after the Catholicos had intervened on behalf of the Armenians, 5 metallics (20 pfennigs) is being paid for each adult, 4 metallics (16 pfennigs) for each child at the order of Djemal Pasha. The number of those currently on the road in Aleppo alone is estimated at an average of several thousands. They are allowed to rest here for a while. 6. The signs are increasing that the government, either intentionally or unintentionally, is permitting the implementation of its measures to be taken off its hands and turned into the slaughter of the Armenians, which seems to be gradually taken over by Circassians and Kurds. 7. More recently, Armenians have been coming via Ras-ul-Ain (the current terminal of the Baghdad Railway) from Harput, Erzerum and Bitlis. The Armenians from Harput are reporting that in one village, some hours to the south of the town, the men were separated from the women. The men were slaughtered to death and lay to the right and left of the road along which the women then had to pass. One group of women and girls was completely plundered between Mardin and Ras-ul-Ain by Bedouins. Those whom the Bedouins liked were dragged off by them. What will happen to those poor souls when they penetrate even deeper into Bedouin country? 8. One local Armenian told me about a family from Harput who is related to him and comprised 17 people. 7 men were dragged off; their fate is unknown. 2 women died as a result of the strain of the journey, 8 people have arrived in Ras-ul-Ain. Even so, the worst part of the route only begins in Ras-ul-Ain. 9. After being expelled from Constantinople, the well-known Armenian Members of Parliament, Zohrab and Vartkes, recently stayed a while in Aleppo. They knew that they would meet their death if the order of the government to banish them to Diyarbekir was carried out. Thus, I informed the Imperial Embassy of all this. According to tales told by the gendarmes who were accompanying them and who have now returned here, whereby they had met robbers who just happened to have shot the two Members of Parliament, there can no longer be any doubt that the government had arranged to have them murdered en route between Urfa and Diyarbekir.

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10. My report was as good as complete, when an official of the Baghdad Railway handed me the record of which I am enclosing a copy and to which I now wish to make reference. I do not deem it necessary for me to repeat the gruesome contents here in my report. The official, whose name I can produce if required,43 can vouch for the truth of the record, respectively for the care taken in his investigations. He has been known to me for many years as an absolutely reliable man. In my humble opinion, the described treatment of the Armenian people deserves particular attention not only for other reasons, but also because it is being put down by wide circles of the population, including the Muslim side, to the influence of the Germans on the Turkish government. It is said that Germany incited the Turkish government to take the decision to crush the Armenian people until they are completely insignificant. The Turkish government will presumably do everything to encourage this attitude. It will be pleased to shift the blame for the odium of its disciplinary actions onto us. But this will mean Germany’s name being dragged through the mud. The German Consuls in Turkey have received from the Imperial Embassy the order to spread the memorandum of the German white paper on the Russian atrocities in East Prussia as far as possible. But with what success can this order be carried out in the face of a people who, as a result of events, are being forced to compare the actions of their government towards its own subjects with the actions of the Russians in East Prussia? My previous telegraphic and written reports must have demonstrated that the Turkish government has gone much further than the scope of justified defence measures in an effort to counteract actual and possible subversive Armenian activities, but instead, by extending their decrees, the execution of which they have made the duty of the authorities in an extremely harsh and most brusque manner, to include women and children, are consciously aiming to achieve the downfall of the largest possible proportions of the Armenian people by using methods which are borrowed from antiquity, but which are unworthy of a government that wishes to remain in alliance with Germany. As it is at war with the Entente, and whereas the German ally does not consider the time to be favourable for an objection, it has tried—and of this there can be no doubt—to take advantage of the opportunity to rid itself of the Armenian question for the future by leaving intact as few closed Armenian communities as possible. It has sacrificed a magnitude of innocent people together with the few guilty ones. Would it not be possible to put a stop to any further atrocities and at least still save the Armenians from the coastal strip of the Vilayet Aleppo who are still due for deportation? If for military reasons their deportation is unavoidable, is it not at least possible to postpone their transport by one or two months and prepare it carefully by providing the necessary pack animals and food supplies? Could they not remain in the towns of Aleppo or Urfa with a so far explicit right granted to them to 43. His name is W. Spieker, see Doc 1915-09-03-DE-002.

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return later? In a memorandum entitled “The Ottoman government against enemy accusations” published on 9 June in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the Turkish government claims that the deportations are temporary. It explained, “If certain Armenians have had to temporarily resettle in other areas of the Empire, then this was because they were living in the areas of war …” Could it be taken at its word? Are Beilan, Sukluk, Kessab, etc., really war areas? Is the presence of women and children dangerous in those areas, if nearly all the men have been called up anyway? In its first issue of 13 July, No. 192, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is publishing a declaration by the official Ottoman news agency Agence Milli which protests against the claim by the Gazette de Lausanne that the Ottoman government was providing protection against the excesses committed against the Armenians living in Turkey and these excesses often ended in butchery. Unfortunately, many things will speak in favour of this claim by the Gazette de Lausanne. My telegraphic report on the unusually well-witnessed slaughters in Tell Ermen had already been presented at the time of publication of this denial. Major von Mikusch took photographs of the findings and is in a position to submit them. It has been proven that these murders on the part of the Kurds were carried out in the presence of the armed forces of the Turkish government, and probably even with their active participation. The Turkish government has driven its Armenian subjects, the innocent ones, mark you, into the desert in thousands upon thousands,44 under the pretext of having to remove them from the war areas, exempting neither the sick nor pregnant women nor the families of conscripted men, has given them food and water in insufficient quantities and irregularly, has done nothing against the epidemics which have broken out amongst them, has driven the women to such desperation that they set out their babies and newborns by the wayside, has sold their adolescent daughters, with the result that they have thrown themselves even with their small children into the river. It has left them to the mercy of their guards and therefore to dishonour; an escort which dragged away the girls and sold them. It has driven them into the hands of the Bedouins, who have plundered and kidnapped them. It has had the men illegally shot in desolate places and has the bodies of its victims fed to the dogs and birds of prey. It is supposed to have arranged for the murders of the representatives whom it had sent into exile. It has released prisoners from the prisons, put them in soldiers’ uniforms and sent them to the areas where the deportees would be passing through. It has called up Circassian volunteers and set them onto the Armenians. But what does it offer as semi-official explanations? “The Ottoman government … is extending its benevolent protection to all honest Christians living peacefully in Turkey…” 44. Up until the middle of July, more than 30,000 from the Vilayets Adana and Mutesarriflik Marash. The deportations are being extended considerably.

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I was not able to believe my own eyes when I saw this explanation and I can find no words to describe the depth of this untruth. For the Turkish government will not be able to deny responsibility for all that has happened, for the results of the lack of welfare and foresight, for the corruptness of the implementers and for the conditions in the eastern parts of their area that border on anarchy. After all, it has indeed intentionally driven the deportees into this chaos. It will have no choice but to bear the responsibility, even if it should lose control over the elements it has called, as is particularly likely to happen in the Vilayet Diyarbekir. Just like the destruction of the Armenians is implied in this country as being a result of German incitement, the Turkish government is trying to hide its behaviour from the European public behind our authority. I wish to recommend Your Excellency to consider whether Turkish explanations of the Armenian question are still suitable for publication in the German press, and whether or not there is a danger of our being compromised by our allies. I will be sending this same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure Aleppo, 27 July 1915 Record Enclosure to No. 81 On Saturday, 24 July 1915, I brought with me 8 Armenians from the road to Rasul-Ain; 3 women, 1 fourteen-year-old girl and 4 girls aged 5-8 years. One of the women whose husband had been killed and burned before her eyes between Harput and Ras-ul-Ain, had been so badly violated in the station at Touem by staff of the railway (7-8 men) that it was doubted whether she would survive at all—for 2 days she kept falling into unconsciousness and is now in my home, being cared for by my wife and receiving medical treatment. We buried her 7-month-old child, her only son, who was starved to the bone, in Nuss Tell at Engineer Linsmeyer’s. I found the second woman with her two daughters in a workers’ tent in a stone quarry. Sitting in front of the tent in a semi-circle, its front facing the open side of the tent in which the woman, as the only person, was cowering in a corner was 1 sergeant and about 15 soldiers. Engineer Linsmeyer had given me a gendarme to accompany me and he fetched the woman forcibly from the tent. We brought her as quickly as possible to Nuss Tell to safety. We found the 14-year-old girl at the station at Hodja in the hut of a 22-25 year-old station leader who is unmarried. He had tried to rape the girl, but she had resisted for 2 days. On the third day, the station leader left the girl for 24 hours without food in order to make her bend to his lust. The girl was handed over to us by Engineer Linsmeyer, who had threatened to report the matter to Director Hasenfratz by telegraph. In Ras-ul-Ain, there are about 1,600 women and children at

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present, the remainder of several thousands who were expelled from Harput and the surrounding area together with their husbands. Among these 1,600 persons there is no longer one single man or male person over the age of 12 years. The healthy as well as the sick have to lie in the sun, without any food or protection of any kind in temperatures of 43° C, at the mercy of the accompanying soldiers. Engineer Linsmeyer, who last month had spoken to me of the “Armenian scum,” said to me literally, “I am not a man who is moved easily, but at the sight of these poor people I was not able to hold back the tears. I did not think it possible that something like this could happen in our century.” A sergeant by the name of Suleman abducted 18 women and girls and sold them to Arabs and Kurds for 2-3 medjidies. A Turkish inspector said to me, “We no longer have any idea how many women and girls have been abducted by Arabs and Kurds, either by force or with the approval of the government. This time we have done our job on the Armenians in a way we have desired for a long time; out of every ten, we have not left nine alive.” While I have been writing this, my wife has returned from a walk through the town and tells me with tears in her eyes that she has just met a transport of about 800 Armenians, barefooted and torn, dragging themselves along with their few possessions on their backs. In Besniye, the entire population of about 1,800 women and children and only a few men was deported; they were supposed to be transported to Urfa. By the river Göksu, a tributary of the Euphrates, they had to take off their clothes, were then all massacred and thrown into the river. During the last few days, corpses were seen floating down the river, about 170 on one day, on others 50, 60 and more. Engineer Awdis spotted about 40 corpses while taking a short ride out with his chief accountant. The corpses which had drifted onto the banks were eaten by dogs and those that landed on sandbanks, etc. in the river became food for the vultures. Most recently the bodies are mainly those of women and children. The above-mentioned 800 Armenians had been expelled from the area around Marash, from Döngeli and Tschueruekkos. They were told they would be brought to Aintab and should take enough provisions with them for 2 days. When they approached Aintab, they were told there had been some mistake. They were destined for Nisib, but in Nisib: you are to continue to Bumbudj, in B.: you are to go to Bab, etc. And finally, after 17 days, they arrived in Aleppo. In those 17 days, they received no food whatsoever from the government, they had to exchange their few belongings for bread, near Nisib to sell belongings for 5 Turkish pounds and hand the proceeds over to the accompanying gendarmes. They were threatened that otherwise the women and children would be abducted for the night and violated. The women who arrived in Ras-ul-Ain had to undress completely several times during their journey before the eyes of the accompanying gendarmes. Their clothes were searched for money; even their hair and … private parts were examined to see whether they had hidden money there.

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One woman’s eldest daughter was taken away from her forcefully. In desperation she took her two remaining children and threw herself into the Euphrates. A businessman told me that he had seen with his own eyes how a woman was delivered of a child by the river. She then took the baby and threw it in desperation into the river. Said, an immigrant from Tripoli, groom for Mr. Linsmeyer for the past 4 years, employed at a monthly salary of 400 piastres, volunteered for war service in order, as he said, to also be able to “slaughter” some Armenians. As his pay, he was promised a house in A., an Armenian village near Urfa. Two Circassians employed by the store man Seemann in Tell Abiad also volunteered for the same reason. The village elder in Tchadakli, a Circassian village near Göksun, explained to an acquaintance of mine: Ew jikmak itschün giderler (they are going out there to ruin families). In Arab-Pounar, a German-speaking Turkish Major explained to me: I and my brother have each brought an Armenian girl with us from Ras-ul-Ain. We found them on our journey. We are very “angry” with the Germans for doing this sort of thing. When I contradicted him he said: Our general staff officer is a German, v. d. Goltz is a Commander and so many German officers are in our army—our Koran does not allow the sort of treatment that the Armenians are having to tolerate at present. In Nuss Tell, a Muslim supervisor said similar things to an accountant (Elias Salfetty). When I took him to task in the presence of others, he replied, “Effendim, it is not just me who is saying such things, everyone here is saying the same.” Recently a Mulsim shop owner told me after the news of a victory on the part of the Turks: The Vali is not making the victory publicly known yet, he is afraid that the Muslims would attack Christians (meaning the Syrians, but not the Armenians) in their joy. [Name] [W. Spieker] [Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople, 18 August] No. 1547 Please make the best possible use of Report No. 1645 from Aleppo at the most suitable time and in the most appropriate form without unmasking the Imperial Consul before the Porte and express your conviction that the action taken against the Armenians is contrary to the Turks’ intentions and instructions. Our friends in the Turkish Cabinet will understand that we are seriously interested in the forceful suppression of the excesses, mainly because of our being accused of instigation. The strong sense of humanness and culture which is characteristic of the Turkish method of warfare, in contrast to that of the enemy, provides us with the guarantee that our ally will establish the same principles within the affairs of the interior. Consul Rössler should please be informed and pacified by Your Excellency as far as possible with reference to the subversive activities of the Armenians and the steps we have nevertheless taken to help them.

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1915-07-28-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4428. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Smyrna (Humbert) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 10 Smyrna, 28 July 1915 The local Armenian Archbishop and the relatives of the seven Armenians who were sentenced to death these past few days by the local court-martial because they stored bombs have requested that Your Highness intercede on behalf of a plea for clemency sent by them today by telegram to His Majesty the Sultan. Supposedly, the order from the Ministry of War to hang the convicts has already been issued so that, should Your Highness be prepared to fulfil this request, the matter is urgent. [Humbert] [Ambassador Hohenlohe-Langenburg to the Consulate in Smyrna (No. 13), 29 July] Answer to Tel. No. 10. Naturally, I cannot intercede on behalf of persons who have been found guilty of treasonous actions. H[ohenlohe-Langenburg]

1915-07-28-DE-015 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4674. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) J.No. 552/B.No. 21 Erzerum, 28 July 1915 Confidential Report Unfortunately, as I had the honour of conveying to you in my report number 20 from 9th of this month, the influence of a subordinate government has most recently been having a noticeable effect here.

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Apart from this, the Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Army, Mahmud Kiamel Pasha, who has relocated his headquarters here, is also interfering harshly in the government of the Vilayet. In contrast to other cities, the proceedings taken against the deported in Erzerum have been to some extent mild up until now. For example, the government provided destitute families with oxcarts as far as Erzindjan and Sivas. Moreover, the Vali allowed the sick, families without male members and single women to remain in Erzerum. This humane practice, which I, too, espoused, was suddenly put to an end through some sort of influence by the committee. Now, Mahmud Kiamel Pasha has ordered the immediate and most ruthless deportation of all Armenians. The previously issued residents’ permits of those women and infirm still in the city have been taken away and they have been forced out on to the roads, amounting to certain death. This happened while the Vali and I were in Erzindjan. It appears to me that the Vali, Tahsim Bey, who has a more humane attitude regarding the handling of the Armenian question than the others appear to have, is powerless against this sharp course. The supporters of the latter will, by the way, openly admit that the final goal of their actions against the Armenians is their total annihilation in Turkey. After the war we will not have “any more Armenians in Turkey,” are the exact words of an eminent person. So long as this goal is not attainable through the various massacres, one hopes that the deprivation on the long journey to Mesopotamia and the unaccustomed climate there will finish the task. This solution to the Armenian question appears to be ideal for the hard-liners, to which almost all military and government civil servants belong. The Turkish people themselves are by no means in agreement with this solution to the Armenian question and across the country they are now already experiencing the severe economic consequences of the deportation of the Armenians. Scheubner-Richter

1915-07-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; A 23086; pr. 04.08.1915 p.m. The Times (30.7.1915) Germany and the East/Lord Cromer’s Warning To the Editor of the Times. Sir, It is to be feared that the deeply significant and profoundly true words which Lord Crewe used in reply to a question asked by Lord Bryce yesterday in the House of

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Lords on the most recent Armenian atrocities will not reach the ears of any resident in the Ottoman dominions. It is, however, just possible that their repetition in a letter to “The Times” may arrest the attention of some who are interested in Eastern affairs and who are fortunate enough to be living for the time being in countries which admit of the circulation of news and of opinions. Lord Crewe, after confirming the truth of the reports that “wholesale massacre and deportation” had been carried out in Armenia, went on to say, “It was also true that the crimes had not been challenged by German officials, whose presence and influence might have mitigated the sufferings of the people, but had been a curse to the people. These officials had shown a cynical disregard of the country and its inhabitants.” As one who has passed the best years of his life in the East and takes the deepest interest in the moral and material welfare of Easterns, I should like to state as strongly as possible that the inhabitants of the Ottoman dominions, be they Muslim or Christian, have nothing whatever to hope from the establishment of German predominance in their midst. Indeed, could they but peer into the future which awaits them in the event of Germany emerging victorious from the present struggle, they would use their utmost endeavours to resist the assertion of German influence. The results which would accrue from a complete German victory may be foretold with the utmost confidence. Not only would every semblance of genuine Turkish independence disappear, but, in addition to this, the worst defects of Turkish administration, from which Muslims and Christians alike suffer, far from being mitigated, would be enhanced by the addition of a powerful European element which, on its moral side, would represent the least admirable features of Western civilisation. Easterns, of whatsoever creed or nationality, would do well to ponder over these things. I am, Sir, &c., Cromer. 36, Wimpole-street, W, July 29.

1915-07-30-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4453. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 53 Aleppo, 30 July 1915 The government has now given the order to clear not only the coastal areas of Vilayet Aleppo of Armenians, but also Aintab and Killis and probably Marash, which lie

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neither in the war area nor along the military road. Aintab has 32,000 and Killis 6,000 Armenian inhabitants. I dutifully leave it to your discretion to recommend the government to revoke the order, or at least to postpone its execution. Its organisation is by no means sufficient to cope with these sudden mass deportations. Already there are ten thousand Armenians here. In Der-el-Zor there are 15,000 whose feeding by the government is completely inadequate. They have sold more than 30 children in order to avoid having to starve to death. The numerous educated townspeople were less in a position to face the hardships of the journey than the people from villages. Strictly confidentially, I have been asked by the Armenian side whether the towns of Aintab, Marash, Adana and [indecipherable] can be spared for a contribution of 10,000 Turkish pounds each. They have also requested that, if measures to be taken against them are unavoidable, they be allowed to emigrate instead of being deported. [Rössler] [Note by Mordtmann, 2 August] Some time ago the Patriarch also spoke to the Grand Vizier on this point. The Grand Vizier only replied: Are you even daring to threaten us?

1915-07-31-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 24524; pr. 20.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 82/B.No. 1665 Aleppo, July 31, 1915 The Catholicos of Sis had received permission from Djemal Pasha to send a priest to Der-el-Zor to see for himself the state of the deportees arriving there. He has now returned and reports the following: Those arriving in Der-el-Zor come from Zeytun, Yarpuz, Alabash, Albistan. There were 15,328 of them, of which 10,000 were put up in the town, the rest in the surrounding area. Most of them have to sleep in the open. 300 died from the difficulties along the way, 98 drowned in the Euphrates River. Food is completely insufficient. In order to protect themselves from starvation, the deportees have had to sell more than 30 of their children. A weekly sum of more than 500 Turkish pounds would be necessary to spend just 8 Pfennigs per head each day on food.

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Nothing at all was paid for 35 days for those deported to Membidj. At this point I would respectfully like to bring to mind that the deportees in the area of the 4th army, and these are the people under discussion here, are generally being treated much better than those in the area of the 3rd army. By 30 July, 14,000 deportees arrived in Aleppo, of which until now 4,000 have been sent further on, so that at present there are 10,000 people here.45 The order has already been given to clear Aintab, Killis and the coastal strip of Vilayet Aleppo (i.e., once again to plunge 50,000 people into misery). There is no other way to put it for, from an organisational point of view, the government is not up to the task of deportation. At any rate, it has now reached the decision not to send the newly banned to Mesopotamia any longer, but rather to Syria. It is said that they will first be taken to Damascus. But what shall become of them then? The government drags them out of their work and earning their livelihood and will certainly not feed them until such time as they find a new job. Deportation would be particularly unjustified and especially hard for the town of Aintab, in which a larger percentage of educated and relatively wealthy families live because urban dwellers are even less used to the hardships of the road than people living in the country. By the way, Aintab is situated neither in a war zone nor along the military road. It has an Armenian population alone of 32,000, an important element for economic life in these areas! It could not yet be determined for certain whether the order to evacuate Marash has already been given. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler

1915-08-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14086; 14105; 1915 23506. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 590 Berlin, 4 August 1915 As has been emphasised several times in the reports there, we must expect that our opponents and those neutrals who are hostile towards us will attempt to place a share of the blame on the Imperial Government for the oppression of the Armenians in 45. Note by Rössler: I received the following message from the German Mission for the Orient in Urfa dated the 26th inst. which was kept short for safety’s sake, “We are experiencing the saddest things here. Only women and children pass by here from the North—a new type of death march. Complete annihilation is certain.”

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Turkey. As such accusations could also meet with a response nationally, particularly in ecclesiastical and missionary circles, it might be necessary to issue a White Book or a similar publication to justify our position. I would like to request of Your Highness that a collection of appropriate material be prepared now. What will matter in particular is demonstrating that there actually was an Armenian movement in Turkey, with many branches, which was hostile to the state, the suppression of which was a matter of self-preservation for the Sublime Porte, and that the Armenians were incited to their treasonable acts exactly by the Entente Powers who have, thus, taken on the moral responsibility for the consequences. It would then have to be proved what was done on our part to prevent too harsh a treatment of the Armenians and to ease the suffering of those affected. Z[immermann]

1915-08-04-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Pera, 4 August 1915 I have received the following reports: 1. Deportation and expulsion of the Armenians from the district of Ismid: Armash (approx. 30 km northeast of Ismid), solely inhabited by Armenians (approx. 2,000 people), seat of the large seminary of priests of the Armenian Gregorian Patriarchy, with rich endowments and a famous old holy relic, was evacuated on the 1st inst.; Adapazar with about 25,000 inhabitants, half of which are Mohammedans, approx. 1,500 Greeks, the rest Armenians (1,500 Protestants among the latter), was to be evacuated today by the Armenian inhabitants; a supply of bombs was found in Adapazar and the Armenians claim that it was set up at the time (i.e., under Abdulhamid), with the support of the Young Turks. Baghtshedjik (“Bardizag” in Armenian), solely Armenian, 10,000 inhabitants (some Catholic and Protestant families among them) with good schools, will be next on the list any time now. Two Mechitarists visited me today, urgently requesting that the Imperial Embassy intercede, at least on behalf of Bagtshedjik; I told them that such an intercession was completely hopeless. Aslanbey near Ismid, solely Armenian (approx. 3,000 inhabitants; most of them are employed at the Imperial Cloth and Fez Factory in Ismid) has supposedly been completely evacuated.

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The expulsion of the Armenians was headed by a certain Ibrahim Bey, who led the Armenian massacres in Adana in 1908. It is assumed that Ismid will soon be on the list (Armenian population approx. 5-6,000 people). 2) Armenian expulsions on the coast of the Black Sea: numerous Armenians in the district of Samsun have converted to Islam (in Samsun itself, Ineboli, Unie); the Armenian church in Ineboli was turned into a mosque and the Armenian priests act as Imam; those in the district of Trebizond who apostatised were turned away. In many cases, the Armenians in Trebizond were loaded onto barques and taken out to sea, where they were thrown into the water.

1915-08-05-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 28584; pr. 02.10.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) J.No. 580/secret report No. 23 Erzerum, 5 August 1915 5 enclosures. The evacuation of the Armenians has now been completed to a certain degree (i.e., there are no more Armenians in the administrative district of the local consulate). Thus, it seems to me to be appropriate to report briefly on the incidents that have taken place over the past months in connection with the expulsion of the Armenians. Until the beginning of May, the Armenians lived here freely and without hindrance and were able to carry out their business without interference. Individual incidents, such as the murder of the bank director, Pastormadjan, and similar occurrences only had a temporary unsettling effect. The fear of a Turkish massacre did, however, exist, and rightly so, although the presence and the activities of General Posseldt as well as the German consul probably prevented such an outbreak. At the beginning of May, the known incidents in Van led the government and the military to take drastic disciplinary action against the Armenians. All Armenians still in armed service were dismissed from the army and placed in labour battalions. The inhabitants of the plains of Erzerum and Passin, now consisting of only women, children and old men, were driven out of their villages and were to be compulsorily taken to Mesopotamia. This measure, justified on the basis of military considerations,

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was carried out in an unnecessarily ruthless and cruel way. On the way to Erzindjan, those concerned were attacked, robbed and killed by Kurds and Turkish volunteers at Mama Hatun, Sansar, the Euphrates Bridge and Päräz. Between 10-20,000 people were probably killed, but the government’s figures fall between only 3 and 4,000. Similarly, during the same period of time and with the exception of only a few people, the inhabitants of the Erzindjan plain were also robbed and killed while passing through the Kamakh gorge, and the women were kidnapped. I have been informed by reliable sources that the Turkish military resp. gendarmes were involved here. At the beginning of June, the first group of Armenian notables were given a period of 14 days to leave Erzerum. Approximately 500 people left Erzerum on June 16 and marched through the mountains via Harput to Urfa. According to a statement made by the government, 14 of these people were murdered along the way; I have received private information that almost all the men were murdered. The second group, approximately 3,000 people, left Erzerum on June 19 and 20. Part of them, especially the men, was separated at Baiburt, and I have been unable to ascertain anything as to their whereabouts. They were probably murdered. The rest of them reached Erzindjan without being molested, where they stayed until the roads were secured. The third group of expellees, still approximately 300 families, left Erzerum on June 26. They reached Erzindjan safely and without being molested. The fourth group, consisting mainly of tradesmen’s families who had first received residence permits from the government, which were later taken away from them at the order of the army’s Supreme Command, also reached Erzindjan safely via Baiburt. Thus, by July 15 almost all of the Armenians had been expelled from Erzerum. Those few who remained for special reasons because they were indispensable, ill or for similar reasons, had received special residence permits from the government. While both the Vali and I were absent from Erzerum, these residence permits were suddenly taken away from them at the order of the army’s Supreme Command. They had to leave Erzerum within an extremely short period of time and many of them could not even take along the bare necessities for the journey. This last group was partly raided near Ashkale and Baiburt. It included the Armenian doctors and pharmacists, some of whom were shot near Baiburt, supposedly because of a military court verdict. As I have already mentioned, the second, third and fourth groups arrived safely in Erzindjan, with some exceptions, and remained there in the camp until the beginning of August. While I was in Erzindjan, I satisfied myself that they were all right, as far as possible under the circumstances. At the beginning of August they were sent on to Urfa and it is reported that they passed through the infamous Kamakh gorge safely. How many of them will reach their destination alive and well is an open question. As far as the Armenians from the neighbouring vilayets are concerned, the number of people who have been killed is supposed to be much higher there. Thus, for example, large massacres of Armenians have been carried out on the Khänus plain and almost all of the men in Vilayet Trebizond have supposedly been killed. In fact,

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while in Erzindjan I did not notice any men among those Armenians from Vilayet Trebizond passing through. The method of expulsion was also much more brusque; for example, the Armenians in Trebizond were only given a few hours and they were forbidden to sell their things. They were not given any means of transportation by the government, so that most of them had to walk. The Armenians in Sivas were treated in a similarly brusque manner. Concerning my own position in this entire matter, I have allowed myself to be governed by the following points. I was aware—and this also corresponded to the instructions that were passed on to me from Your Excellency—that we do not have a right to stand up for the innocent Armenians who have been expelled, nor do we have any kind of protective rights over them. Thus, my use for those Armenians who had committed no crime against the government could only and had to be restricted to my standing up to protect their lives and their property, to speak out against rape, and to try to ensure that the expulsion which was based on military necessity was carried out as humanely as possible. Accordingly, when the expulsions began I lodged complaints both with the civil administration and with the army’s Supreme Command. According to my instructions, I kept my influence within the limits of friendly advice and avoided any suspicion of this being official. After the first large massacres at Kamakh, Khänus and Terdjan became public knowledge, I followed the instructions given to me by Your Excellency after receiving my report on this and lodged complaints with the Vali in a friendly, but very insistent manner. I thereby stressed that such ignominious incidents only serve to ruin Turkey’s reputation in neutral foreign countries and among its friends. I further stressed that such incidents could easily lead to a renewed foreign interference in Armenian affairs, and they could make Turkey’s position in future peace talks unnecessarily more difficult. Furthermore, I also emphasised the unpleasant situation our government is placed in by these incidents, and that we must strongly urge that any repetition of such incidents by the government authority responsible must be avoided at any cost. The Vali frankly admitted that my remarks were justified; on his part, however, he pointed out that this was not his responsibility, but that of the army’s Supreme Command and that he was at their command. Despite the wellknown insecurity of the routes, they ordered the expulsion of the Armenians without sufficiently ensuring their safety. The Vali then promised to do his best to prevent any recurrences. He did, in fact, try to ensure the safety of the expellees, insofar as this was possible considering the opposing intentions of the committee and other leading personalities. But neither his influence nor his energy was sufficient to meet the resistance he met with both from the army’s Supreme Command as well as from the committee in his endeavours to achieve this. Generally, however, the citizens of Erzerum were treated far better during their expulsion than those of other cities. As a consequence of the Vali’s concession and my efforts, they were granted the following alleviations: 1. Most of them were given a period of 14 days to prepare for the journey.

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2. They were allowed to take their things with them or to sell them. 3. Some of the businessmen and notables had the chance to give their goods, their personal items and their valuable objects to the Ottoman Bank to be kept in the Armenian Church. 4. The government placed ox carts free of charge at the disposal of many impoverished families. 5. Those men whose families were without any further male protection were dismissed from the labour battalions and were allowed to accompany their families. One of the further humane orders of the civil administration, that the sick, single women and children were to remain in Erzerum, was revoked by order of the military authorities resp. at the instigation of the committee. It is extremely unfortunate that, due to the military authority’s acquiescent attitude towards the position of the committee and the unknown men behind it, the expulsion of the Armenians from the border areas, a measure which might have been justified militarily and politically in some ways, has turned into a campaign of revenge, destruction and robbery against the Armenians. Nor is this policy of extermination approved of by large circles of the Turkish population who still think reasonably, especially by the landowners. These circles, which have worked together with Armenians and gotten along well with them, recognise the great economical and political danger of this new “system towards a solution of the Armenian question.” While driving through the countryside, I have often been asked by large landowners, whose guest I was, why the German government induced the Turkish government to act in such a manner towards the Armenians. One of those persons who questioned me, a very respected and influential Bey, added that although Armenian massacres had taken place formerly, they were generally restricted to battles amongst the men, but that now, against the instructions in the Koran, thousands of innocent women and children were being murdered. This was not being done by enraged mobs, but systematically and by the order of the government, “the Committee,” as he added with emphasis. At this point it must be noted that the word is deliberately being spread here that the expulsion is taking place at the instigation of the German government. In educated Turkish and Armenian circles it is said that Professor Rohrbach pointed out during a lecture for the Emperor that the Armenians are a very suitable element for populating the only minimally inhabited regions of Mesopotamia situated along the railway line to Baghdad. The German government then induced the Turkish government to resettle the Armenians there. Naturally, I emphatically opposed this cleverly woven little story, but I was not able to prevent its being considered the truth by many people. Furthermore, it seems just possible to me that both this story as well as the manner in which the Committee deals with the Armenian question will be used by its opponents as a means of agitation against the present government. No doubt this agitation will be carried out next year in particular, when the economic losses caused by the missing, valuable Armenian workers are felt.

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Summarising my reports and my activities in the Armenian question, I would like to note the following: It would be taking things too far to go into the causes of the Armenian unrests here and to examine whether these could have been avoided by effective disciplinary action and negotiations on the part of the government. As far as I know, nothing along this line was done in time. Furthermore, it is a matter of course that in those cases where rebellions took place at the instigation of the Armenian revolutionary committees and Russian emissaries, severe disciplinary action should be taken against the guilty parties. In fact, I would have expected and wished for much stricter immediate preventive action by the government and the military authorities at all the threatened points; not, though, as usually happened, that retaliatory measures were taken afterwards. However, in my opinion there is absolutely no evidence for a generally planned and prepared Armenian rebellion. Thus, in Vilayet Erzerum for example, neither weapons nor compromising documents were found. If a rebellion had been planned here, then the most advantageous moment for such an event would have been in January, when the Russians were stationed 35 km from Erzerum and Erzerum’s garrison held only a few hundred gendarmes, while in Erzerum’s labour battalions alone there were 3-4,000 Armenians. Although it is unfortunate, it seems natural to me that border inhabitants of a different faith and nationality who are oppressed and treated badly by their own government and, thus, dissatisfied, would join up with a victoriously advancing enemy of the same faith who, in addition, poses as a liberator and entices them with promises, and this has also happened in other theatres of war. On the other hand, political and severe military defence measures are just as natural. But it seems to me that it is unnatural and unworthy of a government that claims to be civilised if it first takes no measures at all in order to prevent the foreseeable uprising of some parts of a people who are rightly dissatisfied, be it by means of suitable military precautions, be it through political negotiations; but rather, practically inviting it through its inactivity and the provocative behaviour of its police authorities and “chetes.”46 In doing so, it has also left large circles of its own people at the mercy of the anarchy of the masses aroused by racism and “the madness of retaliation.” But the same government then takes advantage of this opportunity to culturally and economically annihilate and exterminate an entire race as a consequence of and a punishment for the agitation deliberately or unintentionally caused by its own inactivity. The fact that this extermination is possible, that tens of thousands of Armenians allow themselves to be slaughtered by a small number of Kurds and irregulars without defending themselves (as happened here), seems to be proof of how unwilling these people are to fight and to act as revolutionaries. The Armenians, especially the inhabitants of the cities, these “Jews of the East,” are certainly cunning tradespeople, as well as short-sighted politicians, but as far as I have come to know them, most of them are not active revolutionaries. If they were, and had they had weapons, they would most 46. Turkish mounted volunteers.

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certainly have violently resisted the evacuation, since they were superior in number and their death was a certainty. But this only happened in a very few places, probably where the revolutionary committees had their seat. Everywhere else the evacuation was carried out without any incidents, and later they meekly allowed themselves to be slaughtered. The timorousness of the Turkish Armenians is possibly only surpassed by the Turks’ fear of them. On the basis of these considerations and in view of the entire situation, I considered it to be my duty as a representative of the German government not to regard the actions of the government against the Armenians and the measures taken against them in silence. Rather, since we cannot, on the one hand, fundamentally prevent these measures, but, on the other hand and in view of the situation, we will have to accept a moral responsibility for them, we should at least work towards the mildest possible form of implementation. I have gladly accepted the bother and even the danger my attitude has put me in from time to time, also because I supposed that it could only be agreeable to my government at a later date to know and to announce that its representative here stood up for a humane and lawful treatment of innocent sufferers with all the legal means available to him. I have been supported in my efforts by Turks in government and military circles who think reasonably, insofar as they have not been held back by their fear of the Committee. In the local Committee, though, it was a small group of fairly inferior individuals who terrorised the others and who, motivated by their personal interests and greed, preached a campaign of destruction against the Armenians. These were the same people, by the way, who harmed the Turkish cause among the Muslim inhabitants of Russia for a long time, if not forever, by their outrageously brutal action in the areas which were temporarily captured by the Turks, such as Ardanus, Ardahan, Olti, etc. The term “Holy War” has been degraded by these people to a guise for robbing and plundering. They have succeeded in making the Muslim border inhabitants of Russia fear nothing more than their Turkish “liberators.” Unfortunately, the influence of these mysterious men behind the scenes of the Committee, who, in addition, are also hostile towards the Germans, is stronger than one is generally prepared to believe. They keep their influence through their system of terror, and in my opinion this can only be broken through very severe action. Should this influence and the “governing methods” of these people get out of hand, this would be dangerous not only for the Turks, but also for us, their allies. Because the way in which the Armenian question was handled has shown clearly what a dangerous instrument governmental power is in the hands of people who are not prepared to act responsibly and who have only their own interests at heart. I take the liberty of sending the following enclosures with this report: 1. a report on the experiences of a farmer who escaped the massacre at Terdjan. I brought this man before the Vali on the very same day, who first received further information from him about the events at Terdjan. The Kaymakam in question was then removed from office by the Vali.

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2. report on what the wartime volunteer, Karl Schlimme, saw while riding to Trebizond. 3. letter from the Armenian Bishop of Erzerum to the consulate. 4. and 5. letters from the Armenian Roman Catholic bishop to the consulate. I hope that both Your Excellency as well as the Foreign Office approve of my attitude in this most difficult matter, which causes me many unhappy hours. I further hope that I have managed to convince the local authoritative Turkish circles of the friendliness of my advice in the Armenian question even, more so because, despite practical differences, I personally have a very good relationship with these people. Scheubner-Richter Enclosure 1 On 23 June 1915, the Armenian farmer, Garabeth Hadji Oglu Georgian, from the village of Irdazur, 55 years old, presented himself at the local consulate. Before the evacuation of the Armenians, this farmer delivered eggs and other products to the local consulate. He was wounded by a shot in the left hand during the massacre in the area around Mama Hatun. He managed to escape and to reach the consulate. He reported the following on his experiences: The inhabitants of 13 villages from the Passin and Erzerum plains were gathered, about 6-700 carts and 9-10,000 people. This included, among others, the people from the village of Padishvan on the Passin plain and from the villages of Umudum, Schipen, Kieselkilisse, Erginis, Chamshkavank, Kirsinkos and Irdarzur on the Erzerum plain. We marched to Mama Hatun via Yenikoy and safely reached the Euphrates Bridge. From Mama Hatun onwards we were accompanied by the Kaymakam with 10 gendarmes on foot and 20 irregulars and gendarmes on horseback. After we crossed the Euphrates, we entered the Tshividäh Mountains where we were suddenly shot upon from all sides while in a narrow pass. The Kaymakam ordered us to retreat, which we did. While we were again climbing up the Tshividäh Mountain, Kurds jumped out from the bushes and attacked us. Everyone ran in all directions, even the infantry ran away. Our head, however, was defended by some of the irregulars so that 100 carts and the largest part of the people were saved. Later on, we gathered together near the village of Karkin, after having taken 1½ days to reach it. The Kaymakam met us there and suggested taking another route, over the Kütür Bridge to Baiburt. Full of gratitude, we held a collection for the Kaymakam and gave him about 200 Ltq. When we reached the bridge, most of the people did not wish to continue. But the Kaymakam and the irregulars persuaded the people to continue on to Päräz. The following morning, after having spent the night there, we walked on and by noon we reached the Euphrates. We camped here and were just eating when we were surrounded by Kurds … [illegible] on foot and attacked. Everyone fled, some of the people, including myself, saved themselves by crossing the river. Three people near me dropped: two were shot and the third had his abdomen slit open with

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a dagger so that his entrails hung out. Many of us drowned in the river. Those of us who saved themselves returned to Päräz, where we gathered in the church. We had not been able to take one single cart with us; we got away with only our lives. The night in Päräz passed without incident. The next morning the irregulars appeared and ordered us to gather on the threshing floor. We had hardly arrived before they started shooting at us. Some of us saved themselves by running towards the river; the rest ran back into the church in Päräz. The Armenians were then gathered together again, the women were separated and locked into a barn. Once again the men were shot at. Those people who had run towards the river saved themselves by going to Mama Hatun. Kurds were also involved in this massacre, although none of them were Dersim Kurds. Women later turned up in Mama Hatun, who said they had been robbed of everything, even clothes. Many of them had been killed, many kidnapped. Those who were not robbed in Päräz were robbed while on the road. The Kaymakam had only accompanied them as far as the bridge and then turned back. While camping close to Mama Hatun, we received 2 sacks of bread. The next day the irregulars forced us to return to Päräz. Once again, not far from Mama Hatun, we were attacked, this time by camel drivers, emigrants and irregulars. We dispersed, some of us towards the river and some towards town. Together with four other people I saved myself in running into a valley. 2½ hours from the place where we were attacked we had to climb a mountain and had just reached its peak when the irregular following us caught up with us. He promised to protect us and wanted to bring us to the village of Ardash. On the way, he suddenly shot at my four companions and killed them. I was the last one he shot at and he hit me in the left hand. I fell to the ground and lay there. The irregular thought he had killed me and turned away. After lying there for 1½ hours, I saw the other bodies being robbed. I ran away and hid behind a tree. I only travelled at night, so that it took me three nights to get here. For two days I was well treated in the Kurdish village of Khon, where I rested. This was how I managed to enter Erzerum unnoticed, where I then sought refuge at the German consulate known to me. [Scheubner-Richter] [Schliewiensky] [Solikian as interpreter] Enclosure 2 Erzerum, 5 August 1915 Report on my Journey to Trebizond. On 18 June, on the instruction of the Vice-Consul, Mr. von Scheubner, I rode to Trebizond. I rode as far as Baiburt together with the members of the Austrian ski mission. The gentlemen had been requested by the local Vali to take an Armenian family, among them the sister of the local Armenian bishop, with them as they had been given a pass to Angora. In Baiburt we were ordered to surrender the family.

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When we refused, the drivers were taken away so that we had to drive the carriages ourselves. Dr. Pietschmann asked me to accompany him on to Erzindjan; furthermore, our telegrams to the German consulate were not accepted in Baiburt. While we were still negotiating, we noticed that they wanted to take the Armenians away from us by force. We cocked our rifles, and only in this way were we able to leave Baiburt without mishap. On the road we noticed real Committee posts. The gendarmes accompanying us refused to go any further and suggested several times that the Armenians should be massacred. Thus, while constantly expecting to be attacked, we reached Erzindjan. Here, the Armenian family was taken away by the police and interned. As I found out later in Erzerum, an official report by the Mutessarif was passed on to Mr. von Scheubner by the government, in which it was stated that the Armenian family was restrained in Erzindjan because weapons had been found among their belongings. I can swear that the carriages were searched in my presence and that nothing was found. On the morning of 26 June, a large group of expellees passed through Erzindjan, consisting only of women and children. Many among them were ill and well advanced in pregnancy; many women and most of the children were half naked. They carried bundles of grass and ate this because they had nothing else. Some begged me for money to buy bread. When I gave them some they were beaten by the gendarmes. This group headed towards the Kamakh gorge. On 27 June I met another group of women and children at the Sibikoi pass. They were also in a miserable state and were treated by the gendarmes like animals. Then, in Sibikoi, there was a third group, which was to spend the night there. They were packed together in a circle in an open square and the gendarmes did not even permit them to fetch water. Shortly before Trebizond, I met a caravan on 1 July consisting of men, women and children. Based on their clothing, these were Armenian notables carrying their bundles themselves because they had neither wagons nor donkeys. The people of Trebizond were forced out in an awful and cruel manner. They were not allowed to sell anything or take anything with them. On the way back from Trebizond to Jevislik I saw more than 20 men’s bodies lying in and near the water. All of them had been completely undressed. Before reaching Gemishaneh and Kopp Han I saw bodies again. I was informed by Turkish country dwellers that most of the men from Trebizond were killed on the way to Gemishaneh. They also said that many women were raped and killed, especially by the gendarmes accompanying them. Beyond Baiburt I met a caravan from Erzerum, all of them on carts and horses, which was heading for Erzindjan. My acquaintances among them told me that up to that point they had not been bothered. After everything that I have seen I can swear that the expellees from Erzerum were treated the best. I am prepared to swear to the above. Carl Schlimme

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Enclosure 3 Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Copy Erzerum, 22/4 May, June 1915 To the Consul of Germany in Erzerum, Taken up daily with the thousands of difficulties at present and continually exposed to new persecutions, we now have the grim news of evacuating the city of Erzerum of all its Christian inhabitants. Facing the horror of such an eventuality, allow me to address You again, to draw Your attention to the essential points that follow. 1. The Armenians of the town of Erzerum, as elsewhere in the whole vilayet, have not given the Turkish government up until now, any motive for discontent. They have meticulously satisfied and they will continue to satisfy as in the past, all demands and requirements of the government. The Turkish government cannot reasonably formulate any grievance on this subject against the Armenians, and as a result, cannot find in an earlier incident the reason or excuse for such a grave decision. 2. If individual failures occurred elsewhere, this could not and must not serve as a pretext for the Turkish government to rage against the Armenians of the town of Erzerum 3. You have also stated yourself, Mr. Consul, that the presence of Armenians has not in any way hampered Turkish military action. They have, on the contrary, contributed, each class of society according to its means, whether equipment for troops or its maintenance. The Armenians have always been a useful element even from the point of view of military action. You are, I hope convinced that they will continue to be this useful element upon which the government can count should the case arise. 4. We have noted that during the evacuation of the plain of Erzerum, there were cases where Armenians converted to Islam were able to rest quietly in their homes. What meaning can we give to this? In drawing your attention to these four points, I would like to think that you yourself are convinced of their truth and sincerity. Thus, allow me to request that you transmit them to his Excellency the Ambassador of Germany in Constantinople. We place ourselves under his high and esteemed protection, while renewing to His Excellency the formal assurance of our feelings of loyalty towards Germany and our sentiments of loyalty towards the Ottoman government. Allow me to express to you at this time my most profound gratitude for the kindness you have shown the entire Armenian community and I ask you, Mr. Consul, to accept the assurance of my distinguished consideration, Armenian Bishop of Erzerum

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Enclosure 4 Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Your Excellency Mr. von Schueber-Richter Consul General of Germany in Erzerum Copy Erzerum, 5 June 1915 Mr. Consul, In my capacity as Bishop and representative of the Catholic community of Erzerum, we come to request of Your Excellency to kindly send our petition with our respectful gratitude to his Majesty the Emperor of Germany, and if it is acceptable, also to his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, so that they may deign to intercede with our August Sovereign Emperor of Turkey, friend and brother in arms of their Majesties. Our faithful, according to their religious principles, always faithful and obedient to their government, have always enjoyed the kind protection of their August Sovereign and Sultans. Despite this, without giving any pretext, they now find themselves marked in the list of Christians to be exiled from these lands. We come to humbly implore their merciful Majesties to intercede with our August Sovereign to stop this measure that would lead to the annihilation of their livelihoods and of their lives. These countless innocent families with children and elderly must travel to remote countries. Lacking transportation, safety and food, they will certainly perish. We therefore earnestly implore the intercession of their August Majesties for mercy from our August Sovereign, to stop this grim exodus or to at least ensure their safety and means of transportation. With respect, I have the honour of being Your Excellency’s very humble and indebted servant. [Joseph Melchisedechian] Catholic Bishop of Erzerum Enclosure 5 Copy Erzerum 14 June 1915 Honourable Mr. von Scheubner-Richter Imperial Consul of the German Reich! Honourable Sir!

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With salty tears I permit myself to write the following lines after having stayed awake for six nights. The hours and days are running out and the time is very near when the Armenian people of this city, over twenty thousand (without counting the over thirty thousand inhabitants of the villages) will head innocently and in full knowledge towards the slaughter house, to lose themselves and to die. In the name of God and in the name of humanity, if we live in the twentieth, civilised century, I dare to approach your goodness, Honourable Consul, on behalf of the desperate people, present their situation to you and request of you, as from a righteous judge, that help which you are able to give these righteous and piteous Christians. Now, Honourable Consul, I beg your forgiveness for bothering you with my explanation of the situation and the innocence of these piteous people. The Armenian people, who have been ordered to migrate from this city to Urfa, are made up of children who, being between the ages of one month and thirteen years, are minors, young ladies who are both of age and minors, females and widows, elderly people over the age of seventy and people who are ill and, finally, of anaemic and pregnant women. It is clear that this evacuation will take a minimum of three months. How will these piteous people undertake this three months’ journey in the rain and the heat, without money, without provisions, without carriages and, in a single word: without the necessary means? We are not in Europe. It is clear that in the present wartime situation the people must do without even the barest necessities in food. And now, from among these migrating people, what will those mothers do who have four-five children, when the children whine along the way, “Mother, we’re tired,” “Mother, we’re hungry,” “Mother, we’re ill,” and often even, “Mother, we’re thirsty,” and they won’t even be able to find water! Yes, and what will the mothers or children do in case of an epidemic, which is very probable. Should the mothers care for the children or the children for their mothers? And what fear will the women and young women have as long as the so-called “tchetes” threaten to kidnap their honour and their goods forever? Will this not be a martyr’s death for them? How many men will there be among these thousands of children, young ladies and women of age or minors, who can help these weak creatures? Are not almost all the men doing military service; are not the people guilty? Is this the reward for these people who have given all of their wealth, their money, their children, their blood, and all for the protection of their country? O tempora! What will future history tell us? Will the interests of this country and empire protest against this fact? Honourable Consul, your high degree of reasoning and your good heart will probably consider this view to be righteous? The last hope and the last protector of these people is the one and only almighty God above and you below, Honourable Consul. If we consider the case that these people will become victims of the war, then I take the liberty of asking whether these people do not have the right at such a moment of the highest need to request assistance from you as your closest friends as long as there is an alliance between the Ottoman and the German Reich? Is it not possible that His Majesty, the great and just Emperor

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Wilhelm the Second, will permit these piteous thousands of souls to be assisted by using his high mediation? Honourable Consul, while I was still in Rome I saw many monuments fitted with beautiful statues, which adorned the city. It is clear that these statues represented those persons who had become famous because of their good deeds for humanity. Honourable Consul, should your name not be placed in the history of this piteous, but also senseless and old nation in the form of an image on a pillar together with unforgettable memorials if you accomplish this saving act? But the names of His Excellency Posseldt Pasha, of the Honourable Dr. Schwarz and the Honourable von Scheubner-Richter as the “guardian angels” are already in the mouths of these people after they once saved us from the passing slaughter. These are not words of Oriental flattery, but the truth. Honourable Consul, those children who are still in their cradle and whose naked bodies would otherwise be lined up along the way, covering fields and mountains, will later never stop blessing your unforgettable name and binding bouquets of praise and thanks for you if they are saved. Honourable Consul, I have dared to turn to your goodness as a servant of God and the people because the voices of these innocent children have been piercing my heart for six days, to write these lines to you with tears in my eyes, and to beseech you and hope fervently for one last help. Trusting in your goodwill we come to you for refuge and request you to grant the above mentioned plea. Yours sincerely, your grateful servant, [Joseph Melchisedechian] Armenian-Catholic Bishop of Erzerum.

1915-08-05-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4546. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 58 Aleppo, 5 August 1915 Answer to Tel. No. 43. It is considered here as certain that the (mentioned) Bishop of Harput47 was murdered together with several priests between Diyarbekir and Urfa. The silver sacred 47. Stepan Israelian.

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objects that the sister of one of the priests, a woman who was also murdered, was carrying with her fell into the hands of the gendarmes. [Rössler] [Note by Mordtmann, 6 August] Informed Monseignor Sayeghian verbally on 6th inst., who was sworn to keep the source a secret should this information be used.

1915-08-06-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4647; translated by Robert Berridge Notes of the Naval Attaché, Humann Conversation between Humann and Enver 6 August 1915 3)48 In connection with the presence of Dr. Lepsius from the German-Armenian Committee, Enver mentioned a report known to him from an American Consul to the Ambassador of the United States: Whereby the Consul came to the conclusion that the American government would be well advised to give up its Armenian strategy as, through their measures against the Armenians, the Turks have made any future political action with them impossible. The Armenians have not been annihilated, which from a political standpoint would not yet be the worst thing. As with all such massacres, a small number would always remain, upon which all hope for the future could be based. Instead of this, one has spread them out all over the country, which from a political standpoint is worse, so that for better or for worse they have to merge into the Turkish elements of the country. With that, the prerequisites for a promising Armenian strategy have been disposed of once and for all. Enver further related the numerous warnings, which he had given the Armenian Patriarch at the beginning of the war, pointing out at the same time the praise that Sassonow had given in the Duma to the “loyal” Armenians in Turkey. Induced and incited by Russian agents, the Armenians have waged war so thoroughly against the Ottoman population that in the Vilayet of Van, which used to boast 150,000 Turks, only 30,000 Muslims are still alive. Moreover, Enver is also aware of a conspiracy, whereby about 30,000 Armenians in the area around Adapazar-Ismid wanted to support a Russian landing at Sakaria. 48. According to the slightly different version in Jaeckh’s estate, this part of Humann’s notes is an excerpt from an interview of a P.W. with Enver.

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He himself had taken the viewpoint in the Council of Ministers that one must make an attempt to try to get along with the Armenians in peace and freedom, especially taking the war into account. He had also told this to the Patriarch, but together with the warning that draconian measures would be taken in the event of the smallest incident in the Eastern Armenian centre. An army, which is fighting a powerful enemy in the Caucasus must be absolutely sure that an enemy is not standing behind him. To this end, he as Military Commander-in-Chief would use all means available to see that this was done. Enver Pasha is also prepared to receive Dr. Lepsius49 and discuss the Armenian question with him.

1915-08-07-DE-006 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Mekhitarists of Constantinople to the German Embassy Constantinople Pera, 7 August 1915 Some of the Deportation Cases of Armenians A Turk who had served an Armenian for a long time in Trebizond and who arrived in Constantinople several days ago on a sailing ship, reported the following about Trebizond: The first act of the Vali was the sudden arrest of 26 Armenians who were sitting in a café. They were sent to Samsun on a sailing ship, but on the way there all of them except one were killed; he was able to rescue himself by swimming. He looked for refuge with the Italian consul, but at the demand of the Turkish authorities the consul turned him over and the man was buried alive. The Vali then had a town crier report to the population that only the Armenians were to be ready for deportation in five days’ time. They were allowed to take food and clothing with them, but no money. They had to deposit their money at the post office, where it would be returned to them later on. Children under the age of five were not allowed to be taken along: they were put up in a school. Armenians from Trebizond were not permitted to save themselves by converting to Islam. The Catholic priests and nuns were among the first to be taken away. They were sent away in small groups, in other words: not everyone at once. No one knows where they were sent to. 49. Wording in the works of a document in Jaeckh’s estate: “to receive Dr. Lepsius in accordance with Dr. Jäckh’s request.”

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All of the inhabitants in the surrounding villages of Güshana (6 hours southeast of Trebizond) and Mala (10 hours southwest) were killed on the spot because they did not want to leave of their own free will. Turks (Mohadjirs) now live in the Armenian village of Safila. When the sailing ship of the travelling Turk arrived in Terme—between Unieh and Samsun—he embarked and held his Namaz prayer in the Armenian church, which had been converted into a mosque, and on this occasion he saw Armenian priests who, adorned with a turban, held Turkish services. In Unieh, Samsun, Ineboli and everywhere else along the coast of the Black Sea, masses of Armenians have converted to Islam, and despite this some of them have been deported. An Armenian priest burned down his own house and his entire family inside it in order to protect his faith and the honour of his family. Here ends the tale of the Turk, who left Trebizond on the third day of the deportations. It is reported in a letter written 14 days ago in Mersina that the government ordered the Armenians to prepare for deportation in ten days’ time. It was learned from another source that 150 families have already been deported. A traveller and eyewitness—namely, an Armenian who disguised himself as a Turk and was thus able to see everything—tells how about 1,500 Armenian families in Erzingan were taken out of the town and all of them, men and women, children and old people, murdered in the most terrible way in a ravine. He watched with horror as mainly children’s, women’s and girls’ corpses floated along the banks of the Euphrates River. He can describe thousands of individual cases concerning the atrocities, breaking the hearts of those who listen to him. Almost the same atrocities took place in Sivas. No difference is made between the Catholic Armenians and the Gregorian Armenians. Thus, the Catholic Bishop of Karput was deported to Aleppo together with his people. There is no news of the Catholic Bishop of Mardin; according to a rumour, he and 700 Catholic Armenians were supposedly killed. Four days ago, the Catholic Bishop of Erzerum sent a telegram that he and his people must leave the town. The travellers who came three days ago from Angora report that deportations have also begun in that town. The Armenians in that town, mainly Catholics, always distanced themselves from national-Armenian life and do not even know their own native language. They always lived in peace with the Turks, so that the Turks themselves protested against the first deportation order and did not want the Armenians to leave. But the central government pensioned off the good Vali, and instated a new, malicious Vali who carries out the government’s plan without mercy. The danger of deportation is now approaching the capital city. It has reached the gates. The towns of Eskishehir and Adapazar50 have already been vacated. Everything has also been prepared for deportation in Nikomedia or Ismid. The purely Armenian 50. Note by Mordtmann: the information concerning Eskishehir has not been confirmed; on the other hand, Sabandja, Kurtbelen, Geive have been completely evacuated, churches converted into mosques and church towers into minarets.

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village of Bardizag or Baghtchedjik, which has a population of about 12,000 inhabitants and is not far from Ismid, has received the order to prepare for deportation. With our own eyes we saw hundreds of women from this town, who worked in the capital city as servants and laundry-women to support their families there, leave Constantinople the day before yesterday in tears in order to ease the cruel fate of their daughters and children and to die with them. The inhabitants of this poor village were already sorely tested about 20 days ago. The central government had given Mr. Ibrahim Bey, the head of the jail in Constantinople and the former organiser of the massacres of Adana in 1908,51 the special order to pester the Armenians in the entire province of Ismid and the surrounding towns and villages. Ibrahim Bey first came to Baghtchedjik, had 42 respected people of the town brought before him and demanded their weapons, which were turned over to him in good faith. He demanded more than the people had. Then, under terrible threats, he beat some of these people, among them the village priest, with his own hands and, when he grew tired, had them cruelly bastinadoed by the gendarmes, so that some of them fainted and the blood spurted from the feet of the others. He had excavations made in the church to find ammunition, which of course he did not find because such a thing had never existed in this village. The villages of Owadjik, Arslanbek and others were subjected to similar procedures by Ibrahim Bey. Until today, there has been no news whatsoever from any deportees: no one reached their point of destination, even though the process of deportation began three months ago; thus, for example, the Catholic Bishop of Karput sent a telegram one-and-a-half months ago that he and his people were deported to Aleppo, and he has not yet reached Aleppo, for which journey he needed no more than 15 days. In all probability they are eliminated along the way by means of murder and exhaustion. This is not only confirmed by the evidence of the eyewitnesses, but also by the fact that the government leads the Armenians in small groups away from their towns and villages and, as is easily understood, it is an easy matter to kill a small group of unarmed children, women and men right outside the town. According to the testimony of an American missionary, the Turkish inhabitants themselves from the Eregli train station gathered together about 2,000 Armenian children from the fields and hills in their surroundings, who were close to dying from hunger and exhaustion. Even the rivers are used as a death machine against the Armenians: e.g., in the province of Bitlis, several thousand Armenian women and children were thrown into the Tigris River, and near Erzingan into the Euphrates River. And the fathers of these children and the husbands of these women died on the battlefield for the Ottoman fatherland! [Note by Mordtmann, 9 August] Given to me on the 7th by the local Mechitarists; contains specials details on the Armenian atrocities in the villages on the Black Sea and near Ismid. 51. 1909.

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1915-08-10-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 28584; pr. 02.10.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) J.No. 598 Erzerum, 10 August 1915 Your Excellency, Please allow me to send you in the enclosure a short memorandum concerning the Armenian question as well as a copy of a report dated 5 August to the Imperial Embassy together with five enclosures. I may perhaps have the opportunity in the course of the Caucasus operation to contact leaders of the Armenian Dashnaktsutiun Party. In doing so it would be useful for me to hear a willing statement by Your Excellency as to whether endeavours in the direction indicated at the end of my memorandum are desirable. Scheubner-Richter Memorandum concerning the Armenian question J.No. 582, K.No. A10 Erzerum, 10 August 1915 The Armenian question, which has been occupying the diplomats of Europe for many decades, is supposed to be solved in the present war. The Turkish government has used the state of war and the opportunity provided by the Armenian uprisings in Van, Mush, Karahissar and other places to forcibly expel the Armenians of Anatolia to Mesopotamia. By the repression of Armenian schools, prohibition of correspondence in the Armenian language and similar measures, it hopes to finally suppress the political and cultural ambitions of the Armenians. Perhaps it also hopes to damage the Armenians economically, so that in future it will no longer be possible for them to lead an independent cultural life. At this stage I will disregard the fact that these measures by the government were carried out in such a way that they meant the absolute extermination of the Armenians. Also, I do not believe that it is possible in any other way to destroy a culture that is older and much higher than that of the Turks. Also the Armenians seem to me to be very resilient as a race, just like the Jews. As a result of their education, their commercial capabilities, which usually go as far as being unscrupulous, their adaptability, they should succeed in regaining their economic strength even under the most unfavourable circumstances. Only a violent extermina-

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tion policy, a forcible destruction of a whole people, could lead the Turkish government in this way to its longed-for goal, to a “solution” of the Armenian question. But whether a solution of this kind to this question is advantageous both to Turkey as well as to us, I greatly doubt. My reasons are set out in the following: The inhabitants of Anatolia are mainly made up of Turks, Armenians and Kurds. The Kurds are the lowest as far as culture is concerned, the Armenians the highest. From a moral point of view, the Turks must have the best reputation among the rural population, in an economic respect and as manpower the Armenians. In the towns the Armenians also dominate in the economic sector: almost the whole of trade is in their hands. Because of their extremely distinctive keenness to work and their avariciousness, they do not make a particularly pleasant impression. However, in the latter respect, the Turkish tradesman hardly falls any shorter of them, but is much more inferior in regard to mercantile capabilities because those Turks who only have a certain amount of education and possibly speak a European language choose to become civil servants and have, at least in the provinces, a contention for the position of a Vali. The surprisingly high educational standard of the Armenians both in the town and in the country, which they owe to the effects of their clergy and to their excellent schools, enables them to familiarise themselves with European culture and technology and to encourage the introduction of these in their home environment. It is important to remark that the influence of French culture on the Armenians is very strong, and their sympathies are probably on the French side. The many schools, which are under the directorship of French clergymen, have had a very strong influence in this respect. Also, as far as politics are concerned, strong propaganda activity has been exercised among the Armenians by the French and English side, but in particular by the Russian side. England and Russia had a political interest in not eliminating the problems arising for Turkey as a result of the Armenian question. They set themselves up as protectors of the Armenians and, in order to relieve their plight, caused them to make claims which were not only justified by their situation, but also such as were of a utopian political nature. In particular I would like to point out in this connection the disastrous activities of the Russian Consuls here and in Van. Their influence, backed by considerable financial means, is, in my opinion, to blame for the attitude of the Armenians in Van. Also the leaders of the Dashnaktsutiun party, reputed for their political short-sightedness, are completely under Russian influence. Unfortunately, up to now we have only been able to counteract this activity to a slight extent. The young German Consulate in Erzerum was naturally not able to exercise its influence so far. As far as I know it also had no funds available at all for propaganda purposes. The few Consuls, which the German Reich has sent into this part of Turkey, are not sufficient by far for such an extensive field of work, in particular as far as their political activity is concerned, and this is the type that can mainly be taken into consideration here. Also, unfortunately, the local important position was still vacant at the outbreak of war due to the arrest by the Russians of Consul Anders, who was well familiar with the local conditions and politics.

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All these circumstances and their ignorance of Germany and its power have led to the Armenians believing in victory by Russia and its allies and expecting their salvation to come from there. They did not believe the German victories at the beginning of the campaign and the bad Russian defeats, as they had been communicated to them by the Turks. The advance of the Russians in the Caucasus was for them a sign of Russian supremacy. Not until December, when the local position was newly appointed, was it possible to begin the German educational work, and I believe that the calm attitude of the Armenians here was a great success on their part. Unfortunately, it was not possible to convey this educational work to more remote areas—to Van for example. The beginnings of my activity to this effect were overrun by events. Based on my experiences here, I must assume that it would have been possible with extended, well-timed and purposeful educational work to prevent the Armenians from taking ill-considered steps and to make it clear to them that their welfare and their future was only to be sought in a Turkey which is strong and thriving as a result of its connections with Germany. I am of the opinion that now the great majority is convinced of the absurdity of working for Russian interests and is cursing Russia, which has so often betrayed it and is still doing so today. Furthermore, I believe that if our influence in Turkey succeeds in protecting the Armenian people from being destroyed, we will reap gratitude and valuable collaboration from the largest part of them for the development of Anatolia. On the other hand, if the Armenians are permanently exiled from Anatolia, this country would be robbed of its most valuable manpower. The Turkish people, who are lesser in number, decimated by military service, cannot offer a replacement for them. It would take decades for the Kurds to be taught to work. I also believe that the Armenian people, thirsting as they are for education, could be won for us within a short time through the German schools. As evidence I can relate that when a German school was opened here, 90 percent of the students who registered for it were Armenians. I am therefore of the opinion that it would be useful for us, apart from the ethical, also for practical reasons to stand up for the fact that the Armenians who have survived expulsion and are loyal should be allowed to return to their former homes after the war. After all, their love of their home country, of the Armenian plateau, which they have inhabited for centuries, forms a basic feature—and indeed the most sympathetic one—of their character. If they were without this love, then they as a people would have been spared much suffering. The Armenians scattered throughout the whole of the East, thanks to their naturally inborn mercantile capabilities, would be in a position to monopolise the whole economic life and, just like the Jews, would play an often useful, but not always desirable role in it. Furthermore, I do not believe that the Armenian question will have found a solution in a political respect in the enforced expulsion to Mesopotamia. The Armenians who have settled there and those who have fled to Russia will want to come back and, together with the Armenians in the United States, will ask for the support of

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the European powers. The mass deportation, in combination with the atrocities carried out on the part of Turkey, would therefore only provide a reason for renewed intervention in the internal affairs of Turkey. On a smaller scale, the problem here of the Armenians living on Russian, Turkish and Persian territory is just as difficult as the problem of “Poland” is for Europe. I would have regarded the best solution to be if the Turks, with the support of the Russian Armenians, had succeeded in conquering the border areas inhabited by the Armenians, thus uniting as one those parts of Armenia, which are under Russian and Turkish supremacy, of which Etchmiadzin could form the focal point. In granting a certain self-administration, the Armenian people could have both felt at ease under fair Turkish government and retained its cultural individuality, which would not have been possible in Russia. A solution of this kind was also the ideal of a group of understanding Armenian politicians. The political short-sightedness both of the Turkish government as well as of the leaders of the Dashnaktsutiun Party has made this solution impossible, has even changed it to the contrary. Whether the initiation at this stage of an understanding between the committee leaders of both sides is possible, is debatable. It seems to be that the difficulty tends to be on the Turkish rather than on the Armenian side. A statement by the Foreign Office as to whether an attempt in this direction would be desirable, in case I have the opportunity to do so in the course of the Caucasus operation, would be of interest to me. Scheubner-Richter

1915-08-11-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 25335; pr. 28.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 85/B.No. 1758 Aleppo, 11 August 1915 Your Excellency, I respectfully enclose the transcript of a letter sent to me from Urfa by Deacon Künzler dated the 5th inst. The facts that he reports, namely that it is no longer the Mutesarrif or the court-martial who make decisions in the matter of the Armenian question, but rather that two of the Committee’s emissaries, Halil and Ahmed Bey, are running a reign of terror,52 have been confirmed to me by a well-informed, distinguished, local Muslim as being undoubtedly true. 52. Of these two, the Circassian Ahmed is a wild and disreputable fellow; Halil Bey, as I have meanwhile learned, is identical with Enver Pasha’s uncle, the commanding officer of the division sent to the East.

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I have interceded many times on behalf of the pharmacist at the hospital with Djemal Pasha, with the Mutesarrif of Urfa, with the Vali of Diyarbekir, but it was all to no avail. Djemal Pasha had agreed not to permit a possible judgment made by the courtmartial to be carried out before the files were presented for his perusal. The deportation to Diyarbekir, autocratically brought about by the members of the Committee, has prevented the success of this commitment. Should Djemal Pasha now make enquiries as to the whereabouts of the pharmacist, it will, of course, be reported that he fell into the hands of robbers. If he is satisfied with this information, then this proves that he, and with him the government in Urfa, do not, in fact, hold the power in their hands any longer. Thus, the pharmacist who worked loyally for 16 long years in the German Hospital and for whose loyal Ottoman convictions the German Mission for the Orient had vouched, had to be sacrificed. The authorities have already begun to work against the Armenian doctor by forbidding him to operate by himself without assistance, and under these circumstances, it is not possible to blame him for losing heart and taking the first opportunity that comes along to leave Urfa. A certain Turkish side has achieved its goal of temporarily closing our hospital in which, over the past years, thousands of Muslim as well as Christian patients have received the best possible German medical treatment and care. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure Transcript. Urfa, 5 August 1915 When I arrived here on 3 July, returning from Aleppo, I found that our pharmacist was still in prison. At that time, some men from the court-martial (ürfié) arrived here, supposedly to pass sentence on the prisoners. I visited the chairman of this committee and presented our case to him. The prisoners’ situation already improved several days after the arrival of these men: however, Ahmed and a man named Halil Bey, two Turkish Committeemen, arrived here from Diyarbekir, and their arrival brought about the beginning of something that strongly looked like anarchy. These men then immediately insisted that Vartkes and Zohrab Effendis, two former deputies who had just arrived here, be executed. The governor and the commanding officer of the gendarmes did not want to do this, but the above mentioned men supposedly threatened them with their own execution. Halil Bey had the two Armenians executed an hour’s distance from Urfa. The county doctor and the town doctor were then sent there and forced to give a false medical report stating that the two had been attacked by Arabs and killed. The court-martial had the best of intentions, namely to release all of the Armenian notables. But Halil and Ahmed Bey effected a telegram from Diyarbekir,

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stating that all of the imprisoned Armenians had to be bound and sent on foot to Diyarbekir. This is why I sent you a telegram on Sunday, “Pharmacist still in prison, threatened with transport,” and the transport of 40 men was carried out from Sunday to Monday, including our pharmacist and the Armenian Bishop, who had been imprisoned two days previously. Generally, it is believed that neither these men nor the 50 prisoners who were transported on Tuesday will ever reach Diyarbekir. I, too, have little hope for them, although I know of a secret agreement in which the two Beys have requested 1,300 Turkish liras from the Armenians, promising that they will then not have the town cleared out, as well as ensuring that those transported will reach Diyarbekir safely. Naturally, the Beys threatened that they would ban all the Armenians from Urfa if this secret became public knowledge. The fact is that these two Beys, and not the government and not the court-martial which was supposedly sent by Djemal Pasha, rule in the Armenian question and that it is a reign of terror. For some time our hospital has also been having a number of difficulties. The new county doctor, Hamdi Bey, would like best to close down our hospital. He threatened us with this. But he should not be able to achieve this openly. Thus, he is now using a trick that was often practised in Hamid’s time: he forbade our Doctor Armenak to operate by himself without assistance, as this would be illegal. This is only a trick, for we learned through you at that time that every qualified doctor may carry out the most difficult operations everywhere by himself. But Dr. Armanak, an Armenian, did not have the heart to resist now, despite my encouragement, and thus, during the past few days, he has not carried out any difficult operations. Next week he must go to Surudi to examine recruits, and then he wants to go to Aleppo—his wife is there—and possibly hide there until these bad times are over. I am, therefore, forced to close down the hospital until his return. Sad, for there are only two other doctors here and so many ill people. If only the two internees, Dr. Young, an Englishman, and Dr. Lause, a Frenchman, would be permitted to work in our hospital. If necessary, it would be easy for me to carry out the necessary control, should no trust be placed in the enemy, as I have already been completely initiated into the course of our work. I recommended this matter to the governor, but he did not like the suggestion. Mr. … will inform you verbally as an eyewitness on the atrocity of the women’s and children’s convoys. Thus, I can finish this report here. [Jakob Künzler]

1915-08-11-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4645; p 11.08.1915. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) to the Consulates in Trebizond, Erzerum, Adana, Aleppo, Mosul Pera, 11 August 1915 The atrocities against the Armenians have taken on such an extent during the last few weeks, despite our repeated representations, that it now becomes our duty to express our definite disapproval of these occurrences. On several occasions Turkish officers, clergymen and other persons in the interior have pronounced that we are the instigators of these atrocities. Such a compromising attitude should, if necessary, be emphatically confronted. [Hohenlohe-Langenburg]

1915-08-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 24507; pr. 20.08.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 501 Pera, 12 August 1915 1 enclosure. The systematic slaughter of the Armenian people who had been deported from their homes had taken on such an extent over the past few weeks that a renewed, forcible representation on our part against this coarse action, which the government not only tolerated but apparently supported, appeared to be imperative, particularly as in various places the Christians of other races and confessions were also no longer being spared. In addition, the authorities had recently begun resettling the Armenian inhabitants of various locations in the area surrounding Ismid (Nikomedia) (i.e., in the immediate vicinity of the capital) because they allegedly wanted to support a Russian landing on the mouth of the Sakaria. This measure evoked serious concern among the local Armenian people and rumours were going around that after the end of the Bairam festival, which begins today, the local Armenians would also be expelled. In view of the large number of Armenians living here (according to the latest estimates a minimum of 80,000 people), the realisation of these plans would not only lead to

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severe disruptions in trade and commerce, but would also seriously endanger the lives and possessions of the non-Muslim population, not excluding foreigners. Therefore, following the memorandum dated 4 July, I handed the memorandum, of which I enclose a copy, to the Sublime Porte on 11th inst. Talaat Bey, who received it in the absence of the Grand Vizier, promised to solve the problem as far as possible and assured me upon my enquiry that there was no intention of deporting the Armenians living in Constantinople. The President of the Chamber, Halil Bey, who was present at the Porte and who appears not to approve of the way the government is proceeding against the Armenians, maintained that the massacres and other atrocities were not approved by the government, but the government was not always in a position to prevent the excesses of the masses, also that the subordinated authorities had made mistakes in carrying out the deportation measures. In addition to the above, it should be mentioned that among the Turkish population of the Interior many believe that the German government is in agreement with the extermination of the Armenians and was even the instigator of it. I have therefore instructed the Imperial Consulates in Anatolia to vehemently deny such ideas which are incriminating for us and which are even being openly pronounced by officers, clergymen and other personalities of the better classes. I would like to leave it to Your Excellency’s discretion as to whether it is not recommendable to point out also in the German press at a suitable point in time that we without doubt do not approve of the enforced measures taken by the Turkish government against the Armenians and are therefore not responsible for the arising excesses, to which we can only object and for which we express our regret. Finally, it seems to be desirable in support of the steps taken here that we draw the attention of the new Ottoman ambassador there to the possible consequences of his government’s Armenian policy and our point of view on this issue. Hohenlohe Enclosure Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Memorandum. Pera, 9 August 1915 In its memorandum dated 4 July, the German Embassy had the honour of informing the Sublime Porte of the point of view of the Imperial German government on the topic of the deportation of the Armenian inhabitants of the Anatolian provinces and of drawing its attention to the fact that these measures have been accompanied in several places by acts of violence, such as massacres and pillaging, which could not be justified by the goal the Imperial Ottoman government was pursuing.

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The German Embassy regrets having to note that, according to information it has received from impartial and undoubtedly reliable sources, incidents of this nature, instead of being prevented by the local authorities, regularly accompanied the expulsion of the Armenians in such a way that most of them perished before reaching their destination. This refers in particular to the provinces of Trebizond, Diyarbekir and Erzerum, where the occurrences came to light; in certain places, such as Mardin, all Christians, irrespective of their race or religion, have suffered the same fate. At the same time the Imperial Ottoman government deemed it necessary to extend the expulsion measures to other provinces in Asia Minor. Most recently the inhabitants of the Armenian villages in the districts of Ismid near the capital have been evacuated under similar circumstances. In view of these events, the German Embassy, upon instruction by its government, is obliged to issue new warnings against these acts of violence and to renounce any responsibility for the consequences that could arise from them. It feels even more obliged than ever to draw the attention of the Ottoman government to this point, as public opinion tends to believe that Germany in its capacity as a friend and ally of Turkey approved of these acts of violence or even instigated them.

1915-08-12-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4814; p. 19.08.1915. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) J.No. 699 Adana, 12 August 1915 Your Highness, subsequent to my telegraphic report of the 2nd inst. (No. 11), I have the honour of respectfully reporting that the Vali from Adana, who was in charge of suppressing the Armenian revolt in the area around Marash,53 returned here after completing his mission. He reported the following results of the clashes to Djemal Pasha: while there was a loss of 46 men on the side of the Turks, who sent two battalions, 464 Armenians died and 200 were taken prisoner. Naturally, the prisoners’ fate has been settled from the start; there was no mention of any wounded, so that it seems reasonable to assume that they were later slaughtered. 53. This very probably concerns the occurrences in Fundadjak.

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There is no doubt that the reason for this punitive expedition suited the government extremely well; I have learned that a Turkish officer explained that Hakki Bey was selected to be the leader of this expedition because of the Vali’s especially “useful” characteristics for such business. Contrary to the events in the Vilayet of Aleppo and particularly in Sivas, on which I am not qualified to make a report, nothing has yet become known of cases of violence, defilement, and similar expressions of national outbursts within the district on this side. This is not a case of any special philanthropy, however, but merely of saving attacks on life and limb for a more suitable place in the interior. Isolated cases of the sale of Armenian children that were also carried out here (e.g., in Osmania) were later cancelled. There is an impression that the authorities particularly enjoy putting the Armenian nation, which in principle is destined to be destroyed, in a complete panic by means of issuing orders almost daily concerning their evacuation, which directly contradict each other. Numerous families have been brought to Adana and are anxiously awaiting their future fate here. Entire armies of Armenians are camping without protection from the sun and the dust in the fields by the stations of the Baghdad Railway, particularly in Osmania. The measures which the authorities have taken to transport the people make the situation far more difficult than they ease the tribulations of the journey because although the hired coachmen and camel drivers do transport the people assigned to them, they let them out after a short distance in the open desert under the excuse that the government has not paid them. Many people see this as being the government’s intention to let the Armenian people become destitute. At any rate, a government that gave such bloody proof 6 years ago that it has these views is capable of wishing to exterminate everything that is Armenian. Büge

1915-08-13-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 25860; pr. 03.09.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 86/B.No. 1772 Aleppo, 13 August 1915 Deacon Künzler from Urfa had closed the letter he submitted with his report No. 85, dated 11th inst., with the words, “As an eyewitness, Mr. … will report to you by

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word of mouth on the dreadful conditions surrounding the transports of women and children.” This witness, an Austrian, whom I have known for exactly two years and whom I personally trust to tell the truth, spent a few weeks’ holiday in a vineyard near Urfa with his wife, but returned prematurely because he could no longer stand seeing the atrocities. At my request he has recorded some of his observations in the report, of which I enclose a copy. Moreover, he became the victim of a very serious robbery attack en route from Urfa to Arab-Pounar, which he was able to ward off as the robbers were not prepared for the fact that he was carrying firearms and because some coachmen, whom the attackers had not noticed, came to his help. It appears that the robbers were lying in wait for a transport of Armenians. The wife of the Austrian is still ill in bed suffering from the effects of the shock. The representative of the German Oriental Trade and Industrial Company, Carpet Manufacture Urfa, Mr. Franz Eckart, addressed to me the letter dated 5 August, of which I enclose a copy. This letter, as well as the general situation in Urfa, has incited me to write a letter to the Mutesarrif in Urfa recommending to him in particular protection for the Germans in that area, for their persons, for their staff and for conducting their activities. Just as in similar earlier cases, I have received exact information about a further group which has left Adiaman. Of the 696 that left there, 321 arrived in Aleppo; 206 men and 57 women were murdered, 70 women and girls and 19 boys were kidnapped. There are no details available about the remainder. One group that arrived here on 12th inst., from Sivas had been on the road for 3 months and was completely exhausted. Some died immediately after their arrival. They had often been refused water en route. Along the Muradsu they were led in circles for 14 days in one place in such a way that during the daytime they had no water at all. I have not been informed how great the number of losses was in this group. As the local Vali, Beshir Sami Bey, informed me today, the privileges granted to the Catholic Armenians have been revoked again. Everyone without any exception is to be deported. On the other hand, he has declared that he will not tolerate any illegal acts or any influence by non-responsible positions in his vilayet and will take the strongest possible action against any wrongdoers. Unfortunately, this good will is not preventing the misery that is arising from the lack of organisation and preparation. There is no doubt that also in Vilayet Aleppo (e.g., on the road from Bab to Membibj), numerous women and children have perished as a result of exhaustion. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure 1 Copy German Oriental Trade and Industrial Company Ltd., Potsdam Urfa, 5 August 1915

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Some days ago, two young Turks dragged a young woman away from a group of Armenian emigrants on their march along the nearby road to Diyarbekir onto the lower part of my land into a hollow and stripped her of her clothes in order to rape her. Upon hearing the woman’s screams, my children rushed out and fetched the help of three workers who happened to be close by. These released the woman who fled into my house. After a short time the two Turks came to my house with four others and, in the presence of my wife, demanded that I hand over the woman. Upon my wife’s repeated reply of “Germans live here,” they moved off, but at the same time continued to threaten us. Despite my representations to the governor, neither I nor my family nor those workers of mine are safe from further harassment by those Turks. Just this morning again they drove the three workers away from their work in my garden. I am therefore obliged to request the protection of my own government. Yours faithfully, [Fr. Eckart] To the Imperial German Consulate Aleppo Enclosure 2 Report by an Austrian Delivered to the German Consulate in Aleppo on 11 August 1915. Observations concerning the deportations of Armenians in the area around Urfa. 1. These transports consisted only of women, old people and children. There was an absence of agile, robust men. Those groups that had already been on the march for a week or even longer gave a pitiful impression. Many exhausted and ill as a result of the tribulations of the march, limped along dragging children behind them (many babies and pregnant women). Looking at the children, the old and otherwise weak people, one could usually observe that they had sore, swollen feet that were wrapped in rags. Most of the deportees had sold their last possessions before they reached Urfa in order to hire transport donkeys in the villages (3 medjidies per day, which was three times higher than the usual price). Other groups still had their travel articles and household gadgets with them as far as Urfa, but these things were taken off them there … for almost no money at all. In the Tsharshi even soldiers themselves were selling the belongings of the deportees. Most of those who reached their destination were accommodated in the orphanage where they had to arrange for food themselves. Military guardsmen kept watch around the building. I noticed how a greedy dealer jumped over the garden wall with clothes he had bought and quite obviously paid the guardsman bribe money.

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By offering tips, by purchase or friendship it was possible to take possession of women, girls and children from the masses on the march. Later the authorities prohibited this kind of trade; but still appropriation takes place. I saw for myself two women aged 16 and 30 years, who were dragged from the street by Turks and who then told me themselves—when the same day I was a guest of the Turks—they were from Adiaman and had already been on the move for 10 days. The gendarmes had been good to them, fought off a band of Kurd robbers who were lying in wait to seize some women; in the villages they were always given bread and cheese. A daily march lasted 6-7 hours; they often had a chance to rest. On the way from Adiaman they had seen naked, murdered women, also mutilated ones, with their breasts cut off; two who were still alive told them they had lagged behind the group, partly because of illness, partly in an effort to flee and were then violated and robbed by the Kurds. During the transport many people perished. In Urfa, a woman collapsed in front of me. As the policeman was not allowed to remain behind, he demanded some onlookers to go to the police and report the occurrence so that the sick person could be carried away! Another day I found the same woman (30 years old) in another street lying dead in broad daylight on the road in front of the orphanage. I went up to her and saw that her face was already blue. Soldiers were standing guard close by, policemen and civilians were frequenting the square. According to my estimations, the dead woman must have already lain there for several hours. Not until my intervention with the Mutesarrif did I succeed in arranging for the body to be removed within half an hour, although it was with a dung cart. Outside Urfa (in the direction of Tell Abiad) just before the Urfa Gardens, the body of a 20-24 year-old man lay by the side of the road. No one bothered to bury him. Birds of prey were picking at him. On the road Urfa-Arab-Pounar, I did not, in fact, see any bodies in the dark, but my coachman, who travels this route regularly, showed me burnt patches at intervals by the side of the road where human bodies had been burned on the spot. Many a group limps by, screaming in pain—as soon as they see a person, many of these wretched souls fall on their knees and beg for help and salvation or offer their children for adoption. Many die of exhaustion on these marches at 56° Centigrade and without water—anyone who is left behind can be sure of death.

1915-08-14-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4729. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople

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No. 24 Mosul, 14 August 1915 Reply to Telegr. No. 22. So far I have not heard any remarks here that we are supposed to be the instigators of the atrocities committed against the Christians; on the other hand, the various local honest elements of the population are without doubt of the opinion that we are doing nothing to ensure that the guilty are punished and that an end is put to the atrocities at long last. Everyone knows that the Vali of Diyarbekir, for example, is the instigator of the terrible crimes committed on the Christians in his vilayet; everyone rightly presumes that we are also aware of the atrocities and they are asking themselves why we allow a notorious mass murderer to remain unpunished and continue to be the Vali. It would hardly suffice merely to express our disapproval of the atrocities to effectively counteract the various compromising attitudes towards us. Not until we have forced the Porte to ruthlessly demand that the criminals who are sitting in official positions in Diyarbekir, Mardin, Sairt, etc., account for these allegations and to do so as quickly as possible, only then will they drop the suspicions held against us. I read in various German newspapers official Turkish denials of the atrocities committed against the Christians and am surprised at the naivety of the Porte in believing they can obliterate facts about the crimes by Turkish officials simply by telling downright lies. Up to now the world has not experienced such atrocities, which have been proven to be and are still being committed by officials in Vilayet Diyarbekir! [Holstein]

1915-08-19-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 4815; p. 19.08.195. Private Correspondence. Translated by Linda Struck Petition Submitted by an Armenian to the Embassy in Constantinople Pera, 19 August 1915 Submitted by Msgr. Dolci Regarding the deportation of the Armenians 1. The Catholics from Nicomedia (Ismid) have been deported with other Armenians. As luck would have it, two priests and some of the Catholic Armenians remained behind in Eskishehir. Five days later they will be chased away from there.

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We request you to arrange that these two priests and their people be allowed to return to their towns and villages or to remain in Eskishehir, but just as free as the local Catholic Armenians there. 2. Contrary to all promises, on 16th inst., the Catholic and Protestant Armenians of Baktchedjik were also deported. By chance five nuns and three priests remained in Nicomedia and their people were transported by train. We ask you either to send these priests and sisters back to Baktchedjik or have them sent to Constantinople. Also to send the Catholic and Protestant people back to their village or retain them in Eskishehir. 3. Give the railway officials the order to treat these ill-favoured people in a slightly more humane manner. 4. We should be allowed to give charity to these poor people. [Note by Neurath] To Consul General Mordtmann with the request to bring the matter, if possible today, to the attention of Talaat, conveying your agreement to the petition. Pera, 19 August 1915 The Deportation of the Armenians54 I. Urgent Request 1. Contrary to the formal promises that at least the Catholic Armenians would be spared, the Catholic priests and their people from Nicomedia were deported on 11th inst., in the direction of Konia. Two priests and part of the Catholic people remained en route in Eskishehir, but after five days received the order to move on. We beg you to allow the two priests and their people either to return home or to remain in Eskishehir, as free as the Catholics there. 2. Contrary to the promises made very recently that the Protestant and Catholic Armenians would be spared, on 16th inst., the entire population of Baktshedjik—a purely Armenian village opposite to Nicomedia—was deported. Only by chance did the three Catholic priests and five nuns remain behind at the station in Nicomedia. Their people have already all left. We implore you to allow those remaining either to return to Baktshedjik or to Constantinople and the people who have already left to at least stay in Eskishehir if it is not possible for them to return to Baktshedjik. II. General Notes The situation for the deportees is very deplorable; in particular the poorer class is suffering terribly. Many mothers throw their children in the rivers to avoid having to see 54. Apart from the above short version there is also this longer version in the files.

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them tormented any longer. Other mothers sell their little ones to be able to buy a piece of bread and to save them from certain death. Children up to the age of 6 years are sold for 5 piastres, that is less than one mark, and the 15-20 year old girls for 20 piastres. At night in particular, all kinds of disgraceful acts of violence are carried out on the wives and girls. Eskishehir, Kütahia, Afion Karahissar and Konia are central places where they are collected in masses outside the towns on an enclosed field, for example near Eskishehir, when 10-12,000 children, women and old people were turned out into the open and exposed to the unpredictable whims of the people and the weather. A reliable eye-witness told how he had seen hundreds of bodies lying on the field in Eskishehir a few days after a thunderstorm, in particular children’s corpses which the Christian railway officials had not allowed to take shelter under the station roof. Also, the railway officials did not always behave considerately. The people piled up in the fields without any means are whipped three times a day in order that they move on because they cannot travel by train. Nobody knows what happens to the Armenians who are deported on to Konia. God bless those who relieve the suffering of these poor people. [Notes Mordtmann, 21 August] Today I have taken steps with the Ministry of the Interior (Aziz Bey; the Minister and Djanbulad Bey were not present) regarding the return of the Catholic Armenians who have already been deported. Aziz Bey will present the matter to the Minister and remarked that according to the latest instructions the Catholic Armenians from Angora and Adana would be excepted from the privileges. I had particularly requested that, in respect of the Catholic and Protestant Armenians who have already been deported to Eskishehir and Konia and interned in concentration camps there, telegraphic instructions be sent to the administrative district of the Mutessariflik Eskishehir and the Vilayet Konia regarding the adjournment of their further deportation or the return of those interned.

1915-08-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 24658; pr. 21.08.1915 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to the German Foreign Office Frankfurt a. Main, 20 August 1915

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The undersigned takes the liberty of sending you a number of notices he has received from absolutely reliable persons, which give a fairly clear picture of the way in which the Turkish authorities proceed against the Armenian people. The enclosed reports were written by Germans. I am sending them to you in duplicate and request that you pass one copy on to the Embassy in Constantinople. I would further like to request that the government arranges through the German Embassy that our schools keep the teachers needed to continue their work. In the interest of our work in future, it appears to me that it is absolutely necessary that we deal in person with the Embassy in Constantinople, and therefore, I plan to travel to Constantinople in September. Thus, I would like to request that you kindly send me a pass, as you did for our nuns, and letters of recommendation to the embassies in consideration (AustrianHungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish) as soon as possible. I will take the liberty of sending you further detailed reports. I would like to thank you in advance for all your efforts and sign, respectfully yours, F. Schuchardt [Note by Mordtmann, 3 September, to the accompanying letter from Berlin] The contents of most of the reports have been made public here on another occasion; among other things, the report from Diyarbekir is new, as until now there has been no news from there. Enclosure 1 Transcript Marash, 6 April 1915 Dear Mr. Schuchardt, You will certainly have noticed from the news, which has reached you by now, that we find ourselves in a very serious situation here. We have an opportunity today to describe the situation in somewhat more detail to you. Since the beginning of March, things have been difficult here for the Christians, for several gendarmes were killed in a clash between the government and the robbers (Eshkjar) who are always in the hills of Zeytun. This caused so much agitation among the Islamic population that, if the Lord had not worked a miracle, a great slaughter would definitely have taken place. In general, these past weeks since the mobilisation have been very turbulent, for, by conscripting soldiers and requisitioning the animals, the government often heavily oppressed the Christians in particular, who always kept quiet, even though sighing about it. Finally a time arrived when the pressure became too heavy and people began to de-

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fend themselves. Many Christians who had been conscripted to do military service deserted because they were not treated properly. The promises made by government authorities were not kept; rather, the opposite often happened. Those conscripted had to suffer from hunger, and many were also beaten. In the end, they were disarmed and had to hand in their uniforms. This caused the opinion to spread among the Mohammedans that it was now time to sharpen their swords for a battle against the Christians, and they voiced their opinion publicly. The government opposed this, but the talk did not stop. Naturally, the fear of slaughter weighed heavily on people’s minds. In Zeytun, more and more deserters retreated into the mountains. The Turkish officials have already been oppressing the population in Zeytun for a long time, so that for years many young people who fear meeting the gendarmes have been living in the mountains. The situation now became unbearable, and finally the government sent the militia against Zeytun to catch the robbers. Thus, the court-martial went to Marash immediately. It first demanded of all deserters that they surrender. All of them were assigned to punishment battalions and now had to work with pick and shovel to build roads and similar work. Zeytun was in danger of being destroyed, but our Mutessarif, who is a just man, prevented this. The people of Zeytun were to hand over the robbers or state where they were in hiding, but they could not bring themselves to do this. At the persuasion of various people in Marash, I offered to go to Zeytun to influence the people to comply with the government’s orders. As we were in a state of war, I had to have the commanding officer’s permission for this journey. He first asked for the Mutessarif ’s approval and then gave his permission. Together with a further four people, I went from Marash to Zeytun; we had permission to stay there for 12 hours. I attempted to make the dangers clear to the people that they were heading for if they did not obey the government. It was my intention to persuade the robbers to surrender, if possible, but they would not listen to me, and I had to leave Zeytun without having achieved anything. I gave the Mutessarif a report of how I had left Zeytun. I was able to give him a certain detail, namely where the robbers were hiding. I spoke to him several times and requested that he spare the innocent inhabitants of Zeytun. He promised to do so and up to now he has kept his word. The robbers were then surrounded and shot at; 36 of them were killed while the rest fled and are still being followed today. No one can foresee how this will end; until now, Zeytun has been spared a bombardment and I hope that this will not happen in future, either. The general situation of the Christians caused us to take steps to prevent a slaughter; thus because I could not leave Marash, we decided to send Sister Beatrice Rohner to Aleppo to report to Consul Rössler the danger the Christians are in here and possibly to induce him to come here. The Consul came and stayed here for nine days. His influence was noticeable even before he arrived, for his coming had been announced by telegraph. Naturally, the party, which would have liked to have a massacre, was very angry that this did not take place. [Karl Blank]

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Enclosure 255 Transcript In Der-el-Zor, a large town in the desert about 6 days’ journey from Aleppo, we found the large khan completely overcrowded. All of the available rooms, roofs and verandas had been taken over by Armenians. Mainly women and children, but also a number of men were sitting on their blankets wherever they could find a bit of shade. As soon as I heard that they were Armenians, I went there to speak to them. These were people from Furnus, from the area around Zeytun and Marash, who made a very sorry sight, packed together there in such a tight space. When asked about children from our orphanages in Marash, they brought a former pupil, Martha Karabashian. She told me the following: one day, Turkish policemen came to Furnus, arrested a large number of men who were to become soldiers and led them away. Neither they themselves nor their families knew where they were being taken. Those who remained behind were told that they would have to leave their homes within 4 hours. They were permitted to take as much as they could carry and as many mounts as they had. When the time limit was up, these poor people had to leave their village under the leadership of the soldiers (Zaptiehs); the people didn’t know where they were going or if they would ever see their village again. In the beginning, as long as they were still in their mountains and had food, things went well. They had been promised money and bread, which they received at first, 30 para = 12 pfennigs per person, as far as I remember. But soon the rations stopped and there were only 50 drans = 150 grams of bulgur per person per day. In this way, the people of Furnus reached Der-el-Zor after a difficult 4 weeks’ journey via Marash and Aleppo. They had already been there in the khan for 3 weeks and didn’t know what was going to happen to them. They no longer had any money, and the food given by the Turks had also become very scant. For days they had no longer been given any bread. In the towns they were locked in at night and not permitted to speak to the inhabitants. Thus, Martha had not been permitted to go to the orphanage in Marash. In a sad voice she told me: we had 2 houses and had to leave everything behind; now they are occupied by muhadjirs, Mohammedans who emigrated from Europe. There had been no massacres in Furnus, and the Zaptiehs had also treated the people well. They had mainly suffered due to a lack of food and water on the march through the burning hot desert. As Yailadshi (mountain inhabitants), as they called themselves, they had felt the heat particularly hard. The accompanying Zaptiehs then told us that many of the men who had been taken away had been killed, and that this was the best thing for the Turks. Since the massacres, the Armenians had hated the Turks so much that the latter had always lived in fear. It was now being considered to use Armenians to build roads, leading 55. The author is Sister Laura Möhring; the date of the note probably 12 July 1915.

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them in this way on to Baghdad. Asked why, the Zaptiehs explained that the people had had connections with Russia. The Armenians themselves claimed that they did not know the reason for their expulsion. The next day we met up with an entire Armenian camp during our midday break. In the manner of the Kurds, the poor people had made themselves primitive goat’s hair tents in which they were resting. For the most part, however, they were lying unprotected on the burning sand under the beating sun. The Turks had permitted a day of rest because of the large number of ill people. You cannot imagine anything more wretched than such a crowd in the desert under the given circumstances. It was clear from their clothes that they had lived in a certain state of wealth, and now misery was written all over their faces. Bread, bread was the general cry. Anyone who has not personally experienced the desert will not even begin to understand the need and the tribulation. It is hilly, but mainly without shade. The road wanders over rocks for days and is very exhausting. Coming from Aleppo, you always have the Euphrates River on your left which drifts along like a yellow strip of clay, but not near enough to be able to drink from it. The pangs of thirst of these poor people must be unbearable, and it is no wonder that so many become ill and die. It was the people of Geben who were driven out together with their preacher. He told me that 5-6 children and ill people were dying every day. On that day, shortly before we spoke, the mother of a 9-year-old girl had been buried and she was now all on her own. They pleaded with me to take the child along to the orphanage. The preacher told me the same story as the girl in Der-el-Zor. Together with his parish he, too, had had to leave everything behind within 4 hours. Soldiers had also been levied in his town and then it was thanked for the warm reception. They did not know where they were being taken and now wanted to learn this from me. It gave them great joy to be able to speak to me in their own Armenian language. The Turks accompanying them spoke Turkish, of course, the Arabs in the desert only spoke Arabic, which is foreign to the Armenians. I saw a family of 5 with a small donkey; the mother and the youngest child were riding while the father walked along behind together with the two other 5- and 6-yearolds. The children had nothing to cover their heads with whatsoever. The people of Geben told me that some girls had been stolen by the Arabs, who had also indecently assaulted women. As it was time for the midday break, we unpacked our provisions in order to eat, but in view of the suffering crowd of humanity it was no mean feat for us to eat. We gave as much as we possibly could and each of my 3 travelling companions silently pressed a medjidje (3.50 German marks) into my hand “for the poor people.” A bag of rock-hard bread from Baghdad was accepted from me with great thanks. “We will dip it into water and then the children can eat it,” the happy mothers said. Everyone was of the opinion that none of them would reach Baghdad; they considered the desert to be their grave. I remember another scene which gives an example of the neediness. One of my companions threw away an empty glass container. An old man pounces on it and asks

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if he may take it and thanks us for it. Then he went to the river, washed it out and brought it back filled with the thick clay water, carrying it carefully in his arms like a treasure, thanking us once more. Now he had drinking water for the journey. Accompanied by many blessings, we finally moved on, all of us still under the influence of such misery. Having arrived at the village in the evening, we found another such Armenian camp there. This time it was the people from Zeytun. It was the same need and the same complaints about heat, lack of bread and molesting by the Arabs. A girl who had been brought up in an orphanage in Beirut by the Kaiserswerther (Sisters) Deaconesses told us in good German about her experiences. They, too, had had 4 hours and then left, carrying a bed and a water receptacle in each hand. As long as they had had money, everything was fine; although they were cheated, they were still able to buy things. But now their financial means were at an end and bitter need was the order of the day. The woman had a child on her arm, and you could see that it only had a few days left to live; nor was there any bread available for the healthy. Why does God permit such a thing? Why must we suffer so? Why don’t they simply beat us to death straight away? were their plaintive cries. We are mountain dwellers and cannot live in the desert. We have no water for the children during the day, and they scream of thirst. At night the Arabs come and steal our beds and our clothes. They have taken our girls and (sexually) indecently assaulted the women. If we cannot march any further we are beaten by the Zaptiehs. And again their own cries of need, “The fruit is now ripe in our gardens and soon our grain will be, as well: who will harvest it? We cannot even get an apple for our children here. I myself still had a dress. Yesterday I sold it for 12 piastres—that’s 1.80 German marks—in order to give the children bread; the 12 piastres are also gone: what shall I do now?” This woman also told us that other women had hurled themselves into the water in order to avoid the shame; that mothers were doing the same with their newborn children because they saw no way out of their need. We also gave this woman money and bought all of the bread available in the village. Unfortunately, it was not much. There was a lack of food along the entire desert road, even for those of us who could still pay for it, due to the many passing through and Turkish soldiers resting in each khan. No one was killed in Zeytun, either; the people knew of no cases whatsoever. They are simply shunted off into the desert and many die there. A quick death together with their family appears to the mothers to be easier than slowly watching themselves and their families die of starvation. According to an estimate by my travelling companions, we have met about 3,000 such displaced persons. Upon arrival in Aleppo, I was immediately questioned with regard to the Armenians and their food supply. They are being looked after in every way possible and people have applied on their behalf to the government. The only achievement was permission to found an Armenian charity organisation, which was permitted by the government in Constantinople and also by the Vali of Aleppo. The Armenians in Aleppo immediately raised a sum among themselves for aid, and it is possible to send

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money and food and clothes to the poor homeless through the German Consulate and this organisation. The number of Armenians who were expelled from their homes in this area is estimated at 30,000. The 2nd day out from Aleppo in the Amanus Mountains we once again met Armenians, this time the people from Hadjin and the surrounding area. They said that they were going to Aleppo, but they didn’t know any more. They had only been on the road for nine days and did not require any aid. Compared to those in the desert, they were living in excellent conditions. They had wagons, household goods, horses with foals, oxen and cows and even camels with them. The convoy stretching up the mountainside was endless and I had to ask myself how long this prosperity would last. At present they were still on their home territory in the mountains and had no idea of the terrors of the desert. This was the last I saw of the Armenians. But such experiences cannot be forgotten, and I pass them on with a fervent plea for help. While many of the Armenians may be guilty and must blame themselves for their suffering, the poor women and children need our help. Enclosure 3 Transcript Adana, 12 July 1915 Dear Mr. Schuchardt, I have been here in Adana for several days. The reason for my being here is to bring a protest to the Vilayet government against all of my teachers being banned, just like all the other people. This measure applies to the entire country; the entire Armenian population is to be pulled out of its gainful employment and its property taken from it in order to transplant it to previously uncultivated, desert areas. This concerns the Armenian population in the entire country, including that in the towns, so that in Adana 13 to 15,000 Armenians are affected by this measure. When I now return to Harunia, there may be no Armenians left in the town; all of them have been driven away. The villages around Marash are empty and Marash itself is to be cleared out any day now. I heard that in Marash the post office has not been accepting any more letters for Germany for a while. (For 4 weeks no international mail was accepted by the Turkish post office.) It is a very sad state of affairs and our work is in danger. It may be that there will be obstacles to deter our carrying out the plan; we heard today, for example, that cholera had broken out in the expellees’ camp in Osmania. Naturally, that can happen easily if you look at the masses of people coming together. The people in the country had begun harvesting and these people, who had worked so hard to till their fields, had to leave everything half-finished: the gardens were tilled and the fruit trees hung heavy with fruit, but not for those who have to leave. The people have had incredible losses; they had to dump their household goods and their livestock, for they could only take the bare necessities with them. The poor people, and there are many pregnant women, newborn babes and ill people among them, yes,

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even blind and lame people! They couldn’t even fit themselves out with appropriate clothing and special shoes for the journey. Most of the children travel barefoot on the hot, dusty road and soon their small feet will be burned and sore. You may now ask why the Turkish government is doing this. It is for military reasons, for national security. They believe that if the British should fall in here, the Armenians would become a danger by switching over to them. Unfortunately, I must say that individuals have given cause for such assumptions, and insofar as rumours leak through to here from Van and Mush, this seems to have happened there. It is said that they fought there with the Russians against the Turks. But at any rate, the method followed here is barbaric and equals the decimation of the population. I have sent a detailed letter to the Ambassador and requested that he soften the hardships. There is no telling what valuables will be destroyed in the towns, and many firms will have to be closed down because their workers, who cannot be replaced in any other manner, have been taken away from them. There are countless objects of value in the commercial businesses run by the Armenians. There can be no thought of selling or auctioning off the goods; everything will have to be left behind to fall into the hands of those who have done nothing to earn it. This time, the Turks are enriching themselves more than through any previous massacre, and they do not need to fight for the goods: they are simply dropping into their laps. As far as our children are concerned, I hope to be able to save them from the fate of being sent out onto the road and into an uncertain future. They have now truly become orphans; until then, some of them still had an uncle, a grandmother or some other relative, but now they have lost everything and the homes they came from as well as all their other property, the garden and fields, are now in the hands of the Turks. [B. von Dobbeler] Enclosure 4 Transcript Entilli, 15 July [1915] The Armenians are all being expropriated; it is an unparalleled misery. There is a great migration, for many into disaster through need and death. The poor people! [B von Dobbeler] Enclosure 556 Transcript In the Vilayet of Aleppo, the inhabitants of Hadjin, Sheer, Albistan, Göksun, Tasholuk, Zeytun, all of the villages of Alabash, Geben, Shivilgi, Furnus and the neighbouring villages, Fundadjak, Hasssanbeli, Kharne, Lappashli, Dört Yol and others 56. The author is the engineer Ernst Pieper.

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were expelled and entire colonies are being sent into the desert under the pretext of settling there. The village of Tel Armen (on the Baghdad Railway near Mosul) which, including the neighbouring villages, has approx. 5,000 inhabitants, was completely massacred with the exception of a few women and children. The people were thrown alive into the wells or burned. A German major was an eyewitness of these atrocities. A voluntary corps supposedly carried out the atrocities. It is said that the Armenians are to be used to colonise the estates 25-30 km away from the Baghdad Railway. However, since only women and children are banned because all the men are at war with the exception of the old ones, this is synonymous with murdering the family, since there are no workers, no money, etc., available to cultivate the land. A German met a Christian soldier he knew who had come from Jerusalem on leave; he was wandering about along the Euphrates River, searching for his wife and children who had supposedly been sent to that area. You often meet such unhappy people also in Aleppo, as they believe that they can learn more there about the whereabouts of their families. It has happened repeatedly that if one member of the family is absent, he returns to find that all of his family are missing as they have all been cleared off. During one entire month you could observe corpses floating in the Euphrates River almost every day, often 2-6 persons bound together. The male corpses are partly very mutilated, genitals cut off, etc., women’s corpses with the bodies slit open. For this reason, the Turkish military Kaimakam in Djerablus on the Euphrates River refused to have the bodies buried, as he could not determine if the men were Mohammedan or Christian and, furthermore, he had no order to do so. The corpses, which are washed up to the bank are eaten by dogs and vultures. There are numerous eyewitnesses for this (Germans). One of the officials of the Baghdad Railway stated that during the day the prisons are filled in Biredjik and at night they are emptied (Euphrates). Between Diyarbekir and Urfa, a German cavalry captain saw countless corpses, which had not been buried, lying along the road. Aleppo and Urfa are the collection points. In June, July, there were approx. 5,000 in Aleppo; during the entire period from April to June, far more than 50,000 passed through. With regard to transports in small groups, it is the rule that the men who are still there are separated at night from the women to permit the soldiers to carry out nasty deeds undisturbed against the latter. Almost without exception, the young girls are kidnapped by the soldiers and their Arabian accomplices. A father close to desperation asked me to take his 15-year-old daughter with me as he could no longer protect her from being pestered. Three engineers from the Baghdad Railway had to work in Tel Ebiad (100 km east of the Euphrates River). Towards evening the Kaymakam came and offered each of them a young Armenian girl for the night. A Turkish major told a German that the children left along the way by the Armenians could not be counted. He and his brother had each taken one into their homes to bring it up.

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Women who went into labour along the way had to continue along immediately afterwards. One night, a woman had twins near Aintab; the following morning she had to carry on. She soon had to leave the children laying under a bush and a short while later she herself collapsed. Another gave birth during the march; she had to move on immediately and soon collapsed, dead. There were more such cases between Marash and Aleppo. In response to the comment by the Badveli57 from Memolian (?), “You’ll kill all the people,” a Turk replied, “Yes, that’s what we want.” Generally, the soldiers rob any cash along the way. The Badveli mentioned watched while 43 Turkish liras were taken from one family and 28 Turkish liras from another. The village of Sheer was permitted to take all of its household goods along. Suddenly along the way they were told that orders had been given to leave the road and travel over the mountains. Everything, wagons, oxen, things had to be left on the road, and then they went on foot over the mountains. Naturally, in view of the exceptionally hot weather this year, many women and children died on these marches. While the inhabitants of Sheer had not yet left their village, the Mullah was already calling the “believers” for prayer from the roof of the Christian church. The government says to the expellees: we will estimate the value of your house and your property and then pay; nothing has happened yet and furthermore, since no one knows where the individual families will end up, payment is hardly possible. The government also says that it will take care of everyone, financially as well. In the village of Bumbush (1½ days’ journey from Aleppo), the people banished there have actually been paid money to support themselves: 30 persons receive a total of 26 piastres for 30 days, making not even 1 piaster = 15 pfennigs per person per month. A telegram arrived in Aleppo from Arabkir: “We have accepted the true faith and now we are doing well.” The inhabitants of a village near Anderum converted to Islam and were allowed to stay. In Hadjin, 6 families wanted to become Mohammendan. They were given the following decision: under 100 families will not be accepted. A German lady told us that many people were being treated for their feet in the hospital in Marash, toes were being amputated, etc., which was put down to the treatment by the soldiers (bastinado). The gendarmes call this new kind of punishment “German drill.” A Turkish officer said, “We didn’t know this punishment before; we’ve learned it from the Germans.” A respected Mohammedan sheik said, “When people speak in my presence about the persecution of the Armenians, I’m ashamed to be a Turk.” Of the approx. 50,000 expellees who passed through Aleppo, approx. nine-tenths received the order one evening to move on the next morning. On average, one donkey was permitted for every 2 people as a pack animal and mount. The people received 1 kilo of bread per month from the government as their ration. Four-fifths of all expellees are women and children. 57. Armenian clergyman.

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There is no news of the approx. 30,000 expellees, as they have arrived in neither Aleppo nor Urfa. Aleppo, July 18, 1915. The information given above is only a fraction of what we have seen and learned in Aleppo. Enclosure 6 In the Vilayets of Diyarbekir and Mamuret-ul-Aziz, persecution began in April at the instigation of the two Valis. At their instigation, a fictitious committee was first set up to solve the Armenian question, which consisted of the following men: the former Main Secretary of Hof Bey; Deputy Pirnidshi-Sada-Feise-Bey; Major RüshdiBey; Bimbashi from the militia; Shefki-Bey, and the son of the Mufti, Sheref Bey (the cousin of the Deputy). The presidency was held by Mektubshi-Bedri-Bey. First, the persecution of the Dashnak (the Liberal Armenian Party) and the Hintchak (the Revolutionary Armenian Party) was resolved. The first victims were the president of the Dashnak together with 20 notables, among them the priest Aliponar. The people were taken into custody, ill-treated and then murdered by Osman-Bey and the Mudir of the police, Hussein Bey. The priest’s young wife was raped by 10 zaptiehs and almost tormented to death. For approx. 30 days a larger number of Armenians was arrested daily who were then killed at night in prison. Two doctors were forced to certify that the cause of death of all those killed had been typhus. Dr. Mahan was arrested together with 10 other notables on the pretext of having been banished to Malatia. On the way there they were all killed. Between 10 and 30 May, a further 1,200 of the most respected Armenians and other Christians were arrested, without differentiation for their faith, from the Vilayet of Diyarbekir and Mamuret-ul-Aziz. On 30 May, 674 of them were loaded onto 13 kelleks (Tigris boats) on the pretext of being brought to Mosul. The Vali’s adjutant carried out the transport together with about 50 gendarmes. Half of these distributed themselves on the boats while the rest rode along the bank. Soon after setting off, all the money (approx. 6,000 Turkish liras) and clothes were taken off the people and they were then thrown into the river. It was the duty of the gendarmes on the bank to ensure that no one got away. The people’s clothes were sold at the market in D. Incidentally, the son, Omarke, of the Kurd chief ’s wife, Perikhan, who had been sent for especially for this, also assisted in these murders. As Omarke had previously been pursued by the government, Feisi-Bey first obtained free passage for him. At the same time, approx. 700 young Armenian men were supposedly enlisted in the army, but then had to build the Karabakshe-Habashi road. During this work, the young men were then shot down one day by the Zaptiehs guarding them, and not one escaped. The Obashi in charge boasted later that he had managed to shoot down the 700 men using only 5 Zaptiehs. One day in Diyarbekir, the clothes were taken off 5-6 priests; they were then covered in tar and pulled through the streets.

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The Kaymakam of Citshi (?) refused to carry out the order given to him verbally by a messenger from the Vali to kill the Armenians, remarking that he wished to have the order in writing. He was dismissed, sent to D., but killed by his accompanying troops on his way there. In Mardin, the Mutessarif was also dismissed as he did not carry out the will of the Vali. Once 500 and then again 300 of the notables of all confessions were brought to D. from here. The first 600 never arrived and nothing was ever heard of from the others. [From Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 1589), 25 August] Director Schuchardt from the German Christian Charity-Organisation in Frankfurt, disturbed by the persecution of the Armenians, plans to go there shortly to personally look after the interests of his organisation and to ensure that their schools carry on. Please send a telegraphic message whether this journey is opportune at present. Instructions will follow. [Reply from Hohenlohe-Langenburg (No. 1914), 27 August] Reply to Telegram No. 1589. Schuchard’s journey is completely inappropriate at present. Would not get past Constantinople and achieve nothing. Embassy is doing everything possible for the institutes of the Charity-Organisation. [Note from Tiedemann, 30 August] G.A. Mr. Schuchardt was informed verbally of the contents of the telegram and strongly advised not to undertake the planned journey. He was informed that, should he travel against the wishes of the Foreign Office, he could expect no support from this end for his journey. He reserved the right to come back to this matter in a new petition and promised that, should he travel to Constantinople, he would strictly adhere to the Embassy’s directives. Mr. Schuchardt passes on the enclosed article.58

1915-08-21-DE-001 [This document, which is found in the German edition, has been intentionally omitted from the English edition.] In some cases, German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Swiss missionaries gave a report to both the German and American embassies. They gave their accounts orally, 58. This article was published in the Basler News. See Encl. 2 to document 1915-09-22-DE-002.

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following their notes. These records differ in the use of some expressions, but not in the facts. The report of the two female missionaries, Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg (a Norwegian) and Eva Elvers (a German), published in 1915-08-21-DE-001, was made verbally to the Americans but followed the same manuscript (not only the notes) given to the German Embassy. The wording differs only slightly. The Americans passed it to the British, and it was published as document 62 in The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with a Preface by Viscount Bryce (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1916).]

1915-08-21-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53, 4857; p.21.08.1915. Correspondence. Translated by Linda Struck From the Chairman of the Baghdad Railway in Constantinople Franz Johannes Günther to the Legation Councillor of the German Embassy in Constantinople (Neurath) Constantinople, 21 August 1915 Dear Mr. von Neurath, For obvious reasons I do not wish to convey the enclosed report to you through official channels, but simply as a private person and for your own personal information. With best regards, Yours faithfully, Günther [Note Mordtmann, 24 August] Have noted. I am adding a detailed record containing the latest reports by Messrs. Zabel and von Hollbach. Enclosure 1 Konia, 16 August 1915 The undersigned German nationals, at present residing in Konia, would herewith like to present the following report to the Imperial German Embassy. For the past week, we have been witnesses of the most moving scenes, which anyone not coming into close contact with them can hardly imagine. Every day long

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trains of Armenians arrive here, who according to their accounts, have been deported from Ismid, Adapazar and the surrounding areas. From some of those passing through we have learned that the deportation regulations have already been enforced for many months in Cilicia and North Mesopotamia and as we hear, also other places in Anatolia are being cleared of the Armenians. Today the local Armenians also received the order to leave the town within eight days. Naturally, it is not up to us to complain about the measures taken by the authorities. We are also aware that there are some guilty ones among the Armenians. What we wish to achieve with our report is only to express our objection to the way in which these deportees are being treated, which runs completely counter to any form of humanity. Women and children are being driven along with blows of the fists and with sticks. They are being chased out into the night on open carts and Tatar carriages, and those without money have to continue the difficult journey on foot carrying the remainder of their possessions. Those who are even without the bare necessities have to sell off their few belongings, but these are often torn from them by force and stolen. How great is the despair of mothers who have to give away their children in order to spare them the most wretched fate. Children who have been taken in by compassionate Christian families are later taken away from them by the authorities and given to the Turks. Help from our side is not favoured. This reminds us of an occurrence in April of this year, where the assistance of the local American mission given to approx. 3,000 Armenians expelled from Zeytun was forbidden; on the other hand, no objection was raised from any side when, during the Balkan turmoil, beds and linen worth more than 500 Ltq. were distributed from Eskishehir to Eregli among the Muslim emigrants. The whole of the route from here to beyond Aleppo resembles a caravan of misery and wretchedness. In places such as Karaman, Eregli and Bozanti, where the people themselves are suffering from a shortage of bread, the fate of the deportees is unimaginable; they are destined to suffer a slow, agonising death by starvation. For your information we would like to mention that in Bozanti, despite a price of 8 piastres for an oka of bread,59 there is none available at all. In the mountainous areas on this side and in the plain on the other side of the Taurus, these poor people are subjected to the most disgraceful lustful desires of the half-wild Muslim population. The whole measure seems to be aimed at a complete extermination of the Armenians. This inhumane treatment constitutes a disgrace, which is indelible in world history, not only for the Turks, but also for us Germans as their current allies and advi59. An oka is just over 2 pounds.

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sors, if we continue to stand back and allow the destruction of this people. Apart from this, this procedure is highly deplorable in the interest of the economic position of the country, and German enterprises will also be affected when this industrious people is destroyed. If the undersigned take the liberty of conveying a report about these circumstances to the Imperial Embassy, then they are doing so under the assumption that these facts are not known in full to the Imperial German Embassy. We Germans, who are forced daily to observe this inhumane activity, feel it is our duty as members of a cultural state in the midst of a half-civilised people, to protest against it. In expectation that our petition will be considered to such an extent that at least the fate of many thousands of innocent women and children is relieved, we remain, Yours faithfully, Willy Seeger, Chairman of the Anatolian Industrial and Trading Company Ltd., Konia branch. Georg Biegel, secondary school teacher. Heinrich Janson, foreman. J. E. Maurer, qualified engineer. Enclosure 2 [Record Mordtmann, 24 August] I. On his journey from Mesopotamia to here, Mr. Rudolf Zabel from the newspaper Tägl. Rundschau, who visited me on 20th inst., observed the train of Armenian emigrants as far as Konia and even further. He was in possession of a copy of the objection raised by the Germans from Konia. He describes the way in which the deportation is carried out, beginning in the West, as follows: The transports are first directed to Konia, where there is a fairly large concentration camp; those who cannot buy a rail ticket have to go on foot. In Konia most of them sell their belongings, but are only allowed to sell to Turks. The wealthier deposited their cash with the Banque Ottomane; this was later prohibited and the deposits were confiscated by the authorities; this is what happened to a rich Saracen from Ismid, amongst others. The property owned by Armenians is registered by the Armenian Bishop of Ismid; the register is in the hands of the engineer Maurer, who will later be passing it on to here. More recently, the Protestant and Catholic Armenians are being spared; the Armenians who have been deported from Ismid and the surrounding areas are at present in Eskishehir, and are supposed to be heading for Kintakia, where the Armenians have been expelled. The accommodation and food-supply for the deportees is bad. There is a high death rate.

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In Eregli there is a large camp (approx. 3,000 people); it appears that those who have travelled by train are accommodated there, as the people still had a lot of belongings with them; there is also a high death rate in this camp. In E. five railway trains arrive each day, each with 1,000-1,500 Armenians; Mr. Zabel has seen 8,000 moving along on foot. Ulukirkhla is one of the worst stations. The camp there was formerly occupied by labour battalions, is infested with refuse, insects, etc. The conditions for the deportees there is very wretched. Beyond Ulukirkhla there is no more transport by train. The deportees are herded on in individual groups like cattle. It is there that the attacks by robbers begin; Mr. Z. had proven news of such an attack. 15 Armenians were killed or wounded during the ambush. In Bozanti, the next station, there is neither accommodation nor bread; from there it is another 10 km without a break to a refugee camp along the military supply and communication route. Beyond Bozanti there are no longer any strong men to be seen among the deportees. There are only a few carts for those with money, as all available vehicles have been requisitioned by the military. In Adana the emigrants arrive completely exhausted. The military route Adana - Osmania - Hamidé is now only passed along on foot; the camps (in the open air) are in a terrible condition. Beyond Aleppo there are also no longer any marriageable girls among the deportees. Lieutenant Colonel Klinckhardt was offered 2 girls by Turkish officers in Ratulem.60 In Kubla there is another large camp where, amongst others, the Armenians from Dört Yöl are accommodated. Of the other things that Mr. Z. has observed, it should be mentioned that Azmi Bey, who was posted to Beirut, gave the order to destroy the bell-tower of the Armenian Protestant Church, which is also frequented by German Protestants, shortly before his departure from Konia. Despite an urgent plea from the German side, the order was carried out. Mr. Zabel gives the impression of being a sober, impartial observer; he has collected plenty of material, including a series of photographs and films. His judgement on the behaviour of the Turkish authorities in the interior of the country was devastating; among other things he said: he had travelled in many countries in disquieting times—while war and revolution dominated the country—but he had never seen any anarchy of this kind anywhere at all. II. On 23rd inst., Mr. von Holbach (Regie official, has been in Turkey for many years) visited me; he was last in Adana and came here almost simultaneously with Zabel. 60. This sentence was deleted.

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His accounts of the suffering of the deportees coincide with the reports of Mr. Zabel. I would like to emphasise a few of his details: Those transported by train are being crowded, at present 50 to 60 at a time, into cattle trucks which can otherwise hardly hold 40. In Konia and Adana there have been many conversions to Islam; many Armenians are already selling their children in Konia. The trade in Adana will be badly damaged by the persecution of the Armenians. The whole of the bazaar in Adana is Armenian. The cotton cultivation is also almost exclusively in Armenians hands; trade with this commodity in Greek hands. Hakki Bey (General Staff Officer), Vali of Adana, tried at the beginning to protect the Armenians, but was then ordered to Constantinople, and since his return has been relentlessly against the Armenians. Mr. von Hollbach closed his report with the words: He has always been completely sympathetic with the Turks; but after all he had seen with his own eyes, he had been totally rid of his sympathies for the Turks. For now he would keep his silence, but at the right moment he would bring everything into the newspapers. [Notes Mordtmann, 24 August] Willy Seeger in Konia, 19 August to Mr. Günther: (excerpt) 1. The preparation period for their deportation granted to the Armenians has been reduced from 8 to 6 days; on the 21st 2,000 persons are to be expelled. … 2. The Armenian Bishop is asking me to send a message to His Majesty the Emperor, saying that all Gregorian Armenians wish to become Protestants and are requesting the protection of the Emperor. … 3. There is a rumour going around that due to the intervention of His Majesty Franz Joseph, the Catholics are being exempted from deportation. … 4. There is the greatest despair among the Armenians. The police are allowed to assault them. Their possessions are being sold off at ridiculous prices and all kinds of obstacles are being put in the way of these poor people while their belongings are being sold. … 5. As notified, approx. 25 Armenians have declared their willingness to become Muslims. 6. As I already wrote, the order even applies to my employees. is asking the Embassy to undertake steps on behalf of the persecuted. [Note by Mordtmann, 24 August] With regard to the Catholics and the Protestants, Talaat Bey repeated his earlier assurances to me yesterday; I especially mentioned item 6); with regard to this, Talaat

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B. remarked that he had already spoken to H. Günther about the matter. The railway officials will remain, but are to be gradually replaced.

1915-08-23-DE-013 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From Colonel Stange to the German Military Mission in Constantinople Military Mission J.No. 3841 Erzerum, 23 August 1915 Secret! Report on the Deportation of the Armenians The deportation of the Armenians began around the middle of May 1915. Until then everything had been fairly quiet; the Armenians were able to go about their trading and other businesses, practise their religion undisturbed and in general were satisfied with their situation. However, on 10 February of this year, the second director of the local Ottoman Bank, an Armenian, was shot dead on the open street just before 6 o’clock in the evening. Despite the alleged attempts by the government, the murderer was never apprehended. Today there is no longer any doubt that the motive behind this murder was a purely political one. Around that time, the Armenian Bishop of Erzindjan was also murdered. On or around 20 May, the Commander-in-Chief, Kiamil Pasha, had given orders for the evacuation of the Armenian villages to the north of Erzerum. These were carried out by the Turkish organs in the most brutal manner; the copy of a letter written by the Armenian villagers and addressed to their Bishop provides evidence about it: the people were driven from their homes, farms and fields within the shortest possible space of time and herded together. A large number of them were not even given the time by the gendarmes to pack the barest necessities to take with them. Things that had been left behind or even taken with them were confiscated by the escorting gendarmes and soldiers or stolen from the houses. In the bad weather conditions that prevailed at that time the exiles had to sleep out in the open; they were only given permission by the gendarmes—mostly only in return for special payment—to enter towns or villages to obtain food or to fill up their water vessels. Rapes did occur, and it is indeed true that despairing mothers often threw their babies in the Euphrates because they no longer foresaw any chance of being able to feed them. Several times, the German Consul arranged for his German consular employees to distribute bread and the latter are in a position to report on the misery of the exiles.

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It is definitely a fact that these Armenians, almost without exception, were murdered in the region of Mama Hatun (Tertjan) by so-called “chetes” (volunteers), Ashirets and similar scum. These acts were, in fact, tolerated by the military escort cadres, were even accomplished through their assistance. The Vali admitted these facts to the German Consul—of course only to a limited extent—and the latter thoroughly questioned an old Armenian, who had managed to flee from the massacre despite being wounded, about the occurrences. A large number of corpses have been seen there by the consular employee, Schlimme, who had volunteered for war service. At the beginning of June, the deportation of the Armenians from the city of Erzerum began. The manner in which this was carried out by governmental and police authorities and their organs was devoid of any kind of organisation and discipline. On the contrary, it is a prime example of the ruthless, inhumane and unlawful arbitrariness, the bestial brutality of all the Turks involved, vis-à-vis this category of people whom they hated deeply and regarded as being fair game and outlaws. There are a great number of reliable examples attesting to these facts. The government did nothing at all to help the exiles in any way, and since the police knew the mind-set of their superiors, they therefore did everything in their power to augment the agony of the Armenians. Expulsions were decreed and then revoked; after this, residence permits were issued and then demanded back by the police after only a few days and destroyed. New eviction orders were given, in many cases the very evening before eviction the next morning. Objections and complaints were ignored and response in the form of maltreatment was not unusual. The government did not give the exiles any information as to their destination. It allowed the prices of the various means of transport to reach an almost exorbitant level; mostly, it arranged for an insufficient number of escorts who were badly trained and took their duty of protecting the deportees by no means seriously, as often became apparent at a later stage. And yet it was generally known that the level of precariousness on the roads had risen to a high level. However, this did not keep the authorities from driving out the Armenians. They were indeed meant to die. In Trebizond, the Armenians, after receiving deportation orders, were even forbidden to sell or take any of their possessions with them. The local consulate employee, the German volunteer Schlimme (Schlimme was travelling on a consular mission via Baiburt, Erzindjan to Trebizond) saw for himself in Trebizond how police officers in front of the police station took pitiful bundles away from the passing deportees. The preceding discussion should suffice in giving an idea, even if a very feeble one, of the appalling treatment to which the Armenians were subjected. Many other details are available. As far as it is possible to judge, despite efforts by the government to keep these events secret or at least to tone them down, the situation is as follows: Out of the first convoy which left on 16 June on the direct route to Harput and which mainly consisted of Armenian notables who had a lot of baggage with them, all

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the men, with very few exceptions, have been murdered, although the Vali has only admitted this for 13 Armenians. The women seem to have arrived in Harput with the smallest children, but nothing certain is known about the grown-up girls. The other groups were led via Baiburt to Erzindjan and then in the direction of Kamakh (Euphrates valley). Generally they “are supposed” to have managed to get through the Euphrates valley safely, but still have to pass through a dangerous part on their trek to Harput and to the area around Urfa. Of the Armenians from Trebizond, the men were led aside into the mountains and massacred with the help of military troops, while the women were driven on in a deplorable state to Erzindjan. What happened to them after that is not known to date. In Trebizond, Armenians were driven out to sea and then thrown overboard. The Bishop of Trebizond was summoned to appear before a court-martial in Erzerum and was strangled on his way there, together with his guards. An Armenian military physician was murdered between Trebizond and Baiburt. The Armenians from Erzindjan were all driven together into the Kamakh gorge (Euphrates) and massacred there. There are fairly credible reports that the bodies were loaded onto carts which had already been placed there in preparation, and driven to the Euphrates and then thrown into the river. The Bishop of Erzindjan was escorting his fellow-Christians and will have shared their fate. In Erzerum there are only very few Armenians left after the original order, that women and children without any male protection could stay in the town, was revoked, and their expulsion was carried out strictly and ruthlessly. Even those who were absolutely needed for military and administrative tasks, craftsmen, smiths, lorry drivers, hospital staff, bank and government clerks, military physicians were all deported randomly. The removal of the Armenians from the war zone around Erzerum was legally permissible and is being justified as a military necessity. Indeed, the Armenians in various areas had proven to be unreliable. With Russian support there had been revolts and acts of violence against the Muslim population (e.g. by Lake Van, in Bitlis, in Mush). Occasionally telegraph wires had been cut and there were not just a few cases of espionage. On the other hand, the Armenian population in Erzerum had remained completely calm until this point. Whether they would have remained so quiet if the Russians had advanced and come close to Erzerum, for example, cannot be determined for certain at present. Except for a relatively small fraction, all Armenians who were fit for military service had been called up. In view of this, there seemed to be no particular reason to fear any effective uprising. Nevertheless, it appears that the government had such a fear of the Armenians, which was out of all proportion to the powerless condition in which the Armenians were at that time. But even if the decision to deport this not so reliable element is always the responsibility of the Supreme Command, one should still be able to expect and indeed demand that these steps are taken without harming the lives and possessions of the deportees, against whom there is not the slightest evidence of culpability. The justification and obligation to

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prosecute individual offenders is not the issue here. But the fact that hundreds and thousands were outright murdered, that the authorities helped themselves at will to the possessions that had been left behind (houses, shops, goods, households)—in the Armenian church there were stocks to a value of about 150,000 Ltq.—that the evictions were carried out under inhumane conditions, and families and women were driven away without any male protection, and the fact that those Armenians who had at long last converted to the Muslim faith were no longer regarded as being suspicious and were therefore left in peace, are such as to raise some questions. One feels justified in surmising that military considerations were of secondary import for the deportation of the Armenians, and that the main aim was to take advantage of this excellent opportunity in order to put into effect a long-fostered plan to achieve the thorough weakening, if not the destruction of the Armenian people, while from the outside there was no protest to be expected. The military reasons and the rebellious efforts in various parts of the country provided welcome pretexts for this undertaking. In this respect, the authorities seem to be regarding the principle of taking revenge on the innocent for the deeds of the guilty, on whom one cannot, however, lay one’s hands, as being justified. For the Europeans this principle can only be explained by the fact that the Turks really have concepts of decency and morality which in no way correspond to ours. In carrying out the deportation measures, the Vali at one time referred to the orders of the Supreme Command, at another time to the orders from Constantinople. Conversely, the Supreme Command continually kept pressing for the ruthless acceleration of the expulsion, and, more often than not, gave orders to put the blame on the Vali for their implementation without being either able or willing to give him the means to execute these orders. The Commander-in-Chief must have had knowledge of the murder of the first Armenians, and also of the behaviour of the escorting gendarmes; he was aware of the unsafe condition of the roads, did nothing to stamp out these abuses, and nevertheless ordered the deportation of the Armenians along these roads. But this behaviour is in line with the remark he made to the Consul to the effect that after the war an Armenian question would no longer exist. In view of all these occurrences, the following can be accepted as clear facts: The expulsion and destruction of the Armenians was decided on by the Committee of the Young Turks in Constantinople, was well organised by them, and carried out with the help of members of the Army and of voluntary bands. To help carry out this task on the spot, the following members of the Committee were stationed locally: Hilmi Bey, Shakir Bey, the Member of Parliament for Erzerum, Seyfoulla Bey; also here in office: the Vali, Tahsin Bey, the Director of Police, Khoulousse Bey, and finally Mahmud Kiamil Pasha, who, besides the Director of Police, had proven to be the most brutal in executing the orders. Stange, Colonel

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[Note by Liman von Sanders, 9 September] To the Imperial Military Attaché, the honourable Colonel von Lossow.

1915-08-27-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 28189; pr. 28.09.1915 p.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Very Draack From the Consul in Trebizond (Bergfeld) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 39/J.No.secr. 407 Trebizond, 27 August 1915 Further to the report dated 25 July [A 23905.] During the general deportation of the Armenians from Trebizond, some individuals remained here through the verbal or written permission of the Vali. These include the officials from the Ottoman Bank, the Tabakregie, two wives of officials and several single women. They are now being deported at night and it seems that they are being murdered just outside of town. Apparently the Vali of Trebizond is a member of the Young Turk Committee, but he attempted to keep his independence, and he endeavoured to soften the measures against the Armenians as far as possible. It was probably his influence which led to the successful dismissal of the local inspector and Committee leader, Nai Bey. Unfortunately, he receives no support from his officials and the police organs whatsoever. With few exceptions, they enrich themselves during the emptying of Armenian houses in a most shameful manner. Thus, the Vali was unable to prevail against the criminals threatening Armenian lives and property. On the other hand, he would have to go against his own nature if he remained a powerless spectator of the wrongdoings he disapproves of. This is probably what led to his clearing out and, using an unimportant excuse, going into the interior for about three weeks. The occurrences described are not only unfortunate with regard to German and Turkish reputation, as well as for general humane reasons, but they also present the danger that the people of the Committee may begin to enjoy enriching themselves in such an effortless manner and, at a given moment, proceed against the Greek population in the same manner, should no punishment be forthcoming now. This is only possible by setting up a court-martial in Trebizond to investigate and pass sentence in the matter. Meanwhile, the judges’ position will not be an easy one. They will not only be exposed to attempts at bribery from the Armenian booty, but

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also run the danger of compromising their future by acting against the people of the Committee. I have telegraphed a report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople and sent a transcript of this report. [Bergfeld]

1915-08-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 27584; pr. 21.09.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Head of the German Information Service for the Orient, Baron Max von Oppenheim, to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Damascus, 29 August 1915 Djemal Pasha has repeatedly instigated discussions with me on the Armenian question and ordered his officers to give me more written and verbal details from the files concerning the development of this matter (within the sphere of the Fourth Army). Thus, I was given the files containing the orders issued by Djemal Pasha himself, regarding the treatment of the deported Armenians, the translation of which I enclose. I advised Djemal Pasha to have all of the material in connection with the Armenian question collected both here and at the headquarters in Constantinople and to publish a documentary presentation from this at an opportune moment, so that Turkey can take timely steps against inevitable accusations. I have had to devote a lot of time to the Armenians on my journeys to Asian Turkey. I regret that my opinion, which is in agreement with most Germans in these regions, is a very bad one. The Armenians were no worse off with their Turkish masters than the other Christian Ottomans, until the Hamidian period. On the contrary, they were the ones who were called upon to occupy certain public offices, all the way up to the position of minister. The deep split and the hatred between Turks and Armenians is therefore of a more recent nature. In my opinion, this is first and foremost the consequence of the American and British missionary work, which began in the middle of the nineteenth century, as well as the provocative and undermining efforts of the Russian, British and French consuls. During that time, half-educated Armenians were introduced to modern civilisation in Europe and the United States, and were captivated by revolutionary opinions. Thus, the abandoned idea of reviving a great Armenian kingdom was re-invoked as they returned to their home country. Subsequently, they inoculated their countrymen with the germ of displeasure and dissatisfaction with

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the present conditions. Naturally, the massacres of the Hamidian period, a counterreaction against the Armenian machinations, only added to this. Thus, the relationship between the Armenians and their surrounding Mohammedan elements, as well as the Turkish government, constantly worsened, especially because of the national peculiarity of the Armenians. The undeniable dexterous and, in part, the intellectual superiority of the Armenians compared to Mohammedans, their proverbial artfulness in business life, their addiction to intrigue, arrogance, and revolutionary inclination, and especially the constant expansion of their surroundings, and most importantly the recent public display of their hostility towards the Turks, heightened the tension. The joint work of a number of Armenians with the Young Turks in Europe to overthrow the Hamidian regime seemingly meant to bring about an improvement in the relationship. The new Young Turk rulers showed the greatest accommodation towards the Armenians in Constantinople (through handing them numerous ministerial and other public offices) as well as in the provinces. The counter-revolution, however, was the beginning of another critical period for the Armenians: the massacres of Adana took place. Nevertheless, the relationship improved soon thereafter. During the past few years, I have seen many Armenian soldiers and gendarmes in Syria and Mesopotamia, who were treated like brothers by their Mohammedan comrades. The exceptionally accommodating attitude of the Turks exceeded beyond the Balkan War, despite the bad experiences they had at that time with the Christian soldiers and particularly the Armenians. Even now, individual Armenian officers are in command of parts of the Mohammedan troops on the channel and have received the medal for bravery. Some of them were even favoured over Turkish staff officers. It was only during a later phase in the war that Armenian soldiers were disarmed and assigned to workers’ battalions. Nonetheless, already at the beginning of the present World War, the Armenians basically took sides everywhere with the enemies of Turkey and Germany. Both before and after the Turkish declaration of war, large numbers of Armenians joined the French, British and Russian flags as volunteers. The Armenians played a major role in the conspiracy instigated by Sheriff Pasha in Paris in the interests of the Triple Entente. They did their best in the Caucasus to support the Russians: entire villages sided with the enemy, and some individuals served in leader positions, etc. In the area around Van and in eastern Asia Minor, it soon became clear that this was an operation that had been planned together with the enemy long in advance to throw off Turkish rule. The events in Van are known. Numerous Turkish officials, officers, and private people have reported to me about the bloody, repulsive atrocities that the Armenians carried out against the Mohammedans in Van and the surrounding area. Russian and Armenian soldiers and officers trained the Turkish Armenians. In many parts of their territory, the Turks had to fight their Armenian subjects, who, under Russian supreme command, had become real troops. In Diyarbekir and other Asia Minor towns, the threads of a militarily organised conspiracy were discovered: the most

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respected Armenians were designated as captains, colonels, etc. Russian weapons and bombs were supposedly found in the cellars of notables and even bishops (Mardin), as well as pieces of uniforms that were to distinguish the Armenians as fighters for freedom and Russia. The announcement of the events in Van, like the machinations in Zeytun, and on the Gulf of Alexandretta, in a Lausanne newspaper (of which Djemal Pasha spoke to me) even before all of this had happened is typical. The connection between the western Armenians in the area of Adana, Zeytun, etc., with those in eastern Asia Minor followed from various circumstantial evidence. In Zeytun, the Armenian mountain nest north of Marash, a gang organised itself this spring. It was reinforced by deserting Armenian soldiers at the end of March, and even extended the audacity of its attacks to an ammunition transport accompanied by gendarmes, which was on its way from Marash to Zeytun. Four battalions had to be sent out to turn out the rebels, who had entrenched themselves in a convent near the town. At the same time, the chronically terrible state of affairs caused by the gangs in the Cilician mountains became more vividly noticeable. On several occasions, gendarmes and soldiers on the military road from Osmania to Radju were ambushed and murdered. All sorts of suspicious signs were observed, especially among the Armenian coastal population on the Gulf of Alexandretta. Undoubtedly, secret service and other means of assistance were carried out during the temporary enemy landing, which had led to the destruction of the railway line outside Alexandretta. An Armenian spy, furnished with extensive funds, had crossed over from Cyprus on the British cruiser, Doris, was caught in Dört Yol, and in addition, several boxes of ammunition of Italian origin were found hidden in the same area. The accumulation of these and other individual cases had to arouse the fears of the responsible Turkish offices that in case of an enemy landing here, in the West, the Armenians would join the enemy in a joint uprising, and it was just at this point, here on the Gulf of Alexandretta and near Mersina, that such a landing was first expected. The consequences in connection with a large Armenian revolt could have been immeasurable: once having taken hold of the crossings over the Zeihun and the Djihan and the Cilician mountains, the enemy would have separated Asia Minor and the European part of Turkey from the entire southern and south-eastern half of the empire; consequently, the Egyptian campaign would not have been possible before the intruders had been driven out again. And this does not begin to include the possible effects on certain Arabic territorial areas of the empire. Djemal Pasha and his officers repeatedly assured me that this must be prevented at all costs, and that this could only then take effect in a really far-reaching manner if the dangerous majorities of Armenians were transformed everywhere to harmless minorities and if, in general, they were removed from the strategic danger zone in particular. To this end, the basic decision to carry out mass deportations of the Armenians had been made in Constantinople. The Armenian inhabitants of the villages (not the large towns) along the coast, within the sphere of the Fourth Army Corps, should be deported in smaller groups of at least twenty-five to thirty families far into the interior in such a manner that any kind of re-unification would be impossible.

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Taking into account all the severity of his actions against the Armenians, Djemal gave, as he explained to me using the documents mentioned, such orders from the beginning to avoid any unnecessary harshness; whilst carrying out the reprisals necessary in the interests of the state, and additionally to avoid any interference by the civil population and, thus, to prevent massacres. Everything was to be carried out by the military and civil authorities only. The first document (Encl. 1) is a manifesto dated 16 March (old style), the purpose of which was to threaten penalties and to prevent eruptions of the agitation on the side of the Mohammedan population in the area around Zeytun, which was, after all, justified, against the heavily compromised Armenians in this town. On 2 April (old style), Djemal Pasha’s general deportation order (Encl. 2) was issued and was first applied in Zeytun. The deportees were taken from here to Konia. Gradually the coast was then cleared; this was done with increased harshness and speed after Italy entered the European war. Italy’s uncertain attitude towards Turkey added the danger of an Italian invasion to other such pre-existing dangers. Thus, Dört Yol, Erzin, Hassan-Beyli, Hadjin, Albistan and other places were cleared, and the Armenians there deported to northern Mesopotamia, to the area around Rakka on the Euphrates River. Here, too, Djemal Pasha’s serious intention to avoid riots was documented by a number of decrees (Encl. 3: decrees dated 28 April, 25 May, 4 and 10 June (old style). It is clear from the prevailing circumstances that infringements by the lower military and civil authorities took place despite this. A complaint sent by the Patriarch of Sis to Djemal Pasha was, thus, the main reason for Djemal Pasha’s journey to Aleppo, in June of this year. Djemal Pasha immediately ordered investigations, but, before these had been completed, he issued a sharp circular order to all of the vilayets concerned (Encl. 4). Within the order, he assumes that the infringements reported by the Patriarch of Sis, which he himself lists explicitly, undoubtedly did take place, and he once again impresses on all public authorities their responsibility for the life, honour, and property of the banished Armenians and announces the supervision of the implementation of this decree by means of special officers, who will arrive unannounced to revise the situation. At first the Armenians did not resist their evacuation. Recently, however, the military authorities have met with various difficulties in carrying out their task, especially during the evacuation of the Armenian part of the town of Marash. Five to six hundred deportees had fled from Marash to Funshlik [Fundadjak] (south of Marash), where they entrenched themselves, and subsequently were massacred almost to the last man by the militia sent out against them. Furthermore, to avoid their evacuation, the Armenians from Antioch hid themselves in the mountains and are still being searched for. At present, the transport of 12,000 Armenians is being carried out via Damascus to the south: to be precise, to the southern Hauran and the areas east of Kerak on the Hedjaz railway line. I myself saw such a transport pass Damascus late one evening. There were about five hundred people of all ages. They had come from Aleppo on carts and all sorts of mounts, no one was on foot, and their possessions were loaded on a considerable number of camels. The convoy was accompanied by

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gendarmes. Transport by railway is being striven for, but this is hardly possible considering the great difficulties the railway line is struggling against, particularly with regard to the possibilities of firing up the engines. I have also seen Armenians travelling in similar fashion between Adana and Aleppo. Undoubtedly, hardships, unavoidable cruelties, and terrible family disasters will still take place during the Armenian people’s expulsion from their homes and during the transports and the resettlements. Certainly, when new domiciles are allocated the safety and the possibility of the Armenians’ further progress will not always be taken into consideration. This did not even happen in earlier times for the muhadjirs, the Mohammedans who fled for religious reasons from areas which had been occupied by Christian conquerors. I need only remind you of the 40,000 Chechens (Circassians), who settled near Ras-ul-Ain (my Tell Halaf ) forty years ago, and who, since then, have melted away to barely a thousand souls due to fever, slaughter by the surrounding nomadic, pirating Bedouins, etc. Human sympathy surely suggests to the European to bewail the fate of so many undoubtedly innocent persons affected and to consider remedial action. For statesmanlike reasons, however, one must understand that in these difficult times the Turks are attempting to protect themselves against the Armenian danger with all the means available to them. The Germans I spoke to in the district of Adana, especially senior engineer Winckler, as well as senior engineer Föllner in Aleppo at a later date, were of the same opinion as I, namely, that the Turks in these areas were forced to take measures against the Armenians for reasons of self-preservation. The Turks, on their part, are now fighting for their existence. Those who have led the Armenians to join Turkey’s enemies are the ones primarily responsible for the misfortune of the Armenians. Therefore, it would have been an unforgivable carelessness on the part of the Turkish rulers if, after their experiences in Van, they had not prevented even the remote possibility of a similar, much more disastrous, treason in the West with all the means available to them while there was still time. Certainly we Germans will be made jointly responsible by the enemies for the hard fate of the Armenians and the cruelties that most certainly occurred, just as the attempt has unjustifiably been made to stamp us with some other stigma. I live in the conviction that neither at the headquarters in Constantinople nor in the provinces would we be able to change the firm intention of the Turkish governmental authorities (i.e., to protect themselves against the Armenians, possibly even to destroy them now wholly or in part). As allies of the Turks, we could not oppose them in their cautionary measures against the Armenians, particularly within the sphere of the Fourth Army. On Germany’s side there were sufficient friendly reminders to carry out these security precautions with as much leniency as possible. I, myself, was not miserly with this. I do not share the view that the expulsion of the Armenians could give the Arabs cause for riots. The Mohammedan Arabs are in conflict with the native Christians, especially the Armenians. All of the other Christian Ottomans are more or less antiTurk anyway, but they will not make any moves in this war, especially if victory is with the Turks and their allies.

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At the bottom of their hearts those intelligent Armenians, with few exceptions, irrespective of whether they are Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant were always hostile towards us Germans. They knew that we wanted to strengthen the Turkish Empire, while they were working towards its destruction. Max Oppenheim Enclosure 1 Translated from French by George Shirinian 16 March 1331 v.s. Manifest. 1. Certain acts of brigandage have taken place in Zeytun. The necessary military measures have been taken and are underway regarding this matter. 2. The well-being, life and honour of both the Armenian and Muslim population are under the protection of the Ottoman Government. They can be convinced that they will be not be subject of any oppression and therefore can go about their business and work calmly. 3. Any Muslim who commits acts against an Armenian for whatever reason or pretext will be accused of brigandage and be sent immediately for court-martial. No individual may intervene, in a direct or indirect manner, in the measures taken by the Government and its actions. 4. Decisions have been made to respond severely to any acts of brigandage so that no accusation be made in regards to the obedient and innocent population, and so that no misunderstanding may take place between it and the Government. The population must submit immediately to the orders made by military authorities. Enclosure 2 Translated from French by George Shirinian Extract from an order communicated to the Commanding Chief of the Army, 2 April 1331 v.s. Here is my point of view: Any Armenian grouping existing in the zone of the IV Army and which could be potentially dangerous for the future must be dispersed. This operation must be carried out from the coast to the interior. Therefore, the measures will be applied first of all at Dortyol, Alexandretta and surroundings, then at Hadjin and Sice as well as in other areas.

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Individually every Armenian is our compatriot. Therefore, these measures, based on political and social considerations, must not at all influence individual rights and must not provide an opportunity for thoughts of vengeance. Muslim immigrants will be settled in the areas evacuated by Armenians. The settlement and comfort of the Armenian population is as important as that of the Muslim immigrants. Above all we must ensure their security. The Armenians must be expelled to localities where, as well as being far from Armenian groups, offer at the same time the conditions for life that are necessary to them. Please communicate my points of view to the Valis of Aleppo, Adana, and to the Mutessarifs of Marash and of Zor. Enclosure 3 Translated from French by George Shirinian Dispatch from the Governor of Marash to His Excellency Djemal Pasha Commander of the IV Army and Minister of the Navy 28 April 1331 I have communicated your orders to the American missionaries of Marash. They are reassured about the attitude of the Government and about the lives and goods of the inhabitants..They have nothing to fear and have never suffered. They have declared to me that they will address your Excellency if they have any complaints to lodge. Dispatch from His Excellency Djemal Pasha, Commander of the IV Army and Minister of the Navy, to H.E. Fahri Pasha, his replacement in Erzin 25 May 1331 I ask you to make sure that those sent away due to their political opinion be treated according to their social status and that they be kept with their families. Dispatch from His Excellency Djemal Pasha, Commander of the IV Army and Minister of the Navy, to H.E. Fahri Pasha, his replacement in Bilan 4 June 1331

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The sick and pregnant women, and others to take care of them, not sent away immediately. Their departure will be postponed temporarily. The Armenian families who will be sent away must be transported like our own troops, that is to say, by rank, and their food and their means of travel must be regulated as they would for our military men. Dispatch from H.E. Djemal Pasha, Commander of the IV Army and Minister of the Navy, to H.E. the General Government of the Vilayet of Aleppo 10 June 1331 Military reasons oblige me to expel the majority of the Armenians of Dortyol and Hassan-beyli. The interest of the country requires that these Armenians be transported and relocated with the greatest care. Enclosure 4 Translated from French by George Shirinian Publication to the Vilayets. Despite the orders and communiqués which I have given that the Armenian population deported in different areas may not be subjected to any mistreatment and oppression, I have learned of some regrettable acts which have taken place. Here are some details which I have received to date on this subject: 1. Oppression has occurred during the search for arms, and a certain number of Armenians were forced to purchase arms at very high prices from their Turkish and Circassian neighbours in order to deliver them to the government. A certain number of their horses and valuables have been stolen. Under the impression that they would receive rations en route, they were left without bread or water. They have suffered harsh treatment and unnecessary insults and abuse by the officials charged with accompanying them. During their journey, they had to live off of 25-30 Drams worth of bread, and an allowance of 25 Paras per day. The employees and teachers of Armenian schools and orphanages have endured the same mistreatment as the rest of the indigenous population, rather than being sent back to their provinces. Some were not even allowed the time to gather their belongings. Women in Gueben were gathered at the time they were doing their washing and were forced en route barefoot, without being able to bring along the clothes they had washed.

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Certain fathers of the families were deported to places separately from their wives and children. And due to lack of transportation, certain women were forced to give up their children at the side of the road like a useless burden or in the back of a hedge, and some even tried to sell them. Permission to bring their animals, which were a short distance from their homes, was refused. Similar treatments question our national honour and form a stain on the name of Ottomanism. I therefore draw this to the attention of the competent authorities on this subject. 2. Serious inquiries must be made immediately regarding all these events, and those who committed these offences will be punished this time with a reprimand. All those who commit similar acts will be considered by me as Ottomans unworthy of the name and will be sent to Court-martial charged with treason. 3. Before the displacement of the Armenian population, a fixed time limit will be given to them and at the moment of expulsion, those who have carriages or horses will use them for their voyage. The Government will provide others with the necessary means of transportation. 4. The sick will remain where they are until they are better. 5. The population will be comfortably deported with an escort of gendarmes. A ration of 50 Paras for adults and men and 30 Paras for children will be given if they are in need. 6. The gendarmes and their employees who are part of their escort are responsible for their lives, their belongings and their honour. 7. In the places where they will be established, all necessities will be assured and everything will be under the protection and care of the Government. I will ensure the absolute execution of these orders by the inspection of my officers, in whom I have absolute confidence. No one will be informed of their inquiries, and following their reports, everyone can be assured that I will punish most severely those who act contrary to these orders. Djemal Pasha

1915-09-02-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 25988; pr. 04.09.1915 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, Friedrich Schuchardt, to the German Foreign Office Frankfurt am Main, 2 September 1915

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As a supplement to the material you already have, I take the liberty of sending you a further report from Mr. von Dobbeler, which I have just received. This act of self-defence by a people driven to despair will give the Turkish rulers a justification for their right to commit their atrocities. They are sure to make clever use of this, once again, and unfortunately, it will probably be accepted all too willingly by our press. One of the reasons for me to travel to Constantinople is to safeguard a larger amount of money, for which I have been unable to find any explanation during the past few days. Could you obtain the appropriate letters of recommendation for me, as the above mentioned information makes necessary? Respectfully yours, F. Schuchardt Enclosure Transcript. Mamouré, 1 August 1915 Dear Mr. Schuchardt, Once again, I was in Adana to see the Vali because the government wanted to remove all of the children, employees, and teachers from our institution. Today, I am travelling back to Harounia and am presently at Mamouré station. We never know here what the next day, yes, even the next hour will bring. The state of affairs forces us to struggle constantly with all sorts of Turkish officials, and had we not moved heaven and earth again and again, our institute would have been empty long ago. The situation is extremely critical. It was to be expected that there would be a reaction to those drastic deportations of the Armenians, and it came faster than anyone thought it would. While I was in Adana, I received a telegram from my wife stating that our institution was in the gravest danger, and that I had to return immediately, as rebellious Armenian gangs had arrived near Harounia. Unfortunately, it is a fact that the Armenians, the intelligent ones as well as the fools, think that the Germans, if they had only wanted to, could have prevented the deportations and all of the misfortunes connected with them. Therefore, the rebels also turned against us and, at any rate, we are quite justified in being extremely worried about this situation. The German Embassy should have protected the Armenians and not abandoned them (the Turks have a plan to let the entire people die in the desert or to deliver them into the hands of the Arabs or local residents, who will, of course, kill them). No one here believes that any of the tens of thousands, who have already been taken away, will return. Therefore, those who are already deported have sent word to their fellow countrymen, who are still here, that it would be better to die at home than in exile. Thus, the battle, which has now broken out, is one of desperation, and it may possibly take on a much larger dimension than one would imagine. We heard here that the gang was two thousand men strong and is now stationed between Marash and Harounia. The Vali of Adana

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mustered all of the military on its way to Aleppo and set out from Baghché at the head of the troops to meet them. Nevertheless, it goes without question that they will achieve nothing, unless they once again call on German officers for assistance, as they did when they overcame Zeytun. I did what I could to move the embassy in order not to turn the Armenians entirely against it, but no one there will listen to me. In addition, the Turkish government, through its measures, is foolish enough to plunge its country into extremely superfluous inner turmoil and civil wars. Dr. Büge said that the Armenians had been more than loyal, considering what they had endured in all the past years. We have absolutely no contact with Marash, but presumably the brethren there have the same worries we have. We must now wait and see what will happen. It is impossible to decide today what we should do tomorrow. In Germany, the Turks are still completely misjudged. Misled by the reports in the daily newspapers, it is commonly thought that something is still to be expected of the Turks. In fact, they are an entirely incompetent, caught in self-conceit nation—a nation that will still manage to make a desert of its countryside and, one day, possibly hand the ruins over to a European power. Respectfully yours, [B. von Dobbeler] [Zimmermann’s reply, September 8] Your […etc], I gratefully confirm receipt of your friendly letter from the 2nd inst. Similar to the material previously sent on the persecution of the Armenians, the enclosed supplementary report from Mr. von Dobbeler was passed on to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. I would like to note that, in accordance with your wish, expressed here orally, the Imperial Ambassador was instructed by telegram on the 1st inst. to speak up on behalf of the charity organisation, so that its institutions in Mamuret-ul-Azis, Marash and Harounia will not be closed down, and the orphans not removed. As you know, the Imperial Embassy had previously been instructed to intercede on behalf of the institutions of the charity organisation. Everything that can be done at present along these lines is being carried out by the embassy. Thus, in accordance with the Imperial Ambassador, I can only, once again, advise you to postpone your planned journey to Constantinople to a more opportune time, and I am not in a position to grant you official facilities should you undertake the journey now anyway. [From Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople, September 8 (No. 686)] Subsequent to the events, I respectfully enclose a transcript together with enclosure for your information and use as you find suitable.

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Mr. Schuchardt has been informed that everything possible is being undertaken on the part of the Imperial Embassy that can be done at present in the interests of the charity organisation’s institutions. In addition, he has been advised to postpone the planned journey to Constantinople to a more opportune time, and official facilities for the journey were declined.

1915-09-03-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14087; R14095; A 28019; pr. 26.09.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 90/B.No. 1950 Aleppo, 3 September 1915 I have received the following information on the Armenian question since sending my last report: 1. With the exception of 6 or 10 men who were saved by coincidence, all the men were killed in the Armenian slaughters in Antioch in the year 1909. Around 7 August, they had been put in jail by the government as a preliminary step towards being exiled. The widows and orphans have also not been exempted from deportation and have had to begin the march towards Hama. There are 6 Armenian villages near Antioch: Kessab on Mount Cassius and five on Djebel Musa, namely Bityas, Habably, Yoghun-oluk, Khider Bey, Kabbusiye. Farmers from these villages who showed themselves near Antioch were put in chains and taken away to the town. Although the inhabitants of Kessab and Kabusiye then presented themselves upon the request to surrender, those of the other four villages fled to the mountains. Two battalions were sent out to catch them, but they have not yet had any success. The terrain is difficult and the troops are not yet trained. In the course of the days, 30 soldiers were wounded, among them eight by shots, which they fired at each other due to clumsiness. 2. On the 19th inst., an Armenian who at that time had run away from the military, taking his weapon with him, shot three men from the armed force during a house search in Urfa, whereupon the mob held a real slaughter of Armenians and Syrians. About 200 men (according to other information even 250-320) were killed. The next morning the government was once again in charge of the situation. I have the honour of enclosing a transcript of a letter from Deacon Künzler on this matter. The fear he voices in this, that hundreds of Armenian street construction workers on the Plain of Harran were also killed, has been confirmed to me in the meantime as being

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true by the operators of the Baghdad Railway. The Baghdad Railway on its part has received a report from the station-master in Tell Abiad, who was told by gendarmes that at the order of their superior authority (the Kaimmakam from Harran) they shot down the street construction workers. 3. Apart from the Armenians, not only the Nestorians, but also Ancient Syrians (Jacobites), Catholic Syrians (Syrians) and other Christians have also been deported in the eastern provinces. For a longer period of time it has been indicated here that such Christians were also killed. I have asked a European acquaintance of mine who was born here, is a good observer and because of his occupation, comes into contact with different classes of the population, to inform me in writing of what he has learned about this matter, and I have the honour of enclosing his notes on this matter. According to him, there is a large number of non-Armenian, Christian women who arrived here without their husbands. Almost the only possible conclusion is that the men were killed. In one case, which has been proved, those missing were Greek Catholics. 4. Around 20 August, part of the Young Turk Committee in Aintab, upon hearing a false rumour that an armed hoard of Armenians was marching towards the town, wanted to start a panic and call up a massacre. The more level-headed part of the Committee opposed this and prevented a disaster. Although this news comes from an Armenian source, the people are reliable and it can be considered as being reliable. 5. Due to a false rumour, on about 20 August the mob in Bab (east of Aleppo) pounced on about 30 Armenian families put up there in tents and wounded 12 people. Only the immediate intervention on the part of the Kaimmakam prevented further misfortune. The burials of the Armenians who died in Bab are only possible when escorted by gendarmes. 6. On the 13st inst. the government made an announcement that those Armenians who wished to emigrate from Turkey would be permitted to do so if they committed themselves not to return during the war. It was pointed out orally that each individual would require permission from Djemal Pasha to emigrate. Also, no ships were available. The Armenians were convinced that the government was not serious about this announcement and that whoever applied for this permission would possibly incur special persecution through this. Although all the Armenians would emigrate if the practical means of doing so were available, no one dared to request permission, with the exception of a single family whose application I presented to the Vali together with my private recommendation. Three weeks have passed since then and an answer has not yet been forthcoming. Recently a regulation was passed that no one from the area of the 4th Army is allowed to leave without Enver Pasha’s permission. Thus, permission to emigrate is, in fact, invalid and only given as a pretence. 7. For a while, the Armenians were deported from here to Hama. I have the honour of enclosing the transcript of an inquiry I addressed to the Imperial Consulate in Damascus, asking what happens to them from Hama onwards. Since then, the railway administration has received the order to send the trains carrying the exiles

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directly to Rayak, from where they are to be transferred to Damascus. It seems that the area between Damascus and Kerak (southeast of the Dead Sea) has now been determined as the place for relocation, whereby the Armenians will have to remain a certain distance from the Hedjas Railway (probably at least 25 km). At any rate, Kerak has been named as the southernmost point of destination for transportation in the order to the railway administrations. 8. An older, calm Armenian who weighs things up carefully, a Protestant pastor from outside Aleppo who is very involved in the relief organisation for the expellees here, gave me a record of the results of his questioning—which went on for several weeks—on those banished from the Vilayets of Erzerum, Sivas, Diyarbekir and Harput, so far as they were deported to Aleppo, and I respectfully enclose a transcript of this. In this record, only 13,000 of the 35-40,000 banished arrived here; the rest were either killed or abducted. There are no males over the age of 11 among the 13,000 who arrived here. The survivors were exposed to inhuman treatment. The pastor always endeavoured to find the most educated and discerning people in the individual groups. Once quieter times have finally returned, it will become clear whether or not his account is accurate. Unfortunately at present, in my opinion, there is no reason to see his account as being incorrect, given the numerous pieces of information arriving here from the most varied sources and all well-attested, which always result in the same picture. To illustrate the inhuman treatment described therein, I have the honour of adding that according to information from the deputy chief operating officer of the Baghdad Railway based on statements from two engineers employed in Ras-ul-Ain, a Dutchman and a Luxembourger, a troop of 300-400 women arrived naked at the railway station there. According to the same source, other troops were plundered while still in Ras-ul-Ain by Chechens (Circassians) living nearby and by the gendarmes. A woman raped by eight men threw herself on the railway line to end her life. The train was brought to a standstill, whereupon she was then brought to Aleppo by a German engineer. 9. A German official of the Baghdad Railway Construction Company, W. Spieker, whose records on his observations on the other side of the Euphrates River I had the honour of enclosing in my report dated 27 July—K.No. 81—No. 1645—had reason to travel to Marash. I respectfully enclose his record of what he saw and heard on this journey. It follows from this that the Armenians in Mutesarriflik Marash, particularly in those parts to the north of the city of the same name, were treated in the same fashion as in the region of the 3rd Army, even though Marash belongs to the region of Djemal Pasha’s army (the 4th Army). However, Gürüm, mentioned in the record, is located in Vilayet Sivas, but, for the most part, the march from there to Marash crosses through the Marash region. 10. A Polish engineer from the Baghdad Railway who left Mosul on 10 August characterised the stretch to Ras-ul-Ain as follows: deserted villages, occasional smell of corpses and trails of blood in the sand which have not yet been obliterated. It is noticeable that something exceptional has passed through the country.

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11. At present, the instructions to the railway administration on the transport of the banned are that one train is to run every day, namely 2 per week from the northeast (Aktshe Küyünli railway station for people from Marash and Aintab), 2 from the northwest (Katma railway station for people from Alexandrette, Beilan and the coastal strip). These four trains pass through Aleppo. Although the stops at the railway stations last for hours, the passengers are most strictly prevented from entering the town. Every week, 3 trains leave Aleppo itself with such banished people; they come from the east or have gathered here otherwise due to a lack of organisation of transport. A train is generally made up of 30-35 carriages; it is to transport 1,500-1,600 banished, who are usually loaded onto freight cars, but also passenger cars whenever these are available. Thus, there are 50-55 persons in one wagon. It is a picture of indescribable misery. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure 1 Transcript Urfa, 23 August 1915 Esteemed Consul, The daily transport, which led to death, lasted until 19 August. On this day, the police investigated various Armenian houses. In one house they found some Mauser cartridges. Suddenly, upon searching further, the door of a hiding-place opened and three shots cracked out; a policeman, a gendarme and a soldier fell down dead. The others fled and immediately spread the news that all the Muslims should arm themselves because the “Giaur” [the unbelievers] were attacking the Muslims. The mob immediately stormed the Armenians from all sides and a real massacre began; approx. 200 Armenians and Syrians became victims of this, which continued until night fell. The next morning the government again held the reins and the mob had to calm down. It has been quiet since then. But no Armenian shows himself on the street, despite the government’s assurance of security. I have heard a rumour that the two … Halil and Ahmed Bey, of whom I’ve written to you before, have left. I pray to God that this is true! In Karaköprü, an hour north of Urfa, as well as on the Haran Plain, hundreds of Armenians are working in road construction; supposedly, they were all shot during the past few days. But this news has not yet been definitely confirmed. I pray to God that it is not true! All of us (the German colony) are well, thank God. [Jakob Künzler] P.S. The shots, which came from the hiding-place, were fired by an Armenian who had deserted from the military together with his weapon at that time.

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Enclosure 2 Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Transcript Aleppo, 21 August 1915 Mr. Consul, In Aleppo, there is a woman named Obégi, who lives with her brother-in-law Fathallah Obégi in the Tibi quarter; this woman was with her husband Yorki Obégi and her brother-in-law Noury Obégi in Diyarbekir. She also had there her own four brothers. When the massacres of a new kind began in Diyarbekir, Noury Obégi and his family hid with an agha who was a friend of a friend. One doesn’t know if Turkish hospitality is equivalent to Arab hospitality but still, there has been no news of it since. Yorki Obégi, his wife, his son and his daughter, and his wife’s four brothers, all Catholic Greeks, were sent to emigrate; barely out of Diarkebir, Yorki Obégi and the four young men, as well as the Armenian males were separated from the women and taken in another direction and never has news of her husband and brothers reached the wife. En route, Obégi’s wife’s two children were stolen and after extraordinary pains she was able to find her son, but her daughter, aged 8 to 9 years, disappeared. In Diarkebir, there were not only Armenians. Where then are the men of other rites? It is something that would be easy to ask the manager of the Consul there. A Christian Ottoman officer who found himself in Diarkebir and who wished to remain anonymous, told me that in Diarkebir, there was only one Greek priest; where is he? He was killed. He also told me that the police commissioner there said that a certain exile, Gabriel, was massacred; that one named Atkinson and another Pascales, one of whom he thinks was an English subject and the other Russian, were both killed two months ago, and the commissioner had told him that he killed them himself. To sum up, there are in Aleppo a number of women who were divided by their respective churches—Chaldean, Greek, Syrian, etc.—who are without their husbands; where then are these men? A Muslim businessman from Malatia recently arrived in Aleppo had responded to one of his Christian friends from here who had expressed to him the (so-called) desire to go collect some debts in Malatia. “Unfortunate one, the value of these bills is thus more important than your life. There are no Christians left in Malatia!!” The movement, if it began as anti-Armenian, has suddenly degenerated into an anti-Christian revolt. Now, there is no doubt and it would be very easy to be convinced of it if one wanted to make an investigation on site; but who is the poor Christian who would undertake to do so?! [name]

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Enclosure 3 Transcript No. 1806 To the Imperial Consulate in Damascus Aleppo, August 17, 1915 Since the government decided to have the towns of Marash, Aintab, Tarsus, Adana, Mersina and the coastal strip of the Vilayet of Aleppo cleared of Armenians, the figures for those affected by the deportation within the area of the 4th Army must be estimated at 120,000 to 150,000; of these, 15,000 are in Der-el-Zor, and about 10,000 are here in Aleppo. While perhaps 300 to 400 women and children are still arriving here daily from the eastern Vilayets (area of the 3rd Army), those Armenians arriving from Aintab and Marash by train are sent further to the south without a stop. First we heard that they were to be taken to Damascus and distributed from there in the Hauran area. But in fact, thousands have lately had to leave the train in Hama. It appears that they are to be sent from there to Palmyra. I would be grateful for a friendly note in case Armenians should come from Hama to Damascus on the road rather than being transported by train. This would correspond to the severity with which Armenians from the east are still often forced to march to Aleppo on foot instead of being transported by train from Ras-ul-Ain or, if they are at one of the stations where they can reach the train, from there. (over 300 kilometres). I consider it to be impossible that the government is in a position to feed the mass of deportees, while at the same time they are cut off from any possibility of acquiring their keep themselves. Not only the townspeople are helpless in the country; everything is missing for the farmers as well, from shelter to farming tools, livestock and seed corn. [Rössler] Enclosure 4 Report from an Armenian Aleppo, 23 August 1915 Of those expelled from the Vilayets of Erzerum, Sivas, Diyarbekir and Harput, 6,000 are in Aleppo, 3,000 in Hama and the surrounding area, 3,000 in Der-el-Zor and 1,000 in Ras-ul-Ain, a total of 13,000 widows and children. There are no male persons among them above the age of 11. These 13,000 widows and children were made to travel back and forth for 2-5 months. We have learned from a trustworthy source that the number of people still to come here amounts to 60,000.

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These widows and children coming from the 4 Vilayets were led up hill and down dale and along the most deserted and worst paths. During the 2-5 months, only some of the parties received bread from the government 3 or 4 times. They were completely robbed of their money and their possessions. 35 rich and wealthy families, including widows, were expelled from Bakrmaden in the Vilayet of Diyarbekir, and it took them 15 days to travel from Diyarbekir to Urfa. The officer accompanying them searched all of their clothes and apart from 300 Turkish liras he also took quite a lot of jewellery from them. During the journey he searched them several times again and left them with nothing. The third group of those expelled from Harput consisted of 1,500 people who took 4 days to reach Arghen. The officer accompanying them told them there that orders had been given that the men should take part in the harvest, gathered together all males over the age of 11 and brought them to a khan. The women and children had to move on. After a 3-hour march, he had them stop for a rest in the open while he himself rode back to Arghen and returned to the women and children 7-8 hours later towards evening and said to them, “The men have gone to the harvest.” The next morning, after they had been marching for two hours, they came to a Kurd village where they made a stop. The accompanying officer said to them there, “Any woman carrying gold or jewellery with her must give it to me immediately. Whoever keeps more than 40 piastres will be shot. The money and jewellery which you give to me now will be returned to you in Diyarbekir.” After he had promised them that, the women gave him the largest part of their money and their jewellery. On the 2nd evening, the same officer searched the clothes and the bodies of the women and girls; he even took off their trousers and searched for money with his hands and his eyes. The 10 gendarmes who were with this officer molested the women during the entire journey and said to them, “Give your money just to us and not to the officer. We’ll give it back to you in Diyarbekir, but the officer wants to keep everything for himself.” Having arrived in Diyarbekir, nothing at all was returned to them; they remained in Diyarbekir for one day and had to continue travelling the next night. It was there that young women and girls were kidnapped by officers and gendarmes. As they were leaving Diyarbekir, the officer who had accompanied them there came with some gendarmes and picked out several pretty young girls and boys and left the rest behind with 6-7 gendarmes while he himself went off with his prey. On the way to Mardin the gendarmes took the expellees’ few possessions, their bit of bread and the few pieces of jewellery they still had. Since the gendarmes accompanying them now knew that the expellees had no more money on them, they tormented them on the 4day journey from Mardin to Ras-ul-Ain by not giving them any drinking water. They sold many young girls and boys to Kurds and others or gave them away, so that of the 1,500 people who had been expelled from Harput only 500 reached Ras-ul-Ain. Approx. 1,000 were either left to die or kidnapped or sold along the way, and quite a few were killed. Without exception, all of the women were robbed and several had to take off their trousers no less than 9 times and permit that they be searched and looked

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at by the different officers and gendarmes accompanying them. Those expelled from Harput had to suffer every conceivable badness and nastiness solely from the officers and gendarmes accompanying them. The entire population from Mudurga, a village near Erzerum consisting of approx. 2,300 people, was expelled. Along the way, the men were separated from the women, and the latter were led not along the proper road, but over the mountains and on the entire journey they received 4 times 1 roll from the government. For 2 days they received not a drop of water to drink, although water was available, but rather the women and children, half dying of thirst, were driven further along by the gendarmes. Every day, 30-40 women and children were left to die along the way, and some of them were shot to death by the gendarmes accompanying them. There is not a single person among the expellees who was not plundered 7-10 times. The gendarmes and, with their permission, the Kurds raped the women and girls. Of these 2,300, only 4 women, 4 girls and 3 boys arrived in Aleppo in a miserable state. Although the number of widows and orphans who are in Aleppo, Hama, Derel-Zor and Ras-ul-Ain, amounts to only 13,000, the number of those deported to Aleppo amounted to 35-40,000 when they left the Vilayets of Erzerum, Sivas, Harput and Diyarbekir. It is clear from the figure mentioned above that 65 per cent were killed within 2-5 months or died of hunger and thirst. Among these 65 per cent, 39% were males over the age of 10-11 and 8% women, 13% young women and girls and 5% boys were kidnapped with the approval of the gendarmes. The rest, namely 35% women and children, arrived in Aleppo. 72 out of every hundred of those who arrived were ill with wormy wounds on their feet. All of the approx. 6,000 widows and orphans who are in Aleppo are barefoot, except for 40 or 50. Their footwear was taken by Kurds and Turks with the permission of the gendarmes accompanying them and each individual piece of clothing and bedding was searched several times. It must also be noted that apart from the young women and girls who were kidnapped, 25 per cent of those whose appearance was more or less pleasing were taken to one side by force during the day or night by the gendarmes accompanying them, by Kurds and Turks, and raped; some of those who were more beautiful even by 10-15 men, one after the other. In this way, a whole crowd of women and girls were left lying along the way. It is impossible to provide clothes and beds for all of the 6,000 widows and orphans who arrived in Aleppo. During the past few months, the local Armenians and some friends have assisted the 50,000 Armenians expelled from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adana and of Marash and the surrounding area with money, pieces of clothing, beds, etc., as much as they could, and thus the sources of assistance for the new arrivals are drying up. Every day the poor are given a roll (300 grams); thousands of sick people are given medicine and bandaged. The daily expenditure for the expellees in Aleppo amounts to 50 pounds and this is not enough to keep everyone alive. During these past 10 days from 11-21 August, an average of 25 died and the number of dying will multiply.

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Postscript: Even up to 2 September, the number of daily deaths amounted to an average of 25. Enclosure 5 Aleppo, 2 September 1915 From 28 July-20 August, I took a trip to Marash on a matter concerning my farm. In Beshgös, between Aintab and Killis, the people of the village were discussing the fact that deportation of the Armenians was to begin in Aintab the next day. After a while, a well-dressed gentleman, by his appearance a Cherkess, wearing partly civilian and partly officer’s clothing, joined the people and inquired, “From which part of the town do people leave, which road, what kind of people; can one get something from these people?” When one of those present asked him if he was a civilian or a member of the military he said, smiling, “Is there a more opportune moment to be a soldier than the present one.” When the person concerned then went on to say, “This time Germany taught these infidels, these pigs (“kjauerlar, hynsyrlar”) a lesson they won’t forget,” I could not stop myself from replying that it was dirtying the German name if a person mentioned the German name in a connection such as the one I had just had to hear. On my return journey, I learned that the second transport from Aintab had been robbed of everything including the shirts on their backs and, as various sources assured me, this took place with the consent of several government authorities to which the above named gentleman in question apparently must have had connections. I have reported previously on this robbery. The Vali of Aleppo intervened punitively. The Mutesarrif of Aintab has been removed from his office. 3 hours north of Aintab, the Muslim inhabitants of the village of Sam took a girl by force from the transport of deportees from Tshürükkos. The girl was returned against payment of 5 medj.; the deportees, all poor people, raised 3 medj. themselves, while 2 medj. were paid by friends from Aintab. The thief who took the girl came along to Aintab to receive the money. In Karaböjük, between Aintab and Marash, I met an Armenian transport, about 40 women and children and 5-6 men. About 100 newly conscripted soldiers were marching at a distance of about 200 metres right in front of them. There was a young girl among the women, a teacher, who had been employed by Germans for several years. She had just recovered from a heavy attack of typhus. The soldiers demanded with force to have her and a young woman, whose husband is currently a soldier in Damascus, for the night. It was only due to the Muslim mule drivers, who also stood up for the women, that the soldiers could be restrained to 3 times. On 6 August, the village of Fundadjak near Marash and its approx. 3,000 inhabitants were shot to pieces. The population, almost all of whom were mule drivers, had often had to transport Armenians in the direction across the Euphrates River during the past 3 months. They had seen the dead in the Euphrates River with their own eyes, had seen how women were sold and raped. “Sev-gülü [sevgili] ölüm (beloved

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death),” the people of Fundadjak who had come to Marash had said to the Germans when talk turned to former massacres. Then, when about 30 Armenian robbers forced their way into the village and threatened to shoot anyone who wanted to surrender to the government—and actually did shoot some who attempted to flee—the village was forced to oppose the government. In an Armenian school in Marash, I saw over 100 women and children from Fundadjak with arms and legs shot to pieces and all kinds of mutilations, among them 1- and 2-year-old children. On 13 August, 34 Armenians, people from the villages surrounding Marash, from Furnus, Shiwilgi, etc., were shot in Marash, among them 2 twelve-year-old boys. Again on 15 August, 24 people were shot and a further 14 hanged, also people from the villages surrounding Marash. The 24 men were bound to one another by a heavy chain around their throats and were set up to form a circle (knot); they were shot behind the American College in the presence of the Muslim population. I was an eye-witness of how the corpses, still in the throes of death, were left to the mercy of a brutal civilian population who dragged those shot by their hands and feet, and, for the delight of the bystanding Muslim population, the police and the gendarmes continued for half an hour to fire off their guns at the corpses which were, in part, terribly disfigured. Afterwards, the same people marched in front of the German Hospital and shouted, “Yashasin almaniya” (three cheers for Germany). Muslims told me again and again that it was Germany which was having the Armenians exterminated in this manner. On the way from town to the farm, I saw a human head lying on a dung heap at the edge of town, which Turkish boys had set up as a target. In the town of Marash itself while I was there, Armenians were killed daily by the civil population, their corpses then left lying for days in outlet trenches or elsewhere. Approximately 2,800 deportees from Gürün were robbed in Airan-Punar, 12 hours northeast of Marash, by 8 robbers who wore the uniforms partly of officers and partly of soldiers. In Qysyl-Getschid, 1½ hours from Airan-Punar, the 8 robbers joined the gendarmes accompanying the transport and spoke with them for quite a while. In Airan-Punar, the gendarmes had the people separate: the few men were separate and the women were separate. A part of the women was undressed to the skin and searched for money; 4 women and 2 girls were dragged away during the night and raped; 5 of them returned the next morning. In a narrow pass on Engissek-Dagh the entire transport was completely robbed by Aghdjadarli Kurds, by Nurghakli Kurds, by Setraklik and Helete Turks under the leadership of a Kurd named Tapo, the son of the well-known Kurd in Serajköy, Aghas Hassan Agha; formerly, on the occasion of a journey to Malatia, the latter had openly admitted to a German gentleman and myself, “You are my guests here; an hour’s distance from here I am no longer responsible for you; I could even be tempted myself to rob you.” About 200 people were killed during this attack; 70 badly wounded had to be left behind, over 50 other wounded were taken away with the transport. In Karaböjük I met the transport of about 2,500 people. They are in an indescribably miserable condition. One hour from Karaböjük, 2 men lay along the roadside, one with 2 and

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the other with 7 stab wounds; further away, 2 exhausted women; further-more, 4 women, among them a girl of about 13 with a two-day-old baby wrapped in rags in her arms. A man of about 60 who remained lying along the way with a deep wound in his face, one finger long and two fingers wide, tells me that he left Gürun with 13 animals. All of the animals and goods were taken away from him in Airan-Punar and he dragged himself along on foot as far as an hour’s march from Karaböjük, where he broke down in exhaustion. All of these people were wealthy; the value of the stolen animals, goods and money has been estimated at 8,000 Turkish liras. The exhausted are left lying along the way; the dead can be seen lying on both sides of the road from Karaböjük to Marash. With the exception of perhaps 30-40 men, I saw no males among the 2,500 people in this transport. The men over the age of 15 had been led away before the women and probably killed. These Armenians were deliberately led in a roundabout way and along dangerous roads instead of along the direct road, a 4-day march via Marash; they had already been on the road for a month. They had to journey without animals, without beds, without food, and receive thin bread (jukhar ekmek) once a day, and not enough of that in order to be able to eat their fill once. 400 of these people, Protestants, have meanwhile arrived in Aleppo; 2-3 of them are dying every day. The attack in Airan-Punar was carried out with the consent of the Kaimakam of Albistan, who had let the Armenians pay him 200 Turkish liras and promised the people that he would take care that they arrived safely in Aintab. The Kaimakam of Gürün had let them pay him 1,020 Turkish liras and given them the same assurances. I saw an Armenian teacher who, together with others, had given this amount to the Kaimakam in the club room in Gürün. Near Aintab, several women from this transport were raped during the night by civilians from Aintab. During the attack in Airan-Punar, men and women were bound to trees and burned. Hekkash efendi, a gendarme-sergeant accompanying the transport, stabbed a man who had remained behind with his bayonet. Even while they were departing from Gürün, the Mullahs called the “faithful” to prayer from the roofs of the Christian churches. An eye-witness, an Armenian from Marash, who was employed as a miller in a village near Airan-Punar and fled from there during the attack, told me how he saw 2 brothers fighting near his mill over the spoils, whereby one said, “I killed 40 women for these 4 loads.” A Mohammedan in Marash named Hadji, whom I have known for years, told me the following, “All of the mule drivers and I were shut up in a khan near Nissib, and the door was locked; several young women from Furnus were raped by the gendarmes accompanying the transport and by civilians.” In the Police Commissioner’s office in Aintab, a Mohammedan Agha said in my presence to an Armenian, “Several letters were found on so and so; what is your relationship with these people; I’ve told you so often that you should become a Mohammedan; if you’d listened to me you could have spared yourself all of the trouble to which your people are now exposed.” Kadir Pasha in Marash said to me, “I know that in the sector of the 3rd Army, all of the male population has been killed in accordance with a government order.”

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On 20 August at 6.00 p.m., it was announced in Marash at the order of the Vali of Adana that by noon the next day all of the male population over the age of 15— 5,000 men—were to wait outside the town, ready for travel; anyone still in town after noon would be shot without further ado. Everyone knew what this government order meant and we experienced hours of the most dreadful panic. At the last moment, at the recommendation of the extremely benevolent Mutesarrif of Marash, the Vali’s order was changed to permit the men to leave together with their families. Even on 18 August, the Vali of Adana, who had been staying in Marash at that time, had the ecclesiastic offices called together and assured them that the Armenians in Marash would not be deported; thus, the first had to leave town without any preparation whatsoever. With the exception of a 12-year-old boy who threw himself into the water and escaped, the entire Armenian population, 82 people, in the village of Bölveren near Albistan was killed. The boy escaped to Marash. The inhabitants of a village near Zeytun, in which smallpox raged, were deported. Those ill with smallpox, including people blinded by smallpox, were accommodated in khans in Marash, which were already full of deportees from other villages. I saw a transport of perhaps 200 people in Marash, among them various blind people. An approximately 60-year-old mother was holding on to her daughter, lame since birth; in this manner they began their deportation on foot. After marching for an hour, a man remained lying on the ground by the Erkeness Bridge; he was robbed and killed; 4 days later we still saw his corpse lying in a ditch. Several days ago I visited an acquaintance here in Aleppo. A mother and her child were the guests of the person concerned, deportees from Sivas, the two survivors of a family of 26 which had been deported from Sivas 3 months earlier and arrived here during the past few days. Near Bash-Punar, northeast of Aintab, opposite the village of Sam, men lay with their heads burned and women, their bodies cut open, for days. A man and a woman had been tied together. Two hours this side of Aintab, an Armenian, about 25 years old, was murdered in a khan situated on the Aintab-Kilis road. The body was propped up in the door of the khan, a cigarette in its mouth, a cigarette behind its ear and its moustache smeared with dung. The following was called out to those passing by, “Look at how this ‘hashash’ (ruffian) can still smoke.”61 I met 7 Turkish soldiers 5 hours beyond Marash on my journey here. 6 Armenian girls, 5 of them pupils of the American female teachers’ training college and one a teacher from the German orphanage, travelled with me. 20 paces in front of the caravanserai one of the soldiers aimed and fired into the air. Another soldier tore an umbrella out of the hand of one of the girls and would certainly have carried out other acts of violence, if I had not intervened. When I swung my whip at him they all ran away. 61. kachach: deserter, fugitive.

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Near Marash, on the way to Tshamostil, a man from the village, a mullah, aimed his rifle at an Armenian accompanying me. It was only because I shouted severely at the mullah and rode towards him that I was able to save the Armenian. On the road, a stretch of 2½ hours, acquaintances of mine saw the bodies of people shot, lying unburied for days. W. Spieker [The report by Spieker given above has also been published under the title of “From the Records of a German who died in Turkey” in the 2nd issue of the series “Material zur Beurteilung des Schicksals der Armenier im Jahre 1915/16” (Material for the Assessment of the Fate of the Armenians in the Year 1915/16), published by the Committee of the Swiss Relief Organisation 1915 for Armenia, which is in the files. Although the report there includes some omissions and modifications, the following reports make it more extensive.] Of 18,000 deportees from Harput and Sivas, 350 people (women and children) arrived in Aleppo and of 1,900 deportees from Erzerum, 11 people—a sick boy, 4 girls and 6 women—arrived in Aleppo. A transport of women and children had to walk the 65-hour distance from Ras-el-Ain to Aleppo along the railway line, even though at that time the wagons used for military transports went back empty. Mohammedan travellers who came on that road report that the roads were impassable due to the many corpses lying unburied on both sides of the road, and that their smell of decay was polluting the air. Of those “left over” and not yet deported, 100 to 200 people in Aleppo have died until today as a result of the strain. When the women and children arrive in Aleppo, starving and emaciated to a skeleton, they fall over the food like animals. The inner organs of many of them no longer function properly; after 1-2 spoonfuls of food the spoon is laid aside again. The government states that it gives food to the deportees; the transport from Harput mentioned above received bread only once in three months. Apart from the fact that the government does not take care of the people, it permits everything to be taken from them. A transport of 200 girls and women arrived in Ras-el-Ain completely naked: shoes, shirts, in short: everything had been taken from them and they were left to travel naked for four days under the burning sun—40 degrees in the shade—mocked at and derided by the soldiers accompanying them. Mr. … said that he, too, had seen a transport of 400 women and children in the same state. When these poor people appealed to the human emotions of the public officials, they received the following reply, “We have been given strict orders by the government to treat you in this manner.” At first, the dead in Aleppo were taken to the cemetery in coffins provided by the Armenian Church. Hamals62 handled that and were given 2 piastres for each 62. Carriers, bearers.

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body. When the hamals were no longer able to manage everything on their own, the women took their dead to the cemetery themselves, carrying the small children in their arms and the larger ones on a sack held by 4 women, one at each corner. I saw dead bodies laid across a donkey’s back and transported thus to the cemetery. One of my acquaintances saw a body bound to a stick and carried away in this manner by 2 men. Another one saw how an ox cart full of bodies was transported to the cemetery. The two-wheeled cart could not get through the narrow cemetery gate. Without further ado, the servant turned the cart over and emptied it. Then he dragged the bodies by the arms and legs to the grave. At present, 5-6 carts are being employed daily to transport the dead to the cemetery. One Sunday in a khan, a so-called hospital, I saw almost 30 bodies lying about in a courtyard about 20 meters wide and 40 meters long. Approximately 20 had already been buried on that day. These 30 corpses lay there until the evening. My wife had them removed after dark by giving 3 hamals one medjidie each. The skin of one corpse stuck to the hamals’ hands, showing how far the decaying process had already proceeded. The dying and the severely ill lay among the dead in the burning sun, about 1,000 people. The entire scene presented such a terrible picture as I have never seen before, not even in summer in Marash during the shooting of 24 people that I spoke of earlier. Almost all the people had diarrhoea. The dying lay along gutters, which had been dug in the courtyard, their backs toward the gutters so that they could relieve themselves directly into the gutter. Whoever died was moved to one side and another person took his sad place. Often, those considered dead were carried away and still showed signs of life at the grave; they were carried to one side until it was clear that they were dead. A young girl revived to the point where she could be carried back to the town, and a man buried one evening sat on his grave the next morning. Several dead are placed in one grave and he was the last one to be buried; in the dusk only a little dirt had been thrown superficially on top of him. In Tell-Abiad, Mr. … saw open graves with 20-30 corpses. The graves were shovelled over when they were full of dead bodies. Mr. … told me the smell of decay made it impossible to go near them, and the deportees had to camp near them. Of the 35 orphans accommodated in one room in Aleppo, 30 died in one week due to a lack of nourishment. Mr. … says that on his journey here he saw bodies everywhere along the road; a Kurd boasted to him that he had killed 14 children. On Sunday, 12 August 1915, I had to go to the Damascus train station in Aleppo. This gave me the opportunity of seeing how approx. 1,000 women and children were loaded into cattle wagons. Here in Germany, livestock is given more space than these poorest of the poor. 90% of these people had death written on their faces. There were people among them who were actually given no time to die. On the previous evening a transport had departed; the next morning 2 dead were found, children in their teens, who had died during loading and left lying there. On 13 September 1915, a dispatch of the Supreme Commander of the 4th Army, Djemal Pasha, was announced, “With regard to the Armenian transports, all photographs taken by the engineers or other officials of the company responsible for build-

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ing the Baghdad Railway are to be given to the Military Commissioner’s Department of the Baghdad Railway in Aleppo, together with the original plates, within 48 hours. Any violation against this order will be prosecuted by a court-martial.” Several times I saw women and children search piles of sweepings for scraps; whatever was found was eaten immediately. I saw children gnawing on raw bones, which they found in corners used at the same time as urinals. Between Marash and Aintab, the Mohammedan population of a village wanted to distribute water and bread to a transport of about 100 families, but the soldiers accompanying the transport would not permit this. 4/5 of the deportees are women and children; most of the men have been conscripted to the military. 20,000 of the deportees sent via Marash were not allowed to go to Aintab to receive provisions there, although the direct caravan route leads through Aintab. [The following passages are omitted as, with few exceptions, they are identical with the enclosure in 1915-07-27-DE-001 from “In Ras-ul-Ain at present there are …” to “… everyone here says that”.] In Biredjik, the jails are filled daily and emptied every night. Tell Armen, a village with 3,000 inhabitants, was attacked, the inhabitants massacred, thrown dead or alive into the wells or burned. Major von Mikusch was a witness to this devastation. Between Diyarbekir and Urfa, a German cavalry captain saw unburied corpses on both sides of the road with their throats slit. On his journey, Mr. S. saw countless unburied children’s corpses. In Tel-Abiad, seventeen dying people remained behind near the railway after the transport had left. Two railway officials later had all seventeen people buried. For the past several days, all of the Armenian transports have been led to these parts. Mr. …’s statements coincide with what the Chairman of the Deportation Committee told me when I approached him with a request concerning four Armenian children, “You do not understand what we plan to do. We want to eradicate the Armenian name.63 Just as Germany only wants Germans, we Turks only want Turks.”

1915-09-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 26474; pr. 10.09.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) 63. These two sentences are quoted in the Hoffmann Report of Vice-Consul Hoffmann doc. 191601-03-DE-001.

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No. 549 Pera, 4 September 1915 3 enclosures. On the 2nd of this month, Talaat Bey gave me the German translation of various telegraphic orders on the persecution of the Armenians which he sent to the provincial authorities concerned, copies of which are enclosed. With these, he wished to deliver proof that the central government is seriously attempting to end the riots, which have taken place against the Armenians in the heart of the country and to see to it that those who have been deported receive provisions during transport. A few days earlier, in reference to this, Talaat Bey said to me, “La question arménienne n’existe plus.” (“The Armenian question no longer exists.”) The first and third dispatches are not dated; the first was probably sent on 31 August. While reserving the right to make further reports, I would like to note that, according to a telegram from the Imperial Consulate in Trebizond, a number of previously spared Armenians (among others, officials from the Ottoman Bank, the Regie, and women) were deported from there at night during the last few days of August and supposedly they were killed close to the city. Based on statements made by travellers, the local Armenian Catholic Patriarchate also reported that Armenians from Angora (mainly Catholics), including the Catholic Archbishop with his clergy and several nuns, were deported from Angora on 30 August and all of them were killed some distance away. Taking these latter incidents into consideration, I would recommend presently refraining from informing the press of these telegrams. Hohenlohe. [Notes Göppert 2 September] The Armenian Question Today, Talaat Bey gave HSH the enclosed orders. As soon as the wartime situation permits, he plans to travel to the province to supervise the conscientious compliance with the orders. HSH wishes that Monsignor Dolci and the Armenian Catholic bishop be informed of the orders. Enclosure 1 I. To the provincial authorities of: Hudawendigiar, Angora, Konia, Ismid, Adana, Marash, Urfa, Aleppo, Zor, Sivas, Kutahia, Karassi, Nigde, Mamuretil-Aziz, Diyarbekir, Karahissar, Kayseri, Erzerum:

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Since the Imperial Government, in transferring the Armenians from their homes to the previously determined zones, is pursuing the sole target of preventing the anti-government activity and undertaking of this nationality, as well as making them incapable of pursuing their nationalistic endeavours with regard to the creation of an Armenian state, but not, however, their annihilation, it was conclusively decided to take all measures to protect and feed the convoys during the evacuation. In future, all other Armenians, with the exception of those who have already been sent away from their place of residence and who are awaiting their further transfer, as well as, in compliance with notification already given, the soldiers’ families, a number of craftsmen corresponding to the requirements, and the Armenians from the Catholic and Protestant parish, will not be deported from their place of residence. It is hereby declared that legal proceedings will be instituted without delay to severely punish all persons, together with their helpers, who attack the convoys, commit robbery and carry out heinous deeds through their beastly inclinations, as well as against all guilty officials and gendarmes. Those officials who are guilty must be named. In case of repeated offences, the authorities of Vilayet and Liva will be held responsible. Enclosure 2 II. Ciphered telegram dated 16 August 1331 (29 August 1915). To the Vilayet Konia. Bread and olives must be bought and distributed to the Armenian emigrants in Eregli, and zwieback64 must be made available. We must be informed of the necessary expenses so that the required funds can be sent from here. Enclosure 3 III. Ciphered telegram. To the provincial authorities of: Ismid, Eski Shehr, Kutahia, Karahissar, Hudavendigiar, Konia, Angora, Adana, Aleppo: You are hereby authorised to obtain enough bread for three or four days for the Armenians who are already at the waiting points and for those who are to be brought from further waiting points and to take all measures to ensure that they do not suffer want or hardship along the way. 64. A rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread.

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[Notes by Mordtmann from 4 September (completed on 7 September)] To No. 5118 in A53a (telegrams from the Porte concerning the Armenian question) A. Today, Aziz Bey, the representative of Djanbulad Bey, informed me of the following at the Ministry of the Interior: 1. The first telegram was, in fact, sent only to the provincial governments listed at the top (i.e., not, for example, to Trebizond). Furthermore, Katamuni, Bitlis and Van, where, according to Bergfeld’s telegram from the 27th of this month (no. 4996), slaughtering is supposed to have taken place at the end of August, are also missing. Aziz Bey knew nothing of these latter incidents. 2. He did, however, know that a “clash” had taken place during the deportation of the Armenians from Angora. No details are available. 3. If nothing is mentioned in the telegram concerning the return of those Catholics and Protestants who have already been deported, then this is because only some of them will be allowed to return, to avoid their gathering together again in larger groups in different localities. B. Today, 4 September, I gave simple transcripts of the telegrams in question together with a short covering letter “on behalf of His Highness” to Monsignor Dolci and Monsignor Naslian from the Armenian Catholic patriarchy for Monsignor Terzian. C. The local Gregorian Armenian Patriarch urgently requests that, if appropriate, we intercede on behalf of the following points: 1. that the Armenians who were deported from the western provinces not be sent further than Bozanti; 2. that the relatives of those Armenians who have been conscripted be exempted from deportation; 3. that the government permit the relief action undertaken by the ecclesiastical authorities and other unofficial persons and associations; 4. that correspondence be permitted between those deported and their relatives who remain elsewhere. [Note Neurath 7 September] The points can be brought up for discussion at some time; frequent and detailed intervention would only lessen the effect. [Telegrams to the Consulate in Erzerum (No. 36), the Consulate in Adana (No. 37), the Consulate in Aleppo (No. 64), 9 September]

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The Porte has informed the Consulate of the wording of the telegraphic instructions which were sent out (supposedly on 29 August) to various provincial governments, including that one, on the matter of the persecution of the Armenians. Basically, their message is: the mass evacuations are not for the purpose of exterminating the Armenians, but rather ensuring that certain elements which are enemies of the government are rendered harmless; the deported are to be protected and fed during transport; furthermore, those not yet deported as well as the soldiers’ families, the Catholics and the Protestants, and craftsmen, insofar as they are indispensable, are no longer to be deported, as has previously been ordered; acts of violence against the deported will be legally punished and, in case of a repeated offence, the higher authorities will be called to account. [Note Mordtmann] N.B. In this case as well, the Vali from Adana has not paid attention to the official orders from the Porte; see also 7216 in A 12 pg. 143.

1915-09-05-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 27887; translated by Robert Berridge From the Correspondant of the Kölnische Zeitung to the Foreign Office Constantinople, 5 September 1915 Strictly confidential information! The Armenian side informed me of the following facts with regard to the persecution of the Armenians. By and large, they are surely correct. On the other hand, there are very few Turks with whom one can speak openly about the Armenian question; anger immediately breaks out, even in people who are otherwise well-educated and sophisticated, which lumps everything together and always ends with the same refrain, “All Armenians should be exterminated; they are traitors!” Naturally, I have had the most important facts on the account of the Armenians confirmed by other parties; only the view remains subjective. The Voluntary Armenian Corps were, of course, founded on Russian and not on Turkish ground, by committees, which have existed for decades and openly strived for Armenia’s separation from Turkey. When Enver Pasha visited the Armenian theatre of war in December, he found that the Turks had to fight against the Armenians as well as the Russians. Despite this, the Armenians only withdrew from the fortress

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of Erzerum many weeks later, proof that the (Turkish) Armenians on this side had behaved perfectly correctly for a long time. The influx from Turkish Armenia to Russia only began in March when weapons were confiscated among the Armenians in Van (I was not able to determine whether this was a preventive measure or carried out after treason had occurred). Also in March, various Armenian notables, among them Vramian, the Member of Parliament for Van, and Papazian, the Member of Parliament for Bitlis, were then arrested. When their friends opposed this and protested, the mass deportations and atrocities began in Van and the villages of the vilayet. An open revolt only then developed, and numerous Armenians joined up with Russian gangs. During the violent battles, which lasted about two months, the Armenians stormed Van several times, which changed owners no less than five times after having recently—and naturally this was again kept secret—been in the hands of the Turks for a short while (8 days) and then lost. The arrests in Constantinople began on 24/25 April as a result of the Armenians’ storming of Van. 850 people, both Orthodox as well as Protestants and Catholics, were deported at that time, among them the most highly respected Member of Parliament for Constantinople, the notary public Zorab, the deputy of Erzerum, Vartkes (who got on very well with Talaat Bey), about 10 bishops, 40 doctors, 10 lawyers, but also many people from the lower middle classes and the proletariat. 250 of those arrested were sent to Ayash in the Vilayet of Angora, the rest to Dshangere in the Vilayet of Kastamuni. On the evening of 24 April, during a house search of the offices of the newspaper “Azadamart”, which means “fight for freedom,”65 (they are also the meeting place of the “Dashnaktsutiunists’” Club), all of the politicians, journalists, etc., were arrested and the correspondence confiscated. Despite its revolutionary name, the newspaper had existed for five years and was well-respected by the government; it was even part of an entente with the Young Turk Committee. At the same time that these people were being arrested in the capital, the order was given in the Vilayets of Erzerum, Sivas, Diyarbekir, Harput, Bitlis and Trebizond to begin with the mass deportations. Since then, the systematic persecution of Armenians everywhere has continued without interruption. This results in different pictures for the individual vilayets and towns, so it is best to divide them into four series: I. Constantinople: Understandably, the Turkish government was until now most cautious here. The unmarried men (those from the Anatolian Vilayet up to the frontier of Sivas in the east) were first arrested and deported, then all the married and single men whose homes were in the Armenian provinces, the former with their families. Until now, about 2,000 men and 50 families have been deported. I do not need to go into the cruelty, which lay in the short period, often only a few hours, without the possibility of putting their financial and family matters in order. Valuable household items were often dumped at incredibly low prices. Until now, the government attempted to present the measures in Constantinople as if this concerned only political 65. In Armenian, “freedom fighter.”

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suspects. This is simply ridiculous. The most harmless people among the population were deported, in fact according to a very definite system. For 2 weeks; during these 2 weeks and in a municipal district there are, for example, as in my house, two janitors: one of them is taken away and disappears today, the other in a month; who knows where! A policeman on the street calls the passersby wearing a fez over to him, has them show him their “vessika” (residence permit) and, if it’s an Armenian, he has to accompany him right away; everything happens without any warning in the form of a police arrest. Day and night you can see policemen on patrol everywhere in town, each accompanied by two gendarmes and searching for Armenians, and today (Sunday) the police even took up their position in front of the church doors of the Catholic-Armenian Church in Pera and carried out passport controls. This may indeed give the impression of a search for suspects, but based on authentic information I can assure you that this is being carried out indiscriminately and the number of deportations is only restricted because, taking into consideration the ambassadors here, they do not dare to carry out measures to the same large extent as in the provinces. They want to get things sorted out there first before moving on to the capital; this is the general impression in those circles, which are quite friendly towards the Turks. II. The following have been completely cleared of Armenians and the scene of fullblown massacres, atrocities of all kinds, defilements, conversions by force, etc.: The Vilayets of Erzerum and Trebizond (a part here have been converted to Islam) as well as the towns of Sivas, Harput, Kayseri, Yozgad, Amasia, Mersifan, Marash. The deportees are sent to Urfa, Biredshik, Der-el-Zor, etc. (i.e., in very remote and in part-Arabic areas where, torn away from their surroundings, they will no doubt begin to perish). In certain towns the men are kept in prison while the women and children are deported alone in misery, without supervision or any kind of care. The distinction between only one or several towns in some vilayets being treated in this manner, while in others this happens to the entire vilayet, can be explained by the different characters of the governor generals (Valis), who have a completely free hand. One example of this is Angora, which, due to the massacres that occurred last Sunday, is sadly current. Armenians told me that, despite repeated requests by the Central government, the Vali there, Mazar Bey, had refused to extend the rigorous measures indiscriminately and summarily to the entire Armenian population, and he was then dismissed. And now it is just in Angora that really dreadful things have happened, even though as a large town situated along the railway line it is in daily contact with Constantinople, and as the main town in the vilayet and the seat of high court instances it still offered the Armenians relatively reasonable living conditions, and which is situated far enough away from the eastern theatre of war that the thought of suspecting large parts of the male population can be ruled out completely. Most of the Armenians in Angora are Catholic. It is in the nature of things that they are regarded somewhat less badly by the Turkish government than the Orthodox because there is less suspicion of the formers’ irredentist views, while having their eyes on Russia. The moderations supposedly promised by Talaat Bey refer mainly to the Catholics among

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the Armenians. In the beginning, only Orthodox men were deported from Angora for this reason, while among the Catholics only a few arrests were carried out. But a week ago last Sunday the new Vali, Atif Bey, a minion of Djambolat, the Chief of Police in Constantinople, who fanatically hates the Armenians and is a Nationalist, arrested the Catholic Armenians and started or permitted a huge massacre among the women, whereby all kinds of dreadful deeds, including the sexual assault and kidnapping of young girls, were carried out. This was confirmed by all the sources I spoke with. In their desperation, the women hurried to the train station, 20 minutes away, only to fall into the hands of the Turks along the way. The railway employees, for the most part Armenians, had fled on a train to Erkischai and rail traffic to Angora was interrupted. There are rumours here of 6,000 Armenian victims. This is probably exaggerated many times over for the town of Angora, but not for the Vilayet. III. A simple clearing of Armenians without any particular cruelties took place in the Vilayets of Adana, Konia and Brussa, in Sandshak, Ismid and in the town of Adapazar. These deportations date back one or two months. I heard of particularly drastic examples from these areas of valuable household goods and possessions being dumped. Singer sewing machines were supposedly to be had for a few Medjidieh (at 20 piastres). On the part of the Armenians, they only admit that about 300 to 400 Mausers were found among the Armenians in Adapazar, but they deny any kind of revolutionary movement in connection with the present war, as Adapazar is situated even further from the theatre of war than Angora. The existence of weapons is explained as a constantly necessary protection against an oppressive, non-Armenian population, which tends towards attacks. No weapons of any kind were found in Angora. IV. Zeytun (a vilayet in Adana) presents a special case: already six months before the world war, a systematic eviction of the (here particularly powerful and, under Abdul Hamid, never really subjugated) Armenian population was put into action by pulling apart entire families and scattering them in all directions. During the war, the eviction was carried out completely. An important connection must not remain unmentioned here. Sherif Pasha, residing in Paris and a mortal enemy of the Young Turks, and, incidentally, a sad individual, is known to have attempted for years to institute assassinations against the Young Turks. He also managed to make use of some of the supporters of Sabachkulian, who also live in Paris, the so-called “Hindjakists,” a revolutionary Armenian Committee analogous to the Dashnaktsutiunists. Talaat Bey was a particular target. At that time, almost 20 Armenians, most of them Hindjakists, were hanged on the Bajarid Square in May, even though the conspiracy was as yet only on paper and, in accordance with Turkish law and contrary to our laws, the attempt is not, under certain circumstances, as punishable as the action performed. The severity of the punishment is due to the things, which have happened in particular in the Armenian theatre of war. This extremely loose, just ostensible connection is the only connection between Sherif Pasha’s plans, which must be described as a purely Turkish intrigue, and the Armenian movement. But the Turkish government

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used the “due punishment” of the Hindjakists, as all lawfully thinking Armenians call it, as a welcome occasion to publish a communiqué—the only one that has ever been published in the Armenian question. My own, as well as the dispatches of the other correspondents, was very wisely kept back until the official communiqué appeared and, taking advantage of the fact that the Hindjakist Club is striving for an autonomous Armenia, deliberately mixed the facts of both things to present the matter in such a way so as to incite against the Armenians and to justify the cruel measures against the Armenian population. The truth was that the Armenians hanged, victims and tools of an inner Turkish intrigue, had nothing at all to do with the occurrences in Armenia even though they happened to be Hindjakists. This is how the Turkish government works. So much for the facts. But much more important than the weal and the woe of the Armenians, who are not at all a very nice kind of people, are the great political connection and background of the Armenian question, as well as the future prospects which are pinned on them. For if everything in Turkey was the way we must wish it to be from a German point of view, one could, in the end, even overlook the suffering of the Armenians in the general great woe and misery of the world war. Unfortunately, things are completely different. Although with regard to the persecution of the Armenians we have a very systematic attempt ahead of us to completely dissipate and gradually exterminate the entire Armenian part of the population, which has been undertaken rather abruptly and obviously out of anger against the military losses suffered at the hands of the Armenian legions fighting together with the Russians, but which has long gone beyond the measure of reprisals against treason and certainly beyond the measure of prudent disciplinary action against this. The Armenians themselves say, “Despite Abdul Hamid having caused massacres against us, we were able to get along with his government again from time to time; now much worse things than massacres are being carried out. The entire Armenian nation is being murdered and slowly ruined by tearing the families apart and planting them separately in completely foreign ground, divested of everything they own. We could understand it if several hundred men were hanged as a warning for every act of treason and espionage; we could understand it if thousands were massacred at the Armenian theatre of war out of anger against the events which took place there, just as during the reign of Hamid. But we do not understand what is being done to harmless families in Anatolia, far away from the war. Every massacre out of anger could be understood, but not this cunningly slow, well thought out policy of deportation.” And they are quite right! Even in the influential German circles which are pro-Turk, there is the impression that they [the Turks] have it in for the Armenians as a whole. And some people say that after the Armenians, it will be the turn of the Jews and the Greeks. And some probably think to themselves, and in the end they’ll even hound the Germans out of Turkey! Unfortunately, despite having begun my task here with sufficient optimism towards the Turks, after only a very short while I, too, cannot resist this feeling! My confidence, which I expressed in the reports before Gallipoli, is in the military field and is based on the present

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situation: Germany as a Turkish ally. One thing is sure: the Turks will survive, no matter how long it takes. I had to make some concessions to the Turkish censors in my articles or, as I never give the articles to the censors, to the Turkish government. People will know how to abstract from this. If I have said, for example, Enver Pasha gets on well with the German military mission, then this is correct, for Enver needs the Germans; without them, the Dardanelles would long be forced. It was also supposed to be a denial of the very inconvenient remarks made by the enemy during the war, that there were disagreements. I do not believe that Enver liked my article (I) from Gallipoli. I place such great value on the Armenian question, to get back to this matter because I consider it to be a clear, at present perhaps a drastic symptom of the predominant Turkish spirit. The German embassy has reproached the Turkish government often enough in a friendly, but definite manner concerning the persecution of the Armenians. What is so atrocious is that, despite the relationship of the Germans and Turks as comrades in arms and their close alliance, and although the Turks need us as desperately in this war as they need air to breathe, the government does not find it necessary to fulfil the German demand, at least by and large—even though the Germans only want the Turks’ best, for all of the Armenian spies have long gone over to Russian territory or been hanged, and further destruction of the progressive Armenian element of the population only means heavy economic damage, which Turkey should now particularly avoid, since the war has emptied Anatolia. But no: things are going on as they always have done; the promises are vague and no one believes them, and despite all of the promises, things have been happening lately which are a slap in the Germans’ faces. As I have been told often enough, the Armenians are naturally convinced that, considering the position Germany holds today in Turkey, an energetic step would be sufficient to cause a change. They cannot understand that no change is taking place; they go after the American ambassador who, for his part, has also suggested very sensible measures to the Turks to relieve the Armenians’ need and taken energetic steps several times against the persecutions. Thus, after Turkey refused to accept his interference, the American ambassador also knows how to influence the entire neutral world through his country, so that in the end everyone believes in a German-Turkish entente in the Armenian question, and the result will be a campaign against the German barbarism. And yet the embassy leaves nothing undone in order to achieve an improvement in this question! But this disregard for well-meant German advice is highly remarkable for two reasons: first of all, it is proof that the Turks are determined to gradually create a purely Turkish national state (whereby they will dig their own grave!), and secondly, all this is just one of the many symptoms of an awakening Turkish arrogance. In the first case, I refer to the judgment of people from the most influential circles who know the Orient, while in very good standing with the Young Turk government, attempt in vain to achieve a less pessimistic opinion on Turkey’s future immediately after the war. It is easy to understand that the Turks first lay hands on the Armenians; let’s be honest: they’ve not only given them reason for doing so, but they are also the

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weakest among the non-Turks, those who can defend themselves least. The others are the Jews, the Greeks and the Europeans. Temporarily, the Turkish government considers it opportune to give those positions that the Armenians have lost and to which they cannot appoint Turks, to Jews. Thus, for example, all of the Armenian employees of the Oriental Railway were replaced by Jews. Naturally, the Greeks, who also profit greatly from the persecution of the Armenians, were of no use along this stretch, used by the entire military service heading for the Dardanelles because of their political unreliability. On the other hand, the administration of the Anatolian Railway has thus far successfully resisted the dismissal of its Armenian employees. The dismissal of the Armenians can be explained by the military importance of such sections as the Oriental Railway; but it is incredible how far Salonika has sunk economically since becoming Greek, and how the Jews, streaming in from there, knew how to settle into the administration and even into politics. The Jews are taking over the positions of the Armenians to the same extent that the latter are disappearing. A great many Jews are already to be found among the editorial staff of the “Hilal” (H. means “half-moon” and the newspaper, almost a French version of the Tanin, is just as much a governmental gazette as this one!)! The Turks permit the Jews to spread themselves out because they can suppress and get rid of these defenceless people whenever they wish to do so. Temporarily, they need the Jews to replace the Armenians as a result of their own lack of intelligence and business sense. Naturally, the Jews are also politically more reliable—or, to be more correct, colourless—for on 18 March they all put on their hats and began to speak French; now they are wearing the fez again and speak increasingly more German! They are hoping to get the Greeks at a later point, using a real Turkish policy when, by means of our victory, Turkey has become so strong that a small country such as Greece can do nothing more against the harassment of the Greek population in Turkey. In the meantime, the Armenians are the victims. At the same time, the Turks are cowardly in their policy of oppression. This is best proved by their conduct towards the Kurds. Under Abdul Hamid, the Kurds were treated quite well, held high positions and were let loose against the Armenians from time to time. However, the Kurd influence was eliminated by the Young Turks; the Committee Government made many deadly enemies among the Kurds (such as the wellknown Abdurressak family, which turned to the Russians), while at the same time the Russian rouble began to work successfully among the Kurds and the only seemingly suppressed Kurd revolts of the previous year (I believe the spring of 1914, when Taha, the Kurdish leader, placed himself under Russian protection, was proof!) and a part of the Kurds even reached an agreement with the Armenians whom they had previously massacred. Naturally, Russia is attempting to stir up all of Kurdistan against Turkey, and a large number of the Kurds in the Armenian theatre of war did the same as the Armenians and joined the Russians. But there was no talk whatsoever about any reprisals in Kurdistan. The Turkish government is simply afraid of the Kurds. The innermost reason for the oppression of the Armenian people is again under the imprint of Enver Pasha, the reclamation of Adrianopol, the victories in the Dar-

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danelles and so on, nationalism which is flaring up and Mohammedan fanaticism. Because the Turks are aware that the Dardanelles will be forced eventually and Turkey will lose the war, and in order to save as large a part of Asia Minor as possible for themselves at the peace negotiations, friends of the entente here naturally also claim that the great powers, especially Russia, will be presented by Turkey with a fait accompli in order to say that all of those provinces are purely Turkish and no Armenians are to be found there. This is why they were presently being cleared from all non-Turkish parts. Although criticism of this opinion is superfluous, it does prove that the short-sighted Turkish policy of destruction is met with derision. Something else, however, must be recognised as a real factor in the Turkish calculations. Until now (i.e., before the temporary, strong increase in Jewishness!) the Armenians, this highly intelligent, busy and adaptable element of the population, were definitely the group which had the most contact with government circles. There were even Armenian ministers. The Greeks who, in this war, despite their unanimous enmity against Turkey based on great Hellenic irredentism, almost always knew how to get themselves out of even the general scent of espionage (only the banks of the Bosporus River were cleared of Greeks for purely military reasons, but without atrocities), were always considered by the Turks as being a definitely foreign element. This was not the case with the Armenians, who were considered to be a real part of the Ottoman Empire and did not have any reason for irredentist endeavours because there was no free and independent Armenian people across the border. (Nor does the Armenian see Russia as being an ideal because he knows that the geographical position of his country robs him of any hope of independence, and if, today, he gives his blood to assist the Russians in conquering Turkish positions, then this is only proof for the terribly bad Turkish government which suppressed him despite all of the reform projects!) This is why, from an Old Turk point of view, the Armenian is a far more dangerous opponent and competitor because circumstances have made him much closer, and he must be gotten rid of first. His extermination must start during the war; he must be laboriously deported to all of the furthest parts of the country, while the numerous Greek population will migrate of its own accord to Greece at the right moment (i.e., when Greece can no longer do anything to a strong Turkey because of a single arbitrary measure which will cripple its trade). The government does not want to wait until a growing German influence after the war will make the expulsion of the Armenians more difficult, which is why it is doing its best now; but in times of war it cannot simply give the Armenians an expulsion order because first of all there is a lack of travel connections abroad, and secondly it does not want so many people to leave Turkey who know everything that is happening in the interior, and in this way carry news of this to enemy foreign countries. This is why the arduous (for those affected as well as for the government!) and cruel system of deportations is preferred. For a while, women and children were permitted to leave the national Turkish territory; then (at the beginning of August), this permission was also withdrawn. I do not want my statements to be understood as if tension were to break out at any moment between Germans (or any Europeans) and Turks, or had even done so.

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Generally, thank God, we are still in control of the situation, and everything will be all right as long as the war goes on. Pessimists do, however, see a hint in Enver Pasha’s harmless words, such as in the passage in his telegram to the crown prince in which “he hopes to be able to throw the enemies into the sea soon,” that he would prefer to cope with the enemy himself and would now already like to take precautions against German troops being sent here after the road through Serbia has been opened. Certainly the Turks would prefer to have ammunition and weapons and sold warships rather than actual troops being sent, but despite this I cannot endorse the exaggerated mistrust on the part of the Germans, which goes that far. It seems to me to be a fact, however, that the Turks are fairly sick of us Germans, although not yet from a military point of view because they still need us. The Turk, a true Oriental, will soon permit himself to be influenced by the French nature after the war; of course, it is quite a different question whether French influence will be worth mentioning from a material point of view. The period of true tension with us Germans still lies far ahead in the future; its point in time also depends on what we will want in Anatolia, and so on. The entire purpose of my confidential report of today is to issue a warning against optimism, both in the question of a Turkish upswing as well as German-Turkish relations. I consider it necessary to issue such a warning at this time because the state of censorship, which will continue, no doubt, for a long time, will forbid me and others to publish those things in the newspaper, which are the whole truth; thus, the wrong impression could easily arise. Now, at the end of my long epistle, I would just like to add a few small things which I consider to be symptoms of this awakening Turkish spirit: I found it remarkable that this spirit was immediately noticed by Prince Hohenlohe, the ambassador in extra-ordinary mission. When he received me shortly after his arrival, just long enough to have picked up the most important impressions, but at the same time long enough to be able to have a clear picture, he immediately replied to a question of mine in which there was absolutely no trace of my own impression, “It will be very interesting to see how Germany comes to terms with rising Turkish nationalism!” (I would request that this statement is treated in particularly strict confidence!) This impression seemed to outweigh all others, which the ambassador had. The fact that the Turks abolished the capitulations so suddenly was already a clear symptom of the reigning spirit. Precisely by means of this abolition, which was the most difficult first step along this way, they are in a position to change the entire relationship with the Europeans as quickly as they wish to do so. We Germans have absolutely no reason at all to be pleased about the complete suppression of all company signs in French, which Talaat Bey decreed in June. Under the pretext that French was an enemy language, the first step was taken by abolishing the real official European language in the Orient by force, while at the same time making Turkish company signs obligatory. It should not be believed, however, that the number of German company signs thus increased in any manner. Most of the German firms, knowing what was planned, restricted themselves to Turkish signs, and today it is very difficult to find one’s way about in Pera. For the time being, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew were

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kept because they are of secondary importance. The thrust was to strike the Europeans, and it did so in the French language, and us Germans with it! And now I would just like to point out an article from Hilal (dated 31 August), which, in my opinion, is outrageous and presumptuous. This organ of the Young Turk Committee writes in an editorial entitled, “Devant l’ère nouvelle”, “… C’est la renaissance militaire et politique aussi bien que morale et intellectuelle de notre pays … Le pays a prouvé qu’il peut, le cas échéant, se passer économiquement du concours étranger, se suffira à lui-même pour ses besoins stricts qu’il conserve intact son génie d’organisation, qu’il est richement doué de forces productrices. Nos hôpitaux ne le cèdent en rien aux meilleurs établissements similaires de l`Europe” … etc.66 And in the same article, Hilal made a cutting remark against the German professors who were employed by the Turkish Ministry of Education to work here, by saying that the most important thing of all was the question of language, and here it was to be regretted that those teachers employed had been given an undetermined period of time in which to learn Turkish, instead of binding them by contract to learn it within a predetermined period! These may appear to be unimportant details. But they show the way things will go. And, to repeat myself, I merely wished to intimate that I am far from falling into a rosy optimism. Unfortunately, censorship forbids reporting on things that are often really quite harmless; it holds back telegrams, even those which are very important and which contain favourable facts, for an unreasonably long time, so that one often prefers not to send a telegram at all so as not to throw away money, knowing that W.T.B.67 prints practically everything which the Turks consider fit to be reported. But I am following the developments attentively, and once the draconian war censorship is lifted I will, no doubt, often find an opportunity to speak openly. Until then I must restrict myself to confidential reports, but, having seen that this works, these will now arrive regularly. Constantinople, 6 September 1915 Strictly confidential. I had hardly completed my report yesterday when the Hilal gave me pleasure with its editorial entitled, “Notre mission en Orient,”68 from which the megalomania and chauvinism of modern Turks leap out of almost every line. Today, I will restrict myself to including the article, appropriately underlined! Further to what I said yesterday, I have now learned that in many cases they have begun to make the German companies in Turkey Turkish. It starts with small things; 66. “Before the new era,” “… This is the military and political renaissance, as well as moral and intellectual of our country … the country has proved that it is able, if necessary, to get along economically without foreign competition, is self-sufficient for its basic needs, which its genius of organisation keeps intact, that it is richly endowed with productive power. Our hospitals cede nothing to the best comparable establishments of Europe” … etc. 67. Wolff’s Telegraphic Bureau, the German news agency. 68. “Our Mission in the Orient”

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together with company signs, the numbers and signs on the employees’ caps become purely Turkish, and the entire correspondence is to be carried out in the Turkish language. (Legal regulations exist with regard to this, which are about three months old and which escaped my notice previously; I will collect them and send them in.) It is well known that older German directors are no longer in a position to suddenly learn Turkish; in this manner, they will be hounded out, for they will then no longer be able to control their own business correspondence; a larger percentage of Turkish or Turkish-Jewish employees will have to be hired, etc. The only way to work against this tendency is for German business people to start learning Turkish well in Germany, although this is very difficult, (writing,) but essential, if the Turks continue in this way. For the same reasons, influential circles consider the employment of German professors, who will already arrive here on 1 October, as turning into a disaster. As just one, but drastic sign of the chauvinistic Turkish attitude towards the position of Europeans in Turkey, I would just like to report in the strictest of confidence that I heard from a higher official at the local Austrian consulate general that the Turks recently had the nerve to send tax assessment notices to the officials at the German consulate! Naturally, the bearer in question was thrown out. At any rate, the chapter on the abolition of capitulations will also have to be discussed very seriously after the war! It is becoming clearer and clearer that among the Jews, at least the “Dönme” class (i.e., those Jews from Salonika who have converted to Islam), take part especially enthusiastically in Turkish nationalism. Such articles as the one in Hilal are written by “Dönmes.” Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, who also comes from Salonika, is supposed to be a Dönme himself. I have now heard the opinion in quite anti-Semitic German circles that Germany should not neglect this Dönme class, but rather curry favour with it, for it is gaining ever more influence in the Young Turk Committee, and through it much can be achieved in Turkey. I myself am of another opinion, not for anti-Semitic reasons, but because of a feeling that this Committee group with its Jews does not really represent the Turkish people, and that Germany, if it stands up very forcefully after the war, will reach its goals without and despite it, and even much better. It is clear that we must place the highest value on Turkey after having unfortunately lost such a large part of our overseas economic interests, which we must first arduously win back. But in Turkey, Anatolia and everything which joins it in the east (Armenia, Persia, the Arabian regions, etc.) is the main thing, and the simple Anatolian really loves Germany; he who of all people most sheds his blood in the Dardanelles is our true friend, and it is a pleasure to be with these good men. And like him, all the other peoples of Asian Turkey: the Armenians now being so cruelly persecuted, the Syrians who, despite all official pronouncements, are still unreliable, etc., will happily accept German cultural activities, they will be very easy for us to handle and will offer us strong support in the economic work in these countries with such a promising future, once we have put across the main point to the Turkish government. This is why I propose a strong position rather than flattery towards the Committee group located in Istanbul (and all my warnings and my pessimism are

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aimed at this group and not at the real Turkish people!), and I most certainly cannot justify currying favour with those Jews who feed from the Young Turkish hayrack. [From the German Foreign Office to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 738), 30 September] The enclosed reports by the correspondent of the Kölnischen Zeitung there, which are not meant for publication, are to be respectfully sent to the Ambassador for his confidential attention with the request that they be returned.

1915-09-06-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 27840; pr. 24.09.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Vice-Consul in Alexandretta (Hoffmann) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) BN. 824/KN. 17 Alexandretta, 6 September 1915 The deportation of the Armenians living here was ordered on 1 August of this year and finished today. Altogether, about 1,000 souls were gotten rid of from Alexandretta itself, and about just as many again from Beylan, a little place 10 km further inland, and the mountain villages nearby. At first, this clearing out was to be done “immediately.” Accordingly, some of the Armenians were given a 3-day period, the rest eight days. The lack of transportation means, the non-appearance of support funds, and the understanding of the local kaymakam have led, however, to a distribution of the deportation over a period of about 5 weeks. A few wagons, as well as horses and donkeys, which had been requisitioned from the Mohammedan population, served as transportation means for the greater part of the deportees. The Armenians were allowed to sell their goods and chattels, but they could neither sell nor lease out nor let their property. They were allowed to sell crops, which had already been harvested, while the use of standing crops was officially leased out in favour of the public treasury. Obviously, it is being fabricated on the part of the government that the deportees will receive compensation of equal value at the place of relocation for that which was left behind. Originally, the families of those Armenians who are presently serving in the army were expressly not exempted from the deportation. Later, at least in Alexandretta,

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they were, but not in the neighbouring town of Beylan and the mountain villages. The fact that they were not exempted was justified on the part of the government by the statement that all the Armenians had deserted. This is not only inconceivable, but actually untrue. It also appears that in those cases of desertion which have become known to me, the deserters were first influenced to act contrary to their duty by the news of the imminent deportation of their relatives and by the refusal of home leave for which they had applied. Some of these deserters also returned to their troop after a short stay with their families. This fact was also taken into account in Alexandretta and Beylan as seen in the mild treatment of such cases. It was often limited to deporting the deserters without further ado together with their relatives. All in all, the local authorities, especially Fatin Bey, the Kaymakam at the head of the local government, know how to carry out the orders they have received as leniently as possible without offending the state’s interest on which these are founded. It was not the local authority’s fault that there was little possibility here. Only a very few exceptions to the deportation were granted. At times it appeared as if the exertions of the American consulate in Aleppo and the American embassy had ensured that the “Catholic Armenians” (70-80 souls), and later also the Protestant ones (40-50 in Alexandretta, in and around Beylan somewhat more) could stay. Later, it was ordered that these two categories also had to clear out from the coast, but they were allowed to choose the town in the interior where they wanted to stay. The purpose of the deportation is supposedly a transplantation to the plateau south of Aleppo (Hama and Homs), where until now there has only been a sparse, Mohammedan, Arabic population. Remembering the thoughtlessness and clumsiness which the Turkish authorities displayed after the Balkan War in the settlement of Mohammedan refugees and which resulted in an enormous mortality among many such troops, it can be assumed without any further thought—and the Turkish authorities also assume this—that the mortality among the deported Armenians, especially those from the mountains, will be much higher. It can also be assumed without any further thought that our enemies will cast the shadow of this process on our country as well. However, this unpleasant side effect is not worth mentioning here. On the other hand, it should be emphasised that the economic damage to the local area arising from the deportation of the local coastal Armenians will be much greater than any doubtful use this may have for Turkey’s state interest. The treasonable actions of the Armenians on the coast at Ladakiye and Kassab (like those earlier near Dört Yol) and those suspected in Alexandretta were given as the reason for the deportation. In the meantime, it may be considered out of the question that the local Armenians could really use their anti-Turk and anti-German feelings to the detriment of Turkey in a manner which must be taken seriously, if the authorities keep their eyes even half-way open. On the other hand, the suspicion held against the local mountain Armenians that they are supporting the deserters who are making the slopes of the Amanus Mountains unsafe is certainly founded to some extent. But the dangerousness of this entire question of deserters seems to be somewhat exaggerated.

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On the other hand, as far as the danger to economic interests is concerned, the Armenian population in Alexandretta amounted only to 1/6 to 1/5 of the entire population (normally: 10-12,000). This fraction, however, was distinguished for its active nature, skilfulness and industriousness, at least in comparison with the “fellahin” (Nuseiri) and Mohammedan-Turkish population, which makes up the majority of the remainder. As a result of the deportation of the Armenians, the most skilful craftsmen are missing today in Alexandretta. The town has no dentist, no watchmaker. The most useful among the (generally of lower quality) doctors, competent commercial employees, important merchants have left the town. Especially for a place as small as Alexandretta (as mentioned above, 10-12,000 inhabitants, but now only about 4,000), the loss of an economically so valuable and acclimated part of the population represents perceptible economic damage because of the large economic tasks which this place will have to face shortly in connection with the Baghdad Railway. Although the undertaking of the large economic tasks mentioned (construction of a harbour, draining the land, construction of a railway connection to Aleppo and the large area behind it in the interior) will bring with it a large influx to fill the gaps that have now arisen, this influx will require a great deal of time to adapt to the local feverish climate (in his “Essai sur l’Agriculture du Golfe d’A.,” published in 1907,69 Henri Goy calls Alexandretta a “deadly beach”). Mohammedan refugees are to be installed on the estates of the Armenian farmers who were deported. After the experiences made during the past few years with such refugees, it is very doubtful whether their industriousness will compete with that of their Armenian predecessors. Thus, the deportation of the Armenians will also have a negative effect in the agriculture of the area. Hoffmann

1915-09-06-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 5170. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 22 Adana, 6 September 1915 With each passing day, the expulsion of the Armenians takes on the characteristics of massacres more and more. Recently, seven Armenians were murdered by gendarmes near Ulu-Kishla. Eye-witnesses reported to me today that on 20 August in the area 69. “Essay on the Agriculture of the Gulf of A.”

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north of Kayseri, 120 men from Chorum were murdered in front of their families and 62 young women were dragged away. The gendarmes requisitioned the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages for these scandalous deeds. Details of these occurrences have been added to the consulate’s files. The Turkish authorities use this good opportunity to increase their wealth as much as possible. On the other hand, strangers are severely hurt because transfers, etc., of Armenian property are only permitted to Ottoman people or, to be more specific, to Mohammedans.70 [Büge]

1915-09-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 5247. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 39 Mosul, 9 September 1915 According to accounts from Turkish troops marching through on their way from Djezireh to Baghdad, all of the Christians in the town named were supposedly massacred a week ago by Kurds hired by Fetki [Feyzi] Bey, the Deputy of Diyarbekir, with the connivance of the local authorities and the participation of the military. The reports by travellers are identical; the local Chaldean Patriarch confirmed them. The local government gave me an evasive answer. I respectfully request that this be brought to the Sublime Porte’s notice.71 Apart from everything else, we have a purely factual interest in peace and order being kept in those towns which we have selected as our main military posts. [Holstein]

1915-09-09-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/96; 10/12, 7684. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Vice-Consul in Samsun (Kuckhoff) to the Embassy Constantinople 70. Mordtmann notes the following concerning the last sentence: was used in the verbal note on 6358. 71. Note by Mordtmann: At some point I will mention this to Talaat Bey, but only to show him that we learn of such things.

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No. 377 Samsun, 9 September 1915 In answer to the edict from 19 July of this year, B.No. 1619 All of the attempts to receive information on the fate of Padres Meghmuni and Krikor Hadigian as well as the nuns of the Congregation of Nerapolum were fruitless. Inquiries on the part of the consulates, including the German ones, are considered by the authorities as being very unwanted interference in inner state matters. Like all churches, schools and private property of the entire population, the church and the presbytery of the Catholic Armenians have been officially seized and sealed, including that of those who have converted to Islam. The news that has arrived here from the interior on the fate of the unlucky people is shocking: whoever did not convert to Islam died supposedly either under the executioner’s axe, swung by murderous gangs called in by the government, or will die of want and privation. Apparently, women and young girls have been dragged off to the harems and the children—insofar as they do not die during the journey—have been given to Muslim families. Even those who have converted to Islam are not allowed to remain in their home town. It appears that they are being individually distributed throughout the entire country among the Mohammedan people in the interior of Asia Minor. No Armenian is permitted to stay on the coast. The government measures that have recently been introduced here show how thoroughly things are being done: some Armenian mothers had hidden their children with Greek families. Upon threat of heavy punishment, these poor creatures, among them babies, were torn away from their foster parents who showed only Christian kindness! The Greek Christians are trembling, and with good reason, for at the first opportunity they are sure to suffer the same fate as the Armenians: should Greece go over to the enemy camp, its brethren and sisters in faith in Turkey are lost! Nebuchadnezzar and Abdul Hamid were good-natured people, pure bunglers as far as their talent for annihilation was concerned, for neither they nor Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and the old, Turkish sultans managed to completely eradicate with such success a people spread out over a wide country within a few weeks, as we are now experiencing with a shudder. Kuckhoff

1915-09-10-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 5263. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Embassy in Constantinople

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No. 22 Adana, 10 September 1915 Answer to Tel. No. 37. The notification dated 29 August concerning the Armenians and given to the Imperial Embassy from the Porte is merely an audacious deception of the Embassy because, at the instigation of Inspector Ali Munif Bey, who was sent here, the Porte later completely revoked this order. The authorities, of course, are only carrying out the second instruction and continuing with the deportation without considering denomination or creed. The number of Armenians ordered to be murdered probably already exceeds the amount of victims in the Young Turkish Massacre of 1909. It is possible that the non-German press will investigate these atrocities more closely, despite previous denials given by the Turkish consuls. I would like to mention that the local Committee leader, Ismail Safa, threatened general massacres if the Armenians were not deported. [Büge]

1915-09-14-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 27578; pr. 21.09.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 565 Pera, 14 September 1915 With reference to the Supreme Porte’s telegrams of 29 August concerning the treatment of the deported Armenians (given as a summary), the Imperial Consul in Adana reports the following: “The notification dated 29 August concerning the Armenians and given to the Imperial Embassy from the Porte is merely an audacious deception of the Embassy because, at the instigation of Inspector Ali Munif Bey, who was sent here, the Porte later completely revoked this order. The authorities, of course, are only carrying out the second instruction and continuing with the deportation without considering denomination or creed. The number of Armenians ordered to be murdered probably already exceeds the number of victims in the Young Turkish Massacre of 1909. It is possible that the non-German press will investigate these atrocities more closely, despite previous denials given by the Turkish consuls.

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“I would like to mention that the local Committee leader, Ismail Safa, threatened general massacres if the Armenians were not deported.”72 It is true that the privileges conceded by the Porte were later often restricted again, especially with regard to the provinces of Adana and Angora. The Ministry of the Interior, for example, insists that those Armenians who are already in the process of being deported, insofar as the privileges in question apply to them, not return to their homes, but rather be taken to their place of destination; this was not stated with the necessary clarity in the first of the three Porte telegrams, at least not in the German translation given to us, but it corresponds to the government’s programme which aims at scattering the concentrations of Armenians in certain areas and larger towns in Asia Minor. It finally seems as if the authorities in the interior are often under the influence of leaders of the Unity and Progress Committee and other elements who are not responsible, who do not concern themselves with the Central Government’s orders and organise the outrages against the Armenians and other indigenous Christians. On the other hand, there is no proof at present that the Porte planned to “audaciously deceive” the Imperial Embassy with its notification in question. Ali Munif Bey, mentioned in Mr. Büge’s telegram, is identical with the former Musteshar (Undersecretary of State) at the Ministry of the Interior who was recently appointed Governor of the Lebanon. On the journey to his official residence, he spent several days in Adana, but the Ministry denies that he carried out a mission there as an inspector. Hohenlohe

1915-09-23-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14087 “Daily Chronicle” Our Seventh Ally By a Correspondent. Viscount Bryce’s eloquent appeal to America and other neutral nations on behalf of the Armenians, who are being so ruthlessly slaughtered in Asiatic Turkey, will, it is hoped, draw public attention to and enlist widespread sympathy for the sufferings of a Christian people who are being deliberately exterminated by the Turkish Government. The quadruple Entente with Serbia and Belgium brings the number of the Allies to six. Who is, then, this seventh Ally, of whom we do not know? This is how the general public will question because the facts concerning this Ally are not sufficiently brought before them by the British Press. And yet, all the while, this small Allied Nation is fighting on the side of the Allies, and her sacrifices are comparatively greater than those incurred by any nation at war at the present time. They are staking all they have, pos72. See Doc. 1915-09-10-DE-011.

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session, home, life, country and national existence, in the sacred cause of the Allied Nations. It is easy to guess that seventh Ally to whom I allude is the Armenian nation. The Armenians began to fight on the side on the Entente from the very beginning. They did not wait for an invitation, they did not bargain. The cause of the small nations, the principle of nationalities, for which the Entente Powers have drawn the sword, was so near to their heart, and corresponded so exactly to their secular aspirations, that at once they jumped at it, and at the signal given they threw themselves unreservedly, heart and soul, into the arena. The Balkan nations are today offering a sad spectacle of self-interest. They are waiting to see which side is the stronger, in order to side with it. Armenia did not do that. The righteousness of the cause for which the triplice began the war attracted them from the beginning, and full confidence in the Allied powers for their future remuneration moved them to action, and so they fought. Over a hundred thousand of them are fighting in the Russian Army, about 20,000 Armenian volunteers are also fighting in the Caucasus: Armenian volunteers are also fighting even in France in the ranks of the Allies. It is even said that General Alexieff, the present Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, is an Armenian by origin. Appeal to the Allied Nations. There was a time when the Armenians used to appeal to Europe on the grounds of pity and common Christian faith. Since 1878, they have added another string to their bow when, after the conclusion of the Treaties of Berlin and Cyprus, in that year, they based their appeals on the treaty rights. England, as the principal actor of those treaties, had incurred great responsibilities towards the Armenians. Therefore, they looked to her more specially to help and to right their grievances. But now, since the beginning of the war, the Armenians strengthened their claims by a third argument beside pity and treaty rights. They now back their claims on Europe and appeals to her by the fact that, as one of the Allied nations, they are fighting in her side and sealing their demand with their blood. If blood has to decide the matters of this world, surely the Armenians have shed enough blood throughout the long centuries, and more specially since the declaration of the present war, for every inch of their land is being soaked with their blood. To be just, it must be admitted that England tried from time to time, in a measure, to redeem her humane and treaty obligations, but she found latterly Germany on her path to negate her efforts at Constantinople, and so the treaty articles on behalf of Armenia suffered to be treated as so many scraps of paper. Now, however, that Great Britain and the Allied Powers have at last risen in holy indignation against that nefarious doctrine of a scrap of paper, and are actually fighting for the sacredness of treaties, the Armenians greatly hope that the Allies will not stop at half-measures, and that they will not apply the principle to Belgium alone and forget a still older victim of the scrap of paper doctrine, bleeding Armenia. The task of doing justice to Armenia at the close of the war will be so much easier, considering that there will then be no more German obstruction, and Russia being more friendly with the Armenians.

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England will encounter no difficulty in doing justice to this sorely tried nation, their seventh Ally. The Claim of the Armenians. The question then arises. What is it this Ally is striving to get at the final settlement of affairs? The Balkan states have each their own national aspirations to be fulfilled. Serbia covets Bosnia and a seaport. Rumania wants Transylvania. Italy fights for her “Italia Irredenta.” What do the Armenians fight for? The claim of the Armenians is a very modest one. It consists in the guarantee of their national existence, in the right of living unmolested in their own country, with full scope of developing their abilities. And they think that it will be possible only by granting them a measure of autonomous regime, under the protection of the Allied Powers. They are convinced that this will be the best final solution of the long-standing Armenian question, to the benefit not only of the Armenians themselves, but also of other races inhabiting that country, and not less to the benefit also of the neighbouring states. But till then, and while the Armenians are fighting, they are at a loss to understand the ignorance, indifference, lack of interest of the British public and the silence of the British press regarding Armenian affairs and needs, which at the present juncture are not less important and pressing than those of Belgium and Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees, whose homes are destroyed and able-bodied men fighting, massacred or deported, are fleeing from the country, naked, hungry, diseased, to take refuge in Russia. Considering the fact that it was owing to Britain’s unfortunate intervention that Armenia was condemned to remain under the Turkish misrule in 1878, and consequently to undergo the present misery, one would have naturally expected that the British public would have been anxious to seize every opportunity for redeeming their obligation towards this greatly wronged people, now their Ally. Instead of that, the coldness and lack of interest in their just cause greatly surprises the Armenians. The heartrending appeals on their behalf from certain quarters are inadequately responded to. British generosity must be exercised on a much larger scale than it has yet been, if these people the only hope for Armenian’s future, have to be kept alive.

1915-09-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 28578; pr. 02.10.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 586

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Pera, 25 September 1915 Previous reports No. 549,73 580, 565. Further reports by the Imperial Consuls in Adana and Aleppo confirm that the wellknown telegraphic instructions by the Porte for the improvement of the fate of the deported Armenians have on the whole not fulfilled their purpose, due to the various exceptions to the privileges granted, which the Porte itself made at the beginning and later, and also due to the despotism of the provincial authorities. In Adana, as Dr. Büge reported on 13th inst., widows, orphans, soldiers’ families, even the sick and blind were to be deported. At the same time, Mr. Rössler reports from Aleppo that despite the order of the Porte to provide the deportees with food, the majority of them would die of hunger, as the authorities were not in a position to organise such mass provisions. Recently the following telegram was received from Mr. Rössler on 18th inst.: “During the past few days, long convoys of Armenian women and children, almost starving to death, arrived here from the East on foot and were transported on, provided they had not died here in the meantime. “The order given by the Porte to refrain from deporting those who were still in their homes is a complete illusion, as some of them can be termed as being suspicious, and this is often used as an excuse. Contrary to the order, the families of soldiers are not being exempted. Also, the severely sick are being transported away mercilessly. “Transports are again being carried out to Der Zor and Mosul. “Despite assurances by the Porte to the contrary, everything is being directed at the destruction of the Armenian people. “Armenians have asked me to present this once again to Your Excellency.” Talaat Bey, to whom I have pointed out these circumstances, has willingly offered his help; however, I can hardly believe that the orders of the Central Office will bring about any considerable improvement in the position of the deported Armenians. Hohenlohe

1915-09-27-DE-014 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/170; A53a, 5779; p 07.10.1915. Report. translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) 73. A 26474/A 27578 presented to Mr. Rosenberg. A 27200 enclosed.

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B.No. 2130 Aleppo, 27 September 1915 Regarding the deportation of the Armenians I am honoured to continue reporting the following: 1. Individual events, which presumably have otherwise taken place unnoticed, happened recently in Aleppo before the eyes of the population itself. Since then, the government has taken steps to ensure that, for the most part, the hordes of deported people rarely come through Aleppo any more. On both the 10th and the 12th of this month, a procession of about 2,000 exiled women and children arrived here on foot via Ras-ul-Ain in a completely exhausted state, a procession which could only have been depicted in its atrociousness by the brush of a Werechshagin. Using whips, the gendarmes drove the wretched, emaciated creatures, many of whom had a death-look about them, through the streets of Aleppo to the train station without permitting them to drink a drop of water or to receive a piece of bread in the town. The citizens of the town who wished to distribute bread and water were prevented from doing so. Two women fell down to give birth and were only protected from being whipped by the gendarmes by town dwellers, who rushed to help them. Two German Borromeus Sisters witnessed an exhausted woman being pulled along by the hair by a gendarme. A German and an Austrian who were just on their way to the Vali to see about a Turkish charity bazaar, put up a defence against the gendarmes and threatened them with the Vali, thereby almost coming to blows with them. Two German officers’ batmen were so outraged that they slapped gendarmes. A retired Turkish colonel, a Circassian, felt compelled on his part to let the gendarmes feel the whip. The Swiss chief operating officer of the Baghdad Railway told me that he had experienced many things in his life, which had hardened him, but that he would never have thought such a thing as this procession to be possible. It reminded him of the pictures of Indian famines. Thus, it is understandable why Djemal Pasha issued a strict ban on photographing the exiles. In his report, a copy of which I obediently enclose and which he gave me to be used in strict confidence, he ordered that, to avoid punishment, all of the Baghdad Railway’s engineers are to hand over the prints, plates and films which they have. Photographing Armenians is to be considered the same as taking photographs of theatres of war without permission. The dying were also loaded on to the train. Next morning, two dead people lay at the loading point. The number of deaths among the deported has risen rapidly since the beginning of September, where the daily average was 25, to 40, 60 and more by the middle of September.74 As it has not been possible to obtain accommodation for all the exiles, it sometimes happens that the dying lie on the street. Like everything else, the funeral service is badly organised. I was told that it happened several times that certain bodies 74. Footnote Rössler: On the 26th of this month there were 110 dead; on the 27th of this month there were 95. Not a day has passed since the middle of September when there were less than 80.

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showed signs of life at the moment during the funeral just as they were to be put into the grave (they are buried without a coffin). I didn’t pay further attention to this story until the local dragoman of long standing from this consulate, Mr. Gabriel Sayegh, was buried in the Greek Catholic cemetery on the 13th of this month at 5 p.m. When the funeral was over, one of the participating priests told me that during the ceremony a 15-year-old Armenian girl was to be buried at the other end of the cemetery when it became evident that she was still alive. At this point I would like to add that the Armenian cemetery is not big enough for the number of dead and, for this reason, other Christian cemeteries are also being used. Near sundown on the afternoon of the 14th of this month, I again visited the Greek Catholic cemetery. Several Armenian bodies were being buried. A row of open graves had been prepared. According to the gravediggers, 5-6 people were to be buried in each one, in which normally one person would have been laid. An Armenian priest, or probably a lay brother, kept a list of the number of buried. The church’s participation consisted solely of his making the sign of the cross from a distance at each funeral. The Gregorian church in Aleppo has succumbed to the force of the events. The Catholicos of Sis had a physical breakdown; the other few member priests are either busy easing the mass misery by distributing bread and other things, or they do not dare to carry out their duties. It also seems that the despair over the doom of their people has won a victory over their faith. Even the help which the exiles give to one another is frequently noticeably modest, be it due to an unbroken natural egoism, be it because this tragedy has made them apathetic. The Armenians in Aleppo, on the other hand, help frequently. Two dying women lay near a grave. Around them stand gravediggers and street urchins, waiting for the moment of death to lay them in the grave. In answer to my question, how these women got to the cemetery, I was told: There were five bodies brought on an ox cart, placed one on top of the other without a coffin. When the gravedigger wanted to carry out his duties, he noticed that of the five bodies, three were still alive. A boy whose death did not seem to be imminent was taken away from the cemetery, while the two women were kept there. I also spoke to the gravedigger who, on the previous day, had found the 15-year-old girl that he had wanted to lay in the grave to be still alive. He confirmed this fact. Thoughtlessness, lack of foresight and harshness on the part of the higher authorities and the brutality of the lower authorities work together so that the banished Armenians are, in part, not treated like human beings. If the things described happen in Aleppo, under the eyes of the authorities and the population, what kind of treatment is to be expected in the loneliness of the march? The crowds coming from the east have already been robbed of their cash when they enter Aleppo. Those coming from the north and the northwest are, for the most part, in a better state; many of them have not had to walk; they still have their possessions and their money. But, in time, their means must also peter out. It is to be feared that sooner or later, if they are not allowed to stay in the towns, large numbers of these exiles will suffer the same fate of starvation as those crowds that passed through

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here via Ras-ul-Ain. They have been particularly threatened with this fate since the government ordered that the Armenians from Asia Minor are to travel to Der-es-Zor and Mosul. The chances of being preserved from starvation, insofar as they don’t die on the march, exist if they happen to come to the village of a compassionate large landowner. It will also happen that the women disappear in the harems and the children grow up as Muslims. It is not just the harshness of this fate which induced me to bring preventative conceptions to Your Highness’ attention. The Turkish government is harming itself and us as their allies. It is not only threatening the only military road for a campaign against Egypt with the danger of infection, but it is also crowding it with tens of thousands of people at a time when it could be needed at any moment for larger troop movements. 2. Further evidence has been found that the measures I described in my report dated 3 September—B.No. 1950—which were to be taken against the Armenians in the eastern Vilayets, have now become such against the Christians. The acting Syrian (Syrian Catholic) bishop told me that a total of 300 children and older women from his denomination have arrived here from Harput, Diyarbekir, Weransheher and Mardin. The rest of the parishioners have probably been killed or kidnapped. A local German businessman gave me the following list for the area in and around Mardin, which is based on information from local relatives of those affected and guarantees having been carefully investigated. Only the future will show whether it is objectively correct. There is, however, no doubt that Christians other than the Armenians have become the object of this persecution.

Towns Mardin Goliye Tell Armen Kalat Mara Mansuriye Benabil

Pop. 50,000

Moham. 27,000

Arm. Cath. 10,000 5,000 4,500

Old Syr. 10,000

Syr. Cath. 1,500

Prot. 1,400

Chald. 100

1,000 400 400

The figures depict the murdered and abducted people. Distances in hours from Mardin: Goliye 1½, Tell Armen 4, Kalat Mara ½, Mansuriye ¼, Benabil ¾. Although the part of the population given in column 3 denominationally belongs to the Armenian Catholic Church, it speaks Arabic and, in the eyes of the people, it is not considered to be Armenian. From a racial point of view it is also probably not Armenian. Even if these people were Armenians who had gradually adopted the Arabic language, their surnames would still have been Armenian. But all of these are also Arabic.

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The Chaldeans in Söird (Vilayet Bitlis) and Djeziret ibn Omar (Vilayet Diyarbekir) and all of the Christians in Djebel et Tor north of Mardin have been exterminated. As has only belatedly become known here, two Mutesarrifs from Mardin were removed from office because they refused to carry out the government’s orders against the Armenians. 3. The court-martial in Marash has taken up its duties again. 18 people were hanged about the 11th of this month after having been in prison for only three days. The execution of a larger number of people who were also in prison was expected on the 11th or 12th. This news is based on oral information given by the natives because written correspondence with the German Relief Association there is impeded. Despite the government’s assurance that those not yet exiled will be allowed to remain at their place of residence, a further 40 houses in Marash have again been evacuated, and these consist mainly of better-situated families, including the secular representative of the Catholic community. It is the government’s endeavour to eliminate all the educated, wealthy and influential people and to leave nothing but the lowest level of society without a leader. This goal has already been reached in Marash and Aintab, as in many other places. 4. The suppression of the rebels in the district of Antioch (Suediye) has not yet been achieved. Further troops were sent there on the 20th of this month. 5. Apart from other places of refuge for the exiled passing through, the Armenians in Aleppo have set up a house to take in the newly orphaned. On 23 September it held the following people 43 widows 48 orphaned boys whose mother was still living 132 boys who were completely orphaned 46 orphaned girls whose mother was still living 100 girls who were completely orphaned Total: 369, people from 43 different towns. I have the honour of enclosing a list of these towns, not all of which I was able to find on the maps at my disposal. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Chancellor. Rössler Enclosure 1 Confidential/Copy Translation of a letter from the military commissioner to the Building Department III of the Baghdad Railway dated 28 August/10 September 1915. Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Very urgent/ No. 4513 Aleppo, 28 August, 10 September 1915

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Mr. Chief Engineer, The Fourth Army, having been informed that certain engineers and employees of the Baghdad Railway are taking photographs of the transport of the Armenians, His Excellency, Djemal Pasha, Commander and Chief of the Army, gave the order that these engineers and employees hand over to the Military Commissioner at once and within a period of 48 hours all negatives of photographs with all copies that they have taken. All those who do not hand over these photographs will be subject to punishment and judged as having taken photographs on the field of war without authorisation. I kindly request that you give the necessary instructions concerning the consequences to those involved and please accept, Mr. Chief Engineer, the assurance of my complete consideration. For the Military Commissioner [Nizami] Enclosure 275 Confidential List of 43 towns from which the newly orphaned come: Erzerum; Amasia; Gürün; Sivas; Zeytun; Herdev; Uzun Yayla (near Sivas); Weranschehr; Tschümüschgazag; Arabkir; Saray; Diyarbekir; Severek; Hadjin; Harput; Hüseynig (near Erzerum); Sassun (near Van, Bitlis); Harasar; Teernis; Bingöl; Kayar; Nurpet (near Marash); Mezere; Marash; Dört Yol; Baker Maden (Diyarbekir); Yerasar; Gowden; Adjiaman; Dereköy (near Marash); Vangarez; Kirri; Garmena; Adana; Tokat; Djiniz (near Erzerum); Debne; Manjilik; Schar (near Hadji); Mardin; Karahissar; Ulash (near Erzerum); Karagöl.

1915-09-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 28373; pr. 10.10.1915 p.m. “The Times” Wholesale Murder in Armenia (From our correspondent.) Cairo, 27 September […]

75. The table has been transformed into text and the towns separated by semicolons.

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Confirmation has reached here of the reports that have been current of Armenian atrocities of a transacting and appealing character. Undoubtedly, as on previous occasions, these outrages have been engineered from Istanbul. There is reason to believe that the attack on the Armenians was decided upon on Enver Pasha’s return after the repulse in the Caucasus, when he appeared to be infuriated against the Armenians because they had greatly assisted the Russians. Talaat Bey evidently seized the opportunity to retaliate upon the defenceless colonies in Asia Minor. The formula adopted as a cloak was an order for the expulsion of Armenians and their deportation to centres in the interior, and resistance or delay in compliance with the Government order was made an excuse for murder, rape, and other savageries. Compliance unavailing One instance, in which leading Armenians were concerned, shows the fate awaiting even those who obey the order. Vartkes Effendi and Zohrab Effendi, two prominent members of Parliament, Aghnuni, one of the chief Dashnakists, Haladjian Effendi and Pastermadjian Effendi, ex-Ministers of Public Works and Agriculture, were put in carriages at Urfa for conveyance to Diyarbekir, and then were murdered en route, the escort reporting that the murders were the work of brigands. It is to be noted that Vartkes was but recently the recipient of marks of Talaat Bey’s friendship. The provincial authorities generally carried out the task entrusted to them only too thoroughly, and, unlike the previous historic massacres, the present atrocities are not confined to a definite area. From Samsun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Aintab, from Marash and Erzerum come the same tales of atrocities—of men shot down in cold blood, crucified, mutilated, or dragged off for labour battalion, of children carried off and forcibly converted to Islam, of women violated and enslaved in the interior, shot down, or sent off with their children to the desert west of Mosul, where there is neither water nor food, or to Deirezor, between Aleppo and Baghdad, where there is no food, in either case to die miserably. Many of these unfortunates did not reach their destination because the cohort so overdrove the victims, that many fell out, and flogging and kicking were unavailing. They were left to perish by the roadside, their corpses distinctly defining the route followed. Many were tied back to back in pairs and thrown into rivers alive. At Zeytun the Armenians were meanly tricked by promised relocations to Adana. Promises that lead to their eventual deaths. (Original version: At Zeytun the Armenians were meanly tricked by Fakhry Pasha of Adana fame.) Some German Consuls directed, or encouraged the proceeding—thus Rössler, the Consul at Aleppo, a fitting companion to his colleague at [illegible], went to Aintab to superintend in person, and the notorious Baron Oppenheim suggested the removal of women and children of the Allies to Urfa where they could not fail to witness the barbarities committed by the troops in the streets, which literally ran blood.

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A valiant resistance The refugees from Suedia, now at Port Said, appear to have fought most valiantly. When the deportation order came, 4,300 of these took to the hills where they resisted for seven weeks, the attack of the Turks lasting continuously for 26 hours. It is a remarkable fact that there were only 600 able-bodied men, of whom but a quarter had rifles, and the rest muzzle-loading sporting guns. It is believed that the Armenians are elsewhere resisting, but the case of the inland colonies is almost hopeless. The Suedia Armenians owe their rescue from the terrible fate of their compatriots to the fact that they were on the coast. The systematic butchery, abduction, and deportation to the desert, which still continue, point to a total loss of life probably exceeding the total of the Hamidian regime. The nature and scale of the atrocities dwarf anything perpetrated in Belgium, or under Abdul Hamid, whose exploits in this direction now assume an aspect of moderation compared with those of the present Governors of Turkey, who certainly can outdo their Teuton masters in the matter of coercion. That Talaat Bey is responsible seems incontestable. It is proved by fact that when ordering the deportations, he said, “After this for 50 years there will not be an Armenian question”—this from the man who is chief of the Committee of Union and Progress and Grand Venerable of the spurious Masonic Grand Orient of Turkey, and who was one of the leading members of the Parliamentary deputation in 1909 to England, where he was greeted as one of the regenerators of Turkey. The Chief Culprit A Special Correspondent of The Times, formerly in Constantinople, writes: The dispatch from the Cairo Correspondent of the Times brings into special prominence the dastardly conduct of Talaat Bey, the Turkish Minister of Interior. Three of the leading Armenians murdered—Vartkes Effendi, Haladjian Effendi, and Pastermadjian Effendi—had long been his intimate personal friends. When in Constantinople on 8 September 1913, I had opportunities of observing the closeness of their relations. Pastermadjian Effendi, the former Minister of Agriculture, had been arrested in Asia Minor by the zeal of some local official. Vartkes Effendi, who was an extremely intelligent and vigorous Armenian, went at once to the Sublime Porte to remonstrate with Talaat, whose room I happened to enter during their conversation. Talaat immediately gave orders for the release of Pastermadjian, and explained to me jokingly that there was nothing he would not do for his friend Vartkes, who [not deciphered] scolded him severely. The relations between the two men, seemed, indeed, to be those of two chums, and my impression was afterwards confirmed by the language of Vartkes himself. Before leaving Constantinople I dined at the Cercle d’Orient with Talaat and Haladjian Effendi. Haladjian was eloquent in his defence of the Young Turkish regime, and spoke warmly of the friendship of Talaat for the Armenians and of the reforms

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that were about to be introduced. Talaat was as cordial towards Haladjian as he had been towards Vartkes. Now both have been murdered at the instance of Talaat. Unless I am mistaken, there is something more than treachery and bloodthirstiness in this systematic massacre of a whole population. The Committee of Union and Progress and those who have inspired its policy doubtless feel the need of turning the minds of the Turkish population from the ruin that is being brought upon the Ottoman Empire by the crimes and follies of its “regenerators”. I trust that the British Government will not only not condone these abominations, but will make Turkish Ministers, and especially Talaat and his helpers, personally responsible for the innocent blood that has been shed. It is not enough to punish or execute local officials and peasants or soldiers who have been instruments of the governing clique. The British Government should make it clear that the whole Turkish Administration, including the Grand Vizier, Talaat, and the other Ministers, will answer with their lives for their villainy. It may not be in the power of the Allies to save the Armenian population of Turkey, but at least they can proclaim their determination to see that exemplary justice shall be done.

1915-09-30-DE-004 Source: PA-AA; R14087; A 28440; pr. 30.09.1915 p.m. “The Westminster Gazette” By this time we are unhappily becoming accustomed to the “frightful” savagery into which war can be turned by belligerents paying no heed to law or humanity; but even so, there is something inexpressibly shocking and devilish about the story which the Times Cairo correspondent tells to-day of the wholesale murders in Armenia. The two Turkish Ministers responsible are Enver Bey (which might have been expected) and (what is a good deal more surprising) Talaat Bey. Their method against the defenceless colonies of Armenians in Asia Minor was an order for their expulsion and deportation to centres in the interior, any resistance or delay in complying with the Government order being made the excuse for murder, rape, and other savageries. Men have been shot down in cold blood, crucified, mutilated, or dragged off for labour battalions; children carried off and forcibly converted to Islam; women violated and enslaved in the interior, shot down, or sent off with their children to the desert west of Mosul, where there is neither water nor food, or to Deireszor, between Aleppo and Bagdad, where there is no food, in either case to die miserably. —————————— So far from German influence being used to restrain these infamous crimes, we are actually told that German Consuls in some cases directed or encouraged the pro-

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ceedings. Thus Rössler, the Consul at Aleppo, a fitting companion to his colleague at Haifa, went to Aintab to superintend in person, and the notorious Baron Oppenheim suggested the removal of women and children of the Allies to Urfa, where they could not fail to witness the barbarities committed by the troops in the streets, which literally run blood. The conduct of Talaat Bey is the more terrible in that three of the leading Armenians murdered have long been his intimate personal friends. We can only hope that the highly placed Turks who are responsible will eventually be brought to book and punished for their crimes. German Kultur will doubtless be prouder than ever of its alliance with Turkey—so true it is that birds of a feather flock together. But the neutral world can hardly fail to see fresh confirmation of the fact that the cause of the Allies is the cause of justice and of humanity.

1915-10-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 29593; pr. 02.10.1915 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Robert Berridge From the German journalist, von Tyszka, to the Undersecretary of State in the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) Constantinople, 1 October 1915 Journalstr.14 Han Nikitits To the Right Honourable Undersecretary. Your Excellency, I have the honour of sending you the reports concerning the Armenian uprising in the eastern part of the empire and the Turkish measures for eliminating the Armenians. These are supplementary to my report of 7 September and I graciously request their perusal. Yours faithfully. von Tyszka Enclosure 1 Very Confidential. Constantinople, 22 September 1915 The Armenian Uprising and the Turkish Atrocities The bloody measures, which have been taking place in the Asiatic part of Turkey, with no end in sight, have never occurred to such an extent in Turkey. Turks and Armenians are thereby playing reciprocal roles. In the following, the Armenian view

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is given and only those statements have been taken down which the Armenian Patriarch, Mgr. Zaven, and the Chairman of the Armenian Union, Dr. Tavidjan, submitted as officially accepted material and which were substantiated by eyewitnesses present at the time. The cause of the Armenian uprising goes back to February of this year. Between 35-40 young Armenian conscripts had fled to Zeytun with the intention of evading their military service obligations. The local population took sides for and against the deserters; the common people were expected to help the Turkish government in capturing the deserters. Shooting between the Armenians and the Turkish police began, whereby 14-15 of the former were killed. The Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople called upon Minister Talaat Bey to obtain first-hand information concerning the events there. Using this occasion, the Minister explained to the Patriarch that he was very satisfied with the attitude of the Armenian population in Zeytun. It must have been disconcerting for the Armenians to find that the entire population of Zeytun, including the women and children, had left Zeytun a few hours after the clashes, with 5,000 being deported to Konia and the remaining being forced to Zort, south of Mush. On questioning the Turkish Government, the Patriarch received the answer that this involved an offence similar to that which occurred 40-50 years ago and nothing could be done against it while the war was on. At the end of May, the Armenian population was forced out of Erzerum. The Patriarch asked the Minister of War, Enver Pasha, for the reason and was informed by him that nothing was known about a directive to expel the Armenians from Erzerum. After that, on 2 August O.S., an irade was issued giving all troop commanders the right to remove town and village populations should this serve the interests of the state. The incumbent American Ambassador in Constantinople, to whom the Patriarch had turned and asked for an explanation regarding the fate of those expelled from Erzerum, reported that these Armenians had been exiled to Terdjan. This disclosure has not been confirmed. Instead, on 25 July O.S., 2-300 women from Erzerum arrived in Aleppo. No men accompanied them. The men are said to have been killed on the way. The following occurred in Van: A national service Armenian conscript was arrested by the Turkish gendarmes on 6 May O.S. in Shabak, south of Van. As they wanted to commit him in Van, several of his friends resisted the committal and freed the young man by force. The General Governor of Van summoned a meeting of the Armenian revolutionary party, Dashnaktsutiun, and together they passed a resolution that the head of the party with the Chief of the Gendarmerie, accompanied by several gendarmes and members of the Armenian Revolutionary Union, should go to Shatak and take the deserter into police custody. On the way to Shatak, the Armenian party head and the members were murdered by the Turkish gendarmes. As the Governor of Van wanted to arrest the other members of Dashnaktsutiun, part of them put up armed resistance while the others moved into neighbouring villages. During the fighting between the Armenians and the Turkish troops, a few hundred Armenians

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were killed. Ten days later Russian troops appeared in Van, whereupon the Turkish Governor General, Djevdet Bey, brother-in-law of Enver Pasha, fled. An Armenian government was appointed, in which Kurds also participated. The Russians were later driven out of Van but, as has been reported, have taken control of Van once again and are at present masters of the area. A woman from Baiburt, northeast of Erzerum, has given the Patriarch here the following statement: The Archbishop of Baiburt and 12 other notables of the city were hanged by the Turks. One hundred Armenians in the said place were sent to the Persian province of Laristan; they have not returned. Within three days almost every male inhabitant had been forced out of the town. The town was then plundered by Turkish tschetes (baziboshuks). They took everything which they could amass. Accompanied by a few men, the women fled with their children and a little money which they had hidden. The chetes followed the refugees and took away from the women all children between 5-15, as well as any young women which pleased them. The sister of the eyewitness, who was staying in Constantinople, was also taken away. She had a child of but a few days with her. The child was snatched from her and thrown away and she was taken off. The Armenian women from Erzerum whose men had been killed also joined up with those from Baiburt. A Turkish woman in a village which the caravan went through asked the accompanying gendarmes if she could not have an Armenian child. As the Armenian woman whose child the Turkish woman wanted refused to give up the child, the gendarme told the Turkish woman that she could have both; the mother and child. The few men who had accompanied this column of women were killed in the following three days by Turkish tchetes. A Turkish woman from Erzerum told a gendarme to bring her an Armenian which she could kill. “Can you shoot?” asked the gendarme. “Yes,” answered the woman. Soon afterwards she shot an old Armenian with a revolver. According to the women from Baiburt, unaccompanied children who had fled out of fear were caught by the Turkish gendarmes and thrown into the Euphrates. Two nurses from the German hospital in Erzindjan left their positions, as they could no longer bear to see the atrocities: men and women drowning and also being buried alive. A Norwegian, Miss A.Wedel, from Jardsberg76 and a German nurse whose name is unknown gave the Patriarch details of the events after she had left Erzindjan. There is no news from this province that one man was saved. The letters which have reached here have all been written by women. The extremely competent Armenian lawyer from Constantinople, Zohrab, was expelled and died on the way from Alexandretta to Urfa. He was a Deputy, and it is said that he had a heart weakness. The well-known Deputy, Vartkes, whom I know well, was in any case fully fit; I was talking to him a few months ago in the Ministry of the Interior, did not arrive at his place of exile in Diyarbekir. His wife, to whom he 76. Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg.

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had been married for three years, has managed to reach Germany with the help of a young German and a foreign passport. Vartkes was a member of the Union of Dashnaktsutiun. His death will certainly be assumed. In Shar Kishla, southwest of Sivas, where the Amasia-Samsun, Kayseri and Malatia roads cross, women and girls were summoned daily by the Kaymakam, violated by him and his gendarmes and then sent back home. The children there were also murdered. Three children from Shar Kishla between the ages of 13-15 fled to Constantinople and informed the Armenian Patriarch about the incidents there. The Kaymakam of Sharkyshla has in the meantime been arrested and taken to Constantinople. 65 young boys from Shabin Kara-Hissar, between Sivas and Erzindjan, have been taken to Angora and converted to Muslims. The Bishops from Konya and Ismid had sent a telegram to Enver Pasha from Eregli, asking for assistance regarding the expulsions of their clergymen. Enver Pasha replied, we have dispatched the Director for Emigration so that he can accommodate the Armenian refugees in the vicinity of their previous domiciles. The Director arrived in Eregli and explained to the Bishops that all those not accommodated had to be taken to Aleppo. When the Director was shown the telegram from Enver, he answered that it had indeed been Enver Pasha’s intention, but it was simply not possible. In Constantinople, Enver Pasha assured the Patriarch Zaven that those expelled from Constantinople would not be taken to Aleppo, but to Kastamuni. Armenian priests in Bulgaria have taken measures through their government for the benefit of their fellow believers in Turkey. While a satisfactory answer from Angora had been remitted to Bulgaria, all Armenians in Ajash, west of Angora, had been murdered, according to comments expressed by the police administrator in Constantinople, Bedri Bey, to a well-known Turkish civil servant. The Director of the German school in Aleppo, Mr. Eduard Gräber, related to the Patriarch that the resident consul had cried bitterly on hearing about the atrocities committed by the Turks on the Armenians there. This weeping will not have been of much effect, as there are namely more effective measures than tears of sympathy. The Armenian Patriarch has presented his complaints to the American and German Ambassadors including the available official material, appealing for help. von Tyszka Enclosure 2 Very Confidential Constantinople, 29 September 1915 Concerning the atrocities committed by Armenians against the Muslims The head of the Security police in the Ministry of the Interior, Djembolad Bey, assigned me to Essad Bey, the head of Section 2, as he himself had been in office for too

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short a time to be able to offer information concerning the misdemeanours of Armenians against Muslims. Essad Bey, who wants to publish the collected materials in a brochure in a few months’ time, stated to me: Over the last few years, the Armenian movement has been seen in the eastern part of the Empire. At the outbreak of war they took on a more threatening character. Bands were formed out of the Armenian revolutionary party, Dashnaktsutiun. Pasdermadjan, a former deputy from Erzerum, was the leader; he allowed himself, apparently, to be captured by the Russians in the Caucasus, thereby fooling the Turks for his benefit. In fact, he appeared again as the top commander of five Armenian bands which carried out acts of terrorism in villages around Van and then spread terror through murder and all sorts of disgraceful deeds in Van itself. The Muslim population had chartered seven ships in Van in order to flee by crossing the lake from Van to Adelchivas at the north end of the lake. All seven barges with at least 400 people on each, in total 2,800 people, went down with all hands due to explosions. 200 Muslim families were massacred by Armenian brigands in Van. The elderly, women and children were not spared. In the American hospital in Van, several hundred Muslim women and children sought refuge. They were discovered; petrol was poured over them and set light to. On the third day after the appearance of the Armenian brigands, Russian irregulars, later also troops, came and took part in the massacres. Djevdet Bey, the General Governor of Van and brother-in-law of Enver Pasha, remained as long as possible and defended the positions with the stationed gendarmes. Aknuni Pasha, a friend of Pastermadjan’s, was appointed Governor of Van and circulated a manifesto in which he warned all the inhabitants of the province to keep in with the Turks while emphasising the Russian Czar as the liberator of the country. [Nine lines indecipherable] Especially elaborate flags from the Caucasus and also from Boston bearing the inscription “Fédération révolutionaire armenienne” and a dagger, a feather and a spade on a red globe in gold stitching were presented to Aknuni Pasha. I saw a large picture taken in Ismid with 8 mutilated young Muslim women, an old Turkish gendarme from Adabazar with his stomach cut open and his entrails torn out. A large cache of weapons and bombs from Amassia, Sivas, Kayseri, Marsivan, and Soucheir in Vilayet Sivas fell into Turkish hands. The rifles were mostly Mauser repeater rifles, but also Manlicher and Legras. In Adana an incendiary device had been installed on the church. The finds in Diyarbekir of dynamite and bombs were quite substantial; many bombs and weapons were also found in Ismid. Essad Bey disclosed that the number of Muslims who had become victims of Armenian revenge came to 200,000 individuals. There was no clear indication for such a figure; therefore, the figure seemed to be well exaggerated.

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The British advance in Iraq British troops have arrived in Ed Deir, halfway between Baghdad and Aleppo. It seems therefore fully out of the question that there is peace in the area around Baghdad or that the Arab sheiks have gone over to the Turkish side. Amara is in the hands of the British, Kutel Amara in those of the Turks. In Falomdja, on the Tigris, at the narrowest point of its course to the Euphrates, the British have not yet been able to gain a foothold, but they are in Bedreh near the Persian border. Enclosure 3 Very confidential Constantinople, 30 September 1915 The truth about the Turkish measures for eliminating the Armenians. So far the Armenians have been allowed to remain in the Vilayets of Smyrna and Adrianople, likewise in part in Constantinople. In all the other provinces, the Armenians were exiled to Aleppo, Mosul, Zort and other places, destinations, which they did not arrive at. The former Deputy, Zohrab, one of the most recognised lawyers in Constantinople, died on the way from Alexandretta to Urfa. The Deputy Vartkes did not arrive in Diyarbekir, the place of his exile. The Valis of Smyrna, Rahmi Bey and from Adrianople, Hadji Adil Bey, explained that they did not wish to expel the Armenians. After arriving to give their reports to the Minister, both stuck to their decisions. Also a sign of inconsistency in the Committee. Talaat is extreme. What he wants has up until now happened. Rahmi has learnt more than Talaat, he has seen more of the world. He has a practical, but also humane character whose clear judgements, as Deputy, concerning different political questions, were repeatedly cited by myself and found great resonance. He has a large following in the committee. In general, not much attention is paid to alarming rumours in Turkey because everyone knows that a great deal will be exaggerated, but also because the present government is given as much free reign as possible. Very unjustly, the present government has been given the reputation of being liberal. It is anything but that. It is more absolute and dictatorial than that of Abdul Hamid’s. The press is gagged and knows only how to praise the present ruler. Journalists from friendly countries report these praises with good intentions, but have very little specialised knowledge. The strict measures practised by the government against the Armenians due to the uprising in Van were spoken of as a kind of self-help which the state was compelled to use in order to restore order. Armenian guilt appeared even greater, as they were found to be in a pact with the national enemy, Russia, who supported the Armenian revolutionary uprising in Van.

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The government has the right to intervene resolutely and vanquish that which wishes to break away because the country consists of many disparate elements which are merely waiting for the appropriate moment to follow the Armenians’ lead. Nothing could be more disadvantageous than to show weakness in situations where only strength is capable of enhancing the reputation of the government. But it has to draw a line and recognise restrictions, if the idea of freedom is not to be turned into a mockery. To punish the guilty, the government must not annihilate the innocent and helpless just because they belong to the same race as the insurgents. Today, victims are concerned in numbers unknown to a Turkish history, which is not lacking in incidents of acts of violence. That is the shattering truth. Help is required from all those in a position to help. Whether the sacrifices endured by the Armenians exceed 500,000 or fall short of it, is in principle of no importance. Enough crimes have been committed on both sides. What is of crucial importance is the calm and matter of course with which these persecutions take place. This shows a self-conceit which ridicules any outside interference. It was not the Armenians who evoked my intense interest in the causes and the consequences of the Turkish government’s actions to appear as a representative of law and humanity¸ but rather the Turkish senators of the local Senate: men of great service and immaculate character who felt extreme repugnance at acts which their government carried out with unshakeable calm and as a matter of course. Then an intimate Armenian friend of mine, Agop Hamandjan Effendi, a civil inspector in the Ministry of the Interior, was suddenly removed from his office without any pension rights. This man had served 26 years as Conseiller legiste, as representative of Governors and Governors-Generals, and all that with great enthusiasm and steadfast loyalty. I demanded an explanation, as a more damaging step for the life of the family could follow the first. On 14 September of that year, I received the following answer from an acquaintance of mine, a director in the Ministry of the Interior, Hassan Fehmy Bey. “The honesty of your friend is not doubted. However, as a result of an accepted universally applicable directive, he will be retired.” This is how an all-encompassing justification is made. This man is the most able, the best worker and, as officially confirmed, of proven honesty. He has a very large family and is the only bread-winner and can any moment be sent to the provinces from where he will not return. On the 20th of this month, Hassan Fehmy Bey explained to me that Minister Talaat Bey wanted to see all Armenians removed from the Ministry of the Interior because the Turkish civil servants no longer wanted to work with them. The Turkish refusal could only have a detrimental effect on the office organisation and, if continued, could result in more difficulties in the internal administration. The Minister of Internal Affairs decided to relieve all Armenians in his administration from duty, irrespective of the person. In the inner administration, the Armenians have the opportunity, more than in any other Ministry, to work out

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common plans and to instigate insurrections. The Armenians have to be cleared out, as they have a revengeful character and, as they are courageous, they are at the same time elements of potential danger to the state. In reply to my objection that Armenians were to be found in other ministries, for example Justice, Finance, Public Works and Forestry and Agriculture, as well as the Conseil d’État, I was informed that the problem of the Armenians had to be settled once and for all. A start had to be made in the Ministry of the Interior and after a while the other public authorities would follow. Consequently, in Turkey it is a resolved policy to remove the Armenians from all state departments and to further develop the Ottoman Empire on a solid Turkish foundation. The Turkish plan of forcing all Armenians out of the provinces and relocating them in Mesopotamia has been superseded according to a brochure by Dr. Rohrbach. The Turks did not trust the Armenians as neighbours of the Russians. An official reason for carrying out the expulsion of the Armenians was the uprising in Van. A man like Talaat Bey, possessing such an iron will, tends towards the most extreme measures when he believes them to be right. He will not let himself be influenced by anyone and favours any kind of report if it brings him closer to his goal. For this man the expulsion of the Armenians after the uprising in Van became a necessity. The resulting injustices and hardships are of no importance. Talaat Bey is the optimist par excellence, especially regarding his own decisions. In the same way as he gives commands, he accepts all complaints quite indifferently. Until recently, in fact at the beginning of this year, the Armenians were regarded as the most reliable element, indeed the only reliable people within the Christian elements in Turkey. One could read it in all the newspapers and the important Turkish dignitaries confirmed this on every occasion that presented itself. Since March, an about-face has taken place, which is as general and consequent as if the Turks had never known up until now what dangerous people had been living within their midst. Where actions are not regulated and determined by experience, despotism and restlessness take hold. Djemal Pasha, as Minister of Naval Affairs, was the most enthusiastic supporter of the Turkish-French Committee. Golden bridges were also to be built for the deadly enemy, Russia. Take Ionescu, the frequently-mentioned Rumanian Minister of the Interior was Talaat Bey’s closest friend. What could the common interest be for the Armenians to break away from Turkey? They have no connection to their kingdom, like the Bulgarians, the Greeks or the Serbs, and they see too clearly to trust the Russians. The weapons, which the Turks found among the Armenians were mostly those which they had received from the Turks in 1908 so that they could help the Committee defend themselves against reactionaries. It is understandable for the Turks not to trust the Armenians who were living near the Russian border, but why did they deport with the same harshness those liv-

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ing in areas far from the border, such as from Jalova, Angora, Brussa and Kastamuni? From these places alone, 250,000 Armenians were expelled. Within 48 hours they had to leave their homes and begin their exile to Aleppo, Hama, Mosul and even Hauran. Nothing was undertaken on the part of the Turkish government to transport the expelled to their place of exile. The trains were occupied by the transportation of troops. No Armenian found space there. For the journey, no security measures were taken to ensure their safety. The tchetes, the old bazibazuks from the war of 1877/8, were found once again where easy spoils and murder were to be had without any risk involved. As brave and humane in thought as the Turkish soldier is when he is not spurred on by religion, so cowardly is the irregular. It will certainly be claimed that the tchetes were instigated and led by Young Turks. In the places where the massacres against the Armenians took place, for example in Baiburt, Marash, Shabbin-Karahissar, Angora and Malatia, the men were separated from the families. The women carried what they could hurriedly collect together. The tchetes followed this caravan of defenceless people and robbed, raped and murdered as they pleased. A Turkish lieutenant colonel, who had served in the Dardanelles and was in the capital city on a short holiday, tearfully described what his relatives from Trebizond and Sivas had related to him concerning the Turkish massacres of the Armenians. With regard to the higher Armenian religious leaders, we know only that the Bishop of Smyrna is still alive. The Patriarch fears that they must prepare themselves to hear of the murder of most of the others. No one knows what has happened to the Armenian churches and the treasures collected over the centuries. All the Armenian Patriarch’s enquiries to the Minister of the Interior remain unanswered. The Praise The Turks like to be praised. In earlier times they heard that praise and were happy about it, without this praise exercising a long-lasting effect upon their behaviour. Today, the Young Turks take all praise at face value and bathe in their own infallibility. It is really time to put an end to this completely superfluous gushing for the Turks. There are already plans to introduce the Turkish language as a subject in the high schools in Hesse. This at a time when one wanders through the streets unable to find the way by means of the solely Turkish inscriptions on the signs. More so, as the Turks send all acknowledgements concerning incoming registered consignments to Europeans, even the person’s name, in Turkish, so that one is unable to know whether one is the authorised recipient or not. Indeed, one need not go too far into the realms of sentimentality to supply those suffering from delusions of grandeur with even more material for their unjustified conceit. A government-inspired article in the

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Hilal demands that German professors who wish to lecture at the local university not bring their own translators from home, but look for them here. Furthermore, to lecture with success they will have to make some endeavours to learn Turkish, whereby they convey the subjects in this language. Another leading article in the Hilal compared Enver Pasha’s decision-making skills, willpower, and genial execution to that of Hindenburg’s. Without any prejudice, the situation appears completely different. The expedition to the Suez had to fail, as it was undertaken at the wrong time and with insufficient materials. Like the insufficient number of heavy artillery, as well as pack animals and camels, the delivery of which one should have arranged on time. In Arabian Iraq, the Turks were surprised by the British advances and had had no knowledge of the long preparation of the expedition by the British in Basra. The expedition to the Caucasus ensued with insufficiently clothed troops whose needs were not met. The outbreak of typhus, which took as many victims as men found in an army corps, can be attributed to the arduous strains which the troops were put through without reason and without result. Van is still in the hands of the Russians, who are also in the vicinity of Erzerum. A lot has happened for the protection of the Dardanelles. The troops are well equipped and well provided for. The power of Turkey will be judged according to the extraordinary results in the Dardanelles, executed before the eyes of Europe. But still the situation would be very different there if the Turks were in sole command. The daring of the troops alone is not sufficient to obtain a victory. The Turks are not systematic. Most of the generals do not know how to command. They are unable to work with the deputy leaders. They require a teacher to show them how the individual can only act successfully within the framework of the whole, hence increasing their awareness for offensives. At present this (concept) is foreign to them. German expertise, at this point, can have a great effect. Their unforgettable old master, v.d.Goltz Pasha, should again take the reins in his firm hands and force unity into the system. Enver Pasha’s contribution to equipping this model army in the Dardanelles should certainly not be belittled. He achieved what could be produced with goodwill, hard work and commitment to a profession. But without the Germans it would not have turned out as it did. Therefore, people in Germany should be on their guard against overflowing feelings of praise and admiration. This does not lead to gratitude. Already today, Germans employed in different military areas are complaining about Turkish presumptuousness. If these superfluous gushings continue, the difficulty of dealing with Turkey will grow, and the advantages which Germany will and must have from such dealings will diminish. “There is nothing harder to bear than a string of fine days.” This is especially valid where happiness and honour fall, so to speak, without self-criticism overnight from heaven, clouding healthy judgement. Von Tyszka

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1915-10-01-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14087 “The Westminster Gazette” Massacre of Armenians Today’s French wireless message says: German Press agree in underlining difficulties opposed to troops on the eastern front on account of the continual heavy rains. Massacres of Armenians continue all over Turkey. It is estimated there are up to now more than 800,000 victims. Not only have Government done nothing to prevent these massacres, but it appears to be established that in many towns the German Consuls have taken part in organising them.

1915-10-01-DE-004 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 28569; pr. 02.10.1915 a.m. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Legation Councillor in the Foreign Office Rosenberg Berlin, 1 October 1915 All of the arguments which speak for considerate treatment of the Armenian population in Turkey were presented forcefully today to the Council of the Turkish Embassy. Because of the persecution and annihilation of the Armenian element, in Turkey one of the mainstays of commerce and industry, Turkey itself was most severely injured economically. The news concerning the persecution of the Armenians caused a great stir not only in hostile, but also in neutral countries abroad and was detrimental to the Turkish government’s reputation. A lively unrest was beginning to make itself noticed in philanthropic circles in Germany. Edhem Bey promised to speak to the ambassador and also to report to Constantinople. He admitted that riots had taken place, even if the news that was spread abroad was grossly exaggerated. Until the spring of this year there had been quite a good relationship between the Armenians and the Turks, all the more explained by the fact that during the period of revolution the Armenians had sympathised with the Committee and together they had taken action against the old regime. A drastic change had first come about in April, when the Armenians revolted behind the Turkish army during the Turkish advance on Azerbaijan, during which no fewer than 180,000 Mohammedans were killed. Thus, it was not surprising that the Mohammedans had taken their revenge for this. The removal of the Armenians into the interior was necessary for military reasons and in the interest of Turkey’s self-preservation. If attacks had been carried out during this, they were most cer-

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tainly disapproved of by the central government. Unfortunately because of the large spatial distances and the primitive conditions of the empire, the central government was not always in a position to prevent clumsiness and carelessness in the lower authorities.

1915-10-01-DE-006 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 30012; pr. 16.10.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Adana (Büge) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 37/J.No. 869 Adana, 1 October 1915 12 enclosures. Your Excellency, I have the honour of enclosing transcripts of a number of records made here on the violent actions taken by the Young Turk government against the Armenian nation. The records, some of which I have made and some of which were made by the officials of the consulate at my instigation, refer solely to those cases which either took place within the administrative district or were brought to the consulate’s attention by Armenians passing through. It is said here that the Armenians were massacred in the cruellest way in different towns in the country’s interior, especially in the areas along the Turkish-Arabic language border. Everywhere and in all cases the Turkish authorities are responsible for these acts. Since the Turkish government has had an official explanation published that the entire Armenian population enjoys the most complete security for their lives and their property, I believe that I cannot keep Your Excellency’s attention from those occurrences which permit the government’s manner of action against the Armenians to be determined. Büge Enclosure 1 Paul Kern, an engineer from Eregli who is presently here, informed me yesterday (Monday, 12 September) that according to his observations the Turkish authorities are plundering the deported Armenians in every possible way. For example, entering the town of Eregli costs a fee of 5 piastres (1/4 medjid); passing over a small connecting bridge between two deportee camps costs a fee of 2 piastres.

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Bread is only supplied against payment, while water is occasionally completely refused. The same applies for all such gatherings. Nowhere do the people receive food for free, and sometimes, as in Osmania, they must pay 5-8 piastres for one loaf of bread. There are many thousands (up to 20,000 people) in Osmania who are robbed at night by the villagers. Adana, 13 September 1915 Enclosure 2 A Turkish officer by the name of Assim Bey, who serves with the engineer corps in Mamuré, told an Armenian named Missak Simikian at the beginning of September of this year that of the 60,000 Armenians banished from Harput, barely 15,000 arrived in Mosul. The rest were annihilated along the way. Two Kurds from Mardin, who attend to the transport of supplies to Constantinople, told Markos Gasarian, a Kurdish-speaking Armenian, upon his inquiry as to how matters were progressing in the eastern provinces of Asia Minor, that all of the Armenians in Harput, Diyarbekir, Mardin and Viran Shehr had been massacred. Missak Simikian and Markos Gasarian have stated the foregoing to me personally in Adana. Enclosure 3 The former Second Director of the Turkish College of Education (Dar el muallemin) and the present Director of the Turkish Orphanage, Osman Bey, explained to the Christian pupils that they would have to convert to Islam or leave the orphanage. According to a statement by Miss Sirpuhî, a teacher at the orphanage who visited me, all of the girls, about 35, left the house and sought to be taken in by different families as a result of the unreasonable demand made of them. I am not aware of their fate; I referred them to the American Mission. 14 out of about 60 Christian boys remained at the orphanage because they did not know what to do. Those left behind have already started to become Mohammedans. Osman Bey had explained to the children that the Christian religion could not be tolerated in the Ottoman orphanage. The pupils were to refrain from any kind of religious activity, particularly praying. (Sirpuhî). Adana, 30 September 1915 Enclosure 4 Adana, 24 September 1915 A big robbery of migrating Armenians took place recently (18 September) near Veissié Station (between Djihan and Toprakkale along the Baghdad Railway in the Vilayet of Adana).

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A certain Manuk Shahbasian, a wholesale merchant in Adana whose family had been joined by Armenian friends of theirs, thus resulting in a train set of 33 wagons, was attacked one evening by Turkish robbers. As it is assumed that those Armenians who leave by wagon are prosperous, these— Mohammedan—robbers have their eyes especially on such caravans. In their opinion, they are hardly doing anything that is not right when they attack the Armenians, possibly killing them because the authorities have rather bluntly given them the order to massacre the Armenians. (Proof of this is to be found, among others, in the behaviour of the railway line workers near Ulu Kishla who refer directly to the Kaymakam of Ulu Kishla with regard to murdering the Armenians: statement by Meier, head of the railway in Mersina). Altogether, the Armenians who were attacked paid 1,200 Turkish liras to the robbers and were then permitted to continue their journey. The actual number of casual robbers is not clear, but at any rate it should hardly have been more than a few, taking into consideration the proportion of the booty for each. Orman Katibi Levon Effendi’s wagons drove some distance behind the strung-out train set of Shahbasian. Due to the bad road, these wagons had difficulty moving ahead. The robbers, probably the same ones who had pillaged Shahbasian’s train, also appeared here. The number of robbers who took part in this attack is known: it was only two people. After the Mohammedans had at least partially satisfied their need for the blood of the Armenians by stabbing and beating them, they extorted 35 Turkish liras from Levon Effendi. His injuries were fairly significant, so that it was not possible for him to continue his journey, and he returned to Adana where he is still to be found at present. On the afternoon of 22 inst. (Wednesday), the Vali of Adana went to Osmania, resp. Djihan. At best, his journey is for the purpose of taking the money from the robbers—for himself. It is, however, doubtful whether this is possible without compromising himself with the robbers. Enclosure 5 On 10 September 1915, I questioned the two Armenians: Stepan Garabejekian, 38 years old, from Talas Hakop Papazian 43 years old, from Talas and determined the following: On 28 August of this year, the Armenian inhabitants of Talas (Kayseri) left behind their possessions to the authorities there and began the deportation journey they were forced to take to Mesopotamia: On 29 August, the four gendarmes and two policemen accompanying the deportees’ caravan from Talas, began their act of robbery along the way at an uninhabited place and in the darkness of the evening. With loaded rifles, blows with the rifle butts and strokes with the lashes, they frightened the deported Armenians and extorted

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money from them. One of those maltreated, Arabadshi Alexan, bled to death along the way, not far from Nigde (Konia) as a result of this: For example, those listed below paid the following amounts to the gendarmes: Garabed Sajabalian: 10 Turkish liras Artin Garamanian: 18 Turkish liras Stepan Garabejekian: 5 Turkish liras Hakop Papazian: 5 Turkish liras The entire amount paid to the gendarmes and the policemen comes to about 450 Turkish liras. The same gendarmes threw Stepan Garabejekian’s six-year-old son onto the ground and caused his death. Again, it was the same gendarmes who killed Pehlivanian’s child with their lashes. Note: Enclosures 6-9 refer to the same occurrence; they have merely been reported by different witnesses. Enclosure 6 On 8 September 1915, the following 3 Armenian women: Antaram Terzian Mariam Erzerumdzian Agavni Kazandjian from Orta Köy (District of Amassia, Vilayet Sivas) reported the following to me: On 13 August 1915, the Turkish government took the men from the town of Orta Koy to Hadji Köy, and on the following day the women, and had all the Armenians, regardless of their age and sex, a total of about 700 people, begin their journey of deportation. The deportees’ caravans reached Begazlayian, in the Vilayet of Angora, on 22 August 1915 without any incidents. The next day, 6 gendarmes took over the supervision and leadership of the deportees on the continuation of their journey. Several recruits and civilians, all of them Muslims, joined the caravan in order to take part in the planned atrocity. When the caravan arrived in Tépé Han, the gendarmes had the men separated from the women, interned in a khan and brought out tied up in groups. Their cash was taken from them and all of the men were handed over to the soldiers and murderous gangs. In this way, all of the men and youths, about 250 people, were taken to a valley nearby and killed in the most hideous manner. The women had to watch all of this. Four people from Hadji Köy were shot by the gendarmes in front of the women. The following are the names of some of the victims, which the women mentioned above were able to give:

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Avedis Terzian, 48 years old Nigogos Erzerumdzian, 40 years old Kirkor Palandjian, 45 years old Mikirditch, 25 years old Assadur, 23 years old Garabet Gazlian, from the town of Orta-Köy and Avedis [and] Serkis, both from the town of Hadji Köy. After the loss of their husbands, the widowed women and orphaned children arrived in Erkelet, north of Kayseri, where the Turkish population kidnapped all of the young women, girls and boys. Marian Erzerumdzian stated to me that Bakal Mustafa Agha took her 14-year-old son, Nishan, away from her and kept him. The rest of the caravan, unprotected, poor and miserable, continued the journey via Besanti-Tarsus-Adana without any support from the government. Only the Kaymakam in Tarsus is supposed to have provided those poor people with carts. Upon arrival of the deportees’ procession in Jenidjé, not far from Adana, the gendarmes demanded 40 piastres from each family. The women were hardly able to meet this demand; after having sold their possessions and bedding along the way, they had only a few piastres on them. Enclosure 7 People making a statement: Mariam, wife of Ohannes from Aladsha (Angora), 38 years old Sultane, wife of Harutiun from Aladsha (Angora), 28 years old Güstüma, wife of Meliko from Yozgad (Angora), 30 years old made the following statement to me on 11 September 1915: On the deportation journey from Yozgad to Bogazlajan (in the Vilayet of Angora), we were eye-witnesses as about one hundred Turkish soldiers shot several hundred Armenians from Yozgad and Sungurlu, all men, among them two priests, in a valley 4 hours south of Yozgad on 20 August of this year; they beat them to death with the butts of their rifles and annihilated all of them without exception. On the evening of 22 August, our caravan, consisting of 700 people, all of them deported from Orta-Köy, Hadji-Köy and Aladsha, arrived in Tépé Han (Vilayet Angora), where the men were first interned in a khan. Then the gendarmes raided all of them, group by group, took away their cash and handed them over to the murderous gangs. The gendarmes were also involved in the murderous deed by shooting four people from Hadshi-Köy in front of the women. The names of the victims known to the women making the statement are: Meliko, 35 years old Garabed, 23 years old Harutiun, 30 years old Sarkis, 30 years old Donik, 60 years old Sarkis, 28 years old

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Nishan, 50 years old Nazar, 14 years old Garabed, 25 years old Ufan, 30 years old Kevork, 20 years old Iskender, 13 years old Krikor, 20 years old The gendarmes took the two last-named people to their mother and promised her that they would be freed for ransom. Although they received fifteen Turkish liras, they shot them in front of their mother. All of the gendarmes from Yozgad, Bogazlajan, Erkelet, Indshé Su, Karahissar and Nigdé who accompanied the deportees’ procession took away all the cash bit by bit and gave all the valuables to the irregulars and rapacious gangs. After arriving in Nigdé, one of the above mentioned women, Sultané, sold her pack animal for 80 piastres. The woman was robbed by a gendarme of even this amount, as well as 200 piastres hidden in her knapsack, together with the knapsack. On 10 September of this year, one of the women from Aladsha gave birth along the stretch from Tarsus to Adana. The women hurrying to assist her, including the same woman already mentioned, Sultané, were lashed and beaten by the gendarmes and forced to move on, wanting to leave the woman in child-birth lying in the open on the road. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the women were able to bring their companion to Adana. The government gave the deportees no food or accommodation; on the contrary, the widowed women and orphaned children were treated so harshly by the gendarmes everywhere that they were not even permitted to quench their thirst and could only have a cup of water upon payment of 10-20 paras. Mrs. Sultané’s twoyear-old daughter died of thirst, and Mariam’s two-year-old boy died of thirst and hunger. Enclosure 8 People making a statement: Séféré Göshbekian from Aladsha (Angora) Mardiros Bogossian from Aladsha (Angora) made almost the same statement to me on 11 September of this year as the women Mariam, Sultané and Güstüma had done, and added that they had been eyewitnesses along the way as the gendarmes and soldiers from Tersili massacred and killed several hundred people from Yozgad and the surrounding area, all of them male, in a valley several hours south of Yozgad. These people making a statement also told me that they saw no male Armenians along the way in the towns of Tshat, Burun–Kishla, Tshachmachsadé and Keller, and everywhere along the way they learned that all of them had been killed. It was supposedly the Kaymakam from Bogazlayan who ordered the massacre in all of these towns.

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Enclosure 9 On the morning of 6 September 1915, the deported Armenian women from the town of Hadshi-Köy in Sandjak Chorum in the Vilayet of Angora, Hinasant Tinkoyan Noyemik Avedian Mariam Jachnian Zaruhi Ekmekjian Nuritza Schishmanian Arakini Sogalian made the following statement: On 8 August of this year, the Turkish authority ordered the Armenian population in Hadshi-Köy to leave their homes within 3 days and begin the deportation journey to Mesopotamia. The women were permitted to accompany their husbands and it was made clear to them that they should be grateful to the government for this favour. On 14 August, the government supplied 120 families with 174 wagons in order to take the most essential objects and food with them. Under the leadership of 12 gendarmes, the deportees arrived in Bogazlian via Yozgad without mishap. On the way from Bogazlian to Erkelet, the 6 gendarmes who came along from Bogazlian as guards demanded money from the deportees’ caravan on 22 August. Together, the 120 families collected 10 Turkish liras in order to rid themselves in this manner of the danger to their lives. The gendarmes, angry because of the small sum, separated all the men, about 200 people, from the women and locked them into a khan. The gendarmes then brought the people out of the khan, tied up in groups, robbed them of all their cash and sent them, still tied together, to a nearby valley. The gendarmes later used rifle shots to signal the neighbouring Turkish murderous gangs, already waiting, to attack. All of the men and the youths over the age of 12 were tortured and killed by means of blows with a club, stones, sabres, daggers and knives, and all this happened in front of the women and children, who had to watch the murderers do their horrific deeds. The Turks took most of the young boys with them in order to convert them to Islam. The Turkish drivers did not take part in the murderous deeds; they were merely spectators. The rest of the deportees, all of them only women and children, then arrived in Erkelet and were attacked by the Turks. There, the Turks led away all of the mature girls and young women and violated them. Two girls resisted and were maltreated so badly on the part of the gendarmes that they died. The names of these 2 girls are Ossanna and Tabid Kirasian. One girl named Rosa Kirasian gave herself up to a gendarme. He is supposed to have promised not to harm the girl and to give her to his brother for a wife. In all, the Turks in Erkelet led away 50 girls as well as 12 boys.

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The remaining women continued their journey and arrived in Akserai where, with the gendarmes’ permission, the Turks took away the rest of their cash, even examining the women’s underwear for this purpose. From Akserai onwards, the women begged their way via Bozanti-Tarsus to the town of Adana, from where they continued their journey. The following are among those killed: Tateos Sogalian, father Stepan Avedian, son Ohannes Sogalian, son Garabed Terzian Yegia Tenkoian Movses Hamalian Abraham Gövertshinian Setrak Hamalian Kevork Gövertshinian Benjamin Ekmekjian Vahan Gövertshinian Mateos Shishmanian Hakob Avedian, father Mihran Shishmanian Avedis Avedian, son Upon instruction from the Imperial Consulate, I arranged for the statement above to be taken from the above mentioned women. Enclosure 10 The most striking example of bribery and acts of enrichment is the case of Mateos Nalbandian, Member of Parliament from Kosan. Intimidated by the warning of the two deported and murdered Members of Parliament, Zohrab and Vardges, he saw himself forced to offer everything to free himself in some way from the agonies and dangers of deportation, and saved his life in the following manner: He signed a two-year contract with the brother of the local Vali, Hamdi Bey, reaching an agreement with him that the Vali’s brother would have the right to half of this year’s harvest in exchange for Nalbandian’s enjoying complete freedom. It is said that, roughly, Nalbandian has 15,000 dönum at his disposal and that he is the only large-scale Armenian landowner in Kosan, so it can be assumed that the Vali’s brother has assured himself of at least 1,500-2,000 Turkish lira’s worth of pure profit for this year. The Vali’s brother’s share also has the advantage that cheap, yes, even unpaid workers from the ranks of the workers’ corps will be available for the harvest and the work in the autumn. There are also other known cases of bribery: All known Armenian trading companies, the prosperous craftsmen and traders from the town of Adana are being exploited by Djemal Bey, the Chief of Police, and Hakki Bey, the Vali. The agent for all of these negotiations is Hakop Ohanian, an Armenian who is by no means reliable, known for his loose way of life and for having gotten into financial difficulty. As the former friend and dinner partner of the Chief of Police, he was used as a tool and a negotiator.

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Just when the local Armenians received a strict order from the police to leave the town within a few days and found themselves in the most awkward situation, Ohanian began to assist the Armenians, as if out of his own initiative, negotiating for permission that they be allowed to remain for an indefinite period of time. These secret negotiations took place with individual persons so that it is not possible to determine all the cases exactly. But from the general situation, and taking into consideration that the rich Armenians remained behind, it can be concluded that Ohanian succeeded in squeezing out several thousand pounds for the Chief of Police and the Vali, who have lately become close relatives (brothers-in-law) of his. Just the three firms of Topalian, Ipranossian and Mindikian paid 100 Turkish liras each. The minimum amount which could be accepted was certainly not less than 10 Turkish liras. Taking into consideration that such negotiations are not carried out in writing, and that there is no obligation for a set period of time, it is easy to see that this method of exploitation represents a never-ending source and always gives cause for new extortions. One proof of this is the new system for the auctioning of municipal taxes. In accordance with the latest regulation by the town council, whose chairman is Djemal Bey, the Chief of Police, the deportation measures are not to apply to those Armenians who buy municipal taxes and take over the administration of taxes. Hoping to free themselves in this manner, the rich and well-to-do Armenians had to collectively pay in about 7,000 Turkish liras for the municipal taxes. In the past year, the town council received barely one-quarter of the above mentioned sum for these taxes. As a result of the last decrees, most of the Armenians have had to leave the town of Adana, so that the sum of 1,800 Turkish liras, paid as a deposit and making up the last of their savings and the funds for travelling of those doomed to deportation, was for the most part lost, as it was not reimbursed by the town council. As the more senior officials attempt to enrich themselves in this manner, consider bribery and extortion to be a harmless and permissible act, and compromise the law and the state’s dignity, naturally they have no moral strength and authority to keep their subordinate officials, judges, doctors, officers, yes even the gendarmes and ordinary soldiers in check. Every public official looks for a way to get money at his own discretion. In Ulu-Kishla, the gendarmes, together with their superior, act like an organised gang. Each deportation procession must pay its tribute. The deportees from Nigde were hardly able to save themselves by paying 200 Turkish liras, and those from Ismid had to sacrifice 7 of their notables, among them Nerses, the vicar because they refused. The reports by Aram Chandshian from Yozgad, an eyewitness and one of those who suffered, clearly show that the worst state of anarchy exists in the Vilayets of Angora, Sivas, Konia and Adana. Examples for other cases of bribery and financial extortion are not rare. Colonel Suleyman Bey and Fethi Bey, the Muttessarif of Osmania, who received the order to deport the Armenians from Dört Yol, received for a mere two-day ex-

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tension: 25 Turkish liras from Garabed Dshinanian, 40 Turkish liras from Minas Karayagupian, and 30 Turkish liras from Hakop Boyadjian. Khatsher Garayagupian was the agent for the negotiations. Vahan Vartabedian and Bogdshalian, both businessmen in Adana, informed me that they each paid 20 Turkish liras through Ohanian as a bribe to Djemal Bey, the Chief of Police, in order to enjoy temporary preferential treatment for a few weeks. Enclosure 11 Khachadur Krussian Agop Hadjikian both residing in Adana, informed me of the following, which they learned from the Armenian women deported from Ismid, whose husbands were shot along the way by soldiers: Along the Ulu-Kishla-Pozanti road, the Armenians from Ismid refused to pay more than the fare which had been agreed upon. The drivers, all of them Turks, attacked and maltreated the Armenians. In order to scare off their opponents, two Armenians pulled out their weapons, but did not use them. A Turkish officer who was called upon from Ulu-Kishla had 7 Armenians, among them a vicar by the name of Nerses, tied up and ordered the gendarmes to shoot the people. The gendarmes refused to carry out this order, making it clear that the people had not deserved such a severe punishment. The officer then ordered his soldiers to execute the 7 tied-up men in front of their wives and children by means of a firing squad, and this order was promptly carried out. The same officer had five other Armenians tied up and taken into the mountains, and their trail has been completely lost. Three of the victims are: Garabed Michalian Melkon Moskefian Vicar Nerses, all of them from Ismid. A badly-wounded Armenian was taken to Tarsus, where he was cared for and remained alive. The next day, the deported Armenians from Akserai: Mihran Mutafian Missak Casandjian Edward Abadjian saw the six corpses lying there. They wanted to cover them up in order to cover them from those passing by, but the gendarmes threw the blanket away again in order to display the naked corpses to those passing by. Enclosure 12 An Armenian named Mikirditsch Nazarian, residing in Adana, told me the following in July of this year:

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“Correspondence from Persia was found in an American newspaper, in which a female American missionary reported the following on the occurrences in Urmia (Persia). “In January of this year, the son of the Vali in Van at that time, a young officer who had studied in Beirut, captured the Persian town of Urmia and had those inhabitants who had remained behind (Armenians and Assyrians), about 700 people who had looked for refuge with the Persian Kurds, forcefully taken from their places of refuge and all of them, without exception, massacred. Several days later, the Russians, mainly Russian Armenians, recaptured the town of Urmia. With this printing, the Russian Armenians took the Turkish town of Van by storm and captured it within a few days.” It can probably be said that the Armenians, under the impression of the cruelties in Urmia, took revenge on the Vali of Van and his wife. However, since the wife of the Vali of Van was supposedly a close relative of Enver Pasha, the present Minister of War, it is believed that the persecution and annihilation of the Armenians was an act of revenge by him. [From Büge to Wangenheim (J.No. 935), 21 October] Your Excellency, in execution of yesterday’s telegraphic order, I have the honour of respectfully enclosing the transcript of a report to the Imperial Chancellor dated the 1st inst., J.No. 869, together with 12 enclosures, concerning the persecution of the Armenians.

1915-10-02-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/97; 10/12, 8320; p. 04.19.1915. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Thilo von Westernhagen to the Embassy Constantinople Constantinople, 2 October 1915 Haidar-Pasha—Biledjik Almost all of the Armenians from this area have disappeared. Entire villages are uninhabited. Some of the houses have been sealed, but they are completely empty. Furniture and similar objects were stored in depots, but seem to disappear from there. The Armenian quarter in Ismid was burned down. In individual villages only children, particularly girls, were left behind. Adapazar is almost completely deserted; almost all the stores are closed. Craftsmen, shoemakers, tailors, etc., are missing.

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Almost all the towns must do without doctors, pharmacists, etc. The silk industry, particularly in the area around Geive, has been completely suspended; the spinning mills are closed; only a few Greeks are still working, but they are also being treated badly. Farming was also mainly in the hands of the Armenians. The difference between Armenians and Turkish fields is unmistakable (i.e., almost nothing grows on the latter). Bildjik is a clean, small town with large houses; now, it is inhabited by only a few Turks. I saw no acts of violence, but it is obvious that the people are given nothing to eat on the journey. The Armenians are sent by train to Konia and from there on foot, “in order,” as a Kaymakam said, “to establish a kingdom for themselves in the desert.” The Turks themselves differ greatly in their judgement of this matter. The population is hardly involved. Some people say that only a few revolvers and hunting rifles (30-60) were found, and the Armenians had had no revolutionary ambitions whatsoever, and the opportunity was merely used to get rid of them now that no other power can become involved. Apart from the Russians, the greatest blame is placed on the Americans because they incite the Armenians and also support them financially. The hatred against the Americans appeared to me to be greater than against any one of the warring countries. Robert College is described as being the centre of the entire movement. I actually saw some Americans on the train who were coming from Anatolia. The inner circle around the Grand Vizier is extremely chauvinistic; every nonMuslim is described as a “sales gens” [“filthy person”]; it was admitted to me that the Armenians needed to be exterminated to the last child, but it appears as if they wish the same for all other Christians. “Turkey for the Turks” is a slogan: the Turks should do everything now. People complained that Turkish was not the language of business at the Anatolian Railway Company and that no Turks were employed. The Caucasus, with a somewhat imprecise definition of its borders, and Egypt are to become Turkish. The military successes seem to have gone to people’s heads: they think they are doing everything and that they are Germany’s saviours. Even the ammunition is supposedly manufactured by the Turks. However, a great many people frankly admit that the deportation of the Armenians is, and in particular will be, a tremendous disadvantage for the country because all the work is carried out by the Armenians: silk, tobacco, fishing, all of the trades, hotels, restaurants, etc.; even Turkish officers asked me to do something to enable them to keep their Armenian soldiers because the Turks do not work. The Turk seems to be absolutely incapable of continuing to work where the Armenian has stopped. All of the fields lie uncultivated; hardly a store has been opened again; almost all of the villages appear to be dead.

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Admiration for Germany is very great among the population. The people come together in the evenings and a Hodja reads from the newspaper; all of the German army leaders are well-known. I spoke a great deal with the people and also visited schools and hospitals and distributed books and illustrated magazines. It seems to me to be very important that Germans, especially officers, go everywhere and try to make friends with the population; the people are grateful for every word. Would it not be possible to set up cinemas and show pictures of the war? Every village has a large hall. It would be a great success. Economically, a great deal can be done with this country. Grain, tobacco, sheep farming, fruit as far as Ismid, from there onwards a great deal of silk. Excellent forests near Adapazar and Boli, often also coal (e.g., near Boli). The Geive basin is very fertile; for this reason, there is also a great deal of silkworm breeding there. There are rich ore deposits in the surrounding mountains: I have seen stones that contained a great deal of ore. Coal is also found there. The Sakaria River can be used for shipping, transporting wood, etc., especially for mills. There is only one in Fezir-Han. Thilo von Westernhagen

1915-10-07-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 29127; pr. 08.10.1915 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Baghdad Railway Company, Arthur Gwinner, to the Foreign Office Berlin, 7 October 1915 We very respectfully present to the Foreign Office the “Loi provisoire” (“provisional law”) text on the Armenian goods published by the Turkish government on 29 September. Our head office accurately notes: “It could have been expressed much more simply and clearly in two paragraphs, namely: Article 1. “All of the Armenians’ goods have been confiscated.” Article 2. “The government will collect the exiles’ claims and reimburse (or not reimburse) their debts.” Anatolian Railway Company The Chairman Gwinner

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Enclosure Translated from French by Maral Maclagen Provisional Law Concerning the property, debts and claims of persons transported elsewhere. Art. I. The property, debts and claims of individuals transported elsewhere, according to the provisional law of 14 May 1333, are settled by the courts upon presentation of appraisals prepared especially for each person by a commission instituted for this purpose. Art. II.Developed properties (vakf Idjaré-Téinli) and vakf land belonging to the persons in question in Article I are registered in the name of the fund of the Ministry of Religious Foundations; other buildings are registered in the name of the Ministry of Finance. After clearing up the situation of the property-owner, the remainder of the value of his property will be paid by one of these two ministries. In the proceedings concerning buildings and related items, whether due to challenges to the property or to other items, the opposing party is represented by the employees of the public register. One can establish property by proof other than the property acts issued by the Ministry of Land Registry, provided that it is not of doubtful authenticity. If in the acts of transferring and selling by the persons noted above, in the 15 days prior to their transport, the existence is determined through a trial of a misrepresentation or excessive deception, the transaction is terminated and cancelled. Art. III. Cash, personal property left behind, claims and deposits of the above-mentioned people are gathered, exchanged and demanded by the presidents of the ad hoc commissions who at the same time operate the sale of abandoned and unclaimed personal property. The amount of money thus produced is left in deposits in the offices of the Ministry of Finance in the name of the proprietor. Art. IV. A time limit of two months is granted to those who claim to have rights to furniture left behind or who say they have claims against people transported, to speak personally or through the intermediary of an authorised representative to the commissions and have their complaints registered. This time limit is four months for people living abroad. They are obliged, moreover, to take up residence in the town or take a seat on the commission so that communication can be made. Proceedings filed after this deadline must follow the regular procedures, and persons who have won cases due to this process cannot apply for liquidated property according to the present law. Art. V. The commissions are looking for proof for each claim and debt; they accept and register those which they find justified and send the creditors to competent

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courts after having noted the contested case concerning the property left behind. Then the commission gives an appraisal of the assets and debts of each person and brings this appraisal to the knowledge of interested parties by posting in specified areas the legal copies of these appraisals, of which the original are expedited to the general prosecutor with the related documents. The prosecutor sends these papers to the court in the first instance in the district in which the legal residence of the debtor was located before his transport and asks the court to register the said documents. The creditors can make objections to these statements before a competent court and within 15 days following the date of posting. At the end of this deadline, then court examines the accounts in the presence of a public prosecutor and, if there are have been objections, immediately convenes the person who formulated them and the president of the commission or his representative to make known the request and the defence. After this, the court brings the modifications desired to the appraisals in question and having registered them, returns them to the commissions in the form of a sentence in order that they be executed according to the provisions of the following article: these sentences are not subject to objections, transfer, appeals or cassation. Art. VI. The responsibility for paying the preferential and ordinary debts of the debtor pursuant to the final decision of the court is incumbent upon the liquidation commissions and to the executive offices, when these commissions no longer sit. If the entirety of the debtor’s goods is not enough to pay in full his ordinary and privileged debts, the latter can be paid on a pro rata basis in assets. Act VII. The protective seizure and constraints placed on the property of people transported, whether by the courts or by the state administration, are null, and those who made these seizures must abide by the present law. Those who have suits in court against transported persons are free to address the commissions or to let the affair take their normal course according to normal regulations. For those who do not address the commissions, the last paragraph of article four applies. Trials in progress in favour of these people are handled by the president of the commission or his representative. Art VIII. The way in which commissions shall be instituted and the application of the various provisions of the present law shall be determined by regulations. Art IX. Properties in the category of vakf Idjaréteinli, as well as vakf land and other buildings registered in the accounts of the Ministries of Evkaf and Finance can be, according to the rules concerning immigrants, distributed to immigrants. Art X. The Ministers of Evkaf, the Interior, Justice and Finance are responsible for the enforcement of the present law.

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Art XI. The present law comes into force upon its promulgation, 13 September 1333.77

1915-10-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 29675; pr. 13.10.1915 p.m. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Friedrich Faber, the Chairman of the Society of German Newspaper Publishers, to the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) Hasserode, Harz, 12 October 1915 Hasenwinkel 1 Your Excellency, I received a detailed letter dated the 4th inst.,78 which was sent to me here where, at my doctor’s urgent recommendation, I am enjoying a short respite for my nerves. I then immediately sent a confidential, informative letter to the newspapers, recommending that they not discuss the Armenian question out of consideration for our national interests. From this spot here I have been unable to follow the press, but I hope that this will put a stop to the matter in the eyes of the German public for the time being. At the same time, I have sent a letter to Director Schreiber from the German Evangelical Missionary-Relief Organisation, in which I announce my intention to resign from my post with the D.E.M.H. (Deutsche Evangelische Missionshilfe),79 should he not succeed in convincing the conferences to drop their plan to engage further circles with the Armenian question. Director Schreiber then visited me here after the conference in Leipzig and informed me that he spoke with Dr. Lepsius, and that they agreed to send only a petition to the Imperial Chancellor. He followed my urgent request to refrain from publishing this petition or even mentioning its being sent off in the press and, as I see from the accompanying letter to the draft of the petition sent to me and President v. Hegel, the other participants have also accepted this. Thus, after the firm and consoling assurances of Director Schreiber, I did not take part in the conference. In the meantime, however, Dr. Lepsius has given a lecture to the press in Berlin on the occurrences in Armenia which was not meant for publication, and I respectfully enclose the report on this from our editorial office in Berlin 77. The date is: 13. ejlul 1333, corresponding to September 26, 1915. 78. A 28437. 79. G.E.M.-R.O.: German Evangelical Missionary-Relief Organisation.

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for Your Excellency; from the closing,80 which in many cases is literally the same as Your Excellency’s letter to me, I see that Dr. L.81 obviously had an audience with you between the time of my letter to Your Excellency and his lecture. After this lecture and some things, which Dr. Lepsius experienced and which Dir. Schreiber informed me of verbally, I would be very grateful if I could have the in-depth discussion with you at the end of this week, which was taken into consideration in Your Excellency’s letter of the 4th inst. I am returning to Magdeburg in the middle of this week and would be available from Friday noon onwards. After Dr. Lepsius’ lecture, which other out-of-town editorial offices will have been informed of by their representatives in Berlin, the publishers are certain to expect a new statement from me. For Your Excellency’s confidential information, may I enclose the transcript of the above mentioned letter from Director Schreiber. It is clear from the impression which Dr. Lepsius’ presentation made on Dr. Rohrbach the impression it will make in public and also on newspapermen because of the political and economical outlook which Dr. Lepsius added to his report. I sensed that from the manner in which my editor-in-chief made remarks on this during a telephone conversation. If Dr. Rohrbach’s words have been repeated correctly in Schreiber’s letter, the pastor in him has run away with the politician in this environment because the news from the foreign press is certainly the most unreliable source one can draw upon. But be that as it may, this matter has many characteristics which strongly affect our feelings and threaten to captivate public opinion in a manner similar to that at the time of the Boers, and for this reason I feel a strong need to neatly carve out the political side of the entire question in a discussion with Your Excellency and to examine which approach our national interests require now and which approach they will require after our fortunate breakthrough in Serbia, in order to confidentially inform the publishers afterwards. Your Excellency, I close respectfully, Dr. Faber Enclosure 1 Transcript. German Evangelical Missionary-Relief Organisation. Berlin-Steglitz. Humboldtstr. 14.I. To His Excellency, President Dr. v. Hegel, Dr. R. Faber, LLD, Magdeburg. 80. Note by Rosenberg: The final statement was not made by Lepsius; it is a repetition of statements made by Count Wedel at the press conference on the following day. 81. Lepsius.

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Dear Sirs, Almost all of the Evangelical charity organisations working in the Orient were fully represented at the Orient Conference today, some of them by several members of their boards, as well as Professors D. Haussleiter and D. Richter and Missionary Director Spiecker from the German Mission-Board, as well as several other personalities, among whom I would like to mention Dr. Rohrbach, Professors D. Rade-Marburg, D. Deissmann-Berlin, furthermore Director D. Axenfeld, Missionary Inspector Knodt from the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society. The meeting lasted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with an hour for lunch. It gave those circles working in the Orient plenty of opportunity to exchange their experiences and thus gain more clarity on this most difficult question. The fate of the Armenian people was talked about by everyone. Dr. Lepsius’ information, which is based not only on Armenian and American sources and the reports of his own missionary workers, but especially on his personal discussions with Talaat Bey and Enver Bey, were totally effective and confirmed in particular by the rational Director Schuchardt from Frankfurt/ Main, Pastor Lohmann’s colleague, and a Pastor Bauernfeind, who was in Malatia until the beginning of August. The following comments by Dr. Rohrbach, who, unfortunately, was only able to attend our meeting for a short time, had an extremely dramatic effect, “Dr. Lepsius’ remarks are all definitely confirmed by the news in the foreign press. These occurrences make it impossible for us to continue to bear the joint responsibility for the Turkish alliance. The military control has ordered us to be silent in public. But we can and must tell the government that we can no longer recognise the alliance as one entered upon between two equal states. When these facts become public, the German people will stand in front of the entire world in the deepest shame. Thus, the government must force Turkey to make amends to the Armenians. We are watching the end of Turkey, which must be sequestered.” Dr. Lepsius rightly pointed out the importance of Dr. Rohrbach’s words, whom he rightly called, “the prophet of our entire German-Turkish policy”. “I take off my hat to him!” The enclosed petition to the Imperial Chancellor, edited by Dr. Lepsius, D. Axenfeld, D. Richter and myself and examined closely once again after the meeting by the four of us together with Mr. D. Rade, described the result of the discussion, in which the arguments for and against were brought up thoroughly, in a manner which surprised and pleased me greatly. Dr. Lepsius believes with certainty that the petition will also be signed by Dr. Rohrbach. D. Rade took the petition to His Excellency v. Harnack to ask for his signature as well. According to our agreement, I enclose the petition with the request that you give me your permission to sign it as well. Deliberately, only a few copies have been made and, thus, I can only give you the one corrected, hand-written copy I have. I am sending it to Dr. Faber first, as I was able to present him with my material and several reports. It was pointed out with the greatest emphasis that both the petition and all of the negotiations were strictly confidential and none of this was to be made known in public, for the time being not even the fact that a petition was being made.

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It was emphasised from various sides, particularly by D. Rade, how grateful everyone was to the G.E.M.-R.O. for organising the meeting. Together with D. Richter, Dr. Lepsius and D. Axenfeld, I was ordered to find some more people who were prepared to sign the petition and to pass on the petition to the Imperial Chancellor, and I am sure that you will also agree to this. The G.E.M.-R.O. was also asked not only to inform the participants of further events in the matter, but also to organise further meetings of those circles working in the Orient. Today, for the first time, it attempted to fulfil what D. Richter called for in his lecture of 29 January, namely, that “the G.E.M.-R.O. must be an honest middleman between our religious and national world tasks.” We have, of course, immediately been placed in front of one of the most difficult tasks, but I was told quite rightly in a private conversation how important and worthwhile the G.E.M.-R.O.’s cooperation is in just this matter. As I have already told both of you personally, my dear sirs, I am extremely sorry that my quick action in this matter, without notifying you before, caused you some concern. But these matters were pressing and could hardly be carried out by means of correspondence. One very valuable result of my discussion with you in Wernigerode, my dear doctor, was, among other things, the possibility of meeting you more often here in Berlin. With respectful greetings, I remain gratefully yours, [A. W. Schreiber] Enclosure 2 [Report by the Editorial Office of the Magdeburger Zeitung (Magdeburg Newspaper) in Berlin on Lepsius’ Lecture to the Press and the Reply of the German Foreign Office.] 7/10. 15. Transcript. Confidential! On the internal situation in Turkey. Dr. Lepsius, who recently gave a lecture to the press in Berlin which was not meant for publication, travelled throughout Asia Minor for 30 years, probably mainly on ecclesiastical matters, and also recently again. Based on statements made by German businessmen, missionaries, railway employees, furthermore, reports from the Greek, Bulgarian and American embassies, and finally, reports by the Armenian Patriarch from the interior of the country and the Central Committee of the Constitutional Armenian Party in Constantinople, he spoke of the expulsion of the Armenian people. At the beginning of the European war, it was suggested to the Armenians in Erzerum by the members of the Young Turk Committee that they revolutionise the 1½ million Russian Armenians in the Caucasus (there are 2 million Armenians in

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Turkey). That did not happen because the Caucasian Armenians have been treated so well that they went all out for the Russian cause. The Caucasus can never be won by Turkey. At the beginning of the Turkish war, they disarmed all of the Armenians in the Turkish Army and used them only as reinforcements. Then the Armenian people were disarmed fairly hastily, although weapons there are a part of the citizens’ equipment in times of peace. In comparison, the Turkish population was armed by the state and Kurdish home regiments were set up, as well as gangs made up of thousands of prison inmates. From November to April, 4—500 Armenian villages were raided and about 26,000 Armenians still in their homes were killed. Many of the Armenian reinforcements deserted because they were often murdered by their Turkish comrades while working. The Armenian leaders had contacted the Turkish authorities at the beginning of the war in order to smooth out difficulties, but despite this the Turks have annihilated half of their Armenians during the past 3 months. At the end of May, as Enver admits, it was ordered that the Armenian population was to be deported from all of the Anatolian vilayets to the Arabian desert. This has been carried out. Naturally, some of them did remain, 100-200,000 were massacred along the way, 2-3,000 will have arrived and be killed if they do not receive any assistance. No one in Turkey disputes these facts. As far as the question of guilt is concerned, the lecturer believed that he was able to acquit the Armenians completely. In some places they were still able to defend themselves, but at that time, for example in Van, they knew nothing of the movements along the Russian border and were surprised when the Russians came, whom, naturally, they greeted as their liberators. Incidentally, the Armenian Central Committee had given orders to avoid everything which could give rise to offence because it was feared that Abdul Hamid’s old programme of persecution of the Christians would be taken up again at this opportunity. A high-ranking public official said to the lecturer, “We would have to be blind not to use this opportunity to rid ourselves of the Armenians.” What is the Turks’ motive? Enver listed a number of strategic reasons to the lecturer: the Armenians had to be removed from the borders and the military roads in the interior protected against danger. The author’s note that all of the able-bodied men had been drafted as reinforcements does not entirely refute these apprehensions. Enver also believes that the 40 million Turks want their national life to be guaranteed at long last and, thus, to disperse the Armenians in such a manner that they will not live together in larger numbers anywhere, similar to the way it is here with the Jews. “If you could turn Polish people into Prussians,” he said, “wouldn’t you do so? You can no longer do this, but we still can.” The American ambassador made an offer to Talaat to send all of the remaining Armenians, apart from the 7,000 already sent, on ships to the United States, even if it were an entire million people because they could use this industrious and business-minded population over there. Talaat spoke to Enver, but he stated, “Then the rich would emigrate and the poor would stay here.” In the lecturer’s opinion, the well-to-do Armenian people, who held trade and crafts-

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manship in their hands together with the Jews and Greeks everywhere, but in the interior mainly by themselves, are being methodically robbed. Thus, the result of the deportation is first of all the economic ruin of Anatolia, and in this manner Turkey is also ruining itself economically. This has a most direct importance on our trade, as the entire import lies in Armenian hands. But, in every respect, German export is a credit transaction, and if the economic circles in the interior now no longer pay, then the merchants in Constantinople will also not pay. Thus, a great deal of German money is already being lost. There are no Turkish importers in Constantinople. Export is carried out by Greeks and Jews. And the Turks will never be able to take over the business because they have no talent at all for any kind of economic activity, as is generally known everywhere. The government is not sufficiently aware of conditions in the Asian part of Turkey because those Young Turks at the wheel are Macedonians, mainly from Salonika. They are carrying out a purely ideological, Turkish-nationalist policy. But on that soil, nationalism is a good imported from Europe, for Islam neutralises countries. This is why the Holy War was a washout because the other Islamic countries aren’t the least bit interested in Turkish nationalism, which, in truth, was the reason for this Holy War, and they feel more comfortable among the Russians and the British than among the Turks. Should peace be achieved before we have moved to Suez, England’s position in southern Turkey will be exceptionally strengthened. The Arabs are situated there, and their conflict with the Turks has never disappeared. Djemal Bey, the Supreme Commander in Syria, an Arab who has the same importance for the south as Enver for the north and who, extremely unwillingly, gave up troops to the north, would immediately make peace with the British if the affair in the Dardanelles went wrong. The war is not a war of the believers versus the infidels, but simply a Turkish war, albeit against all non-Turks. The Americans, for example, have a university in Beirut with 22 large palaces in which all of the doctors, pharmacists, etc., working in Syria were trained; suddenly, a short while ago, the language of instruction was to be Turkish. The Americans, however, stated this time that there were no Turkish textbooks and three-quarters of their students did not understand Turkish. Admittedly, the last Balkan War showed how successful this policy of Turkification was in Albania and in the entire European part of Turkey. This policy can also endanger the existence of the Asian part of Turkey. But up to a certain point, this policy is also aimed against us, at least far more than is known here. Naturally, the Old Turks are very anti-German because we brought the Young Turk government into the war. And when the wounded return to the country from the Dardanelles, the population breaks out in curses against the Germans. But the Young Turks also want to regard us only as servants. Indeed, the German Foreign Office also regretted that Enver recently stated in such an arrogant manner to Mr. Emil Ludwig from B.T. that he did not require the assistance of German troops. The 16 German university professors were only appointed to Constantinople so that Jäckh’s idea of a German university in Constantinople would no longer be discussed.

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They had to agree in writing to teach in Turkish in one year’s time; that is impossible, however, as it takes several years to learn Turkish; thus, if they cannot fulfil their promise, they can be given the push at the end of a year. On the other hand, the Turkish population is beside itself over the closing of the French schools, and after the war they will be immediately reopened. The author has no doubt whatsoever that once peace has been made the Turks will start their old game with the British, the French and the Russians, and we will be left standing out in the rain. At present, of course, it is a vital issue for us that we do our utmost to keep Turkey as an ally, and this is also his opinion. But when we have marched through Serbia and can reach Constantinople, he considers the time right when we must use stronger instruments of power than we now have in Constantinople to prevent our being done out of the entire proceeds of the war in Asia Minor. Recently, in a meeting at which Lepsius also gave a lecture, Gwinner completely confirmed his statements and only added that at present there was nothing we could do about it. During the discussion the great danger to our economic life and our future plan for Antwerp-Baghdad was emphasised. As is known, the Turk is an idler; for this reason, others in his country play such a role that he is not comfortable with this. However, he cannot replace them and this is important for us. The Armenians are the most business-minded elements, especially along the Anatolian and Baghdad railways, or at least they were. In addition to the general problem of our position in Turkey, what we all know, but occasionally forget, must constantly be made clear: that with the exception of Talaat and Enver there are, in fact, no pro-German friends in the entire Young Turk Committee because the Committee is a French plant and most of the Young Turks were educated in Paris, although they consider ours to be a reactionary nation. Even during the war, Djavid Bey expressed his aversion to the war here in Berlin and made no secret of his liking for the French. Yes, even though this is not valid everywhere, it has been confirmed for some offices that Turkish civil servants now often hide behind “Germanism” when dealing with the public, whereby this harms Germanism—thus, for example, in some areas it has been spread that the government did not want the Armenian massacres at all, but that the German emperor urged it to do this—but otherwise they do not let the impression arise that we gave valuable assistance. The Germans, for example our voluntary medical corps, often even had difficulties when they wanted to hoist the German flag! Response from the German Foreign Office: The latest version on Germany’s instigation of the Armenian atrocities was not generally widespread in Turkey. Naturally, Turkey did not begin the war for our sake, but a part of the country, even if only a small part, was, however, convinced that the Turkish goals could only be reached together with us, and we must be glad that we have won over these few and that they currently have decisive influence. We know that our officers down there are fighting a lost cause and that the disappointment of the Turkish people, should the Dardanelles be taken, would turn against them, and it is probable that we might never see them again. But that is how war is. The greatest problems, not just present, but also future

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ones, the economic problems, were not discussed further from our side. Concerning the Armenians in particular, the German government had it pointed out to the Armenians when Turkey entered the war that the time had now come when they could prove their loyalty to Turkey through their actions and lay the foundation for a secure future. In part, the Armenians turned a deaf ear to this advice, due to the instigation of the Entente and Russian and English money. During the first months of the war, the Turkish government acted in a correct and calm manner towards the Armenians. According to the information of this office, it did not disarm the Armenians at the very beginning. But very cruel measures were taken when the Armenian revolt broke out behind the Turkish troops. Through the fault of the Russian Armenians, the Turkish ones suffered with them. That fault, for example, consisted of more than 150,000 Mohammedans becoming victims of the revolt within only a few days. The Entente press mentions nothing about this bloodbath. But on 23 September, the “Daily Chronicle” wrote about “Our seventh Ally”, namely the Armenians, and praised the Armenian people who had moved over to the side of the Entente from the very beginning. Our Foreign Office naturally declared the riots, which took place during the evacuation to be deplorable, but understandable because the Central Government had only little influence on the provinces. It would be considered extremely unfortunate if our missionary organisations were to turn themselves into a batteringram in the Armenian question. Our relationship with Turkey would suffer, and this would probably harm the Armenians more than it would help them. For a long time, our representation in Turkey had been doing everything possible to ease the fate of the Armenians, without ecclesiastical demands being necessary. Our own comrades are closer to us than the Armenians, whose hard battle is indirectly eased by Turkey. The Christian feeling of solidarity found here could also be applied somewhere else, for example towards the extermination of the Germans in Morocco, the abduction of our East Prussians, and finally, the devastation of Poland. If the coloured and heathen hoards which our enemies lead into fire against us have not deflowered German women and laid waste to places marking a thousand years of German culture, then we do not have our opponents’ and the neutrals’ high regard for humanity and Christianity which they display towards the Armenians to thank for this; the press should keep silent about the entire question; previously, we became far too involved in the inner affairs, for example, in Italy, but even in Austria, while England never bothered about such matters with its allies. Lately, the Americans have officially taken up the Armenian question and, under certain circumstances, when they were finished with the submarine question, they would attempt to start an argument with us concerning the Armenians. Accordingly, it seems to me that our position is quite a matter of course at the moment, but on the other hand, it could lead to such large and difficult problems in future that the German press might have to handle these matters even before any peace agreement, in order to give our diplomacy support in the certainly most difficult task of speaking bluntly with the Turks at the appropriate time.

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1915-10-18-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 5989. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Administrator in Aleppo (Hoffmann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 123 Aleppo, 18 October 1915 Current situation regarding deportation of the Armenians: Yesterday orders given to clear town of deportees (20,000) within 14 days, presumably under consideration of the military situation. Meanwhile collecting at concentration camp outside the town. South of Taurus, the railway is no longer being used for deportation. For families with any means of transport, deportation on foot, each family to be given one camel for luggage which, due to circumstances, often has to be left behind. According to statements made by the director of political affairs in the Vilayets, 40,000 are concentrated at Katma and Radju, further suspects from West, Middle and North Anatolia are approaching; 300,000 are being sent on to the South for “resettlement” (Rakka, Der-el-Zor, Western Hauran). According to the aforesaid official, these are to be left to themselves at their destination and “will all die;” in times of peace the government would have “perhaps” provided settlements, although the relocations of Muslims has also failed often enough, but now there is neither money nor officials to deal with the matter. In any case, everything and anything is missing for relocation; neither tents nor sufficient flour nor fuel are being supplied to the concentration camps; the officials have even taken hoes and spades away from deported farmers. General conviction that all deportees will meet their death. Moreover, agreement of Germany to this mass murder is being assumed not only by all Christians, but also by the Muslim population of the country, partly with approval, but also with disapproval. These occasionally refer to Germany’s example (Belgium!). Report to follow. [Hoffmann] [Note by Mordtmann, 20 October] NB. It appears—comp. 5990—that this does not refer to the deportation of the population of Aleppo, but to the further transportation of the convoys of Armenians collected there from other parts of the country. Even Talaat Bey pointed out to me a few days ago, as he has already done before, that we had murdered 40,000 Belgians in Belgium. I have also heard this from another source. It seems to be a “fable convenue,”82 which has apparently been deliberately spread among the Turks by the enemy. 82. Convenient tale.

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1915-10-19-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 30454; pr. 21.10.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Legation Councillor in Bern (Einsiedel-Wolkenburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 906 Bern, 19 October 1915 1 enclosure. Confidential! I have the honour of presenting Your Excellency the enclosed transcript of a record from an intermediate agent on a discussion with Salich Bey Gourdji. This is a report on the question of the persecution of the Armenians which Salich Bey Gourdji sent to Talaat Bey. on behalf of Count Einsiedel Enclosure Some time ago, Salich Bey Gourdji gave me more exact details on a written report which he had sent to the Turkish Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, about the middle of September of this year. I saw that he had meanwhile received a very appreciative confirmation of the receipt of this letter from the head of Talaat’s cabinet in Constantinople. Gourdji reported the following to me from the contents of the report: The persecution of the Armenians in Turkey, which obviously is meant to exterminate them, could be explained by Turkey’s predicament, as anyone knowledgeable of the circumstances would unfortunately have to admit. If Turkey were ever to recover from the questions of inner policy, if it wanted to remain able to survive at all, it would have to eliminate the Armenians in some manner. The so-called Armenian question thus needed to be solved before Turkey could begin to consider a real inner re-organisation. But the path which the government now appeared to be taking, this path which appeared to be characterised by massacres and acts of violence, was completely wrong. Even if no other means could be found in the manner of taking action against the Armenians, the proprieties towards foreign countries definitely had to be different. It was not possible to pass over everything concerning Armenia in silence towards foreign countries; rather, these countries should be informed by means of such appropriate reports that the acts against the Armenians appeared to be carried out in a humane manner. There were sufficient reasons arising from the protection of the border against Russia to explain the deportation of the Armenians from upper Armenia in the normal and plausible way under international law.

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Most important, however, was that people in Constantinople consider the matter of action against the Armenians from the point of view that Germany’s relations with the Vatican were of a very special nature and that Germany obviously placed great emphasis on avoiding any possibility of friction in this relationship. The Pope was a factor in Germany’s political evaluation. Thus, if only out of consideration for Germany, everything should be avoided which could induce the Pope, or, based on denunciations on the part of Germany’s opponents, force him to take any sort of stand on the Armenian question and to speak out in protection of the beleaguered Christians in Turkey. Despite all the action against the Armenians, clever, informative action must be taken to ensure that such possibilities are not given any grounds and, particularly from the Turkish side, a good relationship with the Pope must be emphasised. It would appear to be very helpful if the Turkish chamber thanked the pope for his charitable work, which benefits all people equally, as Bethmann Hollweg did during the latest session of the Reichstag. In any case, everything must be avoided which could make Germany’s situation with the Pope in the Armenian question more difficult. Efforts should also be made to prevent any further incitement abroad concerning Armenian massacres in good time, since Germany would also be in a particularly difficult situation in such a “question of atrocity,” because it cannot simply disregard the “Christian” Armenians and, in any case, it had to be careful in matters of atrocity. This was the gist of Gourdji’s remarks, and his report seems to have made an impression in Constantinople. In addition, he emphasised that it would be highly desirable for Turkey to set up a diplomatic mission in Switzerland and that this could be justified based on the large number of Turks (Armenians and Greeks) residing in western Switzerland. [From the German Foreign Office to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 798), 26 October] Sent in transcript together with the enclosure to His Honour, the Imperial Chargé d’Affaires, Baron von Neurath, Pera, for his attention.

1915-10-22-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6052. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim) No. 2016

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Berlin, 22 October 1915 Answer to Tel. Nr. 2424 A 5988. 1. In order to oblige Halil, we will abstain from making our own official denial for the time being and first wait for an official Turkish denial. 2. Please tell your American colleague that, in our opinion, nothing would be more harmful for the Armenians than the agitation aroused by our adversaries for their egoistic political purposes in the peaceful and unfortunately also neutral press. In order not to provide any new stimulation here and specifically in the interests of the Armenians, we wanted to abstain from a public justification by the American government. We were content to learn of Mr. Morgenthau’s personal opinion and would not want to express any further wishes. Solely for Your Excellency’s personal orientation. The text agreed upon with Halil for our official denial seems to us to be too weak. We do not expect a strong effect from Morgenthau’s planned telegram. [Zimmermann] [Note by Mordtmann, 26 October] With regard to item 1, I additionally enclose the draft of the official denial (as a French translation), which I discussed with Halil on the 19th inst. and which was made more complete with Halil’s additions. I drew up this draft based on the Ambassador’s oral instructions. To 6052 Draft of the German official denial as a French translation, which I discussed with Halil Bey on Tuesday, the 19th inst., including Halil’s additions. I drew up this draft based on the deceased Ambassador’s oral instructions. Translated from French by Maral Maclagan The Entente press and a few neutral papers83 continue to attack Germany by accusing the representatives of this power in Turkey of being promoters and accomplices in acts of violence which took place following the austerity measures that the Ottoman government has just applied against the Armenian population of the Empire. Thus, the Westminster Gazette of September 30 claims that certain German consuls for example, Mr. Rössler in Aintab, have directed and encouraged the Ottomans during the persecutions of the Armenians, and in the Chamber of the Lords, Lord Cromer and Lord Crewe reached the same decision along the same lines in referring to reports of some Armenians, so-called eye-witnesses of the events in question. 83. Marginal note by Mordtmann: e.g., Swiss papers (added orally by me).

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Concerning these insinuations, one must make note of this: I. From the beginning of hostilities between Turkey and the Entente powers, certain elements among the Armenian population in the Empire began to work to incite the Armenians to revolt against the Ottoman government and to prepare the land for invasion by the enemy, especially on the side of the Russian borders. The events in the theatre of war in Anatolia, of which we will just mention the occupation of Van by Armenian volunteers and other incidents, such as the uprising in Zeytun, soon proved that the action of conspirators seriously threatened the security of Turkey and especially the armies in the vicinity. At the same time, the Imperial government was able to gather irrefutable proof of the existence of a plot among the Armenians which was only awaiting the right moment to take arms against the authorities and against other elements84 of the Ottoman population. In the presence of these facts, it was the duty of the Sublime Porte to act promptly taking into exclusive consideration its military interests, it made the decision to deport85 the Armenians of the border provinces to regions where their residence would not pose any danger. The German government, although it recognised the dangerous situation that the Ottoman government found itself in, exercised no influence on this decision that was taken by the Sublime Port on its own initiative and without the consultation of its allies. 86 The Ottoman government is, we are certain, the first to regret with us, the circumstances that forced it to act ruthlessly against the Armenians, and to disapprove of the reprehensible acts that took place as a result of these austerity measures. In all cases, the German government and its representatives cannot be held responsible.

1915-10-26-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14088; A 31729; pr. 02.11.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires in Constantinople (Neurath) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 634 Pera, 26 October 1915 In response to Directive No. 77387 dated 15 October 1915 and further to my telegraphic report. The resistance which the Turkish government has to fight within its own camp over its plan to re-organise all parts of governmental administration solely with Germany’s assistance is also based on the suspicion that Germany, in its future policy towards Turkey, could count on one of the foreign people rather than the Turks, just as formerly the powers of the quadruple association and the United States did. However, the loss of the Armenians as negotiators of European trade also represents a loss for us. But the Turks’ trust is too important for us to endanger it by attempting to re-acquire their old role for the Armenians. The German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, the German Mission for the Orient, the German-Armenian Society, and the deaconesses of Kaiserswerth have never misused their activities for political and commercial propaganda. They wanted to “serve the Armenian people,” as the characteristic saying goes. To this end, they have spent many hundreds of thousands of marks and done a lot of selfless work, which could have been put to better use at home in Germany or for Germans residing abroad. They earned little thanks for this. At the beginning of the World War, the Turkish Armenians immediately took up a stand against Germany; long before the beginning of the persecution of the Armenians, they were the supporters of the enemy agitation against us. 86. Marginal note by Mordtmann: < - > Halil urgently requests that this entire passage be omitted. 87. A 29546 [only for Schuchardt’s letter; A-No. of the directive: 30744 and 31729].

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The terrible need which arose from these persecutions could only by relieved through the expenditure of many millions. Until now, the Turkish government has refused any relief action. It cannot be foreseen whether it will accept this at a later stage. Probably the entire world will be called upon to give assistance, even if those rich Armenians living abroad will probably do very little. As soon as they are no longer restricted by military censorship, the German organisations no doubt plan to develop an active agitation and would, without doubt, find benevolent souls in Germany who would give large sums for the Armenian people. Such a large-scale action would arouse the Turks’ suspicions and, furthermore, large means would be wasted without any use for us. Naturally, the suppression of German pro-Armenian societies is out of the question. Taking into consideration the means by which our enemies have made use of Turkey’s Armenian policy against us, it would be desirable for us that, as soon as circumstances permit, Germans privately begin to give assistance to the Armenians. But this relief action must by no means go beyond the framework of that which was given before the war. The Imperial Government must also exercise the greatest restraint in the support of the societies’ endeavours. I take the liberty of recommending that we work privately and by means of appropriate administrative measures to ensure that the volume of the collections for the Armenians in Germany does not become too extensive. Neurath [Note by Rosenberg] Dr. Jäckh and Mr. Erzberger will be spoken to at some point in the manner recommended.

1915-10-26-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6127; p. 20.11.1915. Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 2048 Berlin, 25 October 1915 Answer to Telegr. No. 2457

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Please telegraph whether visit88 to Constantinople is safe if journey to interior abandoned. [Zimmermann] [Answer (No. 2474) 26 October] Schuchardt’s journey safe if he confines himself solely to regulation of his financial matters at Bible House and avoids contact with Armenian circles.

1915-11-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/97; 10/12, 9442; p. 02.11.1915. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chairman of the Baghdad Railway in Constantinople, Franz Johannes Günther, to the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy Constantinople (Neurath) Constantinople, 1 November 1915 Dear Baron, I enclose the record of a reliable gentleman for your collection and request the return of the letter left with you on Saturday. With best wishes I remain, respectfully yours, Günther Enclosure Constantinople, October 1915 While leaving Haidar-Pasha, I already noticed a very large number of Armenian families who were being led by the gendarmes to the freight trains, where far more people than the designated number for each wagon were loaded in. These people were let out in Ismid and taken to a camp, and in their place other Armenians from that area were loaded in the same fashion. While leaving Eski-Shehir, I saw that the number of Armenians on the train had grown. Some of the deportees had been loaded onto the two stories of wagons meant for small animals (so-called “H wagons”); the roofs of the wagons were also covered 88. of Friedrich Schuchardt

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with people. They stayed there during the entire journey, even during the night, which was bitterly cold. Influential people, whom I asked if such occurrences happened often and whether nothing was done about the people who remained on the roofs during the cold nights, explained that they could do nothing to remedy the situation and that this had been a daily phenomenon for weeks. In Alayund, I saw an Armenian camp covering a huge area, which certainly accommodated several thousand people. There was a camp across from the train station in Afion Karahissar that, according to credible statements, held approx. 12,000 Armenians when my train passed by, and at times was populated by 50 to 60 thousand people. Accommodation was of the most primitive sort, in tents that the people made from their bedding or any other material; a very large number lay completely without shelter of any sort. Some of the deportees are taken from Konia on foot across the Taurus Mountains, others by rail to Bozanti. I could not find out which factors were taken into consideration in selecting one way or the other. On the day I travelled through, about 10 to 12 thousand Armenians were supposedly moved on by foot. Watching from the train, I was now able to follow the almost unbroken procession as far as Bozanti. Some of the people were still leading a few donkeys, and occasionally wagons were to be seen, loaded with luggage or women and children. The people stayed on the road overnight. It must be very difficult to provide rations of bread and water. Thus, I was told in Tshumra that there was only one oven for baking the bread to feed the many thousands of people travelling through every day. Despite this, it is strictly forbidden to give the people bread or even water. Two men who attempted to do so in two different places were threatened with court-martial in official letters. This explains why women sell their children for a few piastres or leave them lying on the road. The largest part of the Armenians has already been removed from Adana; a large number of businesses in town have been closed. I saw with my own eyes how various houses belonging to Armenians were torn down completely or in part because they stood in the way of “a future road expansion.” The most incredible stories are told there concerning the transfer of ownership from Armenians to Turks, and I would like to mention just one which comes from a highly reliable source. A rich Armenian made the following statement in court: because he felt that his life and his possessions were being threatened, he conferred the protection of his life on an influential Turk, in exchange for which he committed himself to paying him ¾ of the yearly gross income from his estates for 3 years. The many Armenian villages between Adana and Mamure are deserted. Along the entire 140 kilometres between Dorak and Mamure I did not see a single farmer tilling his field on my outward journey. On my return journey I counted three. Again, in Mamure, there is an Armenian camp of exceptional size, but it is too far away from the railway for me to give further details.

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If you sit in the house in Entilli that is situated somewhat above the road, you will see a procession of men, women and children passing by day and night who, after their long march, are in a desolate condition. The number of animals that they are leading has been considerably reduced. Only some wagons are visible which, frequently half broken, will certainly not be of service much longer on the bad roads. In those places where they are under less observance, the people knock on the door at night, begging for a little piece of bread, and only bread: often they do not want to accept money. I rode on the train from Entilli to Islahie past the endless procession. All of their possessions were reduced to a little bundle that the people carried on their backs; small children were carried by the women while the older ones walked alongside, each with a small household or necessary object in their hand. Everything which was of any value whatsoever, particularly the livestock, was bought or taken by the gendarmes, the officers and the Mohammedan population for a ridiculously low price. A higher officer said to a gentleman I know that he would never have another such opportunity to become rich and that anyone who did not make use of this moment was a fool. The people continue from Islahie to Katma and from there either east or south. Lately, the deportees are no longer being taken to Aleppo. Despite this, the town of Aleppo is crowded with Armenians from the interior, particularly from Sivas, Diyarbekir, Urfa and so on. I was assured that these people reached Aleppo in a pitiable state, assuming they did not die along the way, and there they were accommodated either in any kind of buildings whatsoever or in the open. The consequences were that epidemics of the worst kind broke out in Aleppo: dysentery, all kinds of typhus and typhus fever. The illnesses were no longer limited to the immigrating Armenians; rather, according to a doctor, they have spread in the most appalling manner and the better and highest circles have also been infected. The accommodations and care of the sick Armenians is beyond any description; the living and the dead are left lying on the bare floor in their own filth. A visit to these so-called hospitals, which I myself have not seen, is supposedly so shocking, even for people who have gone through the most terrible forms of the war in the West and the East that even the strongest nerves fail. The dead are taken outside the town in box cars; formerly, there was one of these, while now there are 10. Accommodation of the dead in these carts is obviously not very reliable because recently one of the cars emptied its contents on a very busy road in front of two women. The population often call out to the coachmen and ask how many loads they have transported on that day; the higher the number, the more delighted they are. 3,900 Armenians died in this manner in Aleppo in the month of September; in the meantime, the figure has supposedly increased to about 200 per day. The deportees have been given a property not far from town on which to bury the dead. The corpses brought in the cart were thrown in a heap, and when people

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wanted to start digging graves it became clear that the entire property was made up of nothing but rocks, and that without special tools, which were not available, it would be impossible to make graves. Thus, the dead lay for days in the burning heat. I have seen a great many photographs of this graveyard, and I can say that it is the most gruesome thing imaginable. In Urfa, the Armenians are supposed to have violently resisted their expulsion. Artillery troops were sent there, and before I left the Turks were saying that the troops had returned because everything was settled in Urfa. I found out that the entire Armenian quarter and everything in it was destroyed. The government has now decided to remove the deportees in Aleppo as quickly as possible to put a stop to the epidemic. A short while ago, the Armenian emigrants coming from the interior were led through the town, and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden to refresh those dying in the heat of thirst with a drop of water. Eyewitnesses confirm that an old woman, who collapsed from exhaustion, was forced to move along by a gendarme who kicked and whipped her. When a woman came out of a neighbouring house with a glass of water, the gendarme knocked the glass out of her hand and attempted to mistreat the old woman again. She dragged herself past another few houses and died there. A woman in the same procession of Armenians gave birth to a child on the road; several steps further on, a dead woman was found with a living child at her breast. Armenian women coming from the interior put on record that they were divided into different groups after being driven out of their home town. The men were led off to the side and killed; young women and girls were well treated and divided among the Turks; anyone who was then left over continued to march. Before they emigrated, the Armenians were often forced to carry out the valid sale of their property to Turks, naturally with no reimbursement of the value or only very little. The further one travels to the east, the greater the number of dead. Recently, over 200 corpses were buried alongside the railway line to Ras-ul-Ain. Dozens of women arrive completely naked at one of the railway stations. A passing train recently took on a three-year-old child who was all alone in this desert, and brought him to Aleppo. I could not find out where the Armenians are actually being sent; I was always told that they should travel further east and settle down there. No one was able to inform me as to how these people, assuming they reach their destination alive, are meant to earn their living without livestock, without money, without tents and food in an unknown climate on previously untilled ground.

1915-11-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6381. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack

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From the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 60 Mosul, 4 November 1915 As I have heard, Baron v. d. Goltz has given the 4th Army orders to send troops to Midiat to suppress the rebellion. I would like to point out that it would not fit the facts, should the Christians (Syrians and, to a small extent, Armenians), who have entrenched themselves between Midiat and Mardin (near Azik) and against whom the aforementioned troops were to proceed, be addressed and treated as rebels. Rather, these are Christians who were able to flee from the massacres and who are now defending their lives instead of being slaughtered like sheep. It can be assumed that after the Turkish troops have stormed Azik, none of the Christians there will be left alive. On the other hand, the matter could still be brought to an unbloody end if negotiations were carried out with the besieged and they were granted withdrawal and settlement in Mesopotamia in exchange for giving up their weapons. As, based on previous experience, the Christians no longer place any trust in the Turkish government’s word, it would be necessary to have a German officer or consulate official attend the negotiations. I suggest Mr. von Scheubner-Richter, whose troops are also to be sent out against Azik. Thus, he cannot proceed before this matter has been settled. I myself would also be prepared to go to Azik. The local Syrian bishop should also attend the negotiations with the besieged. The local Vali, who is of my opinion, would also be prepared to accompany us. He has filed no petitions in this matter with his ministry because this could be interpreted as his plotting against the Vali of Diyarbekir. Should the matter be handled in the manner suggested, I believe that I can guarantee a quick and satisfactory conclusion. I respectfully submit that Field Marshal Baron v. d. Goltz be informed of the aforementioned. [Holstein] [Notes by the Military Attaché at the Embassy Constantinople (Lossow), 6 November] Field Marshal Goltz made the following statement to me today: 1. The Turkish Supreme Army Command gave orders to the 4th Army (Djemal Pasha) quite a while ago to reinstate law and order in the area between Mardin and Midiad. This order was not carried out because the 4th Army’s troops were too far away. 2. In the meantime, the matter has been passed on to Field Marshal Goltz. In order not to stop the troops of the 51st and 52nd Divisions, which are to move to Baghdad as quickly as possible, he gave orders to a detachment of the 3rd Army under Colonel Nadji Bey, who is probably on the way to the eastern Caucasus (parallel

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operation to Scheubner-Richter), to put things in order. Nadji Bey reports that the rebels have entrenched themselves in an inaccessible place in the mountains. Both Field Marshal Goltz and I personally know Nadji Bey to be a thoroughly civilised officer, very sensible, who was in Germany for a long time and speaks fluent German. Field Marshal Goltz does not know the exact position of Nadji Bey’s detachment. Field Marshal Goltz is very much in agreement with the German Consul in Mosul as well as the Vali there going to Nadji Bey to deal with the matter in the manner suggested by the Consul. Nadji Bey will be informed accordingly. Orders have already been sent to Scheubner-Richter today whereby Field Marshal Goltz does not wish a German officer to become involved in these matters. Thus, a telegram should be sent accordingly from the Embassy to the Consul. Finally, Field Marshal Goltz requests a transcript of the instructions sent to the consuls as to the position they should take in the Armenian question and what exactly the German Foreign Office’s and the Embassy’s position is in this question.89 v. Lossow [From the Embassy Constantinople to the Consulate in Mosul (Tel. No. 71), 7 November] Answer to Tel. No. 60. Field Marshal Baron v. d. Goltz made the following statement to the military attaché:90 [1. The Turkish Supreme Army Command gave orders to the 4th Army (Djemal Pasha) quite a while ago to reinstate law and order in the area between Mardin and Midiad. This order was not carried out because the 4th Army’s troops were too far away. 2. In the meantime, the Field Marshal gave orders to a detachment of the 3rd Army under Colonel Nadji Bey to put things in order. Nadji Bey reports that the rebels have entrenched themselves in an inaccessible place in the mountains.] Nadji is a very sensible officer who speaks German well; Baron v. d. Goltz91 (is very much in agreement with the German Consul in Mosul as well as the Vali there going to Nadji Bey to deal with the matter in the manner suggested by the Consul. Nadji Bey will be informed accordingly.). I leave further actions as to making contact with Vali and Nadji Bey, possibly with the participation of the Syrian bishop, to Your Excellency’s discretion. Telegraphic report.

89. This question is treated in the instructions to the consulates, which can be found as an enclosure to Document 1915-11-12-DE-013. 90. The square brackets include a shortened version of points 1 and 2 of Lossow’s notes. 91. The round brackets include the following part of Lossow’s notes.

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[From the Embassy Constantinople to the Consulate Mosul (No. 72), 8 November] In response to Tel. Nr. 60 and subsequent to No. 71. I have agreed that Nadji Bey’s detachment moves out to protect Mohammedan inhabitants, but have not dispatched orders concerning Scheubner’s troop. Djemal Pasha is in command of the 4th Army and, upon orders from Supreme Headquarters, has sent a heavier detachment of mixed weapons to the area around Midiat. I have informed Supreme Headquarters. Scheubner-Richter’s interference in Midiat is improper. Goltz. Additional remark by the military attaché: 1. I have heard that Detachment Leader Nadji Bey is not identical with the Colonel of the same name, whom Field Marshal Goltz and I know personally. 2. According to information from Supreme Headquarters, it will give orders to the Detachment Leaders located near Midiat to settle the matter amicably in connection with the Vali, if possible. Lossow. No. 78. [From Vice-Consul Holstein to the Embassy Constantinople (No. 63), 10 November] Urgent answer to Tel. 71. Vali now definitely declines my participation in dealing with the matter in question because he considers it to be incompatible with his prestige that I, in my capacity as Consul, am involved in the implementation of measures which concern “purely internal” matters of the Turkish government. I put down Vali’s new attitude to the influence of Halil Bey and his people. Meanwhile, the Vali is still prepared to carry out the matter in the suggested manner together with Nadji Bey and the local clergy taken into consideration (without me), and is sure he will be successful. He leaves it to Field Marshal Baron v.d. Goltz’s discretion to obtain corresponding instructions from the Minister of the Interior to him (Vali), but requests that no mention is made of the exchange of views which took place between the Consulate and the Embassy in this matter. In the meantime, the Vali from Diyarbekir has been summoned to Constantinople; this makes it easier to entrust the local Vali with the implementation of the matter in question. [From the Embassy Constantinople to the Consulate Mosul (No. 76), 12 November] With ref. to Tel. No. 63 from 9 November.

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Minister of War wishes peaceful settlement with the rebels near Hazik in return for their immediately laying down their weapons, but he refuses the participation of German officers and public officials. 4th Army and Vali of Diyarbekir informed along these lines. I will approve instruction for Vali with the Minister of the Interior. Goltz.

1915-11-04-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6359. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Vice-Consul in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 60 Mosul, 4 November 1915 Urgent. Halil Bey arrived here yesterday with his staff. He himself is ill and must stay in bed for several days. A colonel from his staff just informed me that the Armenians in Mosul must also be massacred and it is his intention to do so. He will not be prevented from doing so, not even by me. The Germans are denying their friendship with the Turks as they wished to prevent them from executing the Armenians. It is imperative that immediate and very forceful orders be sent to Halil Bey to prevent further massacres at all events. Halil’s troops which massacred in the north are expected here tomorrow or the day after. [Holstein]

1915-11-06-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6600. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the German Foreign Office to the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Neurath) No. 838 Berlin, 6 November 1915 1 enclosure.

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The report enclosed in transcript by Dr. Neukirch from Erzindjan, the German doctor who is a member of the Red Cross expedition, on the Armenian question is respectfully sent for your information.92 Enclosure Transcript A 31677 Erzindjan, 5 August 1915 The Armenian question is no longer under discussion for Erzindjan at present. With the exception of a few craftsmen who have been kept here by the government, there are no indigenous Armenians left here. When I look back at my previous reports, I believe that I differentiated sufficiently between what I heard and what I saw with my own eyes. However, if one wishes to limit oneself to what was seen, little remains, as strangers are always kept away from possible massacres. Those with knowledge of the Armenian disturbances are sufficiently aware of how these things are done here. On the other hand, it is difficult to determine how much of what is said every day is true. At any rate, due to the lack of other sources it appeared to be necessary to note everything as I have done. After what we saw here recently, those steps undertaken to carry out the deportation of the Armenians in a more humane manner—of which, naturally, we know nothing—were successful. While previously miserable hordes of poor women and children, with no possessions whatsoever, were shepherded past, led by only a few armed men, those people who have passed by recently had pack animals and livestock with them. Most recently, the inhabitants of Erzerum passed by in huge, well-supplied ox wagon caravans. The people looked very well (it seemed as if all of the men were with them), made the journey in small segments and were protected by numerous gendarmes under the leadership of officers. The largest of these caravans was accompanied by a high official, the Mutessarif of Bayazid himself. The people set up camp on the plain of Erzindjan and moved on about a week later. Credit for such proper transportation of the Armenians from Erzerum obviously goes to Taxim-Bey, the Vali there. It is regrettable that the local authorities here acted differently. According to a good source, the events in Trebizond were also not carried out correctly. The people from that area passed through here on foot, with little or no possessions. The economic consequences, which must be of particular interest at home, cannot yet be assessed. The relations between the expedition and public authorities and the population are good. On the other hand, the Armenians will want to burden us with the responsibility for what has happened. 92. The original report was sent by Dr. Carl Neukirch, a lawyer in Frankfurt on Main and the brother of Dr. Neukirch, to Privy Councillor Simons at the German Foreign Office in Berlin on 30 October 1915.

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Summary. All of the Armenians in this state have been deported, obviously as a result of the traitorous acts in Van. During the first weeks, there is no doubt that the most severe mistakes occurred; later on, this matter was carried out in what is for Orientals a relatively well-ordered manner. Massacres have obviously no longer taken place here since the middle of June. The economic consequences are incalculable.

1915-11-06-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6448; p 08.11.1915; translated by Robert Berridge Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Statement by Sister Alma Johansson (Swedish), based at an institution run by the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient in Mush, concerning the persecution of the Armenians in Mush. (5 November) (NB) In Mush there is one orphanage for young boys and a second for young girls, and an out-patients’ clinic, locally named the “Doctor’s Ward.” The city of Mush has a population of 50,000, half of which are Armenians, the other half Muslims (Kurds and Turks). In the district of Mush there are 300 villages, mostly Armenian. During the winter the male Armenian population was used for provision and munitions colonies in the Eastern theatre of war. Out of those sent only a few returned: from 2-300 on average just 50. The Armenian villages were destroyed in spring after they had already been ravaged as a result of billeting and requisitioning. Between May and June, Bitlis was cleared of all Armenians. In the middle of June, Alma Johansson and Bodil Björn were informed by the Mutessarrif that the German and Turkish governments had decided to send all Europeans to Harput. The Russians had namely occupied Ahlat, Bulanik, Gop, and Lish in the course of their advances from Van. Their patrols were active within a 1-2 days’ march from Mush. But still the two Sisters refused to leave Mush. The city was surrounded by troops and encircled by artillery. On the night of Sunday, 11 July, the massacres began, using rifles. The Turks claimed that several Armenians had attempted to break out in the direction of Sasun.

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A few well-situated Armenians were informed in the konak that they had to leave the city within three days, along with the entire population. But all their possessions had to be left behind as they now belonged to the state. Without waiting for the end of this period, the Turks had begun breaking into Armenian homes and plundering them. On Monday the 12th, light artillery and rifle fire could be heard the whole day. The local Turkish population participated in these events. In the evening soldiers forced themselves into the girls’ orphanage in search of Armenians possibly hiding there. During the night and the following day a great deal of shooting took place. In an attempt to close the yard door, a woman and an orphaned girl were shot dead who were standing next to Sister Johansson. Early Wednesday, she went to the Mutessarrif, Servet Bey, to secure protection and a reprieve for the institution and its occupants. The Mutessarrif, an intimate friend of Enver Pasha, conducted himself like a man possessed and rejected the requests brusquely, ignoring the deliberations from his trusted circles. The two Sisters were only allowed to keep three girls and a servant. The male Armenian population was murdered right in front of the town. The women, girls and children were carried off and taken on a further day’s march before being disposed of. Only three Armenian teachers from the orphanage were later set free. After the city was cleared, the Armenian Quarter was put to the torch and razed to the ground, along with the Armenian villages. Throughout these events the military doctor, Dr. Assat Bey, an Albanian, distinguished himself through his coarseness and also threatened the two Sisters. On 10 August, they departed for Mezré Harput and arrived there on 20 August with the infirm Mutessarrif, who died two days later. Sister Alma, likewise, gave a detailed account of the decimation of the Armenians in Harput. The persecutions had already begun in May. The grand-scale elimination of all males took place during the first days of July (Vali Sabit Bey, Kurd; Chief of Police, Reshad Bey). I will mention the following in detail: Official circles in Mush, Mezré-Harput and Sivas unanimously believe that the persecutions and elimination of the Armenians was urged upon the Turkish Government by the Germans. Today, Miss Johansson paid a visit to the American Embassy.

1915-11-08-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 35045; pr. 04.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge

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From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 103/B.No. 2511 Aleppo, 8 November 1915 The deportation of the Armenians reached a certain highpoint around the middle of October enabling an overview of its extent and offering the appropriate moment to submit a concise summary. Vice-Consul Hoffmann has begun this task, with my permission, and will dispatch it from Alexandretta upon completion. It did not seem inappropriate to me that another observer from the locality other than myself also give his views. I will continue for my part with the description of several incidents, but allow myself to make a general observation in advance. Ranke said in his world history in reference to the policies of Charlemagne against the Saxons, “One may not deny that severity of laws must evoke resistance against them. In intrigues of this kind it always occurs. The course of action which one seizes in order to prevent the eruption of the opposition is also suitable to arouse it.” This sentence may be applicable to the policies of the Turkish government which have been followed more or less continuously against the Armenians, allowing for fluctuations, since the massacres in the year 1895. It may seem especially applicable to the latest events. The Government had taken preventive measures, to a degree of severity seldom seen in history, against the Armenians and thereby evoked resistance in three places: in Fundadjak, in Suediye and in Urfa. I reported about Fundadjak earlier. The fighting in Suediye (from 4 villages in the vicinity of Antioch) ended whereby the rebels embarked onto a ship, in a hidden bay, under covering fire of an enemy warship. According to the Armenian side, the number of women and children came to 6,000. If one calculates with this rural population the very high percentage of 10% as being able to bear arms, then one arrives at 600 who now will possibly be called to arms in an enemy army. Despite this fact and despite the finally contrived connection to an enemy cruiser, there is no evidence whatsoever that the district had previously thought about an uprising. They were more likely driven to resistance by their imminent deportation. For the Armenian uprising in Urfa, it is also unnecessary to assume the influence of outside forces. Immigrants from Van and Diyarbekir could have stirred up things and made themselves leaders. However the government’s preventive measures, the deportations and, therefore, the inherent destruction of their people and each individual was foremost in their minds and was enough for the people of Urfa to reach the decision to put up resistance. The Armenians themselves were to blame for causing the outbreak of fighting. In detail the events took the following path, whereby I rely on Major Count Wolffskeel, who accompanied General Fakhri Pasha on the suppression of the uprising in Urfa.

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Nothing else has happened since a patrol was shot down on 19 August and the consequent massacre, not even an investigation against the murderers of the patrol. At the end of September another shoot-out took place in the Armenian quarter; no further information is known about this, not even about whom the attack was directed at. The next day, when the government sent out a gendarme patrol in order to investigate the incident, part of the patrol was shot down. The Armenians then barricaded their city quarter. At first the area was surrounded by the 60 or 80 gendarmes available in Urfa. During the first days of October a battalion arrived; on 4 October Fakhri Pasha with Count Wolffskeel, and on 5 October a second battalion with two field guns. An order for the Armenians to surrender was rejected. It was estimated that the number of defenders amounted to 2,000. On 6 October the fighting began, which was mainly directed at three of the defenders’ positions. The narrow and twisted building style of the city of Urfa, whose houses of stone often stand on old cave dwellings, was adapted for defence with great skill by the Armenians, and this made capture more difficult. The Armenians were armed with rifles and equipped with hand grenades, for the production of which dynamite was used that had been stolen during the building of the Baghdad railway. In contrast they were not, as was mistakenly claimed, in possession of Russian or other machine guns. On 12 October a third battalion with two 12 cm howitzer was deployed. On the 14th, the church was stormed; on the 15th, the American mission. This was occupied by the Armenians much against the will of the missionary, Mr. Leslie, and it was converted into a strong building equipped to be a major base. Leslie was held hostage by the Armenians in the hope that a building which he was in would not be bombarded. The Turkish demands for his release were rejected by the Armenians. He was only freed by the conquering troops. Turkish losses amounted to 50 dead and 120 to 130 wounded. The search afterwards in the caves and wells, due to isolated shots from hidden defenders, cost a number of soldiers’ lives. A court-martial investigation has opened. A commission will decide upon further measures against the Armenians in Urfa. Incidentally, the deportations are continuing in the most vigorous manner and with the most terrible results. Starvation and epidemics are driving numerous to their deaths. The death rate is extraordinarily high among the expelled in the city of Aleppo. Whereby up until the arrival of Djemal Pasha the necessary sanitary facilities were lacking, more about him will be reported below. About the middle of October, a new place of burial was designated outside the city. But before things were far enough there to begin with the burials, corpses had been dumped in piles and had been lying out in the open for several days. Under these conditions it is not surprising that typhus fever has spread among the town dwellers, and that a severe general epidemic has broken out. The number of deaths reported every day amounts to between 150 and 200. By chance, I have recently been able to gain for myself an impression of a road

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which the deported are using. On 21 October, between Afrin and Aleppo, a stretch of road about 60 km long, I saw four corpses lying directly on the street; two had already been half-eaten by animals. After sighting the first of these corpses, I went to the first khan and demanded of the owner that he send someone against payment to bury them. He smiled, but did as I wished. When I asked him why he had smiled, he replied, “If you wish, I will have this corpse buried, but why do you lay so much value on this particular one? If you only knew how many are lying here in each and every gully, then you would refrain from having this particular one, which is visible from the road, buried.” If this can happen on the very busy high road from Alexandretta, without the passing soldiers and gendarmes reporting the incident, one can only assume that the situation on the less accessible roads in the interior will not be much better. I have not yet mentioned the numerous animal carcasses contaminating the air. The concentration camp near Katma portrayed an indescribable view of insufficient hygienic facilities. The wanderers were at all stages of health and mobility: from the barefooted walker and the almost starving, who with great effort stumbled along, to the confused and silent, who just sat down on the road, to those who possessed well-kept footwear or pulled carts with various household articles. The difference can be explained by the distance which each had accomplished. The conditions have become so bad that this stretch of military road from Bonzanti to Aleppo is totally contaminated. Only after Colonel Baron von Kress had succeeded in pointing out the military necessity of hygienic measures for this stretch of road did the Commander-in-Chief of the 4th army, Djemal Pasha, arrange for a visit to Aleppo. Before he arrived, Djemal Pasha had received a telegraphic answer from the Head of the Military Roads Inspectorate, Veli Pasha, that there had not been one single case of dysentery or any other contagious disease. Only when Djemal Pasha received the report from Rayak that three corpses had been found on a train from Aleppo did he decide to undertake the journey. He has issued wide-ranging directives here. Compulsory registration of cases of typhus has been introduced. Hospitals have been set up. Transport wagons to transfer the sick are to be made available and the municipal cleansing department is to be reorganised. The town has been divided up and for each part a doctor has taken over its supervision with the right to visit any house. The cleansing of the town will be reorganised. Orders have been issued and now their implementation is being awaited. A German military doctor responsible for hygiene has been requested. In view of the importance of this area from which armies are to be sent either to Iraq or Egypt, serious attention must continue to be given to controlling this epidemic. The personal involvement of Baron von Kress is a guarantee that what is possible will be carried out. The same report will be dispatched to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler

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1915-11-09-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6401 and 6448. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Neurath) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Pera, 9 November 1915 Mr. von Scheubner-Richter reported the following from Mosul on the 5th of this month: On the journey from Erzerum to Mosul via Khinis, Mush, Bitlis and Sairt, all the villages and homes I came across, all of which used to be inhabited by Armenians, were found to be totally empty and destroyed. I did not see any living male Armenian. It is said that a number of them fled into the mountains. Around 500 Armenian women and children find themselves in deplorable conditions in the Armenian church in Bitlis. Armenian women are thought to be held captive in Turkish households. On the entire journey, I and the German gentlemen who were accompanying me saw the corpses of Armenian men, women and children: most displayed signs of multiple bayonet wounds. This was seen despite the route having been cleared of corpses by gendarmes at the instruction of the Government. According to statements given by Kurds, all Armenians in the area around here had been murdered. According to my information a revolution or an uprising prepared by Armenians had taken place only in Van, in other places it was self-defence. The Turks, among them officers, have spread the news and in many cases actually believe it themselves, that the German Government arranged for the extermination of the Armenians. Sister Alma Johansson (a Swede), who has recently arrived from the orphanage supported by the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, has given us in-depth details concerning the eradication of the Armenians in Mush, and the destruction of the Armenian quarter in Mush as well as the Armenian villages in that area. Following this report, almost nothing remained of the Armenian population except for some refugees and a few women who had been robbed. The Armenian homes were set alight and then razed to the ground. These incidents, which took place in the first half of July, were, according to the accounts given by the above-mentioned Sister, ordered apparently due to the approach of Russian troops, who after occupying Achlat, Bulanik, Gop and Lish, were active just one or two days’ march from Mush. Miss Johannsson, who left Mush in August, stayed a few months in Harput (Mezré, Mamuret-ul-Aziz), then arrived here by way of Sivas, stated at the end of her description that in official circles as well as in Mush, Mezré and also in Sivas it was

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generally believed that the Germans had pressed the Turkish Government to instigate the Armenian persecutions. N[eurath]

1915-11-10-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6751; p 21.11.1915. Directive. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) to the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Neurath) No. 857 Berlin, 10 November 1915 2 enclosures. Enclosed is the copy of the petition which highly respected representatives of Protestant circles in Germany have brought to my attention, matters concerning the Armenian Question. The accompanying copy of the resolution of the Missionary Conference of the Central Committee of German Catholics concerns the same topic. Both announcements illustrate the growing worry and concern, also within Germany, with the proceedings being taken by the Turks against the Armenians. Your most gracious Sir, I request, bearing in mind the formulated view-points and wishes presented in the documents, to continue at each and every opportunity and with all your efforts to assert your influence on the ruling powers for the benefit of the Armenians. Especially direct your attention to ensure that the measures of the Porte are not extended to include other Christian parts of the population in Turkey. Regarding the development of this situation, I would ask Your Honour to let me be continually informed. Bethmann Hollweg Enclosure 1 15 October 1915 Copy To his Excellency, the Chancellor of the German Empire Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, Berlin W. Your Excellency, The undersigned feel themselves compelled by their conscience and increasing circles of German Christians to give uneasy expression to the miserable fate of the

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Armenian people in Turkey. According to credible sources of information, extermination is imminent if the inhumane measures, which the Armenians are subjected to, are not immediately brought to an end. This information presents us with the following picture: Since the commencement of the Russian-Turkish war, hundreds of Armenian villages have been plundered by the Kurds and irregular militias in the eastern Vilayets and thousands of defenceless Armenians have been murdered.93 Now since the end of May, the deportation of the entire Armenian population has been ordered from all the Anatolian Vilayets and Cilicia in the Arabian steppe south of the Baghdad railway. These measures have been carried out with inhumane harshness over the last few months. Those Armenian men able to bear arms were conscripted into the army to be detailed as porters and road workers on the interior military roads. The women, children, sick, and elderly, now robbed of any male protection, were driven out of their places of domicile and robbed of all possessions. Lacking equipment or provisions, barefoot, hungry, dying of thirst and subjected to continuous mistreatment and violations, countless hundreds and thousands of Armenians were driven like cattle more than a hundred miles into exile while being intimidated by coarse Zapties.94 The measures were thereby so implemented that in the capital and95 in the centres inland, the leaders of the population, intellectuals, notables and church dignitaries were thrown into prison overnight and without interrogation and court proceedings either shot or deported. Those called up for military service were attacked and shot in the street. Of those deported women, children and elderly, less than half are thought to have arrived at their designated destination. Girls and young women were carried off to the Turkish harems and Kurdish villages, where they had no choice but to convert to Islam. Moreover, countless numbers of children were taken from their Christian parents to be brought up now as Muslims. Some hundreds of Christian families were spared deportation as they decided themselves to convert to Islam. These deportation measures have in reality taken on the character of a massacre of the greatest dimension. Through means of slaughter at certain places along the route, through starvation and thirst, it appears that the number of deportees has been reduced to about half the original number. It is not possible, naturally, to give exact details of the number of deportees or those slaughtered. According to the statistics of the Armenian Patriarchate, the number of Armenians living in the vilayets affected by the deportations amounted to 1,200,000. If one were also to assume that a part of the population were able to flee into the mountains and outlying districts and were, therefore, spared, one is still left with a sum of one million Armenian Christians affected by the deportations and slaughters, and without any differentiation between the confessions: Gregorians, 93. This sentence deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte. 94. “coarse” deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte. 95. “in the capital and” deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte.

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Roman Catholics or Protestants. At present, no one can say if half or how many whatsoever were murdered, or if the number of families who converted to Islam can be counted in their thousands or tens of thousands. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the blow which has been dealt to the most diligent and ambitious Christian population in the Orient will have the most catastrophic economic, cultural and political consequences upon the future of Turkey. Already at the peace negotiations the interests and honour of those powers allied to Turkey will be affected in a most sensitive way. Merchant and artisan craftsmanship in the interior districts, which was exclusively in Armenian hands, has been destroyed. The present preparations for the deportation of the Armenian merchants and artisan populations in Constantinople (about 180,000), Smyrna (28,000), Adana and several other cities situated on the periphery of the Armenian areas—up until now these areas had been spared deportations— will affect the economic development of Turkey in a most acute way, a development in which Germany has a great interest. According to the assessments of experts of the Turkish economy, it is not to be relied on that Turkish and Jewish elements will be in a position to make up for the loss of the Armenians. It would be appropriate for the authorities responsible for the economy to address this question. What indeed primarily disturbs the undersigned, thus inducing them to turn to your Excellency in confidence, is not their concern regarding the future of German economic and cultural work, which, due to the disturbances created by Turkish Nationalism and Islamic fanaticism,96 will be called into question. What plagues our conscience is our responsibility for these events, which have been brought into discussion, due to a Christian country such as Germany belonging to an alliance with Turkey. It is not just the Entente press, but also public opinion in neutral countries which views Germany as being jointly responsible for the internal events in Turkey. Certainly on this point, the influence of German diplomacy upon the Porte is overestimated.97 But the impression which still remains is that Germany, after the neutralisation of the Entente powers, was the only power in the Bosporus which came into question to prevent the slaughtering of Christians. The directives which threaten the Armenians with destruction have been justified by the Turkish Sublime Porte by the revolutionary movement within the Armenian population and strategic measures in districts along the borders. It may be the case that somewhere Armenians were justly accused of this act. But this is no justification for the deplorable course of action being carried out. Moreover, according to the information in our possession, there is no evidence that the leading Armenian political and Church leaders conducted any treacherous activities.98 96. “which, due to the disturbances created by Turkish Nationalism and Islamic fanaticism” deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte. 97. This sentence deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte. 98. This sentence and “deplorable” in the preceding sentence deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte.

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We reserve judgement upon the goals which the Turkish government is following regarding the Armenians. But their methods of pursuing them have, in any case, certainly given the worst kind of encouragement to Islamic fanaticism and to hatred towards Christians. There also remains a danger for the remaining non-Muslim parts of the population. The following statements are circulating: “The country must become pure Muslim and nothing else.” Correspondingly, missionary institutes have been moved out. It appears that every facet of Christian relief work and any foreign cultural influence in the country should be eradicated. This is quite unbearable for the rest of Christianity and will most certainly cause insurmountable difficulties for the Turks in their justified efforts to protect their internal interests from outside attack. The rage in neutral and enemy countries is growing on this issue and will certainly lead to passionate outbursts as soon as the full extent of the truth is made known. Will this indignation not be increasingly used with intense severity against Germany, a country seen by the world as the only country through its relationship with Turkey capable of preventing these terrible things and ensuring that the albeit necessary measures be restricted to the strategic essentials? In the same way as Germany was made responsible for Turkey’s entering the war and for the proclamation of “Holy War,” the entire blame for the extermination of a Christian race will be attached to Germany. The effect will, as we fear, go even deeper than the agitation aroused because of the alleged Belgium atrocities.99 While up until now, all these accusations from abroad have made no impression upon the unanimously clear conscience of our people, this information, the spread of which cannot be prevented, will have the most damaging effect upon German Christians. The mere declaration of a Holy War arouses moral misgivings in many circles. We could give appeasing assurances that this Holy War is not directed against the Christians per se, but is directed, together with Christian nations, against the enemies of Turkey. No one would be capable of preventing the paralysing effects upon the joyfulness of German Christianity if they were to watch the destruction of a Christian race by one of their allies. With the same good conscience that we call upon God for victory with our guns lies the power of resistance of our people. This unanimity and joyfulness threatens to be severely shaken if it is made known that our ally, being of another faith, has driven hundreds of thousands of our co-religionists senselessly and without reason to their deaths and without everything possible being undertaken on our part to save them. It is known to us that, for its part, the German Government has repeatedly taken steps to control the extermination of the Armenians, also in the interests of the Turks themselves. The facts unfortunately show that these steps have been unable to prevent the disaster. The Turkish Government has, as far as we have been informed, failed to do 99. This sentence deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte.

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those things necessary to protect those deported from starvation. Indeed, it has even rejected efforts to bring help to the suffering women and children. It is to be feared that even those surviving deportees, mainly women and children, are doomed to death. We can not, nor can our Christian nation watch in silence. The Turkish government, which itself has intentionally called to life and utilised the Islamic solidarity of all countries for its own objectives, cannot expect its Christian allies to condemn their feeling of Christian solidarity to silence. They have to recognise the extent to which they have created difficulties for their own way into the future if they allow atrocities to occur, for which they are responsible, and which are viewed by all of Christianity as an affront to their beliefs. The tarnishing of German honour, even with the suspicion of joint responsibility for the previously mentioned scandalous acts, must be prevented. It is unbearable to think, that while we Germans are building mosques for captured Muslims, hundreds of Christian churches are being destroyed or converted into mosques. It weighs upon our conscience that while the German press extols the magnanimity and tolerance of our Muslim ally, innocent Christian blood is being poured in torrents through Muslim hands, and tens of thousands of Christians are being forced to convert to Islam. We do not underestimate the responsibilities which German Christians have arising from our alliance with Turkey. We sincerely share the wish that Turkey receives its just rewards from this courageous fight on our side. It is also not our wish to create in any way whatsoever unnecessary difficulties. But we cannot deny our responsibilities towards our co-religionists. We would otherwise be acting against our honour and conscience. A shadow would fall over the victory of our people. Therefore we request from you, your Excellency, to convey to the Sublime Porte with all possible vigour, the unacceptability of the created situation and the extreme importance of remedial measures, thereby bearing in mind principally three goals, which are in no way contradictory to the welfare of Turkey nor to achieving our wartime goals. On the contrary, they are closely connected to the demands of humanity and to economic interests: 1. The deportation of the Armenian population in Constantinople, Smyrna, Adana and other towns and districts so far not affected should be postponed. 2. That not only theoretical and ostensible, but real and effective measures are implemented in order to keep alive hundreds of thousands of deported women and children in the Mesopotamian steppe and to prevent further atrocities against the remaining Armenians. 3. That it is made possible for Christians from other countries, perhaps under the auspices of German and neutral persons of trust, to be allowed to extend emergency assistance to the suffering exiles and to give support. At any Peace Agreement we request you to take care that Christians now forced into Islam are given the chance of returning to Christianity. Furthermore, to give the necessary guarantee for a peaceful and loyal further development of the Christian mi-

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nority in Turkey and for the unrestricted furtherance of Christian relief and cultural work in the Orient.100 We would ask your Excellency, in all honour, to put us into the position as soon as possible to be able to counteract the misgivings within German Christian circles and to invalidate effectively the accusations of foreign countries. We remain, obediently yours. Dr. Karl Axenfeld, Direktor der Berliner Missionsgesellschaft, Berlin. Professor D. Baumgarten, Kiel. Professor Dr. Johannes Burchard, Professor der Rechtswissenschaften an der Königlichen Akademie zu Posen. Superintendent D. A. Cordes, Leipzig. D. Adolf Deissmann, ord. Professor der Theologie an der Universität Berlin, Vorstandsmitglied der D.O.M. Oberhofprediger D. Dibelius-Dresden, Vizepräsident des Ev. Luth. Landeskonsistoriums. Kons. Rat Pfarrer D. Erich Förster, Frankfurt a/M. Th. Haarbeck, Pfr., I. Vorsitzender des deutschen Verbandes für Gemeinschaftspflege und Evangelisation, Barmen. Direktor D. G. Haccius, Hermannsburg i. Hann. A. Haccius, Geh. Justizrat, Hannover. Händler, Propst und Generalsuperintendent, Berlin. Prof. D. v. Harnack, Wirkl. Geh. Rat., Berlin-Grunewald. Professor D. G. Haussleiter, Halle/S. Held, Missionsinspektor der Sudan-Pionier-Mission, Wiesbaden. P. O. Hennig, Missionsdirektor der Brüdergemeinde, Herrnhut. Professor Dr. W. Herrmann, Marburg. D. Hesekiel, Generalsuperintendent, Wernigerode. Dr. Hornemann, Landgerichtsrat, Berlin. Generalsuperintendent D. Kaftan, Kiel. Pastor D. Dr. Kind, Präsident des Allg. Ev. Prot. Missionsvereins, Berlin. D. W. L. Kölbing in Herrnhut, Vors. der Verwaltung des Aussätzigenasyls der Ev. Brüdergemeinde in Jerusalem. Dr. Johannes Lepsius, Potsdam. Geh. Konsistorialrat Prof. Dr. Loofs, Halle. Professor D. Mahling, Berlin-Charlottenburg. D. Philipps, Berlin-Charlottenburg. 100. This paragraph deleted by Neurath for the Sublime Porte.

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Stadtpfarrer Pfisterer, Weinsberg-Württemberg. Professor D. Julius Richter, Berlin-Steglitz. Pastor Röbbelen, Hermannsburg i. H., Vorsitzender des Vereins für lutherische Mission in Persien. Rödenbeck, Superintendent der Diözese Potsdam I, Direktor der deutschen Orientmission, Klein-Glienicke bei Potsdam. Lic. Dr. Paul Rohrbach, Berlin. Pastor Johs. Spiecker, Direktor der Rheinischen Missionsgesellschaft, Barmen. Missionsinspektor Lic. Schlunk, Hamburg. Schlicht, Superintendent, früher Pfarrer der deutschen evangelischen Gemeinde in Jerusalem, Rudow b. Berlin. A. W. Schreiber, Missionsdirektor, Berlin-Steglitz. D. Dr. Hans von Schubert, Geh. Kirchenrat, ord. Professor der Theol., z.Z. Dekan der theol. Fakultät zu Heidelberg. Professor D. Dr. R. Seeberg, Berlin. Direktor D. F. A. Spiecker in Berlin-Grunewald. Pfarrer Ewald Stier, Alten bei Dessau für die “Deutsche Armenische Gesellschaft” und den Verein “Notwendiges Liebeswerk.” F. Schuchardt, Deutscher Hilfsbund für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient, E. V., Frankfurt a/Main. Martin Urban, Missions Inspektor, Vorsitzender der Mission für Süd-Ost-Europa E. V., Hausdorf Kr. Neurode. Professor Dr. Weckesser, Karlsruhe. Geh. Kirchenrat H. H. Wendt, Professor der Theologie in Jena. A. Winkler, Pfarrer, Berlin, Mitglied des Kuratoriums der Deutschen Orient-Mission. Adolf Zeller, Pastor, Zehlendorf, früher Marasch, Vilajet Aleppo. Gerhard von Zezschwitz, Pfarrer und Senior in Burgbornheim, Bayern. Professor D. Dr. Dalman aus Jerusalem. Gustav Gerock, Stadtpfarrer in Stuttgart. Johannes Lohmann, Pastor am Diakonissenhaus Friedenshort in Miechowitz. Lic. R. Mumm, Mitglied des Reichstags, Berlin. N.W. 87. Enclosure 2 Berlin, 29 October 1915 The missionary sub-committee of the Central Committee for the General Assembly of Catholics in Germany convened in Berlin on 29 October 1915 and views it as its irrefutable duty to let its voice be heard in order that the exceedingly harsh measures being implemented at the present time by the Turkish Government against the Armenians are immediately called to a halt. Whatever the Armenians can be accused of

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committing, the precept of humanity, a precept which even the Turkish Government cannot reject, still demands that preventive action be taken against the imminent extermination of the entire Armenian race. The Assembly has trust in the leadership of the German Empire to assume that everything possible within its power has been carried out to relieve the suffering of the Armenians. In view of the continuing terrifying events in Armenia, it requests that you unremittingly follow diplomatic paths to influence the Government of our Turkish ally to do its utmost to relieve the suffering of the Armenians, all of which could be carried out without endangering our military relationship. The Turkish Government will have to understand that the Christian population in Germany, despite its friendly political alliance with Turkey, will certainly be embroiled in agitation if their fellow believers are so severely suppressed in Turkey. Even more so, as every German Catholic—and this poignantly transpired from the meetings of the missionary sub-committee—supports the view of demanding complete loyalty to the Turkish State from the Christian population in Turkey. Furthermore, German Catholics are prepared to influence the oriental Christians in this direction and to awaken in them the understanding of their civic convictions. Moreover, it is in the best interests of Turkey itself not to deprive itself of those valuable workers, such as the Armenians, who have been efficient in the areas of state administration and economic progress up until now. Most of all we request from the Imperial Chancellor to keep a watchful eye on the situation, so that under no circumstances will similar incidents take place against Christian populations in other parts of the Turkish Empire. The representatives of the German Catholics who have undersigned the Missionary Committee’s report retain complete trust in the leadership of the German Empire and towards the friendly Government of Turkey. Moreover, through remedying the disgraceful situation mentioned, our alliance with Turkey can continue to find a cordial atmosphere and participation within the Christian population of Germany. Signed in the name of all those organisations representing the German Catholics. Prelate Dr. Werthmann, Senior Counsel Dr. Jur. Carl Bachem M. Erzberger: M.P.

1915-11-12-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to Rosenberg, Legation Councillor in the German Foreign Office Constantinople, 12 November 1915

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Dear Privy Councillor, Following the urgent request of the head of the American Board, a friend of mine for many years, I visited the American Ambassador today. Although this visit was entirely outside my programme, after careful consideration I considered it to be my duty not to avoid making it. I believed it necessary to make use of the opportunity to assure the American Ambassador that it is my deepest conviction that, under the current circumstances, our Foreign Office is doing everything that can possibly be done at present in the matter concerning the Armenian Christian population in Turkey. Unfortunately, evacuation measures now seem to have expanded to include the Protestants and the Catholics. I reckon with utmost certainty that our houses and institutions with all our children and employees can continue to count on the active protection of our German government in future. Our sister, Alma Johansen, a Swedish woman, formerly in Mush, also brought with her once again devastating details of glorious deeds by our allies against the Armenian people. I will take the liberty of sending a detailed report to the Foreign Office. Today, however, I would like to draw your attention to a fact that will be contained in this report. You may remember the Kurd riot in the area around Bitlis 2 or 3 years ago, after which a number of Kurdish leaders (I believe it was 13) were hanged as punishment. When the Russian troops approached, these Kurdish tribes believed that the day of retaliation on their part had come, and fugitive Turkish public officials and officers from the area around Van had terrible things to report. It seems to me to be more than probable that, for particular reasons, these atrocities on the part of the Kurds will be blamed on the Armenians. According to the oral reports by Spörri, our missionary from Van, with whom I spoke in Berlin just before leaving for here, Armenians did also kill Mohammedans, but they did not carry out any atrocities against men, nor did they rape women and girls or commit brutalities against children. I reserve some interesting details on forged dispatches from the interior and many other things for my later report. Please excuse my tormenting you from afar, but it is very important that our Foreign Office should have all the facts, in order to see the situation clearly and be better able to intervene when the possibility to do so arises. Yours sincerely, F. Schuchardt.

1915-11-12-DE-012 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/172; A53a; 30148, A 30410. Correspondence. Translated by Robert Berridge

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From the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) to the Director of the German Evangelical Missionary-Relief August Wilhelm Schreiber Berlin, 12 November 1915 Copy Allow me to confirm, with respectful thanks, the receipt of the conveyed petition dated the 15th of this month. The Imperial Government, as it has done until now, will in future always regard it as its foremost duty to exercise its influence so that Christian races are not persecuted because of their religion. German Christians may rest assured that, guided by this basic principle, I will do everything in my power to ensure that these worries and wishes conveyed to me are borne in mind. I have informed the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople of the contents of your petition. [Bethmann Hollweg]

1915-11-12-DE-013 Source: PA-AA; R14089; BoKon 171; A 33704; pr. 21.11.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Neurath) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 669 Pera, 12 November 1915 Copy 1 enclosure. On the occasion of his mission to the East Anatolian theatre of war, Field Marshal von der Goltz had made a request that he be given transcripts of the instructions sent to the Imperial Consulates regarding the Armenian question and, at the same time, receive orientation on our point of view in this question. I then had the notes, a transcript of which is enclosed, sent to him. Among other things, the Field Marshal’s request was induced by an expedition already planned by the Turkish military command a while ago against a number of Christians of Syrian faith who barricaded themselves together with Armenians in a position between Mardin and Midiat which was difficult to access, in order to escape from the slaughters of Christians organised by the Vali of Diyarbekir. As the IVth

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Army (Djemal Pasha), which was originally given the order for this expedition, was too far away, the Field Marshal had given the order to restore order to a detachment of the IIIrd Army. On his part, out of consideration for the fact that there was no actual riot, and in agreement with the Vali of Mosul, Holstein, the Consulate Administrator in Mosul, had referred to the method of negotiations with the besieged, and described it as desirable that, among other personalities, Mr. von Scheubner-Richter, whose troops were also to take part in the expedition, should be present at the negotiations. However, the Field Marshal, who, quite rightly, did not wish to have German officers involve themselves in this matter, gave the order that Mr. von Scheubner’s troops were not to be enlisted in the expedition in question. Incidentally, I heard that the Turkish Supreme Headquarters gave the order to the leader of the detachment situated near Midiat that, if possible, the matter was to be settled amicably together with the Vali. N[eurath] Enclosure I. Instructions from the Imperial Embassy to the Imperial Consulates concerning the handling of the Armenian question: On 31 May, the consulates in Erzerum, Mosul, Adana, Aleppo and Baghdad were informed that in order to curb Armenian espionage and to prevent Armenian mass uprisings, the Ministry of War had decided, among other measures (such as closing the Armenian schools, suppressing Armenian newspapers, etc.), to resettle in Mesopotamia all those families from the centres insurgent at that time who were considered to be not quite unobjectionable, as well as that Enver Pasha had urgently requested that we not hinder him from doing so. A remark had been added to this information that, out of consideration for Turkey’s political and military situation, we should moderate the government’s measures in their form of implementation, but not basically hinder them. Previously, on 19 resp. 21 May, special decisions had been made to this purpose on the inquiries made by the Consulates in Erzerum and Adana. In this connection, the Consulate in Erzerum had been informed that it should keep its intervention on behalf of the Armenians within the limits of a piece of friendly advice to avoid giving it the character of an official representation. On 21 June, the same Consulate was instructed to intercede firmly with the Vali against the slaughtering of the deportees because such incidents damaged the reputation of the Turkish government both in neutral foreign countries and among its own friends, and undermined the authorities of its public officials. This edict also states: “Reprisals and acts of vengeance on the part of the Russians and the Armenians in the areas occupied by them are inevitable. Also, this provides fresh grounds for foreign intervention in Armenian matters and will make Turkey’s position unnecessarily difficult in future peace negotiations. Even if we cannot raise any objections to the deportation of the Armenians, as far as this is justified by the state of war, we must

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be all the more forcible in insisting, also in our own interest, that a stop be put to the massacring of defenceless people. It is the duty of the local authorities to prevent such occurrences with all means available if they are not willing to burden themselves with such a serious responsibility.” On 25 June and 9 September, the consul in Trebizond was instructed to recommend protection for the deportees to the Vali. He, as well as the consuls in Aleppo, Erzerum, Mosul and Samsun, repeatedly interceded in the aforementioned sense with the provincial authorities. After it became known here through reports from the most diverse sources that the German Government and its representatives in Turkey were often described as the originators of the Armenian persecutions, the following instructions were issued on 11 August to the applicable consulates: “The atrocities against the Armenians have taken on such an extent during the last few weeks, despite our repeated intercessions, that it now becomes our duty, where applicable, to express our definite disapproval of these occurrences. On several occasions Turkish officers, clergymen and other persons in the interior have publicly stated that we are the instigators of these atrocities. Such a compromising attitude should, if necessary, be emphatically revoked.” II. Our point of view in the Armenian question was that the Turkish Government, in the interests of the military and of the country’s inner security, had the right to resort to extraordinary means which could be described as acts of self-defence, such as, for example, the compulsory deportation of the Armenian population from the areas threatened by the Russian invasion and by the actions of the French and the British fleets. On the other hand, the German Foreign Office and the Imperial Embassy disapproved of all the different kinds of excesses which set in as a result of these compulsory measures: the murder of individual personalities, the mass executions that took place, particularly in Diyarbekir and Kayseri, the attacks on the deportee transports, the systematically organised slaughter of thousands of defenceless men and women in individual towns (in Mush, Erzerum, Erzindjan, Trebizond, Diyarbekir, Angora, Malatia), the extension of the slaughters to Christians of other denominations who have no common political interests with the actual (so-called Gregorian) Armenians and, in part, are enemies of theirs; also, the merciless treatment of the evacuees who, robbed of all means of subsistence, were abandoned to hunger and misery, did not seem to be justifiable. From a military point of view there was just as little justification for the evacuation of the Armenian population from those parts of the country far distant from the theatre of war. The economic damage, which this measure caused, affects the country’s trade, agriculture and industry in the same measure; German interests have already been severely affected.

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In the common interest of the allies, the Imperial Embassy has repeatedly pointed out the political and commercial effects of the persecution of the Armenians to the Sublime Porte and urged that the worst abuses be brought to an end; in doing so, it deliberately did not place an emphasis on the humanitarian point of view and also avoided the impression that it wished to involve itself in an internal political matter. In numerous cases in which German interests have been affected, the Embassy interceded in an official and semi-official form for individual Armenians. The Embassy also repeatedly instructed individual Consulates to intercede in the appropriate form against atrocities, which had occurred and for a humane treatment of the Armenians. Finally, through us, the Sublime Porte became aware of individual, particularly grave excesses. The Imperial Embassy is all the more embarrassed by the opinion of large circles in the interior of the country, particularly in Anatolia, that the German Government supposedly provoked the Turkish government’s offences against the Armenians, and that the Consuls in the provinces supported and encouraged the local authorities in their persecution of the Armenians. This opinion is held not only by the Armenians, but also by the Turks and, as the news repeatedly shows, is being spread deliberately by Turkish public officials and military of both higher and lower rank. Germany, on its part, must protest strongly against these statements, and the Imperial Government reserves the right to take forceful measures against this in public at the opportune moment.

1915-11-16-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 35046; pr. 04.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 108/B.No. 2577 Aleppo, 16 November 1915 The Turkish Embassy in Berlin published the statement on the revolt in Urfa, which is respectfully enclosed and which was published in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung dated 28 October, No. 299 (2nd issue), giving me cause for the following remarks. It states, among other things: “The specific aim of the gangs causing the revolt was, on the one hand, to cause damage, to destroy foreign branches and to kill subjects of those countries which are in a state of war with Turkey, in order to shift the consequences of these murders onto Turkey. On the other hand, they wanted to bind a part of the Imperial troops to the reinforced hiding places and have them withdraw from the theatre of war.”

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On the other hand, it must be remembered that the purpose of the revolt cannot be understood without knowing the events leading up to it. Urfa suffered gravely from the slaughtering of the Armenians twenty years ago. Among other things at that time, 1,000 people were deliberately burned in the church into which they had been lured under the pretext of receiving asylum there. Since then, the Armenians have lived in constant fear of a repetition of these slaughters and equipped themselves with weapons so as not to be defenceless. When the deportation of the Armenians was ordered in the spring of this year, the local Vali, Djelal Bey, who refused to carry this out and was therefore transferred, told me, “It is the most natural right of a human being to live. The worm one steps on writhes. The Armenians will defend themselves.” The inhabitants of Urfa had already found out what kind of disciplinary prevention was resorted to by the Turkish government against the Armenians in the present world crisis. About the middle of June, 50 of the most respected of them were arrested, and one of them was almost beaten to death with 100 strokes of the cane (enclosure to my report No. 67 dated 29 June). Shortly thereafter, they were set to march on the road to Diyarbekir, where supposedly they were to be sentenced. On the way, however—and thus, without sentence being passed—they were killed. Among these people was the pharmacist of many years’ standing of the German Hospital who, according to the evidence given by the German missionaries, had been a loyal Ottoman subject, as had been many among the 50 taken away. The people of Urfa also had the fate of the deported in mind, who arrived from the north and the east. They knew that the men would be murdered, the women and girls violated, at best put into Muslim harems, and that the rest, namely children and older women, would be abandoned to death by starvation. Thus their decision, to die with their weapons in their hands and sell their lives as dearly as possible, rather than to let themselves and their families be destroyed or dishonoured. It is true that a general deportation of the Armenians from Urfa had not yet been decided upon when the revolt broke out. As far as is known here, the only cities in Turkey, which until then had not yet suffered this fate were Constantinople, Smyrna, Aleppo and Urfa. But what guarantee was there that Urfa would not be next? Already in May, 18 families had been exiled, and I have just spoken about the annihilation of the 50 in June. It seemed reasonable that, like everywhere, the masses too would be deported after their leaders had been eliminated. Houses were searched for weapons, during which action a patrol was shot. A second shooting, which was not explained, then triggered off the crisis. The Armenians have not seized “foreign branches,” as generally claimed in the statement, from which a German who is familiar with the circumstances would conclude that German missionary houses had also been drawn into the battle. Rather, they have only occupied the American mission, which is positioned advantageously for their defence. ——————————

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Note: Of the German premises (hospital, orphanage, private homes of the German employees, carpet factory), only the latter, situated in the middle of the old part of town, has been slightly affected. It was situated on the edge of the battle area and was hit by some rifle shots and probably also by a hand grenade, which, however, caused no damage worth mentioning. None of the Germans was hurt. The mission, however, was detrimentally affected inasmuch as all of its native employees were ruthlessly and mercilessly taken away, even though they were not involved in the revolt. At present I cannot say what influence this will have on the continuation of operations. —————————— The Armenians have also kept the American missionary, Leslie, and seven French subjects as hostages in their district, but not, however, to kill them. Had they wished to do so they would have had more than sufficient opportunity because they had these foreigners in their power for days. It would have been more understandable if the statement had read, “in order to have them killed by Turkish bullets.” The retention was, though, a desperate attempt to bind the fate of the foreigners to that of the Armenians so as to somehow improve their situation. Finally, with regard to the assertion that the Armenians had seized the Muslim districts and begun to massacre the inhabitants: Major Count Wolffskeel, who was present at these incidents, testifies that this is completely fictitious. It reminds me of the following occurrence: when I was in Marash at the beginning of April and the few Armenians who dared to leave their houses at all fearfully pressed themselves against the walls of the houses under the pressure of the declared state of siege and for fear of that to come, Muslim intriguers attempted to send a telegram to Constantinople, the contents of which were that the Armenians had occupied the mosques in Marash and turned them into churches! The dates given in the Turkish statement are those of the Oriental calendar. Thus, in the Western calendar the shooting took place on 29 September and the revolt was suppressed on 16 October. Turkish casualties amounted to 50 and not 20; in addition, there were 120 to 130 wounded. My explanation is not meant as a declaration of love or war for one party or the other, but I regard it as my duty to present what I consider to be the truth to Your Excellency on those things, which have happened in my area of competence. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler Enclosure [Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Northern German Daily Newspaper)] Berlin, 27 October [1915]

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The Imperial Turkish Embassy announced the following: During the night of 16 September, Armenian gangs carried out a revolt. They entrenched themselves in strong buildings at the controlling points in the city of Urfa and opened fire on our gendarme patrols, killing two men and wounding eight others. Our gendarmes met with open fire everywhere. After the Armenians had seized the foreign branches and forcefully held back their owners, they set up embrasures there. As these facts proved that the rebellious gangs were determined to offer armed resistance and to take advantage of the shortcomings of the gendarmes, only a small number of whom were present, and as they had finally seized the Muslim districts and began to massacre the inhabitants, some of those troops meant for the front line were dispatched to Urfa. The gangs’ hiding places were destroyed, and the revolt was suppressed on 3 October. 20 soldiers and gendarmes were killed during this occurrence; 50 were wounded. The specific aim of the gangs causing the revolt was, on the one hand, to cause damage, destroy foreign branches and kill subjects of those countries at war with Turkey in order to then shift the consequences of these murders to the Turks; on the other hand, they wanted to bind a part of the Imperial troops to the reinforced hiding places and, thus, have them withdraw from the theatre of war. Thanks to the forceful and quick measures of the Imperial authorities, the revolt did not have the desired success. It was suppressed without a single subject of a nation at war with Turkey or of a neutral country being harmed.

1915-11-16-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 35047; pr. 04.12.1015 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 109/No. 2078 Aleppo, 16 November 1915 Your Excellency, I respectfully enclose the report of a German (whom I recently had to send to Der-el-Zor on official business that had nothing to do with the Armenian question) on the fate of Armenians migrating to or having arrived at their destination. These are observations, which became perfectly obvious along the way. Dr. Schacht, a captain in the medical corps, who chose the route along the river on his way from here to Baghdad, wrote to me on 3 November from Der-el-Zor, “I have seen many bad things along the way. What people are saying is true.”

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Accordingly, the military road from Aleppo to Der-el-Zor, which is the land route to Baghdad, is infected with typhus fever. And the same must then also apply to the water route. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure Aleppo, 11 November 1915 Migration of the Armenians to Der-el-Zor. On the journey to Der-el-Zor, you inevitably reach the trails of the deported Armenians. The first trace is already found in Der Hafir: previously having one small general store, it now has three of them with the sole purpose of taking advantage of the Armenians’ predicament by charging high prices (goat’s meat 1 occa 5-6 piastres, bread 4-5, eggs 10 para and so on). This nonsense can be observed as far as Der-elZor. As thousands of Armenians are passing by the khans along the road to Baghdad, the sparsely stocked stores, carrying actually hardly any goods at all, are all empty and the salesman finds hungry buyers for high prices. Only extremely muddy water from the river Euphrates, polluted by corpses, manure and scraps, is to be had at the camps. Supplies of provisions with the transports have not been arranged, although this would be possible. Watering spots containing stagnant, clean water could easily be set up for those permanently passing by. Thus, apart from their burdens, their children, their sick and their illnesses, the deported must also lug along food and even water for the long marches. In some places there is no fuel whatsoever. Those arriving late in the evening search high and low, their strength exhausted, for liquorice roots, so difficult to pull out, to use them as fuel. For months, all of the wayside places of rest have been turned into the most disgusting state by masses of human excrements, garbage, scraps and manure, and this will not change until the final troop has passed through. One after the other, the paths travelled upon along the river and the road to Baghdad show signs of this migration: wagons left behind because the livestock pulling them have died; broken wagons, remnants of clothes and scraps which will no longer hang on a person’s body, animal corpses and human corpses in every stage of decomposition. Thank goodness that nature’s scavengers make short shrift of removing these carcasses. We found a small group of people left behind in Meskené … including a sitting corpse, starting to decay, a dying woman and 2 sick. Militia and pack animals crowded the khan and its dirty surroundings, and everyone had other things to worry about than cleaning up these tragic spots. Abu Hrere on the Euphrates … equipped with a Handji and a shopkeeper only a short while ago … at present a huge human pile of fertiliser, 5 animal corpses, manure, scraps, millions of flies … a real place of death, and then for hours only desert … A little, old, emaciated mother sat, deserted, in this tragic place. The light blue

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eyes, the shining white hair, the features revealed a better past … everything continued to pass on … she wailed crazily for the children … perhaps a sunset … then, then she can be sure of her release. We had her brought into the khan—a horrible, deserted place with nothing but 2 soldiers. Beyond Abu Hrere, where the path moves off through the waterless desert, we found the corpses of 3 boys, 1 man and 1 woman at the roadside, apart from numerous animal corpses and scraps of clothes. Hamam … has two large khans … full of muck, 3 large Armenian camps: a) boatmen with 7 wooden boats, b) drivers with their vehicles, c) pedestrians in wretched condition with the remainder of their possessions. They started off again before dawn. … 8 to 900 people from Antioch, Zeytun, from the area around Marash, Killis, Susli. 3 hours beyond Hamam the path branched off from our road and probably approached the bank of the river while the road led off over the desert cliffs. Sabkha … the first settlers’ station. Formerly having several hundred inhabitants, it presently registers 7,000 people (statement by the Nahié Mudir). The village is situated between the rocky drops of the desert and the course of the river … the old part of the village with some gardens is on the bank of the river … the settlement has now grown towards the mountain crest … in streets that have been laid out straight at right angles; thousands of hands working with the greatest zeal; long rows of undressed stones are stored there … over 100 new houses have been erected. A further 250 houses are to be completed shortly. The first settlers arrived from Zeytun in July and August. Many still live in rented houses (with a rent of 3-4 Medjidije), most still in camps and on farms. The authorities have given the land for building and permitted stones to be cut. Bread and flour is distributed in quantities, which are hardly sufficient, leading to complaints. The settlers have set up a smithy, the sale of meat, 1 plumber and 2-3 small general stores. Many Armenians die from illness. Those in the camps, forced to protect themselves, banish the sick—mostly women—from the camp and leave them to nature. Without food, a doctor or care, they lie whimpering and begging for bread until a kind fate lets them die … (approx. 40 dreadfully disfigured people). I counted 12 corpses washed ashore across from the crossing point; their dreadful smell does not rouse a single soul to bury them. According to the statement by the head of the district council, many more thousands of “settlers” are coming. His actual words were, “We let them come! To cultivate the land.” Up- and downstream there is, however, fertile land for the survivors. Medical aid is absolutely necessary there. The main place of settlement is Der-el-Zor. The entrance alone immediately displays the settlers’ main occupation: burying the dead, dull brooding, laborious, sick, half-dead movement. Der-el-Zor itself is not an ugly city, with lovely, wide streets. Previously 14,000 inhabitants, presently 25-30,000. There are no organisational arrangements for the huge, accumulated mass of people. There is insufficient food (for hours the bakers have no bread), a steam-driven mill clacks insufficiently day and night, a shortage of bread and vegetables was determined. 3 hospitals are crowded with over a thousand sick people. 1 local doctor, 1 government doctor, pharmacy

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almost empty. The local doctor just left town for a few days on a business trip. The mortality rate is 150-200 persons per day (in the words of the local doctor). Only in this way is it possible that thousands of settlers can still be brought in. A large camp above and below the town. On the left bank of the river next to the pontoon bridge masses of dying people have been camped in huts made of foliage typical for this area. They are the forgotten whose only liberator is death. No linguistic expression of thought can even come close to describing the reality of this human misery; so indescribable are the occurrences there. And this tragic heap is continually building up. According to the statements of other pedestrians, hundreds of unburied corpses, dragged off, then lie further away! The gendarme on duty answered, “What should we do? They all die by themselves.” The authorities carefully clean all the corners and streets every day, build new residential areas such as in Sabcha, distribute money among the people as well as bread and flour and yet, with some exceptions, death is preferential to life. As in Sabcha, every other human settlement is many hours away from Der-el-Zor … edge of the desert. The Armenians are stoned by the Arabs, beaten, jeered and laughed at, examples of which we saw ourselves. For example, in Maden on the river Euphrates, three corpses were drifting along the bank. The Arabs threw stones at them and spit on them, laughing the whole time. (One corpse had had its head chopped off.) During our stay, the police forbade several Armenians from approaching and speaking to us (the government is there for this purpose, not the Germans!). What kind of work is available for the survivors: farming and gardening along the river where there is, however, fertile land, crafts and some trade. [signature] [From Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 947) from 10 December 1915] I respectfully leave it to Your Excellency’s discretion whether it is to be recommended that the report of a German on the fate of the Armenians deported to Der-el-Zor, which was submitted by the Imperial Consul in Aleppo under No. 2078 on the 16th inst., be brought to the Turkish government’s attention and the contents be used to lodge complaints once again in the interest of the Armenians.

1915-11-17-DE-001 Source: PA-AA/BoKon/171; A53a, 6675; R14089 ; A 33574 ; pr. 20.11.1915 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack

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From the Consul in Damascus (Loytved Hardegg) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 52 Damascus, 17 November 1915 At the order of Djemal Pasha, two former captains who had last gone to Armenia as gang leaders were hanged here for the ill-treatment and robbery of Armenians. I leave it to your discretion to have this politically clever measure of Djemal Pasha spread by the press. [Loytved] [Wolff-Metternich to the German Foreign Office (No. 2739), 18 November101] The Imperial Consul from Damascus telegraphed on the 17th inst.: At the order of Djemal Pasha, two former captains who had last gone to Armenia as gang leaders were hanged here for the ill-treatment and robbery of Armenians. I leave it to your discretion to have this politically clever measure of Djemal Pasha spread by the press. I leave it to Your Excellency’s decision as to whether or not and to what extent this news is suitable for publication in our national newspapers to the advantage of the Turks. We cannot launch it in the local press.

1915-11-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/171; A53a, 6866. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State in the German Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) No. 875 Berlin, 18 November 1915 2 enclosures. Subsequent to other events. I respectfully send Your Excellency a transcript of the decree signed by Lieutenant Colonel Böttrich concerning the removal of Armenian railway employees, and a re101. Exp. 19 November.

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mark made by the Deputy Director of the Anatolian Railways with regard to this rule. Both of these documents were given to us in confidence by the administrative board of the Anatolian Railway Company, and we have informed the Supreme Army Command accordingly. Zimmermann [Note by Neurath] [illegible] of the letter is already in our files. With regard to the matter itself, no steps are to be initiated for the time being. Enclosure 1 Transcript of A 32610. Translation. Translated from French by Maral Maclagan Urgent. To the Military Commissioner of the Anatolia Line It is known to you that the Government has proceeded make Armenians living in certain areas of the Ottoman Empire change residence. In accordance with this decision, although the civil authorities had also wanted to relocate Armenians engaged in the services of all the Railroad Companies, of which the number is a considerable sum, thinking that this fact could damage the operation of the Railways, it was proposed in a ministerial memorandum from the Grand Vezir to institute a commission composed of representatives of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Public Works to examine the fact that the change of domicile of the Armenians should proceed in a normal and gradual way and to make a decision to this effect. It was also proposed to issue the necessary orders to those concerned, so that while awaiting the decision of the said commission, one does not touch the civic employees and subsidiary agents serving the Railways, nor the parents of these Armenians. With the consent of the Grand Vezir, the commission in question was created and the related decisions were made. The Ministry communicated the decisions made by the Commission to the Ministry of Interior, and these can be easily understood by examining the decree and the appended list attached. Upon the reading of these documents, the Armenian officers and subordinates working in the service of the Railways are to be divided into two categories, of which will be those who must be changed within a period of one to twelve months, and the other within one to four years.

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The Companies must immediately be sent a copy of the decree and the list in question and they must be forced without fail to appoint within the fixed time limits men—those of Muslim religion and, of course, those of other nationalities in whom we can trust—and to always keep the upper hand. It is necessary to notify our department of the Railways, in due course, of the results of these undertakings as well as of the formalities fulfilled to this effect. If, however, the Imperial Commissioners are convinced that the companies cannot procure the men necessary to replace some of the agents indicated in the list, even if they have tried their utmost to find persons to replace the agents that must be changed within the time limit provided in the list in question, then some of them can be left at their posts, but never, should there be any abuse of the application of this measure. The time limits indicated in the list shall come into effect upon the date of the communication made to the Companies by the Imperial Commissioners. It is therefore necessary to communicate by letter to the Companies without delay, a copy of the present document, as well as the list, and to continually take care in the strict application of the measures found in Articles 2 and 3 of the present document. (s) Lieutenant-Colonel Böttrich Director of Railways Enclosure 2 Transcript of A 32610. Anatolian Railway. No. 7702/389. Constantinople, 28 October 1915 To the Administrative Board of the Anatolian Railway Company, Berlin. pp. “Not only did Mr. Böttrich not lodge a protest with the Minister of War against the Committee’s decisions, he condescended to pass on these Committee resolutions after signing them. There will come a time when our adversaries will pay a lot of money to own this document because with the signature of a member of the military mission, they will prove that not only did the Germans do nothing to prevent the persecution of the Armenians, but that certain orders towards this objective were even sent out (i.e., signed by them). The Military Commissioner put his finger on Mr. Böttrich’s signature with a caustic smile, for the fact that this document, which will be cause for a lot of talk in

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the future, carries a German and not a Turkish signature, is also invaluable for the Turks. pp. The Deputy Director. Signature.

1915-11-22-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 33915; pr. 22.11.1915. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to Rosenberg, Legation Councillor in the Foreign Office Constantinople, 22 November 1915 Dear Privy Legation Councillor, I have filed a copy of the enclosed reports sent by the Imperial Embassy to Consul General Mordtmann. Yours sincerely, Respectfully, F. Schuchardt Enclosure 1 The Massacres in Armenia 1915102 Those outsiders who hear of the terrible atrocities carried out against the Armenians during the past few months cannot believe the reports at first. Then, the question arises, “How did this ever happen?” Those of us in the country’s interior saw the situation develop step by step. (Naturally, I can only speak for the provinces in the interior, where we saw everything happen.) The systematic robbing of the Armenians already started when the mobilisation began. Not only were those items taken which might be needed for the war, but everything which was of any value at all. Any Turk could enter a shop or a house and take whatever he wanted. 102. Report written in her own hand by Alma Johansson. For a comparable report, see Viscount Bryce, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Doc. No. 23.

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Now, it is true that the fundamental attitude of the Armenians was quite the opposite of being pro-German, but they were not pro-Russian, either, nor did they hope for anything from the British. With a satanic sort of cleverness, the Turks knew how to stir up this opinion of the Armenians against Germany, naturally in order to be able to deliver proof afterwards. For example, the most unbelievable stories were spread among the Armenians about us two sisters to make them thoroughly hate us. Since the war began then, everyone among the Armenians who was of an age to serve was called up, whether sick, blind or a cripple, with the exception of those who had been exempted. And yet, until the very end, the strongest people among the Turks escaped this fate either through friendship or bribery. Then the food needed had to be brought to the Russian border, but who was to do this? There were only the Armenians, and since the government had taken away their animals for other purposes, they had to carry the loads on their backs. Now, the winters in the Mush-Erzerum region are very long and harsh, and the people often needed 2-3 weeks to reach their place of destination. The people were not dressed for this, as they had no money to do so, and anyone with anything on them had it taken away from the gendarmes accompanying them. Masses of these bearers, made up of children, old people and those who had been exempted, died along the way due to the cold and deprivation. Whenever anyone fell down from weakness, he was beaten by the gendarmes riding with them until he either attempted to walk again or fell down dead. Another freezing comrade then took the few clothes off the dead man in order to protect himself somewhat from the cold. It was a good thing if a third or even a quarter of each crowd which left Mush returned alive. Although Kurds were also used as bearers, they always ran away. And it can hardly be considered a great sin if the Armenians, at least those who could, gradually attempted to escape. Then there were the stories of the gendarmes in the villages. Bad people who were unemployed allowed themselves to be signed up as gendarmes in the town and the surrounding area; these people were given unlimited rights to rob, for the government had said, woe to anyone who refused the gendarmes or soldiers. Taken on its own, all the things that happened there became a long, dark history of violence and inhumanity. The Armenians only defended themselves a few times in order to protect the women from the violence of the Turks, as a result of which a village would be burned down in part or entirely. Because the “Holy War” had been proclaimed, we knew what this would lead to. Rousing speeches were made that, “because we are fighting a war against the Christians, we must first annihilate the Christians in our country.” And they all counted on the Russians coming at least as far as Mush, but it was said that before this happened they would first slaughter the Armenians, and then the Russians could come. In November 1914, it was officially admitted that they were only waiting for a reason for a massacre, and as soon as they found one, they would not leave even one Armenian alive. The winter passed in this manner, and every day we thought that the misery could get no worse. In March we heard of unrest in Van, but we hoped that the rumours

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were exaggerated. But gradually both Armenian as well as Turkish reports came through, and strangely they backed one another up, except that the Turkish reports went even further. Officers and public officials proudly told us that the Armenians in Van were now annihilated, “everything hacked, hacked up into little bits”. (The Russians only arrived a few weeks later in Van.) At the beginning of May we heard of massacres in Bitlis, and everything had been prepared for a massacre in Mush. Then the Russians arrived in Lies (16 hours from Mush) and that is what saved Mush this time, for now all of the attention was there, but things became more frightening every day. Any Armenian who held any sort of position with the government was removed from office and quietly eliminated. From now on, all of the bearers were also killed every time they arrived at the front with the provisions, although certainly one or several almost always managed to escape. During that time, the entire stretch behind the front from Erzerum to Lake Van was destroyed by the soldiers; here and there, women who had escaped arrived in Mush with their children, but I cannot describe the state they were in and the stories they told. In the middle of June, Servet Bey, the Mutessarif and an intimate friend of Enver Pasha, had both of us sisters called to him and said that we had to travel to Mamuretul-Aziz in a few days’ time. The German and Turkish governments in Constantinople had decided that all foreigners were to be sent there. We requested that he leave us where we were, but he became very outraged and screamed at us that, if we did not go willingly, he would send us by force, “I have the right to do so.” He also said we could take our employees with us, but he answered our question as to whether there was no danger for them, “Nothing will happen to you; only when they see an Armenian do they cut off his head.” We were told in a friendly way from other sides that we should not go; bad things had been planned for us along the way. In June, many military convoys passed through Mush and all of them, both officers and soldiers, spoke very heatedly in the marketplace about the fact that Armenians were still alive in Mush. Fierce shooting began on the evening of 10 July and lasted for a few hours. The next morning, the whole town was in arms. Naturally, no Armenian dared to leave his home. I then went to the Muttessarif and requested that he ensure the safety of our homes. He was very angry and said it served us right; why hadn’t we left? Now there was nothing he could do for us. The entire town had been besieged for weeks; 11 canons had been set up around it. Apart from those soldiers already there, 20,000 extra soldiers came to Mush. The Mutessarif advised us to move to a Turkish quarter (for our houses were in the centre of town). But how could we move when Sister Bodil was very ill with typhoid fever? I asked for a few men to help us and an ox cart for the sick sister, but he could not give us that. And so we had to remain where we were. The Mutessarif had had a visit at noon from the richest Armenians and told them that the entire population would have to leave Mush in 3 days’ time. They were allowed to leave their families

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there if they wished, but whether or not they took them along or left them, everything they owned belonged to the government. Now, those rich people who still had some money went along with this; they thought that in this way they would at least escape with their lives. But the other Armenians (not many men were still alive) said that such conditions only meant certain death and so they decided they would rather die together in their houses, and only if the soldiers attempted to enter with force would they sell their lives as dearly as possible. As I have mentioned, they had been given 3 days, but after a few hours the soldiers began to enter the houses around us by force. From our house we could see and hear many things. Several women with their children as well as some of our married girls fled to our house. Early the following morning, 12 July, we heard some rifle shots and then the canons immediately started to fire. Now, I am sure I do not need to describe the bombardment of a town. Apart from the soldiers, all of the Turks from Mush had weapons, and they distributed themselves among the soldiers because they knew where game was to be caught. Here and there, firing was returned from the houses as a last defence. Fires soon broke out on every corner. The first crowd of women and children who had been collected marched past our house on the second morning. I am not yet able to describe the images, bloody, crying … The outer gate of the orphanage was already smashed on the first day. They demanded that I open the gate as they were searching for refugees. Some of our village teachers, who had come to us on the previous day and could not leave because of the sudden shooting in the morning, were taken away. During these proceedings, some girls and a woman who were standing next to me were shot dead. On the third day, several officers and a troop of soldiers came again with a written order from the Mutessarif that everyone who was in our houses had to be handed over, and the entire people would be sent to Urfa. Together with the male servants, only three girls were allowed to stay with us as servants. Despite the heavy shooting, I then climbed up to the Mutessarif. He was standing next to a canon as the supreme commander. All my begging and pleading was of no use; the houses were emptied. Asraf Bey,103 a doctor, acted particularly dreadfully. He almost shot me in the house, and I had to ask the captain several times to look after the doctor, as otherwise he would already have shot people in the garden. But if I had known that the children and women were led away only to die, I believe I would have chanced all of us being killed together in the house. But I was given a word of honour and assured that they would be taken safely to Urfa. We received the first piece of terrible news on the evening of the same day. A few bakers, who were needed by the government, heard everything, for it was reported loudly in the market. After everyone had left our houses, two gendarmes were assigned to protect us. They told us all the same shocking stories. The men who were caught alive (but there were only a few) were immediately shot just outside the town. The women were 103. Mordtmann in document 1915-11-06-DE-012 called him Assat Bey.

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taken with the children to the next villages, locked by the hundreds into houses and burned. Others were thrown into the river. Yes, even higher officers always came to visit us now and they proudly told the same stories. This much is true: except for a small number of women whom the Kurds or the Turks took for themselves, almost everything in the entire Mush region which could call itself Armenian has been exterminated, and no one got beyond the district. The shooting lasted for an entire week, the canons only for three days. And it was particularly bad at night: all around us, the neighbours could shoot through the windows into our houses. The walls were also pierced with bullets. Often we did not know where to hide. We could barely stand the smell from the corpses, but also from the many bodies lying burned in the houses. Here and there, the dogs tugged and pulled at the corpses. There had been about 25,000 Armenians in Mush; in addition, Mush has 300 villages, most of which had been Armenian. When we left Mush after three weeks, everything was burned down. Everywhere along the road where we met Kurds we were told the same stories. And the many corpses along the road! But those were only individuals; the female corpses were all naked. Then we arrived in Mamuret-ul-Aziz. All of the orphanages there were full, including several teachers, but that was all we found. I would like to repeat what the missionaries there told us. “The worst tortures began there at the beginning of May. The people who were arrested were clamped into pieces of timber, their feet shod with nails like horses, their beards, eyelashes, their fingernails and teeth pulled out, hanged upside down and similar things done to them. Naturally, many of them died, but some of them received medical treatment and were sent to the missionaries and so we saw what had happened. In order that the screaming could not be heard during the tortures, drums and pipes were played around the jail. Some of them confessed to things during this terrible suffering simply to confess something, in the hope of being freed. Then, at the end of June, Mr. Ehmann obtained a three-day respite from the Vali to enable the people to hand over their weapons during this time. The Vali asked Mr. Ehmann to tell the people that he would forgive them for everything provided they handed over their weapons. He even gave his word of honour that nothing would happen to them. Mr. E. believed him, travelled to the villages, convinced and assured them that they should hand over every weapon they had. In those places where they did so, the government began to arrest them in droves, and on 1 July the first crowd was sent off. There were 2,000 soldiers. It was said they were being sent to Aleppo to fix the roads. However, the people became afraid, for bad rumours had reached them. Then the Vali requested Mr. E. again to calm the population, it hurt him too much that it should have such great fear. But these 2,000 were killed in the ravines only a few hours from Mezeré. A few of them managed to untie themselves and escape in the darkness. The next day another 2,000 were sent towards Diyarbekir, among them several of our orphaned boys who worked for the government. A few people out of this crowd also managed to get away. They were tied together and taken away, but

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their desperation gave them the strength to manage. When the government saw that some of them managed to escape, they later let the people first suffer hunger and thirst for two days so that they would have no more strength. “On 3 July, 6,000 families, all of them rich, Gregorians as well as Protestants: by the time they reached Malatia all of the men had been killed; some of the women from this crowd got as far as Urfa, but their condition was terrible. In the meantime, the remains of the crowds from Keghi, Erzerum, Trebizond, Samsun, Erzindjan, etc., also arrived. Of those, actually only the women and children were still alive, and those who were still alive when they arrived in Mamuret-ul-Aziz were finished off there. Even worse than death was the terrible treatment which the poor women and girls suffered.” At the end of August, another crowd of 8,000 passed through Mamuret-ul-Aziz, and as far as we have heard from the Turks, they were all killed. Now some of the men (Protestants) were left, but the government was using every means possible to have them convert and become Mohammedan. I left Mezeré at the beginning of October. The piles of corpses along the way! I could hardly bear it. We also met several crowds of women and children; they were a miserable sight. The gendarmes riding with them spoke openly of what they did to the poor people along the way. When asked, “Where are they going?” they answered, “If no one else will take them and they don’t die, then we’ll just have to kill them.” A great many women and girls were taken by the Turks and Kurds, especially in Harput and Mezeré; the husbands of many of these women are in the United States. One can say that, as a people, the Armenians are finished; several thousand should still be alive. Should they also perish? Alma Johansson Enclosure 2104 Personal experiences before, during and after the deportation of the population of “Hadjin” and the surrounding area in the Vilayet of Adana. I spent over three years working primarily as a home missionary in Hadjin and the surrounding area and my personal, close contact with both the Turkish and the Armenian population gave me ample opportunity to study the people’s characters and their situation. I always had very friendly contact with the government and higher officers as well as the families of public officials, and this gave me a clear insight into the national and religious enmity of both nations living under the Ottoman sceptre. This intimate contact with the people of both nations was a great help in forming an impartial opinion based on observations of the turmoil, its beginning and the 104. Report written in her own hand by Magdalena Didzun.

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course it took right up until today. The following is meant to assist in recognising the “truth” about the deportation of the Armenians, which has been described and discussed so much. It is also meant to prove how this matter besmirches the “honour” of the German name, and finally, that a fair judgement and humane punishment have become impossible due to the fanatical “hatred of Christians.” I. How is the Armenian population in Hadjin to blame? Hadjin, with approx. 25,000 inhabitants in 3,000 houses, had about 200 Mausers at its disposal, as well as other small weapons and hunting rifles of no value from a military point of view. As in every other city in the whole world, there were various committees in Hadjin, whose membership lists were registered with the government and which were previously recognised as being “harmless.” It would be neither impartial nor wise to claim that there were absolutely no members of secret, revolutionary committees; however, someone who knows the population and has observed its behaviour can state with a clear conscience that there were few real “subversives” in Hadjin and the surrounding area, and that their ideas found little or no approval, especially with the Protestant population. If it had really been like this, there would definitely have been a revolt when a young man I know well, who had served five years as a sergeant in the gendarmerie, was shot in the market by a policeman for no reason at all, so that he had to be treated for four months by a government doctor. The fact that negotiations were initiated with neither the policeman nor the person shot at proves that the whole matter was simply put on. The policeman claimed that the reason for his act was that the young man was subject to compulsory military service and also wanted, and that he had said that he wanted to shoot the policeman—the policeman just wanted to prevent this and, thus, shot first. It was obviously forgotten that this statement by the policeman is very illogical. I. Someone who wishes to hide from justice is hardly likely to sit in an open marketplace at 11.00 a.m. II. If he had seriously been considering murder, weapons of some kind would have been found during the immediate examination carried out when he fell to the ground, but this was not the case. This happened after the conspiracy in “Dört Yol” had become public knowledge and caused a stir everywhere, and the population of Hadjin began to have a gloomy premonition. If they had really had thoughts of revolution at that time, the rebellious population of Hadjin would certainly have clashed with the government because of the unjust deed of the policeman, but this was not the case. Although they seethed inwardly at the injustice suffered, they kept silent. If an “experiment” that was meant to upset the population failed, malicious persons devised a new plan. Unfortunately, it has to be admitted that there are those among the Armenians who do not shy away from laying traps for their own people just for their own advantage, or out of hatred for individual people whom they would like to destroy. For example, very young men on the Hindchack Committee drew up

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a document for incitement in the Armenian language and attached it to the church doors. Those who read it first suspected that it was a mean trick and immediately tore it down—a short while later, a second one was found which the Armenian population gave to the government for investigation and in order to prevent disaster. Five young men were accused, two of whom have already been hanged; two each received one-hundred-year sentences and one, the leader of this affair, a thief, swindler and counterfeiter with several previous convictions, offered his services to the government to destroy his own people in return for his life. He was given his freedom and, as one of the government’s definite favourites, he served it by means of his statements, both true and false, which resulted in large judicial investigations to be initiated at the beginning of May by Alay Bey of Adana, who was appointed for this purpose. All military deserters were called in upon remittance of their punishment. All of them reported with the exception of two who came later, and, without being sentenced, were shot by the gendarmes bringing them to the court-martial in Adana because they had allegedly fled: how was that possible, when they were walking after being bound with heavy chains?! As the son of a wealthy family, one of those shot had taken 40 Turkish liras with him that disappeared despite his being guarded by the gendarmes. The families who asked for the corpses did not receive permission to bury them and had to leave them lying on the field as food for vultures and jackals. Thus, all military deserters were handed over, and now all the weapons were called in, with the promise that no soldiers would move in if they continued to be obedient and willingly hand over everything. Before the objects demanded could be handed over, almost 2,000 soldiers reported for duty, which led to the population being overcome by a great fear, and so part of the weapons were not handed over for reasons of self-defence. And this was the only reason weapons were kept in Hadjin, not for revolutionary purposes, as was suspected. This statement is upheld by the fact that the government had an excellent relationship with the population, and Hadjin’s obedient behaviour was recognised by the mayor, as well as both the gendarmes and the heads of police, yes, even by the Vali Pasha. Even Alay Bey admitted that although the population was simple-minded, it was not dangerous, and so he swore that, if the rest of the weapons were handed over, no one would be hurt, etc. Despite all their experiences to the contrary, people believed him once again and mutually encouraged one another to hand over even the most worthless weapons and implements, which they did. In the meantime, about 200 of the most wealthy and well-educated Armenians were taken prisoner. There were many among them of whom it could be said in all good faith that they had never been involved in political matters and were obedient citizens of the state. Despite all of the oaths and promises on the part of the government, despite all the weapons and deserters being handed over, despite all of the orders and bans being followed, deportation within 1-3 days now began. First it was the distinguished, educated classes who had to leave behind almost all of their possessions because only a few animals were delivered. Deportation continued in this manner until the beginning of November, and although everything went peacefully

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in Hadjin, contrary to other towns, it is still impossible to describe the wretchedness and misery; it must be seen to be understood. I use the following few as examples for many: The list is headed by women who were only a few days or even hours away from giving birth or who had just given birth and requested permission for some extra time, which was not granted, and so many of them were completely ruined because they were forced to give birth in an open field under terrible pain and deprivation. The crippled, lame and blind were partly treated in the same manner. A very small number of such wretched people were finally left behind in Hadjin. Because animals had been granted sparingly to large families with small children, almost all of their possessions were left behind, which means that rich families were suddenly poor as paupers, as their wealth consisted of goods and livestock. In addition, the drovers who were forced by the government without remuneration of any kind to bring the people, threw their loads off in the fields after a day or two and fled with the animals. Thus, people started to suffer hunger even before reaching Osmania, for what can people carry on their back, especially with small children?!! One group was even chased off without animals with blows from a stick. For example, a woman with 4 small children and no husband was driven away without any animal at all; she was expected to take food for 5 days with her, which meant that for 5 people she needed as much as for 25 days. What could she take with her? Her baby? Or more than 1 bed? Or clothes for 5 people? Or bread?! Or wheat?! Except for her small child, she is hardly capable of carrying one thing or another for months. In addition, the people were often pulled out of their homes and then, for days, made to wait 3-5 hours outside the town—in other words, they ate the little they had taken with them and then starved. On my present journey to Constantinople, I met numerous of these people dying of hunger, half-naked, sick, impossible to describe—perhaps the German officers will be able to do so, for they also saw this misery. In addition, many of those who were able to take something with them were robbed of everything, and the gendarmes (who accompanied them) admit this openly. At the sight of all this wretchedness and inhuman treatment, I remember again and again what high Turkish officers said: Madam. Our government carries out only justice and leniency. Germany wanted us to get rid of the Armenians, but we are so compassionate, that we only deport them—we give them so many animals that they can take everything with them. Furthermore, they are given the best assistance and protection to reach their goal. There, they are given houses, gardens and vineyards of the same value as those they have left behind, and so they start anew there and will soon be rich once again. The general report given by the Turks to the Germans is like this and similar, but the fact is that of all those deported, 2/3 are without pack animals and, thus, without their possessions. They are deported to the desert without any protection and assistance whatsoever, having to leave behind even the most necessary items, and here the Arabs are waiting to rob them of everything except the shirt off their

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backs and sometimes even that. If the women have gold fillings, their teeth are pulled out under great pain, etc. I dare to write this last sentence because it is taken from a letter from the desert. An Armenian soldier who came on leave met such misery and smuggled a letter in his shoe to those left behind in order to destroy false hopes. The letter stated further that there would be no reunion because everyone was dying of hunger or killed by the Bedouins. This is the fate of all Armenians beyond Aleppo!! Naturally, a small number will still remain who can shed more light on the matter at a later date … Once again, I must come back to my eye and ear witnesses in the Hadjin area. At that time, when relief, i.e. an order, of the Protestants could no longer be kept secret in Hadjin (as happened at first), the Protestants were promised that they would not be deported. However, after only a short while all of them with the exception of 5 families were deported under difficulties far greater than those experienced by others. Did this compassionate order not apply for everyone?! During all this it was openly admitted to me that Hadjin had never caused the government any difficulty. The Commissioner of Police admitted, “I have been here for three years and have never had any reason to complain—I honestly regret Hadjin’s fate; it is not just.” The captain of the gendarmes and some public officials who knew the situation in Hadjin made similar remarks. And now to the end and the height of my personal experiences in Hadjin: On 3 October 1915 at 9 in the evening, fire suddenly broke out in the middle of the market square, in the immediate vicinity of my flat. For a short while I observed how absolutely nothing was done to put it out—suddenly a jet of flame flew in the opposite direction from the centre of the fire. The cause?! The hose used under the supervision of Turkish officials had been filled with petroleum instead of water, and this was meant to put out the fire. Naturally, it assisted sufficiently in leaving barely 500 miserable huts (in the Turkish quarter) of the 3,000 houses there once were. All of the lovely Armenian houses, the church, the large American orphanage, naturally my flat as well: everything is gone. Hadjin is a heap of rubble. The possessions of the deportees, which had been piled up in one of the largest churches, were all exposed to the fire in order to avoid having to render an account of them, as a high public official stated when he was requested to give permission that the church be emptied quickly. The Protestant church, situated in a high place and separated from the houses by streets, was already burning before the next houses began to burn—why?! Eye witnesses—the assistant of the Protestant Mekhtar, Albarian—saw how gendarmes climbed the bell cage and started a fire there with petroleum, then climbed down to the church and started a fire there as well, repeating the process in the school which was in the same courtyard. The man then immediately attempted to save the harmonium, but this was not possible. I was on the street for the entire night, watching the few Armenians wringing their hands because they had lost everything. Eight days later, with the exception of

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10 craftsmen’s families, some soldiers’ wives, cripples, blind people, etc., about 200 people, all of these people were also deported, naked and without any means because everything had been burned. The captain came to me on the street, gave me his hand and—cried, he was that upset. When I asked him how the fire broke out, he shrugged his shoulders with a meaningful glance. Naturally, some people were quick to answer that it was the work of the Christians—when it was clear that this was not valid, it was said that a new immigrant from Salonika, a Turkish Lokontadshe, had started it through carelessness, but he was soon set free and now it is an open secret that the mayor knows very well how it started. Even some Turks came forward as witnesses! Thus, Hadjin can be considered to be ruined, and I vouch for every word that I have written down: I saw and heard everything and a thousandfold more myself. It must be mentioned that the mayor asked me whether I had heard masses of bombs exploding; this showed how bad the Armenians were because they had hidden them all. The gentleman was silent when I answered him, full of conviction, that it was petroleum, and that there had been large bottles of gas and spirits at the chemist’s, furthermore explosives in the sealed-off bazaars, as well as some cartridges here and there; if it had been bombs, this would have been clear from the explosion as well as from the destruction. Madam, you are a sharp thinker, he says when he has been convinced. Just a few short sketches of what my eyes and ears have met with in the neighbouring towns: Everyone, including the Protestants, was deported from Fecka, except the soldiers’ wives, while everyone including the soldiers’ wives was deported from Yerebakan. Roomlo and Schaar suffered the same fate; the latter village is mainly Protestant and hardly any Mausers were found there. This population is very poor and the little they took with them was tipped out in the field beyond Hadjin. All of them have been sent to Der-el-Zor and Cham, which means that the majority will die because of the tremendous change in climate and hunger. The Protestant preacher from Everek will bear witness to what happened in that town and the area surrounding it, and I can guarantee the man’s truthfulness. The German female missionary there also reported [the following]. In brief, a man was pumped up artificially and beaten 900 times in that condition. The wife of an Armenian pastor was terribly beaten because she was unable to give up a book demanded from her as it had been burned. The Protestant wife of a preacher, who was in jail with her, took care of her and testifies that she had to be carried out from time to time by four people. Many people’s feet were streaming with blood and they were forced to say that some wound had opened up. Glowing coals were put under people’s clothes, needles stuck under their fingernails, etc. Similar things happened in Schimakle. Ten men were shot without further ado, and it was then said that they had rebelled, but this is very questionable because all the weapons had been taken from the people long before. Many innocent people were hung in Kayseri,

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among others an Armenian priest whose jacket was tied by the tails on two sides, as was his beard. The cross in the Armenian church was ruined and abuse hurled at it, and so on. Is not the cross the most holy thing for Germany and its beloved ruler? And now I come to the statements made by the Turkish public officials, soldiers, men, women and children. Without any inhibitions, all of them say that it is solely Germany which has recommended these terrible atrocities against the Armenian population. Among other things, they say, “We learn everything from Germany, and are the Germans not Christians as well? But it was just these people who advised us not to leave one single Armenian alive.” An officer said to me, “The Germans are very harsh, but we are gentle towards these bad Armenians.” Just as our “enemies” wanted to dishonour the German name by lying, Germany’s “friends” do similar things to convince the Armenians that it is not the Turkish government which carries out these atrocities, but rather the Germans, i.e. upon their “order”!!! Well-informed Armenians do not believe this and hope to find their eventual saviour in Germany, but when? This is everyone’s anxious question. The large, uneducated crowd sees Germany as the enemy. Can it be held against them if such inhumanities and injustices are carried out under the German guise?! I would like to close by proving that the fanatical “hatred of Christians” is the motivating force behind most of the atrocities. The following suggestion was made in Hadjin, Everek and Kayseri: anyone who became a Muslim would not be deported, and this is what happened in Hadjin and Kayseri. Those Armenians who became Muslims in Everek were sent to Siss. In Kayseri, 300 families converted to Islam, and about 30 families in Hadjin, not out of conviction, but only to escape a sure death and agony. When asked, they openly admit this. Accordingly, was the deportation carried out for purely political reasons, or out of hatred against the Christians?! If it was purely political, one would have to recognise that, if a politically dangerous Armenian became a Muslim in name only, and was forced to do so, he would still remain an Armenian and now be especially dangerous politically because the government makes fun of that which is most sacred to him. Can a bad Armenian who is being tormented mercilessly be changed into a good “Turk” who loves his country by forcing him to change his religion?!—Never!!! Despite all that has been said and had some light shed upon it, it is still a far cry to claim that the Armenians are completely innocent. Unfortunately, the cause must be searched for in the Armenian people themselves, but only in individual areas, individual towns and among individual persons. It was certainly very unwise to look for the protection of other enemy powers in these times of war, but if one regards the people which have suffered from injustice and subjugation for centuries, if one must watch as they are constantly bled white and treated with hate because of their diligence, their industriousness and, through this, their wealth which causes jealousy, as well as because of their being Christian, then one tends to judge them more leniently than one would a German subversive who would deserve such treatment. Justice,

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compassion and freedom of religion reign in the German Reich where, unfortunately, there are still any number of revolutionaries, but should our entire people be judged guilty and punished without mercy because of this?! Even among the Armenians, in proportion, it is only individuals who did not suppress their yearning for freedom, individuals who, indeed, acted very badly. But should the Turkish government be allowed to carry out undisturbed its plan of annihilation for this reason?!! A high, well-informed Turkish public official said to his friend, Dr. Redshebian, in Adana under the seal of secrecy, “Of those Armenians deported, none of them will come back. All of those sent further on from Aleppo will be handed over to the camel drivers in the desert, and there they will disappear without anyone ever asking about them.” The fact that this public official told the truth is proven by his claiming at the time that it would make no difference to Turkish government whether or not there was a law not to deport Protestants and Catholics. And that is exactly what happened everywhere at that time: where there were few Europeans, Protestants were unknown. I am aware of the seriousness of my statements, but I am prepared to stick to all of them because they are the truth without any embellishments and, in addition, quite a shortened version. May a means be found of removing the disgrace which was wickedly thrown on the name of Christian Germany!!! M.[agdalena] Didszun

1915-11-27-DE-003 Source: PA-AA/R14089; A 35070, pr. 4.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 699 Pera, 27 November 1915 1 enclosure. A few days ago, the Patriarch of the Gregorian Armenians delegated two high-level clergymen to greet me on the occasion of my arrival, as is the local custom. They offered apologies for his not being personally present, for which he was sorry. I assume that the Patriarch wanted to avoid coming to meet me personally, in order not to arouse the suspicions of the Turkish authorities. The aforementioned clergymen

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presented the Patriarch’s petition in duplicate copy (here enclosed), in which he once again appeals for the help of the Imperial Embassy to put a halt to the annihilation of the Armenian people in Turkey. I will arrange to have my reply to the petition orally communicated to the Patriarch, saying that I will seriously endeavour to improve the lot of the innocent, as long as I, as the representative of a foreign power, am entitled to such an intercession with the Turkish government and as long as it does not take on the character of an interference into the internal affairs of the country. P. Metternich Enclosure Copy. Armenian Patriarchate Constantinople. Translated from French by Lorne Shirinian Constantinople, 10 November 1915 Confidential To His Excellency The German Ambassador For seven months, Armenians spread out in the greater part of the Ottoman Empire have been victims of the most atrocious persecution. Almost entirely driven out of their residences, and deported, they have seen their buildings and their properties plundered and confiscated for unimportant offences, and often for pure calumnies, hundreds of them have been hung, thousands, belonging especially to the intellectual class, have been condemned to death, without any form of trial. In several provinces, all of the male population above 10 years of age has been massacred, the young women have been kidnapped by Muslims, and the children torn away by force from their parents have been entrusted to the care of Islamic families. Finally, in other provinces, the Armenian population has been completely destroyed. The fields and the main roads are strewn with corpses; the rivers have transported quantities of them. There is no kind of atrocity and means of extermination which has not been put into practice, which we thought were the dark memory of the age of barbarism before the Christian era. One can estimate from 800,000 to 1,000,000 the loss of life among the Armenian people by these unprecedented persecutions. The remainder of the nation is currently dispersed in the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria and is destined, undoubtedly, to annihilation without mercy.

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Apart from the women and kidnapped children, one can quote thousands of cases of conversion obtained by force or by a pitiless necessity. The churches and the convents are partly in a state of ruin and the majority have been desecrated and soiled by vile use. Sacred objects of worship have been dishonoured and put on sale. In several provinces the members of the clergy have been massacred. The number of the priests killed exceeds a thousand. Not even the Bishops and the vicars of various dioceses have been spared; and until now one could not verify the violent death of 35 of them (18 archbishops and 17 vicars). What remains of the widows and orphans was divided into small groups in various localities inhabited exclusively by Muslims: and it is there, without church, without clergy, in order to ensure the final extermination of a nation, which since the beginning of the 4th century of the Christian era has continued to spread the light of the Gospel, and has unshakeablely held their trust in spite of centuries of persecutions. At the time when Islam was all powerful, the Armenian nation was able to preserve its religion and its church, but today, when the Christian world is, in its turn, in full power, Armenia is reduced to losing them under the indifferent eye of nations whose religion has made their strength and civilisation. This nation, famous for 6 centuries for its loyalty and fidelity to the Ottoman Empire, has, since the beginning of the current war, accepted the greatest sacrifices to fulfil its civic duty. The charges brought against it to justify unparalleled atrocities, are as of now shown to be pure lies, and the future will reveal all falseness, besides. At the time when the general war broke out, we naturally did not wait for the Powers to take charge of us, but the Armenian nation believed it had the right to hope that thanks to the protective influence of Germany, persecutions to which it has been exposed for centuries, and which have led to periodic massacres, would stop, and that it would finally enjoy a little peace. And now, today all the Armenians are wondering anxiously if they will be cruelly disappointed once more, if Germanic culture will tolerate the corpses of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims clogging the road towards the East of the victorious German army; if the rivers and the lakes reddened with the blood of so many women and children will not incite the pity of Germanic Christianity, especially in the face of the Jihad so glorified, which has had, as a result, the clearest extermination of a Christian people, who, for centuries in western Asia, adopted European civilisation with enthusiasm. At this moment, when thousands of Armenians are wandering in the mountains and the deserts, stripped of all, often even of the most essential clothing, having for enemies not only the various elements which surround them, but even the State which should protect them, at this moment when the ruins of these people without support, declared outside of the law, are exposed to all kinds of vexations and deprivations, decimated in this wandering existence by hunger and disease, and this not far from the railroad that has to pass through corpses to carry Germanic civilisation towards Mesopotamia, I address myself to you, Mister Ambassador, to request your benevolent intervention. May it serve, at least, to stop this unspeakable persecution!

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May it allow the wretched remainder of a nation worthy of interest to gather and find a shelter to save it from death. Your general support will reinforce in our hearts, once more, the conviction that powerful Germany fights for civilisation, respect for justice, and the protection of the weak. We are sure in advance that this appeal to your humanitarian feelings will not remain without response, and, in this belief, we request Your Excellency, to accept the expression of our confidence and our deep gratitude. Patriarch of the Armenians of Turkey [Zaven Der Eghiayan]

1915-11-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 36483. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) No. 913 Berlin, 29 November 1915 Further to Report No. 660 dated 9 November 1915. Unfortunately, Mr. von Scheubner-Richter’s report dated 5 November 1915 and other reports on hand give the impression that, despite all of our expostulations and warnings, the Turkish government is adhering to its disastrous policy on the Armenians. Apart from deliberations of a general humanitarian and political nature, and as sincere friends of Turkey and in their very own interest, we can only deeply mourn the fact that through their incomprehensibly short-sighted actions they are robbing themselves of one of the elements of the population that are most important for the economic development of the country. In both hostile and neutral countries abroad people do not stop making us responsible for the actions of the Turkish authorities. As Mr. von Scheubner’s report again confirms, there is a widespread conception, even among large parts of the Turkish population, that Germany incited Turkey to persecute the Armenians. We believe that, in view of the Porte’s loyalty towards its German allies, we may expect it to emphatically counter such rumours. I have the honour of requesting Your Excellency to speak to the government there in the sense given above and to take this opportunity to express once again the expectation that the Porte will follow our advice in its treatment of the Armenian question. [Jagow]

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1915-11-29-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 35268; pr. 06.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 701 Pera, 29 November 1915 1 enclosure. Further to the preliminary report from the 20th inst.—J.No. 10102105—and with reference to the reports from the Imperial Consul in Aleppo to Your Excellency from the 8th and 16th inst. (Nos. 2511106 and 2577107), I have the honour of enclosing for Your Excellency a transcript of the record concerning the Armenian riot in Urfa, presented here by the retired Resident Minister von Oppenheim. Metternich Enclosure The Armenian Riots in Urfa. The seed of the unrest was sown months ago: it can already be found in the occurrences in Van. News of that caused a certain anticipatory excitement all the way to Urfa, fanned by propagandists who obviously came over from that seat of rabblerousers. The excitement grew when, in connection with the general measures of protection against a spread of the Armenian danger, a number of arrests among the leaders of the Armenians were also carried out in Urfa, and those persons affected were killed on their way to deportation. This mood was also kept in suspense by means of the transports of Armenians expelled from the areas of Diyarbekir and Van, passing through Urfa in a fairly wretched condition, masses of whom died there of hunger and sickness. For weeks, at least, nothing was noticed externally of the occurrences in the offing, so that a large-scale deportation of the Armenian population of Urfa was at first not questioned at all. Count Wolffskehl does not assume that the interned enemy nationals played a part in the preparation of the revolts.108

105. A 34383 found under A 35115. 106. A 35045. 107. A 35046. 108. Sentence deleted for the distribution list.

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Two clearly determinable occurrences gave the signal for the open outbreak of the unrests. The first happened at the end of the month of August. At that time, half of a gendarmerie patrol searching a house in the Armenian quarter for weapons was shot down; the rest fled. This incident hardly became known in the bazaar and the surrounding Turkish quarter when the outraged Mohammedan population took its revenge on those Armenians to be found in the bazaar and on the streets, of whom about 100 were massacred. Through the intervention of the Mutessarif, however, precautions were quickly taken against further massacres. The Armenians then remained in their quarter for several days, where they barricaded themselves, but otherwise kept quiet. On the other hand, nothing was carried out against them, not even an investigation of the assault on the gendarmerie patrol. Thus, after a certain period of time, things seemed to return to their normal state of affairs. Then, at the end of September, the second occurrence took place: again, a shooting in the Armenian quarter, the reason for which, however, has not yet been cleared up (nor against whom it was directed). In itself, it was of no importance, as obviously no one was hurt, but it resulted in a heavier gendarmerie patrol being sent into the quarter on the next day to investigate the incident. Once again, this patrol was shot at and several gendarmes were killed; the rest escaped by fleeing. Then all of the Armenians who happened to find themselves outside the quarter retreated there at once, and in the shortest time possible the entire Armenian district was barricaded and put on defence alert. The Armenian quarter, almost half of the entire town, is extremely well situated for defence purposes on a hill which has many caves. In a very clever way, the Armenians had dug accesses to them from their homes, and the stockpile of weapons and ammunition was hidden there as well as in side spots which were pushed open by deep wells (later, after the suppression of the actual revolt, these underground constructions served the last defenders as places of refuge which were extremely difficult to find). All of the houses in the quarter are built of stone, some of them very solidly. Fitting out the houses for defence was also done with indisputably military skill: all of the doors and windows were barricaded, the walls had been broken out to make embrasures, the few streets leading into the quarter from outside were raked down their entire length from houses standing at right angles which were particularly heavily occupied. The same system was also applied over and over again with success and skill further in the interior of the quarter, which was full of nooks and crannies; a house which blocked an alley was always fitted out as a special base. The main bases were: in the north, the American mission occupied by force by the Armenians; in the southwest, the Armenian Church, school and surrounding houses; in the east, several groups of particularly solid houses. The entire quarter was divided into individual sections, each of which had its own leader. Most of the leaders probably came from out of town (from Diyarbekir, Van, Zeytun). The defenders amounted to about 2,000 men able to use arms. They were amply equipped with rifles, also many smallbore rifles, and had a great deal of ammunition. They did not have a machine-gun,

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but a great many hand grenades they had made themselves. The idea seems to suggest itself that the dynamite necessary for this had been put to one side in the course of time by the many Armenian workers employed by the railway building company. At the time when the defence began (end of September) there were only 70-80 gendarmes comprising the armed forces on the Turkish side, who were, of course, completely powerless. During the first days of October, the first military support arrived in the form of a battalion; but this could not yet consider a serious attack either. On 4 October, Fakri Pasha and Count Wolffskehl arrived.109 They were followed on the 5th by a further battalion with 2 military guns. The battle began on 6 October, during which (on the 12th) a third battalion with two 12 cm howitzers appeared. This was followed on the 13th by the main attack from the south, out of the valley and up against the church. On the 14th the latter and the surrounding houses were attacked, on the 15th the American Mission. The actual resistance was thus broken. As already mentioned, the last rabble-rousers retreated to the caves and wells from which they were brought out during the next 14 days; during this, small, individual battles broke out again and again. A larger number of houses was destroyed by the shell fire; the American Mission was also hit in the workshop and in the dome of its church. A number of houses were also destroyed by fires, which arose. The Armenians probably lost 3-400 men in the battles; the rest were taken prisoner and are awaiting further decisions. The Turkish losses amounted to some 50 dead and 120-130 wounded during the battle; there were some further victims during the search for the last few people hidden away. A few further short remarks on the role of the American Mission and its head. As has already been mentioned briefly, the Armenians occupied the American Mission by force while barricading their quarter. Together with the advantage the solid building offered them for their defence, they obviously also hoped that no one from the Turkish side would dare to shoot at the mission as long as the American missionary was in it; this is why they kept him a prisoner in the mission. The missionary soon attempted to write a letter to the Mutessarif, asking for his help, but the letter was intercepted. A second letter, thrown over the wall of the German factory by a messenger, luckily found its way to the Mutessarif and on to the military. The latter’s reply, in which the missionary was told he would have no difficulty in coming out with the foreigners who were with him, orphans, etc. (at that time it was not known that he was being kept a prisoner by the Armenians; rather, it was believed that he was merely afraid to pass the Turkish outposts) was, however, intercepted once again. After nothing happened for several days, the military wrote the same message to the missionary in black letters on a large, white canvas (the distance between the outposts and the mission was no more than 60 paces). This message was read correctly by the missionary; despite his ideas that after this advice the Turkish military no longer had 109. Count Wolffskeel’s name deleted for the distribution list.

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any obligation to spare the mission’s building for his sake, the Armenians did not release him now, but rather said to him categorically that he would be shot as soon as he made an attempt to leave the house. The missionary, on his part, was able to write the following words on a large cloth, “They won’t let me out.” Furthermore, he had to hold out during the entire battle and was only released during the Turks’ attack on the mission. He and his people were unscathed.

1915-11-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 36213; pr. 15.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 110/No. 2725 Aleppo, 30 November 1915 Your Excellency, I have the honour of enclosing a letter and an essay from the German missionary, Magdalena Didszun, from Hadjin, dated 15 September of this year, which only came into my possession during the past few days. They point out in a particularly clear manner the way in which large Turkish circles shift the responsibility for the Armenian atrocities onto Germany, adding a further trait to the descriptions formerly made known, namely, that forced conversions to Islam have been attempted and brought about. The essay also seems to me to convey the atmosphere remarkably well. In a further enclosure, I also respectfully submit the report of an Armenian, Sarkis Manukian, on his experiences on the journey from Erzerum to Surudj (southwest of Urfa). Manukian studied philosophy in Berlin from 1905-1908 and in Leipzig from 1908-1910, and received his master’s degree in philosophy at the latter university. For several years he was a teacher at an Armenian school in Erzerum; in the end, at the suggestion of General Posselt and then the German Consul von Scheubner, he was a teacher for German language courses. The same thing happened to his procession that so many others experienced: men and women were separated and the men murdered. There were no bullets left over for them; rather, they were slaughtered with axes and knives, two thousand men in one day. Gendarmes were involved in leading the victims to the place of execution, and the Kurds claimed that they acted upon orders from the government. The Kaymakam from Adiaman accompanied the procession before and afterwards. Draught animals, possessions, even pieces of clothing were taken from the women and children by public officials. Several times during the past few months I heard of the cruel manner of these murders, but I kept silent

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because I had no eyewitnesses. Manukian, who can be regarded as an irreproachable witness, experienced such scenes. He himself was saved thanks to his good knowledge of the Kurdish language. At present I am trying to ensure that he is allocated residence in a habitable town, or at least that he will not be deported any further from Surudj into the desert. Recently, Mrs. Gaidzak, an Armenian lady from Trebizond who was very wealthy until her deportation, came to me and said that of the 3,000 to 3,500 Armenians who suddenly had to leave Trebizond, only she together with 5 of her relatives arrived in Aleppo. Despite numerous attempts, she was not able to find out anything about where the remainder were and feared that, with the exception of the abducted women and girls, they had all been killed. She was able to save herself because several times along the way she met Turkish officials and officers who had frequented her hospitable house and who now looked after her. During these past few days, on the occasion of the epidemic control undertaken by the 4th Army, I had cause to draw the attention of the head of the general staff of this army, Baron von Kress, to a so-called “orphanage” in town run by the Turkish side, in which several deaths occur every day. Colonel von Kress inspected it and told me that the conditions there defied any description. He added something like, “When the Turks have the men killed during the processions, they can use the excuse that they must defend themselves against rebellion; when women and children are raped and kidnapped, the Turks can use the excuse that they do not have the Kurds and gendarmes under control; when they let those in the processions starve, they can use the excuse that the difficulties of feeding people on the march are so great that they cannot master them; but when they let the children in the middle of the town of Aleppo become run-down from hunger, cold and dirt, then that is inexcusable.” Only a straw mat had been put down on the stone tiles for the children as protection against the winter temperatures and groups of them, including sick children, insufficiently clothed, were covered with a single straw mat. The local Armenians had raised money and procured blankets with it. But when they came to the “orphanage” and requested permission to distribute the blankets, it was refused by the public official on the grounds that the government would take care of the children itself! A few days ago, the recently re-ordered transport of 50,000 Armenians by train from Radju and Katma to Ras-ul-Ain began—every day thousands are transported. Those seriously ill are also loaded onto the train. The dead are simply offloaded at the stations; yes, it has even happened that corpses were found between stations on the railway embankment. The railway administration has difficulty in mastering these conditions. And for normal passenger traffic during the past few days, the government even expected it to have its doctor determine the temperature of every passenger leaving from Aleppo and refuse to let him depart if it were more than 38°! The administration replied that the government should first ensure that no more sick Armenians were loaded on in Katma and Radju. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler

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[In Enclosures 1 and 3, Magdalena Didszun reports at length and repeatedly on the Armenians’ forced conversions to Islam and the absurdity that, although no Armenian himself has changed simply because his religion has changed, now, however, they were being decently treated as Turks. In order to convert to the Muslim faith, the Armenians were exposed to hunger for days near the towns. She also complains with frequent repetition that the Germans are blamed for the crimes, that the “inhuman treatment of the Armenians was merely carried out on German recommendation, yes, at the order of the Germans,” but that such treatment of the innocent was surely not approved of by the emperor in Germany.] Enclosure 2 Aleppo, 25 November 1915 My Experiences from Erzerum to Surudj. 500 families set off from Erzerum on 19 June of this year and arrived in Erzindjan on 2 July. The road was relatively more calm as three hundred soldiers and a captain accompanied us, although small attacks and robberies were often carried out by the Kurds. In addition, we had to pay the soldiers and their commander, Kiamil Effendi. We were ordered to do so. From Erzindjan, we arrived in Kamakh. There, with a list in their hands, the captain, Kiamil Effendi, and several “komitadjis” (Tcheta) separated 200 people according to their names and told them very simply that they had been designated to die. They were led away. From Kamakh, we arrived in Malatia. The government took 400 tents away from us there—our own. “We need them.” This behaviour was explained thus tersely by the Mutesarrif of the town. We were left with 4 tents. From Malatia to Surudj, the government gave us the civilian kaymakam, Nuri Bey, from Adiaman-Hussi Mansur as a leader, and the Kurd leaders, Hadji Bedr Bey, and his brother, Seynal Bey, had to be together with him, accompanied by their numerous people. We had hardly been on our way from Malatia for two days through mountains which had never been walked through, every day only for a distance of two or three hours, when we first understood why these Kurds accompanied us at the government’s orders. All of the men were gathered in a narrow valley—there were 2,115 males there. (We had to give our Kurdish and Turkish leaders money based on the number of persons; for this reason we made up a list and this is why I know the exact figure.) The women and children were already gone. The Kurds and gendarmes explained to us, “You will now die, but this is not our fault; the government demands it.” We were tied up. We did not attempt to resist out of consideration for our women and children. Seynal Bey took action; he had all of them brought individually to him by the Kurds and gendarmes, everything they had was taken from each of them and then they were executed barely ten paces further away. The head was cut off with knives and axes and the corpses thrown in a chasm. Ali Pasha, Nuri Bey’s brother, sat next to Seynal Bey, while Nuri Bey himself went on for a distance of half-an-hour. 2,000 people met their death here. Only 115 men saved themselves by a miracle.

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These were men who spoke some Kurdish and by promising money they managed to avoid being led to Seynal Bey; I, too, was among these men, as I speak Kurdish. The next day, when those of us who had been saved found the women and children who were two hours away from the place of execution, two public officials from Malatia came to take everything we had. We had to give away all our things: clothing, bed, objects of gold, money, furthermore oxen (over 800), horses, donkeys, etc., in order to save our lives once again. Two days later, the kaymakam and Seynal Bey demanded 3,000 pounds. Either we obtained this sum or we would die. The women still had some objects of gold and money on them, and we gave this away as well—all told it came to 1,000 Turkish liras. From here we arrived in Surudj seven days later; the entire procession had taken 3 months. Of the 600 families, 110 families are now left over (when we set out there were 500 families. Along the way about 100 families joined us in different villages.) Two friends of mine, Issahakian and Terlemezian, who also studied in Leipzig, were also among those executed. The latter had been in Van, but was staying in Erzerum when we were deported. Those who saved themselves from Seynal Bey were killed by epidemics. Now there are hardly 50 men left. Many women and children also die. Many women and children were led away along the journey. [Sarkis Manukian, Ph.D.]

1915-12-07-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 36184; pr. 15.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 711 Pera, 7 December 1915 Ref. Directive No. 857, No. 855110 and Telegram No. 2401. I have seriously discussed the Armenian atrocities during the course of the past week with Enver Pasha, with Halil Bey and today with Djemal Pasha and pointed out that wide circles both in allied foreign countries and in Germany were in the grip of unrest and indignation, and that unless these atrocities were stopped, these circles 110. A 32368.

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would end up withdrawing all their sympathies from the Turkish government. Enver Pasha and Halil Bey claim that no further deportations are intended, especially not from Constantinople. They take refuge behind the plea of necessities of war, that revolutionaries needed to be punished, and carefully evade the accusation that hundreds of thousands of women, children and elderly people are being driven into misery and ultimately to their deaths. Djemal Pasha says that the original orders were indeed necessary, but that their execution had been badly organised. He does not deny that the result was a deplorable state of affairs which he was trying to alleviate by distributing food and money. This is true. His military base around Aleppo is infested due to the wretchedness of the refugees, and he is seeking relief; he has also had several people hanged who had stolen from the refugees. Colonel von Kress, Djemal’s Chief of Staff, tells me that the misery simply defies every description and transcends all accounts. At the same time, rumour has it that the Germans actually wanted these massacres. I presented my case in an exceedingly sharp language. Protests are useless, and Turkish denials that no more deportations are to be undertaken are worthless. I have learned from a very trustworthy source that according to information provided by the local Chief of Police, which I beg to keep secret, lately about 4,000 Armenians also from Constantinople have been deported to Anatolia, and that the remaining 80,000 Armenians still living in Constantinople are to be gradually cleared away, 30,000 having already been deported during the summer and a further 30,000 having fled. Should a stop be put to this, then more severe means are necessary. I would therefore like to suggest publishing the following notice in the “Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,” with the instruction to me that it has been commissioned by the Imperial Government: “In view of the numerous reports that have reached Germany, partly through the foreign press, about the sad fate of the Armenians of Turkey who have been evacuated from their former homes to be resettled in other areas, a growing concern is spreading among large segments of the German people. If every state should be free to decide, particularly in times of war, to proceed with all severity that is warranted under martial law against rebellious elements of its population, then every precaution should be taken in executing the orders, which are necessary for the safety of the state, to avoid an entire race, including old people, women and children, having to suffer through the fault of a few individuals. “In view of the close friendly relations that exist between Turkey and Germany as a result of their alliance, the Imperial Government has felt obliged, as soon as the first news came through about the deeply unfortunate events which have occurred during the relocation of the Armenian people, and which seem mainly to have been caused by the blunders of subordinates, to urgently direct the attention of the Turkish government through the offices of the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople to the excesses and harshness and to repeatedly demand, both orally and in writing, that a stop be put to them immediately. The Imperial Government earnestly hopes that in

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the interest of both Turkey itself and the Armenian race these remonstrations will be complied with.” Also, our displeasure over the persecution of the Armenians should be clearly expressed in our press, and an end be put to our gushings over the Turks. Whatever they are accomplishing is due to our doing; those are our officers, our cannons, our money. Without our help that inflated frog would be slowly deflated. There is no need to be so afraid in dealing with the Turks. It is not easy for them to switch to the other side and make peace. The English government will not readily make a pact with the current rulers, more likely with Djemal, if he should oust Enver, which is not out of the question. For years now, the English government has been trying to bring Enver down. It is very unlikely that it will strive to make separate peace with the current rulers. But it is even more unlikely that it will avail itself of Enver Pasha to explore peace in general. It has hundreds of other channels available for such an exploration. In order to achieve any success in the Armenian question, we will have to inspire fear in the Turkish government regarding the consequences. If, for military considerations, we do not dare to confront it with a firmer stance, then we will have no choice but, with further abortive protests which tend rather to aggravate than to be of any use, to stand back and watch how our ally continues to massacre. The brain behind the deportation of the Armenians is Talaat Bey. He will not be returning from Anatolia until the end of the week. So I will not know until then what effect my discussions with his colleagues and with Djemal are having on him. I would therefore like to suggest that you wait with the publication in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung until you receive a further telegram from me. Metternich [Note Zimmermann, 16 December] It looks as though we shall have to do this. Your Excellency should, however, soften this article before publication. In its present form it would suit too well the purposes of the Entente. [Note Jagow] In particular the end should sound friendlier towards the Turkish government. [Note Bethmann Hollweg, 17 December] The proposed public reprimand of an ally in the course of a war would be an act which is unprecedented in history. Our only aim is to keep Turkey on our side until the end of the war, no matter whether as a result Armenians do perish or not. If the war continues much longer, we will need the Turks even more. I cannot understand

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how Metternich can make such a suggestion, although he does not rule out the possibility of Djemal taking Enver’s place.

1915-12-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 36483; pr. 18.12.1915 a.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 714 Pera, 9 December 1915 With reference to Directive Number 913 from 29 November.111 Today I had very serious discussions with the Grand Vizier concerning the Armenian question and have called his attention to the fact that the Turkish Government, through its persecution of the Armenians, is risking the support which it enjoys within well-disposed foreign countries. Moreover, that indignation is increasing in Germany, and the Imperial Chancellor is being besieged with letters requesting that he intercede with the friendly and allied Turkish government on behalf of the Armenians. I again also pointed out that although conspirators threatening the security of the state must be severely punished, the ignominious expulsion of hundreds of thousands of the old, children and women will cast a long dark shadow over the history of the Young Turks. On this occasion I intentionally raised official protests with the Grand Vizier and not with a member of the triumvirate, as it is known to me that he disapproves of the Armenian persecutions. Although he does not possess the power to stop them, it would be very welcoming for him to utilise my protests in his dealings with his colleagues. In conclusion, I spoke about the impropriety, which can be blamed upon lowranking Turkish civil servants, of making the false assertion that the Germans are aiding and abetting the Armenian persecutions. This slander, as I know irrefutably from travellers and other sources, is extremely widespread in Anatolia. We are not of a mind to share the responsibility for the Turkish government’s Armenian policies. Therefore, I requested that he take vigorous action to counter these rumours. The Grand Vizier was unaware of such rumours. He promised quite emphatically to have them denied. Moreover, he informed me that the Armenians had been victims 111. A 33278, enclosed.

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of foreign agitators, especially by Russian ones. Entire districts had been organised for an uprising and supplied with weapons. It was not about the uprising of individuals, but of entire areas, which is the reason why not just individuals could be singled out for punishment. Furthermore, he stated that he had not been in agreement with the treatment which the Armenian population had received. I remarked that, as he knew, the experience of history shows that revolutions are the result of poor government, and that the persecution and mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of innocent people cannot constitute a legitimate defence measure of a state. When I have something unpleasant to relate to the Turks, I do so with great calm, and they tolerate it. Even though there are no longer monarchists in control, there are still people who are ashamed of the Armenian persecutions among the older Turks. I would like to believe that my protests have not been entirely in vain. Djemal Pasha demanded certain concessions for the Armenians: namely that the Armenians who are still in Aleppo should be allowed to stay nearby, instead of being deported to Der-el-Zor on the edge of the desert where they would have died; that those Armenians (engineers, management personal, and labourers) who had already been deported should be called back; and that the artisans who have been sent into exile may now be employed again for army purposes. Djemal Pasha, who also belongs to those Turks who are ashamed, had up until now met with resistance in the Committee to the fulfilment of his wishes. Recently, however, as has been communicated to me by his Chief of Staff, Colonel von Kress, they have now been granted. He credits this to my intervention. The Colonel told me that the memory of the ghastly images of the Armenian misery will stay with him throughout his life. Metternich

1915-12-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 37207; pr. 25.12.1915 p.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 725 Pera, 18 December 1915 Today I discussed in great detail the situation of the Armenians with Talaat Bey, who has just returned from Anatolia. He has taken extensive measures to feed the deported Armenian families. Crimes committed against Armenian property and person will be severely punished. Twenty people who had committed these crimes have recently

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been executed. In the districts on the Russian border and near Aleppo, mass displacements had been necessary on the grounds of military security. A Russian-engineered large-scale conspiracy among the Gregorian Armenians in the border areas and near Aleppo has been discovered. Attacks on bridges and railways had been planned. It had been impossible to single out any individual culprit from the masses of these people. Only the deportation of the whole could ensure security. In Syria as well as in Constantinople the Armenians have been left undisturbed. At the moment there are no forced transportations taking place, and the government is trying to alleviate the abhorrent conditions resulting from the deportations. I remarked that the former Armenian-Catholic Patriarch and his deputy had paid me the customary first visit that day. He had reassured me that they and their dioceses were loyal Ottoman subjects and had not involved themselves in any revolutionary movements. Despite that, most of them had been deported. These priests hoped that those deported would be allowed to return to their parishes and abandoned homes in and around Aleppo. I asked the Minister if this would be also possible, and for the Protestant Armenians, who had also proven not to be revolutionary. He replied that the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, who had by and large not been involved in any revolutionary movements, would be allowed to return to their homes as far as possible. I then broached the subject with the Minister of the rumours that are widely circulated in Anatolia, whereby it is said that the German government had been in favour of the Armenian persecution. He replied, that as a result of my discussion with the Grand Vizier concerning this situation, he had ordered all the relevant departments to take measures to counter these rumours, and to explain that the German government had had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter and that the Turkish government carried the sole responsibility for the measures taken against the Armenians. In the course of the conversation, a peculiar opinion was expressed by Talaat Bey, a viewpoint which I had already heard from his colleagues, saying that we, in a similar situation, would have acted in the same way to eradicate a revolutionary movement in Germany with force. I have continuously observed the total lack of understanding for the viewpoint that the innocent should not be hurt when pursuing the guilty, and that only those found guilty of crimes should be punished. I made it perfectly clear to the Minister that we would never act in a similar way, and only those found guilty of crimes would be punished. From different sides I have learned that my exhortations to the Turkish rulers seemed, indeed, to have made an impression. Until I hear new complaints concerning Armenian persecutions, I will let the situation rest. All too many interventions do not achieve their purpose, as they dampen the effect. As soon as it becomes necessary I will, of course, intervene again. Metternich

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1915-12-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 00468; pr. 06.01.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 116/B.No. 2881 Aleppo, 20 December 1915 The two articles from the Frankfurter Zeitung from 12 October (weekly issue), transcripts of which I respectfully enclose, give me cause to make the following comments on the Armenian question: The German public obviously does not know the situation at present in the Armenian question because otherwise the newspaper could not have written that there was no confirmed news yet on the incidents. It states, “Only the uncouth excesses of the movement must be stopped.” “Any kind of lynch-law by the excited masses must be avoided at all costs.” In this way, it suppresses the main issue and fights against secondary symptoms, thus raising false impressions. In actual fact, this is about something completely different. The Deportation Commissioner sent by the Ministry of the Interior openly stated here, “We want an Armenia without Armenians.” This is the principle on which the government acted and still acts, the implementation of which has caused perhaps 4/5 of the entire Armenian population, including women and children, to be deported from its residences in Asia Minor and sent marching to Mesopotamia and Syria, mainly on foot. As far as is generally known here, only three towns have been completely excluded from this: namely, Constantinople, Smyrna and Aleppo. On these marches lasting weeks and months, the greatest difficulties have naturally arisen with regard to the rations, even in those cases where it was planned and ordered, and a large number of the wanderers have died from hunger, exhaustion and illnesses and are still dying every day, quite apart from their deliberate annihilation by government bodies and the population called upon or encouraged to do so by these bodies. The loss of human lives has been greater or less, depending on the region from which the deportees come; in eastern Asia Minor generally much greater than in the west. In the East, 75 % of the numerous processions will have died, insofar as women and girls were not abducted to Mohammedan harems or, in more favourable cases, found protection with Mohammedan families. The rest which arrived in Mesopotamia (e.g., in Ras-ul-Ain or Tell Abiad) were so exhausted that a great number of them also died. Under these circumstances, it seems risky to argue from the very beginning that the figure of 800,000 murdered Armenians published by the British is impossible. The Frankfurter Zeitung writes:

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“No one who knows the circumstances in Turkey will believe this figure. According to this figure, over 30% of all Armenians living in Turkey, including women and children, would have been killed. That is quite impossible.” Unfortunately, it is not impossible. I have reported again and again during the past few months on the most atrocious incidents and circumstances which have caused or accompanied the annihilation. It can be concluded that after such incidents the number of persons killed must be extremely high. It is estimated in whole, rounded figures as follows by those Armenians who are best informed, who are constantly in touch with the deportees arriving from all parts of the country: total figure of the Armenians in Turkey: 2½ million; of these, 1,200,000 in the eastern Vilayets of Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Harput, Sivas. In all of Asia Minor an estimated ½ million have been spared from being deported (for example, in the District of Marash not even 9,000 were left behind out of 50,000); an estimated half a million have arrived in Syria and Mesopotamia. Special circumstances exist in the province of Van, with perhaps 150,000 to 200,000 Armenians because it was a theatre of war and, therefore, it is not taken into consideration. The death rate of those who arrived in Syria and Mesopotamia is exceptionally high and will continue to remain so as a direct consequence of the deportation, which has, by no means, come to an end yet. Under these circumstances, a total figure of 800,000 killed is considered probable by circles which must be taken seriously, as they are usually better informed than others; yes, it is even considered possible that the figure is even higher. There is one difference, in that the men, at least those from the eastern provinces, mainly suffered violent deaths, while the deaths of the women and children came about by slower means so that the Turks could say, “They are dying by themselves.” If the figure for the number of Armenians in Turkey is estimated from other sources as being only 1½ million, then all of these figures would be correspondingly lower. But the percentage of those killed would remain the same. The government must have known the consequences of the deportation. This was already pointed out in June, but it continued to deport people. It gradually lost hold of the management because, even if it had wanted to, with its civil administrative body it was organisationally no longer in a position to feed the masses that had been plunged into misery. But through skilful intervention, thousands could still be saved even now. The Chief Censorship Authority sent a letter to the military Censorship Authorities on the treatment of official war reports from our enemies in the German press, which was published in Germany and which closes with the following sentence: “The fear that official news spread by the enemy could occasionally give cause for concern must be opposed by the consideration that real facts cannot be kept secret forever and that, in the end, lies are always recognised for what they are.” I respectfully request that Your Excellency graciously tend to consider whether the joint responsibility taken on by Germany through her silence and glossed-over presentation is not too great, both towards the German people as well as the world,

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and whether the political damage caused by the truth coming to light at a later date (and perhaps at a time that is inconvenient for us) would not be greater than the disadvantage which might arise for us by informing our public now. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure 1 Transcript Frankfurter Zeitung Weekly No. 41, page 2, from 12 October 1915 From Armenia reports have come from the Americans that the Turks there were guilty of atrocities against the rebellious Armenians. Lord Cromer also spoke of these incidents in the British House of Lords. Although he was of the opinion that it was hardly believable that the number of victims actually amounted to 800,000, as had been claimed, the true British despicableness then broke through. For Lord Cromer was of the opinion that, although there was no credible report on hand concerning Germany’s complicity in the murders, she was still jointly responsible because her influence in Constantinople was undisputed. Lord Bruce [Bryce] answered that it was necessary to inform the entire world of the report. The consuls reported on an extremely deplorable situation in their reports. Lord Bruce added that he considered the figure of 800,000 dead, which Lord Cromer considered implausible, to be possible. As in everything that is happening in the world, the Germans are now also being held jointly responsible by the British for the incidents in Armenia, on which no credible news has yet been received. Yes, in a report from Cairo the Times even published the brazen lie that German consuls in Asia Minor had led and encouraged the slaughters. Supposedly, Rössler, the German consul in Aleppo, had gone to Aintab to personally supervise this matter. In actual fact, the matter was exactly the other way around. The German consuls and the German missions have done their very best to prevent hardships which might have happened during the suppression of the unrests, or at least to alleviate them, and thus, it is perfectly clear that the German consul’s journey to Aleppo was not for the purpose of supervising the atrocities, but of preventing them as far as possible. But the British, who have until now not said one word of disapproval against the slaughtering of the Jews, the murder, plundering and ill-treatment of the Germans by their Russian allies, would now like to pin the supposed atrocities in Armenia on the Germans, using their well-known method. As far as this concerns us, we do not need to defend ourselves against this latest British propaganda. But we would like to point out that the Armenians must only blame themselves if the Turks were hard on them, and that if there have been riots in Armenia at the instigation of the Europeans, it is not Germany that is to blame, but our enemies, who have induced the Armenians in Turkey to revolt by agitating and paying them. During this revolt, many thousands of Mohammedans were first

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slaughtered by the Armenians, and even on 23 September an article in the London Daily Chronicle called Armenia the seventh ally of the Entente. If the Turks then took harsh counter-measures, it is the fault of the rebellious Armenians themselves; the joint responsibility, however, does not lie with Germany, but rather with British, Russian and French rabble-rousers. Enclosure 2 Frankfurter Zeitung Weekly No. 41, page 5, from 12 October 1915 “The Armenian Question in Turkey” Even since the time of Abdul Hamid, it had been the custom of all the elements with a centrifugal effect in Turkey to attract Europe’s “interest” in order to win advantages for their own desire for autonomy or political endeavours of all kinds from the resulting intervention. It was a very simple plan, and because England was always prepared to take a personal interest in the fate of the distressed on this earth—and such “distressed” were usually even created by her agents—in order to outwardly have the right to become involved and walk off with the greatest advantage for herself, the Armenian question is nothing more than the gate which England has always enthusiastically held open to give herself free entrance to Turkish policy. At the time, England even went so far as to have the poor and unsuspecting people in Armenia informed by her agents that a British army would come by airship to assist them and destroy the power of the Padishah, except that … the Armenians would first have to begin the revolution. An unparalleled incitement has taken place during the past 20 years, and it is a fact that during the World War an entire series of treasonous acts were committed by Armenians in England’s pay. During the battles of the Turks in the Vilayet of Erzerum, the Armenians spied for the Russians; near Alexandretta, the Armenians associated with the cruiser “Doris” lying in the roads for treasonous purposes; in Constantinople, Armenians were involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government. In addition, the Armenian is the most hated man in the Orient because, due to his higher intellect and his greater commercial talent and in his role as dealer, farmer general, banker and agent, he constantly cheats the slow Turk, becoming rich in doing so, while the Turk becomes poorer. In many cases this is not unjustified. But despite this, to generalise is wrong. It is, however, perfectly understandable that the uneducated people in Anatolia and, at its head, the partly-educated public officials, fanatic clergymen and super chauvinists become victims of such generalisations and kill the innocent with the guilty. Let us imagine what the French would do if a tribe lived among them that sympathised openly with us Germans, carried out secret service for us and attempted to murder Joffre and Poincaré! Would the French government succeed in suppressing the anger of its own people against such a disloyal tribe? It doesn’t even succeed in protecting

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our German prisoners of war from the vilest insults of a brutal crowd, which obviously believes it is fulfilling a patriotic duty by carrying out such “cultural deeds.” When Lord Cromer speaks of 800,000 murdered Armenians in the British House of Lords, this is a figure which has a political effect. That is the main point. The Lord pays a small tribute to his personal sense of decency by claiming that he himself does not believe this figure. No one who knows the circumstances in Turkey will believe this figure. According to this figure, over 30 % of all Armenians living in Turkey, including women and children, would have been killed. That is completely impossible. But even if there were considerably fewer victims and among them a number of innocent people, then everyone in Germany would deeply regret the incidents. All of the hypocritical malice of our enemies lies in the fact that it is now being said that we Germans assist the Turkish rabble in its pogroms. Quite the opposite is the case. We are attempting to calm the “Anatolian people’s soul” which has gone berserk and to protect the innocent. The difficulties which are arising for the Turkish government in the Armenian question should not be underestimated. The state influence of the masses works very slowly, considering the bad connections in Asia Minor, the mid-level civil service with its total lack of initiative, and the anger of the people against the spy and traitor, which it always regards more as a member of a foreign tribe than an individual. In Turkey, it is very difficult, particularly when the army has moved out, to quickly gain control of any movements, and doubly so if the motives of such a movement are basically patriotic and only its rabble-like excesses must be stopped. Despite these difficulties, the Turkish government must get things under its control. Any type of lynch-justice by the excited masses must be avoided under all circumstances. The government has the absolute right to have each individual who is caught in the act shot by its executive bodies—quick punishment is the best punishment—and also the right to bring any suspect in front of a court-martial; but all of these governmental acts must be carried out in the name of the Sultan and by executive bodies of the state authority, not in the name of the rabble or by Kurd robbers and all kinds of riff-raff. Public opinion in Germany is absolutely confident that our befriended [Turkish] government, after having shown its external strength in such splendid fashion to the world, will now also prove its internal strength.

1915-12-21-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 36794; pr. 21.12.1915 p.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Foreign Office

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No. 3013 Pera, 21 December 1915 From Baghdad, 20 December. Received from Prince Reuss on 17 December for forwarding. Berlin No. 13. At the suggestion of the military attaché, Sommer entered into negotiations with the Armenians in Teheran. He telegraphed the following concerning the results: “Direct negotiations with the leaders of the local Armenian Party showed that a change in the attitude of the Armenians in Persia and the Caucasus could not be achieved through local concessions, but rather only by going into the entire Armenian question. The most important desideratum: the establishment of an autonomous Armenia along the lines of a German state or a Swiss canton, if possible with a German sovereign under Ottoman supremacy. Immediate release of all of the Armenians deported by Turks and relocation in Armenian provinces. A guarantee by the German and Austrian governments that Turkish promises will be kept.” [Metternich] [Jagow’s Answer (No. 2527) on 22 December] Transcript. For secret envoy Secretary Sommer in answer to telegram no. 13 as well as for Minister Dr. Vassel and Field Marshal Baron von der Goltz. Let negotiations with Armenians die out. Should they insist, use lack of instructions as an excuse. Please inform Military Attaché Count Kanitz. For Minister Dr. Vassel as a personal orientation: out of consideration for Turkey, any engagement with the Armenians from Persia is to be strictly avoided; on the other hand, they must not be snubbed in any way so as not to give them any means of agitation to use against us.

1915-12-21-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/172; A53a, 7250; translated by Robert Berridge Notes by the Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Pera, 21 December 1915 The forced conversion to Islam of the Armenians in Anatolia. It began on a large scale and was systematically pursued in the province of Trebizond.

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Vice-Consul Kuckhoff (Samsun) reported about it in detail at the beginning of July inst. He wrote, among other things (A53a of 22 [July] page 176): “This involves nothing short of the total elimination or a forced conversion into Islam of an entire race. The government sent orthodox and fanatical Muslim men and women into all the Armenian homes for the purpose of spreading propaganda to encourage conversion to Islam, threatening the most serious consequences for those who stayed loyal to their faith. Up until now, many families have already converted and their numbers are growing daily. The majority resisted the temptations and in groups they were deported into the inner parts of the country daily. From what I have heard, they will be held in places not too far away and prepared more thoroughly for their conversion to Islam. In the area around Samsun each and every Armenian village has become Muslim, likewise in Unié. Privileges were granted to none except to the apostates.” Concerning isolated conversions in Trebizond: refer to page 204. At the beginning of August, a Muslim traveller from that area reported that in Unié, Samsun, Ineboli, etc., the Armenians had converted to Islam en masse. Despite this, some of them were still deported later. In Terme, the Armenian priest is now Muslim, and the church has been converted into a Mosque. (A53a of 23 [July] page 54) In other areas, it appears that conversion to Islam has not met with any more success. But still it was reported that in Konia a number of Armenians (25) were prepared to convert. One can assume that in many cases, the authorities, in order not to thwart the purpose of the deportation of the Armenians (i.e., the elimination of the men and the confiscation of Armenian property), have prevented any mass conversions, or have still deported those converted. A report from Sister Didsun, dated 15 November (Enclosed report Aleppo of 30 November No. 7078), concerns itself with the conversion to Islam of the Armenians in Hadjin and its surroundings (Adana province). Consul Büge reports personally from Adana on 21 October (Enclosure 3) in reference to J.No. 6226 in A53a of 24 [July]): “The Director of the Turkish orphanage explained to the Christian pupils that either they had to convert to Islam or they had to leave the orphanage. The girls left the orphanage, as well as a few of the boys, of which 14 stayed behind and have presumably been converted to Islam. The Director had explained to the children that in an Ottoman orphanage there was no room for the Christian religion. Moreover, it was forbidden for them to pray.” Here in Constantinople, 20 Armenians have supposedly been converted under the pressure of the situation, apparently those who are well situated in Anatolia and who are attempting to save their fortunes by converting.

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[Note Neurath, 20 December] Halil Bey denies categorically that forced conversions to Islam in numbers worth mentioning have been attempted. The lower civil servants have already been punished for the encroachments which have occurred.

1915-12-31-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/98; 10/12, 11790 (1915), 374 (1916). Telegraphic Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Embassy Constantinople to the Consulate Mosul No. 102 Constantinople, 31 December 1915 Please determine whether Stepan Tshiradjian from Diyarbekir is the representative for Arghana Maden there and what is known of his whereabouts, respectively. Telegraphic report. [Note by Mordtmann] At the request of Mr. Krumbholz, dragoman at the Austrian-Hungarian Embassy; this is a close relative of Dr. Lazar; transmitted here by the Imperial Consulate General. [From the Consulate in Mosul (Holstein) to the Embassy in Constantinople (No.1), 10 January1916] Answer to Telegr. No. 102. Until today, of those Armenians banished at that time from Diyarbekir to here, none of them have reached Mosul. As I was informed at the time by the local Vali, none of the Armenians from Diyarbekir stayed alive. Nothing is known here of Stepan Tshiradjian’s fate. [Holstein]

1916-01-03-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 02889; pr. 01.02.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) No. 10 Aleppo, 3 January 1916 5 enclosures. Enclosed your Excellency should please find, for your esteemed attention and with the request to kindly forward a copy to the Chancellor, a report which has only just reached me dated 8 November of last year, in which Imperial Vice-Consul Hoffmann from Alexandretta describes the deportation of the Armenians. Moreover, I am in agreement with the main points of this report. Rössler [Note by Wolff-Metternich, 28 January 1916] No 41 / 6 enclosures. Only one copy each of Enclosures 1, 2, 5 is attached. Presented to his Excellency the Chancellor Herr von Bethmann Hollweg after perusal. Enclosure 1 Imperial Consulate BN. 944 Alexandretta, 8 November 1915 I have the honour of reporting to the Imperial Embassy in the following on the situation regarding the deportation of the Armenians during the month of October, based on observations I was able to make during my presence in Aleppo while deputising for the Imperial Consul Rössler. During the month of October, the deportation of the Armenians reached a stage which affords an overview on the probable further course of events. Due to the difficulty of surveying the area and the vastness of it, across which the persecution of the Armenian population is spread, it is only possible to judge the actual events for the most part based on certain final results, from which one can draw conclusions as to what has gone on and is still going on behind the scenes. Thanks to its central position, Aleppo is still the focal point of the deportation of the Armenians and, therefore, a particularly suitable location for gaining an overall picture of the occurrences. 1. Extension of the deportations. At the end of October, the evictions had spread to the Armenian population of the whole of Anatolia, as far as the outskirts of Constantinople and Smyrna. The only

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ones who were not affected were the citizens of Constantinople (from whence, however, numerous “suspicious” persons appear to have been deported), of Smyrna and of Aleppo. The Armenian population of Aleppo seem to owe the fact that they are still here mainly to the resistance of those local circles who would suffer great financial losses if they disappeared. For the time being, those who remain are partly—and it seems only the very smallest part—the families of Armenian soldiers, who are otherwise without any male protection. Cases where they have already been deported are excused by explaining that all Armenian soldiers deserted. But this claim is quite impossible, especially to such an extent, and has actually been proven wrong. The employees of the Baghdad Railway and the Baghdad Railway Building Company have been spared so far, but I do not know whether this also applies to those of the Anatolian Railway. It was intended to remove the Protestant and Catholic Armenians—although the latter are only partly of Armenian race—from the coastal areas only. Moreover, they were supposed to be allowed to choose a place to settle further inland. But this has remained theory only. Those Protestants and Catholics who have arrived in Aleppo are being sent on, just like the orthodox Armenians, although the order for their exception has not been revoked. Up until today, staff and orphans of the German institutions in Marash were spared from deportation and, as it seems, also those in Harunie (Vilayet Adana) and Beirut. Those in Urfa were not exempted. There is no reliable news about the institutions in north-eastern Anatolia. Despite consular efforts, Armenian teachers at German schools (Adana, assistant helpers newly arrived in Aleppo) and other persons, whose exemption had been petitioned by the Consulates on the grounds of urgent German interests. The way in which the Turkish side dealt with this bore no sign whatsoever of the fact that Germany currently has a special relationship with Turkey. No exemption has been granted for American institutions. So much concerning the question as to who has been deported. 2. Massacre. It can be regarded as an established fact that in the actual Armenian Vilayets— quite apart from the war zone near Van—the deportation has been accompanied by the massacre of the adult male Armenians, but also partly of the whole population of Armenian towns and villages. The statements made by the survivors of such deported convoys are concordant with each other in such a way that a prior agreement to this effect is out of the question. The worst seems to have happened in Vilayet Diyarbekir, of which the Vali, Reshid Bey, according to verbal reports made to me by the Imperial Vice-Consul Holstein (Mosul) during his short visit to Aleppo in October, has declared publicly that he will tolerate no Christian in his vilayet. The government (in this case in Mosul) has tried in vain to deny this statement. According to Vice-Consul Holstein’s personal knowledge, gained during his journey from Mosul to Aleppo, the people

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have been exhorted by gendarme patrols from Diyarbekir and Mardin to “finish off” the Armenians. On the sparsely populated route between Mosul and Rass-el-Ain, Vice-Consul Holstein found five totally ravaged Armenian villages, including Tell-Ermen, which had been inhabited by 2,000 Armenians. Everything had been destroyed here, except for 15 to 20 people who were able to flee. Vice-Consul Holstein even discovered remains, such as dismembered heads and limbs, in the church. In the other four villages, almost everything had been desolated. Between Tell-Ermen and Rass-el-Ain, he stumbled upon five natural cisterns full of bodies, but he was not able to determine whether these had been battered to death or butchered. Along the whole route to the south of Nisibin he saw all the Muslims running around with scimitars. “Ermen” was their only thought.112 The credibility of the narratives by the survivors is supported by the fact that many, even most of the convoys coming from those areas were lacking men or older boys. More recently there have been attempts from a certain side to put forward the explanation that men and boys were only missing because they had fled into the mountains with their weapons. This admission, however— and please note that this is exactly what is involved here—contradicts the well-known strong family sense amongst the Armenians. Whenever the men fled in large numbers into the mountains, such as in the area around Suediye by the coast,113 they took the women and children with them. I know of cases where Armenian soldiers, having deserted, did not flee into the mountains, but headed straight for their families so that they could be deported with them, although they already knew what deportation entailed for them. In a few actual cases of armed rebellion against the deportation—in Fundadjak and Urfa—the rebels barricaded themselves in, together with their wives and children. 3. Method of deportation. The deportations from the actual Armenian vilayets were usually carried out in such a brutal manner that only the wretched remains of a mountain people who were known to be strong and healthy actually arrived at the collection camps (Aleppo, Mosul, Tell-Abiad, Rass-el-Ain, etc.). The accounts of the survivors of the agonies of the week- and month-long journey, of the plundering, the violation, abduction and sale of women, girls and boys by the accompanying guards and local inhabitants are made credible by the obvious condition of the survivors in Aleppo. Accounts related by irreproachable European eye-witnesses on their observations along the deportation routes corroborate these accounts. To the material passed on by the Imperial Consulate in Aleppo may be added a further report from a reliable source, whereby one must remember that the actual scenes of the occurrences described in the speech are, at present, practically inaccessible to Europeans. …In six places between Tell-Ebiad and Kueltepe I saw dead naked women lying near to the railway lines, also a dead naked woman with mutilated 112. Ermen means “Armenian.” 113. Suediye, meaning Musa Dagh.

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feet, then two dead children, another dead older girl, next to her a dead child, then the still clothed body of a dead woman and another dead woman who had been gagged. Also I twice saw two dead children, making a total of 18 bodies in all. The women, except for one, were all completely naked, and, as far as I could tell from the train, all showed evidence of maltreatment. All the dead children were still clothed. Between Kueltepe and Harab-Nass I saw a dying child next to a telegraph pole, a further six completely naked dead women and two dead children. A completely naked woman crept out from under a bridge and begged with widespread arms that someone take her with them. But she was left behind. In Tell-Abiad, after the convoy had started off near the railway, 17 dead and dying persons were left behind; two railway employees later arranged for all 17 persons to be buried. In other places a strong odour of decay was smelled from the train, but it was difficult to tell from there where the smell was coming from. For the past few days, all deportations of Armenians have been directed into these areas. As already reported before, the authorities have become aware of the bad impression that these miserable convoys make on the people of Aleppo and have re-routed them away from the town. I myself was a witness as to how the (Muslim) leader of a convoy of ten carts which, despite the re-routing, was making its way through a busy part of the town, was arrested by the police with severe reproaches. On each of those ten carts, 8 to 10 starving women and children were cowering, without any luggage, straw or water, without any trace of food, blankets, etc. One was dead, another lay there dying. There were no males with them over the age of 10 to 11 years. It has been reported earlier that some of the more attractive girls and women had been sold by the accompanying gendarmes and officers to the local Kurds. According to observations made by Vice-Consul Holstein, the price for a woman in the area through which he had travelled was anything up to 5 piastres (95 German pfennigs). It can be assumed that the authorities are not in agreement with this latter method of deportation of women and girls. However, many things contradict this assumption, for example the case of the two petitions from the Baghdad Railway Building Company, of which I take liberty of including photographs I have taken (Enclosures 1 and 2). Encl. 1 is a petition by the Aleppo Building Department of the Baghdad Railway for the exemption of 53-year-old Karapanos, foreman in Karababa, and his family of ten, including 4 sisters: Mariam (21 years old), Rosa (18 yrs.), Anna (10 yrs.) and Guelfedar (8 yrs.). The petition was dis-

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posed of with the order “With the exception of those marked in red, they can remain in Aleppo. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.” Marked in red are the 21- and 18-year-old sisters. Encl. 2 is a petition by the same division of construction for the sparing in Karababa of Shükri Hampar, employed as a baker, and his family of six, including the sisters Mariam (21 years) and Guertshi (18 years). The application was accepted as follows: “The two sisters cannot be exempted. The others are free. 22. Eylul 331. The military commissioner: Hairi.” There can be no doubt as to the fates of these four sisters who, as a result of the above orders, were separated from their families and deported without any male protection. I have searched in vain for an explanation to justify these orders. Anyone who knows about family life and morality in Turkey will not be able to free himself of the feeling of witnessing an outrage, of being astounded at the recklessness with which the Turkish authorities issue orders of this kind in answer to petitions by a German company. 4. Collection camps. The nearest destination up to now for the deportees arriving from the north and northeast were the stations Tell-Abiad, Rass-el-Ain and (for Aintab and Marash) Aktshe-Köjünli on the Baghdad Railway, then Aleppo. According to reports by the government, at the end of October about 20,000 people were accommodated in Aleppo; only a few of them were in individual homes (at their own expense), the largest part in caravansaries (“khans”) or in open field camps on the outskirts of the town. The convoys arriving from Central, North and West Anatolia are streaming into the collection camp near Ma’mureh (alongside the Baghdad Railway in Vilayet Adana) and on to the one in Katma (48 km to the northwest of Aleppo by the Baghdad Railway). By the end of October, according to official government reports, about 40,000 deportees had collected there. The government is providing no shelter whatsoever for these collection camps. The wealthier among the deportees have a small tent with them, the poorer ones are having to make do with improvised roofs made of mats, bedding, etc. In the way of provisions, the government supplies 100 drams of flour (= 320 grams) per day and per head, but only irregularly. Fuel for fires is not supplied; as there are no woods near the collection camps dry thistles are usually the only type of fuel available. As far as health is concerned, there are no facilities whatsoever. In particular, there are no latrine contrivances at all, not even the most primitive. There is not even a hole in the ground provided for this purpose. For the 4,000 people near Katma, one single source provides water, but those living closest to it are preventing others from getting to it. The conditions that prevail in these collection camps are shown in the enclosed report by a consular clerk concerning a visit which he happened to make in an official capacity to the collection camp at Tel-Abiad.114 114. Encl. 3.

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Because of the circumstances that have developed in the city of Aleppo itself, and in particular in the densely populated districts, may I humbly refer to the petition, submitted to the Imperial Chancellor by the teachers at the German Secondary School in Aleppo, a copy of which is again enclosed.115 I have persuaded myself of the correctness of the conditions described therein. The enclosed photographs116 only give a faint idea of this hellhole which the authorities use as a dumping ground for the sick, but also to accommodate the healthy, and which is situated next to three schools and several churches and close to a well-frequented bazaar in a densely populated area of the city, 10 minutes from government headquarters and just as near to the municipal administrative offices, 5 minutes from the next police station and 7 minutes from the offices of military communications and supplies. The number of deaths among the deportees in Aleppo increased during the month of October from 120 to 200 a day. Since the middle of the month, typhoid fever has spread rapidly. Three of the teachers who signed the above mentioned petition have already been infected. The occupants of the camp near Katma were transported by rail up till the end of September, but since then by road to the collective camps on the outskirts of Aleppo. It is also to this same place that those who had installed themselves in Aleppo are gradually being brought while, at the same time, the deportation is being undertaken from there. 5. Further transport. For the past few months, the deportees are being transported from the collection camps around Aleppo on to the places intended for their “resettlement.” At the beginning of the deportations (i.e., 2-4 months ago), the nearer points in Syria, such as Hama, Homs, Bab, Damascus, served as destinations. However, since the beginning of October—expressly stipulated in a poster displayed on walls in Aleppo—only the stations Rakka and Der-es-Zor by the Euphrates, as well as the Western Hauran (Kerak), and only very recently Ras-el-Ain (last station of the Baghdad Railway in the direction of Mosul) are being allowed as destination points. According to estimates made by a senior official in Vilayet Aleppo, by the middle of October about 300,000 persons had been sent on towards the south and southeast for the purpose of “resettlement.” At the beginning, the evacuation of these people was effected by train wherever possible, and then without. But towards the end of October, in view of the dangers to the general public caused by the delay in removing the Armenians from Aleppo, it was decided to use the train again, the preferred destination now being Rass-el-Ain. Parallel to this, there are continuous caravans of deportees to the other destinations mentioned. For transport they are partly using their own carts, but also camels, one 115. Encl. 4. 116. Encl. 5, not published in this collection.

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only for every one or two families. This usually means that a large proportion of the baggage has to be left behind, and most members of the family have to go on foot. During the last few days of October, the government has appeared to deport to nearer places too, in order to ensure a faster cleansing of Aleppo. Also it is said that Muslim land-owners have been allocated a number of deportees for resettlement. It seems that no rules and regulations whatsoever have been expressly specified, but rather the spontaneous ideas and moods of the individual officials responsible seem to be determining factors. Up to now, no consideration has been made for the profession or talents of the individual deportees. Recently, it seems that this is causing the military authorities problems because in many places there is a noticeable lack of certain categories of craftsmen and skilled workers. From what we hear, in the future craftsmen are to be resettled in places where they are needed. But, according to my experience so far, I consider it out of question that this rule will be applied consistently. The same will happen with this exception as with all the other exceptions. The route to be covered on foot or with animals is such that further deaths of deportees are unavoidable. To achieve this, it is not even necessary to ensure—as the Armenians are claiming—that the deportees are intentionally led along caravan routes which are not the usual ones with regular watering places. Once at the destinations for resettlement (i.e., usually Rakka, Der-es-Zor, Kerak, Mosul (approached from Rass-el-Ain)) the deportees are left to their own devices (according to statements made by the senior Vilayet official mentioned above). As this source tells us, there is a lack of means and officials for ensuring proper resettlement. It was therefore unavoidable that all the deportees perished. Despite its undoubtedly good intentions, the government did not fare any better with the Muslim refugees, in particular after the last war. In this respect, there is not much difference between the deportation of the Armenians and their extermination. Their own leaders estimate the number of dead by the end of October as being at least 600,000, basing their figures on the individual reports of arriving convoys. Whether or not the extermination of the Armenians was actually planned by the central authorities, is a question that cannot be answered. Eyub Bey, the former commissioner for the deportations in Aleppo (and who still holds a responsible position there today), is well-known for the statement with which he rejected expenditures for the use of orphans: You still do not understand what we want: we want to obliterate the Armenian name once and for all. That this is the intention of the executioners is easy to recognise by their methods of implementation. Indeed, a few days ago in Aleppo, a female Armenian deportee was accused of murdering her child. She had thrown her child into the Euphrates. But with this, the authorities did not elicit anything more than cynical derision. At least they did not succeed in conveying the impression that they were fearfully anxious to save the lives of the deportees.

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So much on the real conditions surrounding the deportation of the Armenians in October. I beg you to allow me to offer some observations about this state of affairs: 1. The political and military reasons, which were put forward to justify the deportation of the Armenians, are well-known. The fact that in and around Van (i.e., in the war zone) the Armenians, by way of treason, switched to the side of the enemy, is not surprising after all that had preceded; I suppose this development had been anticipated by the Turkish authorities. It is also a known fact that some of the Kurds were supporting the enemy. I do not dare to pass judgement on the meaning and the dimensions of the uncovering in Constantinople of the threads of a supposed conspiracy. It does not appear that the Armenians of Anatolia are directly implicated. Rather, the latter’s deportation on the one hand, effected by the Turkish government (the detailed explanation of 4 June of this year published in the 9 June issue of the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) and, on the other, by a certain German party (as reported by the Imperial Resident Minister Baron Max von Oppenheim to the Foreign Office on 29 August of this year) is being justified by referring to a particular seditious activity. For obvious reasons, verifying these accusations is very difficult. At least the one or other element can still be scrutinised. I will depict the charges made about Alexandretta as an example. There is a passage in the detailed government report dated 4 June that was mentioned previously: “Other Armenians have been brought by the English authorities from Cyprus to the area around Alexandretta. Amongst them were Toros, Oglu, Agop, on whom papers were found which prove without any doubt their criminal intent. These people have, amongst other things, caused trains to derail. On the other hand, the commanding officers of the English-French forces have contacted Armenians in the areas of Adana, Dörtyol, Jumurtalik, Alexandretta and other coastal regions and incited them to revolt.” The core of truth that is behind this official proclamation—of which I have only just become aware—is that one Armenian (Torosoglu Agop), who is said to have been set down on land near Dörtyol by the English cruiser “Doris,” was arrested there and found to be in possession of 40 allegedly English pounds. Everything else is embellishment. Neither were several Armenians involved, nor were revealing documents found on the named person, nor have Armenians caused trains to derail. The only derailment that took place was arranged by the cruiser “Doris” itself. Finally, it is incorrect that there were any other connections at all between commanding officers of enemy warships (land assault forces are out of the question) and Armenians in the identified places in the Bay of Alexandretta. As far as the mentioned spy, Torosoglu Agop, is concerned, he is said to have confessed before a court-martial in Adana and subsequently been hanged. However, what evidentiary value this conclusion of the court-martial has, is demonstrated by the fact that in the course of the same proceedings, the former dragoman of this Imperial Consulate, Balit, as an accomplice of

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Agop and allegedly accused by him, was arrested and sentenced to death without any further evidence or hearing; he barely escaped being hanged through the intervention of the Imperial representatives, until he was finally acquitted in Constantinople. Although I myself have not heard of any court proceedings in Turkey which were more frivolous than these, there are certain signs that Fakhri Pasha, the Deputy Commander of the 4th Army, who is known to be one of the brains behind the scheme of harshness against the Armenians, is still convinced today of Balit’s guilt. In his reports mentioned above, Baron Max von Oppenheim states, “During a brief enemy landing, which led to the destruction of the railway line of Alexandretta, without doubt spying and other services took place.” I have never heard this accusation, not even from the Turkish Muslim side, although the case is known to me in full detail. At least it cannot be based on facts, despite its alleged indisputableness, and probability does speak against it. If an English warship lands at night at a roadstead where English warships have been lying for months before the outbreak of war, and unscrews a few rails 30 m from the shore, resulting in the derailment of a night train, then the ship does not need any Armenian spies and locksmiths to do so. The “rich funds” of which the report relates as having been found on the spy (i.e., Torosoglu Agop), amount, according to Turkish accounts, to 40 pounds—as already mentioned, these were supposedly English pounds (i.e., a sum which could not have been unusual in the rich town of Dörtyol, where it is customary to carry one’s fortune around in one’s belt). “Traces of a militarily organised plot,” as the report goes on to describe, were neither discovered in Alexandretta nor in Dörtyol. In Alexandretta, a very thorough massive search of houses uncovered neither weapons nor any other incriminating documents. According to reports, however, some arms were found in Dörtyol. But this was not surprising, since the inhabitants of this area had been able to defend themselves only with weapons during the so-called Adana massacre in 1909, during which they were in danger of being butchered by their Muslim neighbours. The purpose of all this is to actually rectify the charges made against the Armenians, insofar as they involve the district that is within my jurisdiction and as such can be controlled by me. To draw conclusions about the value of the other charges will have to remain a matter of interpretation. Apart from the case of Van and its adjacent zone, particular caution is called for relative to the charge of a “militarily organised plot.” Certain local insurrectionary movements cannot be treated as proof of such. For example, the fact that the revolt in Zeytun cannot be singled out as a case of a conspiracy of that kind is clearly evinced in the reports of the Imperial Consulate in Aleppo. Also the anger of the inhabitants of Fundadjak in August and that in Urfa in October was probably, as one would put it, “militarily organised,” but locally restricted. It did not shape up as a by-product of a planned conspiracy, but developed on the spot spontaneously due to the threat of deportation. The uprising of the Armenians in the region of Suediye (to the south of Alexandretta) was, according to the descriptions even on the part of the Turkish

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military, not a conspiracy but, according to a Turkish admission, a spontaneous uprising, which was due mainly to the tactlessness of the Kaymakam of Latakiye in the proclamation of the order for deportation. The recovery of the revolutionaries from Suediye by French warships was also not a long-planned act. This is apparent from the circumstances and the opinions of well-informed Turks. How easily these kinds of events can be distorted by reference to “unquestionable facts” is shown in the case of the machine guns of Urfa. On the grounds of a testimony which he regarded as being first-rate beyond doubt, Baron Max von Oppenheim, in my presence, treated the use of machine guns (Russian?) by the insurgent Armenians in Urfa as proven and pursued threads to Van and Russia. Count Wolfskeel, on the other hand, who had taken part in the repression of the insurgency, dismissed the story of the machine guns as a tale belonging to a fairytale world. 2. It is quite a different matter when the deportation of the Armenians is justified with the fear that the Armenians could join up with the enemy in case of an enemy landing such as in Van. This fear is without doubt justified, even if it refers not only to the Armenians, but also to the other Christian segments of the Turkish population, and even many Muslims, as the case of the Kurds of the Bederhan faction, and certain significant Arabian tribes in Iraq and Arabia goes to prove. In any case, it is obvious that this can only be used to justify the evacuation of the endangered areas (i.e., in particular the coastal areas) and those along the military supply and communication routes, but not the total expulsion of the Armenians. 3. One probably arrives nearest to the truth when one admits, without attaching too much importance to the charges levelled against the Armenians, that the Turkish government recognised a welcome opportunity in the treason of the Armenians in Van to once and for all crush to insignificance the politically and—from the Muslim-Turkish point of view—economically equally onerous Armenian element of the population during the singularly favourable opportunity afforded by the current war. (I am, of course, aware that with this remark I am telling the Imperial Embassy nothing new. I am just adding it for the sake of the completeness of my report.) 4. Also it becomes obvious that this whole thing is mainly Turkey’s own business, unless one wishes to embrace, whether genuine or hypocritical, the sentimentality of the British and the Americans. Therefore, it is up to the Turkish government to decide how it is to handle those economic concerns relating to the deportation of the Armenians. By this I do not mean the one-time, although heavy, losses which the creditors of the deportees are suffering, and for which no one who is familiar with the circumstances is seriously expecting any compensation from that famous liquidation law of 13. Eylul 331. Instead, I mean the permanent damage which this sparsely populated empire is suffering through the sudden disappearance of several hundreds of thousands of workers who are capable of gainful employment. If every Armenian, as one occasionally hears and reads on the German side, were essentially a usurer and nothing else, then, of course, there would be no question of

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such a loss for the empire. In reality the hundreds of thousands of employable Armenians—whose total number on Turkish soil is estimated at being two million—are industrious and skilled craftsmen and energetic, hard-working and enterprising farmers. These facts are often overlooked by those who are eager to criticise them. And particularly the Armenians from mountainous regions, who mostly live off the land, without completely denying certain ugly traits attributed to the Armenian race, such as egoism, ungratefulness and unscrupulousness, are a much more pleasant type of people than the merchant Armenians in the cities who are known throughout the world. Physically healthy, fertile, mentally active and industrious, they are too valuable an asset to the economic development of this backward country not to leave behind them a long-marked gap amongst the Muslim population, which is sparse, mentally awkward, economically lethargic and in many cases already degenerated due to syphilis and other diseases. Much slighter losses of agricultural workers (e.g., the absence of the harvesters on the Greek islands during the Turkish-Italian war in the Vilayet Aidin) have had very undesirable consequences in the better cultivated areas of Turkey, as the sparseness of the population there has been chronic for many years. Will the Muslim-Turkish people, towards whose economic build-up the deportation of the Armenians admittedly was supposed to contribute, with their mental and economic backwardness, be in a position to take over such a great inheritance which has fallen upon them so unexpectedly, and for which takeover they are unprepared? According to reports from Turkish friends, the Turks are not oblivious to the great economic losses they are suffering as a result of the annihilation of the Armenians and to the difficulty of replacing them with Muslims, but they consider a more gradual and peaceful way to be impossible because in any form of peaceful competition, the economically less talented and unqualified would then soon become dead-beat. My Turkish friends are hoping, therefore, that this serious operation on the body of the Turkish economy will finally bring about a recuperation of the empire in the MuslimTurkish interest. In order to share this hope, one needs to adopt an optimistic attitude towards the capacity of the Muslim Turks for developing their economic relations and towards the resolve and capability of the government as far as economic discipline is concerned, an attitude which still appears to me to be hovering in mid-air without any props. Nevertheless, Turkey may perhaps also experience the rise of an Enver Pasha in its economy. In the meantime, according to reports, the Jews in Aleppo are trying to fill the gaps left by the Armenians. The Christian Syrians will be the next to follow. 5. As far as the question of the attitude of Germany to the deportations is concerned, I would like to take the liberty of commenting as follows on the basis of observations I made in Aleppo and locally: Regarding the damage suffered by German creditors and the German export industries (dealing with such things as colour pigments), Germany is not in any substantial way at a greater disadvantage than any other foreign countries. In my ac-

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counts above, I have touched upon the fact that the Turks did not give the slightest consideration for such German interests. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that enemy and neutral foreign voices in parliament and the press are assigning a special role to Germany as an accomplice, if not as an instigator. It will not be easy to say what damage to German interests will result from this. There can be no doubt that in this country itself, the non-Armenian Christian— both foreign and indigenous—population, which has witnessed the deportations, is convinced of Germany’s complicity and its complete indifference to the atrocities, which, with very few exceptions, people detest. For all their aversion to the Armenians, judging by confirmed reports, one can see in this the by-product of the same attitude which was evident in the “Belgian atrocities.” In other words, the Armenian atrocities and the “Belgian atrocities” are used alternately; because we have not prevented the Armenian ones, they believe in our role in the Belgian ones and vice versa. It can be expected that after a peace agreement, the choir of returning enemy rivals will intensify this attitude to the best of their ability. I can imagine no more effective material for agitation in this issue than the following scene: on the one side Germany, the powerful ally of the Turks, that, unmoved, lets hundreds of thousands of women and children be sent out into the desert to die, and on the other side, the French warships which (near Suediye) pick up and bring to safety 6,000 of these wretched people who already believed themselves doomed to meet their deaths and wished to die at least with weapons in their hands. The consequences for the reputation of the German name in Christian circles in Turkey are quite clear. The Muslims are also accepting this same argument of German consent. But the large majority, provided they think at all, seem to be thankful to us for allowing this radical “operation.” But on the other hand, also according to reports from reliable people, all kinds of Muslim voices can be heard condemning the atrocious acts, particularly those against women and children, as a sin against the commandments of Islam. These opinions are particularly apparent amongst the Arab Muslims. It is a well-known fact that their own Turks and what they do seem to them a priori to be disagreeable and inferior. This concurs with the frequently made observation that the deported women and children found shelter with the Muslim carters and drivers, who had been requisitioned for their transport, from the brutal acts of the accompanying gendarmes. Vice-Consul Holstein told me, amongst other things, that between Tell-Abiad and Djerablus, a sheikh of the Anese Bedouins had met an Armenian convoy and given it protection as far as Tell-Abiad in a very decent manner. He had been severely reprimanded for doing so by the local commander of supplies and communications. Moreover, the commander disappeared without trace two days later. Unfortunately, according to statements made to me by Vice-Consul Holstein and other reliable persons, the Muslims also seem to have found our tolerance natural, partly because we “would not have acted any differently in Belgium.”

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Finally, the Armenians themselves are, of course, generally convinced of our complicity, even of our instigation. Even where in exceptional cases it is clear and recognised that our attitude of allowing is not the same as approval, but rather the regrettable result of sensitive political relations, the Germans are still viewed as a complicit party because they had given the Armenian people a false sense of security. A calm-thinking Armenian clergyman (Protestant) once said to me, “We were willing to remain loyal. Until the deportations began. If we had started at that point to resist the beginning extermination of our people, we would have been in command of the situation and not doomed to ruination as we are today. But all our German friends in Marash, Haruniye, Urfa, Malatia and Ma’muret-ul-Aziz urgently advised us to submit ourselves and then nothing would happen to us. Believing in them, we followed that advice and the fact that we relied on the German influence proved catastrophic for us.” If the deportation of the Armenians would really lead to their total annihilation, then these Armenian opinions would be irrelevant. But, even if the deportations continue for several months, a considerable fraction of the Armenians will still remain, whether by virtue of the fact that due to the toughness of the race, a number of them may manage to pull through all the dangers life presents to them, or due to the versatility of the Armenian intelligence, through which they may find ways and means to save themselves, or because they are spared from deportation at all, such as the above-mentioned railway employees, the population of the above-mentioned cities, and individual rich people in other towns (e.g., Adana). In particular, the most influential elements will most likely survive deportation. The same applies to the approx. 25,000 Armenians who, according to Armenian reports, have converted to Islam in the north-eastern Vilayets in order to save themselves, also servants and children picked up in the streets, etc.. All these people will, of course, be deeply embittered towards Germany, even those who owe their lives to our intervention (railway employees), as gratitude is said to be an unknown trait of the Armenian character. They will be joined by the numerous non-Armenians who have suffered losses through the deportation of the Armenians or have even been ruined altogether. Both will reinforce the choir of our opponents in Turkey after the declaration of peace and will thereby find fertile ground in all parts of the population that have suffered economic losses during the war—and who did not—or have lost relatives. For surely it is not necessary to point out that no professed ideal can counterbalance this suffering for the largest, including the Muslim, proportion of the population. 6. As fruitless as the besmirching of the good German name due to the deportation of the Armenians is, practically speaking, it depends on whether it will end up producing economical or political disadvantages. As far as the future economic work of Germany in Turkey is concerned, she will still have to continue working with the non-Muslim elements, and that preferably. The idea that she could rely on the Muslims for support (e.g., in trade, as I heard

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being preached recently in Aleppo by a certain German side) even if the Consulates worked together with all their might to bring the Muslim element up to a trading status will probably remain a utopia for a long time to come. Germany will have to continue managing trade and shipping with foreign and local Jews and Christians, including the remaining Armenians. Fortunately, it can be regarded as out of the question that these trading elements of Turkey, perhaps with the exception of a few (foreigners), will be held back by their personal feelings towards the Germans from seeking their advantages in the exchange of trade with Germany. Even the Armenians will put tangible financial advantage ahead of their feelings. The more the Turkification of Turkey makes real progress, over and beyond pure outward appearances, and the influence of hostile foreigners and rajas thereby abates, naturally the fewer will be the attendant political drawbacks. In this respect there seems to be some hope for the time being. For the recruiting work of those Germans still living in Turkey, which will continue to be essential, the deportation of the Armenians will remain an embarrassing hardship, especially in terms of that deportation’s repercussions on the other accusations against the German army and people, even more embarrassing insofar as these people will often have to refrain, for political reasons, from expressing the truth and their opinions on the matter. And they will find the effect of this embarrassing issue particularly disturbing when they give up their bowling-club seclusion and begin to cultivate contact with other influential circles of the population, as they now earnestly must do in order to expand the scope of German influence. Hoffmann Enclosure 2 [Photographs of petitions by the Building Dept. of the Baghdad Railway, begging the exemption from deportation of a foreman and a baker, together with the members of their families, as well as answers from the military commissioner to the effect that the girls of marrying age are not to be exempted.] Enclosure 3 Aleppo, 20 October 1915 I would like to offer the following comments on what I generally observed in the collection camp of Tell Abiad: The Armenian camp can hold about one thousand people; formerly there are said to have been as many as 5,000. 600 are camping in a large court-yard, surrounded by bare mud walls, measuring about 80 x 100 metres and belonging to a khan, with rooms opening up to the outside. So these 600 are without a roof or any cooking facilities. 400 are camped down on the outside of the khan.

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These deportees are the remnants of various convoys from the north. Almost all of them are elderly women and children. According to my investigations, the men and any boys over the age of 11 were separated off during the journey, led away and probably murdered; the young women and girls over 13 or 14 years were either raped and murdered or sold by their guards or Kurds or simply given away. All these deportees are lying on the bare soil, without any covering. Their belongings have all been robbed along the way. Many are half naked since they have sold their clothing to buy some bread; most of them are only clothed in rags and are barefoot. All are full of vermin and have matted hair, as they have not been able to wash and comb themselves for months. Those camping outside appear still to have some vitality. Those lying in the yard are mostly so exhausted that they cannot stand up any longer, but sit around quite impassively, waiting for their death. An exhausted whimpering for water and bread is the only sound they make. They relieve themselves either straight into their clothes or next to themselves as they do not seem to have the strength to leave their places. The courtyard is therefore a huge pile of filth and breathes out a putrid smell. Most of those lying in the yard are reduced to skeletons and even those outside do not look much better. It is said that the people get 100 drams (316 grams) of bread each day from the authorities, of course of the worst possible quality, sometimes even some meat (as claimed by the authorities). The condition of the people is such as to prove sufficiently that these supplies are delivered irregularly, to say the least. Probably only those receive any bread—which, according to a statement by a very reliable European who is living there, is supposed to be the blended type—are those who can fetch the bread themselves and pay for it. Anyone who is too exhausted to fetch any bread is doomed to die of starvation. The gravedigger claimed that for the past 2 days, no bread has been distributed at all; his complaint was dismissed with lashes of a whip by the gendarmerie sergeant on duty. After admitting to me about the lashes of the whip, he then went on to excuse himself by explaining that he had no more flour. When I showed him the full sacks of flour outside his door, he changed his excuse as he pleaded lack of firewood, and finally blamed the Kaymakam for the bad conditions. There are no epidemics in the camp. According to the gravedigger up to 40, on average 25 to 30 persons, die each day of exhaustion, hunger, dysentery, etc. Burials take place in mass graves, which are dug about 100 metres from the centre of the camp. During my first visit I saw two open ditches, one containing 16 to 20 naked corpses all thrown on top of each other (e.g., both legs of a female body were stretched in the air, while the invisible torso was hidden by other bodies), in the second, which was only half full, were 8 bodies, also naked, and all so emaciated that it was hardly possible to recognise their gender. As soon as a grave is full to the top, which sometimes takes 24 hours, it is covered with such a thin layer of earth that graves like this are letting off a pestilent stench. At the beginning the bodies were simply dragged to the graves with a rope, but later an official of the Baghdad Railway

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had a stretcher made. The bodies are sorted out from the heaps of inhabitants of the camp by the gendarmes and passed on to the gravedigger. We encountered one of these “bodies” on our way back from the graves. It was still showing unmistakable signs of life. Mr. B. described this as an everyday occurrence. The massive camp falls under the rule of the Kaymakam Ghareb Bey of Ein El Aruz, which lies half an hour from the camp. It was interesting for me to hear his comments on these conditions. He introduced himself to me as an opponent of these deportations of the Armenians. He said, if the Armenians have betrayed us, then only the guilty ones alone should be shot or hanged. But the women and children should be spared. He was doing his best to improve the fate of the deportees in Tell Abiad. But if he did not supervise the situation regularly, the Armenians would get nothing to eat. He claimed to be a man with feelings and could not bear to see atrocities of this kind. According to the Kaymakam, the one to blame is the gendarmerie sergeant, Neshib Ahmed (i.e., the same one who was trying to put the blame on the Kaymakam, as described above). On the other hand, Mr. B., who can be considered to be absolutely reliable, told me the Kaymakam had said in his presence he could watch the Armenians “dying wretchedly” for hours on end. As far as the further fate of the convoys that had collected in Tell Abiad is concerned, they are usually sent on from Tell Abiad towards the south, to Rakka by the Euphrates in order to be “resettled” there. According to the Kaymakam, for the time being, this was impossible for the remaining transport described above because the Shamar Bedouins had revolted once again against the government and were occupying the routes leading in that direction. Needless to say, the result meant the annihilation of the deportees, one way or another. As for the impression which these circumstances made on the Arabian Muslims, I would like to comment as follows: I, as well as Mr. B., who is living there, are convinced that the Arabian Muslims, or at least the greater proportion of them, are not in agreement with the Turkish action. I would like to quote the following expressions as an example: when I left the square with the kawass Mahmud, an Arabian Muslim, he was completely depressed and told me that this dreadful sin (haram nedjim) could only be committed by Kurds and Turks. An Arabian Muslim would never do such things. The magazine worker Abdel-Rany [illegible], who was described to me by Mr. S. as being reliable, told me when I had fetched the deported Gottlob family out of the camp, “May God repay you for this noble deed because you have given the gift of life to 10 poor creatures from the camp. Those who treat women and children like the sergeant did, have no religion. When I asked the magazine foreman in Tell Abiad to prepare some warm water for the Gottlob family, so that they could have a bath, the Muslim magazine workers were eager to chop wood as quickly as possible and make up a fire to help the family. Another seemingly honest worker (Arabian Muslim) told me that he regularly gave part of his bread ration to the Armenians, but unfortunately there were too many to be able to feed them all. It should be a well-known fact that

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the Arabian Muslims do not consider the Turkish ones to be equivalent believers anyway. W. Lechnig Assistant Consular Clerk Alexandretta Enclosure 4 Aleppo, 15 October 1915 As teachers at the German Secondary School, for which an unforeseen broad field of activity has just opened up, we, the undersigned, consider it our duty to bring to the attention of the Foreign Office the sad effect the atrocities which we are having to witness daily in connection with the deportation of the Armenians, are having on our hopeful work. We do not wish to dwell on the bloody acts of terror with which the evacuation of the Armenians from their mountainous lands usually begins; on the thousands of men who are butchered to death, either after being drawn aside or even before the eyes of their families; not on the numerous girls, women and children, who are being molested or mutilated by the guards and their accomplices and whose naked corpses are left lying by the wayside, along which the ever new hoards of deportees must pass. Nor do we wish to dwell on the indescribable brutality, the thirst, the hunger which is decimating those who are left, mostly widows and orphans who have been robbed of their very last possessions, before they, often only mere skeletons, arrive here, only perhaps one in six left, and that person is sent out again into the desert on a similar pitiful journey without any means of livelihood—and all that just to be rid of the Armenian name. We presume that all this has already been made known to the Foreign Office by its representatives here in this country. On the other hand, we take the liberty of throwing light on a small segment of the massive misery that this act of extermination of a people is producing, a segment with which we are being confronted as the atrocities in question take place in the immediate vicinity of our school, only separated from us by a narrow alleyway. There is a large old khan which the Turkish authorities have put at the disposal of the Armenians for their refugees, in particular for the severely ill. So it is a type of hospital, at least as one would think. Let us go in through the narrow entrance corridor! Some cellars, with miserable starving figures clothed in rags, lying on the bare soil, at best spread out on some impoverished remains of their travelling possessions. Women and children. Now and then an old man. There is a lack of men in their prime. We go through to the yard. It has become the only lavatory. Along the edges, in front of those cellars, heaps of sick people, some dying, some dead, all lying together

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in their own filth. Millions of flies on the exhausted sick and on the corpses. Groaning, whimpering, here and there a cry for a doctor, some complaining about their eye sockets, tormented by the thousands of flies. Next to the naked body of an old dead man, two children relieving themselves. We stride across the courtyard which is covered with excrement and enter a cellar on the opposite side. A dozen children, half starved, impassive, some of them dying—or already dead? Nobody is attending to them. Out of a dark niche, the halfdecayed body of a boy is pulled out. It had not even been noticed until there was a strong smell of decay. There are orphans whose mothers have died during the past few days in these rooms. No doctor is around. No medicines to provide relief. These, too, are condemned to this awful death. They will starve. The government supplies to this “hospital” lentils or bulgur (a type of wheat meal), or black “soldiers’ bread.” The weakened stomachs of these poor creatures, who have been driven, often for weeks, even months through the heat without water, can no longer stand this kind of food, which would not be even remotely sufficient anyway. Dysentery, exhaustion, typhoid fever are the results… In the meantime, porters appear with coffins. Some of those who have died within the last few days are laid in the coffins, just as they are, carried to the next cemetery and emptied into the mass grave. Transport in coffins (which are purely a means of carrying them) is not sufficient. After all, 100 to 150 of the survivors who arrive here die each day. The bodies are transported away on trucks, a tarpaulin covering up the worst. Legs, now and then a head, hang down as the carts rattle along the streets. And immediately next to the scene of such horrors, we German teachers are forced to introduce our pupils to German culture. They have perhaps just met a cart full of corpses on their way to school, or heard the groaning of the wretched victims, their coughing through the open windows of the cellars, or have been begged upon by miserable creatures who, to get a breath of air, have crept out onto the narrow street, but through their weakness have not been able to creep back again and now, covered in flies, lie dying on the street. How should those schoolchildren feel if they are Armenian, and who are being taught history and local geography, religion and other subjects by us, their teachers, while in the yards opposite the school their compatriots are starving to death? Well, don’t you think that the Muslim children will go mad when they hear our teachings in the face of such pictures? After all, there are indeed numerous, decent Muslims who condemn this mass murder of innocent women and children as a sin against the commandments of God the Merciful, and search for the instigators among the Germans, not believing that their own government can be the author of such sinful atrocities. Here, ugly blots are threatening Germany’s shield of honour in the future historical memory of the peoples of the Orient! It is not our business to question the political justification for the deportation of the Armenians from their mountainous regions. But we wish to, and feel we must, point out with a loud voice: that the work in the German school is suffering irrepa-

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rable damage in this country if this type of dreadful deportation continues in the form of a mass murder of women and children, the like of which has probably never before been known in history. We have confidence that our sublime Foreign Office, through its influence, will succeed in putting a stop at the last minute to this outrageous practice of murdering, and in freeing us German teachers from the shame which is weighing us down more and more each day, as we are suspected of being accomplices, here already—among both the Christians and the Muslims—but later throughout the whole world. Senior teacher Dr. Niepage Marie Spieker The descriptions given by my colleague, Dr. Niepage, are in no way exaggerated. For months now, we have been breathing the stench of corpses and been living among the dying. Only our hope for an imminent end to this appalling situation gives us the strength to continue working at the school and the willpower to summon our dwindling strength to prove to the local non-Turkish people that we Germans have personally nothing to do with the terrible methods applied in this country. Headmaster Huber Dr. Eduard Gräter Enclosure 5 [Photographs of the camps near the German Secondary School]

1916-01-03-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 02888; pr. 01.02.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 16/K.No. 2 Aleppo, 3 January 1916 2 enclosures. Your Excellency, I herewith present to you the following news concerning the deportation of the Armenians. 1. Copy of a report from Urfa by Deacon Künzler on occurrences there since the beginning of August up to the beginning of December. Even though it is true that the report tends to repeat some facts which are already known, it is worth repeating. In

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particular, it becomes clear from this report that between 500 and 1,000 Armenians had already been slaughtered before the battles began at the beginning of October (i.e., 100 in the town, several hundred of a workers’ battalion in the north of the town and 400 of a workers’ battalion in the south of the town) apart from those already deported beforehand and murdered on the way to Diyarbekir. New is also what he has to report on the fate of the town after its being overpowered. 2. Copy of a report by the engineer Bastendorff, who, during the decisive events, was employed for several weeks in Ras-ul-Ain and Tell Abiad to work on the Baghdad rail line and whose credibility is no doubt the very best. His oral reports were even more horrifying. At any rate, the written report also contains enough facts to permit an insight into the deliberate and intentional destruction of the deportees by Turkish state organs. The account by the Armenians, which is told over and over again, that the convoys full of exiles were deliberately driven backwards and forwards in order to “run them to death,” is confirmed in this report by just one example. One group of deportees from Urfa was forced to take the following route: From Urfa to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka, from Rakka to Tell-Abiad, from Tell-Abiad to Rakka. The distance from Tell-Abiad to Rakka is about 90 km as the crow flies. 3. The fact that has already been related frequently and just been confirmed once again, that the governmental organs have ordered and encouraged people to participate in the persecution of the Armenians, can be discounted in as far as Djemal Pasha, the highest commanding officer in the 4th Army Division, was not personally in favour of destroying the Armenians. His willpower was not strong enough to put a stop to it all, but it is a relief to be able to note a conciliatory gesture just once within this appalling picture. The Armenian assembly camp in Islahiye, despite being defended by German engineers, was subject to 6 weeks of raids by Kurds, during which even women and children were butchered to death. When Djemal Pasha finally got through and was informed about this, he sent in his 12 bodyguards. These took immediate forceful action against the Kurds and took some of them captive. Subsequently they were hanged. If the conditions among the ranks of the 4th Army, although they are bad enough, still cannot compare with those of the 3rd Army, then, besides the differences caused by the geographical and political situation, as well as by the varying conditions of the communication routes, the influence of Djemal Pasha can also be taken into account. 4. While I used to report frequently that the bodies of the Armenians remained unburied and thus became the victims of animals of prey, according to the latest reports I have received by word of mouth, there can be no longer any doubt that even those Armenians who were still alive, but who were camping in the open air in a state of disease and exhaustion and were not being cared for by anyone, were bitten by dogs.

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Testimony of this has been given by an elderly German engineer who is absolutely trustworthy. He was stationed in Arab Punar and was in charge of the section between there and Harab Nass. This fact was observed not only by himself, but also by his native employees. His name can be provided on request. The stench of the corpses in the area between these two stations was so strong that he had to mask his face several times when passing along there on horseback. This same report is being dispatched to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure 1 Copy Urfa, 5 December 1915 I presume that you have been fully informed of most of the occurrences in this area since August. However, I would still like to repeat certain things. Perhaps there are some facts among them that you still do not know. At the beginning of August, two Beys arrived from Diyarbekir. Immediately following this began the deportation to their deaths of those Armenians who had already been held prisoner for a long time, including our pharmacist Abraham. On 15 August, a new search for young Armenians began, allegedly to enrol them for military service. On the 19th, a policeman was ambushed during a house search, at 3 in the afternoon: the other policemen escaped to the Muslim district and reported the incident to the authorities. Halil and Ahmed Bey, the two mentioned above, gave the order to begin a massacre. By evening about 100 Armenians had fallen. The next day about 100 Armenians from the work battalion were brutally murdered about 1½ hours to the north of Urfa. A day later, 400 from a work battalion who were working in the south. Since 19 August, things have been quiet, but the Armenians are staying in their homes. On 29 September, the police started looking for the young Armenians who had fired shots from their houses the previous night. Here, they in turn were fired at. Anyone who was able to flee, did so. Those Armenians who happened to be on the market were slaughtered, but since 19 August only very few have dared to come out to go to the market, etc. By that evening, the Armenian quarter was already barred for Muslims. Then began the siege, which was doomed to end bitterly for the Armenians. On 16 October, most of the Armenians who were in no way involved in the conspiracy, in particular women and children, gave themselves up. Those men who had surrendered were murdered, some were hanged. The women and children were gradually deported to the south. The search for the remaining Armenians who had not surrendered, but who had gone into hiding in wells, etc., took quite a long while, in fact up to the middle of November. At the beginning, they allowed the bakers, who were not involved in the revolution, to stay alive and work in their shops, but on 20 November, they too were removed from there, were led out of the town and then brutally killed.

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The few Armenians who had taken the dubious course of showing the Turks the way to the hiding places were allowed to remain with their families in Urfa. The pharmacist Karekin was also allowed to stay, but such people were now more or less forced to become Muslims. Today, our pharmacist was strongly recommended to at least take on a Muslim name if he wanted to stay. Probably our doctor has received the same advice, too. The people of the only Christian village that was completely uninvolved in the revolution, Garmudj, were also deported last week! Very sad indeed! I often think, if only someone from here could get through to Rakka, Der-el-Zor, etc., to help the rest of the survivors of the deportations. But I am sure that the government would not permit any help on our part. So we have no choice but to simply let these people, with all their good and bad sides, perish. [Jakob Künzler] Enclosure 2 Copy. Aleppo, 18 December 1915 Dear Consul Rössler, At your request I would like to deliver a short outline of what I have either observed in Ras-ul-Ain and Tell-Abiad, concerning the martyrdom of the Armenians, or what I have heard from reliable direct sources. My observations begin in Ras-ul-Ain. At the beginning of June, the first news was spread about the massacres on the Russian and Persian borders. When the workers on the Baghdad Railway were collecting their wages on 12 June, 6 gendarmes suddenly appeared, as well as about 12 Circassians, and ordered all Armenians to be brought to the Kaymakam. During a remonstrance presentation to the Kaymakam, together with Fehmi Bey and Durri Bey, both employees of the Railway Company, the Kaymakam declared that he had not given any order for the Armenians to be arrested and commanded them to return to their work. But prior to this, they had been plundered. I later learned from older policemen that the Kaymakam had taken his share of the loot. As I had been informed by various Muslims from Ras-ul-Ain that there would be yet another arrest of those Armenians whom the Kaymakam, himself, intimidated and only by our forceful interventions, had previously released, and that the second time the Armenians would not escape death, I arranged for all Christian workers to be brought back to Urfa. At the beginning of July, the first Armenian deportee convoys arrived from the Russian and Persian borders. There were women and children who had been plundered during the journey by Kurds and left without any means whatsoever. They were assembled by the lake without a roof over their heads. It took 6 days until the government provided any food. Every day new deportee convoys arrived and the number of emigrants in Ras-ul-Ain increased to more than 10,000 within a very short space

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of time. In the meantime, the second stage of deportations began in the direction of Der-el-Zor. The Circassians and Arabs from Ras-ul-Ain took the prettiest girls home with them, many of them had already been retained by the Kurds during the journey. The policemen carried on a flourishing trade with the girls: against payment of a few Medjidies, anyone could take the girl of his choice either for a short while or forever. The supervisor over the Armenians in Ras-ul-Ain, a certain Nuri Shaush, even declared in the presence of our doctor Farah, that it always gave him great pleasure to deflower Armenian girls under the age of 12 years. I must also mention one particular scene that I experienced at the station in Rasul-Ain. A train full of soldiers arrived. About 10 of the men were weak and ill. An Armenian doctor, who was treating them himself, declared them to be too exhausted and that it would be recommended to send those who were ill to Aleppo for a week for convalescence. Then a Turkish doctor came up and grumbled that the patients were just being lazy and that the Armenian only wanted to ruin the Turkish state. The army commander took his whip to the Armenian doctor and then ordered him to be tied up and brought to Aleppo. In September I arrived in Tell Abiad. There, the soldiers who supervised the railway had murdered and plundered all the Armenians who had settled near the railway. Immediately before my arrival, the Kaymakam had assembled about 3,000 women and children, who came from the area around Amasia, and put them in a house near the station. These people, who had been on the move for 4 to 5 months, were suffering from hunger, dysentery and typhoid fever. Neither bread nor any other food had been supplied by the Kaymakam. Whoever had been lucky enough to hide some money on himself in such a way that it had not been stolen on the journey, had the opportunity of buying some bread from a bakery. All the others who had been robbed of all their money were doomed to starve to death. About 1,000 died within one month. This khan presented the most deplorable picture: all the starving people, near death, the ground covered in human excrement. The Kaymakam actually declared one day, “My heart is not as sensitive as that of the Europeans; it doesn’t bother me to watch these people dying.” Understandably, typhoid fever spread to the ranks of the railway staff and, in answer to complaints by the Railway Company’s management, the khan was dissolved and the Armenians were transported to Ain-el-Arus which was 5 km away. More than a thousand of them were so weak that cart and mule had to be requisitioned to transport them. The remainder of them died later in Ain-el-Arus. In November, the women’s groups arrived from Urfa. One woman who recognised me again begged me to rescue her children. The supervisor pushed her back and shouted to her, “No one is going to be rescued here; you’ve got to walk until you drop dead. And wherever you may happen to end, the dogs will eat you.” Soldiers from Hama, who were accompanying this group, demanded that the supervisor arrange

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for some bread, as the women had already been on the move for two days. His answer was merely, “They can drop dead; they’re not getting anything to eat.” After a stay of several days in Tell-Abiad and Ain-el-Arus, this group was sent on to Rakka. From Rakka they were sent back to Tell-Abiad, as they were allegedly bound for Mosul. From Tell-Abiad they were then sent back to Rakka. In the meantime the nights had become bitterly cold which, of course, did the rest towards making another journey backwards and forwards superfluous. Almost 10,000 emigrants who arrived in Tell Abiad came in November and at the beginning of December from the direction of Urfa. In a conversation with the railway commander, Djemil Bey, and an inspector, Mahmud Bey, our doctor, Dr. Farah, asked to where all these Armenians were being transported. Djemil Bey answered, “To Rakka.” Mahmud Bey, who personally disapproved of the way the Armenians were being treated, retorted, “On the way to Rakka.” All steps taken in respect of the Armenians, as far as I could see and observe, led to the conclusion described to me by the Director of Emigrants, Shükri Bey, “The final result must be the extermination of the Armenian race. It is the continual battle between the Muslims and the Armenians that is now being finally fought. The weaker of the two must be the one to go.” [Bastendorff]

1916-01-11-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 00972; pr. 11.01.1916 p.m.; translated by Vera Draack Question from Karl Liebknecht, Member of the Reichstag, in the 26th Session of the Reichstag Berlin, 11 January 1916 Dr. Liebknecht’s questions (Social Democrat) No. 12: The Armenian population in Turkey (No. 187 in the enclosures): Dr. Liebknecht (SD.). . . . . . . . . . . 512C, D Point of order . . . . . . . . . 513A Dr. von Stumm, Head of the Political Department in the German Foreign Office, Imperial Minister. . . . . 512D President: We will proceed with the agenda. The first item on the agenda concerns questions. I first call for question no. 12 (No. 187 in the printed documents). Member of Parliament Dr. Liebknecht will take the floor to read the question.

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Dr. Liebknecht, Member of Parliament: Is the Imperial Chancellor aware of the fact that during the present war hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the allied Turkish empire have been expelled and massacred? What steps has the Imperial Chancellor taken with the allied Turkish government to bring about the necessary atonement, to create a humane situation for the rest of the Armenian population in Turkey, and to prevent similar atrocities from happening again? President: Dr. von Stumm, Imperial Minister and Head of the Political Department in the German Foreign Office, will take the floor to answer the question. Dr. von Stumm, Imperial Minister, Head of the Political Department in the German Foreign Office, Commissioner of the Bundesrat: The Imperial Chancellor is aware that some time ago the Sublime Porte, compelled by the rebellious machinations of our enemies, evacuated the Armenian population in certain parts of the Turkish empire and allocated new residential areas to them. Due to certain repercussions of these measures, an exchange of ideas is taking place between the German and the Turkish governments. Further details cannot be disclosed. (Member of Parliament Dr. Liebknecht: I ask to speak in order to supplement the question!—laughter.) President: Member of Parliament Dr. Liebknecht will take the floor to supplement the question. Dr. Liebknecht, Member of Parliament: Is the Imperial Chancellor aware of the fact that Professor Lepsius virtually spoke of an extermination of the Turkish Armenians … (The President rings his bell.—Speaker attempts to continue speaking.—Calls: Silence! Silence!) President: Sir, that is a new question that I cannot permit. (Member of Parliament Dr. Liebknecht: Mr. President, a point of order!) —All right, a point of order. Dr. Liebknecht, Member of Parliament: Before the President has not heard the end of the question, he will not be in a position to judge (laughter) whether it is a new question. Besides, I emphasise that the President did not reach the opinion that this is a new question on his own initiative (lively calls: Oh! Oh!), but that this was first called out to him from the House. President: Member of Parliament Dr. Liebknecht, I will not permit you to criticise my administration. (Lively cheers.)

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1916-01-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 01651; pr. 18.01.1916. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the German Foreign Office 1 letter. Alarming! Letter from Dr. Ritter to Professor Becker in Bonn. Pp. 6 and 8 contain information on the massacres of Armenians and Syrians. [Note by Wesendonk 18.1.] Consul Schabinger with a request to examine the Arabic passages. Secret! The Arabic passage on p. 4 contains an [illegible] inscription and is harmless. P. 11 is Turkish. Translated into German (S. Beck), it says the following: “On both sides of the road we saw Armenians who had been beaten to death. We counted 9 of them. Most of them were women. One of them had nails hammered through her hands and arms. But whatever …” 24 January 1916 Mittwoch [Note by Wesendonk 26.1.] The letter must be sent on in confidence [Note by the Foreign Office, 3 February] Request that this be treated confidentially. [Note by the Foreign Office, 3 February] According to information from Dept. II, the enclosed wording is used for requests to treat something confidentially. [Directive] The enclosed letters are to be put in a German Foreign Office envelope and sent sealed as “Printed Matter of the Reich” with the following remark: As the enclosed letter contains military and political news, it is in the interest of our country to keep its contents secret. Berlin, 3 February 1916

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1916-01-24-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14089; A 02530; pr. 28.01.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 29 Pera, 24 January 1916 In reference to the directive from 12 December of last year - No.949.117 In response to my protests the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Halil Bey, categorically denied, that any significant number of forced conversions of Armenians to Islam had been attempted. The lower civil servants involved in those reported cases of encroachments had already been punished. The assurances of the Minister are contradictory to the concurring reports which the Imperial Embassy has been repeatedly receiving concerning this question from different localities and from independent sources. From the detailed statements of Vice-Consul Kuckhoff in Samsun, which have been confirmed from other sources, it can be concluded that in particular in the districts around the Black Sea the attempts to Islamicise the Armenians, partly through persuasion and partly through threats, has been carried out on a very large scale. Elsewhere, moreover, where numerous Armenians on their own initiative have decided to turn to Islam in order to avoid exile and the confiscation of their property, the authorities have not given any privileges for this gesture and have deported them despite their conversion. Apparently it is feared that the real purpose of the Armenian deportations, that is the total extermination of the Armenian race, could be thwarted by further mass conversions. Since then another, less conspicuous way, has been pursued. In October of last year, Consul Büge in Adana reported that the head of the local Turkish orphanage notified to the Christian pupils that in an Ottoman orphanage there was no room for a Christian religion and, therefore, those who did not convert to Islam were to leave the home. Upon hearing this, the Christian children, with the exception of 14 young boys who have presumably converted to Islam, left the house. Furthermore, the Armenian Patriarch informed us here in mid December that in Anatolia they had begun to allocate the female members of the deported Armenian families, whose male members had been murdered or had disappeared, to Muslim 117. A 35310.

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villages in groups, in order to convert them to Islam. The War Ministry has also ordered all Armenians currently doing military service to become Muslims, and that they should already be given Muslim names, while the actual formalities are to be reserved for later in consideration of the war situation. Finally, it is claimed that also here in the capital, Turks are often exerting pressure on Armenians so that they convert to Islam. Nevertheless, the number converting in relation to the total number of Armenians in the population is minimal. Apparently up until now only 20 Armenians have embraced Islam, amongst them especially those who are affluent in Anatolia and seek to save their wealth by means of their conversion. Metternich

1916-01-26-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 04212; pr. 15.02.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) No. 236 Aleppo, 26 January 1916 Copy.118 Regarding the question of the deportation of the Armenians out of Aleppo, I learned the following from a police commissioner with respect to an individual case: Orders have been given to deport every Armenian who is not in the possession of Identity Papers (“Teskere Nufus”) issued in Aleppo, without taking into consideration the time already spent in Aleppo. Only those issued there are valid proof that the holder is not among the deportees. Therefore, if an Armenian came, for example, to Aleppo ten years ago from another Turkish town to settle there and holds a Teskere Nufus from the other town, without having had reason to exchange it for a local one, then he is doomed to deportation. With this order the Government possesses an effective weapon with which to deport the majority of the local Armenians. Only those born here are safe, as long as they are registered with the authorities, something, which is commonly known, is not the case throughout among Ottoman subjects. Of the immigrants, including those who had immigrated before the deportations began, a considerably high number will not be in possession of the local residence 118. Copy presented to the Imperial Chancellor from Metternich.

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permit. The police are busy with checking these permits and some local Armenians have already been deported in this way. Rössler

1916-01-26-DE-004 Source: PA-AA; R14089; BoKon/98; A 02682; pr. 29.01.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to the German Foreign Office Frankfurt am Main, 26 January 1916 I take the liberty of presenting you with a copy of the report from our Sisters Beatrice Rohner & Paula Schäfer,119 which I received with your kind assistance, as I am unsure whether you filed a transcript of it for yourself. Yours sincerely, F. Schuchardt Enclosure 1 Report of Sister Paula Schäfer on 16 November 1915. Just now I am coming back from a ride on horseback through the Baghché-Osmania plain, where thousands of exiles are lying on fields and streets without any shelter, exposed to the power of any kinds of brigands. Last night about 12 o’clock a little camp was suddenly attacked. There were about 50-60 persons in it. I found men and women badly wounded, their bodies cut open with broken skulls or in a terrible condition through stabs with the knife. Fortunately I was provided with clothes, so I could change their bloody things and then bring them to the next inn where they were nursed. Many of them were so much exhausted from the enormous loss of blood that they died in the meantime, I suppose. In another camp we found 30-40 thousand Armenians. I could distribute bread among them. Desperate and half-starved they fell upon it; several times I almost was pulled down from the horse. A number of dead people were lying about unburied and only through money could the gendarme be persuaded to have them buried. Mostly the Armenians are not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives. Bad epidemics of typhoid-fever broke out everywhere; a patient lay in almost every third tent. Nearly everything was transported 119. Passed on to the Embassy in Constantinople on 3 February 1916 (No. 79).

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on foot; men, women, children carried their few belongings on their backs. I often saw them break down under their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with the butt-ends of their rifles, even sometimes with their bayonets. I have dressed bleeding wounds of women that resulted from these bayonet-stitches. Many children had lost their parents and were now without any support. Three hours from Osmania two dying men were lying absolutely alone in the field; they had been here for days without any food or even a drop of water, after their companions had continued their march. They had grown as thin as skeletons and only their weak breathing showed that there was still life in them. Unburied women and children were lying in the ditches. The Turkish officials in Osmania were very obliging, I could obtain many things from them, and many a grievance was redressed. I got carriages to gather the dying people and to bring them to town. Enclosure 2 Report of Sister B. Rohner about a Visit in the Camp of Mamouret on 26 November 1915. We saw thousands of tiny low tents, made out of thin material. An innumerable crowd of people belonging to all ages and every class of society! They were looking at us partly surprised, partly with indifferent desperation. A group of hungry begging children and women were at our heels: “Hanum, bread! Hanum, I am hungry, we did not eat anything today and yesterday!” You had only to look into the greedy, pale faces, full of grief, to know that their words were true. About 1,800 loaves could be procured. Everybody fell greedily upon us; the priests who were charged with the distribution of bread had almost to fight for their lives. But it was by no means sufficient, and no further bread was to be had. A large number of hungry people stood imploringly before us. The gendarmerie had to keep them back by force. Suddenly, the order for departure was given. If anybody did not hurry in striking their tent, it was pulled down with the bayonet. Three carriages and a number of camels were kept ready. A few wealthy people quickly hired the carriages; other less well-to-do people loaded a camel with their things. The wailing of the poor, old and sick filled the air. “We can’t go any further, let us die here.” But they had to go on. At least we were able to pay for a camel for some of them, or to give small coin to others in order to buy some bread at the next station; also clothes, sewn at the Mission-Station in Adana, were distributed. Soon the immense procession was moving further. Some of the most miserable people and some newly made graves were left behind. As many as 200 poor, old and sick people are said to have remained there until some help could be brought to them. The misery increased a hundredfold because of the rain and the heavy cold that had set in. Everywhere the caravans left behind dying people, little children and sick people perishing miserably. Also the epidemic spread more and more.

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Enclosure 3 Report of Sister Paula Schäfer about a Visit in the Camp of Islahiye on 1 December 1915. It had rained for three days and three nights; even in our houses, the cold and dampness was felt very much. As soon as possible I set out on my way. About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouré. They were unable to proceed on account of misery and illness. In this rain the soldiers also did not feel any inclination to stir them up and to drive them on, so they were lying about as if they were in a lake. The rags of their beds did not have a single dry thread in them. Many women had their feet frozen; they were entirely black and ready to be amputated. The wailing and groaning was horrible. Everywhere dying people in final agonies, and dead people lying about before the tents. Only by Bakshish could the soldiers be persuaded to bury them. It seemed a release to them when we came with dry clothes. They could change their things and get some bread and small coin. Then I drove in a carriage along the whole route to Islahie. Though I had seen much distress before, things and scenes I saw here defied description. A small woman was sitting by the road-side, a bed on her back, a young baby bound at the top of it; in her arms she had a child of two years with eyes grown dim, at the last gasp. The woman had broken down in distress and wept heartbreakingly. I took her with me to the next camp where the child died; then I took care of her and sent her on the way. She was so grateful. The whole carriage was packed with bread; I just kept on distributing all the time. Three or four times there was chance to buy some fresh bread. These thousands of loaves were a great help to us. I also could hire hundreds of animals to send the poor people forward. The camp in Islahie itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted 35, in another place 22, right close by where the tents of those people who were down with bad dysentery. The filth in around these tents was something indescribable. In one single day the burial-commission buried as many as 580 people. Men were fighting for bread like hungry wolves; there were unpleasant scenes to be met with. How apathetic and shy these poor people often stared at me, as though they wondered where this help came from! For weeks many camps are provided with bread daily; of course everything has to be done as inconspicuously as possible. We are so thankful to God that we at least may do something. Enclosure 4 On the Way to Aleppo. 13 December 1915 I should have written long before this—but during these last weeks I was more on the way than at home, and the work in the camps was often so urgent that I could

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not find time for anything else. I suppose you have got in the meantime the receipt for the 200 liras you sent me. Many thanks for the quick response. I only wish you could see these poor people yourself; you would get an impression of the most dreadful need and distress that are hidden in these camps. It is simply indescribable, one must have seen it. So far I have had no difficulty what so ever, on the contrary, the officials here are most obliging and grateful for everything we are doing for the poor. You will find some enclosed reports which Miss Rohner copied for you also, they will give you an idea of what we are doing here. Up to the present we have worked in four camps, 12 hours distant. We often could distribute for about 10-20 liras bread every day, besides this we gave flour, clothes and Nirra to many ill people for the long journey. Sometimes it happened that in some places we did not have nearly enough bread—in that case we provided the people with money in order to buy bread at the next oven on the route. Now we are on our way to Aleppo, Miss Rohner will stay there for some weeks D.V. to prepare everything for another journey to Der-Vor (?). I intend to come back soon since there is still much work to do on the route Manoure-Islahie, and it seems to me we ought not to give up the work among the distressed as long as anybody of them is left in this place because they would absolutely die of starvation. According to our last experience we shall need about 300-400 liras in a month. Dr. Shepard told me to send to you word about this because I should get the money from you. It would be better not to stop the work for lack of money because the poor would suffer by it. If however you think that less money ought to be spent, or the whole work should be given up, please send me a telegram in time, so that we may stop the affair. If not will you please be so kind to send me the amount of money through the Deutsche Orient Bank in Adana. I do not like to telegraph for it every time because it might attract too much attention. If you should prefer to settle this matter in a different way, will you please inform me of it. Today I have asked you by wire to send me 400 liras, 200 for Mamoure, 200 for Islahie-Hassan-Beyli. I hope you are well. We got message that Dr. Sheppard is ill with typhus. I hope that God will soon give him new strength. With best wishes from me and Sister Rohner I always remain, Yours faithfully [Paula Schäfer] [Note by Mordtmann, 29 December] Enclosures: 1. Letter from Sister Beatrice Rohner to Director Schuchardt from 15 December; enclosed: Report by Sister Paula Schäfer from 16 November on a visit to the Armenian concentration camp in the plains of Baghché Osmania; report by Beatrice Rohner on a visit to the camp in Mamure on 26 November; report by Sister Paula Schäfer on a visit to the camp in Islahié on 1 December.

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2. an envelope containing: Letter from Beatrice Rohner to Mr. Peet (at the Biblehouse here) from 15 December; from Paula Schäfer “on the way to Aleppo” from 13 December, mainly concerning the procurement of financial means to assist the Armenians. Also, a transcript of the reports mentioned under No. 1. In my humble opinion, there are no reservations to passing on the letters under 2. with the enclosure; the conditions in the Armenian concentration camps are sufficiently well known here from other, particularly oral descriptions; there is no reason to prevent the philanthropic purpose. [From the Embassy in Constantinople to the Imperial Chancellor, 29 December] Your Excellency, I enclose a letter for Mr. F. Schuchardt, Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, from Sister Beatrice Rohner, who works for the charity organisation in Marash and respectfully leave it to your discretion to have the letter sent on to its destination after examining its contents. [From Beatrice Rohner (Marash Station) to Mordtmann, 15 December]120 Dear Privy Councillor, You might be interested in the enclosed report, which I am sending to your honoured address with the request that you kindly send it on. The Americans are also prepared to assist with their Rockefeller Foundation, should it be possible to do something unofficially in Aleppo. Is it not possible for 2 German nuns to receive official permission to do Red Cross work amidst this mass misery? If you could send us a reply to this question to the German Consulate in Aleppo, we would owe you a great deal of gratitude. We can guarantee that not a word will be breathed on politics, etc.121 Yours very sincerely, Beatrice Rohner.

1916-01-27-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 02892; pr. 01.02.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack 120. Note by Mordtmann: Arrived on the afternoon of 27 December together with enclosures, not by post but in a manner unknown to me. 121. Note by Mordtmann: Not easily comprehensible.

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From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 37 1 enclosure Pera, 27 January 1916 Your Excellency, I have the honour of presenting the transcript of a letter that Dr. Straubinger wrote to Member of Parliament Erzberger on 18 January in which, among other things, Dr. Straubinger makes recommendations for organising aid for the Armenians and proposes that a church collection be carried out. I consider a church collection to be pointless because the Turkish authorities would not permit the money collected to be used to assist the Armenians. P. Metternich Enclosure Transcript. Pera (St. Anton), 18 January 1916 [Straubinger reports on the situation of the Christians in Turkey in general and particularly that of the Catholics. We jump to where he reports the following on the Armenians:] 4. The Armenian Question: Although the Catholic Armenians, on instructions from their bishops and contrary to their orthodox countrymen, were not involved in the attempts to achieve national independence, they were still dragged into the misfortune which befell the Orthodox members of their race. Until now, they have lost 11 out of 15 dioceses, while 2 are presently in gravest danger (Marash and Aleppo) and have only half their former size. The remaining 2 (Constantinople and Brussa) are weakened. The fate which befell the Catholic Armenians through no fault of their own, as it also did a part of the Catholic Syrians and Chaldeans, was massacre and deportation, whereby it must be noted that there is very little difference between deportation with all of its consequences and massacre. The goods of the deportees and the massacred fall under the law of liquidation that, when it is applied everywhere, will completely rob the misfortunate of their home. Aspired Target: Assistance programmes for the Armenians in the places where they are now living, particularly for the Catholic Armenians, as the American missionaries and the “German Christian Charity-Organisation in Armenia” mainly care for the orthodox and Protestant Armenians. Previously achieved: Support of the Armenians in Aleppo using the money transferred from Cologne; furthermore, support of the Catholic Armenian Patriarchate,

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which is in an extremely precarious situation, for which letter of thanks will soon arrive. Recommendations: Everything we have done so far is merely a drop in the ocean. We require several hundred thousand marks to ease only the worst needs. A church collection should be carried out, as was done in Poland, but the money should be advanced to us now (perhaps cash from the missions). Without money we cannot carry out anything, nothing at all. The money must come quickly, very quickly. Otherwise much will be destroyed that could still be saved at present. The charity organisation for the Armenians in general and the Catholic Armenians in particular must be a German organisation, so that the ridiculous rumours about us and our emperor (as if His Majesty were the creator of this misfortune) will finally cease. I recommend setting up 4 aid centres: Aleppo, Marash, Angora, Konia. The Borromean nuns should be responsible for the aid programme in Aleppo, while one of the priests sent as curators should go to Marash, as they have a parish there. In times of peace, there were over 5,000 Catholic Armenians in Marash; it is the seat of the American missionaries, and in the coming weeks a Protestant pastor will be sent there from Germany. Dr. David, who is presently in Angora, or one of the men here can take care of Angora and Konia. There is no legal means of approaching the Armenians placed in the deportee camps, but it cannot be excluded that a change will take place here.

1916-01-31-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 04546; pr. 18.02.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Robert Berridge From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 15/No. 285 Aleppo, 31 January 1916 Your Excellency, I respectfully enclose a copy of a letter from Deacon Künzler in Urfa. It transpires from the letter that the remaining Armenians in Urfa have, due to the pressure of their circumstances, converted to Islam, among them Dr. Armenak Abuhayatian, a doctor at the German Orient Mission hospital, as well as the orphans gathered together by the Turks. I have reported to the Imperial Embassy elsewhere concerning the ensuing arrest of the doctor, despite his conversion. From the letter it emerges that he was completely uninvolved in the protests of the inhabitants.

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The forced conversions to Islam were also brought to our notice from other places a few weeks ago. In Kayseri, the command was given to deport the Armenians to Sivas. This deportation meant their death. Possibly in order to save them, the Mutesarrif publicly announced that those who converted to Islam would be spared. Many converted. A number of Protestant and Catholic clerics refused to be converted. By means unknown to myself, it came about that they were deported not to Sivas but to Erigli, whereby the danger on the roads was less. They arrived in Tarsus after confronting various dangers and met by chance Baron von Kress on his journey with Djemal Pasha to Constantinople. He introduced them to the Pasha, who gave them a safe passage to Aleppo and later allocated their place of residence as partly Damascus and partly Jerusalem. The news originates from them. Amongst them is the Protestant preacher Vahram Tahmissian, who is now in Damascus. An identical report is being sent to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler Enclosure Copy Urfa, 17 January 1916 Dear Consul, You expect quite rightly a few lines from me again concerning the occurrences in our hospital. A week ago yesterday our doctor, who is still in convalescence, was suddenly arrested by the police. An hour later the same thing happened to the pharmacist’s assistant, Hosep, now known under his Muslim name of Yussuf. As I saw that, instead of returning from the police station both were thrown into prison, I went to the Governor, whereby I discovered that the warrant for his arrest was issued not in Urfa, but apparently in Aleppo. On the following morning I then sent the telegram to you. During the week I found out who was behind the latest appalling incidents. For quite a while we had a military superior here called G., who is now in Aleppo and who gave the order. All of Urfa was outraged about the arrest of the pair and, as everyone can witness, were totally uninvolved in the revolution. G. is just a daredevil. If he had perhaps known that our doctor was called now Arif Effendi and that, in the meantime, the entire native male personnel had become Muslim, then he would probably not have issued the order. This action on the part of our male cleaning personnel made me very sad, by the way. I had done my best, with their consent. If they had been registered as Syrian Protestants, we would have satisfied the requirements of the alleged order that no Armenian was allowed to remain in Urfa. It turned out later that they had registered themselves as Muslims. Strength of character is a weakness, especially of our doctor, who is left to face this unwelcome turn of events. It is, indeed, not certain if they will be accepted by the Muslim religious community. But most likely they will because the orphans, who were rounded up at the order of

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the former Colonel (General) Fakhri ed din Pasha, who is now staying here, have all recently been converted to Islam, including the house mothers. I have heard that the doctor has been sentenced. I do not know the length of sentence. [Jakob Künzler] [Note Rosenberg, 24 February] The Imperial Ambassador in Pera had submitted a protest to the Turkish government, due to the forced conversions of the Armenians, before the receipt of this report. Halil Bey categorically denied any forced conversions. It can be assumed that Count Metternich, who knows about the report from Consul Rössler, will again submit a protest with the Porte on his own initiative when the time is appropriate. Therefore, put to the files for the present.

1916-01-31-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/99; 10/12, 2934. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Cessat [After an extensive legal examination of possible claims for damages by German citizens against Turkey caused by the deportation of the Armenians, Metternich establishes:] It should not … be necessary to prove the causal relationship between the resulting damage and the behaviour of the Turkish authorities in each individual case. The infringements and excesses of the latter during the implementation of the relocation have been proven in such numerous cases that their frequency justifies the assumption that the Turkish authorities are also responsible in those cases in which there is no conclusive evidence. Thus, it would be the Turkish government’s task to refute this assumption held against it in each of the individual cases that it disputes by providing conclusive evidence against it. The infringements and excesses of the Turkish authorities have been dealt with by our consulates in Erzerum, Mosul, Aleppo, Adana and Trebizond in an extensive report filling three files, according to which the following points can be considered as having been proven and verified by examples:

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A. Excesses against the lives of those who have been resettled. 1. In a great many cases, Armenian or other Christian elements of the population were resettled by the government, even though the necessary prerequisites laid out in the law dated 14 May were not fulfilled. Often, these prerequisites were even established by Turkish police authorities by secretly placing cartridges in the Armenians’ pockets, which were then seen as evidence of rebellious convictions during the following police control. 2. The Turkish authorities failed to suppress the gangs organised for the purpose of carrying out excesses against the life and property of those who were resettled. Many Turkish public officials and military publicly admitted that the final target of the government’s measures is not the resettlement, but rather the extermination of the Armenians. 3. Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers were involved in killing those who were resettled, partly upon the orders of their superiors and partly without any authorisation. In this respect, the Vali of Diyarbekir, Reshid Bey, the Vali of Erzerum, Tahsin Bey, the Chief of Police in Erzerum, Chulussi Bey, and a certain Mahmud Kiamil Pasha are particularly heavily incriminated. Private individuals were also often instigated by government officials to exterminate those who were resettled. 4. The government failed to fight the infectious illnesses that broke out in the convoys of those who were to be resettled. B. Excesses against the property of those who have been resettled. 1. Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers were involved in burning down the houses of those who were resettled. 2. The Turkish police, gendarmes and soldiers played an outstanding role in pillaging the houses of those who were resettled and took part in pillaging the convoys of those who were to be resettled. The gendarmes accompanying these convoys as well as other public officials often extorted money from those who were to be resettled. 3. The Turkish military and administrative officials spared certain rich Armenians in return for large bribes. In this respect, for example, the Vali of Adana, Hakki Bey, and the Chief of Police in Adana, Djemal Bey, are heavily incriminated. 4. The property of those who were resettled is only transferred to Turkish citizens or, more specifically, to Mohammedans. It is impossible for non-Turkish creditors to acquire the property of their debtors. The price set by the government for these properties is so disproportionately low that it does not nearly cover the former owners’ debts. As a consequence of the illegal behaviour of the Turkish authorities as described above, those affected by these relocations lost their lives in most cases and their property in all, so that it is impossible for the German creditors to satisfy their demands out of their debtors’ assets.

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[Handwritten supplement:] I would like to recommend replying to the Turkish government, refuting their arguments and emphasising the above mentioned points of view, perhaps with the exception of the point mentioned under B 3, that we continue to hold them responsible for the direct damage that Germans have suffered as a result of the persecution of the Armenians. The claims for damages would then have to be included in the lists of claims by members of the Reich against the Turkish government, which are kept by the consular authorities. I would like to request that Your Excellency kindly give me instructions on the position I should continue to take in this matter. [Note by the Embassy] Dr. Göppert, MP, f.y.i. [for your information] 2. T.b.f.[to be followed up] in 2 mon[ths].

1916-02-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 05498; pr. 29.02.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 366/K.No. 18 Aleppo, 9 February 1916 I feel it is my duty to report on the following details concerning the continual and gradual extermination of a large proportion of the Armenian population, which have come to my attention over the past few weeks: In November and at the beginning of December, large numbers of deportees were to be found along the railway route from Adana to Aleppo, in particular in Islahiye and in Katma. Here they had to be removed for military reasons to keep the military route free and to prevent the army being infected with diseases. The transportation was first done by train to Ras-ul-Ain. But as the deportees in Ras-ul-Ain were doomed to die, and also as the railway could not cope with transporting the Armenians simultaneously with the soldiers, the Armenians from Islahiye and Katma were then sent on foot to Akhterin, and then from Akhterin to Bab. The distance from Katma to Akhterin is about 30 km, and from there to Bab about the same again. It was, therefore, a relatively easy solution. In Constantinople, Djemal Pasha ordered that the Armenians should remain between Akhterin and Bab. There it would have been possible to obtain

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provisions for them from the station in Akhterin. But these orders were revoked once again, and those poor people were sent on from Bab to Der-el-Zor. I allow myself to present the results of this to you in the enclosed letter from Consul Litten, which he wrote to me concerning his journey from Baghdad to Aleppo. As to how things looked between Meskené and Der-el-Zor, I have already submitted a report on 16 November 1915—K.No. 109 (J.No. 2078)—written by a German. Groups of pitiful people have continued to stream along this route. Amongst others, his Highness Prince Reuss, according to his words, has seen 15 bodies lying there on around 12th January between the stations of Tibne and Sabkha, but his coachman counted even more. At the beginning of January, a compassionate person picked up 50 children on the wayside between Katma and Killis and brought them to Killis. He wanted to hand them over to the Kaymakam, but the latter would not accept them, and they consequently had to stay outside. The next morning, 30 of those ill and exhausted children had died of exposure. This news comes from an Armenian source, but there is no reason to doubt the truth of it. An Armenian who has the courage to go to Bab from time to time in disguise in order to bring the poverty stricken a support allowance (German Sisters have not been allowed any activity outside of Aleppo), reports that at the end of January during the 2½ days of his stay in Bab, 1,029 Armenians died. The worst thing about it was when the weak and ill were forced to get up to walk the next part of the journey. They were driven with whips; their tents were even set alight. He witnessed how a woman was beaten to death with a club. Bearing in mind the events which took place beforehand in the town of Aleppo itself, this tale can also be considered to be true. A few months ago, 3,000 women and widows were sent from Aleppo to Killis, where they experienced relatively good conditions and were able at least to lead their lives. In the second week of January, they too were sent on from there. I will be sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure Aleppo, 6 February 1916 Dear Consul! In compliance with your request, I have the honour of sending you a written account of the impressions I received on the journey from Baghdad to Aleppo. It is mainly a written account of the remarks I jotted in my notebook during the coach drive, with half-frozen fingers and in abbreviated form. They therefore convey the immediate impression I gained on the spot: On the route from Baghdad to Aleppo, one passes through the following stations: Baghdad, Abu Messir, Fallujah, Romedi, Hit, Bagdadi, Hadisse, Fahime, Ane, Nihije, Abu Kemal, Selahije, Mejadin, Der-el-Zor, Tibni, Sabha, Haman, Abu Hureire, Meskené, Der Hafir and Aleppo.

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They lie about 60 kms apart from one another. From one to another, it takes on average 6 to 8 hours by coach, alternating between trotting and walking at pace (i.e., a day’s journey). On the other hand, people on foot would probably take three days to walk from one station to the next. Between the individual stations there is completely uninhabited desert country, only partly covered with low shrubs. At several stations, even the single traveller can find no food or bread. The route runs along the Euphrates, but does not follow each bend; rather, it cuts across. Some stations are miles away from the river. At the stations, there are usually wells. The pedestrian, however, who is on the march three days from one station to another, must take water with him if he is not to die of thirst. On 17 January of this year, I departed from Baghdad. On 23 January, I arrived in Hadisse. There I saw the first transportation of Armenians, about 50 persons, nearly all men; they were wearing Turkish farmers’ clothes and black-and-white striped jackets. On 24 January I arrived at Ane. On the way I met about 30 Armenians under gendarmerie surveillance. The khan at Ane was occupied by about 40 Armenians, all in Turkish farmers’ clothes. On 25 January I overtook a convoy of about 50 Armenians, only men, who were on the way to Der-el-Zor accompanied by gendarmes. Our coachman said that it was good that the weather was so cold, as otherwise one would not have been able to stand the smell along this route which came from the decaying bodies of Armenians. Almost each of the Armenians had one or two pack animals with him, which was laden only with foodstuffs. The driver said that as long as the provisions of dates on the backs of those animals lasted, then the Armenians were alright. But as soon as they were finished, they would probably starve to death because, even if someone could be found who was willing to sell an Armenian anything at an almost exorbitant price, the foodstuffs which could be found en route would not be sufficient for even one-tenth of the number of deportees. As a result of the bitter cold, the coachman fell ill with pneumonia, so I had to drive the coach myself. At the next station I employed a young Arab to help me out. On the 26th I overtook a transport of about 50 men. In Abu Kemal, one of the “larger” stations (most of them consist only of two to three buildings), a 16-year-old Armenian boy, Artin from Zeytun, served us in the khan. Many Armenians were accommodated in the khan and all the stables as well as in the whole of the surrounding buildings. Also some women and children. On the 28th I met four German officers in Selahiye travelling to Baghdad, who assured me that they had seen many things during the war in the East and West, but what their eyes had witnessed on the road between Aleppo and Der-el-Zor was the most terrible thing they had ever seen. On the 29th in Meyadin. In the khan, which was closely occupied with Armenians, I perceived a strong smell of decay. The driver of the baggage coach went down with fever. My servant took over the driving.

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On 30 January at Der-el-Zor. This is the largest town along the route. Here were many Armenians, more than 2,000 to be sure. All the houses and khans were full of them. In the khan in which I stayed, again that foul smell just like in Meyadin. Overfilled with Armenians. Many women, delousing themselves. Also many young girls and small children. On the streets of the clean little town there are many Armenians of all ages and of both sexes in Turkish farmers’ clothes, but also many in European civilian clothing, obviously belonging to higher classes. Young girls in well-fitting European clothes. Here I met five German officers and a German doctor who were travelling to Baghdad. They told me that on the road between Aleppo and Der-el-Zor many had perished from typhoid fever. The men had counted 64 bodies in 3 hours, lying by the wayside. Also a mother with her three-year-old child, lying by the road, both dead. Many of the Armenians came from Constantinople(?). Der-el-Zor is a friendly little town with straight streets and pavements. The Armenians were enjoying complete freedom there, could do just as they liked … also in the way of food which they had to buy themselves. Anyone who had no money, could not buy anything. Andon from Angora sold me his golden watch for 1 Turkish pound,122 Stepan from Brussa a medallion with a picture of the Madonna for 3 meshidiyes. When I tried to give these family heirlooms back to them on their departure, both Armenians had disappeared and could not be found, even after intensive searching. They seemed to be afraid that I wished to revoke the purchases. After all, the money could prolong their lives at least for a few days. I handed over both objects to the consulate in Aleppo to be deposited on behalf of the rightful owners, renouncing any claim to them myself. The more distinguished Armenians gathered in the village library in Der-el-Zor, a doctor, two priests and several businessmen. An Armenian landlord was a qualified economist there. Professor Külz, passing through on the way to Baghdad, treated my coachman for his pneumonia. The crisis was already overcome. I made the coachman put on three woollen shirts; he had to take over the coach again: the Arabian boy I had engaged as a temporary coachman ran away and disappeared without trace and no-one in Der-el-Zor was prepared to continue the journey with us … because beyond Der-el-Zor the Trail of Horror began. As far as I could see, it was divided into two sections: the first section from Derel-Zor to Sabha, along which I could gain an impression of what had happened here from the position of the bodies, the state of their decay and their clothing as well as from the rags of linen, pieces of clothing and parts of household utensils that were strewn in the road: how the stragglers had been wandering alone in the desert, had finally collapsed and, with their faces tortured and distorted with pain, had met their death in despair; and how others were relieved more quickly thanks to the severe night frost and passed away peacefully in their sleep; how some had been unclothed by Arabian robbers, whereas the clothing of others had been torn from their bodies 122. The author uses the Roman I for 1 throughout. This has been altered in transposition.

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in rags by dogs and other vermin; how others had only lost their shoes and outerwear; and others had only a short time ago finally collapsed and died next to their baggage, completely clothed … probably during the last transportation, while the bloody and half-bleached skeletons remind one of previous transports. In the second section from Sabha to Meskené, where I no longer needed to guess the individual fates, but had to behold the misery with my own eyes: a large transport of Armenians passed me by just beyond Sabha, driven by the gendarmerie guards to walk faster and faster, and then the whole misery of the stragglers became apparent in live form. I saw by the wayside hungry, thirsting, sick, dying, freshly deceased, mourners beside fresh bodies, and those who could not part quickly enough from their relatives, endangered their own lives because the next station or oasis was three days’ march away for those on foot. Weakened by hunger, disease, pain they staggered on, fell and lay still on the ground. My provisions of bread, water, anything drinkable and edible were long used up. I tried to give a thirsty person money. But he fetched out his money himself and offered me one medjidiye, about four marks, for a glass of water. But I had nothing left myself. Not until I was between Meskené and Aleppo did I see no more Armenians and no more bodies, since generally the transports did not touch Aleppo at all, but were re-routed via Bab. On 31 January at 11 a.m., I left Der-el-Zor. For three hours I spotted not a single body and hoped that the tales I had heard were perhaps exaggerated after all. But then began the horrific parade of bodies: 1.00 PM On the left of the road lay a young woman. Naked, only brown socks on her feet. Her back upwards. Head buried in crossed arms. 1.30 hrs On the right of the road in a ditch an old man with white beard. Naked. Lying on his back. Two steps further on, a young boy. Back upwards. Left buttock ripped away. 2.00 hrs 5 fresh graves. On the right: a clothed man, with his genitals exposed. 2.05 hrs R123 1 man, abdomen and bleeding genitals exposed. 2.07 hrs R 1 man in a state of decay. 2.08 hrs R 1 man, completely clothed, lying on his back, mouth wide open, head pushed backwards, face distorted with pain. 2.10 hrs R 1 man, abdomen clothed, chest partly eaten away. 2.15 hrs Traces of a cooking place. Shreds of linen strewn all over the road. 124 2.25 hrs L by the road: 1 woman, lying on her back, the upper part of her body covered by a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, lower 123. On the right. 124. On the left.

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half eaten away, only bloody thigh bones protrude from the shawl. Many shreds of linen. Many shreds of linen. Traces of a cooking place and a campsite. Many shreds of linen. Remains of campfires, 1 coal scuttle. 6 male bodies, clothed only in trousers, chests bare, lying around the site of a campfire. 22 fresh graves. 1 clothed man 1 naked man, eaten at. Bloody skeleton of a girl about 10 years old, long blond hair still attached, lying with wide open arms and legs in the middle of the road. Many shreds of clothing. Completely clothed man with black beard, lying on his back in the middle of the road, as if he had just fallen from the huge rock which was standing to the left of the road. 1 woman, wrapped in a cloth, cowering next to her a child, about 3 years old, wearing a blue cotton dress. The child had probably starved to death next to the exhausted mother. 17 fresh graves. A dog devouring a human skeleton. Arrival in Tibni. Only one khan, otherwise no houses. No Armenians. 1 February 1916: Departure from Tibni, temporarily employed a new boy as coachman. 1 naked boy. Close by the traces of a campsite, children’s shoes, women’s shoes, overshoes, trousers, shreds of linen, which will not be repeated in the following, as the road was always full of them. 1 body in a state of decay. 1 blood-covered skeleton. 1 blood-covered skeleton. 1 blood-covered skeleton. Traces of a campsite, many pieces of clothing, metal pots, old bedcovers, 1 child’s bonnet. 1 skeleton. Because of the icy wind from the right, I had to close the curtains on one side of the coach, so I could no longer see the bodies which were lying on the right side of the road that day.

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Arrival in Sabha. Village full of Armenian families who had obviously come there quite a while beforehand and had built themselves small stone cottages. All khans filled to bursting with Armenians. I drove through the village so that I could sleep outside it in the coach; finally, I was accommodated in the school by the Mudir and was given a good room there. In the village also some young women and girls, who appeared to belong to better classes; the children of these families were dressed in good European woollen clothing. The stone cottages in the village were occupied by the families of higher standing. Around the outskirts of the village the poorer ones were camping in huts and tents. 1 campsite close to the village, about 150 tents. The huts made of boards from old crates. The doorkeeper at the school complained about the great increase in prices caused to the village by the deportation of the Armenians. Before one could buy 6 eggs for one metallic, now one single egg cost three to four metallics. The richer Armenians bought food at any price, to be able to preserve their families; the poorer ones had to starve. For their houses, they had to pay rent to the owners. 2 February 1916: Departure from Sabha. 1 human skull. The boy I had employed as a temporary coachman let the horses bolt with the luggage carriage, but they were caught again a few minutes later away from the road. 1 transportation of Armenians. Over 20 ox-carts, laden with sacks and household items. On top of those, women and children. Also many on foot with sacks on their backs. Would it not have been better to use the carts for transporting munitions? The transport had just come to a halt. A woman lies groaning on a sack on the ground. Some, in their despair, claimed they were Persian subjects because of my fur cap they considered me to be a Persian official. The gendarmes, armed with whips, were urging the people to continue their march. A boy collapsed by the wayside under the burden of his pack; he was still moving his legs. An old woman was leading a girl of about 12 by the hand, both severely exhausted. A boy passed with tent poles and heavy luggage on his back. Behind him an old man, wrapped in a small tablecloth. A sick Armenian with a rolled-up cloth around his chest offered me money in vain for a drink of water. But I did not have a drop left.

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A driverless cart with two horses. Laden with sacks. On the sacks, a groaning young woman with her eyes closed. An old lady crying by the wayside. Two men apathetically staring blankly ahead, sitting by the wayside. A woman sobbing, about 25 years old, cowering beside a man of about 30 years. He was only clothed in a shirt and trousers, had just died, stretched out. 1 old man, naked, whose left leg had been eaten away. 1 small boy, clothed only with a shirt, next to him a dog. His tunic lay somewhat further away. 1 open grave. 1 boy of about 4 years in a blue shirt. To the left of the road a large camp of about 500 tents could be seen. 20 fresh graves. 1 woman with a baby in her arms, both dead. 5 fresh graves. 1 man dead. Arrival in Hamam. Only consisted of two houses: the gendarme station and the khan. The Armenians, about 5,000 of them, were accommodated in the above-mentioned campsite. In the middle of the “village,” a hut which was just being built. Next to it a dead man. Two war volunteers who had been here for 15 days had taken over command of the gendarme station in Hamam. They complained about the bad conditions they were having to face helplessly. Every day new Armenians would arrive, whom they had to order to move on. But there was nothing to eat. Therefore there was nothing to do other than to send the starving on as soon as possible, so that the bodies would at least not be lying in the village. In answer to my question as to why the Armenians did not at least bury the dead who were lying close to the camp, I was told they had no strength left to do so, especially as the ground was now frozen hard. Most of them had typhus fever. The Turkish burial troops were working from morning till late at night to keep up with the work. An old gendarme told me he had been here for 25 days. He thought the Armenians deserved their punishment because some of them had worked against the Padishah. If that was the case, then one should sentence them and shoot them and not slowly martyr them to death. He could not stand it any longer and would most certainly go mad if he had to continue looking at this boundless misery any more. Upon my question to the two commanding officers as to why they did not report the matter, I received the characteristic reply: “Effendim,

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hükümetin emri! Bash üstüne!” (Sir, government orders. Yes, the orders will be carried out, sir!)

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3 February 1916: Departure from Hamam. Freezing cold. All puddles are frozen over. Three men, who had been sitting at the gate in the sun the day before, had frozen to death. I bought up the complete stocks of bread which were left (i.e., 6 loaves). 1 body in a state of decay. 1 skeleton with stockings on. 1 clothed fresh body. 1 clothed fresh body, face black. 1 clothed fresh body, legs half eaten away, face black. 1 clothed fresh body, face covered. 1 clothed fresh body, face black. 1 horse with saddle standing by the road without a rider. 1 body, covered with a cloth 1 young woman, still quite fresh. Blue baggy breeches, black jacket. A peaceful expression on her face which was brown. My coach-boy had collected stones and began stoning the bodies of the “non-believers.” He is given a good thrashing by my Persian servant. 1 body badly mutilated. 1 completely clothed leg. The other, eaten away down to the bone, lying a little farther away. 1 open grave next to it. 10 fresh graves. 1 naked boy, head already a skull. The luggage cart overturned. A horse was rendered useless due to a broken leg. The Arabian coach-boy was given a good thrashing by me personally and no longer addressed me as Effendi, but as Bey. 6 ox-carts with Armenian families and luggage and many people on foot passed us. To the right of the road, two large campsites, altogether about 600 tents, 6,000 people. Both sites in the process of packing up. Children, women, the dead, the diseased, all mixed up. In between all that, piles of rubbish. No latrines. Some men were going round, kicking anyone who was lying on the ground to see if he or she was already dead or not. Those who were able to pack their belongings together, took with them household objects, tents, blankets etc., whereas on the more distant routes, the people carried mainly only foodstuffs with them and on their animals. Arrival in Abu Hureire. By the Euphrates. Armenians from the campsites came with buckets and scooped water from the

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Euphrates. I went down to the river and fished two sheets of ice from the Euphrates. This proves how cold it was at night there. Two young girls came with two buckets. They were elegantly clothed, wore European, dark blue, so-called costumes. Their hands were swollen and dark red from the unaccustomed work in cold water. Three boys aged about 6, 5, 4 years accompanied them. Apart from Turkish the girls spoke some French, were suspicious, would not say where they had come from. They appeared to have been camping here a few days with their families and to have forgotten the trials of the march. Their food stocks would have lasted until today, but they were rich people and Papa wanted to buy provisions again at the next station to last the next few days. But to Hamam, which had already been eaten empty by 6,000 people and where there was nothing left, it takes two days for people on foot and the slow plodding ox-carts, and to Sabha another three days! So the next station in which Papa could “do some shopping” was five days’ march away, and they would perhaps have to starve for five days. I only have 1½ loaves of bread left. When I explained to them that there was nothing left to buy at the next station, they accepted the offer under the condition that they would pass it on to others if there was something to buy after all. They bade farewell with a short word of thanks. Departure from Abu Hureire. Body wrapped in white cloth. 3 bodies. 1 already partly eaten away, 1 fresh, with naked chest, 1 already in a state of decay. 1 man, clothed in a shirt and blue trousers, just passed away. Two girls sitting crying next to him. 1 girl with reddish blonde hair, black blouse and grey trousers, lying on her stomach. 1 decaying body. 1 vulture sitting on it. Body of a small girl, torn apart by vermin. Black hair. The bones of her legs lay all around. Pieces of flesh had been torn away. A vulture circling over it. 1 body wrapped in cloth. Legs eaten away. A boy lying on his baggage, near to death. His legs are still moving in fits. Next to him, a dog was just disembowelling a body. Body of a still fully clothed boy. 2 human skulls and skeleton bones torn apart. Body of a man, clothed in a white shirt and black trousers. A tunic next to it.

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A fat dog roaming around. Shreds of padded quilts and pieces of clothing. 1 old man. Backbone exposed, legs eaten away. In the middle of the road, a backbone and a human skull. Woman with brown trousers, fresh. Torn quilt. 1 body. Head still intact. Face black. Legs eaten away. Stomach and chest cavities open and disembowelled. White cloth around the cheeks. Large white dog, tearing the tunic away from a body and then mutilating the face. Skeleton with pleura intact. Legs non-existent from the knees downwards. Pelvis exposed. Only the bones left of the upper thighs. 1 clothed man. 1 woman, clothed, white hair. In the middle of the road, a girl about 15 years of age, a beautiful figure, lying as if asleep, but as we continued, we could see that the right arm was missing as it had been torn out of bleeding socket. 2 men, clothed, black faces. 1 woman in a blue dress, naked legs, black socks, very fresh. Large white dog. Bleached skull and bones in between shreds of linen and clothing. 1 man, clothed, black all over. 1 child with red-and-white striped trousers, covered with a brown men’s tunic. Half to the left a fat dog. 6 large Armenians camps, about 600 tents, 6,000 people. Armenians gathering bits of firewood. 1 body with black trousers and yellow pinafore, face black. 1 body, face black, white shirt, white underpants. 1 man, barefooted, black suit, tunic lifted. 1 skeleton on the road, close to the wheels of the carriage. Teeth and flesh on lower half of the face still existent. Facial expression therefore a broad smile over bared teeth. A frightening sight. On a small rise, therefore roughly on a level with my eyes, a female child of about two years, only clothed with a red bodice which is pulled up. Bleeding genitals revealed and facing the street. 1 woman, yellow trousers, black stockings. 1 small boy, white trousers. Black face, otherwise quite fresh. 1 small boy with arms folded, black suit, white stockings. 1 little girl, checked trousers, grey skirt, brown hair.

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1 young man, quite fresh, completely clothed. Shoes made of sacking linen, laces round his shins. 1 body, wrapped in white sheet and black blanket. Head black. 1 woman, black trousers, brown jacket. 1 woman in the middle of the road, black jacket, black hair, hand covering her eyes. Arrival in Meskené. Before Meskené a large campsite with over 2,000 tents. More than 10,000 people. A complete town of tents. Apparently no latrines. All around the town and the campsite a broad belt of human excrement and refuse, through which my carriage also had to drive for a while. I spent the night in the carriage, since in the town, which was completely congested, there was no accommodation at all to be found. The only room at the gendarmerie station was occupied by 6 Turkish military doctors who had come from Constantinople and were on the way to Baghdad. They told us that there were no dead bodies on the road between Aleppo and Meskené. I wondered whether they would report to Constantinople on the impressions they would get from Meskené onwards. 4 February 1916: Departure from Meskené. 2 male bodies, one to the right, one to the left of the road. Arrival in Aleppo. 5 February 1916: Rainy weather. 6 February 1916: Heavy snowfall.

Summary: I have seen with my own eyes about 100 bodies and almost just as many fresh graves on the road from Der-el-Zor to Meskené. I have not counted the graves which in some towns were combined to form cemeteries. I have seen around 20,000 Armenians. I have restricted all my estimations of numbers to those I have actually seen for myself. I have never turned off the road and, for example in Der-elZor, I did not visit the more distant parts of the town. So the number of really deported persons must be considerably higher. Furthermore, I have not seen those who were on the other bank of the Euphrates. The route along which I travelled is said to be only part of the march. To the north of Meskené in the direction of Bab and to the north of Der-el-Zor in the direction of Rebel Ain there are said to be significant camps where Armenians are awaiting their further deportation. It is, therefore, not

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out of the question that travellers along the same route a few weeks later will count ten times as many bodies as I did. Everywhere in Turkey where the desert sand borders on occupied areas, similar tragic dramas such as these are said to be being played at this very time, with hundreds of thousands of actors. The Armenians are not being described by the Turks as prisoners, but as “emigrants” (muhajir), and that is what they are calling themselves. “Transfer of population” is the name given by the official report to this most terrible of all ways of dying! Officially everything is at its best. Not a penny is being stolen or taken away from them by force … not from the living. They can buy what they like … if they can find anything to buy! And nobody can easily pinpoint the actual murderers! “What will become of them?” I asked many a Turk on my journey. “They will all die” was the answer I received. They will all die. The blind obedience of the gendarmes, faithful to their government, to whom it never seems to have occurred that the oath of service can often mean a commitment to temporary disobedience and the request to change an order. The icy winter frost, the unbearable heat of the summer, typhus fever, the shortage of food are all guarantees for this. Those who have died by the wayside and perished were Ottoman citizens and Christians. The capitulations have been revoked; we in Turkey are all equal to the Ottoman citizens of the Christian faith; we cannot demand any more than equal rights! But they are not all going to die. Some who are very strong in health, have a cunningness and rich resources, will survive. They will have come eye to eye with death, their nerves will be like steel and, if nothing else happens, they will have stored up an irreparable hatred towards Turkey and the German Reich inside them. With this power of life in their veins, they will perhaps produce numerous descendants. We can, therefore, perhaps count on an Armenian population in the future that will live on the eastern borders of Turkey, not only in the north by the Black Sea along the border to Persia together with the Kurds, but also in the south on the banks of the Euphrates as far as Mesopotamia, at feud with the Arabs, that will, therefore, be resettled by the banks of the Euphrates from the source to the Schatt el Arab. Should we not take some precautions? Every Armenian who has attended one of the many French mission schools speaks fluent French and has been educated in the French spirit. On the other hand, I know of German mission schools for Armenians in which no German is taught, but where lessons are given in Armenian, where teachers do not plant the German spirit into their pupils, but on the contrary, are themselves influenced by the Armenian schoolchildren and drawn into the nets of Armenian propaganda, so that they unconsciously become bearers and defenders of Armenian politics. Individuals in these institutions are suffering deprivation. I know of one which paid all the expenses for 2 teachers and more than 60 children, including salaries and food, for 8,000 marks per year. Should it not be possible to arrange supervision by the government of the Reich by granting legal aid to these German missions in Armenia and to the developing New Armenia? This should be gradually tightened

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to such an extent that the spreading of the German language and the German spirit is definitely guaranteed, and the exploitation of the missions for subversive political activities is eliminated. Is it not time to begin already with this German-national work, before the French Pâtres and Russian Popes or their front men return and stir up the animosity of the Armenians against German nature and against Turkey? It is also most regrettable, from a purely practical point of view, that so many living working hands are being destroyed en route from Aleppo to Baghdad. Along this route, one can see everywhere the beginnings of a man-made road, fairly well advanced. The Armenians would love to finish building this road. They would not even demand pay for it. But bread, the salvation from death by starvation. The almost completely built-up embankment, often already covered with gravel, chains of hills already cut through, partly finished, partly begun stone bridges, all crying out for the road to be completed! And in the midst of this job, spread along the whole length of the route, there are over 20,000 willing workers, sitting and starving! It would not even be necessary to extend this artificially created road according to the original plans. It would be sufficient just to improve and repair it in some places so that, within a short space of time, the road could be in a suitable condition for driving lorries from Aleppo to Baghdad along it quite easily within 5 days, a journey that at present takes 20 days. In Baghdad Railway circles I heard people complaining about the lack of workers. 12,000 workers, who will be needed in the near future, are difficult to get. And in the Aleppo-Mosul-Baghdad triangle, there are hundreds of thousands of Armenian workers not being put to good use! But in Persia, our compatriots are risking their necks and waiting impatiently with empty cartridge belts for the munitions that, due to the miserable conditions on the Turkish military roads, have been delayed some-where between Constantinople and Baghdad on an overfilled part of the route. With the assurance that my statements have been made to the best of my knowledge, I remain, yours faithfully, Wilhelm Litten.

1916-02-10-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/100; 10/12, 3262/3264. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople (William W. Peet) to the Consul General of the Embassy in Constantinople (Mordtmann) 10 February 1916

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Dear Dr. Mordtmann, I do not know if you have seen the enclosed report from Sister Rohner, dated Aleppo, 17 January. We are sending now L.T. 500 per month to Sister Rohner and Schäffer. Yours faithfully, W. W. Peet Treasurer Enclosure Aleppo, 17 January 1916 Dear Mr. Peet, We received your answer to our telegram through the German Embassy, that you will place 1,000 pounds at our disposal by the end of February. The money will already be on its way when you receive this letter. A thousand pounds is a great deal of money, but in relation to the current needs it is, as we say in German, a drop in the ocean. The preacher of the local Protestant parish, Pastor Hovhannes Eskidjan, was here today and asked me to present the entire situation to you once more. We have managed to make contact with the deportees in most of the towns in the south and southeast of Aleppo. There are trustworthy men everywhere who will distribute the money and can organise emergency work. The most important work is with those left behind, the orphans scattered along all the roads. Such children have been gathered together in Killis, Ras-ul-Ain, Lebka, Hanea, Homs, Muara, Seliniye, Aleppo; naturally, these houses rely completely on foreign aid; if you cannot send anything more they will die of hunger. A short while ago, a man brought thirty children from the road to Killis; they were refused entrance there by the government on the grounds that there was no money to care for them. The next day these thirty children were found frozen to death on the road. Now a small home has been opened in Killis. But you must fill the many hundreds of children’s hands every day; there is no one else who could do it. And hundreds wander homeless along the streets; a huge number of them could still be saved if the financial means were available. But to do so a large sum is required every week and you are expected to supply it. Ring all the bells at your disposal. Couldn’t a further petition be made to send these children to America? This way, several thousand children could be saved. About 750 children have been gathered just in Aleppo; the Turkish government gives bread and other food every day for most of them, but other means must be found to supply clothes, beds, etc. It is said that the government plans to bring the local orphans to Constantinople. You have heard how things are in Aintab; everything looks as dark and hopeless as possible. But when the night seems to be at its darkest, dawn is not far away. The crowd of 350 children given to us by Djemal Pasha was in an extremely neglected state and every day some of them die of their illnesses.

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I wonder how things are with you. I expect that everything is quiet in the capital. Yours sincerely, [Beatrice Rohner] Please send us a definite reply by coded telegram through the German Embassy to the German Consulate here to let us know how much money we can expect from you every week. [Note by Mordtmann, 15 February] Dr. Weber: I believe nothing further needs to be undertaken on our side. If there is sufficient time in the office, it would be a good thing to keep a transcript of the enclosure, as it does contain some interesting news. I will telephone M. Peet and confirm receipt.

1916-02-14-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 04240; pr. 15.02.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the director of the German Christian Charity Organisation for the Orient Friedrich Schuchardt to the Foreign Office Frankfurt am Main, 14 February 1916 We take the liberty of sending you transcripts (two copies) of the latest reports we have received, to complete your files. Should you have already made a copy of these yourself, we would appreciate your noting this when passing on our reports. I remain yours sincerely, F. Schuchardt Enclosure 1 [Transcript] Report by a Preacher in Aleppo Aleppo, in December 1915 The neediness of those Armenians led away is such that it is impossible to imagine it or to describe it. In the cold of winter thousands of women, children, sick people have gone hungry and naked into the deserts and onto the roads. The Turkish government does very little to support them. In the months of September and October, approx. 20,000 deportees arrived in Hama, near Aleppo. During this time, the government

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spent 2,000 Turkish pounds on them, i.e., 13 paras per person, or 4 pfennigs. In just those 2 months, three thousand people died of hunger, two thousand of infectious diseases. Over 500 children died on the streets where they searched the sweepings for garbage. These figures are exact facts, statistically established. After these two months, not a penny more has been spent, and thus, the number of deaths has risen dramatically. In a village in the area around Homs, one hundred people died of hunger in just a week; they belonged to one of our Protestant parishes. From this one local fact one can easily infer how hunger and illness are raging in other towns. Cries for aid reach us from all sides, requests for bread and money. The assistance centres for the deportees set up by the government have long been disbanded in many towns. The streets, villages, steppes from Konia to Mosul & Aleppo to Kâan (near the Dead Sea) are dotted with graves and unburied corpses. The vultures and jackals are tired of clearing up. In the beginning, the people still carried some things with them, but they were robbed along the way and even the underwear was taken off some of them. They sold or ate many of their things themselves. Now they have nothing left. Someone told me, “We’ve sold our blankets and the piece of rug we sat or lay on, everything, even our cups. We asked farmers along the way to help us, but they turned us away, remarking that they would give us bread if we sold them our children.” Many did so: children were sold for 2 medjidije. The number of sick and starving children has become legion. The people on the streets, without a home, without food, without clothes, without any sort of medical aid; yet everything is so terribly expensive; can a people continue to exist like this? Even here in Aleppo there are people who are starving. A man said, “We were a family of eleven, and I am the only one left alive.” A little girl told us, “We were ten in all; I am the only one left.” A mother said while crying bitterly, “I had six children; four of them died of hunger and the other two are on their last legs.” I would not like to list any further facts. Those I have mentioned are enough to give a man of mercy and conscience a picture of what is happening here. In the name of humanity, in the name of Christianity, have pity on this unhappy, starving, trampled-on people, a dying people. If possible, put a piece of bread in children’s hands that reach out hungrily; if not, at least think of them with compassion and pity. Enclosure 2 Report by Sister Beatrice Rohner. Transcript. Aleppo, 29 December 1915 On Thursday, 16 December, Paula [Schäfer] and I left Marash. We went to Intilli via Sarylar and from there to Islahiye, where we reached the railway. When the MarashIslahiye road has been completed, you can be in Aleppo in 1½ days. We first stayed at the Frank Hotel and soon had an opportunity to speak to Djemal Pasha. We asked

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his permission to travel through the area around Aleppo by particularly emphasising the need to work there from a sanitary point of view. His Excellency was very nice, but stated that he could not grant us such permission; instead, he offered to assist us here in Aleppo. I spoke to him alone the second time, as Paula had already returned to Harunia and Marash. He requested that we take over the large Armenian orphanage in town, which was much neglected and urgently required supervision. I questioned him with regard to the children’s maintenance, and he said that they would pay for everything and he would instruct the local Vali to procure everything I needed. He asked that I send him a telegram, should this not be done. The next day he left for Damascus; he had sent people to the hotel several times to look for me as he wished to speak to me, but unfortunately I had gone out. Later I went to see the Vali, who was also extremely accommodating. The telegram giving permission arrived today; I believe we must do what we can in this matter, however unpleasant working with the authorities may be; this may be an important step for the future of our work here in this country. The house in which the children—311 at present—have been put up is in the centre of town and belongs to a French holy order. The nuns were expelled and the building requisitioned when the war broke out. Then soldiers lived there for months, after which it was placed at the disposal of the deportees passing through. Thousands came and went, became ill and died or recuperated there. 50% of the little children died; those still living are in a pitiful state. The entire house is contaminated, dirty and half demolished. We looked for another, but it was futile: all of the better buildings have been set up as hospitals and schools. Dr.125 … suggested … sending … children to Djerablus on the Euphrates River … hours by train from here … because in the association’s empty barracks …, but we have heard that typhus rages far worse there than here. If the children are to be saved we must begin working immediately; I expect Paula in 1-2 weeks with 1-2 girls. In the meantime, I am getting the authorities to carry out the necessary repairs and have set myself up there in a makeshift fashion. Bab, southeast of here, is now the centre for new deportees; thousands are dying there of hunger and epidemics. Burying goes on the entire day. The last Armenians are being deported from Aintab; I am afraid that it will then once again be poor Marash’s turn. I enclose a report from the local preacher. [From the German Foreign Office to the Embassy in Constantinople, 19 February] The enclosed transcripts of reports on the persecutions of the Armenians, sent by the Christian Charity Organisation, are respectfully sent to the [title] Ambassador in Pera under No. 128 for his information. 125. The following sentence was crossed out. Only fragments are legible.

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[From the German Foreign Office to Schuchardt, 19 February] Your [… etc], I confirm with thanks receipt of the reports from Aleppo on the persecutions of the Armenians sent with your letter dated the 14th inst. The reports will be made available to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. By the way, I would like to note that transcripts are not generally made of documents which pass through the local censor’s office.

1916-02-22-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 04953; pr. 23.02.1916 a.m. Telegraphic Report. From the Ambassador in Washington (Bernstorff) to the Foreign Office No. 68 Washington, 22 February 1916 Following note received from Secretary of State: “Referring to your note of October eight enclosing copy of a memorandum handed to the Turkish Government by the German Ambassador …126 August ninth protesting against expulsion of Armenians: The United States Government is still receiving detailed accounts of the continued suffering accompanying and resulting from systematic expulsion of Armenians from homes and from other mistreatment suffered. The information comes largely from reliable private sources and individuals of different nations and indicates that the promise you say the Turkish Government had made, that it would take measures necessary, to prevent repetition of excesses against Armenians, has not been fulfilled. Being greatly in doubt, as to whether I am longer justified in keeping from American people the terrible facts in my possession, I have instructed American Chargé d’Affaires again earnestly to appeal to the sense of justice and to the humanity of the Turkish Government and to urge prompt action to redress injuries inflicted upon the Armenians and adoption of measures to ameliorate condition of surviving Armenians in future. My decision, as so what, if any, statement on this subject should be made to American people, will depend largely upon the action, which the Turkish Government takes upon the new appeal by the American Chargé d’Affaires. As the notes mentioned above, both indicate, that the German Government shares with the United States Government its indignation at the Turkish Government conduct against Armenians and its desire, to secure amelioration of the existing conditions, I have thought it proper, to communicate to you substance of 126. Remainder can not be deciphered.

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the instructions cabled to the American Chargé d’Affaires at Constantinople, in the hope, that the German Government may see fit to exercise once more its influence with the Turkish Government in the present effort, to end Armenian tragedy …”127 [Count Bernstorff]

1916-03-03-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 05914; pr. 04.03.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From MP Matthias Erzberger o the Legation Counsellor in the Foreign Office, Rosenberg Berlin, 3 March 1916 Copy Dear Baron, Enclosed please find 1. The copy of a letter which I sent yesterday to the Imperial Chancellor at the Supreme Headquarters concerning the suggestion on the purchase of the Coenaculum, 2. The memorandum that I have drafted to give to Enver Pasha and Talaat, to the latter in a French translation. I will discuss this memorandum with Cardinal von Hartmann next Monday in Cologne. Should you have any wishes with regard to changes, I would be pleased to receive them today. I remain yours very respectfully, [M. Erzberger] Enclosure Memorandum on the Measures on Behalf of the Christians in Turkey. III. The Situation of the Catholic Armenians. 1. The Catholic Armenians, whom some reckon as reaching a figure close to 100,000, while others consider the figure to be higher, must be strictly distinguished from the so-called Gregorian or Orthodox, as well as from the Protestant Armenians. They have their own patriarch, have been recognised by the Turkish government as a millet and, in a national respect, they have never given cause for complaint. It is just their 127. Remainder can not be deciphered.

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aversion to nationalistic endeavours, which is generally recognised, that has drawn the particular hatred of their fellow countrymen against them, and especially great hostility against their patriarch, who forbids nationalistic activities. The Orthodox Armenians who were on good standing with the Russians, were the supporters of the idea of national Armenian independence, tolerating the Russian emissaries among themselves, and on the other hand those Armenians who had been raised in the American schools and who usually adopted with the religion of the Protestant American missionaries their democratic views, often undertook journeys to the United States and then returned as “enlighteners.” 2. Despite the loyal attitude of the Catholic Armenians, and despite the assurances they were given, the same fate befell them as their fellow countrymen. Relatively speaking, their losses of lives and goods were just as high as those of the others; the only difference that was usually made in their case was that executions and deportations were put off for a few days or weeks. The reports brought by non-Armenian witnesses from the heart of the country are so appalling that they cannot be written down. Merely the current state of the Armenian-Catholic Church is set down as follows. 3. Of the 15 dioceses, 11 no longer exist: Adana, Angora, Kayseri, Diyarbekir, Erzerum, Harput, Malatia, Mardin, Mush, Sivas, Trebizond. Two dioceses have been partly destroyed: Marash and Aleppo. Only the dioceses of Constantinople and Brussa remain intact, although they, too, have suffered some losses. Thus, for example, the Catholic Armenians in Ismid were driven out in the same manner as the Gregorians, their district was burned down, their possessions sold, supposedly for the benefit of the expellees, but in truth to enrich the Turkish officials. With particular regard to the destroyed dioceses, Diyarbekir, Harput, Malatia, Mardin, Mush and Erzerum, in part, have lost their inhabitants through slaughters, the rest due to deportation. 4. It could be assumed that deportation is a milder form of punishment than murder. In fact, there is little difference between the former and the latter. Namely, while some people always escape, remain hidden or flee to the mountains during the general massacres, there is very little chance of survival in the case of deportation. The people are driven like herds of animals for weeks and months to their destination, and only in the rarest cases has the necessary food been provided for. Thus, these poor people fall prey in huge numbers to hunger and disease. Once they reach their destination they do not remain there, either, but are driven to a new destination and from here to another one, thus never having a chance to rest. In other cases, the families in Turkish towns are dispersed and, as the men are usually separated from the women, the latter are completely left to themselves in finding a living. Hunger and threats drive them into the hands of the Turks. The children then become Turkish on their own or, as so-called “war orphans,” they are made into Turks by the authorities. 5. After the promises given to the Apostolic delegate by the Turkish government, it was hoped that the rest of the Catholic Armenians would be allowed to return. None of them, in fact, did so. On the contrary. According to news from reliable sources

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received during the last few days, action is now being taken against those Armenians who stayed behind in Marash, Aintab and Aleppo. In the interests of the Turkish government, a number of measures will be carried out even during the war to reassure the Entente press with regard to their accusations and assertions. The following such measures are suggested, to be carried out immediately: 1. Possibility of directly approaching the deported, not by private persons, but by a mission of the Order of the Knights of St. John, which will be fitted out in Germany and work free of charge. Bread and other necessary means of subsistence will be delivered by this mission, but supplied by the German or Turkish government. 2. Gradual transport of the deported back to their place of origin and relocation there, possibly close to the railroad lines so that, on the one hand a better watch can be kept on them and, on the other hand, it will be simpler to provide supplies. At any rate, those areas are out of the question, which are considered as being part of the war zone. However, the settlement may only be extended over Asia Minor, and not Syria and Arabia. It is to be carried out in built-up areas. The government will give those Armenians returning home as much land of the same quality as they owned previously. They will be reimbursed for the loss of their homes and possessions by receiving building materials, agricultural implements and seeds free of charge. Transport back to their place of origin and relocation will be carried out by the delegation of the Order of the Knights of St. John. 3. Satisfaction of the Armenians’ religious needs. In Angora, for example, there are still 2,000 Catholic Armenians without a bishop and priest, even though many steps have been taken to send them a priest. Those churches which were closed must be reopened, the church’s property returned and the return to their church not made impossible for those Armenians who converted to Islam out of fear. 4. Urban Armenians may return to their towns, insofar as they are not part of the war zone. 5. The law on liquidation will be suspended or at least inapplicable for the returning Armenians. 6. As it has been generally acknowledged that the Catholic Armenians refrained from revolutionary activities, they should be taken into consideration first with regard to the transport back to their place of origin. 7. The Turkish government has been requested to recognise the patriarch of the Catholic Armenians, Monseigneur Terzian, according to ecclesiastical Catholic principles. The implementation of these measures would ensure that the agitation also to be found among the Christians of those countries not involved in the war would die away. The Order of the Knights of St. John is particularly suited to carry out these measures. The necessary funds would have to be supplied by the German government and charged to the Turkish government. These suggestions arise from the attempt to eliminate the obstacles preventing the achievement of the Turkish war objectives. We believe that all of the Turkish government’s legitimate claims have largely been taken into account. On the other hand,

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these suggestions give the foreign and indigenous Catholics in Turkey a guarantee for complete religious freedom.

1916-03-27-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14090; A 08373; pr. 31.03.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 131 Pera, 27 March 1916 By decree dated 17 March, No. 213. The Imperial Consul of Aleppo, who was requested to send a report by telegraph, describes the help offered by the Swiss for the suffering Armenians, as well as the informative journey of Dr. Vischer, whom he considers to be particularly suitable for this purpose, as very desirable. However, he does not believe that the Swiss organisation’s participation can be carried out in a concrete manner; rather, that this is an attempt to assist secretly and for this reason he advises that Dr. Vischer’s destination be given as Baghdad to enable him to visit Der-el-Zor inconspicuously where most of the Armenians have settled. It is an open question whether or not the Turkish authorities will tolerate the emergency aid for the Armenians which was recently also supported through generous financial means from the United States, even in a modest form and avoiding any sort of political propaganda whatsoever. Despite all the assurances to the contrary, the Porte is apparently beginning to decimate the remainder of the deported and, if possible, to exterminate those who have escaped the misery and the disaster before peace is made. Thus, according to the latest news from Mr. Rössler, the evacuation of the Armenians residing in Aleppo is close at hand; the police are secretly making it known that those who convert to Islam will be exempted from this measure. Recently, the same methods were used in Adrianople. Thus, both in Aleppo and in Adrianople, numerous Armenians have converted to Islam. The situation of the deported Armenians who have gathered in various districts in Asia Minor is similar. They are left without support by the authorities; in those cases where they attempt to earn their own living, they are prevented from working, threatened with further deportation and, in the end, search for their salvation by apostatising.

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Mr. Vischer’s letter to Mr. Rössler has been passed along together with a questionnaire. I have sent the remaining questionnaires to the Imperial consular offices in Damascus, Adana, Smyrna and Mosul. Metternich

1916-03-29-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 08702; pr. 04.04.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 139 Pera, 29 March 1916 Further to Report No. 131.128 At the request of the local American Bible House, I had asked the Imperial Consul in Damascus to give his opinion on the prospects of greater assistance being planned by this institution for the suffering Armenians in Damascus. The plan was to set up a central office in Damascus or possibly in Beirut with branches. The necessary financial means and the staff are to be provided by the Americans; on the other hand, it was urgently requested that a German be entrusted with the management, and to this end they had already contemplated asking Vicar Kunze. Mr. Loytved then reported the following: “Three weeks ago I planned to set up a soup kitchen, public bath and orphanage for the Armenians in and around Damascus under Hanauer’s management, a German missionary living in Damascus. I informed Djemal Pasha of this. He told me in confidence that he personally would like to relieve the lot of the Armenians within the scope of his possibilities, but that he had received strict orders from Constantinople to prevent any German and American participation in assistance for the Armenians because the Armenians’ inner resistance against the Turkish government could only be overcome if they were taught that they could not expect any support whatsoever from any foreign government. At my request that he do something himself, if possible, he ordered the mayor of Damascus in my presence to rent a house and take in Armenian orphans. Djemal Pasha declared that he was prepared to accept money for the Armenians through me and to distribute this through Turkish officials whom I also consider to be trustworthy.” 128. A 8373.

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It must be noted that the Turkish authorities are also trying to prevent the Armenian patriarchate from assisting those exiles who are suffering, so that the patriarchate is forced to use foreign agents to achieve this purpose. It is beginning to appear as if the Porte rejects any kind of emergency aid, no matter what direction it comes from. Metternich

1916-04-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/100; 10/12, 4572; p. 21.04.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Ernst Jacob Christoffel, the Head of the Home for the Blind in Malatya, to the Consul General at the Embassy in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Sivas, 1 April 1916 Your Excellency, I am very sorry that before leaving I was unable to express my heartfelt thanks for your endeavours and your interest. On the day I left I called on you at your home and at the Embassy, but unfortunately I did not catch you in. I am now taking advantage of the first safe opportunity to send you a few lines of thanks and some information on my impressions of the journey. I arrived here yesterday and until now I have had no difficulty in travelling. I found nothing to confirm the clashes between the refugees and the population of Kayseri and Sivas. Otherwise, the situation is hopeless, particularly as far as the Armenian population is concerned. In Eregli, I met the last Armenians who had not converted to Islam. From there to here, things have been cleared up radically: either they have been deported or induced to convert to Islam or massacred. Not a single Armenian sound is to be heard anywhere. Thousands were killed in Gemerek. In the area surrounding Yozgad, the population from 6 Armenian villages was massacred, all of them, even the infants. I met several thousand Armenian road workers (ameli tabúr) on the road, most of whom had also converted to Islam and were still being forced to accept Islam. There is a risk that when these people have finished their work they will be killed for some reason, as was supposedly done in the Erzindjan area. Can their lives not be protected? Can nothing at all be done for the remainder of this people? There were 500 men in a village near Sivas with which I have good relations; 30 of them are still alive. A family of 18 lost 14 of its members through sickness and murder. Out of other large families, one or 2 members are still alive. These are not

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isolated cases, but rather the rule. The number of those killed can be inferred from this. There is great misery in Malatia, as many children and women of those deported remained there. However, the number has been greatly decimated by epidemics and hunger. I am afraid of the task that awaits me there. Nor are the Protestants spared. May the Lord God soon show mercy. I remain very respectfully and gratefully yours, Ernst J. Christoffel, Pastor The Dersim Kurds are restless and seem to be planning a revolt. The opinion among the Turks and the Armenians is that the Germans are the cause of these atrocities. Please excuse my poor handwriting. I have no table to work on and am writing on my knees. Christoffel (Malatia)

1916-04-03-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 09024; pr. 07.04.1916 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 3749 Pera, 3 April 1916 In its note dated 22 December 1915 (enclosure to report No. 729 of 23 December 1915), the Turkish government refused to accept any responsibility for damages suffered by citizens of the German Reich due to the persecution of the Armenians. We had raised claims for compensation in our verbal note of 13 September 1915 (enclosure to report No. 6358 of 13 September 1915). The Turkish government supports the view that relocation measures were not only justified in the eastern provinces, as we have acknowledged, but also in the entire country for military reasons. Both the present government as well as those that follow, unless there is a complete change in the system, will hold this view doggedly. It would be pointless to describe the fact that the Armenians were deported from parts of the country that were not directly affected by the war as the breach of the law which accounts for the claim for compensation. We will only be able to support our claims on the criminal attacks and culpable omissions that were carried out by government authorities during the implementation of the measures. But it will hardly be possible to prove the causal relation between the behaviour of the authorities, which

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was contrary to their duty, and the pecuniary damage in individual cases. However, one wonders whether, based on the abundance of incriminating evidence, it can be assumed that the damage can be put down to a fault for which the government is responsible. Concerning the kind of damage to be compensated, according to general principles under international law, we would only be able to invoice for direct damages. However, for the most part, the damages consist of the fact that the Armenian debtors, formerly solvent, have disappeared or lost their entire fortunes. This cannot be considered direct damages. The question is whether we should claim compensation anyway. Apart from this, there are only relatively few cases in which German creditors had a mortgage or similar right to a property, seeds or goods, and where the pledged property or article was damaged, destroyed or stolen. I see no chance of success in negotiating with the Turkish government on the individual cases of damage. There can be no thought of arbitration. There would only be the possibility of bringing the matter up during the settlement of our advances and demanding a lump sum as compensation for the citizens of the Reich who suffered losses during the relocation of the Armenians. I am presuming that it will be possible at all to use the settlement to regulate our claims against the Turkish government. After a superficial estimate, the damages under discussion, including that caused by the disappearance or impoverishment of the Armenian debtors, amounts to: with the Deutsche Bank 1,500,000 M with the Orient Bank 2,000,000 M with the German-Levantine Cotton Company 500,000 M and with the Anatolian Trading Company 20,000 M It is difficult to estimate the damage sustained by individual firms. In total, however, hardly more than 5 million marks should be necessary. However, we should be prepared that our enemies will accuse us, to whom joint responsibility is ascribed for the atrocities committed against the Armenians, of also seizing part of the spoils while no state funds are available to alleviate the poverty among the Armenians themselves. But this need not be a reason for dropping our claims. There is also the question whether the Turkish government will succeed in obtaining the consent of its parliament for such an expenditure. It must be assumed, however, that they would find a way of doing so. One case consisted of the settlement of our claims arising from the former Armenian unrest (Embassy Report No. 2544 of 22 October 1902 and Decree No. 951 of 20 December 1902). I request that Your Excellency have me informed whether the treatment of the matter in this manner is to be taken into consideration. With reference to the note of 22 December, I would then reply to the Turkish government that we are upholding our claims in their entirety, which are not based on the relocation measures per se, but rather on the attacks admittedly carried out then by government authorities. P. Metternich

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Enclosure Note from the Turkish Government to the Constantinople Embassy [Translated from French by George Shirinian] 22 December 1915 In response to the communications from the Embassy of His Majesty the Emperor of Germany, dated 3 July, 13 September, and 16 November, Nos. 3659 and 8972, concerning the displacement of the Armenians, the following is brought to your attention: First, it must be noted that the measures taken concerning the Armenian population of the Empire are part of the acts of the internal administration of the country; they will not be made the object of diplomatic representation were they by nature to touch inevitably on the interests of foreigners established there. In effect, it is incontestable that any state has the right to take proper measures to stop a subversive movement propagated on its own territory, especially when this movement occurs in time of war. The Embassy of the Allied Empire, in its clear appreciation, has wanted to confirm the justice of this point of view. Thus it has recognised in its memorandum of July 3 that the repressive measures decreed against the Armenian population in the provinces of Eastern Anatolia are dictated for military reasons and constitute a legitimate means of defence. In effect, everywhere the measures in question have been applied, they have been prompted by the same urgent motives. As to the responsibility for the losses which German commerce has suffered, the Imperial Ottoman Government can only reject it because the Embassy of his Majesty the Emperor will recognise that the exercise of a legitimate right can not allow for any claim. One could even less claim the responsibility of the Imperial Government, as, in spite of concerns for national defence, which must absorb all of its attention, it has demonstrated extreme vigilance in order to minimise the prejudices which could result from the displacement of the persons indicated above. It is in keeping with these ideas that the provisory law of 17 Zilkade 1333, containing the desirable guarantees for the safety of all interests was put into place. If it involves determining the responsibility for the losses and disturbances—those which were felt in Ottoman economic life in an incomparably greater way—it can only be attributed, in reality, to the common external enemies who provoked and encouraged the Armenian revolutionary movement within the Empire, for which there are authentic documents. Concerning the consideration of the Imperial Embassy regarding the delays, the Law of 17 Zilkade being implemented since its publication in regard to all those interested, foreign subjects must conform to it, just as well as Ottoman citizens, in order to put forward their complaints in the delays granted.

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As a result of the foregoing, reservations lodged by the Imperial German Embassy in its communications reviewed above of 3 July, 13 September, and 16 November can only be declined.

1916-04-06-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 9015; pr. 07.04.1916 a.m. Correspondence From the Director of the German Orient Bank, Erich Alexander, to the Legation Councillor at the German Foreign Office, Rosenberg Berlin, 6 April 1916 Dear Mr. Privy Councillor, Further to information which you had Junior Executive Officer Meier give me at that time pertaining to Protestant propaganda from my branch in Constantinople, I take the liberty of informing you that I have researched this matter and determined that this can only refer to the “Protestant Weekly Letters” by Professor Dr. Adolf Deissmann, which our branch in Constantinople received—not from us—together with a great deal of other propaganda material, and which it passed on to the provinces. Naturally, our branch has ceased to pass on these letters. I take the liberty of enclosing No. 68 of these “Protestant Weekly Letters” in German and English and drawing your attention to page 3 (marked in red). According to this, passing these weekly letters on to Turkey would seem to me to be fairly inopportune at the present time. As far as we could determine, these letters are sent directly to Turkey by courier from a place unknown to us. I take the liberty of bringing this to your attention for possible further action. Respectfully, your most obedient servant, Alexander Enclosure Protestant Weekly Letter by Professor Dr. Adolf Deissman, University of Berlin. 68. Berlin, 18 March 1916. Again I am forced to touch upon a subject repeatedly discussed in these “Letters”— the attitude of German Christians toward the great distress of the Armenian people. In the London “Standard” on February 10th last, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, in a second

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long article, took occasion to pass criticism on my defence of December 18, 1915 (“Letter” 55) against his former assertions. The article has the merit of clearly portraying one strong and two weak points of Mr. Chesterton’s literary personality. To his credit it must be said that his talent for irony is quite obvious: but this ironical vein of his frequently moves in such subtle turns that the things hinted at become obscure and fail to impress. Lastly, I find that the author makes an imperfect use of his certainly not inconsiderable historic knowledge. If in these days resounding with the stirring clash of world-historic events, Mr. Chesterton would give vent to his irony in a more vigorous and distinct voice, he might be better understood, for I must confess that through the din of war I have not been able to grasp all he had to say. And I am sure, if the English gentleman would draw more from his store of historic knowledge, he need not fill up so much space with lengthy articles. Mr. Chesterton’s train of thought is like a labyrinth and to critically examine each turn the author makes, would call for more time and space than I have to spare. Moreover, it would in no wise further the cause involved; the Armenian problem is too serious as that it would allow another exchange of ironical arabesques between the “Standard” and “the poor old gentleman” as my critic pleases to call me. It all turns round the question, as Mr. Chesterton’s allusions insinuate, can Germany’s complicity in the miserable lot of the Armenian people be proven? After a careful examination of all the accessible material, I hitherto can find as the only argument for answering the question in the affirmative the circumstance, that such consent fits wonderfully well into the British political program of the antiGerman atrocity-propaganda. Because an affirmative answer to this is so welcome to England, many have, without hesitation, simply taken it for granted that our Government is implicated in the wretched affair. But thus far none has advanced one really tangible proof. I, on the other hand, was in the position to bring forward actual facts and thereby to disprove all these unwarranted claims and malicious insinuations, especially for those who had not come into closer touch with our people and therefore could not readily see how absurd such an accusation or even intimation was. Last year I called attention to the great relief-work of German Christians and the attitude of our Government, both before and after the auxiliary action had taken place. Since Mr. Chesterton cannot deny these facts he tries to weaken them; among other things he questions the bona fides of our Government. The complete want of positive arguments on his side for making Germany an accomplice, he covers over, however, by sidetracking his readers upon a field where in England, with many, every calm consideration ceases: The “Belgian Atrocities.” What he quotes here as fact but indicates an entirely uncritical mind and an unusual measure of naiveté. But even should the fabricated story be true that German soldiers in Belgium had used the holy wafer as a target for their shooting practices, what has that to do with Armenia? “The” Germans shoot with pistols at the wafer—consequently “the” Germans are also capable of shooting at Armenians, most certainly then to instigate a massacre

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among them; hence “the” Germans are actually to blame for present conditions in Armenia. I ask whether it is necessary to wait until peace is restored in order to detect the wretchedness of such an argumentation. Recently I had an opportunity to study closely a confidential report on the events which took place in Armenia last year. The account was given by one of the most competent judges in and approved friend of the Armenian cause. The author, a man also highly esteemed in America, gave me permission to make use of his most carefully and exhaustively written report and to call attention to some facts which throw new light upon the attitude of the Germans toward the deeply afflicted nation. I expressly state here that I did not, as might be supposed, select only facts in our favour; such as would speak against us are simply not to be found in this very objectively given information. According to all the pro-Armenian writer has to say the Germans have really done what they could. In Aleppo the German Consul, Dr. Rössler, together with the Vali, Djelal Bey, tried his utmost to hinder a further attack upon the Armenians and to secure measures for the alleviation of the calamity. Over against a calumny of the Parisian “Temps” (October 1, 1915), often repeated in the French press, he states that the Armenian people themselves bore witness that Consul Dr. Rössler (as well as other German Consuls in other places) had prevented a massacre at Marash and that in every respect he deserved the gratitude of those whose lives had been gravely endangered or who had fallen into dire need. In March 1915, the German General Posselt-Pasha, at that time commandant of the fortress of Erzerum, averted the danger for the Armenian inhabitants. Unfortunately he was later recalled. The same must be said of Herr von Scheubner-Richter, German Consul in Erzerum, who spared no efforts to assist the Armenians in their distress and hindered worse conditions to set in. This also has been gratefully acknowledged by the Armenian people. Dr. Neukirch, the German physician in Erzindjan, stood security for his Armenian patients, and the German Consul in Mosul intervened with the Turkish Authorities on the account of the occurrences in the Vilayet Bitlis. To these examples others may be added, while not one single incident can be adduced where a German refused help when such could be given. Here and there in America also, I am sorry to say, attempts have been made to hold Germany responsible; over against this, I am glad to emphasise the fact that the Swiss Relief Committee, in its appeal to the public on behalf of the Armenians, uttered not one syllable which would make our Government or people answerable for what has happened, although the paper has the signatures of 30 persons from French West-Switzerland, where public sentiment is wholly against us. The appeal of the Swiss Christians is a model for the fact that Christian humanitarian work may successfully be undertaken without poisoning it by an unchristian and pharisaic spirit in the interest of subsidiary political purposes. I am also glad to be able to note that in the States the Appeal of the “Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America”

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dated November 1, 1915, contained nothing that would be suggestive of a charge against Germany. Before closing, I must set aright a characteristic assertion of Mr. Chesterton’s. He holds that a “certain Imperialistic spirit operating in Poland, deprives a whole nation of a whole language.” There can be no doubt here that the British critic has in mind the German spirit; but he must have drawn from quite a turbid spring, in order to make such a statement. I, therefore, recommend him the study of the book. “La Pologne sous la rafale,” by Monsieur Edmond Privat, one of the contributors of the Parisian “Temps.” On the strength of evidence gathered on a tour through Poland for the purpose of study during the days of Russian sway (April and May 1915), this Frenchman describes the cruel suppression of the Polish language in that country, through the servile subjects of the Czar, his political friends. The conquest of Poland through the Central powers has done away with this Muscovite tyranny; after a long period of suffering and oppression the Polish people are now again enjoying the unrestricted use of their mother tongue. Did you receive my letter No. 57? Through connections which reach into the London Censorial Office, I recently heard that this “Letter” excited the good pleasure of the British Censor to such a degree that he took possession of it, although it was the private property of my American correspondents. This most honourable gentleman evidently was greatly interested in “non-resistance,” the dogma of the “Friends,” which I treated therein. But still greater, I suppose, is his joy that America, in its attitude toward Great Britain, eagerly and strictly adheres to this slogan, especially with respect to her trans-Atlantic postal service. To those of my correspondents who did not receive “Letter” No. 57, I will be more than glad to mail another.

1916-04-06-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/172; A53a, 1122. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 55 Aleppo, 6 April 1916 During the past few days, the Armenian concentration camp in Ras-ul-Ain was attacked by the Circassians and other similar people living nearby. The largest part of the unarmed 14,000 inmates was massacred. There are no further details at this point; I will be informed of them later.

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According to another source, only about 400 families were involved at first, who were separated and massacred. I leave it to your discretion to inform Field Marshall Baron von der Goltz, as Rasul-Ain could be an important military supply and communication station. [Rössler]

1916-04-07-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/100; 10/12, 4015, 4054, 4074, 4136, 4316. Telegraphic Reports and Directives. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Embassy Constantinople No. 60 Aleppo, 7 April 1916 As it is to be expected that almost all of the Armenians in Aleppo will be deported, request now that exemptions be obtained for students attending German schools, even though schools do not have boarding facilities. [From the Consulate in Aleppo to the Embassy Constantinople (No. 61), 7 April] Reply to Tel. No. 57. I consider the information given by the Minister of the Interior to the deputy for Marash to be pretence. Rather, deportations of Armenians also residing in Aleppo are more drastic than ever today. Should the Minister seriously wish to put an end to this, the best method of doing so would be to dismiss Commissioner Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey. A German Franciscan monk asked me to intervene in favour of local Catholic Armenians, if possible. The deportation of these people has also begun. [Rössler] [Reply from the Embassy Constantinople (No. 62), 8 April] To Tel. Nos. 60 and 61. Minister of the Interior today repeated assurance that deportation of the Armenians residing in Aleppo not planned and that he issued strict orders in this sense. Catholic Armenians were also exempt from deportation. He requests information, should contrary orders have been given by the local authorities, if possible citing individual cases.

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[From the Consulate in Aleppo to the Embassy Constantinople (No. 64), 10 April] Reply to Telegr. No. 62. The manner in which the Minister’s orders are evaded by the local authorities (Vali and Deportation Commissioner) was shown in my reports Nos. 236 and 247 dated 26 and 28 January, respectively. Even before the war, there were at least 6,000 Armenians residing in Aleppo but, due to the new method of counting, presumably only 56 families reside here today. This mocks the true circumstances. Thus, orders are urgently required that as proof of residence tax payments made at least one or two years ago, references by respected persons and similar proof are also considered valid. Deportations are in full swing. Yesterday, for example, 200 to 300 people were deported, among them the families of soldiers. Accommodation was ordered for the latter in nearby villages. But all of them were marched off to Der-el-Zor in March. They were not allowed to take anything with them, so they must starve. Even individual women and girls are picked up on the street and this situation is being used by government authorities to carry out acts of caprice. It is simply a manhunt, and the Armenians fear that their wives and daughters will gradually be dishonoured, without exception. I assume that, like Catholics, Protestants will also be exempted. Postscript: Yesterday, the Vali explained to Major v. Mikusch that he had strict orders to deport the Armenians. [Note by Neurath, 11 April] I have already discussed this matter with Talaat, as follows from the telegram to Aleppo dated 8 April. Thus, the matter should be settled for the moment. [From the Consulate in Aleppo to the Embassy Constantinople (No. 67), 12 April] Shukri Partanian, an Armenian who has been a student at the German school since 1913, is missing today. His parents, bakers, are resident in Aleppo and were deported today. [Reply from the Embassy Constantinople (No. 64), 15 April] To Tel. Nos. 64 and 67. Again informed the Minister of the Interior today of the events in Aleppo and that his orders are seemingly not being carried out. Talaat Bey then promised to repeat his instruction to Vali to deport only those families residing in Aleppo because of the last Armenian deportations and to exempt Catholics as well as Protestants.

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[From the Consulate in Aleppo to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 72), 17 April] Further to Telegram Number 64 During the past few days, Roman Catholic families have been deported, among them the following who, as proven by the parish register, have been residing in Aleppo for more than 10 years: Alexandro Hecter, Susann Khataz, Copraki, Artin Müsati …, kghermergi. [Note from the Embassy in Constantinople, 20 April] Memo to Talaat with aide mémoire. [Translated from French by Maral Maclagan] Aide Mémoire/Notes As a result of a telegram from the German Consul in Aleppo, several families belonging to the Latin Catholic community who have lived in Aleppo for more than ten years were just deported by the local authorities, among others, the families of Alexandro Hecter, Susan Khabaz, Copraki, Artin Mussati, Deghermendji. This process contradicts the formal assurances given recently by H.E. Talaat Bey to the German Embassy, which the Catholics of Aleppo would be exempt from expatriation measures. Therefore, the German Embassy would hope that the necessary orders will be given to permit Catholic families in Aleppo to continue to stay, and that those who have already been deported can return to their homes.

1916-04-15-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/100; 10/12, 4285; translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Legation Councillor at the Embassy Constantinople Theodor Weber Constantinople, 15 April 1916 Dr. Straubinger asked me today to inform Your Excellency that he received the following reliable, direct news from Aleppo: the Armenian (Gregorian and Catholic) population there has once again been threatened with deportation and is extremely

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distressed, and that he heard through a third party that the authorities in Angora have also begun to deport the Armenians there (mostly Catholic). In this connection, Dr. Straubinger recalled that Your Excellency was given placating reassurances only a few weeks ago at the Sublime Porte. Dr. Weber. [Notes by Neurath, 18 April] I just discussed this matter with Talaat Bey on 15 April, a too renewed remonstrance would have no effect. Talaat Bey stated that he would give new instructions. D. Straubinger will be informed orally.

1916-04-16-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/100; 10/12, 4828. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Erzerum (Schulenburg) to the Embassy Councillor at the Embassy Constantinople (Neurath) Erzindjan, 16 April 1916 Dear Neurath! The vicissitudes of the war have made me the protector of various young girls, although this only causes me work and trouble and—unfortunately—offers me no “advantages” whatsoever. There is a young Armenian woman among them from a very good family in Erzerum, Miss Anna Chilingirian, who, during the deportation of the Armenians, in other words before my time, had been entrusted to the protection of the Consulate. The father was deported to Vilayet Aleppo and is sitting in Serudj. When Erzerum was recently lost, Mahmud Kiamil Pasha—God rest his soul!—forced us to take all of the Armenians under the protection of the Consulate with us. After having sent them off at last as far as Sivas, I am now being bombarded by telegrams that Miss Ch. would like to make use of a good opportunity (a German doctor who has become ill is going back to Germany) to travel to Cospoli and from there to Germany. I have not been able to find out exactly what she wishes to do in Germany, apparently “educate herself further,” as Erzerum did not offer enough possibilities to quench her thirst for knowledge. Accordingly, she would have to look for a higher-class guest-house or something similar. Now, her French is quite good, but she does not speak a word of German. But the real snag lies elsewhere. Before the deportation of the Armenians, the Ch. family was very prosperous, almost rich, but the gods only know what their financial situation will look like after the war; anyway, at present she has almost nothing. Thus, someone would have to take over the cost of

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her stay in Germany, if Miss Ch. really wants to go there. I thought of palming the young lady—she really is a young lady, a bit à la Erzéroum, but at least a well-mannered young girl—off on some religious organisation in Germany, of which there are several, whose speciality is saving the Armenians. But I only know the address of one of these organisations, the “German Charity-Organisation” in Frankfurt am Main, Fürstenbergerstr. 151, whose Director Schuchardt is supposedly in Cospoli at the moment. My request to you is that you recommend Miss Ch. to Mr. Schuchardt and help her in other ways, should this become necessary, such as in obtaining a passport, and perhaps give her some good advice, if you have any. Perhaps you could send for Miss Ch. (she must be in Cospoli already when you receive this letter and is residing with the mother of my secretary, Werth) and discuss with her what she actually wishes to do in Germany. This young lady is not pretty, but has the curious talent of awakening the entire world’s interest in her. You would be doing a good deed if you would look after her a little bit. In the meantime, I will write to several of my relatives in Germany; perhaps they know something. Unfortunately, my mother is so ill that I cannot turn to her for assistance. I am writing this letter to you in the stirrups, so to speak because tomorrow morning I am travelling, i.e. I am riding to Samsun. If the weather is good, although it does not look promising, the ride can be quite pleasant. I am riding via Karasund and then along the coast. I am adding a few remarks here in telegram style that may interest you: Vehib Pasha makes a very good impression on all of us. Despite this, his task will be very difficult; the old army is so bad, discouraged, scruffy, etc., and, in addition, the Russians have the greater strength. It does not look good along the coast. Trebizond will probably be lost. Ilunger’s regiment is doing what it can, but has already suffered heavy losses. I am sorry about the lovely town of Trebizond, my secret love in this awful country. By the way, the entire Vilayet Trebizond is quite beautiful, worth a visit. My task here (liaison with the Caucasians) is disliked by most circles here, and thus I must constantly work keeping the slogan of “Tandem!” in mind, which makes my work attractive, but by no means enjoyable. At the moment my esteemed government has left me without any money! After the people in Berlin had granted me 5 million for the first 6 months at that time (on paper, of course), of which I have hardly received even one until now, i.e. in 10 months, the supply has now ceased completely. Well, in the end we will simply go bankrupt! Enver Pasha is expected here in the near future, and as I must go to Samsun I will hardly see him and his German escort. The Minister of War is exceptionally unpopular in the local army. This opinion always comes through, even to foreigners like myself. The reason for this seems to be the position he took during the campaign last winter (single-handedly shooting officers, etc.). You will hardly be surprised to hear that they wish us Germans in hell, particularly in the Committee’s circles. The schoolteacher is rarely popular. On the other hand,

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the ordinary people admire us and do everything in their power to be of use to us. The “salams” to a German officer go down to the ground. This Anatolia is a sea of mountains; a few fertile, but small plains are scattered in-between. The mountains are bare and hold few minerals (at least it would appear so). There is too much water everywhere. The population is extremely low and, due to the deportation of the Armenians, has been decreased even more. In 100 years of arduous work and after investing several 100 billions, Anatolia could be made into a large Tyrol. I never heard that Tyrol is a rich province. This objective could only be achieved by a tyranny, i.e., by a government that deliberately does the population an injustice. For example, it is the people’s holy right here that every blockhead can chop down every tree he comes across. This would have to be stopped by force if the mountains were to be reforested. The Armenian massacres of last year are 99% lies; they result from the tremendous cowardice of these people and the Orientals’ incredible tendency to exaggerate. Of course, a great number of them were killed and even more died while travelling, but there were only very few large massacres. The Armenian farmers who were chased off their land will now, of necessity, become shopkeepers. Turkey will have to import the Russian “rayon” if it wishes to protect its people from being bled white by these shopkeepers. Please recommend me warmly to the Baroness, should she remember me, and I send you my most heartfelt greetings as well. Respectfully yours, F.W. Schulenburg Please also give my best regards to the gentlemen at the Embassy. [From the Consulate General in Constantinople to Mordtmann, 21 June] Dear Sir, Enclosed please find the files concerning Anna Chellinghian. It was not possible to have her accepted by an American college. At my suggestion, Miss Werth then had the girl sent to the responsible Armenian Patriarch, where she is now staying. The Werth family, who wishes to travel to the country, could no longer keep the young Armenian girl with them. Respectfully yours, Fabricius [From Neurath to Schulenburg (28 June)] Dear Count Schulenburg, This is the first opportunity I have had to reply to your friendly letter from Erzindjan dated 16 April.

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Dr. Strube and Miss Chilinghirian arrived here at the end of April without being molested along the way by the Turkish authorities. After a few weeks Dr. Strube then left for Germany, while the lady accompanying him was first able to stay with Miss Werth. Based on the present situation, it was impossible to obtain a passport for her to Germany; in addition, the local American girls’ boarding school, where we had hoped to place her, refused to accept her. Since the Werth family could also no longer let her stay with them, she was finally taken to the Armenian Patriarch, where she should be safe for the time being. This means that the steps you suggested we take with the German Christian Charity-Organisation and similar organisations have become superfluous. I greatly regret that we were unable to do more for your protégée. At any rate, she is much better off than the many thousands of her fellow sufferers, who have lost everything—one cannot even add “except their honour”. The rest of your letter interested me greatly and I have also informed the Ambassador of this; I may send an extra response to individual details. With very best wishes, from my wife as well, Respectfully yours, N[eurath]

1916-04-27-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 12911; pr. 16.05.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 47 No. 1189 Aleppo, 27 April 1916 I last reported to the Imperial Embassy on the deportation of the Armenians, its consequences and side effects on 9 February of this year—under K.No. 18—and on 12th of this month—under No. 1033—I submitted a certain questionnaire completed by Sister B. Rohner, destined for Dr. Vischer in Basle. The people have continued dying since then. Many of the individual occurrences obediently listed below demonstrate that it is intended to bring about their annihilation. 1. Around the middle of February, all children were brought from Killis to Bab, after the women had been previously deported. 2. On 16 April, the Armenians who had “resettled” in Maarra and the surrounding villages, most of whom were already considerably weakened by hunger and deprivation, were sent on in the direction of Der-el-Zor.

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3. On 19 April, it became known here that the order had been given to likewise deport those 9,000 Armenians in Marash who had been spared up until then and were the remainder of former 24,000. During the first exile campaign, these people had sold their only belongings while carrying out the order to get ready to go on the road and since then have been severely weakened by deprivation. The implementation of the order has commenced. 120 families arrived in Aintab by 25 April, from where they are to continue to Der-el-Zor via Biredjik. On 26th or 27th a second, larger contingent is expected in Aintab. 4. As I learned on 20 April from a Turkish officer on his way from Der-el-Zor, the Mutesarrif of Der-el-Zor has received the order only to leave as many Armenians there as correspond to 10% of the local population, but to send the rest on to Mosul. The local population of Der-el-Zor could be perhaps 20,000. The number of Armenians sent there is assessed at being at least 15,000, so that a minimum of 13,000 will have to be turned away. The Mutesarrif, Suad Bey, a humane kind of person who lived in Egypt for many years, is one of the few Turkish officials who tries to mitigate the horrific orders of the government in their implementation. Nevertheless, the officer was of the opinion that the largest part of the unfortunate people would have to be deported and only very few of them would ever arrive in Mosul. Those who happen to be spared by the Bedouins, Yezidis and Kurds, will be reduced considerably in number by hunger, deprivation and illness. News received on 19 April told us that in every station between Aleppo and Derel-Zor, i.e., in Meskené, Abu Hrere, Hamam, Sabkha, 50-100 people are dying every day, most of them as a result of hunger. 5. On 6 April it became known to us here that massacres had occurred again near Ras-ul-Ain. One piece of news said that the largest part of the concentration camp, consisting of 14,000 people, had been destroyed, whereas, according to another communication, 400 families had been led out of the camp and murdered en route. After hearing the results of the reliable enquiries of a German who spent several days in Ras-ul-Ain and surrounding areas and paid a visit to me upon his return from there on 22 April, I am forced to assume the following: the camp can now only consist of 2,000 exiles. For a period of one whole month, 300 to 500 of them have been led out of the camp daily or almost daily and massacred about 10 km away from Ras-ul-Ain. The bodies were thrown into the river, which is recorded on the large map by Kiepert of Asia Minor, on the page for Nisebin (D VI), as Djirdjib el Hamar, and which at that time of year was running very high. A Turkish officer who, because of these occurrences, was taking the Kaymakam of Ras-ul-Ain to task, received the calm answer that he was acting on orders. The communications and supply route of the 6th Army from Ras-ul-Ain to Mosul leads through that area. As the building of two bridges proved to be necessary at that point, but the 6th Army did not have enough people at hand to build them, the 4th Army delivered a Syrian Muslim pioneer battalion for this purpose about 15 April. These people, who were transported in two days from Damascus to Ras-ul-Ain and who did not know anything about the plight of the

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deported Armenians and, as it can be presumed, were not influenced along the way, were quite horrified upon their arrival. They were of the opinion that the Armenians had been massacred by soldiers. This again demonstrates the common belief that the act had been done under orders. In any case, this was the opinion generally widespread in the area. The executioners in the massacre near Ras-ul-Ain were members of the Circassian tribe of Chechens that had taken up residence nearby. 6. At the end of February or the beginning of March, the Armenians in the labour battalion in Aleppo were recommended to convert to the Islamic faith, partly with success. In the course of the month of March, the police compiled lists of the Armenians in Aleppo in preparation for deportation and spread the word that the only way of being spared from deportation was the conversion to Islam. When, as a result of this, a number of families went through with the conversion, they were treated as if the granting of permission for conversion were a special mercy. They were therefore deterred again, whether through fearing unwelcome attention, whether the recommendation to convert came from other authorities than those responsible, and finally, whether they found enjoyment in playing a game of cat and mouse with the Armenians. 7. In Aleppo, in March and the first half of April, not only were the Armenians who had come from elsewhere severely hunted down, but also the deportation of those Armenians who were living here began. Individual women and girls were also picked up in the streets and this condition was utilised by the organs of the government, who committed arbitrary acts. It would not have been surprising if the Armenians, whose religion and the honour of their wives had been violated by such deeds, had been driven to acts of despair. Since 18 April, some peace has set in at Aleppo, and it seems that this was due to the intervention of the Imperial Embassy. This induced the Minister of the Interior to give the order to the local authorities not to deport local residents, nor Catholics and Protestants. The form in which the Vali arranged for respite was his promise to the local priesthood to grant mercy during the Easter celebrations. I myself do not dare yet to hope that the period of respite may last a long time or even that the danger is over. And despite the promise, some individuals have still been deported on the quiet. I will be sending a copy of this report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler

1916-05-10-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 12420; pr. 11.05.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, Friedrich Schuchardt, to the German Foreign Office

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Frankfurt am Main, 10 May 1916 We take the liberty of sending you a transcript of the latest report we received from our Sister Klara Pfeiffer for your files. Yours sincerely, F. Schuchardt Enclosure Brief Information on how the Armenians in Mamuret-ul-Aziz are faring When the war broke out in 1914 and all the young men here were conscripted, the young Armenian men also went to make themselves available to the Turkish government, insofar as they were not able to buy themselves out of military service. At that time we did not dream of all the things to come. During the first months everything went well until, at the beginning of 1915, rumours of revolutionary movements among the Armenians in the Van area made their way across to us. Immediately, the weapons were taken away from all of the Armenian soldiers among us; they were isolated from military service and it was said that they should be deployed for other kinds of work, such as building roads, etc. The older Armenians, who had already experienced a great deal, expressed very grave concerns at that time. During that time we heard of deportations of the Armenian population from various areas, but things were still relatively quiet in our area until suddenly, on 1 May, some men were arrested, most of whom belonged to the upper class. (One of our teachers was also among them, but Mr. Ehmann managed to have him released after a few days.) House searches were carried out in various houses because they were looking for revolutionary books and documents. (At that time, we heard that some had also been found.) Soon afterwards it was announced that all Armenians had to give up their weapons by a certain date. (These were weapons that, in most cases, individuals kept for protection in their homes or carried with them on journeys.) It must also be noted that permission had been given by the government to carry weapons. As far as I can remember, this announcement was made early on 15 June. The Armenian population was greatly agitated over this. Anyone who owned a weapon did not wish to give it up because they feared the worst. A number of them were given up, but many were also hidden. For this reason, the government applied compulsory measures. Individual men were arrested, tormented and beaten. They were required to state who had weapons and where they were hidden. Several men already died at that time as a result of this torment. Entire villages were surrounded by soldiers; many of the male villagers were tied up and beaten in the most terrible way because the authorities did not believe that all the weapons had been turned over. Many of them did then appear after such beatings; some bombs were also handed over. However, in those places where everything had been turned over, the people were usually not left in peace. It was said that some of the Armenians who had no

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more weapons bought some so that their tormentors let them go after they handed these in. What individual persons and even entire villages suffered during that time cannot be expressed in words. We German brothers and sisters ourselves tried to urge the Armenians to hand over weapons, should they still have any hidden because we hoped that these afflictions would then be over and the population would be left in the village. Mr. Ehmann himself travelled back and forth to the individual villages to urge the people not to hold anything back. He even received permission to visit the prison and persuade the individuals to turn everything over. During the entire time that weapons were being collected, men were continuously being put in prison. Often they were taken from their beds in the middle of the night. The whole time, young people from among the Armenians were also being conscripted as soldiers. But as I have already stated, no Armenian was sent to face the enemy at the front; rather, they were put to work. At that time, none of us knew what would become of these people. But we were not left in doubt for long. It was probably about the middle of June when suddenly one morning we heard, “Last night a large number of the prisoners—I believe it was 600 men—were taken away from the prison. Where to go?” God only knows. Nothing was ever seen or heard from them again. Also, about the same time, crowds of young Armenians, who had been conscripted as soldiers to build roads, were taken to Mezré, penned into a building and held under constant guard. Several days later, they were led away by armed soldiers—1,200 men in total. It was said that they were to build roads again. Apparently they really did work for several days in Maden, two days’ journey from Mezré; then they were led further on to Diyarbekir, bound together 4 and 4 or 5 and 5, and killed. On 23 June, another 300 men were taken away from the prison in the middle of the night. On the morning of the following day there was crying and great distress everywhere. The relatives, who had brought their next of kin food until then, found the prison—empty. Where were the men? It cannot be assumed that even one of them is still alive. Escape was out of the question because they had been bound together, and if they had escaped, then where to? There was simply no end to the chasing and tracking down. I am not capable of informing you of the details of all the horrors we experienced until about the end of June, but things were to become even worse. On 24 June we celebrated the Lord’s Supper with our people after the evening service, something we used to do often. What a service it was. No one could fight back the fearful thought that it was the last time. And it was really only two days later, on Saturday, 26 June, that it was announced that during the coming week the Armenian population had to leave the town. The next day, on Sunday, 27 June, we held the last service at our meeting place. Only crying and sobbing was to be heard. During the following days, crowds of deported Armenians from the area around Erzerum passed through our town in an indescribable, terrible state. There were no men or grown-up sons among the crowds, and when the women were asked, “Where are your husbands?” they answered, “Killed.” Now, just imagine the horror of the

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people who also had to move out. Many of them looked to prayer and God’s Word for strength on the terrible journey. During those days we had prayer sessions such as we had never experienced. Every morning at 8 a.m. our meeting room was full. Those were blessed days, in which many people met their God. Because the parish submitted thus to its God, we German brothers and sisters and also many of the Armenian Christians had hope that God would look and avert the afflictions; but when the set date arrived, we had to watch as 1,800 families had to leave our town, their homes and everything they loved within 2 days, take up their walking sticks and move out to meet a dark and dreadful future. It was said that they were to be taken to the area around Urfa. Mezré was deserted, the stores on the market square closed and, on the following Sunday, our meeting room almost empty. Soon all sorts of news and rumours reached us. Along the road to Malatia, a number of young and pretty women and girls were separated from the deported families and sent back to spend their wretched lives as wives of Turks. With the exception of some men who had been separated from the families in Isoli, the rest of them were taken to Malatia. All the men and grown-up sons were separated from the families there and put into prison. The crying children and women were penned into houses and assured that their husbands would be sent along a different route and that they would meet up with them again once they had reached their journey’s goal. But the few women who reached a place where they could stay never received any signs of life from their husbands. The rumour reached us in Mezré that all of them had been killed near Malatia. Again on 6 July, large crowds of deportees from Keghi arrived in a deplorable state. You have to have seen these poor people yourself to know just how great their misery was. They were penned in for a while in some of the houses belonging to deported Armenians. In droves, most of them died of illness. Every morning the hearse drove past the houses and the dead were then piled on top of each other and driven away. Often, entire hordes of deportees were locked in right at the cemetery. They had to spend day and night among the graves until death, like a saving friend, ended their misery. During the terrible weeks and months, it sometimes appeared as if the government was actually trying to help somewhat. For example, orphanages were set up. One was quite close to us. The poor children lived in the greatest dirt and misery, screamed day and night, and died off like flies. We sisters at the orphanage often took turns cooking soups for the poor things. When we arrived with it, the screaming often became even louder, for their hunger was so great that everyone wanted to be the first to eat. One morning all of the children were gone. I do not know what happened to them; I saw some of them later on in a similar institution. It was said that the rest had been thrown into the water. I cannot say with certainty whether this is true because I did not see it, but after everything I have seen I can believe it. Very early one morning at the beginning of September, some master craftsmen, who had been allowed to stay during the great deportation because they had worked for the government since the beginning of the war, were pulled out of their beds, put

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in prison for several days and then led off and killed like all of their fellow sufferers. All of them were disposed of like sheep to be slaughtered, as none of them had even the smallest weapon in their possession with which they might have defended themselves. Now there was hardly a single man to be found in Mezré, with the exception of a few craftsmen that the government could not spare, some of whom had become Mohammedans. But there was no end to the chasing and tracking down. Several miserable women and those that had remained behind from the people passing through still lived in the greatest wretchedness. And so they were hunted down. How one’s heart could bleed when one saw these poor people staggering along in front of soldiers armed to the teeth. As far as I know, 4 November was the last time we experienced such a horrible day. With the aforementioned I have attempted to give a small picture of what I experienced in Mezré last year. I could report in far more detail on individual matters and, should it be requested, I would be glad to do so. On 7 March of this year, I left Mezré. I do not know what has happened since that day because our brothers and sisters there are unable to inform us of their experiences. [Sister Klara Pfeiffer, Mezré]

1916-05-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14091; A 13207. pr. 19.05.1916 a.m. Petition From the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople, Zaven II, to the German Embassy Constantinople No. 237 [Translated from French by George Shirinian] Constantinople, May 12, 1916129 Mister Ambassador, I had the honour, a few months ago, to bring to the attention of Your Excellency the intolerable situation of the Armenian people in Turkey owing to the persecutions to which it was being subjected and I had asked for the intervention of the Imperial German government, so that it would be satisfied with the blood of hundreds of thousands of victims and that it would allow the remains of this wretched people to live from now in peace. Since then several months have passed, and the number of the victims has increased and is increasing further. Thousands are dying every day from disease and 129. Letter presented to the Imperial Chancellor in transcript (No. 237) on 15 May 1916.

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lack of food because of the destructive conduct of the Ottoman Government. The deported, exiled from their homes for a year, stripped of all and in the most miserable state, have not been able yet to obtain the right to settle somewhere; they wander like vagrants in the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria, where the yataghan of the “chetes” harvests some thousands like that which took place recently at Ras-ul-Ain. The deportations continue. The few families remaining in Kastemonu, Ankara, Marash, Adrianople, etc., have been exiled towards the deserts, and hundreds of men every week are exiled under various pretexts, from Constantinople and Smyrna. According to a new law, the belongings of the wretched deportees have been seized and sold, while their owners die of deprivation and the Government stopped the aid of a piece of dry bread that it had granted to them. And as a crowning misfortune, the few men left alive are conscripted, thus leaving their family without support. In various places, like Rodosto, Adrianople, Kayseri, Yosgad, Amassia, Samsun, etc., the few Armenian families whose support is from the army, and which for this reason it was allowed them to remain in their homes, not only do not receive the pension which is due them, but they are subjected to all kinds of pressures to embrace Islam. The Armenians found in different places in the provinces of Konia, Adrianople, Brusa, etc., are deprived of the solace of their religion because the government forbids them from entering their churches to pray there. While the majority of the bishops have being massacred, the few who remain alive are groaning in prison, even in Constantinople, or are exiled in Muslim villages. And this policy of persecution continues with the same severity, having for its goal not the repression of a so-called Armenian insurrection, since the government deals only with women and children, but the destruction of the Armenian element in Turkey. Mister Ambassador, I address myself a second time to Your Excellency, in the name of humanity because I have the firm faith that a power as civilised as Germany can never consent to such a crime, without precedent in the history of humanity, and it can only soften the unjust rage with which the Ottoman Government pursues the Armenian nation. Women and children deprived of asylum, food and support, being relatively civilised, are subjected to the whims of wild tribes; naked, famished, wandering in the burning sands of the deserts, these thousands of wretched people direct their glances full of tears towards the great German Nation and its all-powerful Emperor, begging for a drop of Christian pity and humanity. Will Germany, which has fought for two years for the rights of oppressed people, remain always indifferent towards an ancient people who are writhing in the claws of death? These are the cries and supplications of an unhappy father who finds himself in front of the torn bodies of his children. While hoping, Mister Ambassador, that these cries will be heard, I pray for the happiness and the prosperity of Germany and for the health of Your Excellency. Patriarch of the Armenians of Turkey [Arch. Zaven Der Eghiayan]

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1916-05-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14092; A 16612; pr. 23.06.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Damascus (Loytved Hardegg) to the Embassy in Constantinople J.No. 384 Damascus, 30 May 1916 Copy130 As I had the honour of reporting telegraphically in March of this year, Djemal Pasha organised a relief organisation for the Armenians who had been deported to this area, which has been running for about six weeks. The former Vali of Salonik and Aleppo, Hussein Kasim Bey, is at the head of this organisation, a man who is generally held in high esteem as having an upright character and being active. He is assisted by two higher officials who are off duty and the deputy Vali from Damascus. These three members of the committee also have a good reputation. Since last month, Hussein Kasim Bey has been travelling through the areas in and south of the Hauran in which the Armenians are located. In Dera, he first had bread distributed to the Armenians and set up a public delousing station and swimming bath with a hospital. Once cleansed, many Armenians were sent from there to different towns in which they were able to find work. Approximately seven hundred widows and orphans went to Hama, where they have begun working in a weaving factory. On the occasion of a dinner given by Djemal Pasha the day before yesterday, I met Hussein Kasim Bey. When he saw me, he told me that he needed to speak to me urgently. In a very excited voice he told me that he wanted to resign from his post as chairman of the Armenian Committee because he was no longer able to work. Not only were his measures not carried out, but the authorities were doing exactly the opposite. The Armenians whom he sent from Dera to Damascus in accordance with the programme were being sent back by the local municipal authorities. The government was not giving him sufficient financial means with which to take effective action against the Armenians’ great deprivation. He was very disheartened and no longer believed at all in the Turkish government’s serious intention to assist the expelled Armenians. He was even afraid that they were to be systematically exterminated. He had heard that those Armenians who had been escorted to Aleppo were once again being brought to the east in the direction of Mosul and Der-el-Zor, probably to fall prey to the Bedouins. This cruel policy of extermination was a disgrace to Turkey and 130. Presented in copy by Metternich on 19 June (No. 311) to the Imperial Chancellor.

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would greatly harm Turkey after peace had been achieved, and also cause Germany embarrassment because the world would accuse it of not having acted more effectively on behalf of the Armenians. He saw no other solution, but that Germany work towards sending all the Armenians to some other country (he meant South America) as quickly as possible. Turkey and the Armenians would be best assisted in this way. I pointed out the anti-Armenian atmosphere among the leading committee members in Constantinople, against which even Djemal Pasha was seemingly no match. I pointed out to him that Germany, insofar as the present situation permitted, was helping the Armenians as far as possible, and asked him not to resign his post in the interest of the cause and to continue working despite all the counter-currents. As soon as Djemal Pasha returns in a few days from Aleppo, he will continue to negotiate with him and, if he is not given more absolute power and financial means, he will relinquish his honorary post. According to his estimation, there are 60,000 Armenians between Aleppo and the Hezaz. Should the Swiss relief organisation wish to provide financial means for the local Armenians, I would recommend giving money secretly through the consulate to Hussein Kasim Bey, whom I trust completely, for the purpose in mind. Haste appears to be of the essence because the need is great. Hussein Kasim Bey requested that I treat this discussion as strictly confidential. [Loytved Hardegg]

1916-06-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/172 Memorandum Turkey and her Armenian subjects. The Turkish point of view.131 Though sorely embarrassed in its relations to its Christian subjects, whose loyalty has ever been more then doubtful, the imperial Government has honestly exerted itself for close upon a century to ensure to all the non-Muslim elements under its sway equality of rights and treatment with the Muslims. This idea pervades the legislation enacted in the Empire since the Tanzimat (era of reforms started with the promulgation of the Chart of Gulhané in 1839) and was in great part realised precisely at the time when Russia, protesting its lack of implementation, declared war on Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid (1896). If it had not been fully carried out till then, the reason for it was to be found in the fact that the suppression of Musulman supremacy would have 131. It is not clear from the files how this memorandum is connected. The date for the required name of the document has been estimated.

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led to anarchy in the country owing to the hatred for one another existing among the Christians. In the words of the French diplomatist, Mr. Engelhardt, in his book “La Turquie et le Tanzimat” (page 136), “This precaution had its raison d’être in an incontestable fact of the period and one which could be considered as axiomatic. Its meaning is conveyed by an expression applied later on to the French Republic, which can be paraphrased to suit the conditions of Turkey in the following manner: The Government of the Musulmans is that which divides the Christians least.” And let it be born in mind that not the least difficulty which the Sublime Porte had to overcome in achieving its task was the opposition of the Christians themselves who were adverse to a change in their condition which would deprive them of a pretext for claiming the protection and intervention of Foreign Powers. This is how Mr. Engelhardt refers to the subject in his abovementioned book (page 127): “This experiment (the assimilation of the non-Muslims with the Muslims in the matter of military service) carried with it an unexpected teaching. It proved that the Reform in the measure as it passed from theory to practice would be combated by those very people who were destined to enjoy its first benefits, a difficulty which complicated in a singular fashion the particular problem of which the solution was a matter of such importance to the foreign Powers.” At the same time the non-Muslims were allowed to retain their organisation into separate religious communities enjoying very extensive privileges of self-administration—an organisation dating from the morrow of the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and of which Mr. Philip Marshall Brown, Assistant Professor of international Law in Princeton University says in his book “Foreigners in Turkey and their juridical status” (1914): “Whatever may have been the reasons and motives guiding the Ottoman Turks in their policy towards their non-Muslim subjects it is sufficient simply to note … that, without the aid of powerful armies or battleships the Christians other subjects of the Sultan received extensive immunities of jurisdiction resembling in certain respects those subsequently granted to foreigners.” Dealing with the same question Mr. Brown’s book contains this other significant passage: “It was (this policy), in fact, in entire harmony with the Muslim system of jurisprudence and eloquently refutes the universal reputation for intolerance so unjustly attributed to the Turks.” Under this organisation the non-Muslims enjoyed facilities for development on national lines which furnish an instance of unsurpassed liberalism in the treatment of conquered peoples. Is it Russia, is it France, is it even England with her constant assumption of superiority over other nations—is it any of these three Powers who vie with one another in unjustly denouncing Turkey for political intolerance, which has the same record of generosity to show? The answer to this question is writ large in the stringently restrictive legislations applied by these imperialist nations to Ireland and India, to Algeria and Indo-China, to Poland, Khiva and Boukhara. And going back to the subject of equality of civil rights and religious toleration in regard to which they have succeeded so well in blackening the name of Turkey by abusing the disposition of the Christian public to believe without examination or comparison anything

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of a Musulman Power: who stands higher in the scale of nations, the “unspeakable” Turk, who can quote the names of hundreds of Greeks and Armenians employed by him as Ministers of State, Ambassadors and Envoys entrusted with special missions and within whose dominions religious freedom has been absolute for five centuries, or they in whose midst the conferment of such appointments on Musulmans is unthinkable, and one of whom, Russia, is the cruel oppressor of all that is not orthodox and another, England, pursues a distinctly anti-catholic policy in Ireland? Enough of these mean calumnies dictated by political unscrupulousness! Enough of this hypocrisy! Enough of this immoral readiness on the part of Christianity to condemn on partial or false evidence provided by interested parties a whole nation of Musulmans simply because they are Musulmans. Whatever may have been the hardships suffered by the non-Muslims in Turkey, they resulted from certain vices inherent in despotic forms of Government all over the world, which were shared in an equal degree by the Muslims. Indeed the Christians had as much or more to complain in this respect of the administration of their spiritual leaders. To quote Mr. Engelhardt again: “From this period onwards (18th century)—the fact is patent—the provinces joined to the Patriarchate of Constantinople (which at that time had the Christians of all denominations under its jurisdiction) had not less to suffer from the oppression of their ecclesiastical authorities than from the exactions of the Pashas and as they were more directly in contact with the former it was the yoke of their own masters which weighed on them more heavily.” The Armenians in particular, so far from having any reason for special complaint against the Imperial Government, enjoyed social favours which, by making them the confidants and helpers of the ruling element in its private as well as administrative affairs, allowed them to attain a material prosperity unknown to the other elements. Such was the condition of this people when war having broken out between Turkey and Russia the fortune of arms brought the army of the Grand Duke Nicholas to San Stefano. Forgetful of what they owed to the Imperial Government and the Turkish people, and unwilling to make any allowances for the great difficulties which hampered the former in its efforts to remedy certain defects of its provincial administration, the Armenians, contrary to all laws of political decency, took advantage of the presence of the arch enemy at the gates of Constantinople to enter into overt communication with the Grand Duke, from whom they asked and only too readily obtained the insertion in the Treaty of San Stefano of special clauses in their favour. They also approached the British Government as complainants of the Turkish rule in quest of protectors abroad. The result was the insertion in the Treaty of Cyprus of clauses in their favour similar to those of the Treaty of San Stefano. Not content with these unpatriotic demonstrations they brought their grievances before the Congress of Berlin which also yielded to their clamour, the suit being really one of Christian versus Musulman, and reproduced in the treaty signed in the German Capital the provisions concerning this people of agitations which the political calculations of Russia and England had lodged in the pacts they had separately concluded with

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defeated Turkey. Thus the Armenians took up openly the attitude of traitors to the Ottoman cause. From this time onwards succumbing only too readily to the selfish instigations of the Powers forming today the Triple Entente they engaged unremittingly in a revolutionary movement through such secret Committees as the Trochakists, Hintchakists and Dashnaktsutiun their ultimate object being the foundation of an independent Armenia at the expense of an Empire where, let it be noted, they live in an essentially sporadic form. The means they practiced systematically for the attainment of this preposterous end were murder, incendiarism and pillage at the expense of their musulman compatriots, their idea being to provoke reprisals on the part of the latter and thus bring about a European intervention which was to lead in turn to the realisation of their political ambitions. The response to these provocations came from Abdul Hamid in the shape of the Armenian tragedy of 1895. The Armenians had succeeded only too well and perhaps beyond their own expectations in the first part of the object so strenuously pursued by them. That the sanguinarily disposed tyrant of Turkey alone had conceived and carried out through his private agents the terrible repression of which the Armenians became the victims they had so strenuously striven to be and the Turkish people were not a party to it either in spirit or in action is manifest from the fact that the revolution of 1908 saw the Armenians fraternising with the Turks throughout the Empire in a common outburst of joy at the fall of the cruel omnipotence of Yildiz. That, on the other hand, the true object cherished by the Armenians was not the introduction of reforms in the Empire but their separation from it is also manifest from the fact that they resumed their revolutionary activity almost on the morrow of the reestablishment of the Constitution notwithstanding the very real guarantees it offered for the equal development under a liberal form of Government of all the races forming the Ottoman Nation. This activity took an overt form in their successful endeavours to resist the perfectly legitimate desire of the Imperial Government to create in the Empire an Ottoman spirit common to all the races living in it. To quote again Mr. Marshal Brown: “The question of compulsory military service and other questions concerning the right to vote and the alleged right of national representation in the Turkish Parliament raised after the Revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 have all served to reveal the extraordinary pretensions of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchates, as well as the heads of the other communities to represent their “nations” in a political capacity before the Sublime Porte. One of the chief embarrassments of the new constitutional régime in Turkey was the unwillingness of the various communities, particularly that of the Greeks, to subordinate their sentiments to the broader and superior claims of Ottoman Nationality.” In a foot note Mr. Brown adds: “The Young Turks perhaps committed an irretrievable blunder in treating with the respective religious communities as distinct nations and in determining representation in Parliament on the basis of nationalities rather than on a strictly Ottoman basis. Correspondence and diplomatic negotiations with the Greek Patriarch on the subjects of recruitment, electoral rights etc., were carried on by the Grand Vizier as if with the Ambassador of an independent nation.”

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These concessions and such others as the permission granted to the revolutionary Armenian societies formed under the tyrannical rule of Abdul Hamid to survive in the shape of political parties and even to extend their organisation, remaining all the while in relationship with their centres abroad, did not and could not, in the nature of things, disarm the Armenians since, as explained above, they were fundamentally hostile to Turkey, and their one object was to achieve independence. Attributing to weakness what was purely a broad—too broad—sprit of liberalism on the part of the Imperial Government the Armenians continued to entertain secret relations with Russia, France and England allied in a common policy of hostility to Turkey. The first occasion after the revolution of 1908 on which they revealed themselves as blindly hostile to Turkey as of yore was the reactionary movement which broke out on 13 April 1909 when, taking advantage of the absence of all Government in Turkey they started an insurrection at Adana. For this they also paid very dearly, the local musulmans which like the rest of the Musulman population had at last lost patience with the Armenians having drowned it in blood. Those westerners who have marked out Turkey for special reprobation on account of the excesses committed in this connexion should ask themselves how the mob would have acted in one of their own towns in similar circumstances: the fatherland in an upheaval threatening its very existence and just at that moment a local element hostile to the State rising in that town and giving it a stab in the back. In any case they should not forget the horrors of the Inquisition perpetrated in cold blood nor the unparalleled tragedies of the French revolution, nor the Commune nor what is nearer to our own times the outrages of the international expedition against China nor the pogroms practised systematically in Russia against a section of the population whose sole guilt is to belong to a particular denomination. The spirit of self-preservation, exasperated as it has been in Turkey, by a long and systematic series of attempts against her existence will not fail, whichever the race concerned, to break out excesses. When so many nations have acted like demons in such contingencies, and sometimes under no provocation whatever, it is supremely unjust to expect of the Turks to act like angels. The Balkan War served to emphasise the unyielding hostility of the Armenians, when Rodosto fell into the hands of the Bulgarians. The Armenians settled in that locality indulged personally into the worst excesses against their Musulman compatriots and by their intrigues and false accusation brought upon them the extreme rigors of the invader. But anxious above all to introduce peace and stability in the Empire the Sublime Porte prevented the knowledge of these Armenian excesses from spreading among the Musulmans and on the contrary gave great publicity to the comparatively good behaviour during the war of a certain number of Armenian officers and soldiers whom it went so far as to represent as heroes of the Ottoman cause. It thus hoped to pave the way for a reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian elements which was to facilitate the application of a programme of serious reforms already drawn up for the benefit of the eastern provinces of Anatolia (abusively called Armenian, no one

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Vilayet containing a majority of Armenians). A further step it took in this direction, and one which proved the sincerity of its intentions was to apply to England for the loan of inspectors general, Gendarmerie officers and police commissioners who were to be entrusted with the task of carrying out these reforms. No honestly minded foreigner in contact at that time with the official and private circles of the Turkish capital will deny that they were pervaded with the deep desire to forget the past as regards the Armenians and lay the foundation of a stable union in the Empire by meeting their legitimate aspirations in the most generous spirit. Unfortunately the Armenians showed themselves as irreconcilable as ever. Through their Catholicos (supreme head of the Armenian church residing at Etchimyazine in Russia, they applied to the Government of the Tzar and through Nubar Pasha, a wealthy Armenian settled in Paris, they engaged in a vehement journalistic propaganda in view of bringing about an intervention of the Powers in their favour. At the instigation of Russia whose hand maid England had become in all international questions of general import, and under the influence of the attitude adopted by the suborned press of England and France the British Government backed out of its promise to provide Turkey with the officials the latter had asked for. Instead she adhered to the Russian proposal to present the Sublime Porte with a very onerous set of conditions for the administration of the so called Armenian Vilayets, and always in concert with the Government of the Tzar, induced the other Powers to join in this measure. Weakened by the Balkan War Turkey had no means of escaping this intervention and after seven months of negotiations saw herself obliged to submit to the project of the Powers in all its essentials. The inspectors general were to be chosen from a list drawn up by them. What was to be a voluntary action on her part conceived by herself in a spirit of perfect good will was transformed into an international obligation reducing still further her independence. For this as well as for the forcible creation by Russia of a second Macedonia in Eastern Anatolia, offering the Government of the Tzar new opportunities for undermining the integrity of Turkey the latter had to thank her Armenian subjects. Secret circulars issued by the Armenian central Committees to their branches and of which copies are in the hands of the Imperial authorities as well as private letters from Armenians connected with these societies are there to prove how closely the Armenians were in league with England, France and Russia in conceiving and carrying out this plan. One of these circulars dated 5th March 1913 explained that the three aforementioned Powers were unanimous in their resolve to take up the Armenian question upon the definite conclusion of peace (in the Balkans) in view of establishing an autonomous administration in Eastern Anatolia and that their respective Ambassadors in Constantinople had been instructed to urge the Armenians to display a little more patience. This paper goes on to say “The British-Armenian Committee in London which numbers in its ranks one of the most influential members of the Balkan Committee is in full activity. It has addressed a very impressive memorandum to the six great Powers of Europe of which a copy has also been sent to President Taft. We have authentic information to the effect that the English, French

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and Russian Representatives are to bring to the front of international discussion the Armenian question. Every endeavour is being made to obtain from the other Governments their participation in the discussion and, failing this, their abstention from opposition.” Thus, disregarding the advances of the Imperial Government the Armenians only saw in the terrible shock caused to Turkey by her defeat in the Balkan War another opportunity for hastening the downfall of an illustrious Empire which the valour and blood of twenty-five generations of Musulmans had served to bring together and to cement and to raise on the ruins of the colossus a pigmy Armenian State—an idea of which the guiltiness [sic] is increased by its utopian character. What could the effect of this implacable and unreasoning hostility be but to add fuel to the hatred and desire for revenge accumulating for some time past in the breasts of the Musulmans against their traitorous and ungrateful compatriots? A new tragedy was in course of preparation for the latter again as a result of their own machinations. The present war was to bring it about. No sooner had it broken out than the wishes of success of the Armenians went openly to the Triple Entente of which all the partners were the sworn enemies of Turkey. Not content with this they made active preparation in view of the possible participation of the latter in the fray. Entertaining no doubt as to the triumph of the Russian Armies in their struggle with the Turkish forces the Armenian committees laid plans the execution of which was to multiply the effects of the Russian victories. Thus they were to raise disturbances all over the country and carry the torch of the incendiary into every town and village and with bands formed with Armenian deserters cut off the retreat of the Imperial troops and spread terror throughout the land. That his treasonable project did exist and was formed by them in collaboration with the Triple Entente is proved beyond all question by a mass of documents and facts of which it will be sufficient to quote the following: (a) Among the papers seized at the Russian Consulate in Bitlis figures a report of the incumbent of that post to Mr. Tzarikoff, the then Representative of the Tzar in the Ottoman Capital, a passage of which reads as follows: “The activity of the Dashnaktsutiun is having a great effect in preparing Armenian public opinion in favour of Russia. This society is working persistently to bring about collisions between Armenians and Musulmans to the end of creating a situation calling for Russian Intervention and an occupation of the country by Russian troops. The other means employed by the Dashnaktsutiun to attain this object is to spread agitation and terror. The town as well as the village Armenians acting in community with their spiritual leaders never fail to show their inclinations towards Russia. The attitude of the members of the Dashnaktsutiun and their relations to Russia depend on instructions of their central Committee in Constantinople.” This official paper bearing No. 63 and dated 24 December 1912 though not in immediate connexion with the treasonable practices of the Armenians relating

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to the present war is quoted here in a preliminary way as giving an authentic instance of the system of provocation deliberately adopted by them towards their Musulman compatriots in collusion with Russia while trying and succeeding only too well in representing themselves abroad as victims of the latter and of the Imperial authorities. (b) About a month before of outbreak of hostilities between Turkey and Russia the Tzar issued a proclamation to the Armenian people in which addressing separately the Ottoman Armenians he said: “Armenians! For you who for five centuries of an existence of slaves caught in the meshes of despotism have been subjected to the vilest outrages the hour of deliverance has struck at last. Armenians! Join your congeners under my sceptre so that you also may enjoy the blessings of justice and liberty.” This from the stubborn maintainer one of the cruellest despotisms extant, whose pogroms against the innocent Jews and Siberian atrocities are in the mind of every man and whose policy towards the Armenians themselves was one of savage persecution at home and collusion with Abdul Hamid abroad until it suited its purposes to use them as agents of it designs against the Ottoman Empire. The response to this call was not slow to come. An Ottoman Armenian of the name of Aram Turabian writing to the Tribune de Genève of November 22, 1914 indulges in the following bombastic and confused declaration: “The benevolent words of the Tzar of all the Russias and the King of Armenia (sic) have been spoken to the Armenians with all the satisfaction derived by His Majesty from the spectacle of 200,000 Armenian bayonets, that is of a veritable army conscious of its duty. The Armenians do not forget that France has ever favoured their cause. I am sure that France will not see in us the pitiable victims of yesterday’s massacres but a veritable people ready to fight and die in the name of civilisation. Having succumbed to the yoke of the barbarians after five centuries of continuous struggle Armenia today responds to the appeal of the Tzar in a glow of bravery and as a champion of liberty clothed in the pride which is characteristic of the race.” (c) A public statement made by Mr. Sazanoff and reproduced in the “Indépendence Roumaine” of 12th March 1915 gives expression to the sentiment that the Russo-Turkish convention (?) constitutes a historical document implicitly recognising on the part of Turkey the special position of Russia in all questions relating to Armenia and adds that the intention of the Government of the Tzar is to avail itself of this position at the end of the war. In a speech delivered at the reopening of the Douma the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs declared that the Armenians were fighting on the side of Russia against Turkey. (d) In a debate in the House of Lords the Earl of Cromer stated that “one of the objects with which the war was being waged was to deliver Armenia from the Turkish yoke” and the Earl of Crew representing the Government assented to this proposition. (e) Arshak Tchobanian, an Armenian notable (Ottoman) residing in Paris answered in the following words the Armenian Reformed Hintchakist Society’s appeal for instructions: “You ask me what line of conduct you are to follow. I thank you

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for this. The greatest question of the day is the holy war now being waged. One and all we must see in it our one and only concern. Outside of this question every affair must be left to future consideration. The Armenians disseminated throughout the world must work with all their strength for the Triple Entente. Germany and her Allies are sentenced to dissolution. A period of renovation is at hand. You must take advantage of this situation. The Armenians settled in Paris are providing France with great numbers of volunteers and continue to join the ranks of her army. You must exert yourselves to come to the help of France and England in the same way. You will witness the fruits of this sacrifice.” (f ) The Armenian paper “Bahak” appearing in Providence, U.S.A., contains, in its issue dated 24 December 1914, an article with the following announcement: “In various localities of the Vilayet of Van insurrections have broken out. Wherever the Russian troops approach the Armenians take to arms and come to their help in every possible way.” It is superfluous to continue this enumeration. Sufficient has been explained and quoted in the preceding pages to convince the most prejudiced mind that the Armenians, exaggerating beyond reason their original grievances resulting from certain defects of the Imperial administration of which the Musulmans suffered in the same degree and for the reformation of which the Sublime Porte was making strenuous efforts, entered into treasonable relations with the Powers most hostile to Turkey and pursuing their separatist policy in an ever increasing spirit of violence and aggression, of which murder, incendiarism and rapine were the outward manifestations, became a danger of the first magnitude to the Ottoman State. At this point Turkey having entered the great war it was more imperative than ever that she should enjoy tranquillity within her dominions and yet the Sublime Porte could not but foresee that the Armenians would seek to take advantage of the new & terrible burden placed on the shoulders of the State to increase their subversive activity. However the Minister of War Enver Pasha addressed to them a most solemn warning through their Patriarch whom he informed that any attempt on the part of his community to raise the standard of rebellion would be put down with the utmost vigour. This warning was repeated by the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Halil Bey, to the Armenian Representatives in touch with secret Societies. Thus the Imperial Government saved its responsibility as regards the fearful consequences which an Armenian revolution breaking out at such a critical moment for the Ottoman Empire was bound to produce. Heedless of these expostulations the latter launched upon the course of action they had marked out for themselves at the outbreak of the general war. Arming themselves with weapons, bombs and dynamite they had secretly stored in their churches & cemeteries all over the country—it is interesting to note the selection of their hiding places—they rose in a number of localities, principally in the districts bordering on Russia or exposed to Russian attack. Thus taking possession towards the end of 1914, of the road between Van and Bitlis they cut the telegraph wires connecting these two military centres. By March and June of the present year

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the insurrection had spread to the districts of Timar, Guvach and Tchatak and finally to the town of Van itself which they captured and where they massacred a considerable number of the Muslman population but from which they were expelled some time afterwards. Having joined the Russian forces and fought side by side with them in the battle of Sari Camish, they succeeded in capturing Van a second time with the military help of their allies. The “TIMES” of 8 October gave an account of these Armenian exploits. When the Russian fleet first bombarded Zongooldak on the Black Sea the Armenians of the neighbouring districts, Broussa and Ada Bazary, who were only waiting for the opportunity, turned spies in the service of the enemy and rushing at the same time to arms started devastating the country and attacking the Muslmans. At Moosh, Haizan and Zeytun similar outbreaks took place accompanied by the usual attack on Musulman life and property, these instances showing to what extent disloyalty in the blackest and most active form had gangrened the Armenian people could be multiplied ad infinitum. Up to this moment the Imperial Government had refrained from repressive measures. But the time had come when its duty to the State, threatened in its life centres by these internal enemies acting in conjunction with the external, could no longer admit of inaction on its part. It decided to strike and to strike hard. The Armenian Societies were dissolved and their clubs closed. Besides this the Armenian population of the frontier provinces and those where a Russian disembarkation [sic] was possible was forcibly removed to regions where they could not join hands with the enemy. No doubt a certain amount of brutality was displayed by the soldiery or gendarmerie in the course of these operations. No doubt deplorable excesses were committed by the Musulman population during the passage of uprooted Armenians from one locality to another. But, on the other hand, many instances may be quoted of gendarmes and musulman civilians sacrificing their lives in defence of the immigrants. Again, the Imperial Government, which was materially prevented by the imperative calls of the war upon its resources to attend to the safety of the transported Armenians in the full measure and with the rapidity required hastened to do what was possible by enacting a law for the protection of their property and dispatching two carefully composed commissions to the spot, one for the applications of this law, the other for judging the accused Musulmans and handing over the Guilty to the military courts for prompt punishment. In any case, when dealing with this tragedy westerners should think of the circumstances in which it occurred. They should remember the very natural exasperation caused to the dominant element in Turkey by the long series of assaults committed by the Armenians on the peace and integrity of the State and culminating in a savage insurrection at a time when the Empire was engaged in a life and death struggle with its enemies abroad. Imagine the Poles playing the part of the Armenians in Russia, or to transfer the scene to a country claiming the first place in civilisation, the Hindoos in the British Empire? Does anybody seriously mean to say, with the history of the past treatment of such [a] situation by these two countries staring them in the face, that Poles and Hindoos would have paid less heavily for the

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selection of this supremely critical moment to carry out subversive plans? By what right do Westerners accuse Turkey of savagery when their inner conscience must whisper to them that their own nations, given the same provocations, would act even more violently? That the Turks are as high souled as any people and will not allow the primitive brutality which slumbers in the heart of Westerners and Easterners alike to get the better of their poise except as the result of unendurable provocation and in self defence is eloquently proved by the clean and gentlemanly manner in which they are fighting their enemies. Indeed their chivalrousness in the Dardanelles for instance has been such that it has compelled the loud admiration and appreciation of their British opponents. To conclude: the translocation of the Armenians from their native regions to other parts of the country was a military and political measure imperatively dictated to the Imperial Government by the armed collaboration of this element, long engaged in subversive enterprises against the Ottoman State with the Entente Powers and particularly with Russia, with all of whom Turkey is at war. All responsibility for the tragedies of which the innocent may have been the victim in the course of this and other measures adopted by Turkey in pure self defence falls directly on the Armenian revolutionary Committees and their Allies England, Russia and France. These three countries are absolutely debarred from attacking Turkey in this connexion. What decency commands to them to do is it to avoid mentioning the subject and to say in the silence of their consciences: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. As a last point it should be stated here in the most categorical manner that those who attribute to foreign instigation the measures adopted by Turkey in the course of the present war in view of protecting herself against her Armenian subjects are guilty of an absolute lie. The Imperial Government is particularly concerned to secure the respect of its independence. It will brook interference in its internal affairs from no quarter whether friendly or unfriendly.

1916-06-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14092; A 18552; pr. 14.07.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 65/No.1822 Aleppo, 29 June 1916 On 20 April, Sister Beatrice Rohner, who works here to alleviate the Armenian disaster, sent an indigenous intermediary agent from Aleppo to the Euphrates area to

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distribute money there among the deported and to give further aid. After his return on 20 June and based on his statement, she drew up the report respectfully enclosed in transcript, which unfortunately once again gives evidence that the slow and agonising process of extermination is still being carried on. Deportation began once again in Aleppo on 19 June, at first under the pretext that all those “dangerous to the health of others” had to be removed, then that all the “suspects” could not be allowed to remain, whereby distinctions are not always made between newcomers and those residing in the town, although according to former promises the latter are to be exempt from deportation. The promise that Protestants and Catholics are to be spared is also not always kept. Rather, everything is left to the complete arbitrariness of the police authorities. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Rössler Enclosure [The enclosure tallies with the enclosure in Doc. 1916-07-22-DE-002, translated by the American embassy in Constantinople, with some omissions that have been added there in square brackets and italics.]

1916-06-30-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/173; A53a, 1926. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Damascus (Loytved Hardegg) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 93 Damascus, 30 June 1916 All of the Armenians are more or less being forced to become Mohammedans. With the exception of one family, all of the remaining 149 families in Dera have accepted Islam in writing. As Djemal Pasha is in Jerusalem and interviews with him in writing do not seem to be opportune, I have induced the local Mohammedan notability, who is against this forced change of religion, to make the local gerent of the vilayet aware of the fact that I am profoundly shocked by these measures because they will cause a strong trend in Germany against the Young Turkish government. The political advantages, which might be achieved by such attempts to denationalise the Armenians and cut off their relations with the Christian powers, would be out of all proportion to the disadvantages which would arise from the negative

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opinion in Europe and the United States against Turkey. The gerent of the vilayet denied the attempts to make the Armenians Islamic. I assume that he telegraphed the contents of this discussion to Djemal Pasha. [Loytved]

1916-07-10-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14092; A 18548; pr. 14.07.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 368 Therapia, 10 July 1916 The persecution of the Armenians in the eastern provinces has reached its final stage. The Turkish government has been put off in the execution of its programme for settling the Armenian question by destroying the Armenian race neither by our protests, nor by the protests of the American Embassy and the Papal Delegate, nor also by the threats of the Entente Powers, but least of all by considering the public opinion of the West. It is now about to dissolve and disperse the last groups of Armenians who have survived the deportations. These include Armenians who remained in northern Syria (Marash, Aleppo, Rasul-Ain) as well as in some larger places in Asia Minor (Angora, Konia), especially those who had been deported there or had emigrated there earlier. But they are also clearing up among the old established population and among the Catholic and Protestant Armenians, although the Porte has repeatedly assured that the latter would be spared. The remainder will be deported partly to Mesopotamia, partly converted to Islam. The concentration camp in Rasul-Ain, which still had 2,000 inhabitants at the end of April, has been completely evacuated; a first transport has been attacked and smashed to pieces while walking towards Der Zor; one can assume that the others have met no better a fate. In Marash and Aleppo, the deportation is in full action; in Marash not even the families were spared who had formerly been granted special permits by the Minister of the Interior. In Angora the Vali, Reshid Bey, well-known for his deeds in Diyarbekir, is engaged in tracing the last Armenians (solely Catholics) and expelling them.

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The remaining Protestant and Catholic Armenians in Eski Shehr and in the areas around Ismid are being treated in the same way. Despite all official denials, Islamisation plays a great role in this last phase of the persecution of the Armenians. Already at the end of April, Father Christoffel from Sivas reported that he had met the last Christian Armenians in Eregli; from there to Sivas the Armenians had been completely cleared away, “either deported, or converted or murdered. There was not one Armenian sound to be heard anywhere.” In Karahissar Sharki there still appeared to be a few groups of Christian Armenians; recently they were said to have formed a committee together with the local Greeks in order to instigate a revolt among the soldiers. Following this, all Armenians were arrested, ready to be deported. They preferred to convert to Islam. Consul Loytved reported from Damascus on 30 June: “All Armenians are being more or less forced to become Muslims; in Derât, 149 families have accepted Islam; only one single family remained loyal to the Christian faith.” It is high time to mention the methods practised by the Porte on the institutions which had been run so far by German and American associations for the welfare of the Armenian people in those areas, such as orphanages, hospitals, schools, etc. The few institutions that have not yet been closed down are threatened daily with deportation of the Armenian staff, the schoolchildren and orphans, and with other disciplinary actions. The only concessions allowed by the government during the past year have now been withdrawn, and there is only very little hope that these institutions will be able to resume their activities after the war to the same extent as before. The Turkish government has rightly recognised that schools and orphanages run by foreigners have had considerable influence on the arousing and development of Armenian national sentiments; it is, therefore, only consistent from the government’s point of view if it puts them under rigorous control or closes them down altogether. Likewise one should not read a disciplinary measure propelled by religious fanaticism into the enforced Islamisation of the Armenians at first. Such feelings were most likely strange to the Young Turkish rulers. On the other hand, it is true that in order to be a good Ottoman patriot down to the heart, one should especially bear witness to the Islamic faith. The history of the Turkish Empire from its beginning until the present day is there to prove the truth behind the saying that in the Orient, religion and nationality are identical and every Ottoman is convinced of this deep down inside. The countervailing official and unofficial assurances are insincere and, together with the accompanying custom of referring to the Koran and to tradition, are part of the traditional phraseology which has been used since the era of the reform firmans in order to prove to Europeans the tolerance of Islam and of the Ottomans. Also, the denials with which the ministers countered the reports of religious persecution were first of all requirements of good form; but they do apply, in as far as the main motive is not religious fanaticism, as for example with the enforced conversion of the Jews

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and Moors in Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries, but the intention to amalgamate the Armenians with the Muslim population of the empire. Although—for various reasons—it is regrettable that we did not succeed in bringing the Armenian policy of the Porte onto a reasonable132 course, on the other hand neither our enemies nor the so-called neutrals have the slightest right to put the blame on us or even only to demand that we publicly pronounce our disapproval. We have tried to ease the fate of that unhappy Armenian race in Turkey as well as we could, both through influencing the government as well as with our direct charity. The nameless atrocities of all kinds, which were committed on the German civilian and military prisoners in the course of the World War by the English, French and Russians by those three nations who call themselves the champions of the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox faith, were never the subject of protests on the part of any one of the Entente Powers towards another; there is just as little evidence that a voice was ever raised in the enemy press on behalf of the trampled human rights. However, there were credible reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury had not shied away from describing the well-known acts of the crew of the Baralong and of King Stephen in his sermons as God-pleasing acts.133 This circumstance is also known to the Porte, which repeatedly countered our protests in the Armenian question by referring to it. Not we, as is so often claimed, but rather our enemies have shown the Turks the ways of rendering suspicious elements of the population harmless without any respect for human rights.134 Metternich

1916-07-10-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/101; 10/12, 6266. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) K.No. 72/No. 1934 Aleppo, 10 July 1916 The Imperial Consulate in Adana will have reported on the deportation of the Armenians employed to build the Baghdad railway in the District of Adana, which was ordered by the government during the middle of last month and later partly reversed 132. Crossed out in Berlin and replaced by the expression “more mild.” 133. Comment by Wilhelm II on this paragraph: “very good.” 134. Note by Wilhelm II below this document: “correct!”

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at the instigation of the construction department. Those, however, whom it was not possible to keep on the railway, were soon sent from Vilayet Adana to Marash Aintab Biredjik Urfa, so that the Consulate in Aleppo is responsible for reporting on their journey. I, therefore, have the honour of submitting an enclosure to Your Excellency for your information: the translation of a letter from a certain Leon Hatshadurian to Sister B. Rohner that, compared with the news which has otherwise become known here, stands out for its down-to-earth description. It concerns a troop of about 1,000 people. I was unable to find out reliably whether or not and how many others were deported from the railway at this opportunity. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Chancellor. Rössler Enclosure Aleppo, 9 July 1916 I have been working as a railway worker for Engineer Köppel in Enteli for 6 months. On 16 June, while we were working, we were suddenly led away by gendarmes, without any consideration for the sick, children and old people, and with no possibility of taking our possessions with us. We were driven with blows from the butts of guns as far as Bulanek-Baghché, which was already full of workers from Keller, Yarbashi, Airan and other towns. You could have believed that the Day of Judgement had dawned. You only had to look at the women and children to get an impression of what was happening. After three days, the government wrote down the names of all the workers who had no families and, without giving us any bread or the opportunity of buying something for ourselves, we were driven forward with blows from the butts of guns to Tshakiroglu, Fundadjak, Marash, Karaküjükli, Aintab, Nisib, Biredjik, Urfa, Karasu: in other words, probably a distance of 200 km, with old and sick people and children among us. About 70 men were killed by rifle shots in the area around Marash, namely near Fundadjak. We had to buy water near Marash that not even animals would have accepted. The gendarmes sold us a glass of tea made of this water for one piastre. There were 250 to 300 people from Marash among us. Their relatives came, but were not allowed to speak to them. They brought bread, but were not allowed to distribute it. We were driven to Karaküjükli with blows from the butts of guns and sticks, where we were given two loaves of bread (i.e., which we were allowed to buy for three metallics). There was nothing to eat until Biredjik; in Biredjik each of us received bread for 6 metallics. When we left Urfa we received nothing. There were 1,000 of us in the beginning; 623 of us were left in Urfa and Karasu. I do not know what happened later on. The Arabs assured us that the gendarmes would lead us to our death. I managed to escape here with great difficulty. I can neither speak nor write of the details. I arrived in Aleppo without a penny. [Leon Khatchadurian]

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1916-07-22-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14092; A 19989; pr. 28.07.1916 p.m. Report From the Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 409 Therapia, 22 July 1916 Respectfully sent in transcript to His Excellency Imperial Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg. P. Metternich Enclosure Transcript Information received from the American Chargé d’Affaires. [The enclosure is an almost word-for-word translation of the enclosure to Doc. 191606-29-DE-001. It is not from Beatrice Rohner herself, but from an intermediary agent who made the journey. A few omissions have been added subsequently and identified by means of square brackets and italics.] The Journey Report of Our Committee Members. On the 20th of April I arrived at Meskené and found there 3,500 deported Armenians, and more than 100 orphans. A part of the people have settled here as bakers and butchers, etc., even though Meskené is but a halting place. All the rest are begging. In every tent are sick and dying. Anyone who cannot manage to get a piece of bread by begging eats grass raw and without salt. Many hundreds of the sick are left without any tent covering, in the open, under the glowing sun. I saw desperate ones throw themselves in grave-trenches and beg the grave-diggers to bury them. The Government does not give the hungry any bread, and no tent to those who remain outside. As I was in Meskené, there came a caravan of sick women and children from Bab. They are in an indescribable condition. They were thrown down from the wagons like dogs. They cried for water, they were given each a piece of dry bread, and were left there. No one gave them any water though they remained a whole day under the hot sun. We had to work the whole night long to ameliorate their condition a little. Among the orphans there was a small boy of four years old. It was early in the morning and I asked him if he had eaten anything. He looked much amazed,

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and said, “I have always gazed at the stars, and my dear God has satisfied me.” On my questioning him where his father and mother were, he said simply that they were dead in the desert. In Meskené I gathered one hundred children under a tent. I had their hair cut and their rags washed. They received daily some bread and some soup. As I had to go further, I sought someone to care for the orphans. I found a young widow from Hadjin, who asked me if she might take the children under her care. She belonged to a good family and had received a high education. She gave herself with an intense love to the children-work. Ten days after my departure they had sent the woman with the one hundred children South. I found her a few weeks later in Sepka clothed in rags, she had lost her wits and wandered about the place asking everyone, “Where are my children?—What have you done with my children?” [She looks for skulls and bones and shows them to those passing by. When someone gives her ten pfennigs, she buys bread, tries a bit of it and then brings it quickly to someone who is even more hungry than she is. Ten days after I left she was sent to the south with the 100 children.] When she had reached Abu Hara she had spent all of her money and was destitute. The children were scattered, a prey to hunger. In Der Zor I found two of them, the only survivors, they said that all the rest had perished. In Meskené I saw more than 600 deported who had lived in Muara till now and who had spent a pitiful sojourn of nine months there. They were now once more persecuted and sent to different places. Slowly and exhausted they came on with their possessions on their backs. As nourishment, they cook grass, press the water out, and make balls which they dry in the sun. On the first of May I came to Debsy, where I found the above mentioned six hundred deported, all in despair. They had not even been allowed to rest once or even to gather grass but had been cruelly driven on. On the way I found people dying everywhere, exhausted from hunger and thirst. They had remained behind the caravan and must perish so painfully. Every few minutes came a death stench. The gendarmes beat these stragglers saying that they pretend to be tired. In Debsy there are 3,000 deported. In Abu Hara 6,000. In both places the death is one per cent daily. In Hama I found 7,000 deported, three thousand of them hungry and practically naked. Here there is no grass, the locusts have consumed everything. I saw the people were gathering locusts and eating them raw or cooked. Others were looking for the roots of grasses. They catch street dogs and like savages pounce upon dead animals whose flesh they eat eagerly without cooking. They showed me how they bury the dead, shallow near the tents. In Rakka only there are 15,000 deported in tents. The camp is situated on both the banks of the Euphrates but these people are not allowed to enter the city. Rich people are paying from Lt.30-40 to get permission from those in authority to live for a length of time in the city. Everywhere the same lamentable pictures repeat themselves. In Sepka there are 1,500 persons who have bought the privilege of establishing themselves there. The rest, 6,000, remain in camp on the banks of the Euphrates.

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There is great misery here. Some in despair throw themselves into the river. In each deportation from one place to another, at least five to six perish through the wild mishandling of the accompanying gendarmerie. They expect to extract money from the poor and revenge with heavy blows when they receive nothing. Many are transported on boats in the Euphrates. In Tibne I found 5,000—everywhere we met caravans of deportees. [We meet convoys of deportees everywhere; entire convoys are even transported in barges on the Euphrates River.] In every Arabian village there are some families, in every Arabian house young women and girls. [I finally reached Der Zor and found approx. 15,000 deportees.] Here the government is giving 150 gr. of bread to every poor person daily. Children and grownups search among the garbage heaps for food, and whatever is chewable is eaten. At the butchers shops people wait eagerly for scraps. Of every fifty persons who come from Rakka or Sepka on boats, 20 arrive, often even less. At the time of my arrival the government had gathered 200 orphans in a house in Der Zor. At my departure (six weeks later) there were 800. They get daily a little bread and some soup. In the meantime came 12,000 deported to Der Zor. Every day we see caravans going in the direction of Mosul. Nevertheless at my departure there were at Der Zor and in the surroundings over 30,000 Armenians. Those who have their means are getting permission to delay. [Investigations showed that 4-50 Turkish pounds were given for one note.] The rest must proceed further. The deportees are especially badly treated in the region of Der Zor. The people are driven back and forward with whip blow and cannot even take their most urgent necessities. On my return I met new caravans everywhere. The people have the appearance of lost men. We often see a whole row of ghastly forms, raising suddenly out of a grave and asking for some bread and water. They have all dug their grave and lie waiting death. People of better standing who cannot make up their minds to beg for a piece of bread lie, when exhausted, on their beds, till death comes to release them. No one looks after them. In Sepka a preacher from Aintab told me that parents have often killed their children. At the Government investigation it was shown that some people had eaten their children. It has happened that the dying have been fought over in order to secure their flesh for food. Another report from the region of Meadine and Ana South of Der Zor, where there are thousands of deported, will be sent by the next mail. Our messenger returned to Aleppo on the 20th June. On the 26th he was again on a journey to the South. Beatrice Rohner

1916-07-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 21969; pr. 18.08.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 79 No. 2135 Aleppo, 29 July 1916 According to news reaching us from all sides, the persecution of the Armenians is continuing unabated and inexorably. Of the Germans who return to here from Baghdad along the banks of the Euphrates, there is none who has not been most deeply moved by this catastrophe. 1. A high-ranking German official told me on 18 July that the road from Sabkha via Hammam to Meskené is completely strewn with the remains of pieces of clothing. It looked as if an army had retreated along it. The Turkish military pharmacist in Meskené, who has been stationed there for the past 6 months, told him that in Meskené alone 55,000 Armenians had been buried. Quite independent of this, the same number was likewise quoted to him by a Turkish officer’s deputy at the same place. 2. On 16 July, news was received from Der-el-Zor that the Armenians had been ordered to continue their march. On 17th, all clergymen and community leaders were arrested. By 22 July, according the order, all Armenians were to have taken to the road again. After the Central Government had previously decreed that only as many Armenians were allowed to remain in Der-el-Zor as made up 10 percent of the total number of inhabitants, now the remainder were to be eradicated, an amendment which is possibly connected with the fact that the humane Mutesarrif Suad Bey has been transferred to Baghdad and a merciless successor has been appointed. Defenceless and exhausted women and children are being beaten by gendarmes with whips and clubs. Scenes such as these have often been observed before quite often and have now been confirmed to me again by a German officer who has come from that direction and who has seen the misery with his own eyes. I have the honour of enclosing a copy of a letter from Araxia Djibedjian to Sister B. Rohner dated 16/17 July describing these circumstances. Whereas numerous Armenians have been thrown out of spiritual balance by the downfall of their people, have lost their faith and have begun to despair, this letter is a beautiful example of steadfastness and composure in the face of inevitable ruination in its most gruesome form. I also have the honour of enclosing two further letters from the same writer dated 22 June and 12 July which have been translated, as well as two letters from Armenian clergymen from Hamam and Sabkha. 3. The enclosed copy of a letter written by Sister Paula Schäfer to the American missionary, Mr. Peet, in Constantinople, describes the way in which the Armenians, who until then had been employed with the permission of the government on the construction of the Baghdad railway in the Amanus area, were deported at the end of June.

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4. The German officer who arrived here from Diyarbekir via Urfa told me on 24 July that some time previously a further 2,000 Armenian women had been brought from the eastern and northern districts to Urfa. These appeared to be a few of those who had previously been able to stay in hiding or who had been taken in by Muslim families who were now keen to get rid of them. In the enclosed letter dated 22 July, Deacon Künzler from Urfa points out similar circumstances and writes that he has succeeded in helping 150 orphans. 5. Since 12 July, the deportations have stopped in Aleppo because it seems that a conflict has broken out between the higher authorities over the fact that richer Armenians have succeeded in gaining exemption, whereas the poorer of them have been handed over to the police. Under the silent toleration of the local military Kaymakam about 250 Armenians from Meskené have succeeded in walking back to Aleppo, where they arrived in a pitiful condition. As a result of this, the Vali gave orders to the villages not to let any Armenians return to Aleppo. Should the population be allowed to carry out the official orders, then the Armenians would be reduced to outlaws. One can expect further steps to be taken against them here. I am sending this same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler. Enclosure 1 Copy/Translation Der-el-Zor, 3/16 July 1916 To my dear Sister in God Miss Beatrice Rohner, I hope you have received our letter of last week. Our work here was just about to bear fruits. Unfortunately, however, the resumption of the deportations has deeply saddened us. Part of the population has already been deported—and for us and the remaining Armenians, the order has already been given by the town crier. We all have no idea when and where we will be going. The misery and suffering of the people is indescribable. Oh, dear Sister, we are in the night of our lives, but thanks be to God that He shall keep His promises to us. This week, Der-el-Zor has become a desert for the deportees; everybody is trying to prepare for the journey. They are telling us that we will be sent to the banks of the River Khabor… 4/17 July 1916 Oh, my dear Sister, my pen is not capable of describing the misery, the poverty, the dejection of the deportees. Today they arrested all clergymen and male leaders. Some of the people have left, others will be going soon, and the order has been given out by the crier that they must all leave by the end of this week. There is also a rumour going

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around that men and women are to be deported separately. Beatings with whips and canes are the rule of the day in the whole of the town. The persecution and oppression of the homeless has increased over the past few days to such an extent that only one thought fills my heart: who can bring relief to this wretched situation, and who can portray a picture of our condition to those who tolerate such violence and permit it? First, we present the matter to God and then we explain it to you. Can you not do anything at all to relieve this burden? … Do not think that I have written these words in excitement; I only hope that you will have an opportunity of bringing this matter to attention in the right place. Also I know that you will partake in all our suffering and will make our situation the subject of your intercession. With my best regards I bid you farewell. God exists. He can make a rock into a spring, and it should be easy for Him to prevent the last great deportation. In any case we speak from the bottom of our hearts: Thy will be done! Your Sister [Araxia Djebedjian.] Enclosure 2 Copy/Letter to Sister B. Rohner Der-el-Zor, 22 June 1916 The extent of the work here cannot be expressed sufficiently, neither in words nor in writing. One has to see everything with one’s own eyes. Oh, dear Sister, Der-elZor needs help, very special help, please pass on the word. Tell our missionaries that their college children, young men and young girls, are dying of starvation here. The sight of them is heart-breaking. We need hands that reach out to help, hands that are willing to bear sacrifices, the hands of dutiful people. Perhaps you are surprised at this cry for help. But in doing so I am not thinking of myself, but of the masses of children out there, crying out for bread, of the many pure young girls who, driven by hunger and desolateness, seek refuge in the homes and at the hearths of Arab men, who are sold to those men for bread, the women, the mothers who, in their despair, search around for bread for their starving children, the young people who, weakened by hunger, stumble around with the help of sticks, looking as aged as old people! The responsibility of having seen all this forces me to write to you. The work that is being done here for these poorest of the poor is very extensive, but nevertheless, it is far from being sufficient. We must buy back at least 3-4 girls per day, otherwise they will be sold as rent for dwellings. The number of those pleading for help is endless. One small boy said to his mother: Mother, here is the cooking pan and the lid, why can’t you make us something to eat? The little boy hadn’t eaten for two days. Another child asked: Mother, will there be times again when I can eat as much as I like? The people

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are slaughtering and eating stray dogs. Recently they even slaughtered a dying man and ate him; that is what I was told by an eyewitness. One woman cut off her hair to sell it for bread. I saw how a woman ate the dried blood of a dead animal on the street. Up to now they all ate grass, but that has also dried up in the meantime. Last week we were in a house where the inhabitants had not eaten for 3 days. The woman held a small child in her arms and tried to give it some bread crumbs to eat. But the child was so weak, it couldn’t swallow anymore, so it choked and died in her arms. At that moment, I went up to her with G.—he gave her a pound. The woman took it, then, in a flood of tears, she cried out: Oh, if only you had brought this a day before, my child would still be alive. A family went to bed hungry—the child could not sleep and shouted out for bread. Finally the Arab landlord took mercy and gave the child a piece of bread. The child took it and held it tightly, first it wanted to bite into it, then it thought for a moment and said: If I eat it now, I will be hungry again in the morning, and with the secure feeling of having the bread nearby, went to sleep. One mother threw herself into the Euphrates after she had watched her child die of starvation, a father too. Due to the general rise in prices, poverty is spreading rapidly. If you give people a few medjidies, the people first pay off their bread debts, then they have bread for a few days and then they are hungry again. If there is any help at all and God still needs you and us, with all our heart we are ready for any toil. Dear Sister, if only you could see many of us now, those women and girls whom you used to know! The work that you have begun with God’s help will bear its fruits later. The fruit will be larger than you expect… Over the past few weeks I have visited so many houses with G. that we got to know the whole of Derel-Zor and all its poor people, very closely. It is not possible at all to remain in hiding. G. works mornings, afternoons and evenings, he is very concerned about the poor and the wretched and time and time again he endangers his own life to save a few. [Araxia Djebedjian.] Enclosure 3 Copy/Letter from Der-el-Zor dated 12 July 1916 to Sister Rohner. There is great suffering. The people are living off what we can give them. The people we meet in the street hardly bear any resemblance to human beings anymore; hunger has dried them to pieces. If you have any money, you do not need to go out to look for the poor; crowds of them manage to find you. There is no longer any difference between rich and poor. If you went from door to door distributing donations, you could be sure of having not given needlessly. But a morning will follow this dark night, to be sure, but God can only gain a victory if he has faithful watchmen standing guard in the night faithfully fulfilling their duty. May God use you as such. [Araxia Djebedjian]

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Enclosure 4 Copy taken from letter dated 28 June from Hammam to Sister Rohner. … Here there are about 1,000 tents. As far as health is concerned, we are fine, but much of what we see and experience here gives us reason to write to you. There are many hundreds of poor deserted children, women and men here, weakened by hunger and sick, absolutely wretched figures, wandering aimlessly amongst the tents. At every meal at least 20-30 come to beg for a bit of bread. Many families have not eaten anything for days and do not have the courage to go begging. The number of families such as these is increasing from day to day. How will all this end? If it continues like this for long, then the largest part of the population, perhaps all of them, will perish through hunger and deprivation. The people fight for the blood of slaughtered animals which has poured out onto the ground, they nibble at bones they find on manure heaps, they search through horse manure in the hope of finding a few grains of barley and devour them ravenously. They eat the flesh of animals and humans who have died by the wayside. Many of them who cannot stand it any longer throw themselves in the Euphrates, taking their children with them. We encounter such terrible scenes every day and can do nothing more but to plead to God for mercy and help. We regard it as our duty to report to you of all this dreadful misery. Thus, we at least feel that we have discharged our responsibility. Dear Sister, we beg you for Christ’s sake that you arrange for some sort of help to be given to these poor, wretched people and save them from death by starvation. If possible, please send someone who can personally assess the situation. If at all possible, please send immediate and sufficient help and, in particular, permanent help … Everything is very expensive; a family needs as much as 15 to 20 piastres a day for bread alone. [Preacher Vartan Geranian] Enclosure 5 Copy: Letter from Sabkha dated June 1916 to Sister Rohner. With this letter I address you as a representative of many pleas and desperate cries for help. I am pleading to you in the name of over 2,500 poor hungry people, who are dried out down to their bones. Many were here already, crowds of new ones have arrived in the meantime. Many die every day of starvation. The grave-diggers are kept very busy. The moaning and groaning in the market place, in the streets, out there in the quiet desert, leave the heart no peace at all. The children on the manure heaps! Oh, how can I describe it to you? My pen is loathe to do so. In their names I beg you for help, for pity. [Preacher Der Boghossian]

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Enclosure 6 Harunye, 13 July 1916 Dear Mr. Peet,135 Excuse me if I have not yet found the time and peace to send you a statement on the emergency funds sent. But the new mass deportations of the past 14 days have again caused me a lot of work. You must certainly have wondered about the telegraphic request to send me 1,000 Ltq. But the deportation of all the workers of the B.B.136 Company, with all relatives in Marash and surrounding areas happened so suddenly that I naturally could not have the money on hand! Rapid help was needed—so I have borrowed everywhere from the German engineers working on the railway and can now pay it back as your money has arrived in the meantime! From Mersina I telegraphed to you again—to send the balance of 1,000 pounds—I only hope it arrives soon! Again, several hundred children have remained in the mountains. I have rounded them up, about 150 were found, 50 of them are still in Entilli—I really do not know what to do with them—all our houses are overfilled and we can expect only little help from the government! I am still quite miserable from the journey I made with the deportees from Baghché to Marash! I met all these crowds of people in the mountains—children 4 weeks of age lay under the bushes, 3-4 year olds were sitting on the rocks—abandoned—without one piece of bread, their mothers had to leave them there—as they themselves could not go on! We could hardly progress due to the stench of corpses—we rode along for many hours—where 100-150 bodies lay—you can’t imagine what the road from Marash to Urfa looks like now?! I sent a carriage out along the route—to collect any abandoned children; it returned as the coachman could not find any children because the Turks are very keen to get their hands on them, and he said the roads were impassable due to the many dead bodies! Teachers, Badvelis—everyone was sent separately from the women and children— the misery and wretchedness were heart-rending. Those poor people were not even allowed to buy one drink of water for 1 Ltq.—the thousands were camped by dirty sewage water which came from the town of Marash, although the Aksu was only 5 minutes away. They were forced to drink this water by which they were camped! A transport of 500-1,000 had to collect 100-200 liras in one night, if they were to see the morning at all—this was the threat expressed by the cruel soldiers! I went down to the plain, visited the people in their camps—it was terrible to hear what had been done to them en route. It was a dazzling series of robberies and murders on the part of the police and soldiers! I then went to the government, declared all this to them—they had tried the best they could to rectify matters. But only very few of them will survive this second, for most of them even the third banishment—they will all perish! In short passages I gave 135. Note: This letter was never handed to Mr. Peet. 136. Handwritten note: Bagdadbau (construction of the Baghdad railway).

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you an account of what I had most recently experienced. You can imagine how difficult the work is because one cannot intervene as one would prefer and should! But I always find consolation in one of Pastor Lohmann’s sayings—he said, “We should not try to be more merciful than God, who for so long has been witnessing the misery of a people.” Of course, there will come a time when it is all paid back! Although I would often have preferred to abandon my work as a result of great despair and despondency, it has become quite clear to me that God has now given me new tasks which I shall gladly perform. You know of my request regarding the care of the Muhadjir in the hospital. I hope to get a reply to this from you soon. I would like to thank you for the monthly 60 Ltq. intended for Malatia. Mr. Christoffel will be very pleased indeed. Now, may God have mercy on us! With very best regards I remain, yours, [Paula Schäfer] Enclosure 7 Urfa, 22 July 1916 … Thanks to help from Switzerland, I have succeeded unofficially in helping the survivors of the Armenian people, orphans, about 150 of them, and in saving them from death by starvation. There are even more of them, but there is not enough money to provide for all of them. … [Jakob Künzler] Imperial Consul, the Honourable Mr. Rössler, Aleppo.

1916-08-02-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14092; A 20650; pr. 04.08.1916 p.m.; BoKon/173 ; A53a, 2431; p.14.08.1916. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Philipp Scheidemann, Member of the Executive Committee of the Social Democrat Party of the Reichstag to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Berlin, 2 August 1916 Your Excellency, The Budget Committee of the Reichstag has repeatedly discussed the Armenian atrocities, without receiving any satisfactory explanations from the representatives of the government.

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Recently, Dr. Niepage gave scandalous details on atrocities that are being carried out against the Armenians. Germany has the greatest interest in doing everything possible to make it difficult for the Entente to hold the German Reich, as an ally of Turkey, jointly responsible for acts that are definitely scandalous. Therefore, we request that Your Excellency kindly inform us whether the allied governments have recently intervened with Turkey to ensure that the butchery comes to an end or, if this should not be the case, what the allied governments plan to do to influence the Turkish government to end the slaughtering. Yours sincerely, Executive Committee of the Social Democrat Party of the Reichstag Scheidemann [From the German Foreign Office to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 819), 11 August] Further to Decree No. 783 dated the 4th inst., we enclose a transcript for the information of His Excellency, Ambassador Count Wolff-Metternich, sent with our deepest respect. [Reply from Bethmann Hollweg to Scheidemann, 9 August] [Insert name], I confirm with thanks receipt of your kind letter dated the 2nd inst. concerning the Armenian question. From the very beginning, the Imperial Government has paid particular attention to the question of relocation of the Armenian elements of the population in Turkey. It is continuously and thoroughly informed of developments in this question by its representatives in Turkey and has brought its influence to bear with great emphasis on the Turkish government at every opportunity in favour of the Armenians. As far as possible, the Imperial Government will continue to speak up in future to the Turkish government for milder treatment of the Armenian race.

1916-08-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/173; A53a, 2350, 2459; p. 18.08.1916. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Wolff-Metternich) to the Foreign Office

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No. 29 Therapia, 9 August 1916 I have been informed by General von Lossow that Enver Pasha told him on their journey to Budapest that a high German and a high Austrian personage expressed the opinion to a high-ranking Turkish personage that it did not matter that Turkey had lost its Armenian provinces, this ulcer on the Turkish body. Enver Pasha requested that General von Falkenhayn be informed of this. Enver considered these remarks, which were made independent of one another in different locations and at different times, embarrassing and felt they gave the impression that the loss of its territory was taken too lightly by Turkey’s allies. General von Lossow was bound by Enver Pasha to reveal the names of the two diplomats only to General von Falkenhayn, who was to bring the incident to the attention of the Secretary of State at the German Foreign Office. Upon my inquiry, whether General von Lossow could tell me if the two diplomats were in Turkey or elsewhere, he replied, “Partly here.” Therefore, I assume that one of the incriminated diplomats is Margrave Pallavicini, who from time to time expresses himself in a somewhat free and careless manner. I consider it to be out of the question that I am the person he meant, as I have never made the remark complained about nor a similar one to a Turk of either high or a low rank. M[etternich] [From Zimmermann to Wolff-Metternich (No. 832), 14 August] Confidential! Your Excellency’s report dated the 9th inst. concerning the supposed remarks of two high-ranking diplomats on the value of the Armenian provinces for Turkey has given me cause to request a confidential report from General von Falkenhayn with the names of the two diplomats. General von Falkenhayn then replied, “General Lossow reported the story to me and named Margrave Pallavicini as one of the careless gentlemen. As far as I remember, he did not mention the name of the other person. But since the remark was supposedly made in Vienna, it is out of the question that this could refer to the German Ambassador in Constantinople.”

1916-08-29-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 25739; pr. 22.09.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck

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From the Chargé d’affaires in Aleppo (Hoffmann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 566 B.No. 2463 Aleppo, August 29, 1916 Copy137 This is a report by a German officer on the present situation of the deportation of the Armenians in the Euphrates area. He has just returned from there and is very familiar with the conditions along the same route from earlier journeys. He reports as follows: The road from Aleppo to Der-el-Zor (which the deportation convoys have been using for many months) now presents a different picture: it has become relatively quiet. It is true that at the stations closest to Aleppo there are still fairly large Armenians camps. But further to the south, away from Meskené, the camps are significantly reduced. Of the largest stations, Sabcha has been completely emptied and Der-el-Zor only has a few hundred craftsmen left who were working for the troops, whereas at the latter place only 8 weeks ago many thousands (estimated by another side as being 20,000) were still in the camp. The spiritual leaders such as teachers, lawyers, clergymen are said to have been taken recently from the camps and imprisoned in government buildings (most likely prisons). The others—also those who had actually begun really to settle in the more northerly stations—had disappeared. The official version was that they had been sent on to Mosul (i.e., a route along which very few of them had any chance of reaching their destination alive), but according to the general opinion of the people they had been murdered in the small valleys to the southeast of Der-el-Zor, on the strip between the Euphrates and Khabur rivers. The Armenians are said to have been led away in groups of a few hundred at a time and butchered to death by Circassians who had been especially commissioned to do so. These details were confirmed to the officer by an Arab eye-witness who had just got back from a scene of this kind to which his curiosity had led him. The man made a trustworthy impression on the officer. In his description, the details of which I am not going to relate, he mentioned that at present there were still three hundred Armenians at the place he had visited, just awaiting their slaughter. It was the turn of half of them that same afternoon, for the rest their time came in the night. The man added in recognition: Germany was indeed very strong! In former times, the Turks would never have dared to wipe out a people like this. Many Armenians had gone into hiding in the homes of Arabs. The gendarmerie has been ordered to search for them in regular manhunts. Those hunted down are to be loaded into barges on the Euphrates and brought to Der-el-Zor. 137. Copy presented by Metternich on 17. 9. (No. 566) to the Foreign Office.

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According to my informant, the nomads have left that corner between the Euphrates and the Khabur, supposedly because of the activities described. Deportation of Citizens of Aleppo. In Aleppo the deportation of the “non-resident” Armenians has not yet been effected on a large scale. In any case about 800 have fallen victim to this so far. People are being picked up in the streets ruthlessly. For example, the above-mentioned German officer met an acquaintance from Aleppo on the road in a group of 50 people in slippers and housecoats without any baggage at all; he had been picked up while shopping in the market, put into a collection camp and then deported. Dissolution of the orphanages. Even for the local orphanages in which the orphans of deportees have been collected, the final hour, with which they have continually been threatened, now seems to have come. It is a well-known fact that the orphanages have been run by European (Swiss and German) and American aid relief and by Armenian clergymen and (one with over 800 orphans) Sisters of the German Aid Fund for Evangelical Acts of Charity. Now the local government has appointed a special commissioner for these orphanages who is to supervise the transfer to Turkish administration. According to surreptitiously made enquiries, this procedure is to commence according to the following principles: Boys over 13 years of age are to be deported, the girls over 13 to be married off (to Muslims of course). Because they are under the influence of what they have experienced, children between the ages of 10 and 13 are to be separated from the younger ones and placed in purely Turkish orphanages where they are to learn a craft. Children under 10 will be brought up in special orphanages. In other words: The boys over 13 will be murdered, the girls of this age put into harems—a particularly pretty 12-year old girl has just been removed from the orphanage next to the Consulate under threats of reprisals against relatives living here and forced to marry a 70-year old Pasha, well-known in the town—the smaller children introduced to Islam, provided they survive the Turkish orphanage administration. Mass Conversions to Islam. According to unanimous reports, during the past few weeks in Hama, Homs, Damascus, etc., the deportees have been forced in masses to convert to Islam by threatening them with further deportation. This is a purely bureaucratic procedure: petition and then a change of name. The idea that Turkey could ever achieve a Turkification of the Armenians by enforcing these feigned conversions must be regarded as an illusion. Obviously the originators had examples from the time of the conquests of the Ottoman Empire in mind. But they must have made their forecasts without considering the very differently fortified racial and national sentiment and without the profound hatred which will naturally live on also in the new Armenian Muslims of the real Turkish

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nation—the executioners of their people. If the Muslim Armenians, after all they have experienced, still remain Armenians in their way of thinking and feeling—and certainly not only in the present generation—then their being disguised as Muslims will make them even more dangerous for the Turkish people because they are less obvious. Likewise, the German people will have doubly dangerous enemies in them in the future. [for V. Hoffmann]

1916-09-05-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 26116; pr. 26.09.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Chargé d’affaires in Aleppo (Hoffmann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 578 B.No. 2535 Aleppo, 5 September 1916 Copy138 Further to my report of 29th of the preceding month. BN. 2463139 The statements made in the above-mentioned report on the situation regarding the deportation of the Armenians in the area around Der-el-Zor have meanwhile been confirmed to me to a considerable extent by other trustworthy sources. For instance, a German employee of an American firm,140 who has just returned from there and who, on the occasion of a business trip, visited most of the camps there, reported the following: Along the road by the banks of the Euphrates, as far as Der-el-Zor there are now only small camps of about 1,000-2,000 people each. The 20-30,000 Armenians, whom I saw during my last journey in Der-el-Zor and who began to breathe a sigh of relief under the humane attitude of the Mutessarrif, have meanwhile, since his replacement a few months ago by the present brutal Mutessarrif, Zekki Bey, a Circassian, been deported, except for some craftsmen and about 1,200 children. As I have heard, they have been sent to the area of the Khabur River. There, according to general opinion, they will be massacred or will perish somehow. The 1,200 children mentioned above have led a miserable existence. It is obvious from their facial appearance that they are suffering from starvation. The government is doing nothing at all to feed those who are placed in the camps. These are usually far from any towns and villages. For this reason, it is difficult to 138. Copy acc. to von Metternich presented to the Foreign Office on 21. 9. 139. A 25739. 140. August Bernau.

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provide any food for them, even for those who still have some money. Provisions are limited to whatever the Arab farmers bring every day to the camp in the way of bread, melons, etc., i.e., an absolutely insufficient amount). Many are living solely on melons that grow abundantly in those areas. They even eat them with the peel and seeds. When I distributed bread in a small camp, the people behaved like wild animals. I had to flee and leave the distributions to the gendarmes. Those who have no money have to starve. The paper pound was worth 45 piastres. But the people are even refusing support in the form of money and are crying out for bread. I saw some of them who were picking corns of barley out of horse manure to eat. As long as the deportees have got money, they are allowed to stay in their camps. When the money is used up, they are deported in the direction of Der-el-Zor. In doing so, families are ruthlessly torn apart. Near El-Hammam 6-700 Armenian men are working on government buildings without their families. By the way, they also look starved. The inhabitants of the camps are comprised of members of all social classes together. During my visits, I was often addressed in French, English and German, in German by pupils of German schools and orphanages. Many refugees try to flee to other camps which are nearer to towns and villages and therefore offer opportunities for nourishment. The gendarmes are constantly on the lookout for such refugees. Those who are arrested are considered as lost. The winter’s cold will do the rest to finish off the deportees. So much for my informant. As far as the fate of those deportees who are sent on further from Der-el-Zor is concerned, who, following official announcements, are said to be heading for Mosul, I have enquired with the Imperial Consulate as to how many deportees are estimated to have arrived from Der-el-Zor over the past few months. According to information from that source, on 15th April four transports left Der-el-Zor along two routes and 19,000 altogether met up again in a camp by the River Khabur. On 22nd May, i.e., 5 weeks later, about 2,500 people from these transports, including several hundred men, have arrived in Mosul. Some of the women and girls have been sold en route to the Bedouins, all the others have died on the journey of hunger and thirst. Consequently no new transports have arrived in Mosul for the past 3½ months. This fact must confirm the opinion of the people of Der-el-Zor and the corresponding actual details, that under the rule of the new Circassian Mutessarrif of Der-el-Zor, short work is made of those who are deported further, more recently in the place where the Euphrates and the Khabur meet. The closing of the local orphanages for children of deceased deportees has not yet begun. However the representative of the local deportation commissioner officially has now explained to one of the head Sisters there, that these orphans will be brought to a new large national orphanage in Konia, there they would of course receive Turkish names and be educated as Turks (i.e., Muslims). [for Hoffmann]

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1916-09-10-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 24663; pr. 12.09.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Secret Civil Cabinet of the Emperor (Valentini) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Command Headquarters, 10 September 1916 Original with enclosures To His Excellency the Imperial Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg: Sent to you with the respectful remark that I did not present the enclosed documents, as a matter concerning foreign policy to His Majesty the Emperor and King, and that I informed Mr. von Chelius of this. Valentini Enclosure 1 Karlsruhe, 5 August 1916 Your Excellency, At the order of Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Luise, I have the honour to respectfully enclose these reports on conditions in Armenia, which she received with a corresponding letter from Dr. Lepsius in Potsdam, for your information and possible presentation to His Majesty the Emperor and King. Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Luise will personally present Dr. Lepsius’ letter to His Majesty the Emperor. With the deepest respect and sincere convictions, I remain, Your Excellency’s most faithful, R. v. Chelius Privy Councillor and Chamberlain [For clarity, the following enclosures have been numbered.] Enclosure 2141 1. Report by Miss Thora von Wedel and Miss Elvers, nurses in the service of the Red Cross. 141. A shorter version is the Enclosure in Doc. 1915-08-21-DE-001. The English version of this report with some differences was published in Viscount Bryce (The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16 as Doc. No. 62.) which follows.

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In March, 1915, we learned through an Armenian doctor, who died later on of typhus, that the Turkish Government was preparing for a massacre on a grand scale. He begged us to find out from General Posselt whether the rumour were true. We heard afterwards that the General (a gallant officer) had his own fears of it, and asked, for that reason, to be relieved of his post … We fell sick of typhus and … in consequence of a number of changes in the hospital staff … we were obliged to leave Erzerum. Through the good offices of the German Consul at Erzerum, who also possessed the confidence of the Armenians, we were engaged by the Red Cross at Erzindjan, and worked there seven weeks. At the beginning of June, the head of the Red Cross Mission at Erzindjan, StaffSurgeon A., told us that the Armenians had revolted at Van, that measures had been taken against them which would be put into general execution, and that the whole Armenian population of Erzindjan and the neighbourhood would be transported to Mesopotamia, where it would no longer find itself in a majority. There was, however, to be no massacre, and measures were to be taken to feed the exiles and to secure their personal safety by a military escort. Wagons loaded with arms and bombs were reported, he said, to have been discovered at Erzindjan, and many arrests were to be made. The Red Cross staff was forbidden to have any relations with the exiles, and prohibited any excursions on foot or horseback beyond a certain radius. After that, several days’ grace was given to the population of Erzindjan for the sale of their property, which was naturally realised at ludicrous prices. In the first week of June, the first convoy started; the rich people were allowed to hire carriages. They were to go to Harput. The three succeeding days, further deportations followed; many children were taken charge of by Muslim families; later on, the authorities decided that these children must go into exile as well. The families of the Armenians employed in our hospital had to go with the rest, including a woman who was ill. A protest from Dr. Neukirch, who was attending her, had no effect except to postpone her departure two days. A soldier attached to our staff as cobbler said to Sister B.: “I am now forty-six years old, and yet I am taken for military service, although I have paid my exemption-tax regularly every year. I have never done anything against the Government, and now they are taking from me my whole family, my seventy-year-old mother, my wife and five children, and I do not know where they are going.” He was especially affected by the thought of his little daughter, a year and a half old; “She is so sweet. She has such pretty eyes;” he wept like a child. The next day he came back; “I know the truth. They are all dead.” And it was only too true. Our Turkish cook came to us crying, and told us how the Kurds had attacked the unhappy convoy at Kamakh Boghaz, had pillaged it completely, and had killed a great number of the exiles. This must have been the 14th June. Two young Armenian teachers, educated at the College of Harput, whose lives were spared, related that the convoy had been caught under a cross-fire by the Kurds on the flanks and the Turkish irregulars in the rear. They had thrown themselves flat on the ground and pretended to be dead; afterwards they succeeded in finding

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their way back to Erzindjan by circuitous paths, bribing some Kurds whom they met on the way. One of them had her fiancé with her in woman’s clothes. He had been shielded by a Turkish class-mate. When they reached Erzindjan a gendarme tried to abduct the girl and her fiancé interfered. He was killed, and the girls were carried off to Turkish houses, where they were treated kindly but had pressure put upon them to change their religion. They conveyed this news to us through a young doctor who attended some Armenian patients in our hospital, and was thereby enabled to get into touch with us; he brought us an appeal from them to take them with us to Harput. If only they had poison, they said, they would poison themselves. They had no information whatever as to the fate of their companions. The day after, Friday, the 11th June, a party of regular troops (belonging to the 86th Cavalry Brigade) were sent out to keep the Kurds in order.” We heard subsequently from these soldiers how the defenceless Armenians had been massacred to the last one. The butchery had taken four hours. The women threw themselves on their knees, they had thrown their children into the Euphrates, and so on. “It was horrible,” said a nice-looking young soldier; “I could not fire, I only pretended.” For that matter, we have often heard Turks express their disapproval and their pity. The soldiers told us that there were ox-carts all ready to carry the corpses to the river and remove every trace of the massacre. Next day there was a regular battue through the cornfields. (The corn was then standing, and many Armenians had hidden in it.) From that time on, convoys of exiles were continually arriving, all on their way to the slaughter; we have no doubt about their fate, after the unanimous testimony which we have received from many different quarters. Later, our Greek driver told us that the victims had their hands tied behind their backs, and were thrown down from the cliffs into the river. This method was employed when the numbers were too great to dispose of them in any other fashion. It was also easier work for the murderers. Sister B. and I, of course, began at once to think what we could do, and we decided to travel with one of these convoys to Harput. We did not know yet that the massacre on the road had been ordered by the Government, and we also thought that we could check the brutality of the gendarmes and stave off the assaults of the Kurds, since we speak Kurdish and have some influence over the tribesmen. We then telegraphed to the Consul at Erzerum, telling him that we had been dismissed from the hospital, and urging him, in the interests of Germany, to come to Erzindjan. He wired back: “Impossible to leave my post. Expect Austrians, who are due to pass here the 22nd June…” On the evening of the 17th June, we went out for a walk with Mr. C., the druggist of the Red Cross Staff. He was as much horrified as we were at the cruelties that were being perpetrated, and expressed himself very plainly on the subject. He also received his dismissal. On our walk we met a gendarme, who told us that, ten minutes’ distance away, a large convoy of exiles from Baibourt had been halted. He narrated to us, with appalling vividness, how one by one the men had been massacred and cast

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into the depths of the gorge: “Kezzé, kezzé, geliorlar! (Kill, kill, push them over).” He told how, at each village, the women had been violated; how he himself had desired to take a girl, but had been told that already she was no longer a maid; how children had had their brains battered out when they cried or hindered the march. “There were the naked bodies of three girls; I buried them to do a good deed,” was his concluding remark. The following morning, at a very early hour, we heard the procession of exiles passing in front of our house, along the high road leading in to Erzindjan. We followed them and kept up with them as far as the town, about an hour’s walk. Mr. G. came with us. It was a very large gang—only two or three of them men, all the rest women and children. Many of the women looked demented. They cried out: “Spare us, we will become Muslims or Germans or whatever you will; only spare us. We are being taken to Kamakh Boghaz to have our throats cut,” and they made an expressive gesture. Others kept silence, and marched patiently on with a few bundles on their backs and their children in their arms. Others begged us to save their children. Many Turks arrived on the scene to carry off children and girls, with or without their parents’ consent. There was no time for reflection, for the crowd was being moved on continually by the mounted gendarmes brandishing their whips. On the outskirts of the town, the road to Kamakh Boghaz branches off from the main highway. At this point the scene turned into a regular slave market; for our part, we took a family of six children, from three to fourteen years old, who clutched hold of us, and another little girl as well. We entrusted the latter to our Turkish cook, who was on the spot. She wanted to take the child to the kitchen of Dr. A.’s private house, and keep her there until we could come to fetch her; but the doctor’s adjutant, Riza Bey, gave the woman a beating and threw the child out into the street. Meanwhile, with cries of agony, the gang of sufferers continued its march, while we returned to the hospital with our six children. Dr. A. gave us permission to keep them in our room until we had packed our belongings; they were given food and soon became calmer. “Now we are saved,” they had cried when we took them. They refused to let go of our hands. The smallest, the son of a rich citizen of Baiburt, lay huddled up in his mother’s cloak; his face was swollen with crying and he seemed inconsolable. Once he rushed to the window and pointed to a gendarme: “That’s the man who killed my father.” The children handed over to us their money, 475 piastres (about £4), which their parents had given them with the idea that perhaps the children, at any rate, would not be shot. We then rode into the town to obtain permission for these children to travel with us. We were told that the high authorities were in session to decide the fate of the convoy which had just arrived. Nevertheless, Sister B. succeeded in getting word with someone she knew, who gave her the authorisation to take the children with her, and offered to give them false names in the passport. This satisfied us, and, after returning to the hospital, we left the same evening with baggage and children and all, and installed ourselves in a hotel at Erzindjan. The Turkish orderlies at the hospital were very friendly, and said: “You have done a good deed in taking these children.” We

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could get nothing but one small room for the eight of us. During the night there was a frightful knocking at our door, and we were asked whether there were two German ladies in the room. Then all became quiet again, to the great relief of our little ones. Their first question had been, would we prevent them from being made Mohammedans. And was our cross (the nurses’ Red Cross) the same as theirs? After that they were comforted. We left them, in the room, and went ourselves to take our tea in the hotel café. We noticed that some discharged hospital patients of ours, who had always shown themselves full of gratitude towards us, behaved as if they no longer recognised us. The proprietor of the hotel began to hold forth, and everyone listened to what he was saying: “The death of these women and children has been decreed at Constantinople.” The Hodja (Turkish priest) of our hospital came in, too, and said to us, among other things: “If God has no pity on them, why must you have pity? The Armenians have committed atrocities at Van. That happened because their religion is ekzik (inferior). The Muslims should not have followed their example, but should have carried out the massacre with greater humanity.” We always gave the same answer—that they ought to discover the guilty and do justice upon them, but that the massacre of women and children was, and always will remain, a crime. Then we went to the Mutessarif himself, with whom we had not succeeded in obtaining an interview before. The man looked like the devil incarnate, and his behaviour bore out his appearance. In a bellowing voice he shouted at us: “Women have no business to meddle with politics, but ought to respect the Government!” We told him that we should have acted in precisely the same way if the victims had been Mohammedans, and that politics had nothing to do with our conduct. He answered that we had been expelled from the hospital, and that we should get the same treatment from him; that he would not stand us, and that he would certainly not permit us to go to Harput to fetch our belongings, but would send us to Sivas. Worst of all, he forbade us to take the children away, and at once sent a gendarme to carry them off from our room. On our way back to the hotel we actually met them, but they were hurried past us so quickly that we had not even a chance to return them their money. Afterwards we asked Dr. Lindenberg to see that this money was restored to them; but, to find out where they were, he had to make enquiries of a Turkish officer, and just at the moment of our departure, when we had been told that they had already been killed, and when we had no longer any chance of making a further search for them, the aforementioned Riza Bey came and asked us for this money, on the ground that he wanted to return it to the children! We had already decided to spend it on relieving other Armenians. At Erzindjan we were now looked askance at. They would no longer let us stay at the hotel, but took us to a deserted Armenian house. The whole of this extensive quarter of the town seemed dead. People came and went at will to loot the contents of the houses; in some of the houses families of Muslim refugees were already installed. We had now a roof over our heads, but no one would go to get us food. However, we

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managed to send a note to Dr. A., who kindly allowed us to return to the hospital. The following day, the Mutessarif sent a springless baggage cart, in which we were to do the seven days’ journey to Sivas. We gave him to understand that we would not have this conveyance, and, upon the representations of Dr. A., they sent us a travelling carriage, with the threat to have us arrested if we did not start at once. This was on Monday, the 21st June, and we should have liked to wait for the Austrians, who were due to arrive on the Tuesday morning, and continue the journey in their company; but Dr. A. declared that he could no longer give us protection, and so we started out. Dr. Lindenberg did us the kindness of escorting us as far as Rifahia. During the first days of our journey we saw five corpses. One was a woman’s, and still had clothes on; the others were naked, one of them headless. There were two Turkish officers on the road with us who were really Armenians, as we were told by the gendarme attached to us. They preserved their incognito towards us, and maintained a very great reserve, but always took care not to get separated from us. On the fourth day they did not put in an appearance. When we enquired after them, we were given to understand that the less we concerned ourselves about them the better it would be for us. On the road, we broke our journey near a Greek village. A savage-looking man was standing by the roadside. He began to talk with us, and told us he was stationed there to kill all the Armenians that passed, and that he had already killed 250. He explained that they all deserved their fate, for they were all Anarchists—not Liberals or Socialists, but Anarchists. He told the gendarmes that he had received orders by telephone to kill our two travelling companions. So these two men with their Armenian drivers must have perished there. We could not restrain ourselves from arguing with this assassin, but when he went off our Greek driver warned us: “Don’t say a word, if you do …” and he made the gesture of taking aim. The rumour had, in fact, got about that we were Armenians, which was as good as to say condemned to death. One day we met a convoy of exiles, who had said good-bye to their prosperous villages and were at that moment on their way to Kamakh Boghaz. We had to draw up a long time by the roadside while they marched past. The scene will never be forgotten by either of us: a very small number of elderly men, a large number of women—vigorous figures with energetic features—a crowd of pretty children, some of them fair and blue-eyed, one little girl smiling at the strangeness of all she was seeing, but on all the other faces the solemnity of death. There was no noise; it was all quiet, and they marched along in an orderly way, the children generally riding on the ox-carts; and so they passed, some of them greeting us on the way—all these poor people, who are now standing at the throne of God, and whose cry goes up before Him. An old woman was made to get down from her donkey—she could no longer keep the saddle. Was she killed on the spot ? Our hearts had become as cold as ice. The gendarme attached to us told us then that he had escorted a convoy of 3,000 women and children to Mamahatun (near Erzerum) and Kamakh Boghaz. “Hep gildi, bildi,” he said: “All gone, all dead.” We asked him: “Why condemn them to this

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frightful torment; why not kill them in their villages?” Answer: “It is best as it is. They ought to be made to suffer and, besides, there would be no place left for us Muslims with all these corpses about. They will make a stench!” We spent a night at Enderessi, one day’s journey from Shabin Kara-Hissar. As usual, we had been given for our lodging an empty Armenian house. On the wall there was a pencil scrawl in Turkish: “Our dwelling is on the mountains, we have no longer any need of a roof to cover us; we have already drained the bitter cup of death, we have no more need of a judge.” The ground floor rooms of the house were still tenanted by the women and children. The gendarmes told us that they would be exiled next morning, but they did not know that yet; they did not know what had become of the men of the house; they were restless, but not yet desperate. Just after I had gone to sleep, I was awakened by shots in our immediate neighbourhood. The reports followed one another rapidly, and I distinctly heard the words of command. I realised at once what was happening, and actually experienced a feeling of relief at the idea that these poor creatures were now beyond the reach of human cruelty. Next morning our people told us that ten Armenians had been shot—that was the firing that we had heard—and that the Turkish civilians of the place were now being sent out to chase the fugitives. Indeed, we saw them starting off on horseback with guns. At the roadside were two armed men standing under a tree and dividing between them the clothes of a dead Armenian. We passed a place covered with clotted blood, though the corpses had been removed. It was the 250 road-making soldiers, of whom our gendarme had told us. Once we met a large number of these labourers, who had so far been allowed to do their work in peace. They had been sorted into three gangs—Muslims, Greeks and Armenians. There were several officers with the latter. Our young Hassan exclaimed: “They are all going to be butchered.” We continued our journey, and the road mounted a hill. Then our driver pointed with his whip towards the valley, and we saw that the Armenian gang was being made to stand out of the highroad. There were about 400 of them, and they were being made to line up on the edge of a slope. We know what happened after that. Two days before we reached Sivas, we again saw the same sight. The soldiers’ bayonets glittered in the sun. At another place there were ten gendarmes shooting them down, while Turkish workmen were finishing off the victims with knives and stones. Here ten Armenians had succeeded in getting away. Later on, in the Mission Hospital at Sivas, we came across one of the men who had escaped. He told us that about 100 Armenians had been slaughtered there. Our informant himself had received a terrible wound in the nape of the neck and had fainted. Afterwards he had recovered consciousness and had dragged himself in two days to Sivas.

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Twelve hours’ distance from Sivas, we spent the night in a government building. For hours a gendarme, sitting in front of our door, crooned to himself over and over again: “Ermenleri hep kesdiler—the Armenians have all been killed!” In the next room they were talking on the telephone. We made out that they were giving instructions as to how the Armenians were to be arrested. They were talking chiefly about a certain Ohannes, whom they had not succeeded in finding yet. One night we slept in an Armenian house where the women had just heard that the men of the family had been condemned to death. It was frightful to hear their cries of anguish. It was no use our trying to speak to them. “Cannot your Emperor help us?” they cried. The gendarme saw the despair on our faces, and said: “Their crying bothers you; I will forbid them to cry.” However, he let himself be mollified. He had taken particular pleasure in pointing out to us all the horrors that we encountered, and he said to young Hassan: “First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then the Kurds.” He would certainly have been delighted to add: “And then the foreigners!” Our Greek driver was the victim of a still more ghastly joke: “Look, down there in the ditch; there are Greeks there too!” At last we reached Sivas. We had to wait an hour in front of the Government Building before the examination of our papers was completed and we were given permission to go to the Americans. There, too, all was trouble and sorrow. On the 1st July we left Sivas and reached Kayseri on the 4th. We had been given permission to go to Talas, after depositing our baggage at the Jesuit School; but when we wanted to go on from Kayseri, we were refused leave and taken back to the Jesuit School, where a gendarme was posted in front of our door. However, the American Missionaries succeeded in getting us set at liberty. We then returned to Talas, where we passed several days full of commotion, for there, as well as at Kayseri, there were many arrests being made. The poor Armenians never knew what the morrow would bring, and then came the terrifying news that all Armenians had been cleared out of Sivas. What happened there and in the villages of the surrounding districts will be reported by the American Mission. When we discovered that they meant to keep us there—for they had prevented us from joining the Austrians for the journey—we telegraphed to the German Embassy, and so obtained permission to start. There is nothing to tell about this part of our journey, except that the locusts had in places destroyed all the fruit and vegetables, so that the Turks are already beginning to have some experience of the Divine punishment. Enclosure 3 2. Report by Dr. Niepage, the German assistant master. After returning to Aleppo in September 1915 from a three-month holiday in Beirut, I was horrified to learn that a new period of Armenian massacres had begun that was

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far worse than the former ones under Abdul Hamid, and the purpose of which was to eradicate the intelligent, hard-working and advanced Armenian people root and branch and to pass their property over to the Turks. At first I was unable to believe such outrageous news. I was told that masses of half-starving people were lying in various quarters in Aleppo, who were left over from the so-called “deportation transports.” In order to politically cloak the extermination of the Armenian people, military reasons were put forward as a pretext, which supposedly made it necessary to turn the Armenians out of their native homes, which they had had for 2,500 years, and deport them to the Arabian desert. It was also said that individual Armenians had been led to commit acts of espionage. After having informed myself of the facts and having made inquiries on all sides, I came to the conclusion that there were only slight causes for the accusations against the Armenians, which were used as pretexts to slay ten thousand innocent people for one guilty person, to rage in the most brutal way against women and children and to carry out a hunger campaign against the deportees, the object of which is the extermination of the entire nation. In order to verify the judgement based on my information, I visited all of the places in town where those Armenians lay who had been left behind from the transports. In dilapidated caravanserais (khans) I found piles of dead and half-decayed bodies, among them some that were still alive, but would soon breathe their last sigh. In other courtyards I found crowds of sick and hungry people, cared for by no one. All around the German secondary modern school, where I work as an assistant master, there were four such khans with seven to eight hundred deportees who were starving. We teachers and our pupils had to pass by there daily. Through the open windows we saw the pitiful, emaciated figures, wrapped in rags, on every walk we took. Every morning, our schoolchildren had to push past the two-wheeled ox-cart on the narrow road, on which eight to ten stiff corpses were removed every day, without a coffin or a shroud, while arms and legs hung out of the cart. After having watched this for a few days, I considered it my duty to write the following report: As teachers at the German secondary modern school in Aleppo, we respectfully permit ourselves to report the following: We consider it our duty to point out that in future our school work will suffer from the lack of a moral foundation and respect from the natives, should the German government not be in a position to prevent the brutality carried out here against the women and children of dead Armenians. The transports that left their home in Upper Armenia with about two to three thousand men, women and children, arrive here in the south with only three to two hundred people. The men are killed along the way, the women and children—with the exception of the old, the ugly and the very small, after having been abused by Turkish soldiers and officers, are carried off to Turkish and Kurd villages where they must convert to Islam. They

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try to annihilate the rest of the caravans by letting them die of hunger and thirst. The thirsty are not even permitted to drink when crossing a river. Their daily ration of food consists of a little flour sprinkled on their hand that they greedily lick; its only effect is to delay their death by starvation. The remains of such transports lie in one of the khans across from the German secondary modern school in Aleppo, where we work as teachers: a crowd of about four hundred emaciated figures, among them about one hundred children (boys and girls) aged five to seven, most of them sick due to typhus and dysentery. If you walk into the courtyard you have the impression of walking into a lunatic asylum. If you bring them food, you notice that they have forgotten how to eat. Their stomachs, weakened by months of hunger, are no longer able to absorb any food. If you give them bread, they put it aside indifferently. They lie there quietly and wait for death. Under these circumstances, how can we teachers read German fairy tales with our children or even the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible? How can we let them decline and conjugate unimportant words, when all around us in the neighbouring courtyards of the German secondary modern school the starving comrades of our Armenian pupils are slowly dying? Our schoolwork is a slap in the face to all real morality and mocks human feelings. And those unhappy people, thousands of whom have been driven through town and the neighbourhood into the desert, almost only women and children: what will become of them? They will be driven further on, from town to town, until the thousands melt into hundreds and of the hundreds only little groups are left. And even this group is driven further on until the last of them has died. Only then will the objective of this journey, the “new residences that have been assigned to the Armenians” as the newspapers put it, have been reached. “Ta’alim el aleman”—“these are the teachings of the Germans,” the simple Turk assures anyone who asks him about the author of these measures. The educated among the Muslims are convinced that, even if the German people disapprove of such atrocities, the German government will not intervene to prevent them out of consideration for its Turkish allies. Even sensitive Mohammedans, both Turks and Arabs, shake their heads disapprovingly, nor do they hide their tears when they see how Turkish soldiers with clubs beat the very pregnant women or the dying, who can no longer drag themselves along, in a train of deportees passing through the town. They cannot imagine that their government has ordered this cruelty and blame all the excesses on the Germans, who are considered to be Turkey’s teacher in all matters during the war. Even the mollahs in the

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mosques say that it was not the Sublime Porte, but the German officers who ordered the ill-treatment and annihilation of the Armenians. In the memories of the Oriental people, the sights which everyone has been seeing for months will indeed remain a disgrace on Germany’s shield of honour. In order not to lose faith in the Germans’ character, which until then they had respected, some of the educated people work the matter out for themselves as follows: they say that the German people probably know nothing of the terrible massacres that are presently being carried out everywhere in Turkey against the native Christians. Considering the German people’s love of truth, how else could such articles be explained as those that we can read in German newspapers that seem to know of nothing else but that individual Armenians were quite rightly put straight before a firing squad because they were spies or traitors? Again others say, “Perhaps the German government’s hands are tied by certain contracts on the allocation of competence, or intervening is not opportune at present. We know that the Embassy in Constantinople was in-formed of all these matters by its consulates. But since not the least thing has changed until now with regard to deportation procedures, we consider it our duty for reasons of conscience to make this report. At the time I was writing this report, the German consul in Aleppo was represented by Consul Hoffmann, his colleague from Alexandretta. Consul Hoffmann told me that the German Embassy received in-depth information on the events in the country through its consulates in Alexandretta, Aleppo and Mosul. But as a supplement to the files and as a detailed report, he would welcome a report on what I had seen with my own eyes. He would have my report sent safely to the embassy in Constantinople. I then prepared a report142 as requested by giving an exact description of the conditions in the khan across from our school. Consul Hoffmann wanted to include some photographs he took himself. They depicted piles of corpses, with living children crawling among them or relieving themselves. Apart from myself, the revised version of the report was signed by my colleagues, Dr. Gräter, assistant master, and Mrs. Marie Spiecker. The head of our institution, Director Huber, also signed the report, adding something along the lines of: The report written by my colleague, Niepage, is in no way exaggerated. We have been living here for weeks breathing air that is polluted by illness and the smell of corpses. Only the hope that action will soon be taken to remedy the situation makes it possible for us to continue working. Such remedial action was not forthcoming. I then considered resigning from my office as assistant master at the German secondary modern school on the grounds that to educate and bring up a people as a representative of European culture was 142. Printed in Doc. 1916-01-03-DE-001 as Enclosure 4.

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senseless and could not be morally justified when, at the same time, I was forced to watch idly while the government of the country exposed the pupils’ comrades to an agonising death by starvation. The people around me, however, as well as the head of the institution, Director Huber, dissuaded me from carrying out my intention. They pointed out to me how valuable it was that we remain in the country as eyewitnesses of everything. Our presence might assist in making the Turks deal in a more humane manner with their unfortunate victims out of consideration for us Germans. I see now that for far too long I was a silent witness of all this injustice. Nothing improved due to our presence, and we ourselves could do only very little. Mrs. Spiecker, our energetic, brave colleague, bought soap and whoever was left among the living women and children in our surroundings—there were no longer any men—was soaped down and freed of lice. Mrs. Spiecker employed women to cook soup for those who were still able to take food. I myself distributed two buckets of tea, cheese and soaked bread among the dying children every evening for six weeks. But as typhus fever began to spread in town from the death houses, we and five of our colleagues became ill and we had to discontinue our support. Help was of no avail to the deportees who came here to Aleppo. We were only able to offer slight relief to the doomed in their mortal need. What we saw with our own eyes here in Aleppo was only the last scene in the great tragedy of the annihilation of the Armenians, only a tiny fraction of the dreadful things that took place at the same time in the other Turkish provinces. The engineers of the Baghdad Railway reported things that were far worse when they came home from their section, or German travellers who met the caravans of the deportees on their journey. Some of these men had no appetite for days, so terrible were the things they had seen. One of them (Mr. Greif, Aleppo) reported how crowds of violated women’s corpses lay around naked along the railway embankment near Tell Abiad and Raz ul Ain. Many of them had clubs forced into their anus. Another man (Mr. Spiecker, Aleppo) saw how Turks bound Armenian men together, let off a number of shots with bird shotguns into the human bundle and walked away laughing while their victims slowly perished with dreadful convulsive movements. Other men had their hands tied behind their backs and were pushed down steep slopes. Women were waiting at the bottom to work on those rolling down with knives until they died. A Protestant minister, who gave a warm welcome to my colleague, Dr. Gräter, two years ago when he was passing through, had his fingernails ripped off. The German consul from Mosul reported in my presence at the German officers’ mess in Aleppo that he saw so many chopped-off children’s hands along some stretches of the road from Mosul to Aleppo that you could have paved the road with them. In the German hospital in Urfa there is also a little girl who had both her hands chopped off. Mr. Holstein, the German consul from Mosul, saw shallow graves with fresh Armenian corpses near an Arab village shortly before Aleppo. The Arabs in the village stated that they had killed these Armenians on order from the government. One of them proudly assured that he himself had killed eight of them.

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In many houses in Aleppo in which Christians live, I found Armenian girls hiding who had escaped death by some coincidence, whether it was because they lay behind exhausted and were considered dead, while their convoy was forced to move on, or because Europeans had the opportunity to buy these unfortunate girls for a few marks from the Turkish soldier who had last violated them. All of these girls act as if they were deranged. Many of them had to watch as the Turks cut their parents’ throats. I know such poor creatures, who speak not a word for many months and from whom even today it is still impossible to win a smile. A girl of about 14 was taken in by the storeroom administrator of the Baghdad Railway in Aleppo, Mr. Krause. The child had been raped so often in one night by Turkish soldiers that she had completely lost her mind. I watch her thrash about insanely with hot lips on her pillow and had difficulty giving her water to drink. A German I know saw hundreds of Christian farmers’ wives near Urfa being forced by the Turkish soldiers to undress completely. To the amusement of the soldiers, they had to drag themselves through the desert in this state for days in the 40° heat until their skin was completely burned. Another man watched as a Turk tore a child out of the womb of an Armenian woman and hurled it against the wall. Further facts, and worse than these few examples that I relate here, can be found in the numerous reports from the German consulates in Alexandretta, Aleppo and Mosul, which were sent to the Embassy. The consuls are of the opinion that until now, probably about one million Armenians have been killed in the massacres of the past few months. My conscience forces me to bring up these matters. Although the government has always only followed its political objectives in the annihilation of the Armenian people, its execution does have many characteristics of Christian persecution. All the tens of thousands of girls and women who were dragged off to Turkish harems and the masses of children who were collected by the government and shared out among Turks and Kurds, are lost to the Christian Church and must accept Islam. Germans have now once again heard the swear-word, “Giaur.” In Adana, I saw a crowd of Armenian orphans wander through the streets under the guard of Turkish soldiers. Their parents were killed; the children must become Muslims. It has happened everywhere, that grown-up Armenians were able to save their lives by being prepared to accept Islam. In other places, after the Christians were obliged to apply for acceptance in the community of Islam, Turkish officials replied in a show-off manner, in order to throw dust into the Europeans’ eyes, that religion was not a toy, and preferred to have the applicants killed. Together with their thanks after receiving gifts from distinguished Armenians, men such as Talaat Bey and Enver Pasha have often stated their opinion that they would have preferred it if the Armenian donors had presented their gifts as Muslims. One of the gentlemen said to a newspaper reporter, “Certainly, we now also punish many innocent people.” Turkish statesmen justify the mass slaughtering of defenceless women and children with such reasons. A German Catholic priest reported that Enver Pasha said to the

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Papal Nuncio in Constantinople, Monsignor Dolci, that he would not rest as long as even one Armenian was still alive. The objective of the deportations is the extermination of the entire Armenian people. This intention is evident from the fact that the Turkish government rejects and systematically attempts to prevent any support from missions, merciful nuns and Europeans who live in the country. A Swiss engineer was to be court-martialled because he distributed bread in Anatolia to the starving Armenian women and children of a deportation convoy. The government did not object to deporting Armenian pupils and teachers from the German schools in Adana and Aleppo and Armenian children from the German orphanages, irrespective of all efforts by the consuls and heads of the institutions to stop this. The offer made by the American government to take the deportees at the American government’s expense on American ships to the United States was also turned down. One day, it will be clear through their reports what our German consuls and numerous foreigners who live in this country think of the Armenian massacres. I can say nothing as to the judgement of the German officers in Turkey. I often notice how embarrassed silence or a desperate attempt to change the subject took hold of their circles when a German with deep feelings and an independent judgement came to speak of the dreadful misery of the Armenians. There was a large camp of half-starved, deported Armenians near Djerablus when Field Marshall von der Goltz travelled to Baghdad and had to pass the Euphrates River there. I learned in Djerablus that shortly before the Field Marshall’s arrival, the unfortunates, together with the sick and the dying, were driven with lashes of the whip a few kilometres over the next hill. When von der Goltz passed by there was nothing left to see of the adverse sight. When we visited that place shortly afterwards with several colleagues, we still found the corpses of men and children, bits of clothing and skulls and bones, the flesh of which had only partly been eaten off by jackals and birds of prey. The author of the report on hand believes it is out of the question that, if the German government seriously intends to control this disaster at the last moment, it should be impossible for the German government to bring the Turkish government to its senses. If the Turks are really as well-disposed towards us as people say, should it not be pointed out to them how much they are compromising us in front of the whole world when we as their allies are to watch quietly while hundreds of thousands of our brothers-in-faith in Turkey are slaughtered, their women and daughters violated, their children raised in the Islamic faith? Do the Turks not understand that their barbarous acts will be attributed to us and that we as Germans will be accused either of being in criminal agreement or showing contemptuous weakness, if we close our eyes to the dreadful atrocities that this war has produced and attempt to hush up facts that are already known throughout the world? If the Turks are really as intelligent as people say, then it should not be impossible to convince them that by annihilating the Christian nations they will destroy the productive factors and the intermediaries

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of European trade and general civilisation in their country? If the Turks are really as farsighted as people say, will they be able to shut themselves off from the fear that when the European cultural nations learn of what happened during the war in Turkey they must come to the conclusion that Turkey has forfeited its right to rule itself, and once and for all destroyed the faith in its cultural abilities and tolerance? Does the German government not support Turkey’s own best interest when it prevents Turkey from economically and morally destroying itself? I am attempting to reach the ear of the government with this report through the intercession of the appointed representatives of the German people. These matters, as embarrassing as they are, may no longer be withheld from the Commission meetings of the Reichstag. Nothing would be more humiliating for us than if a GermanTurkish house of friendship were to be established in Constantinople at immense expense while, at the same time, we are unable to protect our brothers-in-faith from barbarities that are without comparison in the bloodstained history of Turkey. Would the money collected not be better spent on setting up orphanages for the innocent victims of Turkish barbarity? When a kind of reconciliation dinner took place after the massacres in Adana in the year 1909, which was attended not only by high-ranking Turkish officials, but also by the leading Armenian clergy, the German Consul Büge, who was present, said that an Armenian clergyman stood up and said in his speech, “It is true that during the days of this massacre we Armenians lost many things: our men, our women, our children and our possessions. But you Turks lost more. You lost your honour.” If we wish to continue to state that the Christian massacres are an internal Turkish matter, which means nothing more to us than ensuring our friendship with Turkey, then we must also change the guidelines of our German cultural policy. Then we must stop sending German teachers to Turkey and we teachers must abstain from telling our pupils about German authors and philosophers, about German culture and German ideals, to say nothing of German Christianity. Three years ago, I was sent to the German secondary modern school in Aleppo as assistant master by the German Foreign Office. When I left, the Royal Provincial School Staff of Magdeburg made it a special duty that I prove myself worthy of the trust placed in me by being given a leave of absence to administer the position of assistant master in Aleppo. I would not fulfil my duty as a German public official and an appointed representative of German culture if, in view of the shameful actions I have witnessed, I would keep silent and watch idly while the pupils entrusted to my care are driven into desert and to a death of starvation. If you asked for the reasons that moved the Young Turkish Government to order and carry out these dreadful measures against the Armenians, the following would have to be said: The Young Turk has the European ideal of a uniform national state in mind. He hopes to make the non-Turkish Mohammedan races, such as Kurds, Persians, Arabs, etc., Turkish by means of administrative methods and through Turkish schooling,

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with reference to their joint Mohammedan interest. He fears the Christian nations, Armenians, Syrians, Greeks because of their cultural and economic superiority and sees their religion as a hindrance against making them Turkish through peaceful means. Thus, they must be exterminated or forced to convert to Islam. The Turks do not suspect that in doing so they are cutting off the branch they are sitting on. Who is to move Turkey forward, if not the Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, who make up more than one-quarter of the population of this empire? The Turks, the most untalented of the races living in Turkey, are themselves only a minority of the population and, even among the Arabs, they are culturally still far behind. Where do you find Turkish trade, Turkish craftsmanship, Turkish industry, Turkish art, Turkish science? Even the law and religion and the language, insofar as it is capable of producing literature, were borrowed from the subjugated Arabs. We teachers, who have taught Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Turks and Jews for years in the German schools in Turkey, are unable to utter any other judgement than this: of all our pupils, the pure Turks are the most unwilling and the most incompetent. If a Turk achieves anything, in nine out of ten cases you can be sure that he is a Circassian, an Albanian or a Turk with Bulgarian blood in his veins. Out of my own personal experience I can only predict that the original Turks will never achieve anything in trade, industry and science. We are now told in German newspapers of the Turks’ thirst for education, who press forward eagerly to learn German; there are even reports of language courses for adults being set up in Turkey. They are certainly being set up, but with what results? You can read of a language course in a secondary modern school, which began with twelve Turkish teachers as pupils. But the reporter forgets to add that after four lessons only six pupils appeared in class, after five lessons five, after six lessons four and after seven lessons only three, so that after eight lessons the course was cancelled because of the indolence of the pupils, even before it had actually begun. If the pupils had been Armenians, they would have held out until the end of the school year, learned diligently and, in the end, mastered the German language fairly well. What is Germany’s duty, as that of any Christian civilised people, in view of the Armenian massacres? We must try everything to protect the half-a-million Armenian women and children who may still be alive in Turkey today and will be exposed to a death of starvation from a death that would be a disgrace for the entire civilised world. The hundreds of thousands of deported women and children who were left lying at the edge of the Mesopotamian desert and along the roads leading there, can only eke out their miserable existence for a short while longer. Or how long can one live, searching for grains among horse manure and eating grass with them? Countless people can hardly be helped, due to the months of malnutrition and the dysentery that is prevalent. Several thousand Armenians deported from Constantinople, doctors, authors, merchants, once well-to-do, still live in Konia who could still be helped before they, too, succumb to their threatening fate. One thousand five hundred healthy Armenian men, women and children, among them sixty-year-old

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grandmothers and many children aged six and seven, still work along a stretch of the Baghdad Railway between Eiran and Enteli, breaking up stones and doing earthwork near the large tunnel. At present they are still being cared for by Senior Engineer Morf from the Baghdad Railway, but the Turkish government has already registered their names, too. As soon as their work is finished—which should be the case in two or three months’ time—and they are no longer needed, they are to be “allocated new homes” i.e., the men will be taken away and killed, the pretty women and girls put in the harems, and the rest will be driven back and forth in the desert without food until they have all died. The Armenian people have a right to German aid. When massacres against the Armenians threatened to break out in Cilicia several years ago, a German warship appeared off the coast of Mersina. The commander visited the Armenian Catholicos in Adana and assured him that as long as there was German influence in Turkey massacres such as those at the time of Abdul Hamid would be impossible. The German ambassador, von Wangenheim, gave the same assurances to the Armenian Patriarch and the Chairman of the Armenian National Council during an audience in April of last year. Even apart from one’s general duty as a Christian, we Germans have the very special duty of stopping the complete annihilation of the remaining half-a-million surviving Armenian Christians. We are Turkey’s allies and, after eliminating the French, the British and the Russians, the only ones who still have any say there. We may indignantly dismiss the lies of enemy nations that German consuls organised the massacres, but we will not destroy the belief of the Turkish people that Germany ordered the Armenian massacres, if German diplomats and officers do not finally intervene energetically. And if even only one accusation were left over, that our fear of and weakness towards our allies prevented us from protecting half-a-million women and children from slaughter and death of starvation, the picture of the German war would be spoiled forever by an ugly characteristic in the mirror of world history. People would be very mistaken if they believed that the Turkish government would stop the extermination of the women and children of its own accord if the German government did not exert the strongest pressure. Even shortly before my departure from Aleppo in May of this year, the entire crowd of deportees camping in Ras-ulAin along the Baghdad Railway, estimated to be twenty thousand women and children, were slaughtered. Enclosure 4 3. Report by a German public official from the Baghdad Railway. When the inhabitants of the Cilician villages moved away, many of them still had donkeys as mounts or pack animals, which they took along. But the soldiers accompanying the transports let the “Katerdjies” (donkey drovers) ride the animals because

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orders had been given that no deportee, whether man or woman, was allowed to ride. On the transport from Gadjin, the Katerdjies immediately took those pack animals to the villages, in whose baggage they believed they would find money or valuable objects. Other animals taken along by the people were taken away from them along the way by force or bought from them for such a ridiculous price that they could just as easily have given them away for free. A woman whose family I know sold 90 sheep for 100 piastres, which would otherwise have gone for a price of 60-70 Turkish pounds (about 1,300 German marks), i.e., she received the price of one sheep for all 90 of them. The village inhabitants were permitted to take their oxen, wagons and pack animals with them. Near Gökpunar they were forced to leave the road and take the shorter footpath through the mountains. They had to continue marching without any food or other possessions. The soldiers accompanying them stated bluntly that they had been given such orders. In the beginning, the deportees received a kilogram of bread from the government per head and month (not per day!). They lived off what they had taken with them. They were also paid small amounts of money. I heard of 30 people, formerly wealthy, in the Circassian village of Bumbadj (Mebidsh, on the ruins of the former Bambyke), 1½ days’ journey from Aleppo, that they received 20 piastres in 30 days, not per head, but for all 30 people together. In other words, 10 pfennigs per person per month. About 400 barefoot women, one child in their arms and one on their back (often enough a dead child), another by the hand, passed through Marash during the first days. Shoes were purchased by the Armenians of Marash, who were later deported themselves, for 50 pounds (approx. 900 German marks), in order to equip those passing through. Between Marash and Aintab, the Mohammedan population in a Turkish village wanted to give bread and water to a transport of 100 families. The soldiers would not permit this. The American mission and the Armenians of Aintab, who were later also deported, made it possible that during the night bread and money was brought to the transports passing by Aintab—they counted a total of about 20,000, most of them women and children. They were from the village in Sanjak Marash. The transports were not allowed to come into Aintab; rather, they camped in open fields. The Americans were able to carry out such nightly food-supply missions as far as Nisib (9 hours southeast of Aintab on the way to the Euphrates River). During the transport, the deportees were first robbed of their cash and then of all their goods. A deported Protestant clergyman watched as 43 pounds were taken off a family, 28 pounds off another. The clergyman himself is newly wedded and had to leave his young wife, who was expecting their first child, behind in Hadjin. By the way, four-fifths of the deportees are women and children. Three-fifths walk barefoot. A man from Hadjin whom I know personally, who had a fortune of at least 15,000 pounds (approx. 270,000 German marks), was robbed of his clothes along the way, as were others, so that we had to beg for clothes for him here. One of the deportees’ particular sorrows is that they cannot bury their dead. They remain lying somewhere

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along the way. Women often drag their dead children with them on their backs for days. In Bab, ten hours east of Aleppo, those passing through were temporarily accommodated for several weeks, but they were not permitted to go back and bury those who had died along the way. Women who bear children along the way suffer the worst fate. They are hardly given enough time to give birth to their child. One woman had twins during the night. The next morning she had to continue on foot, carrying two children on her back. After marching for two hours she collapsed. She had to put the two children down under a bush and was forced by the soldiers to continue marching with her other travelling companions. Another woman gave birth during the march, had to move on immediately and collapsed, dead. Another woman was surrounded by American female missionaries near Aintab when she gave birth. They were only able to gain permission for her to ride on an animal, and she moved on with her child wrapped in rags. These examples were observed just on the stretch from Marash to Aintab. A new-born child was found when cleaning up a khan that had been abandoned by a transport just an hour earlier. In Marash, three new-born children were found bedded in manure in the Tash khan. Countless children’s corpses are found lying unburied along the road. A Turkish officer, who came back with me three days ago, said that many children were left behind by their mothers along the way because they were no longer able to nurse them. Older children are taken away from their mothers by the Turks. Like his brothers, the major had a child with him; they wanted to raise them as Mohammedans. One of the children speaks German. It must be an orphan from a German orphanage. It is estimated that 300 of the women in the transports that passed by here gave birth along the way. A family suffering dire poverty and desperation sold its 18-year-old daughter here for 6 liras (approx. 110 German marks) to a Turk. The husbands of most of the women had been conscripted into the army. Whoever did not follow the call-up will be hanged or shot, as happened recently to seven men in Marash. But usually those who must do compulsory military service work on road construction and may not carry weapons. Those who return home find their house empty. Two days ago, I met an Armenian solider in Djerablus who came from Jerusalem on leave and was on his way to his village of Geben (between Zeytun and Sis). I have known the man for years. He learned here that his wife, his mother and his three children had been deported into the desert. All of his inquiries about his relatives were without success. For the past 28 days, people have been observing corpses every day in the Euphrates River, drifting downstream, bound together back-to-back in pairs, or five to eight people tied together by the arms. A Turkish colonel stationed in Djerablus was asked why he did not permit the corpses to be buried, whereupon he replied that he had no orders to do so and, in addition, it could not be determined whether they were Mohammedans or Christians, as their genitals had been cut off. (They would bury

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Mohammedans, but not Christians.) Corpses that were washed up to the bank were eaten by dogs. Vultures settled on others that were caught on the sand banks. On a single ride, a German saw six pairs of corpses drift downstream. A German cavalry captain told how he saw countless corpses lying unburied on both sides of the road on his ride from Diyarbekir to Urfa, all of them young men with their throats cut. (These were the road workers who had been conscripted into the army.) A Turkish pasha said to a respected Armenian, “Be glad if you find a grave in the desert; there are many of your kind that don’t have one.” Not even half of the deportees stay alive. The day before yesterday, a woman died at the train station here, yesterday it was 14 and this morning a further 10. A Protestant clergyman from Hadjin said to a Turk in Osmanieh, “Not even half of these deportees stay alive.” The Turk replied, “That’s just what we’re aiming for.” It should not be forgotten that there are also Mohammedans who disapprove of the atrocities carried out against the Armenians. A Mohammedan sheikh, a respected personality in Aleppo, said in my presence, “When people speak of how the Armenians are treated, I’m ashamed to be a Turk.” Whoever wishes to stay alive is forced to convert to Islam. In order to encourage this, individual families here and there are sent to purely Mohammedan villages. Until now, the number of deportees who have passed through here and in Aintab, amounts to about 50,000. Of these, nine-tenths received an order on the evening before their departure that they were to leave the following morning. The larger part of the transports goes via Urfa, the smaller via Aleppo. The former in the direction of Mosul, the latter in the direction of Der-el-Zor. The authorities say they are to be resettled there, but whatever escapes the knife will no doubt starve. About 10,000 from the transports have arrived in Der-el-Zor on the Euphrates River. No one has any news about the rest. It is said of those that are sent in the direction of Mosul that they are to be resettled 25 kilometres from the railway line; supposedly, that means that they are to be driven into the desert where their annihilation can take place without witnesses. What I write is just a small fraction of all the atrocities that have been happening here for the past two months and that are assuming greater proportions with each passing day. It is just a fraction of what I have seen myself and learned from acquaintances and friends who were eyewitnesses. I am able to name the dates and persons who were eyewitnesses of what I have reported at any time. Enclosure 5 Report by the widow of a respected Armenian from Baibourt. [Excerpt from Document 59 in Viscount Bryce, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16.]

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Enclosure 6 Excerpt from the Report by the Armenian Woman, Mariza Kejejian from Hussenig (half-an-hour from Harput), who was transported as far as Aleppo and received a pass for Alexandria there because she was a naturalised citizen of the United States. [An expanded report is published in Viscount Bryce, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16. Document 68] 2 November 1915 After Easter, many arrests were carried out in Harput, Mezré and the villages in the surrounding area. Those arrested were tortured in the prisons. They were beaten, their hair and nails torn out and tortured with burning irons after being firmly tied up with ropes. A soldier sat on the womb of a pregnant woman while others beat her to force her to reveal where her husband was hiding. We were deported on 4 July and first sent on the road to Diyabekir. We were a group of about 100 families and had pack animals with us. On the second day we passed many male corpses, probably some two hundred, who had been deported under Bsag Vartabed ten days before us. One whole day and night we drank only water that had been mixed with dirt. On the third day we again passed piles of corpses on the road to Arghana. The men and women had been killed separately. On the sixth day we arrived in a Kurdish village, where the gendarmes demanded that we give them our money and all the jewellery we still had, threatening to rape us. On the ninth day they took all our extra clothes. When we arrived in Diyarbekir, all our pack animals were led away and a woman and two young girls were dragged off by the gendarmes. For 24 hours we sat in the scorching sun in front of the walls of Diyarbekir. Turks came out of the town and took our children away. Towards evening, after we had prepared to leave, Turks came from the town and attacked us. We left all the luggage we still had and scattered to save our lives and our honour. That night, we were attacked a further three times by Turks and the girls and young women were dragged off. The following day we were driven on towards the south for many hours, without finding any water. Several of us collapsed from hunger and thirst. Every day we were attacked and mistreated. Some of us were taken away. A woman who resisted when they wanted to take her daughters away was thrown off a bridge and broke her arm. Then she was pushed off a cliff together with one of her daughters. When her other daughter saw this, she jumped after them so as to die together with her mother and sister.

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As we approached Mardin, we were left to lie under the scorching sun in an open field for eight days. Nearby there was a pond. During the night, the Turks let the water drain off and cover the field we were camping on. Then they shot at us and robbed women and children. One evening we received orders to break camp. The same shameful and dishonourable rapes happened every day, and the size of our caravan continued to decrease. Only one gendarme from Mardin treated us decently (probably an Arab). We came to Viran Shehr and then Ras-ul-Ain. Before we reached Ras-ul-Ain we passed three wells that were full of corpses. In Ras-ul-Ain we met other women who had been deported from Erzerum, Egin, Keghi and other towns and were also on their way to Der-el-Zor. Suggestions were often made to us, sometimes by force, to convert to Islam. We replied that we would rather throw ourselves into the water or die rather than convert to Islam. This answer greatly surprised the religious sheikhs and they said, “We have never met people, all of whom defended their honour and their religion so keenly.” In Ras-ul-Ain we met Arakel Agha, who had come from Aleppo to see if he could save anyone. He managed to take some of us with him to Aleppo. The Armenians in Aleppo gave us food. We had had nothing for 24 hours. In Aleppo, there were deportees from different Armenian areas who had been on the road for four months. They were so exhausted that every day about 40 of them died. Axes and swords were used to kill the men in the valley of Sheitan Dere. First they had to dig their own graves and then they were massacred. An Armenian soldier told me how the Turks had thrown Armenians into the Euphrates River. He himself escaped with five comrades by swimming across the river. They were on the road for three days and saw corpses lying everywhere along the road. During our entire journey we received nothing to eat from the Turkish authorities. It was only in Diyarbekir that each of us received a loaf of bread, and also in Mardin: every day for the eight days we camped there we were given a loaf of bread that was hard as stone. Our clothes rotted away and the suffering caused almost all of us to go crazy. When they were given new clothes, many of them no longer knew how to put them on. When they bathed for the first time again and cleansed themselves of all the dirt, many noticed that they had lost their hair.” Enclosure 7 From a missionary’s report on the fate of the deportees from Mersivan. Evil deeds are carried out under cover of darkness. Shortly after midnight, gendarmes took about 300 prisoners, tied their hands and forbade them to take any provisions, clothes or bedding. Supposedly they were to go to Amasia, but three-quarters of an hour along the road to Zileh (Zela), the famous town from which Julius Caesar sent his message, “Veni, vidi, vici,” to Rome, they were all killed with axes. Day after day

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they were “deported” in this manner. According to statements by the public authorities, 1,215 men were killed in this manner. Turkish eyewitnesses gave evidence that a large tent had been set up at the place of execution, in which the victims were painstakingly questioned and searched. The questions asked were mainly concerned with weapons, supposedly revolutionary plans and the names of individuals. Then all the valuables they possessed were taken from them. A large grave was dug some distance from the tent. The prisoners were led to it in groups of five, dressed only in their underwear, their hands tied behind their backs; then they knelt down and were killed by the blow of an axe on the head or the thrust of a dagger. This has been confirmed by eyewitnesses. Also by gendarmes who took part themselves in this bloody work. After all the men were disposed of in this manner, the old men and the boys under 18 were released with the words, “His Majesty the Sultan has granted your release; go and pray for him!” It is impossible to describe how those released behaved when they reached their homes again. They jumped for joy, for they believed that it was all over and those who had survived would now experience better days. But, alas, this joy lasted only a single day. Already on the next day the town crier announced in the streets of the town that all Armenians, women, children and old people were obliged to leave for Mosul. Only now, these poor people understood the whole bitter truth. Until then, they had still had their illusions that by some turn of events the path to freedom should and would open up. They had never given up hope that the worst would not happen. After having spoken to many Turks, public officials and others, I am convinced that all the men who are led away will be killed. Enclosure 8 Report of Mr. Jackson, American Consul in Aleppo. Aleppo, 3 August The idea of direct attack and massacre that was carried out in former times has been altered somewhat, in that the men and boys have been deported from their homes in great numbers and disappeared en route, and later on the women and children have been made to follow. For some time stories have been prevalent from travellers arriving from the interior of the killing of the males, of great numbers of bodies along the roadsides, and the floating in the Euphrates river; of the delivery to the Kurds by the gendarmes accompanying the conveys of women and children of all the younger members of the parties, of unthinkable outrages committed by gendarmes and Kurds, and even the killing of many of the victims. At first these stories were not given much credence, but as many of the refugees are now arriving in Aleppo, no doubt longer remains of the truth of the matter. August 2nd about 800 middle aged and old women,

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and children under the age of 10 years arrived afoot from Diyarbekir, after 45 days en route, and in the most pitiable condition imaginable. They report the taking of all the young women and girls by the Kurds, the pillaging even of the last bit of money and other belongings, of starvation, of privation, and hardship of every description. Their deplorable condition bears out their statements in every detail. … Aleppo, 15 August Now all Armenians have been ordered deported from the cities of Aintab, Mardin, Killis, Antioch, Alexandretta, Kessab, and all the smaller towns in Aleppo province, estimated at 60,000 persons. It is natural to suppose that they will suffer the fate of those that have gone before, and which are appalling to contemplate. The important American religious and educational institutions are losing their professors, teachers, helpers, and students, and even the orphanages are to be emptied of the hundreds of children therein, and which ruins the fruits of 50 years of untiring effort in this field. The Government officials in a mocking way ask what the Americans are going to do with these establishments now that the Armenians are being done away with. … The situation is becoming more critical daily as there is no telling where this thing will end. … The results are that as 90 percent of the commerce of the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of prominent business men other than Armenians face bankruptcy. There will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder, blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay worker, weaver, shoemaker, jeweller, pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the other professional or tradesmen with very few exceptions, and the country will be left in a practically helpless state. Enclosure 9 Report of Oscar Heizer, American Consul in Trebizond [Followed by Heizer’s original report, which was slightly adapted and abridged in some passages in the German version] Trebizond, 28 July 1915 … On Saturday, 26 June, the proclamation regarding the deportation of all Armenians was posted in the streets. On Thursday, July 1st, all the streets were guarded by gendarmes with fixed bayonets, and the work of driving the Armenians from their homes began. Groups of men, women and children with loads and bundles on their backs

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were collected in a short cross street near the Consulate and when a hundred or so had been gathered they were driven past the consulate on the road toward Gumushhané and Erzindjan in the heat and dust by gendarmes with fixed bayonets. They were held outside the city until a group of about 2,000 were collected then sent on toward Gumushhané. Three such groups making about 6,000 were sent from here during the first three days and the smaller groups from Trebizond and the vicinity sent later amounted to about 4,000 more. The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most heartrending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined circles. Some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were clergy-men, merchants, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, tailors and men from every walk of life. The Governor General told me they were allowed to make arrangements for carriages but nobody seemed to be making any arrangements. I know of one of wealthy merchant, however, who paid Lt. 15 ($66.00) for a carriage to take himself and wife to Djevizlik and when he arrived at the station where they were being collected at Deyermendéré, about 10 minutes from the city, they were commanded by the gendarmes to leave the carriage which was sent back to the city. The whole Mohammedan population knew these people were to be their prey from the beginning and they were treated as criminals. In the first place from the date of the proclamation June 25, no Armenian was allowed to sell anything and everybody was forbidden under penalty (see the text of the proclamation) to buy anything from them. How then were they to provide funds for the journey? For six or eight months there has been no business whatever in Trebizond and people have been eating up their capital. Why then should they have been prohibited from selling rugs or anything they had to sell to secure needed money for the journey? Many persons who had goods which they could have sold if they had been allowed to do so were obliged to start off on foot without funds and with what they could gather up from their homes and carry on their backs. Such persons naturally soon became so weak that they fell behind and were bayoneted and thrown into the river and their bodies floated down past Trebizond to the sea, or else lodged in the shallow river on rocks where they remained for 10 to 12 days and putrefied to the disgust of the travellers who were obliged to pass that way. I have talked with eyewitnesses who state there were many naked bodies to be seen on snags in the river 15 days after the affair occurred and that the smell was something terrible. On the 17th of July while out horseback riding with the German Consul we came across three Turks digging a grave in the sand for a naked body which we saw in the river nearby. The corpse looked as though it had been in the water for 10 days or more. The Turks said they had just buried four more bodies further up the river. Another Turk told us that a body had floated down the river and out into the sea a few moments before we arrived. By July 6th (Tuesday) all the Armenian houses in Trebizond, about 1,000, had been emptied of inhabitants and the people sent off. There was no inquiry as to who were guilty or who were innocent of any movement against the government. If

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a person was an Armenian that was sufficient reason for being treated as a criminal and deported. At first all were to go except the sick who were taken to the municipal hospital until they were well enough to go. Later an exception was made for old men and women, pregnant women, children, those in government employ and Catholic Armenians. Finally it was decided that the old men and women and the Catholics must go and they were sent along towards the last. A number of lighters have been loaded with people at different times and sent off towards Samsun. It is generally believed that such persons were drowned. During the early days before the deportation commenced a large caique or lighter was loaded with men supposed to be members of the Armenian committee and sent off towards Samsun. Two days later a certain Vartan, a Russian subject and one of those who left in the boat, returned overland to Trebizond badly wounded about the head and so crazy he could not make himself understood. All he could say was “boom, boom.” He was arrested by the authorities and taken to the municipal hospital where he died the following day. A Turk said this boat was met not far from Trebizond by another boat containing gendarmes who proceeded to kill all the men and throw them overboard. They thought they had killed them all but this Vartan who was a big powerful man was only wounded and swam ashore unnoticed. A number of such caiques have left Trebizond loaded with men and usually the caiques return empty after a few hours. Tots, a village about two hours from Trebizond, is inhabited by Gregorian and Catholic Armenians, and Turks. Boghos Marimian a wealthy and influential Armenian together with his two sons, according to a reliable witness, were placed one behind the other and shot through. 45 men and women were taken a short distance from the village into a valley. The women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness a child was killed by beating its brains out on a rock. … The plan to save the children by placing them in schools or orphanages in Trebizond under the care of a committee organised and supported by the Greek Archbishop of which the Vali was President and the Archbishop Vice-President with three Mohammedan and three Christian members has been abandoned and the girls are now being given exclusively to Mohammedan families and thus scattered. The suppression of the orphanages and the scattering of the children was a great disappointment to this Consulate and to the Greek Archbishop who had worked hard for the plan and secured the support of the Vali, but Nail Bey the head of the Committee of Union and Progress who was opposed to the plan succeeded in thwarting it very quickly. Many of the boys appear to have been sent to Plantana to be distributed among the farmers. The best looking of the older girls who were retained as care takers in these orphanages are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang which seems to rule affairs here. I hear on good authority that a member of the Committee of Union and Progress here has ten of the handsomest girls in a house in the central part of the city for the use of himself and friends. Some of the small girls have been taken into respectable Mohammedan houses. Several of the former pupils at the

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American Mission are now in Mohammedan homes near the Mission and have been visited by Mrs. Crawford but of course the majority of them are not so fortunate. The 1,000 Armenian houses are being emptied of furniture by the police one after the other. The furniture, bedding and everything of value is being stored in large buildings about the city. There is no attempt at classification and the idea of keeping the property in “bales under the protection of the government to be returned to the owners on their return” is simply ridiculous. The goods are piled in without any attempt at labelling or systematic storage. A crowd of Turkish women and children follow the police about like a lot of vultures and seize anything they can lay their hands on and when the more valuable things are carried out of a house by the police they rush in and take the balance. I see this performance every day with my own eyes. I suppose it will take several weeks to empty all the houses and then the Armenian shops and stores will be cleared out. The commission which has this matter in hand is now talking of selling this great collection of household goods and property in order to pay the debts of the Armenians. The German Consul told me that he did not believe the Armenians would be permitted to return to Trebizond even after the end of the war. I have just been talking with a young man who has been performing his military service on the “inshaat tabouri” (construction regiment) working on the roads out toward Gumushhané. He told me that fifteen days ago all the Armenians, about 180, were separated from the other workmen and marched off some distance from the camp and shot. He heard the report of the rifles and later was one of the number sent to bury the bodies which he stated were all naked having been stripped of clothing. A number of bodies of women and children have lately been thrown up by the sea upon the sandy beach below the walls of the Italian Monastery here in Trebizond and were buried by Greek women in the sand where they were found. Enclosure 10 Report of the American Consul Leslie A. Davis in Harput Turkey July 11, 1915. … If it were simply a matter of being obliged to leave here to go somewhere else it would not be so bad, but everyone knows it is a case of going to one’s death. If there was any doubt about it, it has been removed by the arrival of a number of parties, aggregating several thousand people, from Erzerum and Erzindjan. The first ones arrived a day or two after my last report was written. I have visited their encampment a number of times and talked with some of the people. A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They were almost without exception ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That is not surprising in view of the fact that they have been on the road for nearly two months

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with no change of clothing, no chance to wash, no shelter and little to eat. The Government has been giving them some scanty rations here. I watched them one time when their food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed upon the guards who carried the food and the guards beat them back with clubs hitting hard enough to kill them sometimes. To watch them one could hardly believe that these people were human beings. As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children and beg one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have even had their doctors there to examine the more likely girls and thus secure the best ones. There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed. Women and children were also killed. Many died, of course, from sickness and exhaustion on the way and there have been deaths each day that they have been here. Several different parties have arrived and after remaining a day or two have been pushed on with no apparent destination. Those who have reached here are only a small portion, however, of those who started. By continuing to drive these people on in this way it will be possible to dispose of all of them in a comparatively short time. Among those with whom I have talked were three sisters. They had been educated at Constantinople and spoke excellent English. They said their family was the richest in Erzerum and numbered twenty-five when they left but there were now only fourteen survivors. The other eleven, including the husband of one of them and their old grandmother had been butchered before their eyes by the Kurds. The oldest male survivor of the family was eight years of age. When they left Erzerum they had money, horses and personal effects but they had been robbed of everything, including even their clothing. They said some of them had been left absolutely naked and others with only a single garment. When they reached a village their gendarmes obtained clothes for them from some of the native women. Another girl with whom I talked is the daughter of the Protestant pastor of Erzerum. She said every member of her family with her had been killed and she was left entirely alone. These and some others are a few survivors of the better class of people who have been exiled. They are being detained in an abandoned schoolhouse just outside of the town and no one is allowed to enter it. They said they practically are in prison, although they were allowed to visit a spring just outside the building. It was there that I happened to see them. All the others are camped in a large open field with no protection at all from the sun. The condition of these people indicates clearly the fate of those who have left and are about to leave from here. I believe nothing has been heard from any of them as yet and probably very little will be heard. The system that is being followed seems to be to have bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road to kill the men especially and in-

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cidentally some of the others. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organised and effective massacre this country has ever seen. … Harput, 11 July 1915 The first lot was sent away during the night of June 23rd. Among them were some of the professors in the American College and other prominent Armenians, including the Prelate of the Armenian Gregorian Church of Harput. There have been frequent rumours that all of these were killed and there is little doubt that they were. All Armenian soldiers have likewise been sent away in the same manner. They have been arrested and confined in a building at one end of the town. No distinction has been made between those who paid their military exemption tax and those who had not. Their money was accepted and then they were arrested and sent off with the others. It was said that they were to go some-where to work on the roads but no one has heard from them and that is undoubtedly false. The fate of all the others has been pretty well established by reliable reports of a similar occurrence on Wednesday, 7 July. On Monday many men were arrested both at Harput and Mezreh and put in prison. At daybreak Tuesday morning they were taken out and made to march towards an almost uninhabited mountain. There were about eight hundred in all and they were tied together in groups of fourteen each. That afternoon they arrived in a small Kurdish village where they were kept overnight in the mosque and other buildings. During all this time they were without food or water. All their money and much of their clothing had been taken from them. On Wednesday morning they were taken to a valley a few hours’ distant where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes began shooting them until they had killed nearly all of them. Some who had not been killed by bullets were then disposed of with knives and bayonets. A few succeeded in breaking the rope with which they were tied to their companions and running away, but most of these were pursued and killed. A few succeeded in getting away, probably not more than two or three. Among those who were killed was the Treasurer of the American College. Many other estimable men were among the number. No charge of any kind had ever been made against any of these men. They were simply arrested and killed as part of the general plan to dispose of the Armenian race. Last night several hundred more men, including both men arrested by the civil authorities and those enrolled as soldiers, were taken in a different direction and murdered in a similar manner. It is said this happened at a place not two hours’ distance from here. I shall ride out that way some day when things become a little quieter and try to verify it for myself. The same thing has been done systematically in the villages. A few weeks ago about three hundred men were gathered together at Itchme and Haboosie, two villages four and five hours’ distant from here, and then taken up into the mountains

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and massacred. This seems to be fully established. Many women from those villages have been here since and told about it. There have been rumours of similar occurrences in other places. There seems to be a definite plan to dispose of all the Armenian men, but after the departure of the families during the first few days of the enforcement of the order it was announced that women and children with no men in the family might remain here for the present, and many hoped that the worst was over. The American missionaries began considering plans to aid the women and children who would be left here with no means of support. It was thought that perhaps an orphanage could be opened to care for some of the children, especially those who had been born in America and then brought here by their parents, and also those who belonged to parents who had been connected in some way with the American Mission and schools. There would be plenty of opportunity, although there might not be sufficient means, to care for children who reached here with the exiles from other Vilayets and whose parents had died on the way. I went to see the Vali about this matter yesterday and was met with a flat refusal. He said we could aid these people if we wished to do so, but the Government was establishing orphanages for the children and we could not undertake any work of that nature. An hour after I left the Vali the announcement was made that all the Armenians remaining here, including women and children must leave on 13 July. The evident plan of the Government is to give no opportunity for any educational or religious work to be done here by foreign missionaries. Some Armenian women will be taken as Muslim wives and some children will be brought up as Muslims, but none of them will be allowed to come under foreign influences. The country is to be purely Muslim and nothing else.

1916-09-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 28162; pr. 17.10.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 93/No. 2669 Aleppo, 20 September 1916 In the area around the Euphrates River, difficulties have arisen in connection with the distribution of American financial aid carried out until now by Sister Beatrice Rohner through Armenian intermediaries. One of the intermediaries was seized by the authorities and beaten to force him to make a statement on the relief organisation. In order not to endanger this organisation, Sister Rohner has temporarily

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stopped distributing the American funds and left this to the American Consul. The latter sent Mr. Bernau, an employee of the American Vacuum Oil Company, on his way to distribute this financial aid under the pretext that he must collect money for his company. The journey was carried out from Aleppo via Meskené to Der-el-Zor from 24 August to 4 September. Although Bernau is a citizen of the German Reich, he no longer has any knowledge of German because both his grandfather and father married non-German women in the Orient. Thus, his report to the American consul has been written in French, the language with which he is familiar. He asked the German consulate to intervene on his behalf in obtaining official travelling permission, but was referred to the American consul because he wanted to travel for American purposes, and the latter obtained such permission, although with considerable difficulty. As it is not out of the question that the report will be published sooner or later in the United States and used against Germany because our enemies continue to stress that we are responsible for the annihilation of the Armenians, I did not want to refrain from presenting the enclosed transcript to Your Excellency. I had no means at my disposal to prevent this report from being given to the American Consul. In my opinion, unfortunately, it also holds the truth. Bernau only expressed the horror that overcomes anyone who comes into close contact with the starving masses of deportees, deliberately exposed to death of starvation. The moment Bernau entered the Mutesarriflik of Der-el-Zor, he was accompanied by the secret police. He is convinced that, as long as Zekki Bey, the present Mutesarrif, remains in Der-el-Zor, all the Armenians who enter his territory are doomed. The towns named in his report, Meskené, Abu Hrera, Hamman, Rakka and Zierrat, are part of Vilayet Aleppo; Sebkha is part of the Mutesarriflik of Der-el-Zor. The fact reported on the 29th of last month under No. 2463, that slaughtering has begun once again in the area between the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers, has meanwhile been confirmed. On his reconnaissance of the Euphrates River, Lieutenant-Commander von Mücke passed corpses floating on the Euphrates River an hour upriver from the mouth of the Khabur River. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure [Translated from French by George Shirinian] Trip from Meskené to Der-i-Zor made from 24 August to 4 September, 1916 It is impossible to convey the horror that my voyage through the Armenian camps spread along the Euphrates left with me, especially on the right bank between Meskené and Der-es-Zor. “Camp” is saying a lot because the majority of these wretched people,

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brutally torn from their native soil, their homes, their families, stripped of their goods at the beginning or on the way, are left in the open air like cattle, without shelter, almost without clothing, are barely supported by a completely insufficient diet. Exposed to all the bad weather, in summer with the torrid sun of the desert, in winter with the rain and the cold, debilitated already by the deprivations, the long marches, the ill-treatment, the most stinging tortures, and the daily anguish, the least weak have succeeded in digging hollows on the side of the river banks. Happy are those, and they are rare, who have succeeded in saving themselves from the shipwreck, some clothing, some fabric for a tent to shelter themselves, and a little money which enables them to get flour, if they can find some, and at this time some watermelon from the neighbouring villagers or some sick sheep, for the price of gold from passing nomads. Everywhere are only bony and emaciated faces, and of the walking skeletons, prey to all the diseases, victims especially of hunger. The Administration which took on itself to lead them through the desert has no care about feeding them. It even seems that it may be a principle of government to let them die of hunger. A massacre by order, as in the time when freedom and fraternity had not been proclaimed by the Constitution, would have been more humane. It would have at least saved these poor wretches the pangs of the hunger and death little by little in the worst tortures, in refinements of tortures worthy of the Mongols. But a massacre would have been less Constitutional!!!!! Civilisation is saved! The wrecks of the Armenian nation scattered on the banks of the Euphrates are composed only of old men, women and children. Aged men and young people, who have not been massacred yet, were dispersed along the roads of the empire where they break stones, requisitioned for the needs of the army, occupied with work for the benefit of the State. The girls, often even the very young girls, have become the prey of the Muslims; they have been kidnapped all along the route of the deportation, sometimes violated and sold, if not killed by the gendarmes who drove the sad caravans, thrown into the harems or the domestic service of their torturers. As at the door of Dante’s Inferno, it should be written at the entrance of these cursed camps: “You who enter, leave behind all hope.” The mounted gendarmes traverse the neighbourhoods with orders to stop and beat the fugitives. The roads are well guarded! And what roads! … they lead only to the desert, where death is as sure as under the beating of the Ottoman slave-masters. I have met in the middle of the desert, at various places, six runaways, given up for dead by the gendarmes and surrounded by starving dogs which did not wait for their last agonising gasp to leap on them and feed on them. In addition, one meets all along the route from Meskené to Der-es-Zor tombs containing the abandoned clothing stripped of the unfortunate Armenians dead in painful atrocities. One counts by the hundreds the anonymous burial mounds or resting places in their last sleep of these pariahs of existence, these victims of a barbarism without name.

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Prevented, on one side, from wandering from the camps to search for means of subsistence, the Armenian deportees cannot even, on the other side, exercise this natural human faculty, and especially that of the Armenian race, of adapting to its misfortune and of applying its ingenuity to decreasing the sum of its evils. They could build some shelters, cabanas or huts; try perhaps some culture, if they only had the hope of remaining where they are. This hope is refused to them. They can expect, at any time to be forced to change the place of their torment; and there are new forced marches, without bread, without water, under the blows of riding crops, new fatigue, ill-treatments worthy of the slave merchants of the Sudan, and the victims all along the way of this abominable martyrdom. Those who still have some money are exploited constantly by their guards who, under threat to send them further, extort little by little their last resources, and when these resources are exhausted, they just as easily act on these threats. What I have seen and heard surpasses all imagination. To speak of “a thousand horrors” is too little in this case; I believed I was passing through a corner of hell. The few facts, which I will report, taken here and there on the fly, will give only a scant idea of the lamentable and terrifying picture. The same scenes are repeated in the various places that I travelled, everywhere it is the same governmental cruelty which aims at the systematic annihilation by hunger of the survivors of the Armenian nation in Turkey, everywhere the same bestial inhumanity on the part of the torturers and the same torments endured by the victims, all along the Euphrates, from Meskené to Der-es-Zor. Meskené: By its geographical position on the borders of Syria and Mesopotamia, became the natural gathering point of the Armenian deportees arriving from the vilayets of Anatolia and dispatched from there along the Euphrates. They arrived by the thousands, but the majority left their bones there. It is a sad and mournful impression that this immense and gloomy plain of Meskené leaves. Information collected on the spot allows me to confirm that around 60,000 Armenians were buried there, taken by hunger, deprivations of all kinds, intestinal diseases and the typhus which resulted from it. Mounds as far as one can see contain 200 to 300 corpses buried there all mixed together, with women, children and old men belonging to different families. Currently, approximately 4,500 Armenians remain in place between the town of Meskené and the Euphrates. They are nothing but living ghosts. Their supervisors distribute a little bread to them parsimoniously and very irregularly. Sometimes 3 or 4 days pass during which these famished people, who do not have a piece of bread to live on, receive absolutely nothing. Sweeping dysentery has made many victims among them, especially among the children. The latter throw themselves voraciously on anything that falls into their hands: they eat grass, earth, and even their own excrement. I have seen, under a tent of 5 to 6 square meters, around 450 orphans, crawling pell-mell in the dirt and the vermin. These poor small ones receive 150 grams of bread per day, sometimes even [less] and it is more often the case that they go two

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days without having anything to eat. Also death makes among them cruel devastations. This tent sheltered 450 victims during my stay. Eight days later, at the time of my return, intestinal diseases had taken 17 of them. Abu Herrera: is a small locality north of Meskené at the edge of the Euphrates. It is completely desert. On a small hill 200 meters from the river, 240 Armenians can be found guarded by 2 gendarmes who, without pity, let them die of hunger in the most atrocious suffering. The scenes of which I was a witness exceed any horror. Close to the spot where the wagons stop, women, who did not see me arrive, searched in the horse droppings for grains of undigested barley to nourish themselves. I gave them a little bread. They threw themselves on it like dogs dying of hunger, greedily carried it to their mouth with gasps and epileptic tremors. Soon, informed by one of them, 240 people, rather let us say famished wolves, who had not eaten for 7 days, rushed towards me at the top of the hill, holding out their emaciated arms, imploring with tears and cries for a piece of bread. These were especially the women, children and a dozen old men. On my return, I brought them bread and was for three-quarters of an hour a pitying spectator, but, unfortunately, impotent in the rapacious struggles all around for a piece of bread, such as only famished wild beasts can give a picture of it. Hammam: is a small village where 1,600 Armenians are grouped, always the same picture of hunger and horror. The men had been requisitioned for manoeuvres, navvies or road-menders; as wages they receive an indigestible and insufficient piece of bread to give them the strength necessary for their exhausting work. In this place I met some families which still have money and which can be sustained poorly; but the majority sleep on the bare ground, without shelter, living on watermelons, the most unfortunate still satisfied to gnaw the rinds thrown away by others. Mortality is very high, especially among the children. Rekka: a rather important city located on the left bank of the Euphrates; 5 to 6,000 Armenians, especially women and children, are dispersed in the various districts of the city, and living in groups of 50 to 60 in the houses which the leniency of the governor procured for the poorest. One must recognise merit wherever one meets it; and what would be only strict duty in normal times on the part of an Ottoman civil servant towards Ottoman subjects, can pass for generosity and even heroism in the current circumstances. In spite of the fact that at Rekka the Armenians are less molested than elsewhere, their misery is nevertheless alarming. Flour is distributed to them very irregularly by the authorities and in insufficient quantity; also one sees every day women and children at the doors of bakeries searching for a little flour and begging in the streets by the hundred for the charity of the inhabitants. Always the horrible spectre of famine. If one thinks that among this famished mob are found people having occupied high social positions, one can easily imagine the tortures, especially moral, which these unhappy people have undergone, yesterday rich and envied, today searching like the most miserable for a dirty piece of bread.

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On the right bank of the Euphrates, opposite Rekka, is found approximately a thousand famished Armenians, placed under tents and guarded by soldiers. They await being deported elsewhere, to fill undoubtedly the vacuum made by death in other camps. And how many of them will arrive at their destination! Zierrat: is north of Rekka; approximately 1,800 Armenians are camped there; more than others, they suffer from hunger, for Zierrat is completely desert. One sees there groups of men and children who wander at the edge of the river, seeking to alleviate their hunger with grass, and others who fall dead from starvation under the pitiless eyes of the guards, of which the chief, a barbarian man in the full sense of the term, forbids anyone to cross the boundaries of the camp without special permission, under penalty of a beating. Sebga: small village where a group of 250 to 300 Armenians live as miserably and famished as the others. Der-es-Zor: chief place of the independent Mutessarifate of the same name. A few months ago, 30,000 Armenians were settled in a camp at the edge of the city, under the protection of the Governor Ali Suad Bey. Though I do not want to get into personalities, I nevertheless would not like to overlook the name of this man of courage, whose emigrants had only praise for him, and who had endeavoured to soften their ills. A certain number of them had even begun a small trade and would have been happy to remain in this town. This proves well that if the reason the State required, let us admit it, the mass deportation of the Armenians for the preventive settling of the Armenian Question (?), at least the authorities would have acted humanely as well as in the interest of the Ottoman Empire, by transplanting the Armenians into cities where they could be devoted to commerce or the exercise of their trade, or even by transporting them onto arable land, where the need for manual labour is felt terribly at this time. But if it is a question of removing the race to remove at the same time the Armenian Question, the goal would undoubtedly be attained. It is always the case that the relative favour (!) which the Armenians enjoyed at Der-es-Zor was denounced in high places: the culprit Ali Suad Bey was transferred to Baghdad and was replaced by Zekky Bey, remarkable for his inhumanity and cruelty. I was told at Der-es-Zor of appalling things on account of the new Mutessarif. The prison, tortures, beatings, hangings were at the time the daily bread of the small town. Girls raped or delivered to Arabs of the surrounding villages, for their pleasure or their service, children drowned in the river; neither the weak, nor the innocent were spared. The excellent Ali Suad Bey had collected close to a thousand orphans in a large house and provided regularly for their subsistence at the expense of the city; his successor threw them out for the most part, where they died in the streets like dogs, of hunger, and of all kinds of deprivations and maltreatment. Much more, the 30,000 Armenians which were at Der-es-Zor were pitilessly expelled along the Khabur, tributary of the Euphrates, that is to say in the most desert area of these regions, where it was absolutely impossible for them to find anything

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for their subsistence. According to information taken by me at Der-es-Zor, a great number have died already and the remainder will not be long in following them. Conclusion: I estimate approximately 15,000 Armenians scattered along the Euphrates between Meskené and Der-es-Zor while passing by Rekka. As I have already said, these wretched ones, abandoned, maltreated by the Administration, put in the impossible situation of providing for themselves, die little by little of hunger. Winter is approaching; the cold and the humidity will add to the ravages of their famine. The only practicable remedy would be to be able to bring them regularly the funds necessary to buy flour. They would be able to get it almost everywhere, though expensively. Undoubtedly there are many obstacles to this sending of subsidies; the principal being the ill will of the Authorities; but one could nevertheless by roundabout means be able to send them financial aid which would be partitioned among the various groupings for an equitable distribution and sufficient for flour. If this assistance does not materialise, that is it for all these wretched ones; if, on the contrary, it is sufficiently abundant, one can hope that many of them will be sustained until the coming peace, which will decide their fate. I believe, Mister Consul, to have said enough about these forsaken wrecks of humanity so that immediate measures may be taken with a view to get help to them, and it is with the belief that my weak voice will be heard and bear fruit that I close my report to you by asking you to accept my sincere regards. [A. Bernau]

1916-09-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 26071; pr. 25.09.1916 p.m. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Undersecretary of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) Berlin, 25 September 1916 Today, I discussed the contents of report no. 566 from Pera in depth with Halil Bey and pointed out firmly to him that, while the earlier deportations of the Armenians could still barely be defended as being justified, taking into account the military situation at that time in the interest of national safety, the measures now planned against the last few pathetic Armenians consisting of women and children are in no way justified, nor can they be excused. The Turkish government’s action will cause a storm of indignation throughout the entire civilised world which will not settle quickly even after the war. The planned closing of the orphanages and the mass conversions to Islam, in particular, will rightly meet with the sharpest protests, not only in Germany, but also among all Christian peoples. Zimmermann

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1916-09-26-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 26177; pr. 26.09.1916 a.m. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Legation Counsellor in the German Foreign Office Rosenberg 26 September 1916 O[ffice] is attempting to influence the German friends of the Armenians that they refrain from further public propaganda during the war. They have agreed to do so, on condition that the opposite side also stops its anti-Armenian agitation in public, particularly in the press. Therefore, it seems to be desirable that the press be advised in confidence to leave the Armenian question alone in future, as far as possible, and that any articles appearing despite this should be stopped by the censors, if this is feasible. Respectfully presented to AN for your information and with the request that further measures be taken as seen fit. [Note by Neurath] Used in the discussion with the press. Hereby presented to Mr. von Rosenberg.

1916-09-29-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/173; A53a, 2734. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission (Wolff-Metternich) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 593 Therapia, 29 September 1916 To Decree No. 943. The copies of Arev sent here have been read and excerpts from the notable articles translated. Among these, three stand out through their more or less massive attacks against German public officials and officers and, thus, the translations of these are enclosed. Two of them (nos. 1 and 2) are concerned with the persecution of the Armenians in Urfa and Trebizond and contain some details that do not otherwise appear to be known. The third discusses a brochure by Herbert Adams Gibbons, a correspondent with the New York Herald, repeating those passages in which the author accuses German politics, and particularly the deceased ambassador, Baron von Wangenheim, of being jointly responsible for the Armenian atrocities that have taken place.

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Enclosure [Translations of excerpts from the Armenian newspaper Arev.] [Translated from French by Maral Maclagan] 1. 19 June 1916 issue “The Defence of Urfa.” Urfa was full of widows and orphans who came from Armenia. Hunger was already wreaking havoc; acts of cruelty had, again, begun. Girls, women were continually subject to rapine. Children were sold at very low prices; the going price was 5 dollars. I witnessed a child aged 8 to 9 years old from Ammasia who because of her beauty, was sold for 10 dollars. The Turk [indecipherable] had come to Urfa. A group of 40 notables was first deported to an unknown destination. A week later, a second group of 50 men was sent to Diyarbakir. Finally, we ended up by talking openly that all the Armenians of Urfa would be deported. Women, girls, had decided to commit suicide rather than surrender to police. Men who were fully aware of the fate that was reserved for those who were moved away from the city, responded to the orders of the Government: We will not deliver our young people. The Government decided to act in any case. The Armenians retired to their upper quarter. The fifth of October, Fahri Pasha and a German officer, leading 4,500 soldiers, began the work of repression. An unequal struggle followed without interruption for fifteen days. At the end of this lapse of time, the defenders inflicted a big defeat on the Turks, Kurds and Germans. The ground was covered with corpses of Kurds, Turks and soldiers. They had abandoned the entire city. Even so, the enemy did not think about leaving the city permanently in the hands of Armenians. After seven days, during which the enemy strengthened the number of its troops and its guns, it restarted the attack. After a fierce battle, the provisions of the Armenians were finally exhausted. The bodies of hundreds of fallen Armenian girls with weapons in hand were discovered … Women and orphans who were alive were directed to Rakka, while men were taken to the gallows. The victorious troops retreated, while in the ruins of the Armenian quarter, looters swarmed already … [H. Tarassian] 2. June 21, 1916 issue “The Massacre of 14,000 Armenians in Trebizond.” On June 28, 1915, the Armenian population of Trebizond received the order to leave town within 5 days. At the same time, the authorities had arrested hundreds of no-

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tables and Armenian intellectuals; they, after being subjected to despicable tortures, with no other form of due process, were thrown into the sea. When the deadline expired, the deportation began in small groups. And right away, at the first bend in the road, the massacres and looting began. Even in front of the gates of the city, near Djévizlik, there unfolded scenes of indescribably atrocities. The victims’ cries of pain and terror could be heard from afar in a terrible way. The atrocities committed were so incredible that they even exasperated many Muslims. Among them there were some who, from the first day, tried to save some victims. A Turk named Tchadir Oglu even tried by armed force to oppose the massacres, but he was killed on the mountain with a group of Armenians who had united with him. The work of extermination was complete at Trebizond. Of the 14,000 Armenians who lived there, today only two families and 14 women remain, who succeeded in escaping the clutches of Turkish barbarism, thanks to the assistance offered by the Greeks. Other than this, according to the American Consulate, it is possible to still find in neighbouring villages, some orphans … The bloody weight and responsibility for the massacres of Trebizond falls primarily on three men: a Turk and two Germans. They were the organisers. They are Nail Bey, president of the Union and Progress Committee section in Trebizond; Stangen [Stange], German artillery officer and the former German consul in Tiflis, Schulenburg. 3. 26 June 1916 issue “The recent massacres in Armenia.” “The darkest page of modern history.” The author analyses in his article a brochure written by the New York Herald correspondent Herbert Adams Gibbons, bearing the title noted above. Herbert Adams Gibbons distinguishes two categories in the changes and events caused by this war. First, those for which a solution depends on future studies, and those which can be discussed and solved right away. The massacres of Armenians in Turkey belong to this second category of facts. Perfidy is clearly highlighted; responsibilities may, even today, be definitively established. It is time, therefore, to make a final appeal to humanity to save the last remnants of the Armenians in Turkey. I. “In April of 1915, the Turkish Government began to implement a systematic plan, prepared with care and consisting of the extermination of the Armenian race. Nearly one million Armenians were massacred in the space of six months. The number of victims and the means used to exterminate them have no precedent in modern history.”

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Such is the title of the first chapter. The plan of extermination had been bequeathed to the Young Turk Government by Sultan Abdul Hamid. The massacres in Adana were a first manifestation of the intentions of the Young Turks. The current war presented the opportunity to implement this radical extermination. We began first by arming the young men; this was the first step. Then after the enrolment was completed and the people, deprived of all their energy, were paralyzed, the massacres and deportations began. It follows naturally that attempts at uprisings by Armenians are stories fabricated from anything as an excuse for everything that was done. Talaat Bey told the ministers of the neutral countries that “it was a military requirement, implemented in a very humanitarian way.” More. Yes, old people, women, children also posed a danger to the Empire. So, how to exterminate them, how to act so that the ambassador of the Empire in Washington, as well as the German press could say that all the victims were part of a vast revolutionary organisation? Talaat Bey made the great discovery: deportation. A way to strike all the cities, all the villages, the elderly, the sick, pregnant women. Herbert Adams Gibbons estimates the number of victims to be one million. Responsibility. Chapter IV has the following title: “The German government could have prevented the extermination. There are even reasons to believe that if it did not encourage it, it welcomes with joy the disappearance of Armenians from Asia Minor, who favoured the execution of its economic and political plans in the Turkish Empire.” It is established that the Turkish people never harboured, not in the past nor in the present, a sentiment of hatred against the Armenians as a result of its fanaticism. The Turks never massacred Armenians without the Government having directly ordered it or the police having fomented it. Each time that there were massacres, the orders came from the capital, Constantinople; this was always the execution of a coldly premeditated plan. At the proclamation of the Constitution, the Armenians thought that this movement towards freedom was sincere. This was all their fault. The Young Turks were exasperated. They waited for the right moment. The moment came. They took advantage of it immediately. “Is it possible to suppose that the German Ambassador was unaware of the views of the Turkish Government, or that Talaat Bey had issued his orders before having personally consulted with the Baron of Wangenheim? Is it possible to believe that the German Government in Berlin did not know anything, and that even its ambassador in Constantinople had kept silent about the subject? On the contrary. The extermi-

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nation of a million and a half innocent Christians was decided and ordered in Constantinople itself. The German ambassador was the only man in Constantinople who, taking advantage of the influence of his government, could have prevented the execution of this order. Supposing even that the German ambassador was not informed of the plan in progress, it is still obvious that he could have, without it being too late, exercised the influence of Germany to stop the execution of this nefarious plan. When Germany did not want to intervene in time, did it not also have in part responsibility for the deaths of millions of innocent creatures? Since even during course of the extermination Germany refused to intervene, should it not be considered as an accomplice in the massacres? It is established that German officials encouraged and sometimes even personally led these treacherous movements. The Germans are condemned for all posterity, for they were among the only European peoples who were able to prevent the crime. The refusal to lend itself in any way to save the Armenian people: this is the grave future judgment against them. But what is all in all the goal pursued by exterminating this people? It is here that the responsibility leaps out with all its force against the German government and German people. The Germans and no one but the Germans had anything to gain by the extermination of the Armenian people.”

1916-10-02-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 26071. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State in the German Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Embassy in Constantinople No. 1048 Berlin, 2 October 1916 For your information. Further to the reports nos. 566143 and 578144 dated 17 resp. 21 of last month. The reports from Aleppo on the new persecutions of the Armenians have given me cause to discuss the matter thoroughly with Halil Bey and to point out to him explicitly145 that, while the former deportations of the Armenians could still be defended in the interest of national safety and appear to be legal, considering the military situation at that time, the measures now planned against the sad remains of the Arme143. Doc. 1916-08-29-DE-001. 144. Doc. 1916-09-05-DE-001. 145. Excerpt from Doc. 1916-09-25-DE-001 follows.

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nians, consisting of women and children, could in no way be justified or excused. The actions of the Turkish government will cause a storm of indignation throughout the entire civilised world, which will not even die down soon after the war. The planned dissolution of the orphanages and the mass conversions to Islam, in particular, will meet quite rightly with the sharpest protest, not only in Germany, but also from all Christian people. Z[immermann]

1916-10-04-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 27493; pr. 10.10.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires in Constantinople (Radowitz) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) II.7596 Therapia, 4 October 1916 1 enclosure. Copy The enclosed copy of the statistical record sent here by the Imperial Consul in Aleppo and drawn up by Beatrice Rohner, a sister from the German Relief Association for Christian Labours of Love in the Middle East, on the 720 Armenian orphans left in her care deserves consideration in several respects: it gives the first fairly safe clue in order to at least roughly calculate the percentage of those Armenians who died during the evacuation. Sister Rohner’s 720 wards are the last of 3,336 persons; if one now estimates the total number of Turkish Armenians at 2.5 million and the number of deported at 2 million, and if the same relationship is assumed between the survivors and those killed as for Sister Rohner’s orphans, a figure of over 1.5 million killed and approximately 425,000 survivors is reached. Previously, estimations of those killed have been between 800,000 and 1 million146 and, considering the above, they do not seem to be exaggerated. Another point which must be emphasised concerns the alarmingly large number of mothers who died a violent death (379), while only 321 fathers are listed as having died of unnatural causes. This statistic on hand finally confirms the fact, also reported from other sources, that against the express orders of the central government the families of those men were deported who had been conscripted into military service. The statistics list no less than 246 such cases. Radowitz 146. In the handwritten original text: 1,100,000.

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Enclosure 1 Imperial German Consulate. K.No. 89/No. 2605. Aleppo, 15 September 1916. 1 enclosure. Your Excellency, I have the honour of sending for your gracious attention the enclosed statistic for the month of August, drawn up by Sister Beatrice Rohner, on the 720 orphans put in her care as a result of the deportation of the Armenians. [Rössler] Enclosure 2 Statistical report on 720 children who were in our orphanage in August 1916. Home Vilayet Sivas Vilayet Erzerum Vilayet Aleppo Vilayet Adana Vilayet Angora Vilayet Harput Vilayet Konia Vilayet Brusa Vilayet Diyarbekir Vilayet Constantinople Mezeré Adiaman Smyrna Ismid From Egypt Home unknown

Number 142 50 189 162 21 34 11 22 50 3 9 3 1 2 1 40 720

Average age of the children: 9-17/36 years Children who were formerly in orphanages: 40 Fathers of the children killed died from the deprivations and hardships along the way killed in Adana massacre

152 85 32

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conscripted by military exiled in jail still alive in the United States died before being deported missing

107 52 11 80 10 129 62 720

Mothers of the children died in exile 282 still in exile 91 converted to Islam 4 alive 97 died before being deported 53 Children who could give no information on their mothers 193 720 Children’s denomination Gregorian Protestant Catholic Sabbatists Denomination not determined

554 106 2 1 39 702

Average age of the children: 9-17/36 years Children who were formerly in orphanages: 40 Number of fathers who died of unnatural causes Number of fathers who died of natural causes Number of fathers whose life is in danger Number of fathers who were separated from their children due to military service Number of fathers who were deported and, thus, lost to their children Number of mothers who died of unnatural causes Number of mothers who died of natural causes Number of mothers whose life is in danger Number of mothers who were deported and, thus, lost to their children Mothers who were deported while their husbands served in the army

321 129 170 107 394 379 53 91 474 246

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Members of children’s families who died during deportation Members of children’s families who died during deportation (on average) Children aged 1 to 6 who couldn’t give any information Orphans Only two left from the entire family Only one left from the entire family

| 665 2616 3-3/5 126 258 144 239

[Notice Radowitz] The figures are very interesting. Most characteristic is the column “Mothers who were deported while their husbands served in the army”!

1916-10-08-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; zu A 26582. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Undersecretary of State in the German Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Minister in Bern (Romberg) No. 611 Berlin, 8 October 1916 Dr. Paul Rohrbach presented me with a letter,147 a transcript of which is enclosed, that was recently written to him by several Swiss friends of the Armenians. I would ask that you reply to one of the gentlemen—perhaps it would be best to address the president of the Swiss relief organisation, Dr. W. Vischer—requesting him to inform the other signatories accordingly, and inform him orally and in strict confidence of the following: In full appreciation of the motives determining the request of the Swiss friends of the Armenians, the Imperial Government regrets that it is not in a position to support the needy Armenian refugees with funds from the Reich. The Turkish Government would regard this as interference in the inner relations of the country and refuse to give the relief action its approval. Intervention by the German Government would in no way serve to assist the Armenians; rather, it would hurt them. Several times last year, through the intercession of the Imperial Consul in Aleppo, the German Foreign Office already under the table supplied the needy Armenians in the area around there with not insignificant amounts of money provided by private people. At present, a collection is being carried out in Germany once again in favour of the Armenians, 147. The letter is an enclosure to Doc. 1916-09-29-DE-001.

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which is unofficially sponsored by the Imperial Government; the proceeds will also be sent through the intercession of the appropriate Imperial representations through suitable channels to achieve their purpose. The German Foreign Office is more than willing to accept Swiss contributions within the framework of this unofficial relief action. However, the precondition for the implementation and success of this action is that it not become public knowledge, as otherwise the Imperial Government would have to deny its co-operation for the reasons already given. I request that you report on the execution of this order and the reaction of the Swiss gentlemen to our answer. Z[immermann] P.S.: Professor Jäckh has agreed to regard the letter to Dr. Rohrbach as having been officially presented to the German Foreign Office and will inform Dr. R. accordingly that the German Foreign Office will answer the petitioners directly.

1916-10-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14093; A 27741; pr. 13.10.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires in Constantinople (Radowitz) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 626 Pera, 9 October 1916 1 enclosure. In its lead article (enclosed in translation), the local Turkish newspaper, “Tasviri Efkiar,” discusses the Armenian question subsequent to the outline by the committee for “Unity and Progress,” of which Your Excellency is aware, and reaches the conclusion that the policy of a union and fusion of the various elements of the population which was originally adopted by the committee has “gone bankrupt,” and instead a “purge” of all the non-Mohammedan, i.e. Christian, elements in the empire should be contemplated. The article most likely gives a true impression of the convictions of the ultra-national circles. Some of these ideas have already been implemented by driving out the Syrian Christians residing in the eastern border provinces and the Greeks in the individual districts of Asia Minor and Rumelia. Probably the author is also further demanding the evacuation of those Armenians in Constantinople and Smyrna who have previously been exempted from evacuation. Radowitz

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Enclosure Teswiri Efkiar dated 7 October 1916 No.1886 Bankruptcy and Purge. The whole world knows that the Armenians residing within the war zone and along the military supply and communication routes have been removed from these districts and sent to areas where they are removed from any active or passive participation in the occurrences of the war. With the exception of Constantinople and Smyrna there is no place left where this measure, or, as it is officially called, “the evacuation” (tehdshir) has not been carried out. The fact that we heard that this measure was not carried out in a uniform manner in the different regions has not failed to make us uneasy. This results in our view of the Armenian question being completely and absolutely unfounded. This is a fact, which we are extremely pleased to admit. This question was thoroughly presented and explained at the “Unity and Progress” Party’s congress, which recently held its final meeting, and we can say nothing more but that the government, which follows this direction, was left with no other choice in its actions against the Armenians, and that we regard these actions as being reasonable and necessary. This is the second fact; it cancels out the first fact. As the report of the general assembly, which was presented to the congress, historically presented the question from the beginning to the end, we would first like to cite some lines from this report. [Detailed excerpts from the report mentioned follow; the article then continues:] It is not necessary to list here once again those preparations made by the Armenians for the revolt and the individual incidents as they have been read by everyone in the previously mentioned report. The solution to the question of how a nation that is involved in a dreadful fight to the death will proceed upon determining these facts can be left to humanity’s conscience. To speed up the matter, we prefer to hear the Armenians’ own opinion, for they are no longer afraid to speak the truth. In this connection we have at hand extensive personal material, but we will restrict ourselves to the various remarks, which have been published in the Armenian magazine, “Datshar.” It is understandable that the evacuation and deportation of the Armenians, ordered for those compelling reasons given in the Party’s report, are not a pleasant event for this people. “Datshar” holds all of the Armenian parties and committees responsible for the great misfortune, which has befallen the Armenians and writes: The history of the Armenian parties is full of crimes. The murder of true Armenians and upstanding Ottomans such as Taushanjian and Undjian, the crimes of the Hintshak, Dashnaktsutiun, Reform-Hintshak Parties, etc., are only a few examples out of many hundreds, which are a disgrace

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to the Armenian name and allowed both the guilty and the innocent from their own ranks to be killed. It was clear that the actions of the Armenian parties, who only thought of filling their pockets and their bellies and satisfying their greed, would harm the Turkish Armenians and finally drive them to suicide, and in the end that was what happened. The Armenian newspaper then lists the regrettable incidents, which were caused by the Armenian committees and closes with the conclusion that there are no objections to the measures taken by the Turkish government against the committees allied with Russia. We reserve the right to return to this question at a later point; today, we would like to point out another fact. When the constitution was re-established in the year 1324, the Turks sincerely strove to establish a policy of unity among the elements of the population. Their attempts foundered on the separatist efforts of the non-Mohammedan elements. In bloody battles this policy was violated and finally, due to the Armenian incidents, it went completely bankrupt. No one among us doubts that in the policy of “Unity and Amalgamation” we had depended on coming to an understanding with the Armenians as the best way. The Armenian committees proved to us that we were on the wrong track in that during these difficult times they were not able to refrain from becoming the tool of our most dangerous enemy. Of necessity, therefore, under the weight of these facts we must take a new road towards a new goal. This necessity is based on the realisation that the familiar policy of unity among the elements of the population has gone bankrupt and that the era of “purging” has begun for our native country. Junus Nadi

1916-10-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 28987; pr. 26.10.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Head of the Admiral’s Staff in the Navy (Holtzendorff) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Berlin, 25 October 1916 B 28055 I. Extremely Confidential! Your Excellency, I have the honour to respectfully send you the enclosed transcript of a report sent to me from a reliable source, as I believe that it will be of interest to Your Excellency. [von Holtzendorff]

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[From the Head of the Admiral’s Staff to Zimmermann, 25 October] Extremely Confidential! The enclosed transcript is respectfully sent to Your Excellency. By order: Grasshoff Enclosure Transcript 4 October, from Amsterdam: “Several days ago, one of my acquaintances had a visit from a certain Dr. Johannes Lepsius, Chairman of the German Mission for the Orient, Potsdam, Grosse Weinmeisterstrasse 45. This gentleman attempted to win over my acquaintance to the following views and asked him to use his influence to inform the people in his circles in this sense. I would not report this entire matter, except that Dr. Lepsius claimed that his propaganda work has been approved by the German Foreign Office as well as by the Imperial Chancellor himself, and that the Imperial Chancellor informed him that he wished to support him in his endeavours. But the worst is that through his behaviour Dr. Lepsius is most certainly playing into British hands, surely without the approval of the above mentioned offices. He sends his very anti-Turkish brochures in large numbers to the United States, to Dr. John Mott, the well-known head of the mission in the United States, and the British definitely have no interest in not letting these leaflets through. Dr. Lepsius informed me that he (Dr. L.) is in contact with British statesmen in order to reach a peace project. He claimed that these connections were established at the direct order of the Imperial Chancellor. He explained that the party of the Imperial Chancellor had now become so strong in Germany because it was also Hindenburg’s party and both men believed that the eastern front was the main thing, which was why they wanted to settle with the Russians there first, after which a settlement could be reached with England, whereby the British claims would be satisfied with Turkish territory in Asia Minor. The party of the Imperial Chancellor had now become so strong that it could get its own way in the above sense, and the large banks and financiers in Germany greatly supported this party, which was in favour of peace with England as quickly as possible by means of a settlement at Turkey’s expense. Dr. Lepsius says that he is a great enemy of the Turks because supposedly he has seen the killings of Armenians. This is why he also turns to the religious circles in Holland, and does the same in England and the United States. He has published a brochure on the “Christian Murders in Armenia,” so he says! Naturally, all of this agitation is grist to England’s mill, whose diplomats will not hesitate to make it known in Constantinople through indirect channels that it will be suggested from the highest German office that an understanding be reached with England at Turkey’s expense, while on the other hand a great deal of agitational material can be gained from Dr. Lepsius’ brochure for a general Christian indignation against the Turks. Dr. Lepsius said he sent an Armenian from Switzerland to Lord Bryce to discover the feelings of

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important British circles for the above project, and received the answer that there was also a strong party in England that was not against a settlement with Germany on this basis, and it would even be possible to win Lord Grey over to this plan. He, Dr. Lepsius, gave reports relating to this to the German Foreign Office and received the answer that it would be pleased if he would continue his “peace endeavours” from Holland in the direction carried out until now. The Imperial Chancellor also informed him of his approval for his endeavours. Naturally, I cannot take Dr. Lepsius’ information seriously, that he is acting on order from the German Foreign Office and even has the Imperial Chancellor’s sanction for this. I am only reporting this matter because the man is certainly harming Germany’s interests with his agitation concerning the “terrible Christian murders by the Turks in Armenia,” as he says, and aiding our enemies. In addition, some people in pro-German, religious circles here believe his rash stories. Therefore, I considered it my duty to draw your attention to these peculiar “peace endeavours.” [Jagow’s answer, 6 November] Confidential. Dr. Lepsius continues to inconvenience the Imperial Government with his Armenian propaganda. He knows that his agitation against Turkey is disapproved of most strongly by the Imperial Chancellor and the German Foreign Office, and because of this he has been in direct opposition to the government for quite some time. To make his propaganda journeys more difficult, the Chairman of the Regional Council in Potsdam was petitioned on 8 August of this year to release an order that applications made by Mr. Lepsius to obtain a visa for Switzerland should be denied. On 20 September, this petition was extended to include passports and visas for all foreign countries. Mr. Lepsius was only able to travel to Holland because he had previously obtained a passport for foreign countries that was valid until the end of January 1917.148 It is obvious that Mr. Lepsius did not receive orders from either the Imperial Chancellor or the German Foreign Office to carry out his agitation. The thought that Lepsius was acting on orders or with the approval of political authorities when he attempted to initiate an understanding with England at Turkey’s expense is even more grotesque. I am grateful that the head of the Admiral’s general naval staff, who surely recognised at once the senselessness of the remarks supposedly made by Mr. Lepsius, gave me the opportunity to follow up on this matter by informing me of the agent’s report. [Jagow]

148. See 1916-09-16-DE-001.

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1916-11-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 30011; pr. 06.11.1916 p.m. Correspondence From the American Embassy in Berlin (Joseph Clark Grew) to the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office (Jagow) No. 14056 November 4, 1916 Your Excellency: I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that reports for many months past from official and other reliable sources show that the systematic deportation of the Armenian population in Turkey continues; that their terrible sufferings at the hands of the Turkish authorities are unmitigated by Government officers; that thousands have died as a result of cruelties, massacres and starvation, and that it would appear that these awful conditions are the result of a studied intention on the part of the Ottoman Government to annihilate a Christian race. The true facts, if publically shown, would shock the whole civilised world. Inasmuch as the Government of the United States is aware that the German Government shares its views with regard to relief for the Armenians, as is shown by the fact that the German Ambassador at Washington on October 8, 1915, informed the Department of State that the German Government had protested to the Turkish Government against the treatment of the Armenians, the Government of the United States feels that it can confidently appeal to the German Government for its assistance in securing an amelioration of existing conditions in the country of its ally. I am directed to communicate the foregoing to Your Excellency, and at the same time to express the hope of my Government that favourable consideration and action will be given it. I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the assurances of my highest consideration. J.C. Grew

1916-11-05-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 31831. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No 104/No. 3045 Aleppo, 5 November 1916

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Further to the reports from 29 August, No. 2463149 and from 20 September, No. 2669 (K.No. 93)150 Your Excellency, I have the honour of presenting in the enclosures the accounts of some Armenians who escaped from the massacre on the Khabur River in August, namely, Hosep Sarkissian from Aintab, Manug Kyrmenikian from Alabash near Marash, and Nazaret Muradian from Zeytun, which were recorded by Sister Beatrice Rohner. The attendant circumstances and the other facts that have become known here are such that the accounts appear to be quite credible. Sister Rohner has known the two latter persons reporting for years. As far as we know here, the annihilation campaign was implemented by the Mutesarrif, Zekki Bey (who, by the way, has been appointed to a position in Constantinople, as was reported here today), for no special reason. Unfortunately, the Armenians themselves then made their own situation even worse. An Armenian in Der-el-Zor, who believed that he was discriminated against during the distribution of financial aid, or attempted to procure an unfair advantage for himself, demanded a certain sum from one of his countrymen who was distributing the money, or he would notify the government of the secretly run relief action. He actually did this when his demand was refused, whereupon the Mutesarrif stated, “If money has been distributed, it must have been for the purpose of purchasing weapons (although this was completely out of the question). Thus, the Armenians are revolutionaries and must be destroyed.” Even though the Mutesarrif would have continued his atrocious acts without resorting to this welcome excuse, it was necessary to mention this move because a report that ignored it would not have been complete. This is not the only case in which the Armenians have fought with one another over the distribution of the financial aid. Over and over, individual members of the people have proved their lack of understanding that the situation demands that they must in no way draw the government’s attention to themselves. When a Turkish Mohammedan, who had been won over for the relief action in Biredjik, was asked by the Sister whether he was able to carry on with his work, he gave the characteristic reply, “As long as the Armenians themselves do not make it impossible for me.” They accuse each other in front of him in an outrageous manner, even those who do not know that he is working to assist them. Similar reports are also on hand from Rakka. Hosep Sarkissian gives a figure of over 150,000 as the number of persons killed in July and August (in Enclosure 1). There is no doubt now that hundreds of thousands were sent to the area around the Euphrates River. But it seems to me that the figure of one hundred and fifty thousand, who were supposedly still alive in July, is too high. However, it must be taken into account that in previous reports, which assumed that 20 to 30,000 were murdered in July and August on the Khabur River, 149. A 25739. 150. A 28162.

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only Der-el-Zor was considered, while according to a report now at hand, all of the camps south of there, i.e. Meyadin and Ana, were also cleared. The number of people accommodated there has never been exactly determined here because the travellers from Baghdad generally follow the caravan road on the western bank of the Euphrates River, while the Armenian camps were located out of sight on the eastern bank. It must be assumed, therefore, that the number of people killed in July and August has surpassed 30,000. Furthermore, it must also be recorded that according to the reports of Bernau, who visited all the camps north of Der-el-Zor, only about fifteen thousand Armenians were left between Meskené and Der-el-Zor at the end of August, and the figure in Der-el-Zor and south of there is insignificant. And those 15,000 will also presumably be quickly reduced. The orphans in Meskené, of whom there were still 420 at the beginning of September, were sent to Hammam on about 21 September. A German who passed through Hammam on 29 September found less than 200 lying out in the open, without any protection and in a pitiful state. There is no doubt that they are all doomed. He found out that none of them were left in Meskené. There are 450 children and 60 widows who have gathered together in Urfa and are being supported by the German Mission for the Orient. This assistance is taking place there with the knowledge of the local government, who also sent boys to be cared for to Deacon Künzler. However, this support must be carried out in the form of accommodation in Syrian families. Admission to the orphanage is not yet possible. The circumstances have become more difficult in Mosul. The government there has lately been demanding that foreign financial means of support be paid out through its offices. Around 5 October, a smaller massacre took place in Rakka, during which about 30 Armenians were killed. On 19 September, new deportations took place in Marash. Of the possibly 5,000 Armenians left over from the original 25,000, 120 families were deported, most of them already in a very poor state of health, whereby as usual the women and children were separated from the men. Since about the beginning of August, Armenian women in Aleppo have been employed to spin for the army administration, receiving in return their daily ration of bread. Each of the indigenous church administrations has taken over such workhouses, so that in total about 4,000 women have temporarily been saved in this manner, while 1,500 children have now been accommodated in orphanages. The following has been reported to me concerning the number of Armenians who still live in Syria and in the administrative district of this consulate: In Marash, there are about 4,500 needy inhabitants of Marash and only a few … from further away because arrivals are being prevented. In Aintab, there are about 3,800 inhabitants of Aintab and 1,200 refugees in the town, as well as 3,000 refugees in more than 150 surrounding villages. There are about 700 refugees in Urfa, but no more inhabitants of Urfa itself. In Biredjik and Djerablus: 2,000.

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In Mosul: 4,000. In Aleppo, there are about 17,220 people on the list of those requiring support, including the orphans. Along the Euphrates River between Meskené and Der-el-Zor: 15,000. In Damascus: about 10,000, many of whom have become Muslims. In the Hauran region and south of there: about 30,000. In Hama and Selimiye: 15,000, all of whom have become Muslims. In Summa: 106,420, in addition to which no more than several thousand in Aleppo, Marash and Aintab must be added who do not require support, and perhaps several thousand we do not know about here. Furthermore, if we add those who are still in the Vilayet of Adana—the figure is unknown here, but it can only be very low—as well as the figure for those who stayed behind or were scattered in the Armenian and Anatolian Vilayets, furthermore those who crossed the Russian border, and the population of Smyrna and Constantinople, you will begin to get a rough idea of how many Armenians are still left in Turkey. Death will surely also reap a rich harvest among the 106,000 counted above during the coming winter. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure 1 Transcript Hosep Sarkissian from Aintab was in Der-el-Zor for almost one year, having found work there as a day labourer. The Mutessarrif, who was friendly towards the Armenians, did his best to assist the deportees. But when he was replaced by Zekki Bey, the deportations began once again. In July and August he had all the deportees from Sabkha, Der-el-Zor, Mejadin, Ana, etc., over 150,000 of them, brought to the village of Merad (Marrat). From there they were sent further on in caravans of 2-4,000 and more. Hosep’s caravan was made up of approx. 1,700 people. After travelling for several days, they camped on the banks of the Khabur River, which they had been following, near Shedadieh. The next morning a band of Circassians on horseback came by and surrounded the caravans: they took everything away from them that they were still carrying with them and tore the clothes off their backs. The Circassians kept the money, jewellery, etc., and distributed the clothes among the Arabs who had appeared in crowds. Then the entire load, men, women, children, were driven along naked for three hours until they reached a plateau on the north side of the Karadagh surrounded by hills, where they stopped. There, the Circassians threw themselves a second time at their victims, striking into the crowd with axes, sabres, knives until blood flowed like a river and the entire plateau was covered in mutilated corpses. Hosep watched as the Mutessarrif of Der-el-Zer observed everything from a wagon, loudly shouting, “Bravo!” to encourage the butchers. Soldiers on guard had surrounded the entire plateau. Hosep threw himself under a pile of corpses and heard

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the leader of the gang call across the field of death, “My lambs, the Padishah has granted a general pardon; whoever is still alive may stand up!” When nothing moved any longer after the entire regiment had ridden across the corpses several times, the Circassians made off. Three days later, 31 people who were still alive crept out of their gruesome hiding places. For another three days they had to keep wandering without bread and water until they reached the Euphrates River. One after the other remained lying down in an exhausted state; only Hosep finally managed to reach Aleppo, disguised as a dervish. Aleppo, 23 October 1916 Enclosure 2 Transcript Statements by Manuk Kyrmenikian from Alabash near Marash. When the new Mutessarrif of Der-el-Zor started to carry out deportations once again in July, it was made known in Der-el-Zor that whoever reported for military service would be accepted and that his family would be allowed to remain in Der-el-Zor. About 2,400 young men, among them I myself and my friends, reported for duty while all the others were deported with their families. We were in the barracks for five days and had to drill something every day. Then we were told that on the next day some of us would set off; we were to march northwards towards Aleppo in order to work along the Entilli-Mamure or the Gülek Boghaz Bozanti stretch. Together with my friends, I myself was commandeered to the second troop and we were to leave two days later. While our comrades were preparing to leave, a messenger suddenly arrived with news that all of our wives and children were preparing to be deported. When we tried to complain to our superiors, the doors were closed and we were prisoners. Only after our families had crossed the bridge were we given permission to follow them and, thus, we were the last to leave Der-el-Zor. After camping across from the town on the other bank for 14 days we were taken two hours further south to the village of Merad (Marrat), where we again stayed for several days. We were a motley crowd of several thousand from the most diverse parts of the empire. Finally, we were told to leave there and slowly we journeyed along the Khabur River for three days until we reached the town of Suvara (Sauar), where we stayed again. The Mudir, a Circassian, had the most respected men brought to him and ordered them to select those families who could survive of their own means until the coming summer without the help of the state. About 400 were reported as fulfilling these conditions and they received orders to set up their tents close to the town, which they did immediately. The government officials distributed some money to the rest before they moved on. They had all been given orders to leave and prepared themselves to do so, but after half of them had moved out the rest were held back, and so it happened that some families were separated. But who can describe the horror of those left behind when on the next

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day and the day after that the waters of the Khabur River washed up the corpses of their relatives. One man managed to pull his brother’s corpse out of the water and to bury him. When a town crier then called the people to leave, they knew what awaited them. Together with my friends, I myself was among the 400 families who had settled in Suvara and we made plans to build ourselves huts there for the winter. Then the Mudir had the leading men brought to him and demanded two thousand pounds as a reward for the goodness he had shown them. The collection then carried out brought 840 pounds; these were given to the Mudir, who rode with the money to Der-el-Zor. Three days later he brought it back and returned it to those who had given it to him. The following day he demanded 10,000 pounds! A great deal of pleading and tears made him agree to 2,000. Everyone gave what they had and sold their last carpets, tents, beds, jewellery, etc. By the evening they had collected 2,000. The Mudir graciously accepted the money and ordered the leading men to him on the next day in order to give them receipts for the lovely sum they had given to the “Red Crescent,” so he said. But the men were kept prisoner there until the entire camp departed, the order for which was given the very next morning. The people took only the barest necessities with them; many were reconciled with one another before parting; they knew they were now going to die. But for another three whole days they were left to march for 2-3 hours per day until finally, on the evening of the third day, the order was given that the people from Aintab, Hadjin and Albistan were to depart on their own the next morning. Those left behind watched from their camp as, about halfan-hour away on the slope of a hill, a crowd of Circassians and Arabs, armed with all sorts of murderous instruments, surrounded the caravan. The animals were unloaded and all their possessions, including all their clothes except for their underwear, were stacked in large piles. The Circassians took the best for themselves, loaded the animals with these things and had them driven away—the Arabs pounced upon the rest. When this was finished, the men were led individually along the narrow pass to the other side of the hill; the women and children under 10 had to go in the opposite direction to the bank of the river where they were left to their fate. In the evening, the Circassians returned to the camp. One of them, for whom one of the Armenians had made several valuable purchases, came to him to warn him and advise him to flee at night. Around midnight, about 200 men crept out of camp with him. After three days and three nights of arduous marching without bread and water, Manug reached the Euphrates River together with 3 friends, and they swam across it. Aleppo, 29 October 1916 Enclosure 3 Transcript Nazaret Muradian from Zeytun near Marash recounts the following: I travelled with the last caravan from Merad (Marrat) to Suvara (Sauar); when I heard of the nego-

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tiations with the Mudir, I decided to escape, and on the 3rd day after our arrival I managed to get away. During my short stay there, 20 wounded arrived who had been part of a previous caravan. Several of them were from my home town of Zeytun. The caravan, mainly people from the area around Marash totalling approx. 15,000 people, had been brought from Suvara to Shedadieh. The Mutesarrif of Der-el-Zor had followed them and set up his tent approx. one hour away from their camp. From there, he sent three gendarmes on horseback with the order to separate the men from their families in order to set up a special regiment of labourers. The men replied they all wanted to carry out the earthworks together with their wives and children, but they refused to leave each other. Both sides insisted on their demands, and when the gendarmes began to beat the men with their whips the men held them back, beat them soundly and chased them away without their weapons. After a few hours, three new gendarmes arrived with an order from the Mutessarrif that the weapons had to be returned immediately, otherwise everyone would die. The people had already given up all hope and, believing they could still defend themselves somewhat, they sent the messengers back with a negative reply. The night passed. The next morning the people celebrate their last day; they give the poor the rest of their food and slaughter their draught cattle for a general sacrificial meal. The priests hold services and distribute communion. In the afternoon, 200 gendarmes arrive with Arabs and Circassians and surround the camp. They fire into the crowd from all sides. At first, the crowd does not defend itself; many fall. But as they come closer, the Armenians begin to use the weapons they took from the gendarmes. The gendarmes retreat, advance again and repulse the Armenians. They stand close together and allow the hail of bullets to wash over them. The gendarmes leave a path on the side towards the river; many meet their death in the water; some manage to swim across and escape. Aleppo, 30 October 1916

1916-11-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 34247. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Legation in The Hague No. 216 Berlin, 9 November 1916 Confidential! According to the letter from Holland, a summary of which is enclosed, Dr. Lepsius supposedly claimed that his anti-Turkish propaganda was approved and supported by the Imperial Chancellor and the German Foreign Office. Furthermore, he sup-

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posedly claimed that on the direct orders of the Imperial Chancellor and the German Foreign Office he established contact with British statesmen in order to reach an understanding with England at Turkey’s expense by making use of the Armenian question. It is requested that you question Mr. Lepsius about this, making oral use of the contents of the enclosure, whether he really made the remarks attributed to him and that are contrary to the facts. If, as is expected, he should deny this, I request that his statement be recorded and handed in signed by him. Otherwise, I request that for the time being a report is made. For your solely personal, strictly confidential orientation I would like to remark that Dr. Lepsius continuously causes the Imperial Government grave inconvenience with his Armenian propaganda. Although, since the beginning of the war, the Imperial Government has concerned itself with obtaining alleviation for the fate of the Armenians by intervening firmly with the Sublime Porte and by means of other measures, it is of the opinion, confirmed by numerous occurrences, that, quite apart from the disadvantages arising out of this for us, such propaganda in public, particularly when accompanied by attacks against Turkey, is of no use to the Armenians themselves, but harms them instead. Mr. Lepsius is aware of this point of view. He knows, therefore, that his agitation is disapproved of most strongly by the Imperial Chancellor and the German Foreign Office, and for this reason he has been openly opposing the government for some time. In order to make his propaganda journeys more difficult for him, the Chairman of the Regional Council of Potsdam was asked on 8 August inst. to issue instructions that applications by Mr. Lepsius to have visas issued for Switzerland are to be denied. On 20 September, this was extended for applications for passports and visas for all foreign countries. Mr. Lepsius was able to make the journey to Holland because he had previously obtained a passport for foreign countries from the Head of Police in Potsdam that is valid until the end of January 1917. As his agitation greatly harms the interests of the Reich, one wonders how his stay in Holland may possibly be cut short. As far as is known here, Dr. Lepsius is staying in a bathing resort on the Dutch coast. As the coastal region is in a state of siege, it may be possible to indirectly induce the Dutch government to deport Lepsius to Germany “for military reasons.” However, it should not become public knowledge that this measure was suggested by the Imperial Government. I request that you first express your opinion on this matter. J[agow]

1916-11-10-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul General in Smyrna (Spee) to the Embassy in Constantinople

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No. 50 Smyrna, 10 November 1916 Several weeks ago old bombs and similar objects were supposedly found in Catholic cemetery; it is supposedly certain that they are of Armenian origin. Vali ordered Armenian Bishop to have community report those involved or ‘unsure’ persons for the purpose of deportation. At the same time, demanded that weapons be turned in through the mediation of the Bishop and guaranteed impunity. Bishop reported some time later that there were no such persons and no weapons, etc., were hidden. New intervention followed, futile request once again to community to name those involved. Vali states that local Young Turk Committee continuously more dissatisfied with his sparing Armenians, so that his position towards Constantinople is weakened. Constantinople supposedly demanded deportation. Vali ordered local head of police, who is judged unfavourably, to arrest suspected Armenians and others who could give such information. Arrests carried out 8 November. Following night families with old people and children deported by train in the morning, approx. 300 without … [not deciphered]. Vali gives head of police free reign. Merely request information, how many wagons needed each day for deportees. Germany’s reputation seriously endangered. Army leader located here informed Vali that he will not tolerate further arrests and deportations because they influence military situation. [Spee] [Reply from the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 59), 13 November] Unfortunately, steps with Sublime Porte hopeless. Request telegraphic report on further development of the matter.

1916-11-12-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A53a, 3351; R14094; A 31505 ; pr. 19.11.1916 p.m.; A 31236 ; pr. 18.11.1916 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Field Marshal Liman von Sanders to the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Radowitz) No. 1315 Panderma, 12 November 1916 Esteemed Mr. von Radowitz,

I also enclose a letter from Count Spee that he gave me yesterday in Smyrna. It concerns the deportations of the Armenians, which cause great unrest in Smyrna.

Unfortunately, due to urgent business matters, I am unable to be in Constantinople on time tomorrow for the arrival of the Ambassador. But I will arrive no later than Thursday to say good-bye to you and your highly esteemed wife and to greet the Ambassador. I learned with great regret that it was not possible for you, esteemed Mr. von Radowitz, to come to Smyrna before you leave. I am always respectfully yours, Liman von Sanders Enclosure Smyrna, 11 November 1916 Several weeks ago a number of old bombs were found in the local Catholic cemetery. As they seem without doubt to be of Armenian origin, the Vali then demanded of the local Armenians that they state the names of those involved, and this is to be carried out through the mediation of their bishop. This case appears to be very similar to one which happened three years ago. A local man bought a house four years ago and, when it was reported three years ago that Armenian bombs were still hidden in the house in question, the buyer was arrested for this, even though he knew nothing of the hidden objects. When the local Armenian Committee collaborated with the Young Turk Committee before the constitution was drawn up, the latter Committee knew everything that was happening in the former one. When the constitution then came into effect, the Young Turk Committee turned away and pursued the Armenian one. According to news I have received, all of the Committee members of the Armenian association

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at that time were gradually removed. In all probability, the newly-found bombs are from the period before the constitution. Under the Armenian bishop, the local Armenians deny knowing anything about further persons involved. But the Vali then replied that he knew that there was still a movement; those involved must be named, otherwise he would be forced to entrust the police with pursuing the matter. The Armenians again denied the possibility of giving information, and the police have now begun to act. A number of arrests were carried out, and very early on 9 November women and children were also taken away and the entire group from Smyrna, resp. Cordelio, deported by train in the direction of Afiun Kara Hissar. The news in this matter is that both men and women, as well as children, were separated from one another and accommodated in separate wagons, and that they were treated rather brutally. The Armenians gathered together and on the evening of the 9th they went to the Vali in Burnabat and asked for mercy. The Vali then replied that he knew that there were still revolutionary Armenians here and he could not tolerate a constantly explosive situation; the Armenians should name those involved and, without naming the person making the report, this could be written on a simple envelope that was to be given to the bishop. They would be given until the following Tuesday; if no report had been made by then, all of the Armenians without exception would be deported. I have heard from one source that 15 names were demanded. The Armenian bishop supposedly replied to the objection that this opportunity could be used to report the names of personal enemies by saying that there was no need to fear this because he would check everything.

To His Excellency Marshall Liman von Sanders L. Spee.

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[From the Embassy in Constantinople to the Imperial Chancellor, 14 November] Upon completion of the report mentioned above, I received a letter from Marshall Liman von Sanders dated the 12th inst. together with an enclosed report by Count Spee dated the 11th inst. The Marshall writes the following: < > I add the following from Count Spee’s report: < > [From General Headquarters to von Lossow, 14 November] Transcript. The Chargé d’Affaires in Constantinople sent telegram no. 1191 dated 13th inst.: “The mass deportation of the Armenians began during the past few days. Marshall Liman von Sanders objected out of military interest. What military consequences are to be feared? Is the continued construction of the Taurus and Amanus Railway endangered?” no. 15635. On behalf of: Ludendorff [From the Military Plenipotentiary, von Lossow, to the Commander-in-Chief at General Headquarters, 16 November] Enver Pasha, as well as the Head of the 2nd Division of the [Turkish] General Headquarters, who processes these matters and is explicitly informed, know nothing of new Armenian deportations. This can only be a matter of very local, unimportant measures against individual suspects. I believe, therefore, that no detrimental military consequences are to be expected for the time being. [From Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 1315), 18 November] Telegram No. 1191 from there was reported to the Commander-in-Chief. General von Ludendorff then inquired in Constantinople and received the following answer from General von Lossow: [see Lossow’s telegram above dated 16 November]. This view does not appear to be consistent with Report No. 703 [1916-11-13DE-001] from there. Request urgent statement by telegram. [From Kühlmann to the German Foreign Office (No. 1220), 21 November] Consul in Smyrna sent a telegram on the 18th inst.: Armenian community reported about 30 people as being dangerous; those not named are to remain here or come back.

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1916-11-13-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 31127; pr. 17.11.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Radowitz) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 703 Pera, 13 November 1916 As the Imperial Consul in Smyrna has reported, the authorities there have begun with the deportation of the Armenian population. This was brought about by the circumstance that allegedly, a few weeks ago, some old bombs and other similar material were found in the Catholic cemetery which were said to have been hidden there by Armenians. Consequently, the Vali demanded of the Armenian Bishop—namely his congregation—that they name the suspected persons and surrender any weapons they still had in their possession. However, the Bishop explained that no such persons were known to him and that there were no weapons still hidden. As a result of this, on the 8th inst., a number of arrests were made and the next day 300 Armenians were deported by train, irrespective of age and gender. Other transportations are to follow. The deportation is being organised by the Chief of Police in Smyrna, to whom the Vali has given a free hand. Marshall Liman von Sanders, who is at present in Smyrna, has pointed out to the Vali that these mass deportations are damaging as far as military considerations are involved and he would therefore not tolerate any more arrests and deportations. The Vali has declared for his own justification that the Young Turkish Committee in Smyrna was becoming more and more dissatisfied with his leniency towards the Armenians and therefore his position in Constantinople was shaken. The orders for the expulsion of the Armenians had come from Constantinople. In this respect, please allow me to refer to a previously submitted editorial from the Tesviri Efkiar dated 6 October of this year, demanding the deportation of the Armenians from the towns and urban districts, in which their stay had been tolerated up to now. I regard it as quite out of the question that this order can be rescinded by protests to the Sublime Porte and must fear that in the not too distant future they will also begin with the deportation of the local Armenians here. Subsequently I received a letter from Marshall Liman von Sanders dated 12th inst., enclosing a report by Count Spee dated 11th inst. The Marshall writes as follows, “As mass deportations of this kind encroach upon military matters—conscripts, use of the railway, health matters, unrest amongst the population in a town near to the enemy lines, etc.—I therefore advised the Vali that,

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without my approval, such mass arrests and deportations may no longer be carried out. I made it understood to the Vali that in the case of repetitions, I would give orders for them to be prevented by armed force. “As a result, the Vali gave in and confirmed to me that they would be discontinued. “But since he maintains that he received his orders from Constantinople (Talaat Bey), I am rather uncertain that perhaps only other ways may be chosen. “As far as I could make out, the number of Armenians living in Smyrna is about 67,000, including the richest people in the town, but also individual bad characters.” I would like to add the following to the note from Count Spee: apart from the violation of the law and the unforeseeable consequences for the victims, the whole matter is of great repercussion for German interests, i.e. the German reputation. “These measures were taken by the government at a time in which, apart from the commander of the German Corps, the supreme commander, Marshal Liman von Sanders, was also present in Smyrna. A rumour is going around the town that the scheduled procedure has been planned by the Germans so that in this way they can get rid of their Armenian competitors who were troublesome for their trade. “Materially speaking, there will be direct damage as, in fact, the Armenian merchants have been buying German goods in vast quantities, which have partly not yet been paid for. According to the new law pertaining to abandoned possessions, the goods still withheld by the Armenians will no doubt be used by the bad Turkish elements as an opportunity to take possession of these goods and of the considerable fortunes of the Armenians at the same time. And all this under the shabby pretext that the Germans are the ones who did it. “The Christian people, who have more or less grown up under French and English influence, are not particularly reluctant to hear this news, not to mention at all the subjects of the enemy states who sympathise with the American Consul and whose reports on all this will be correspondingly biased.” Radowitz

1916-11-13-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14094; BoKon174; A 30700; pr. 13.11.1916 p.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Radowitz) to the German Foreign Office No. 1191 Constantinople, 13 November 1916

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The mass deportation of Armenians from Smyrna began during the past few days. Marshall Liman von Sanders objected on the grounds of military interests. Report follows. [Radowitz] [Telegraphic Directive from the German Foreign Office (Jagow) to the Embassy in Constantinople (No. 1301), 15 November] Request that you also work as far as possible towards stopping or at least delaying Armenian deportation from Smyrna. As Germany is short of workers, it should be considered whether we suggest to the Sublime Porte that the Armenians be deported to Germany. Please send statement by telegram, particularly concerning rough figure of Armenians in Smyrna. The United States once again protested here against the deportations of Armenians and urgently requested that we take remedial action.

1916-11-17-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 31505; pr. 21.11.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 710 Pera, 17 November 1916 Further to report No. 703 dated 13th of this month and other reports from elsewhere. 1 enclosure. Your Excellency, I have the honour of enclosing the copy of a report by Marshall Liman von Sanders on the deportation of the Armenians in Smyrna. As you can see from the above-mentioned and from the secondary report mentioned, the steps taken against the Armenians have been done so upon orders from Constantinople. The pretext for the deportations—the supposed finding of bombs and weapons at an Armenian cemetery—belongs to the already well-known inventory of such pretexts by the Turkish authorities. The intervention of the Marshall is also welcome because

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in Smyrna, as is the case in other places too, the rumour is going around that the German military authorities had demanded the expulsion of the Armenians. I will not fail to approach the Turkish Government about the occurrence and recommend to it that it take great care in dealing with the Armenian question; but I believe I should refrain from suggesting an emigration to Germany,152 in order not to arouse the ever keen mistrust of the Turks. Kühlmann Enclosure Copy. Military Mission B.No. 1950 secret Constantinople, 17 November 1916 Report From 4-11 November I was in Smyrna to inspect the newly formed 56th Division and the 16th Division, which was due to be transported to the European war front. Towards the evening of Thursday, 9 November, when I returned from an inspection of the Austrian battery near Phokia, I was informed by Consul Graf v. Spee that on the 8th and during the previous night, numerous arrests of Armenians had taken place in Smyrna and that these Armenians had been transported to the interior of the country by train. I made enquiries with various authorities. It was confirmed to me that several hundred Armenians had been arrested by the police—partly in the roughest manner, by fetching old women and sick children out of their beds in the night—and had been taken straight to the train station. Two trains full of Armenians had been transported away. In the town, there was great excitement about these occurrences. On the morning of 10 November I sent the Chief of Staff of the 5th Army, Colonel Kiazim Bey, to the Vali and had it said to him that I would no longer tolerate such mass arrests and transportations which in many ways intervened in military matters in a town threatened by the enemy. Should the police nevertheless continue with these acts, I would make the troops under my control prevent them by force of arms. I gave the Vali time until midday the same day to make up his mind. I arranged for the commanding general in Smyrna, the Royal Prussian Colonel Trommer, who was already familiar with the events, to be informed by Major Prigge of the above report and the possible steps to be taken. Around 1:30 in the afternoon, Major Kiazim Bey arrived back from the Vali, who was in Burnabad, and informed me that the arrests and transportations had been stopped and would be discontinued. On the afternoon of the same day, the first head of department of the Vali, Kara Biber Bey, came to me and I had a detailed conversation with him on the matter. 152. Comment by Zimmermann: Of course, this is out of the question.

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The same evening 3 Greeks came to me from Urla near Smyrna (about 25,000 Greek inhabitants) and reported to me that the 10 most respected and richest notables in Urla had been arrested without a hearing by 30 gendarmes, sent directly there for that purpose, and have been put into prison in Smyrna. The Greeks asked for help. On the morning of 11 November I was in Urla for inspections. I found the fact confirmed and received further reports from the commander of that section. That same afternoon the Vali visited me personally. In the course of a long discussion, the Vali explained to me the reasons for the mass arrest of Armenians. I could not accept these reasons, which were based on completely insufficient grounds, and emphasised that the military situation absolutely called for the greatest calmness in the town of Smyrna, which was mainly inhabited by Greeks. The Vali told me in confidence that he had enforced the rules in agreement with Minister Talaat Bey and other significant persons (Committee members) for the reasons mentioned previously. I explained to the Vali that, as Commander-in-Chief, I could not tolerate these actions in my district without endangering the peace. He could refer anyone to me. He agreed and promised to keep me informed in writing. I also arranged for an immediate investigation into the arrest of apparently innocent citizens of Urla. I departed that evening. The Vali was at the station. Shortly after my return to Panderma, the Supreme Command received a letter from the Vali informing him to which place the Armenians had been brought and explaining that those who were found to be innocent would be transported back to Smyrna. [Liman von Sanders] Royal Prussian General of the Cavalry

1916-11-17-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 31174; pr. 18.11.1916 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Foreign Office No. 1209 Pera, 17 November 1916 Reply to Tel. No. 1301153 153. A30700.

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After in-depth discussion of the situation in Smyrna and with the consent of Marshall Liman von Sanders, I am convinced that our suggestion to send Armenians to Germany would raise the distrust of the Turks and, thus, cause political damage. Upon the intervention of the Marshall, the deportations of the Armenians from Smyrna have stopped. Report follows. [Kühlmann]

1916-11-18-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 31836; pr. 24.11.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul General in Smyrna (Spee) to the Chargé d’Affairs at the Embassy in Constantinople (Radowitz) S.No. 108/2087 Smyrna, 18 November 1916 As you already know, on 8 November a number of Armenians were arrested, followed that night by their families, all of which were deported the following morning by railway to the interior. The remaining Armenians were threatened with deportation. An extensive summary of a speech held by the Governor General to the 12 most outstanding members of the Armenian community in his house on the evening of the 9th shows the entire interrelation. I have been informed in confidence that the following is the contents of this speech. “When Turkey entered the war, the government feared that the Armenians would desert to the Russian side, particularly in the Armenian provinces, while it hoped that it could count on their loyalty in the other vilayets. It was disappointed with regard to the latter expectation. There was an organisation that was not only meant to ease Russia’s invasion, but also wanted to assist Russia in a siege. Revolutionary preparations were found to be ongoing in Adrianople and Angora, and the atrocities by the Armenians on the eastern front forced the government to take reprisals against the Armenians. It systematically carried out the deportation of Armenians in the provinces, and it is known that I refused to comply with the implementation of the same orders for this vilayet here because the local population consisted of quiet people who were incapable of doing anything against the government. Endeavours hostile to the state were unknown to the local Armenians, and they were averse to carrying them out. Thus, it was possible for me to prevent those orders being implemented here. You gentlemen present know very well that you can carry out your business here without being molested and that you have this country to thank for your great

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fortunes. When the central government ordered the measures against the Armenians, I disclosed to you that you should inform me openly and honestly whether bombs or similar objects were hidden anywhere by the Dashnak Committee. I was assured that nothing was left of the explosives that had been imported at that time. I held this to be the truth and informed the central government accordingly. Shortly thereafter, 5 boxes of explosives were found in the former clubhouse of the Dashnaktsutiun. At the intercession of those present, I interceded so that the leaders who were still here were not court-martialled, but deported to the interior. Some time later, posters were found in some places in town that were proven to be of Armenian origin, announcing that the British had arrived outside the harbour and would take the town during the next few days; the people should take a stand against the local Turkish government. You gentlemen present know that I had you brought to me at that time and discussed with you which of those people taken prisoner were to be sent away. This deportation was then carried out with your consent, and I could assume, and did assume, that the Armenian question in Smyrna would not come up again. “Already 5 months ago, the police reported that bombs and revolvers were hidden in the Armenian cemetery. At that time, I refused to have the graves opened because I did not want them to be disturbed as long as there was any doubt about the truth of the report. You know that in the meantime the bombs have come to light and that further investigations led to the finding of revolvers, hung in a watertight container in the fountain in the forecourt of the Armenian Church in Karatash. I had asked you to determine the guilty parties or the instigators, in order to free me of this burden and to ensure that you were safe. You stated that you could not do this as it was the police’s task. I pointed out to you that the police was not suitable for this and if it took this matter into its hands many innocent people would have to suffer unnecessarily. You insisted on your point of view; in this way, we came to the beginning of the deportations, and I will regret having to carry this matter out to the end. Today, 250 people, almost all of whom have friends or relatives here, were deported; they create new enemies for me whom I must deport, whereupon an even larger number of enemies arises that must also be deported, and so on until even the most respected, like those here present, must be deported. It was not only the central government that continuously reproached me because of my leniency towards the Armenians, but also a large part of the population in the vilayet who is dissatisfied. Naturally, I always cut these people off so that they do not dare to insist on their plans, but in this way I have made many enemies, who even claim that by paying 30 to 40,000 pounds the Armenians bought their peace from me. You yourselves can best judge the untruth of this news, but I must tell you openly that I am now weary of this matter, I cannot bog myself down in details as I have an enormous load of work now, and I must ask you to sort things out in your community yourselves. Discuss this among yourselves; with a little bit of good will you will be in a position to give me the names of the guilty who are still in Smyrna, otherwise everyone will have to suffer. You know me; you know how unhappy the thought makes me that I might be the murderer of those

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who were deported today, but the guilt for those who will be innocently deported rests with you. If you had shown your good will, these deportations would never have come about; if you take the trouble now and name the guilty, you may rest assured that not only will no further deportations take place, but that all the innocent deported today will return upon my orders.” A number of discussions took place in the Armenian community; a box for notes was hung up in the Armenian cathedral; an appeal was made to all Armenians, asking that people who could be dangerous for the community be named anonymously and that these names be placed in the box mentioned. The Armenian bishop, who proclaimed this from the pulpit on Sunday, also announced that the rumour concerning a North American intervention was completely wrong, and that if the necessary information had not been given by Tuesday the entire community and he, the bishop himself, would be deported. On Monday he announced that the Vali was actually well disposed towards the Armenians and that they should be thankful solely to the Turkish government for all the leniency that had been given during the course of the matter. On Tuesday, 14 November, the Vali was given a list with about 30 names, and this with the remark that the community had examined the names with the greatest care and conscientiousness, that it had to regard the people named as being dubious and, thus, was passing on these names for the purpose of their being determined more closely and examined further. The Governor General became indignant over this answer and remarked that the community should either state that it considers these people to be dangerous or say that it was not in a position to do so, that the answer that it had given did not meet his requirements. On the afternoon of the same day the list with all the names was given to the Vali with the remark that after a conscientious examination the community felt obliged to inform the Vilayet government that the people named were dubious and that, for this reason, they felt obliged to inform the Vilayet government that those named could be dangerous for the community. The bishop supposedly said the following, “If you ask me whether the people named are wrongdoers, I cannot give you a conclusive explanation. Although the people’s past is not clean, I must add that during the past year almost all of them lived very quietly.” The Vali appeared to be satisfied with this result. The Vali informed me today that for the first time he had succeeded in getting the Armenians to name the dangerous people themselves; these would be deported and the other innocent people already deported would be brought back. I learned in confidence that the central government had ordered the further transportation of those deported on the 9th, but that the Governor General gave the opposite order and reported this to the central government. Thus, for the time being, the Armenian question appears to be settled in Smyrna. The conditions at the beginning of this month were particularly alarming for Germany’s reputation because the highest military command forces, those of the

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5th Army and the 17th Corps, are in German hands, and both commanders were in Smyrna during the deportation. The news spread fast that the Germans wanted to rid themselves in this way of the Armenian trade competition. The notification of the Governor General by army leader Marshall Liman von Sanders, already been reported elsewhere, that such arrests and deportations influenced the military situation and, therefore, the military command could not tolerate them, did not become public knowledge, but the numerous meetings on these days gave the population the definite impression that German circles had intervened against the procedures carried out against the Armenians. L. Spee [Note from the Embassy in Constantinople, 20 November] Original respectfully presented to His Excellency the Imperial Chancellor, Mr. von Bethmann Hollweg.

1916-12-04-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14094; A 33457; pr. 08.12.1916 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Administrator in Erzerum (Scheubner-Richter) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Tgb.Z. 243 Currently in Munich, 4 December 1916 Würmtalstrasse 17 Your Excellency! With the most respectful reference to my report dated 5 August 1915154 from Erzerum and the resulting directive by Your Excellency, taking into account my statement on the Armenian question and the contents of which were sent to me in Mosul on 28 October 1915 by the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople, I take the liberty of very obediently reporting the following: I based my attempt to initiate a modus vivendi at the last moment between the representatives of the Turkish committee and the Armenians who are dealing with this question on the assumption that I would be supported by the General Inspector of the Turkish Committee for Unity and Progress, Omer Nadji, with whom I was personally well acquainted and who accompanied me to Azerbaijan and the eastern 154. A 28584 (15).

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Caucasus, since I knew that he did not condone the rigorous measures of the other committee members. He was rightly afraid that this action would also have a disadvantageous effect on the leaders of the Caucasian Party, Fidai. I hoped to be able to convince him further of the foolishness of the measures against the Armenians on our mutual journey. In addition, I counted on my presence at least preventing the troops provided for Omer Nadji would be misused in a manner similar to Halil’s troops to start a massacre of the Christians in northern Persia under the influence of some of the other committee members who were travelling with us, including Dr. Fuad, whom I knew to be one of the instigators of the Armenian massacres in Vilayet Trebizond. I am pleased to note that my assumptions were correct. Omer Nadji himself was pleased to find in me a German officer who supported his moderate attitude towards the other committee members. The atrocious sight of the slain Armenians in the devastated villages of the areas we travelled through as far as Bitlis did not fail to have the desired effect on the other gentlemen as well. They obviously found it embarrassing that I and my German companions were witnesses to the work of like-minded persons and continuously attempted to soften the bad impression we had received by means of explanations which placed all the blame on the Kurds. I sent a report on what I had seen on this journey through the Imperial Consulate in Mosul, as far as I deemed this to be necessary. In individual cases, for example in Bitlis, I was able to give relief to those who had remained behind, Armenian women and children, who were being cared for by American female missionaries, and also to give aid to the latter. I would like to mention the following typical incident: On the way to Mosul, we passed through the newly created area of command of the 6th Army. Omer Nadji’s and my units were given the order to attack and punish an Armenian village near Hesak in which supposedly rebellious Armenians had barricaded themselves. I discovered in time that the so-called “rebels” were people who had barricaded themselves for fear of being massacred and who would have gladly been prepared to give up their weapons if only they were assured of being left alive. An attempt at mediation offered by the administrator of the German consulate in Mosul and me was rejected on the part of the Supreme Command of the 6th Army, to whom I had presented the facts. I evaded the threat of conflict, ordering the Germans, officers and men under my command, to Mosul and by passing command of the Turkish troops entrusted to me to one of my Turkish officers, explaining that this was an “internal Turkish” matter and, thus, I did not consider it to be correct that Germans should have command of Turkish troops carrying out “gendarme service.” My conduct was later approved of by Field Marshall v. d. Goltz. The Turkish side also acknowledged it as being “elegant.” The disappointment, which became apparent, gives grounds for the assumption that the order given to me was an attempt on

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the part of Halil Bey to drag me and the Germans accompanying me in a compromising manner into the Armenian matter. The later assignment of my unit to the newly created Mosul group and my consequent military subordination to the command of the Vali of Mosul, Haidar Bey, naturally placed great restraint on me with regard to intervening in the Armenian question. Despite the difficulties of my position I was also able to achieve that massacres or exceptional oppressiveness against the Oriental Christians there no longer took place during the entire time that I was with the Turkish troops operating in northern Persia. I would like to point out in particular that, during the capture of Sautshbulag, together with Omer Nadji I was able to protect the non-Mohammedan population there including the party supporters of Russia, from massacres and rapes as had taken place during earlier occupations of the town by Turkish troops and/or irregulars. This has also been acknowledged by the American missionary living in Sautshbulag, Fossum, and the German female missionary, Meta v. d. Schulenburg. Attempts to initiate an understanding with those Armenian leaders fighting on the Russian side, whom I had hoped to win over with the help of Syrian Christians, were broken off by the Russian offensive and connected military operations. I was able to determine, however, from statements made by prisoners and other news which reached me, that the moderate actions of the Turkish troops this time astonished the enemy and, thus, it effectively wiped away, at least in part, the bad impression left by former Turkish offensives in northern Persia and the eastern Caucasus. The advance of the Russian troops in May of this year, whereby the weak Turkish forces had to retreat, as well as my other military employment, put a temporary end to my efforts in this matter. I respectfully request permission to point out the following in connection with this. The fear I spoke of in my report from Erzerum, namely that the evacuation of the Armenians would be tantamount to their annihilation and that this was the purpose behind it, has unfortunately turned out to be true. Those evacuees of this tribe who are still living in Mesopotamia are in a desolate condition. It would not be saying too much if I tell you that the Turkish Armenians, with the exception of several hundred thousand living in Constantinople and other larger cities, have been practically wiped out. It would be going too far to go into the causes of the extermination of the Armenians and the political and economical effects of this measure for Turkey. Unfortunately, this matter is closed for the time being and our care and our interest can only be applied to easing the situation of the survivors located in Mesopotamia. On the other hand, I feel obliged to direct Your Excellency’s attention to the following: a number of discussions with leading Turkish personalities left me with the following impressions:

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A large part of the Young Turkish Committee is of the opinion that the Ottoman Empire should only be built upon a purely Mohammedan, pan-Turkish foundation. Those inhabitants who are neither Mohammedan nor Turkish should be made to become so by force or, if that is not possible, annihilated. For these gentlemen, the present time seems to be the most suitable to put this plan into effect. The first item on their programme was the execution of the Armenians. A supposed revolution prepared by the Dashnak Party was put forward as a pretext for those powers which are allied with Turkey. Furthermore, local unrest and selfprotection measures on the part of the Armenians were exaggerated and taken as an excuse to justify the evacuation of the Armenians from endangered border districts. At the instigation of the Committee, the Armenians were murdered along the way by Kurd and Turkish gangs, in places also by gendarmes. 2. At about the same time, the Nestorians in eastern Kurdistan, after brave resistance, were turned out of their domiciles by the Vali from Mosul, Haidar Bey, and annihilated in part. Their fields and homes were ravaged. The survivors fled to the Russians and are now fighting in their ranks against Turkey. 3. Halil Bey’s campaign in northern Persia resulted in the massacre of his Armenian and Syrian battalions and the expulsion of the Armenian, Syrian and Persian population from northern Persia. It left behind a great bitterness towards the Turks. 4. Revenge against the Arabs is also being considered, but the presently unfavourable military situation made it apparent that this was not yet the right moment. In the meantime, a suitable substitute was attempted by heavily recruiting Arabs and dispatching Arabian troops with the most inadequate equipment in climatically unfavourable areas (winter campaign 1914 Erzerum, 1915 northern Persia). 5. A ridiculous overestimation of the strength and the long-distance effect of panTurkish ideas, as well as an underestimation of the influence of the Caucasian Armenians led to the belief that the Mohammedans from the Caucasus could be won over to join Turkey and to revolt against Russia. It is only slowly becoming clear that this plan has lost much of its probability through the action against the Armenians and the conduct of Turkish-Kurd irregulars in the Caucasian border areas. German propaganda among the Caucasians is not appreciated and often hampered. Summarising my impressions on the question of the relationship of the Turks to the other nations living there (which I have collected until the end of August 1916), I would like to point out the following with regard to the future: It seems to me to be just possible that an attempt will be made in the district of the 6th army to boost the morale of the Kurds fighting on the side of the Turks, to reignite their fanaticism and to give them a free hand against the Christian population there. A similar play-off of the Sunnite Kurds against the Shiite Persians could, under certain circumstances, take place in northern and central Persia and, thus, apart from

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the economical consequences, give rise to a permanent conflict between those involved which would also harm our interests most severely. I have finally come to the conclusion that our restraint in the Armenian question has caused visible damage to our reputation in Turkey and Persia because many considered it to be a sign of weakness. More decisive action against the rigorous attempts of the Young Turkish Committee would be of help to our reputation, and not only the non-Mohammedans and the Arabs, but also the Old Turks and the present minority of the Young Turks would like us much more. Considering the instability of the Turkish political situation, I consider it appropriate to take the mood of those circles with influence in the country into account as well. “If we, the Turks, bleed to death in this battle for the existence of the Ottoman Empire, then there shall be no other nations in this empire either.” This remark by a Young Turkish politician characterises best the point of view held by the circles of the Young Turkish Committee. And the logical consequence of the weakening of pure Turkishness (the Anatolians), appearing more and more mainly because of a lack of organisation and foresight, is the violent annihilation of the other nations living in Turkey. It appears to me to be in our political and economical interest to turn our attention to this process of annihilation and to counteract it wherever possible. Scheubner-Richter. [Zimmermann’s Answer dated 18 December] To Your Excellency I would like to confirm with thanks the receipt of the interesting report on your activities and observations in Turkey. [From Zimmermann to the Embassy Constantinople (No. 1367)] Sent for your kind attention. The opinion that too great a restraint in the Armenian question would damage our reputation with the Young Turkish rulers as well, cannot be denied.

1916-12-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A53a, 3822; p 29.12.1916. Directive. Translated by Vera Draack From the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) to the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Göppert)

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No. 1410 Berlin, 25 December 1916 The secret report K.No. 177 from the administrator of the Imperial Consulate General in Jerusalem dated 14 November, a copy of which was sent to me, mentions among other things that, according to reliable sources and contrary to all Turkish attempts to deny this, the forced conversions to the Islamic religion among the deported Armenians are being continued. The same news was received here through another channel and caused justifiable indignation in large circles of the German Christians. It was only with great difficulty that we managed to prevent a public discussion of the deplorable occurrences until now. Those interested have thus sent petitions to the Imperial Chancellor and the Foreign Office, urgently demanding guarantees that those who have been forced to convert will have the factual possibility after peace has been made of returning to their former faith. I request that Your Excellency brings up this matter again in a friendly, but suitably serious manner with the Porte and indicates that by tolerating the forced conversions to the Islamic religion it is not only making its position at the peace conference more difficult, but also giving the powers a new lever—now and also in future—to interfere in national Turkish affairs. As a Christian power and as an ally for whom Turkey’s inner strength and independence is of extreme importance, we can only strongly advise our Turkish friends to remedy this situation quickly and thoroughly. [Zimmermann]

1917-01-05-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A53a, 3822; translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires in Constantinople (Göppert) to the Foreign Office Telegraphic Report No. 17 Pera, 5 January 1917 Reply to directive no. 1410. Instructions carried out. Halil Bey promised to work towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. An immediate return to Christianity of those forced to convert is not opportune. This situation will probably be solved satisfactorily once peace has been made. G[öppert]

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[Göppert’s Memorandum dated 4 January] Discussed with Halil Bey. He requested permission to take the memorandum back with him as it had been agreed upon with Count Metternich that nothing would be left behind in writing concerning such discussions. He promised to work on Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey towards immediately stopping the forced conversions. To facilitate a return to Christianity at this point for those who converted would probably not be feasible and not practical because this could result in new deportations. This will be just as possible after the war, as it was after the persecution of the Armenians during the age of Abdul Hamid. Enclosure [Translated from French by George Shirinian] Pera, 4 January 1917 The German Government has learned from trustworthy sources that, contrary to official denials, the Armenians in the provinces are continuing to be forced to renounce their Christian faith and to adopt Islam. The news of these events having spread through Germany, its Christian citizenry is justifiably upset, and it is only with great difficulty that the German Government has succeeded in preventing until now public discussion on this question; however, it cannot take into account the numerous representations made to the Imperial Chancellor and to the Department of Foreign Affairs to stop these persecutions and to give those forced into conversion the ability to return to their Christian faith after peace is re-established. The German Government, as a Christian power, can only regret and disapprove of the acts of violence which are contrary to the principles of freedom of conscience, principles that were always observed in Turkey, and which were enshrined in a special article of the Ottoman constitution. Similarly, it generally felt that the persecutions of the Christian Armenians are such that they will create serious difficulties for the Ottoman Government during peace negotiations, and it foresees that the Entente Powers will take advantage of it in the future to interfere in the internal affairs of the Empire. The German Government, guided by the sincere desire to contribute to the consolidation of the national independence of the Ottoman Empire, believed it to be its duty to communicate to the Ottoman government its point of view on this question, which, in this sense, interests both allied governments equally; at the same time, it hopes that the Government would willingly take the necessary measures to put an end to the incidents, which can be justified neither by military interests nor motives of public order.

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1917-01-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14095; A 02615; pr. 23.01.1917 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 46 Copy. Pera, 20 January 1917 1 enclosure. [Not found in the file] Even if Mr. Elkus has so far avoided bringing up the Armenian question with the Turks in this connection, there can be no doubt that a revision of the extermination policy against the Armenians would be one of the Americans’ demands. The Americans have done a great deal to rouse the Armenians intellectually and, in this way, indirectly contributed to the sad fate of the Turkish Armenians. Certain calming assurances in this connection would be necessary to silence the opposition of the proArmenian element in the United States against an economic rapprochement of the two countries. Although today’s Turkish rulers have completely identified themselves with the Armenian policy, I still believe that it would not be completely impossible to reverse this policy, particularly now that the objective of weakening the Armenian element of the population has largely been achieved. [Kühlmann]

1917-02-16-DE-003 Source: PA-AA; R14095; A 05919. Report. Translated by Linda Struck From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) Pera, 16 February 1917 Copy. For your confidential information. The Cabinet of Talaat Pasha presented itself officially to the Chamber. On this occasion the new Grand Vizier made policy statements which appear to me to be of

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principal importance as they herald a new turning point in the internal history of Turkey. As I already had the honour of reporting to Your Excellency some time ago, a moderate tendency was gaining ground in influential circles which, contrary to the inconsiderate nationalism of certain Committee members, who did not even shy away from bloody acts of violence, demanded a sensible and tolerant internal policy for Turkey. On account of the many foreign elements in its midst, Turkey, compared with any other European state, has a completely different structure. Attempts to transform the foreign elements in the Ottoman state system by means of conciliatory concessions into real Ottoman patriots, thus training them to work voluntarily and of their own conviction within the Turkish state, have continually alternated with periods in which pressure and attempts at extermination were used to force the unity of make-up so necessary for the state. During the last period of his rule, with his infamous Armenian massacres, Sultan Abdul Hamid had gone so far in the direction of a ruthless extermination policy that it made all people shudder, even in the Orient which was accustomed to bloodshed. At the beginning of its term of office the Committee, in all respects striving to adopt an attitude of opposition to the Sultan’s policy, took up the cause of the union of all the different peoples living in Turkey in a spirit of free and voluntary collaboration within the state and was able at the beginning of its activities to unite almost all the dissenting elements—Arabs, Armenians and Greeks—if only for a short time. However, the continued existence of the revolutionary separatist movement among the Armenians and the recurrence of a distinctly treacherous state of mind among broad Greek and Armenians circles during the Balkan War, when Turkey seemed near to collapse, led to a reversal and to a complete victory of the stance of the advocates of Turkish nationalism within the Committee. The destruction of the Armenians which was carried out on a vast scale, and the tendencies to proceed mercilessly also against the Greek element, which became obvious in individual smaller initiatives, have been the result of this political direction. I believe that in terms of an overall outcome, the extermination policy has damaged the Turkish state. The atrocities of the Armenian campaigns will weigh heavily on the Turkish name for a long time to come and for a long time to come will supply poisoned weapons to those who deny Turkey the attribute of being a cultural state and demand the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. Internally, the country is also noticeably weakened by the downfall and banishment of a physically strong, hard-working and thrifty people, in particular since the lack of manpower represents one of the greatest hindrances to a more rapid development of Turkish mineral resources. In confidential conversations with Talaat Pasha, I have not been sparing with my opinion regarding this issue since the beginning of my term of office here. The fact that he, now that he is in power, makes the matter of equal rights for the Ottoman nationalities an important item in the government’s policy, can be greeted with great satisfaction. As I have heard in confidence, we can most certainly reckon with a stop

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to the deportation of the Armenians and with a cessation of the persecution of the Greeks, which has happened in some places. It is said that the Armenians (although, however, this will not be enforced for some time yet) will be allowed to return to their old dwelling places, as long as these are not considered to be war zones. The wild, nationalist direction is, of course, not yet dead. The capable and reckless brains who are behind that direction will not be calm following their temporary defeat. Also, it cannot be expected that now, as if struck down by some magic wand, the complaints from the various provinces about the suppression and persecution on the part of individual administrative officers will suddenly be completely mute. But experience tells us that the watchword issued in Constantinople will be obeyed on the whole, and all the more so when the watchword is not the result of pressure on the central government from outside, but originates from a free decision of the Turkish rulers. Fortunately this is exactly the case this time. Without doubt, the position taken by Talaat Pasha in his speech yesterday will remain paramount for some time to come. In my opinion this is a great gain for us and the matter of the German-Turkish alliance because all our enemies have tried to make us responsible for the bloody excesses of Turkish nationalism. On the other hand, the frequent attempts at intervention, to which humanitarian considerations in the face of these methods have driven us, were a source of continual friction with the Turkish Government. Also as regards our public, it is much easier to defend and maintain the alliance with a moderate Turkey which also operates internally according to modern principles, than with an extreme Ottoman-nationalist entity. [von Kühlmann]

1917-02-24-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14095; A 05742. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Reichs Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 129 Pera, 24 February 1917 Copy Talaat Pasha confirmed to me in person that he plans to take a new line on all questions concerning the nationality policy. He had both the Catholic as well as the ecumenical Armenian patriarchs brought to him and informed them that the Armenian population could be sure that their constitutional rights would not be touched. What

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the previous government had been forced to put into action on the grounds of military necessity should, if possible, be rectified. Appropriate orders had been sent to all the provincial authorities. [Kühlmann]

1917-03-28-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A53a, 947. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Extraordinary Mission in Constantinople (Kühlmann) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) No. 206 Pera, 28 March 1917 With regard to the edict dated 23rd inst. AN No. 23. The Armenian persecutions in Turkey are a fact which cannot be denied. Too many non-Turks—members of allied and neutral countries—were eyewitnesses of the policy of extinction carried out against the Armenians; too many blunt descriptions from the pens of irreproachable observers have found their way abroad. The best solution for us and our Turkish allies could thus be seen in the Turkish atrocities against Armenians, hounded to death more and more as material for agitation, as well as the supposed German atrocities in Belgium gradually losing their appeal to foreign countries. There is now a certain chance for this because, as I had the honour of emphasising in my report, the Turkish government appears to be determined to direct its Armenian policy to more sensible paths and thus, hopefully, in future no new eye-catching material will be added to the old and extremely well-used reports on atrocities. The dying process of the appeal of Armenian suffering in Turkey would be destroyed if a counter-campaign were to be instituted against Russia because of the persecutions against Armenians there. In addition, we would also, unfortunately, be harmed in the battle of defamatory writing against each other that would then break out because even if we made the best possible use of the material that is certain to incriminate the Russians heavily in their treatment of the Armenians, we could not hope to compete successfully against that which the opponents of Turkey’s Armenian policy come up with. Therefore, I would like to refrain from suggesting any action for propaganda of the kind in question to the local government. K[ühlmann]

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1917-04-19-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A53a, 1184; A4a, 1221 ; p- 23.04.1917. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Head of the Central Office of Information for Foreign Countries (Jäckh) to the Ambassador on Extraordinary Mission at the Embassy in Constantinople (Kühlmann) 19 April 1917 Your Excellency, 1. Enclosed please find an “Armenian letter” for your information and discussion at some point. 2. Furthermore: Talaat confirmed to me today that Turkey will cut off relations with the United States today. 3. I request that Nazim be struck off the list of decorations, as he accepts nothing on principle. 4. Finally: As Deputy Grand Vizier, Enver Pasha will strike a blow during the ceremony when the foundation stone is laid; the Turks assume and wish that Your Excellency will do the same. Respectfully yours, Jäckh Enclosure Berlin, 11 April 1917 Dear Professor, With reference to our discussion I take the liberty of informing you of the following. From a humane as well as Christian point of view, we are constantly moved by the situation of the deported Armenians. The latest disclosures made by the Grand Vizier, Talaat Pasha, have led us to the conclusion that it should be possible at present to assist the unfortunate members of the Armenian population. More than ever before, the declaration of war made by the United States of America imposes a responsibility on Germany to relieve the suffering as much as possible. We are convinced that this is both in Germany’s political interest which, especially because of the events in Armenia, is being attacked in a particularly sharp manner by its opponents, as well as in the well-understood interest of the Ottoman Empire which, due to the great financial demands made on it during wartime, can hardly be in a position to raise the immense sums that are necessary here, and for whom witnesses who are above

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suspicion must be very welcome in its present position on the Armenian question. I would like to emphasise that we will keep a close watch on the present situation while assisting the Armenians and, under the present circumstances, will, on our part, make neither written nor oral references to times past. We have planned assistance in such a manner that one of our members, accompanied by a doctor and persons who already reside in areas where the deportees are to be found, will travel to the camps, distributing funds and food. Based on the information we have received, it is mainly the camps on both sides of the Baghdad Railway, to which the deportees from Armenia itself have been distributed, that are to be taken into consideration. The leader of this undertaking would have to be the signatory (after lengthy discussions with the appropriate authorities in Germany, no other person could be found for this task) together with Dr. Andreas Vischer in Basle, a Swiss national, who worked in Urfa for years and is prepared to undertake this journey. I know the gentleman mentioned personally; last October, I spoke to him at length on this matter, and I can guarantee that his understanding of the task is exactly in the sense in which I informed him of it. In addition, we are counting on the support of our Consul in Aleppo, Dr. Rössler, and that of Mr. Eckart in Urfa, whose organisational skills are well respected. We would now like to request that you kindly arrange for permission with the decisive authorities in the Turkish government for myself and Dr. Vischer to travel to Constantinople, Aleppo and onwards to the deportation camps. You surely know that the German Foreign Office and the German Embassy in Constantinople warmly support our plan. We believe that we have very significant financial funds for this purpose at our disposal, which have been made available by German and Swiss friends of the Armenians, by the influence of the latter from other neutral countries, but especially by the Armenians outside Germany. It is not possible at present to quote the exact sum, but we take the liberty of reporting it to you by telegram to Constantinople. Respectfully yours, Stier [Note by Mordtmann, 23 July] Through the German Foreign Office, the Embassy is already dealing with this matter and has urgently advised against sending a representative from the German-Armenian Association, which suggested the matter (telegram dated 16 March). Even at that time it was Vicar Stier who was named as a representative; on the occasion of a mission planned by the Swiss friends of the Armenians, Dr. Vischer had already stated that he was willing to go to Mesopotamia. As far as is known here, nothing came of this latter expedition; in addition, Dr. Vischer has repeatedly been named in the publications of the Swiss organisation, and for this reason alone he would not be suitable. It is not as clear whether Talaat Pasha will carry out the plan he has occasionally mentioned to give up the anti-Armenian policy of the former Cabinet, as is often as-

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sumed, and by Vicar Stier as well. Nothing has as yet become known of any concrete results, while various news from the interior lead us to presume that the persecutions are still continuing, although not as extensively. However, one can hardly expect any political gain from charitable acts carried out for the Armenians by the Germans. Our former work in this connection that went on until war broke out did not cause the Armenians to like us any more noticeably; from way back and with only few exceptions they preferred France, England, the United States and Russia, and the events of the past years have surely only assisted in strengthening these preferences. But also from a purely human point of view it is not possible to see why, instead of being sent abroad, German money and German charity should not be put solely to use for our countrymen who have been affected by the war. As I already remarked in the beginning, the Embassy has advised urgently against sending out Vicar Stier. This was done on the basis of the explicit remarks made by Consul Rössler in Aleppo, who, quite rightly, spoke out against any sort of public support for this relief action. An expedition consisting of several people, as suggested by Vicar Stier, to visit the individual deportation centres, is completely out of the question anyway. The British advance in Mesopotamia will surely have made the Turks even more suspicious in this respect; added to which the German mission uses mainly American funds. Therefore, we would merely serve the interests of the Armenians, who are hostile towards us, and the Americans, who are at war with us, without being able to expect any services in return whatsoever. We would, however, should we support this American-Armenian relief action just at this time, only cause ill feelings among the allied Turkish government. [Note by Kühlmann] Chancellery. This explanation is completely in line with my own opinion; please inform Professor Jäckh accordingly. [Note by the Embassy in Constantinople] Transcript sent together with Chancellery note to Mr. Jäckh.

1917-05-03-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A4a; 1324. Correspondence From the treasurer of the American Board of Commmissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople (William W. Peet) to the German Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann)

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American Bible House, May 3rd. 1917 My dear Dr. Mordtmann. In view of the present situation which brings my work to an end, I have decided to take advantage of the opportunity given to leave the country and to take a vacation. My wife needs this change even more than I do. She has been most devotedly attached to her work in the hospitals and in devising work for the poor. I am distressed in view of the misery which may come to the poor people in the interior and I am doing what I can to keep the stream of help which we have supplied thus far from dying out altogether. I cannot leave without sending a word of thankfulness for your never-failing kindness to me in these matters. I have also most grateful recollections of the Embassy’s courtesy in their share of the work. It will always afford me pleasure to testify of this. Yours faithfully M. M. Peet

1917-05-09-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14096; A 15098; pr. 09.05.1917. Translated by Linda Struck Notes by the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office (Zimmermann) for the Reichstag To my utmost regret, the member of the Reichstag, Ledebour155 has today brought up the Armenian question again. Gentlemen, you all know with what clever means of distortion and exaggeration our enemies have exploited this issue to instigate a slanderous campaign against us and our Turkish ally. I fear that what was said about it here today will provide our enemies with new ammunition for their libelling. As regards the reasons and the course of the events which we, too, deeply lament, I must refrain from going into details at this point. During a meeting of the commission at the end of September last year, I gave exhaustive clarifications to which I may refer. I would just like to take up one point of my explanations of that time: It is our enemies themselves who are mainly to blame for the tragedy of the Armenian people. Long before the outbreak of the war through unscrupulous agitation, they stirred up the Armenians against the Turkish government and misused them as tools for their selfish political plans. As I also already reported in September, the Armenian question has repeatedly been the subject of thorough discussion with the allied Turkish government, both here and in Constantinople. I am prepared to give those gentlemen who wish to learn more about this matter, any information they require in a closed session. 155. The Social Democratic member of the Reichstag Georg Ledebour.

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86th Meeting of the Budget Committee of the Reichstag, held on 29th September 1916156 I. Mr. Deputy Ledebour also suggested a discussion on the Armenian question. This is an extremely sad issue, and you know that we have often emphasised and admitted this fact in earlier deliberations of the Commission. When the Hamidian regime was overthrown and the Young Turks came into power, the Armenians took the side of the Young Turks. They put their revolutionary organisation at the disposal of the Young Turkish regime and even produced some ministers too. When the war broke out, the old mistrust of the Turks towards the Armenians flared up again. Of course, since the establishment of the new regime, the Armenians had been strongly influenced by London, Paris and in particular by Russia. The Russian Armenians were the actual connecting link with the Turkish Armenians. Attempts had been made at making the Turkish Armenians disloyal by means of money, spying and other methods. Shortly after Turkey had entered the war on our side, in October 1914, we already received the news from the Consul in Aleppo that the military conscription of the Armenians would be subject to great difficulties and that a considerable hatred of the Germans was apparent in the Armenians. We received similar news from Trebizond and Erzerum. In December 1914 there were already riots on the part of the Turks against the Armenians in Erzerum. We gave the matter our immediate attention and ordered our Ambassador to protest at the Porte and to point out the dangers that could arise for Turkey from the repetition of such occurrences. At the same time we instructed him to meet with the Armenian patriarch and to personally point out to him how important it was that Armenia took loyal sides with Turkey and fought for their common cause. From Berlin, an Armenian was finally sent by the German-Armenian Society to Turkey who, with our support, was commissioned to negotiate with the patriarch and the leaders of the Armenian movement and to persuade them that they should stand loyally on the side of the Turks and thus procure for themselves the gratitude of the Turks and their own safety from now on. The gold and the subversive actions of our enemies are to blame that the Armenians turned a deaf ear to our well-meant advice and themselves released the storm, under which their people were to suffer so wretchedly. The Turks, who, according to the unanimous judgement of our representatives had behaved quite correctly towards the Armenian during the first months of the war, were made suspicious by the agitations of the Armenians. The revolution against the Turks was keenly preached by those Armenians who were living in neutral and hostile foreign countries. The result was revolts. The complaints 156. Comment by Rosenberg: Presented to his Excellency. Enclosure Part I is a protocol of your Excellency’s statements to the Committee. Enclosure II is a record which was used for the Grand Duchess of Baden. (Rosenberg wrote this memo on 6 September 1916 (A 24118) in answer to a letter from Luise, Grand Duchess of Baden.)

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lodged about desertions and switching of numerous Armenians to the Russian side were ever increasing. There was one serious incident near Zeytun. Here Armenian deserters had barricaded themselves and for a very long time had defended themselves vigorously against the Turkish gendarmes who were pursuing. Similar incidents were repeated near Bitlis, Marash and in other places. Regretfully a general Armenian rebellion finally broke out in Van in the rear of Turkish troops who were advancing against Azerbaijan. The Turkish troops were at first unable to suppress the revolution and it actually happened that Russian troops and Russian Armenians joined forces with Armenian deserters near Van. All these circumstances caused Turkey to take serious steps from a military point of view. Anyone will find it comprehensible that the Turks, in view of their difficult position at that time—the battles in the Dardanelles were at their apogee—then decided to evacuate the area, which was being plagued by the Armenian revolution. The severe, but militarily comprehensible measure of deporting the Armenian people out of the operations and manoeuvres area began in May 1915; in summer, the evacuation took on an even larger dimension and finally spread to the whole of Anatolia as far as the coast and the gates of Smyrna. We are convinced that the Turks originally acted quite loyally and did not intend to destroy the Armenians. The fact that the evacuation did not proceed as well as would have been possible in other countries is quite understandable. The whole of the internal organisation failed. There were not enough roads, means of transport, money and in particular food. In addition there was of course the fanaticism of the Turks and their hatred, which to a certain degree was justified by the acts of treason and the disloyalty, of the Armenians. The resettlement was originally supposed to take place in the nearer parts of Syria such as Huma and Damascus, followed by places in the Euphrates valley and finally Ras-ul-Ain and Mosul. The deportations took a deplorable course. The sad events are generally well-known. But the Entente—England, France and Russia—are mainly to blame for this. At this point I remember an article in the Daily Chronicle in September 1915, that was full of praise and recognition of the fact that the Armenian people, from the beginning of the war onwards, had accepted the matter of the Entente as their own, from the very beginning had fought on the side of the Entente uncompromisingly and had a right to be considered as the seventh ally of the Entente. The article is titled: “The Seventh Ally!” In the Armenian question, from the very beginning, we have lodged forceful protests with the Sublime Porte. Perhaps later, after the war, when our position is no longer as delicate as it is today, we will publish our negotiations in a white book. I can tell you in confidence that our Ambassador has gone as far as to incur the direct displeasure of the Grand Vizier and the Minister of the Interior. After the first three months of his office, the ministers concerned said that the Ambassador appeared to have nothing better to do than to annoy them with the Armenian issue. The latest complaints, that the Armenian orphanages have been dissolved, the Armenian girls put into harems and the boys in Turkish orphanages and forced to

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become Muslims, have prompted me to personally lodge serious representations with the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is currently in Berlin. I have pointed out that these events are extremely embarrassing not only for the Turks but also for us and that we must urgently request him to find means and ways for remedy. I can only say that we have done everything we could. The only other extreme thing left for us would be to terminate our alliance with Turkey. You will understand that under no circumstances can we reach such a decision. Higher than the Armenians in our list of priorities, no matter how much we regret their fate from a purely humane point of view, are our sons and brothers who must shed their precious blood in the most dreadful battles and who are also dependent on the support of Turkey. After all, the Turks are doing us significant and great services in covering the southeast flank. You will agree with me that we cannot go so far as to break off our alliance with the Turks, whom we have indeed upset with our continual protests about the Armenian question. II. When the Porte joined the war in Autumn 1914 on the side of the Central Powers, the situation of the Armenian people in Turkey was relatively favourable. The Armenians had fought on the side of the Young Turks against the Hamidian regime. The Young Turk government was therefore not unfriendly towards them. On the other hand, the fact that a considerable number of the Turkish Armenians were tending with their sympathies towards the Western Allies and Russia, which was confirmed to us by our long years of experience, was causing us worry. This apprehension led the Foreign Office, soon after the commencement of Turkey’s hostilities, to arrange for the Imperial Ambassador at that time, Freiherr von Wangenheim, to point out urgently in the course of several confidential meetings with the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople that the time had now come when the Armenians could prove their often affirmed loyalty towards the Turkish state and establish for themselves a basis for a secure future. With the permission of the Foreign Office, the GermanArmenian Society, headed by Dr. Johannes Lepsius, at the same time delegated an Armenian intermediary to Turkey with instructions to influence the Armenian patriarch and the political leaders of the Armenians in Constantinople “in such a way that the Armenian people, in close collaboration with Turkey, should mobilise its national strength for the victory of the Ottoman forces and in wise recognition of its own interest, should support to the best of their ability the Turkish government in the execution of all measures and war operations in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians.” The intermediary received support of every kind from the Foreign Office and the Imperial representatives in Turkey in carrying out this task. The gold and the subversive activities of our enemies are to blame that the Armenians did not heed our well-meant advice and themselves unleashed the storm under which their people were to suffer so terribly.

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According to the unanimous judgement of our representatives, the Turkish government behaved quite correctly towards the Armenian element during the first months of the war. The first signs of storm brewing up involved an incident at Zeytun. In this small town in South Armenia, which was almost exclusively inhabited by Armenians and built like a fortress, a group of Armenian deserters had gone into hiding in March 1915 and put up desperate resistance to their Turkish military pursuers. This led to a siege and storming of the town, whereby considerable stores of modern weapons were found. As a part of the population had made common cause with the revolutionaries, under martial law a regime of a strict criminal prosecution was imposed on the town. The incident in Zeytun was not the only one. Following it, similar rioting and fighting followed in several towns in the province, which led to the beginning of the evacuation of the heavily compromised Armenian population. The measures were limited at first to a relatively small area and had only local character. But still the mistrust of the government towards the Armenians had been aroused. Things took a disastrous turn the following month, in April 1915, when in Upper Armenia, in particular in the area around Van, in the rear of the Turkish troops who were advancing against Azerbaijan, a general Armenian revolt broke out which cost the lives of thousands of Muslims within only a few days. For obvious reasons, very little or even nothing was published in any press which was hostile to Turkey or Germany about this bloodbath, which was to have such sad consequences for the Armenians. By way of mobilising superior forces and with considerable losses, the Turks succeeded in suppressing the revolt in the rear of their front. It is understandable that they then decided to make such occurrence impossible in future. Moreover an Armenian plot directed at the lives of the Turkish potentates was discovered in the capital and also there were other signs that some of the Armenians were in secret contact with Turkey’s enemies. In view of the critical position of Turkey at that time—the battles in the Dardanelles were at their climax—the Turkish government was compelled to restore the threatened internal security in the heart of the country with all means available to them. The hard, but from a military standpoint understandable, solution of deportation of the Armenian people from the regions affected by the war, due to their significance as operational and transport and communication areas, was declared. In the northern part of Mesopotamia, far from the militarily threatened borders, the Armenians were supposed to be allocated to new settlements. The fact that the execution of these deportation orders were bound to the destruction of a large proportion of the Armenian population, was originally most certainly neither intended nor foreseen by the Turkish rulers. The deplorable development of affairs appears to a certain degree to be understandable if on the one hand one takes into consideration the not unjustified anger of the Muslim population, on the other hand the primitive character of the internal Turkish conditions and the slight influence that the Central Administration in Constantinople was able to exercise in the more distant provinces. For a relocation of a population on such a large scale, which even in times of peace would have required years of preparation, nothing at all had been

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planned. There was a lack of everything, a suitable organisation, roads, means of transport, money and especially of food. The base instincts whipped up by the war, the old racial and religious conflicts did the rest. That the course of things, which could no longer be curbed, did not seem unwelcome to some of the Young Turk rulers as a radical solution to the Armenian question, is unfortunately not improbable. This would not have happened if the Armenians themselves had not provided an opportunity. The moral blame for the events lies not only with the Armenians themselves but with their instigators in London, Petersburg and Paris. An article in the “Daily Chronicle,” dated 23 September 1915, entitled “Our Seventh Ally,” was typical of this. It was full of praise and recognition of the fact that the Armenian people, from the beginning of the war onwards, had adopted the cause of the Entente as their own, from the very beginning had fought on the side of the Entente without hesitation and thereby had acquired a right to be considered as the seventh ally. The Foreign Office and the Imperial representatives in Turkey have, from the beginning of the Armenian crisis, done everything possible with diplomatic instruments to alleviate the fate of the Armenians. This is a fact which is unknown to the public and for the time being should remain unknown, the Imperial government has gone to the utmost limit with its pressure on the Turkish government. The Imperial government did not and does not feel justified to break with the alliance on account of the Armenian question. Because, although it is most regrettable from a Christian and from a generally humane point of view that, apart from the guilty, also hundreds of thousands of innocent people are having to perish under the Turkish hand, more important to the German Government than the Armenians are the sons of Germany, whose sacrificial and bloody battle in the west, east and south is considerably facilitated with the help of the weapons of the Turkish allies. The responsibility for weakening the southeast flank of our position arising from our global conflict by breaking with Turkey on the grounds of the Armenian question could not be borne by any German government, and the less so since the Armenians would not save themselves from further persecution through taking this step, but would be particularly delivered up to Turkish acts of revenge.

1917-05-12-DE-011 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174; A4a; zu 1399. Correspondence From the Treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople, Luther R. Fowle, to the German Consul General in Constantinople (Mordtmann) Bible House, May 12, 1917

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My dear Mr. Mordtmann, Before leaving for Europe, Mr. Peet told me of his conversation with you, and of your willingness to help us in the matter of carrying on relief to the poor in the Aleppo District, through our German friends there, Miss Rohner and Miss Schäffer. I should be very glad of an opportunity to talk over this matter with you, now that I am attempting to carry on Mr. Peet’s work. If convenient for you, could I call at your home some time soon to see you. I live near Tokatlian’s Hotel, and so could come in some evening, if that would be more convenient for you than during the day time. Trusting that you will be able to see me on this matter, Believe me, Very truly yours, L. R. Fowle

1917-05-14-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14096; A 18747; pr. 09.06.1917 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the Imperial Chancellor (Bethmann Hollweg) K.No. 56 No. 923 Aleppo, 14 May 1917 Confidential I respectfully enclose for Your Excellency’s kind attention a memorandum by Mr. Bünte, a certified engineer, on observations made during a journey along the River Khabur from 1 to 6 April. There is no doubt that the large numbers of human skulls and bones to be found there are from the Armenian massacres which took place the previous July and August, on which I last reported on 5 November of last year (see K.No. 104)157 The accounts from Armenian sources given in Enclosures I and III of that report, which name Shedadieh (Kalat Sheddad) as the location where the massacres mainly took place, are thus confirmed. I am sending the same report to the Imperial Embassy. Rössler Enclosure Copy. Aleppo, 11 May 1917 157. A 31831 (Doc. 1916-11-05-DE-001-E).

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In the period from 1 to 6 April I went up the Khabur on the River Euphrates together with Captain Löschebrand and Sergeant Langenegger from Buseir and found a large number of bleached human skulls and skeletons on the left bank; some of the skulls had bullet holes. In some places we found stakes, also with human bones and skulls. The largest accumulations were across from the Kishla Scheddade. The population spoke of 12,000 Armenians who were massacred, shot or drowned here alone. At this point we left the river and found no further traces along the road to Sindjar. [Bünte] Certified Engineer, Lieutenant

1917-06-05-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; BoKon/174. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Embassy in Constantinople to the Treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople (Luther R. Fowle) Pera, 5 June 1917 [Translated from French by George Shirinian] 1. Aleppo, 1 June. The Bible House is requested to do what is necessary, so that the sum of 3,000 Turkish pounds sent 15 May in the name of Sister Rohner may be turned over to Mr. Zollinger; 2. Please give some news about the current situation of the orphanage of Sivas, which was until recently under the direction of the American mission at Sivas. [Order by Mordtmann] (Address on cover: Mr. L. Fowle, American Bible House, Stambul.) to send out on letter without head, formless cover, without signature. [Note by Mordtmann] (After speaking to Mr. Fowle today) 1. The Bible House wishes to be oriented through Mr. Zollinger, who now controls the relief aid in Aleppo after Sister Rohner retired because it depends on this whether or not and to what extent American funds can be made available for this. Dr. Merril or Martin from the American College in Aintab could possibly be directed to Aleppo for this.

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2. Furthermore, it would be important for the continuation of this work that we keep in touch with Mr. Peet. However, this would only be possible if our correspondence with him could be transmitted by a military courier, but Mr. Fowle does not believe that the Swedish or the Dutch Legation maintains such a military courier service. 3. The question of how American funds can be brought here has not been solved satisfactorily. I believe that, similar to what is happening in Belgium, we should support this American operation 1. for purely humane reasons; 2. in order to prevent German charity from being unduly exploited by the German friends of the Armenians, and larger amounts of German funds from wandering abroad that could be applied more usefully at home; 3. out of political consideration, in order to leave the odium against the Turks to the Americans.

1917-07-14-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14097; A 23271; pr. 15.07.1917 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the German Evangelical Missionary-Relief August Wilhelm Schreiber to the Foreign Office Berlin-Steglitz, 14 July 1917 As a member of the Board of Governors of the German Mission for the Blind in the Middle East, I received a letter dated 26 March of this year from the head of our home for the blind in Malatia, Ernst I. Christoffel, which contains Mr. Christoffel’s view of the situation and the future of the Armenians in Asia Minor. I take the liberty of sending a transcript of the same for your kind attention, without commenting on report. A. W. Schreiber Enclosure Copy. Report on the situation of the Armenians by Mr. Ernst I. Christoffel, Manager of the Malatia Home for the Blind, to Vicar G. Stövesandt, Berlin.

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Malatia, 26 March 1917 I am making use of an advantageous opportunity to send uncensored news through a dear visitor. Mainly with regard to the situation of the Oriental Christians, while I plan to write to Dr. Schr. on matters concerning the institution, and I would ask you both to exchange letters. The losses to the Armenian people during the period since the deportation in the summer of 1915 until today have surpassed 2 million. Some of them were killed in jail after suffering dreadful agonies of torture. Most of the women and children died of hunger, disease or were murdered en route to their place of exile. I cannot go into details. Should my dear friend, Andreas Krüger, have a chance to see you, he will more or less be able to fill in my naked sentences. The last wretched few of the deported eke out a miserable existence on the plains of Syria and northern Mesopotamia, and their numbers are depleting daily due to diseases and forced conversions. Only a few men are left. There are still a number of scattered or refugees in the Anatolian towns, most of whom, however, have converted to Islam. Apart from the forced conversions which took place in masses, a further characteristic symbol was the mass adoption of Armenian children. This was carried out for many thousands. They are being artificially turned into fanatical Mohammedans. The number of murders has decreased, but the process of annihilation has not stopped, merely taken on other forms. The people have been robbed of everything. Possessions, family, honour, religion, life. In the fall of 1915, a general pardon was issued for the Protestant and Catholic Armenians, probably at the instigation of the German and Austrian embassy, which was to protect them from being deported and leave them their possessions. It made no difference. It was mainly suppressed until the Protestant men were killed, nor did it have any practical significance for the women and children. With the exception of the German institutions, the preaching of God’s Word has ceased from the Black Sea as far as Syria; the Protestant parishes have been annihilated. Apart from individual exceptions (which could amount to 4-5), their preachers have been killed. Their chapels and schools have been taken away, desecrated or destroyed. The same applies to the Catholic and Gregorian Armenian parishes. It is ridiculous to place the responsibility on the Armenian revolutionary circles. From the Turkish point of view they erred greatly, not so from the Armenians’. It was not the nation as such which was guilty, but only a small minority. The Turkish government knows this just as well as everyone else in this country. It is incredibly difficult for us German missionaries that Germany is regarded by Christians and Mohammedans as being the originator of these atrocities. This opinion is being fed and fortified from the Turkish side. Should this accusation continue to hang over Germany, then it will prove to be the greatest impediment in the decades to come for German missions, both with regard to the Christians as well as the Mohammedans. News issued from Turkish circles or circles friendly towards the Turks must either be

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completely rejected or treated with the greatest distrust. Should this persecution ever be investigated, Germans should urge that 1. impartial, independent men are appointed to do so, who also understand the religious side of the question. 2. The Armenians who were forced to convert to Islam must be given the opportunity to reverse the conversion, and to do so without having to fear danger for their lives and limbs. 3. The relatives of those children staying in Mohammedan homes must have the right to demand that these children be returned to them. 4. The church and school buildings must be returned. 5. Real estate must be returned or its value recompensed. 6. The Armenians must be allowed to emigrate. 7. Christian services must not be stopped. We German missionaries here in the interior cannot do much more than to more or less passively assist Oriental Christendom in its great suffering. Action, however, is a matter for German Protestant Christendom and the German Protestant missionary circles. I am convinced that if the truth were known, a single cry of indignation would pass through our people. There is no doubt that that which was and is still being done to the Armenian people is the greatest crime in the history of the world. Will the people of the Reformation accept the complete annihilation of a Christian nation by a degenerate, inferior race as a given fact? Will the German Protestant Church, celebrating its Reformation centennial this year, have no word of protest about the fact that a sister church was destroyed by sadistic fanatics? That would neither German, nor Christian. Please make use of my letter wherever you can. Possibly you could let His Excellency Dryander see it. God, however, the Lord of the Church, should lead you always. And one more thing: we need financial assistance, and more assistance, and even more assistance. Missionary goods of the highest value are at stake. Please give my respects to your dear wife. Our beloved Lord be with you; your faithful, [Ernst I. Christoffel.]

1917-08-10-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14097. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Legation Councillor in the German Foreign Office, Göppert, to the Director of the German Christian Charity-Organisation for the Orient, Friedrich Schuchardt

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Berlin, 10 August 1917 Confidential! Dear Director Schuchardt, As I am sure you know, the propaganda concerning Armenian atrocities that was spread by our enemies for egotistic political purposes has died down somewhat in the recent past. Should this propaganda once again be used against us, our Minister in Bern would greatly appreciate being in a position to immediately publish comments in the form of letters or articles by Swiss citizens or other foreigners involved in Swiss relief aid for Armenians, which express the helpfulness and warm sympathy of German public officials and other Germans towards the suffering Armenians without going into detail on the atrocities themselves. Our opponents should be fairly powerless against such comments. Recently I discussed this matter with Director Axenfeld, who kindly agreed to supply me with suitable material concerning this matter that is available to him. If I am not mistaken, the “Charity-Organisation” also has Swiss and other neutral citizens among its employees, and I would be especially grateful if you, too, could provide us with any material you may have that is suitable for this purpose. You especially are well aware of what was done locally by Germans—both officially and privately—to assist the unfortunate Armenians; in this connection I need only mention Dr. Rössler’s name. With my deepest respect and best wishes, I remain, Yours sincerely, [Göppert]

1917-10-01-DE-001-E Source: PA-AA/R14097; A 34435; Private Correspondence From the Swedish nurse, Alma Johansson, in Stockholm to the Armenian, Father Arsenius Djendoyan, in Vienna Word-for-word transcript. Stockholm, 1 October 1917 Honoured Father Djendoyan, I received your letter and, oh, how I wish that I did not have to reply to it! It is always a pleasure to pass on good news, but how difficult it is if one can only report on blood and tears. You are correct in thinking that I lived in that house for some years, together with a teacher of 70 girls, until everything was over. Your brother-in-law, Bedros, was already killed several weeks before the massacre. They lived in a small house near the Catholic church. As far as I know, none of them is left. I saw your sister the eve-

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ning before the bombardment of the town began. The Armenian parts of the town were completely bombarded and burned down, and with the exception of some 100 women and children, who were found alive and then killed, the Armenians all died in their homes. Can you understand how it was to watch everything and be able to do nothing and yet still stay alive; can you understand that my soul is so wounded that it can never be healed here in this earthly life. I buried the first 3 martyrs among my children in the garden in front of the house. Then the government officials, the commanding officer and a staff of officers and a great number of soldiers came and took all the children away. Although they gave their word of honour to assure me that nothing would happen to them, those that were still alive are to be sent to Mesopotamia. All of my pleas and interventions were to no avail. I was only allowed to keep 3 of the older girls as servants; later I miraculously managed to get the 3 female teachers back, and because it was finally possible to travel I took them with me to Mamuret-ul-Aziz. All of the others, as well as the children from the orphanage and our employees, were all murdered; most of them were burned alive in their homes. There were some Armenians who succeeded in leaving Mush before the massacre, and some of them managed to flee to the Russians. Missionaries in Tiflis met them. As you know, Ariush was a Catholic village; some of the inhabitants of this village were able to hide and came out of hiding later on. Since the government was of the opinion that no more Catholics and Protestants were alive now, it issued permission to live for these people! Thus, Mush is practically in ruins. I do not know whether the Catholic Bishop is still alive; the former bishop, Vartan Vartabedian from St. Garabed, who was the representative bishop of the Gregorians, was deceived in the most awful manner and then shot by the doctor, Baladie, who also shot the pharmacist, Mekerditch, whom you surely know, and thus was shot by an Armenian doctor. But this is enough blood and tears for today. I have written very openly because I believe that you have already heard so much that you were prepared for such bad news. Please let me know whether this letter gets through! And if there are any Armenians there, please give them warmest regards from someone who, in suffering so much and for so many years, has become a part of your people as they have become a part of her. The roots of my heart are in Armenia; will I ever see it again? May God, who comforts all, comfort your heart. God and His grace be with you! With heartfelt greetings, I remain, Your faithful friend, [Alma Johannsen] Father Arsenius Djendoyan VII/2 Mechitaristenstrasse 4, Vienna. [Various comments by the Deputy Head of the General Army Staff, ending with:] The letter will not be sent. [v. Röder]

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1917-11-16-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14098; A 38774; pr. 20.11.1917 p.m.; BoKon/174; A4a, zu 2941. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Bernstorff) to the Imperial Chancellor (Hertling) No. 563 Pera, 16 November 1917 1 enclosure. Recently, the Turkish government increased the official material on the Armenian question by publishing an extensive collection of documents under the title, “The Revolutionary Targets and Machinations of the Armenian Committees Before and After the Constitution.” In the first part (pp. 1-41), the documentation briefly describes the foundation and work of the various committees up to the re-establishment of the constitution; in the second part (pp. 42-323), it first deals with the nationalistic propaganda of the Committees in the press and literature, in schools and among the clergy since 1908, as well as preparations for armed revolts. This is followed by detailed reports on the events in the Armenian parts of the country during the World War. The final part is composed of facsimiles of 122 pieces of evidence on 73 pages. Despite its one-sided views and its tendentious character, the documentation demands notice; how far the documents and the evidence can be considered as authentic pieces of evidence must be examined in individual cases. At any rate, however, when looking through this material one cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the machinations of the Armenian Committees have been gravely irritating the Turkish government for a long time, and that they justified the repressive measures taken during the war. How far the government overstepped the boundary to self-defence and/or how far it was also swayed by other motives, is another matter. Until now, the documentation in question has only been published in Turkish. A French version is being prepared; in addition, the editor of the magazine “Dadshar” (see report no. 453 dated 4 September of this year) published an excerpt in the Armenian language. A copy of the Turkish edition is presented as an enclosure.158 Bernstorff

158. It is not in the files. This document includes various comments by Göppert and Mordtmann on the state of publication.

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1918-02-22-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R13200; A 08402; 15252; pr. 23.02.1918. Correspondence From Maximilian Pfeiffer, Member of the Reichstag, to the German Foreign Office Berlin N.W. 7, 22 February 1918 Your Honour, I have the honour of presenting for your personal perusal a report written by Mr. E. Neuner on his journey to Turkey, which I have checked. Respectfully yours, Dr. Pfeiffer [The report especially includes critical remarks on the internal state of affairs, the political and economical situation in Turkey, as well as the relationship between Turkey and Germany. Only the part referring to the Armenians is printed here.] Enclosure Report on a Journey to Turkey. On 6 October, I travelled to Constantinople, accompanied by Dr. Pfeiffer and Dr. Brandenburg, and stayed there until 1 December. … Atrocities against the Armenians. Everywhere in Eskishehir, one saw traces of the systematic extermination of the Armenians by the Turks. As you know, there was no Armenian question whatsoever 20 years ago; this only came about due to England’s machinations. At that time, England constantly attempted to weaken Turkey and, to this end, the Armenians came at just the right time. For the first time, England awakened in them the thought of national independence. Through the British embassy in Constantinople, it sent bombs and all sorts of other means to the Armenians whom it had won over for this purpose, enabling them to revolt. The persecution of the Armenians by Turkey dates back to that time. At the beginning of the present war, several things supposedly happened in the area around Erzerum on the Caucasian border that justified Turkey in proceeding against the Armenians there. But during the course of the war the Turkish government extended its campaign against the Armenians to include all of Turkey. One of the main reasons for this may have been that the Armenians were practically the only race in Turkey that carried out trade and industry, and did so successfully, by

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which means they became very rich. Today, only few Armenians are left who have a larger fortune because the Turks confiscated the Armenians’ entire fortune, doing so in a manner that has nothing in common with the manner of a more or less civilised nation. Generally, the number of Armenians who died during the evacuations by Turkey is estimated at 2 million, but this figure appears to be quite low. In reality, there will probably be hardly anything left of these poor people by the end of the war. I once asked a higher Turkish public official, who was raised in Germany, whether the investigation of the Armenian question by the Entente powers at the end of the war would not be very unpleasant for Turkey. He replied that by that time there would certainly no longer be an Armenian question because there would be no more Armenians. This point of view can be heard everywhere and it is really characteristic of the Turkish government’s system. However because practically all of the material that exists with regard to these persecutions has already been passed on by the Jesuits into the hands of France as well as of the Holy See, investigating this question after the war could cause serious difficulties. The worst is that, in general, the Turks believe that these Armenian massacres were carried out in complete agreement with the German government. It would be extremely urgent that some sort of explanation be given by the Germans in which it is expressly emphasised that not the slightest influence has ever been exerted on Turkey’s domestic policy or, should this have been done, then only to prevent these disgraceful deeds. The roads in Asia Minor, particularly those leading to the Caucasus and in the Taurus Mountains, are practically littered with the skeletons of Armenians who died of starvation and exhaustion on the road. The worst is that the Turkish police, who had to accompany these Armenian marches from town to town on horseback, sold the young Armenian girls and boys to public houses everywhere for 4-6 German marks. In Mosul, where the Vali became famous for his cruelty, 300 Armenian women were to be distributed among the Turkish harems, and when they absolutely refused they were all thrown into a large well and left there to die. In the large towns that I visited, the houses that were built the best were formerly all the property of the Armenians. Today, all sorts of other people live in these houses. For example, in the beginning, during evacuation, the person concerned was informed that the house was required for military purposes and that he would have to move out. Although he received not one cent in remuneration, he had to continue paying the relatively high Turkish property and house taxes. If he was unable to pay these taxes, which posed no difficulty as long as he had the income from his house, the house was immediately auctioned off at a ridiculously low price to some interested Turkish person. In this way, all the houses became Turkish property and the Armenians were left empty-handed. Usually, though, particularly later on, a much simpler method was used: the Armenians were simply made to wander so long through Asia Minor until they starved and died, making it much easier for the state to come into the inheritance.

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The following is a typical case: the manager of the Ottoman Bank in Eskisherhir, a man of Armenian origin, but an Austrian protégé, had been given the fortune of an Armenian relative in a strongbox for safekeeping, when this relative was forced by the Turkish government to leave town. The strongbox contained securities as well as jewellery. At that time, the Turkish authorities issued a decree forbidding everyone from accepting any valuables whatsoever from Armenians for safekeeping. This bank manager wished to avoid trouble and decided to hand over the strongbox to the Turkish authorities. Before doing so, he asked some German friends to assist him in making a detailed list of the contents of the strongbox, which he had everyone sign, giving each of them a copy for safekeeping. He then took the strongbox together with a copy of the list of contents to the Mutessariff; this position corresponds approximately to that of the chairman of a German regional council. Two days later he received an order to go to the Mutessariff, who reproached him fiercely for daring to make such a fool of the Turkish authority. He [the Mutessariff] had opened the strongbox and found only old rubbish and two broken revolvers. The two revolvers had obviously only been put in to cause the man difficulties because of the ban against carrying weapons. The bank director then replied that that was not possible; the strongbox must have been raided and filled with these things because he had made an exact list of contents in front of witnesses before handing it in. The Mutessariff yelled at him, asking how he could dare accuse a Turkish authority of lying, and threw him out. A few days later he was arrested and forced to walk the distance of 420 kilometres to Haidar-Pasha. After he had spent some months there he had to appear in court, where he was sentenced to 6 months in jail because he had not given the strongbox to the Committee for the Administration of Armenian Wealth, but to the Mutessariff. Despite his being an Austrian protégé, and despite the fact that the entire matter was more than ridiculous, he had to stay in jail for these 6 months, and naturally he also lost his job at the bank. It is possible to cite many more examples of this nature, but it is not really possible to imagine the things that happen down there. It is dreadful. [From Bussche-Hadenhausen to Bernstorff (No. 165), 1 March] Pfeiffer, Member of the Reichstag, presented the enclosed report, written by his travelling companion, Mr. Neuner, on observations made by the two men during their stay in Turkey, for my personal perusal; I request its return after use. The report probably includes all the unpleasant occurrences that took place during the war in Turkey and actually became public knowledge or were at least reported in Pera. This results in an extremely grim picture of conditions in Turkey. Even if many of the reported details are correct, it appears, on the other hand, that many things have been interpreted in the wrong way or exaggerated at the source, and Baron von Fürstenberg appears to have played a great role here. As MP Pfeiffer’s views could spread to his party members, and such an unfortunate judgement on our Turkish ally could cause us trouble among the circles in the

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Reichstag in further carrying out our Turkish policy, I would prefer to receive a note from You on the report, which I could pass on in confidence to MP Pfeiffer himself or MP Erzberger. [From Bernstorff to Imperial Chancellor Hertling (No. 102), 6 June 1918] Your Excellency, I have the honour of returning, as requested, the report presented to Your Excellency by Mr. Pfeiffer, Member of the Reichstag, and presented to me together with Decree A 8402 dated 1 March, together with some remarks which I felt it necessary to make with regard to the contents of the report. [In his detailed reply, Bernstorff criticises Neuner’s remarks, as he has not given an objective view of Turkey and the conditions there. He writes the following concerning the Armenians:] So much has been said and written with regard to the “Armenian atrocities” that it appears to be pointless to make remarks on this question within the framework of a report that has been written in such a general way. It is, therefore, superfluous to comment on the remarks made in the report. It cannot be denied that the manner in which the Turks have attempted to handle and wind up the Armenian question was by no means irreproachable, and it gave Turkey’s enemies extremely extensive material for agitation. Indeed, things happened during the deportations of the Armenians that were inexcusable and, from a one-sided and malicious point of view, could lead to doubt concerning the cultural capabilities of the Turks. It must not, however, be overlooked that such movements do not occur without reasons, and it would be unfair to the Turks to present the Armenians as innocent victims of a senseless, religious hate that has no base whatsoever. The author of the report gives correct information on the emergence of the so-called Armenian question: how such a question did not previously exist and how anti-Turk powers such as England and Russia only created it by launching intensive propaganda among the Armenians. These powers gradually managed to create a centre of unrest in the Caucasus. At the beginning of Turkish operations against Russia, the long stirred hatred of the Armenians broke out, partly in the form of open rebellion, partly by spying for Russia and partly by obstructing and harassing the Turkish military bases. In addition, atrocities were also committed against the Muslim population. It is possible to explain why the Turkish government took drastic action against this terrible state of affairs. It had to view the Armenians as a people whose existence was suited for endangering the continuance of the Ottoman Empire. The fact that this approach was not limited to those Armenians living in the Caucasus can be explained by the economic power of the Armenians, who were previously the mainstay of economic life in Turkey. This power was a heavy burden for the Turkish population, and the Turks finally considered it the right time to free themselves of what they believed to be an unbearable economic pressure.

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1918-03-02-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14099; A 09444; pr. 02.03.1918. Directive. Translated by Linda Struck From the Undersecretary of State in the Foreign Office (Bussche-Haddenhausen) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Bernstorff) Berlin, 2 March 1918 In future peace negotiations with the Western allies these will without doubt bring up the Armenian issue and try to enforce as extensive autonomy as possible for the East Anatolian vilayets. In the face of such attempts, the position of Turkey will be much more favourable if it has presented tangible evidence before entering the negotiations that it intends to provide the Christian as well as the Muslim citizens of this province with equal, mild and fair treatment, and to help them with the restoration of everything that has been destroyed by the events of the war. The re-occupation of the area is being accomplished unexpectedly quickly. According to telegram No. 287 - 8961 - the seizure of Erzerum can be expected soon. As soon as this has taken place, the time will have arrived to demand that the Armenians who are still carrying weapons submit themselves voluntarily and to grant them in this case impunity and free return to their homes. Apart from the fact that this could lead to the avoidance of possible further difficult battles, a start can only be made in this way to educating the local Armenians, who represent an essential, valuable element of the population of these provinces, to become loyal subjects of Turkey once again. Furthermore, the planned financial assistance for the restoration of the villages and for the economic reconstruction of the vilayets should be distributed equally among Christians and Muslims. It would also be desirable to consider fetching back the Armenian inhabitants who have been banned to the heart of the empire. Apart from this, it would have a favourable effect on the general atmosphere among broad and influential circles if the Turkish government were willing to allow the German missions which formerly concerned themselves with the Armenians to send out representatives to spread charity to the local people, irrespective of their religion. Almost as important as the treatment of the Armenians is that of the Greeks. In the current situation there is no longer any reason to keep the Greek population deported from the coastal areas by the Black Sea away from there. Their speedy return should be arranged. I request Your Excellency, in your talks with the Grand Vizier, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and also with Enver Pasha, to develop this concept and to report on their response to your ideas. [Bussche-Haddenhausen]

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1918-03-16-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14099; A 11778; pr. 17.03.1918 a.m. Telegraphic Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Ambassador in Constantinople (Bernstorff) to the Foreign Office No. 371 Constantinople, 16 March 1918 Lately the Turks have once again been clumsy and slow in all questions related to the processing of public opinion in the Armenian matter. Despite all admonitions, censorship has only now intervened and forced the press either to be silent or to write articles that reassure. All of the Armenians were already scared to death. Almost every day they sent patriarchs, the papal delegates or other legates to me to ask for help. This time the Turkish government is really honestly endeavouring to prevent acts of violence from the top post down through the ranks. The most anyone can say is that the atrocities of the Armenian gangs seem to be a welcome justification after the fact for the Turkish government for its own earlier sins. The absence of the Grand Vizier is being greatly deplored because he alone would be in a position to take things firmly under control and issue declarations on Armenian policy. All other local, leading circles are presently practically in a frenzy of confidence of victory, nationalism and pan-Islamism despite the hunger of the poor. They truly seem to believe that all of the Mohammedans of Asia, be they Tartars, Georgians or Persians and so on, are merely waiting to reach out the hand of brotherhood to the Turks and to found an Islamic confederacy. According to Your Excellency’s telegram 379, the Grand Vizier is still of the same opinion, namely that he does not want to hold Batum at all costs (see my telegram 360). With this point of view he will have a hard time of it here among his fellow countrymen unless the Caucasians are prepared to free the way for the Turks to Baku. Presently, at any rate, Turkish ambition is heading more towards Baku rather than Batum. [Bernstorff]

1918-03-19-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14099; A 11280. Translated by Linda Struck Notes by the Foreign Office

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Berlin, 19 March 1918159 The former Secretary of State, Mr. Zimmermann, gave detailed information on the causes and the course of the Turkish anti-Armenian measures during a committee meeting on 29 September 1916. I will therefore refrain from relating all the details once more. There is just one thing that I would like to emphasise once again: the Turkish government was by no means unfavourable towards the Armenians at the outbreak of the World War, given the fact that the Armenians had fought on the side of the Young Turks against the Hamidian regime. But when Turkey joined in the war, it soon became obvious that the majority of the Armenian people were sympathising with the enemies of Turkey. This tendency was, of course, emphatically supported by London, Paris and Petersburg. Significant in this respect is the article in the Daily Chronicle dated 23 September 1915, which commends the Armenian people for having aligned itself since the very beginning of the war with the Entente, from the very beginning having fought on the side of the Entente without any haggling and bargaining and, thus, having gained the right to be regarded as a seventh ally. The further development of local disorders in East Anatolia up to the general revolution in the province of Van is sufficiently well-known. This consequently led to the issuing of the Turkish deportation orders. However, originally the Turkish rulers neither intended nor foresaw that the execution of the resettlement measures would lead to the destruction of a large proportion of the Armenian people. The definitely deplorable course that things took seems understandable, to a certain extent, if one takes into consideration the primitiveness of internal Turkish conditions, the overall lack of organisation, roads, means of transport, the minimal influence of the central government over the more distant provinces and, finally, the racial and religious conflicts. From the beginning of the Armenian crisis, the Foreign Office and the imperial representatives in Turkey did all that was diplomatically possible to alleviate the illfate of the Armenians. The German Imperial government went to the absolute limits with its pressure on the Turkish government. No German government would have taken on the responsibility of exposing the southeast flank of our global war position in our world-wide battle by causing a breach with Turkey on the grounds of the Armenian issue and, therefore, of leading our armies, which at the time were involved in heavy fighting in the East and the West, into a precarious situation. When, after conclusion of the cease-fire of Brest-Litovsk, the possibility of an evacuation of the Eastern Anatolian provinces, occupied at that time by the Russians, became imminent, we immediately contacted the Turkish statesmen regarding the question of the treatment of the Armenians and told them how important it was, in the interest of Turkey, also for its relations with her allies, that on the re-entry of the Turkish troops, attacks on the Armenian people be avoided and that from the very 159. Göppert’s note: This memorandum served as a basis for the explanations which the Deputy Secretary of State gave to the Reichstag on 21 and 22 March.

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beginning the foundations be laid for a peaceful relationship between the Christian and Muslim elements. The Minister of Finance and the Foreign Minister, with whom talks to this effect had been held in January during their stay in Berlin, showed their full appreciation and also declared that they were basically in agreement that after the recapture of East Anatolia, German charitable organisations would take care of the Armenians there. At the beginning of February, the news leaked through that the Russian troops had withdrawn from East Anatolia but that, in the area they had left, Armenian bands had formed under the leadership of English and probably French officers and were ravaging even worse than the Bolshevik bands in the Baltic provinces. Details of their misdeeds were published by the official Turkish telegraph services. In many cases this news was not believed in other countries and was understood to mean that the Turkish government was trying to make excuses in advance for their intended, ruthless acts against the Armenians. There is no justification for this view. Although other telegraphic messages from the Caucasus managed to penetrate other countries, up to now no enemy or neutral paper has published any news about Turkish excesses. Even the Swiss Aid Committee for Armenia has not received any such message. A telegram from the Geneva group of the Armenian Socialists to the International Socialist Office in Geneva, which relates new Turkish massacres following the evacuation of the country by the Russians, is not based on actual reports, but seemingly only on apprehensions. The fears are quite understandable in view of the events of 1915 and of the rage, which the latest atrocities by the Armenian bands must be provoking in the Turks. The German government has, therefore, not let any opportunity pass of reminding the Turkish government of the significance of the Armenian issue and has made certain suggestions as to how further bloodshed can be avoided and longterm peaceful conditions restored. In particular, it strongly recommended that the advancing troops should be kept under strict disciplinary control, that the Armenian bands be ordered to submit voluntarily, that they be granted amnesty if they do so, that equal consideration be given for the Armenians and the Muslims during the intended relief campaign for the East Anatolian provinces, furthermore, that the return of those who were exiled to the inner provinces of the Empire be at least resolved and initiated, inasmuch as such a return is not possible at the moment due to the current transport problems. The Turkish government has at least shown willingness to consider such propositions. After the binding assurances that the Grand Vizier, the Foreign Minister and his representative, Halil Bey, have given the Chancellor, the Secretary of State, von Kühlmann, and the Imperial Ambassador, we are entitled to have confidence that the government has decided to show leniency to the Armenians, will not hold the uninvolved population responsible for the atrocities committed by the bands, and will know how to avoid occurrences similar to those that happened during 1915. The imminent proclamation of an amnesty has been approved.

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A prerequisite for the restoration of a peaceful state of affairs is, of course, that the Armenians abandon their efforts towards independence; they should now realise the futility of these efforts and accept the reconciliation being offered by the Turks. According to reports from Constantinople, the Armenian side has even expressed a request for negotiations with the Turkish government. On the other hand, we hear from Switzerland that there, at the beginning of March, representatives of the Armenian associations passed a resolution to call upon their compatriots in the Anatolian provinces to put up their strongest possible resistance to Turkey. Telegrams to this effect have been sent via England to the Armenian committees in Tiflis. Apart from this, the representative of the Armenian Catholicos in Paris, Boghos Nubar Pasha, has been requested by telegram to ask the English government to support the fighting Armenians by sending in officers and troops. It is true that there are already French and English officers with the bands. It is obvious that the fate of the Armenian people in Eastern Anatolia is being gravely endangered by the irresponsible acts of the agitators. There is also a danger that, in the neighbouring districts of Kars and Ardahan, which, according to the Peace Treaty of Brest, are to be evacuated by the Russians, and whose people should decide on their future for themselves, conflicts will arise between Armenians and Muslims, which, as the Armenians are also in the minority here, will probably turn out to their disadvantage. It would give us great satisfaction if the German friends of the Armenians could use their influence to warn them of useless resistance, which would be tantamount to suicide, and persuade them to negotiate with the Turks about their submission.

1918-06-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14102; A 27194; pr. 25.06.1918 p.m. Translated by Vera Draack From the correspondent of the “Frankfurter Zeitung” in Constantinople, Paul Weitz, covering his journey throughout north-eastern Turkey [Transmitted from the Political Department of von Mackensen’s Army Command (J No. 9825) to Imperial Chancellor Hertling] Bucharest, 20 June 1918 On 14 April, at the often repeated request of the Imperial Ottoman Government, I began my journey on the steamship “Gül-Nihal.” At the same time, a representative of the Austrian-Hungarian press, Dr. Steiner, also took part in this journey. According to my information, for the Viennese “Reichspost,” the “Pester Lloyd,” the Berlin “Lokalanzeiger,” the Amsterdam “Algemeen Handelsblad,” and a Spanish

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newspaper. We were accompanied by the Turkish historian, Professor Refik Bey, who represented “Tanin,” as well as Captain Fahri Bey from the photographic department of the War School, and Vice-Consul Anders, who planned to journey to his former post in Erzerum. The attempts of the Sublime Porte to win over one or two journalists from neutral countries for the projected “Armenian expedition” was of no avail. Both the Dutch Minister in Constantinople, as well as his Swedish colleague disapproved of the Porte’s request. According to the personal assurances I received from both diplomats, they did not want representatives of public opinion in their countries to travel at their intervention to the East Anatolian provinces at the present time. Their worries increased that, possibly due to pressure from the Ottoman Government, their fellow countrymen might be prevented from giving a truthful account of the conditions, or that they would only be shown a restricted number of areas and events that were incomplete and given a one-sided picture of the situation there. I also held similar reservations. Lieutenant Colonel Sefi Bey, head of the II. Department at Turkish Headquarters (Communications), was entrusted with the planning of our route. He was also the one who took care of individual arrangements. I believed it necessary to tell him that I considered the fact that I had been selected to be proof of the Turkish government’s trust. Despite the fact that I had been advised often and strongly not to undertake the journey because of the arduousness involved, I did not wish to evade this task. I considered it my duty to take part, in order to use my limited powers to help allay the terrible accusations raised against Turkey by the entire civilised world on the occasion of the Armenian murders. But this could only happen if no one influenced me in any way, ensuring objective reporting on my part. Sefi Bey assured me of this. He reinforced his assurance by shaking my hand several times. There was a slight change in the programme right at the beginning of the journey. The “Gül-Nihal” was to call directly at Trebizond. Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha was on board with everyone from the General Headquarters. During the night of 15/16 April, he received a radio message concerning the fall of Batum. Enver Pasha decided, therefore, to land in Trebizond only briefly, in order to take Vehib Pasha, the Supreme Commander of the Caucasian Army, who was staying in Trebizond, on board, and carry on directly to Batum. We accepted his invitation to accompany him. After staying in this lovely port for three days, we steamed back to Trebizond. From the 20th to the 23rd, we stayed in the capital of the vilayet of the same name as guests of Vehib Pasha. Our freedom to move about was not restricted. We could inform ourselves here and there. Apparently, there were no Germans present, but there were some trustworthy Balts who remained behind after the retreat of the Russians. Among them were the Baltic Dr. Pieper, a captain in the medical corps, Berting, a pharmacist, and Grosset, a historian. Furthermore, the Greek Archbishop, Monsignor Chrysantos, a highly-educated and extremely tactful personality. Chrysantos studied at German universities for several years. He is completely familiar with

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our language. His honest sympathy for Germany was confirmed to me by various sources. He is not considered to be a friend of the Armenians. The Turks claim he is a friend of theirs. At any rate, he knew how to win their trust and, in this way, managed to save the large and flourishing diocese of Trebizond, which is based on an old, historical past, from being completely destroyed. I heard his name mentioned with honest respect in all of the camps, by all nationalities and religions. Ethnographically, Trebizond and the area surrounding it, which stretches far into the plateaus of the Pontic border mountains, has a pronounced Greek character. At the beginning of the campaign, the number of Armenians in the capital of the vilayet was estimated as being no more than four thousand. Despite repeated bombardments by the Russians, the town itself suffered little. The rambling, solidly built bazaar quarters are almost completely intact. Although barely four weeks had passed since the Turks reoccupied the town, things were very busy in the bazaar. Several thousand Ottoman Greeks had returned. A busy trade in soap, tea, sugar, petroleum, etc., was going on in the shops, mainly articles that the Russians had left behind. There were no more Armenians. The Armenian quarter was the only one that was almost completely devastated. Shortly before Turkey entered the World War, a small fraction of Armenians were able to save themselves in the area around Batum. Another, larger fraction was dragged off into the interior to meet their deaths, mainly due to deprivations; when the news arrived of the Armenian treason in the Van area, the rest was massacred in Trebizond. Only one female Armenian left in Trebizond, the daughter of a doctor, escaped the horrible death that her entire family suffered by marrying a Swiss citizen named Fleury, the owner of a hotel in Trebizond, at the last moment. Immediately after the occupation, the Russians named an Armenian, Count Bebudoff, as Commander of the town. Bebudoff took revenge on the Turks and a large number of the latter was executed without reason. Chrysantos, the Greek Archbishop, appealed to Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolayevitch several times, urgently protesting against Bebudoff’s fierce action. As a result, Bebudoff was finally recalled. General Schwartz was named Commander of the town. The persecutions stopped in Trebizond. The Muslim population was even given extended protection under the new regime. The Muslims themselves touchingly emphasised this general’s humane behaviour, which offered them the safety of their lives and their property. It was only after the Russian revolution that a terrible time broke out for the Muslims. Trebizond became the garrison for two Armenian regiments, made up mainly of gangs. Once again, arbitrary executions of Muslims became a daily event. The brave Archbishop knew how to intervene skilfully here as well. After a while, the blood lust of the Armenian regiments was stilled. I had several discussions with the Greek Archbishop. Hesitantly at first, but then with open frankness he assured me that the Turkish actions in Trebizond were without cause. The Armenian population there did not involve itself in political machinations. It was quite peace-loving, occupied itself with trade and was often more Turkish-minded than the Turks themselves.

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The distance between Trebizond and Erzindjan is 300 km. [This is followed by a description of the route and technical information.] We passed through six larger towns that were inhabited solely by Greeks; these have been razed completely, even the Greek churches. They were razed by the Turks for strategic reasons before the Russian occupation took place. The population was given time to leave the towns. The numerous Greek monasteries, situated in higher places and not along the line of Russian advance, were spared. Higher up you could see troops of workers here and there with their draught cattle, ploughing the tobacco and grain fields. [technical details follow] Djivislik, a larger town as the government once again set up a kaymakan there three days before our arrival, has also been destroyed. We lived in a reasonably kept house that had been taken over as a ‘konak’ [a public building in Turkey] by the government. Apart from the kaymakan, a telegraph official and ten gendarmes lived there. Currently the only inhabitants in Djivislik. The next day we continued our journey to Hamsikeni, 30 km away. The saddest signs of destruction were seen everywhere. Burned-down and deserted Greek villages in the valley. Higher up, some of the villages have been spared, provided they cannot be reached directly from the road. Hamsikeni itself offers the same hopeless sight. We spent the night there and left for Ardassa the next morning. The journey passes through the extremely picturesque landscape of the Sigana Pass. Magnificent areas where even today there are still dense forests of pines, spruces and alders. Halfway along the road from Hamsikeni to Ardassa, the Russians built two powerful sawmills. They have been shut down. They seem to have been run electrically, just by the hydropower [of the] Harschid River. Ardassa is a little town that has now been destroyed. Only two houses were partly intact. [local details follow.] There was also nothing but destruction along the way to Gümüshkhana. Not a person was in sight during the entire journey. There is no Greek population beyond Ardessa. The villages there were already heavily populated by Armenians, mixed with Turks. For the first time, we become aware of the fact that Armenians have more skills than just in the field of trade and finance. The Armenian on the plateaus of Erzindjan and Erzerum, all the way down to Mush, Harput and the Van Lake area, is mainly a strong and healthy countryman. A farmer in the complete sense of the word. This long-established Armenian farming community has mainly contributed towards developing the rich natural resources of the East Anatolian provinces in the Turkish Empire. The wonderful fruit plantations that often run on for kilometres on the way to Gümüshkhana, which were now showing the most beautiful blossoms, and the rich, adjoining fields, that were obviously intensively cultivated but now lay fallow, bear witness to the relatively high cultural state that must have reigned here before new conditions made way for the most crippling circumstances. The Armenian farmers were peaceful, willing to work and represented an important source of tax for the Treasury. They generally used weapons only for defence,

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when the rapacious and lazy Kurdish riff-raff came down from the mountains to rob them of the fruits of their hard labour. There are no traces left of Armenians in Gümüshkhana. The Armenian quarter, which gives proof of the wealth of the former owners, is in a reasonably good state. Some of the Armenians have been exiled to the western end of Asian Turkey, but most of them were killed in Gümüshkhane itself. We stayed for a few hours in what was once a very bustling town. Sitting together with Kurdish notables in a coffee house, the most dreadful details of the Armenian massacres were told with rare frankness. The fact was mentioned again and again that there was not a single Armenian left in the area in question, something which we noticed more than once while continuing our journey. We stopped in Pir-Achmed, a hamlet consisting of just a few houses. The Russian Supreme Command had been situated there for quite some time. The road forks behind Pir Achmed: one fork leads to Erzerum, the other to Erzindjan. Early the next morning we moved on again. At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, after having passed several deserted villages that had been burned down, we reached the little town of Kösse. There are also traces of great destruction here. It was inhabited by Kurds. Only a few beggars were out. The Commander of this base assigned us the finest house as a place to spend the night, although there was not a single window left in it. The Russians had set up a large supply camp in Kösse, completely surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence, as well as an airport. A small Turkish convoy is guarding the supplies that have been stacked up in tents and left behind. Our journey continued the next day and took us as far as Sinbadur, a small Kurdish village about 3 kilometres off the road that has been spared by the events. It is made up of some 50 stone huts. It is inhabited by Kizil Bushis, a variety of the Shiite religion with a leaning towards Yezidism. We spent the night in a roomy reception hall in the house of the village elder. Soon all of the male population in the village had gathered together, both inside and outside the hall. They brought large quantities of eggs, milk, honey and did not cease to reiterate their sympathy for Germany. The people were very warm-hearted and invited us to stop at their village on our way back. They declined any money and were only prepared to accept a few tins of sardines. [Description of difficulties while travelling follows.] Generally, the Sipik-Kor Pass cannot be crossed from the beginning of December until the middle of May. Boards are put up to keep out the rest of the world during that time. While descending, we came across several smaller villages that had been burned down. At 3 o’clock on the morning of 30 April, we finally reached Erzindjan, the capital of the independent Mutessarifate of the same name. Nothing had been prepared for our stay, despite all kinds of telegrams that were supposedly sent and orders supposedly given. With chattering teeth—it was two degrees below zero—we waited at the telegraph station until 6 a.m. Only then were the two Turkish captains who accompanied us successful in obtaining quarters for us in the ‘Belediye’ (the mayor’s office).

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At first, after the depressing experiences of the past week, Erzindjan appeared to be a friendly change of atmosphere. The layout of the town is lovely, not typically Turkish at all. The main square, with its various government buildings built in the Turkish monumental style, would grace any city. All of the houses are surrounded by lovely gardens. Modern Erzindjan is considered as having been founded by Mushir Zekki Pasha. For almost 20 years, until 1908, he played the role of a viceroy there. The army corps in Diyabekir, Harput and Erzerum were under his command. At the same time, the Sultan had made him the head of the 66 Hamidie regiments, which were founded in 1897. He had a great deal of initiative. He not only built magnificent barracks that leapt to the eye, but also two cloth factories, a leather factory, as well as others. Zekki Pasha had public parks laid out in different places in the delightful area surrounding the town, which is crowned by snow-capped mountains. Various figures are given for the population. It is approximately correct that, before the war, there were about 20,000 Muslims in Erzincan, including 2,000 Kurds from the Dersim area and 10,000 Armenians. According to information from government authorities there, the town is now inhabited by 3,000 Muslims. Those who had fled, in part, to the Kurdish area are now slowly returning. During our three-day stay we paid a visit to the Mutsharif (chairman of the regional council). An intelligent Arab, who had also just arrived and, until then, been working in administrative offices in Syria. He was unable to give us his own opinion of the events of the past three years. He merely gave us a list of the crimes that had been committed by Armenians. For the sake of politeness I accepted the list, but I refuse to make use of it. It is so obviously biased that it cannot fool anyone. We received almost the exact same list from the military commander. I asked how many Armenians were still in Erzindjan or had returned, and both gentlemen answered: none. We convinced ourselves of the dreadful truth of this information by looking for ourselves. The Muslim town suffered relatively little damage to its buildings during the events. The Armenian town, which is a little way away, has been completely destroyed and is deserted. It gives the impression of being a huge cemetery. Only parts of the outer walls of the houses are still standing. Their height and the circumference of the houses allow us to determine the prosperity of the Armenians there. One afternoon, gendarmes accompanied us to the Armenian quarter. We looked at the inside of a number of houses, all of which were nothing but mounds of rubble. Here and there, the gendarmes removed the top layer of rubble. We saw human body parts, heads, hands, feet, everywhere. They wanted to show us more of this human tragedy, but I ordered the group to turn back. The buildings of two of the three Armenian churches in the quarter are still standing, but inside the buildings everything has been completely wrecked, including the floors. Wild dogs run loose there. The third church, which houses the bishop’s buildings, is a mound of rubble. As we found out without question on the spot, strong Armenian gangs under the leadership of Mrat Pasha took hold of the town and the plateau after the Russians retreated from Erzindjan at

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the end of January 1918. The Armenians carried out a reign of terror. The Muslim population was taken in groups of 25-30 men, women and children to the Armenian quarter, where they disappeared. One afternoon we took a trip to the parks that had been laid out along the bridge over the Euphrates River. The gendarmes told us how, in 1915, they drove the Armenian population, headed by the Bishop of Erzindjan, to the Euphrates and drowned it. Kurds kept watch along both banks, shooting anyone who dared to save themselves. We were shown the places where the victims of this atrocious inhumanity were driven, almost naked in the wintry cold, by their tormentors into the floods. We also visited the huge barracks in the surrounding area, in which 1,500 Armenians were literally slaughtered, all at the same time. One of the gendarmes set the number of people he himself had killed at 50, another at 27. These people boasted of this as if it were a glorious deed, without our asking about it. We were careful not to investigate in any one direction in order to avoid any hint of bias. At any rate, one thing appears to be irrefutable: the Armenian town of Erzindjan was already a victim of destruction in 1915. As I was also able to find out without a doubt, the Turkish Muslim population neither in the Mutessarifate of Erzindjan nor in the Vilayet of Erzerum took part in the Armenian massacres. Where this was the case, it was only a matter of an insignificant number of exceptions. In Constantinople, organised gangs under the leadership of the Cirkassian, Hassan, gendarmes, but above all Kurdish troops must be regarded as the actual instigators of the massacres. Both here and often during the rest of my journey the true regret of the simple Turkish folk for the annihilation of the Armenians was expressed to me. In the towns, they often carried out indispensable trades for which no substitute has as yet been found. The Turkish government authorities, however, could give a certain “bona fide” reply to inquiries sent to them from Istanbul in 1915, whether it was true that large Armenian massacres had taken place in Erzindjan, “There is absolute peace in Erzindjan; no massacres have occurred here.” After all, the bloody deeds were carried out 3-4 kilometres from Erzindjan. We spent several very pleasant hours in the company of an Austrian-Hungarian mountain artillery and shooting school convoy that had been set up 14 days ago under the command of Captain Hupka in an Armenian village several kilometres from Erzindjan. The village had been burned down and was deserted. The good men, who came from Styria and Tyrol, had displayed great skill in repairing a kiosk found there that had formerly belonged to Mushir Zekki Pasha, the former military Supreme Commander, making it fit for habitation. Both Captain Hupka, the leader of the convoy, as well as his three officers who came from the opposite direction from the south via Harput to Erzindjan, told us that the Armenian population had been radically annihilated everywhere there as well. On the morning of 3 May, we left Erzindjan. Three Armenian towns situated on the plain offered the same view as the previous ones. We covered almost 70 kilome-

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tres that day because our horses were well rested. Sassa, which we passed through, was a scene of devastation, as was Bidye, where we spent the night. On the 4th we continued our journey to Mamahattun (Terdjan). A larger town with a mixed Turkish and Armenian population. Once again, a scene of devastation, only a few houses were still in a fair state. We stayed at the Kaymakan’s. He had only arrived from Constantinople a week earlier. He knew nothing of this area, nor could he tell us anything of what had happened in the past. Only several Muslim families that had returned were to be seen. The historical monuments of the town from the Seljuk regime were also partly affected by the events. Before reaching the town, there are two large Russian cemeteries with several hundred soldiers’ graves. These are still in good condition. The insides of the small, wooden, Russian churches with their double crosses that were built have already been emptied. Towards noon on the 5th we left for Karabijik. This area is barren and the ground is rocky. The smaller towns we passed through were deserted and destroyed. [Details of a train built by the Russians follow.] On the morning of the 7th we left Karabijik and arrived in Ilidya at about 10 a.m., a town situated at the entrance to the Erzerum plateau. We stayed there until about 2 p.m. Ilidya, a village with a population of 4,000, served the wealthy inhabitants of Erzerum as their summer village. Two carbonated baths with huge basins have been preserved. Otherwise, Ilidya has practically been destroyed and its population, consisting mainly of Armenians, no longer exists. Only a few coachmen and military troops passing through had stopped to rest there in order to enjoy a refreshing bath, as we did. A Mudir with five gendarmes, who had arrived the previous day, made up the entire living inventory of what had once been a flourishing bath. The plateau of Erzerum that lies ahead of us measures a length of about 24 kilometres, while its width varies between 12 and 15 kilometres. You can see eight towns. All of them were inhabited by Armenian farmers. We pass through three of them on our journey to Erzerum. They are completely deserted; only the outer walls of the houses remain standing. The other villages on what is otherwise a fertile and blessed plateau will no doubt be in a similar state. There was not a whiff of smoke to be seen anywhere. At 6 p.m. we reached Erzerum. The Military Commander and Deputy Vali there, Lieutenant Colonel Redjeb Bey, an Albanian, had ensured that we would be given good quarters. We stayed in Erzerum for four days. The authorities there were extremely accommodating. Before the war broke out, Erzerum had a population of about 48,000, of which 12,000 were Armenians. Some parts of the town had suffered from the bombardment by the Russians. I found the Armenian business quarter, situated in the main part of the bazaar, to be completely destroyed. The outer walls of the Armenian churches were preserved. The insides had been emptied and turned into supply camps and other depots. At the time we were there, 1,500 Muslim families—close to 9,000 people—were able to return to Erzerum.

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There was not a single Armenian left in Erzerum. Only one inhabitant of Christian faith was left, Georgios, a Greek who was assigned to serve us, but relieved of this duty only 24 hours later, no doubt out of fear that he might tell us more than the authorities would have liked. The authorities attempted to force upon us a list of the atrocities committed by the Armenians. However, the Armenian massacres already began in 1915. The proximity of the Russian border aided the escape of a number of Armenians. Others were dragged off into the interior, and about 6,000 were killed. Today, three years later, the buildings housing Armenian businesses, structures made of solid stone, are still full of a penetrating, musty smell. The Armenians who sought refuge in the large Armenian cathedral were all slain. The Armenians occupied Erzerum after the retreat of the Russians from the end of January until 9 March 1916. Under the leadership of French officers, commanded by Colonel Morel, they now began to carry out atrocious acts. 750 Muslims, women, men, children, were locked in a han, 500 in one on the opposite side. Then, petrol was poured over both houses and they were set on fire. Until now, these houses had not been opened. In our “honour,” this was to be done in the presence of Redjeb Bey. I will never overcome the terrible impression I had as one charred corpse after the other appeared under the rubble that was shovelled away. Locations full of horror and dismay, as if the vulcanised ground had to call up eruptions of unspeakable passion and revenge-filled hatred among humans. When the Turks unexpectedly marched into Erzerum on 9 March, those Armenians that had not been withdrawn, who attempted to defend themselves in a fortress-like han, were bombarded and later killed during the surrender. A great number of details could still be given, but that would be going too far in this report. They may perhaps complete the general picture that is based on the above facts, but they cannot alter it. On the 11th we left Erzerum. [Description of journey and details of the train follow.] Our only longer, almost 24-hour, unfriendly stay was in Chorassan. The town is completely burned down. Many Armenians were able to reach the Russian border and pass on into the Caucasian area. Human culture has suffered a catastrophe in these countries, and my pen refuses to describe it. During the course of more than three weeks we covered almost 600 kilometres, a corridor of death such as has not been recorded anywhere else in history. If only because this path, that can be given no epithet, continues to the south towards Bitlis and Van, and to the east towards Baiburt, with the same barbaric devastation and bestial massacres. The last thing I want to do is formulate a charge or a defence. That is not my task. A historical record in the near or distant future will have to take on this task. An individual is not capable of doing this, no matter how great the insight is he believes to have won and despite any circumstances he believes to have taken account of. But it is my duty to give a bare description of what I have seen, without any exaggeration whatsoever, on the contrary.

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1918-09-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14104; A 38986; pr. 18.09.1918 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Consul in Trebizond (Bergfeld) to the Imperial Chancellor (Hertling) No. 44/J.No.secr. 81 Trebizond, 1 September 1918 Based on the Armenians’ attitude and convictions at the beginning of the war, their evacuation—not just that of the men, but of entire families—was, in my opinion, a compellingly necessary military measure. The Greek movement on the Black Sea coast proved that the actions of the gangs cannot be stamped out as long as they receive support, accommodation and food from the co-nationals living in the area in which they are active. Anyone who knows the Orient will agree with me that the Armenians are blessed with hardly a trait that humans find attractive. Despite this, the excesses that took place during their deportation—the mass murders of the men, numerous rapes of women and children, and theft of their possessions—cannot be condemned severely enough. They also offer enemy governments the desired opportunity to appear before their own people and neutral countries as an advocate of general humanity. During the occupation of East Anatolia, Russian military organs repeatedly stated that our enemies will insist that the Armenian question be treated during peace negotiations and demand at least reparation of the injustice done to the Armenians. We may also expect that the Entente governments will not miss this opportunity to act as the champions of oppressed people, if only for purely tactical reasons. They will be able to count on the sympathy of the entire civilised world. Against all this, the position of the Sublime Porte will be so difficult that it will hardly be able to give a credible reason to explain or apologise for these excesses to the extent they actually took place. In addition, the differential treatment that is accorded today not only to the few Armenian men still living, but also to their women and children and their possessions, must strengthen the obvious assumption that the Turkish government was at least not unhappy about the attacks against the Armenians that led to their almost complete annihilation in East Anatolia, and still holds this opinion today. This attitude will also make our position more difficult during peace negotiations. For these reasons, I consider it to be in our interest to urgently request that the Turkish government now makes it clear by means of a more just attitude towards the Armenians that their deportation was an unavoidable military measure, the consequences of which should be toned down as far as possible, providing it does not

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concern people whose hostile machinations against the state have been proven in court. No doubt the most important decision in this direction would be to return to the Armenian property owners or their heirs the right of disposal over their property. If it is considered impossible to grant them the right to return to their former place of residence, they should at least be given general permission to make use of their properties by selling or leasing them and, to this end, allow them to return to their home towns temporarily. Most of them will, no doubt because of lack of funds and out of fear of accidents on the journey, make no use of such permission, but instead restrict themselves to granting power of attorney to make use of their property. It could be worth considering whether to publicly auction their properties off by the authorities and to pass the proceeds on to the owners or their heirs. However, the occurrences that take place when Armenian movables are sold by the authorities do not encourage such a procedure. The thefts and misappropriations that take place during these measures go far beyond anyone’s imagination. To give just one example: a number of wealthy and well-furnished Armenian families lived in Trebizond. They were forbidden to sell any of their possessions before they were deported, and this ban was carried out with ruthless severity. At the same time, the proceeds from the sale of those few items that had not been lost to the authorities before the auction were not enough to cover the costs of the porters. Furthermore, the special regulation that applies to Armenians, forbidding them to move from one town to another without the permission of the Ministry of the Interior, should be revoked, at least with regard to women and children. Their parity of treatment with the remaining Turkish subjects who, insofar as there are no reservations, receive a passport from the provincial government, would, in my opinion, take the interests of public safety sufficiently into account and remove the omen of differential treatment for Armenian women and children as well. If the Sublime Porte would act in this manner merely to give the Armenians their rights, it would at least take away the main foundation, should our enemies stand up for the interests of Turkish Armenians during peace negotiations. I have sent a report with the same wording to the Imperial Embassy in Constantinople. Dr. Bergfeld

1918-10-18-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14104; A 44066; pr. 19.10.1918 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the Director of the Orient and Islam Commission of the German Protestant Mission Board, Karl Axenfeld, to the German Foreign Office

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Berlin, 18 October 1918 With the permission of Chief Religious Official Count von Lüttichau, I enclose a transcript of the report he gave us on observations he made with regard to the Armenian people during his journey in the summer of 1918. At the same time, I take the liberty of requesting that special note be made of his remarks from page 7 onwards. It is to be expected that, when the Entente has control of Constantinople and Turkey, it will soon not only take measures and make programmatic remarks on behalf of the Armenians, but also attempt, in publications, to place the blame for the fate of these unfortunate people on Germany. There can also be no doubt that this attempt will receive a great deal of support from Turkish circles which, as in the past (see especially the bottom of page 8 in the enclosure), like to shift the responsibility from itself to the more powerful adviser and ally. With regard to this, I would respectfully like to note that there is a desire in our circles that the German government should forestall such new attacks on Germany’s honour by publicising the recorded proof of its continuous attempts to prevent and ease the suffering of the Armenians, as soon as circumstances permit this. I refer to my petition of the 9th inst. and the enclosed letter from Mr. Ernst J. Christoffel in Malatia who, on pages 3/4, reports that the generally circulated conviction that Germany was the secret instigator of and the principal at fault for the treatment of the Armenians makes up the worst obstacle to all Christian activities in the Orient, but also of all economic and other cultural activities carried out by Germans. Whatever form Germany’s future relationship with the Middle East may take, we consider it to be imperative and urgent that Germany’s honour be saved publicly in this respect. We cannot judge whether it is still possible to move the Turkish government to agree at the last moment by means of a public announcement to improve the Armenians’ situation by assuring them of the safety of their lives and their faith. Parallel to accusations against Germany, we German Christians are also being accused abroad that, due to the blindness caused by the war and our national egoism, we indifferently and lethargically ignored the greatest murder of Christians of all times. Therefore, we have already planned a publication that is to present our attitude to those events and what we attempted to do, holding nothing back. Until now, we have not made such a publication out of patriotic considerations, but as soon as the protection of the German-Turkish alliance can no longer be taken into account, we do not wish to hesitate any longer because we can no longer tolerate this spot on the reputation of the German Christian name throughout the world. D. K. Axenfeld Enclosure The Armenian People. Report by Pastor Count von Lüttichau on his personal observations and conclusions during the summer of 1918.

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The Facts. On my journey throughout the East during the months of May to August 1918, I stopped in Aleppo three times, for a total of eleven days. I was in Mardin for three days, in Diyarbekir for two, in Osmania (Arghana) for one, in Arghana Maden for three, in Mamuret-ul-Aziz for six, and in Malatia on the Euphrates River for ten days. I had many opportunities on this journey, and not just in Armenia itself, to speak to those who experienced as eye and ear witnesses the catastrophe of the Armenian people, which began 3½ years ago and is still not completely finished. The Sources. I spoke to men with all kinds of professions and status, officers and soldiers, missionaries and doctors, especially the German consul in Aleppo, Mr. Rössler, who deserves great credit for his in-depth study of this dreadful tragedy. I spoke to both friends and enemies of the Armenians, outstanding Armenians themselves, such as the former Armenian-Catholic Bishop of Erzerum, Monsignor Joseph Melkhisedekh, who lives the life of a slave in Malatia; two Protestant-Armenian clergymen in Mezré, and others, but also Turks, especially the former Mayor of Malatia, Mustafa Agha, an Old Turk, and the first and most well-known Mohammedan clergyman in Malatia, Fezi Hodja, a very intelligent and wise man. I did not need to inquire into the judgement of the governing Young Turk circles: I was well aware of it. It was important to me to be able to determine that the opinions of all of these men, who were so very different with regard to race and nationality, education and status and whose political and religious interests were as extreme as could be, were the same in all the important points, both with regard to the course of the catastrophe itself and to the figures covered by its expanse. For this reason I dare to inform you fully of my own judgement, which I was able to form. The Extent of the Catastrophe. It is of no significance whether the figure given for the total losses of the Armenians is placed at one million (Consul Rössler) or two million (Christoffel) because surely there was never really any authentic information concerning the figure for the size of the Armenian population. The figure cited by Preacher Ehmann in Mezré—1½ million—is estimated as being the closest to the truth. Far more important than the total figure, which is hard to check, is the percentage determined in the individual areas. In the eastern provinces, that is excluding Constantinople and Smyrna and other places in western Turkey, 80-90% of the entire population and 98% of the male population is no longer alive. These figures are probably correct. They can be checked town by town and correspond to my personal impression and observations. I met many boys and quite a few old men. I very seldom saw men at the height of their vigour, who stood out by their very existence. In Constantinople itself almost all of the Armenians were spared; the same applied for Smyrna. On the other hand, they were driven out of almost all the smaller towns and villages in western Turkey (for example, in Brussa, Ismid, Adapazar, Bardizag, Yenidye and others), in European Turkey out of Rodosto,

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Adrianople and so on, so that one may say that, taking into account the Armenians who were left in the capital, in total at least 80% of the population was annihilated. This does not exclude the Catholics and Protestants; rather, it includes them. The Decree in Favour of Catholics and Protestants. The famous decree that ordered these two groups to be spared—the successful result of diplomatic attempts on the part of the Holy See and the papal delegates in Constantinople, and the Imperial German Embassy—was held back for a notoriously long time, as for example in Malatia, until these people had also been annihilated. The implementation of governmental decrees in the interior is left completely to the tyranny and the unscrupulousness of the public authorities. Control at a later stage is not possible. Apparently, the decree was not meant seriously, but represented a kind of pay-off for the bothersome grumblers, rather like baksheesh, without which the Oriental cannot exist. The fact is that Catholics and Protestants also suffered namelessly. There were a great many martyrs among them. The Clergymen. As far as the clergy are concerned, they have been almost completely annihilated. Monsignor Melkhizedekh is the only Armenian clergyman in Malatia. And yet, he does not even belong there; rather, his seat is in Erzerum. There is one Protestant clergyman in Harput and one in Mezré and, as far as I know, two completely subordinated Gregorian priests; furthermore, a Franciscan monk of Armenian origin. There are no more clergymen in Diyarbekir, nor in Arabkir and so on. The few, however, who are left over are so worn down, so intimidated, some of them have lost their mental and spiritual strength, so that there can no longer be any question of their leading their people. The Catastrophe Continues. The total number of losses has not yet been reached. Although persecutions are officially at an end, executions still take place here and there. The prisons are filled. Many people are executed by a court’s decision, rightly or wrongly: one or two almost every day during my stay in Mezré. It is easy enough to find a reason. But the executions are the least of it. Countless people starve. These unbearable images of misery were repeated in every town in the east, and usually it was the Christian population. This explains why this terrible need caused a dreadful dullness, that cannot even be called fatalism, but is almost stupefaction, and as a result of the continuous suffering a nervous tension, from which these unfortunates suffer almost more today than they did three years ago under the persecution itself. I also found shocking proof everywhere for this morbid nervousness. The Number of Those Remaining. It is difficult to say how high one should set the figure for those left over from the deportations. At the end of the year 1916, Consul Rössler set a figure of 100,000 for

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those left over from the deportations in the eastern provinces. Since then, however, many more have been killed or died of hunger, so that the figure would have to be much lower today. It seems to me that this picture has been painted too black. Here, too, it will only be possible to base estimations on individual districts. Supposedly, there are practically no Armenians left in the Vilayet of Bitlis, and only individually scattered groups in the Vilayet of Erzerum. I was unable to learn anything about Van. At least 10,000 people are still alive in the Vilayets of Diyarbekir, Elaziz and Sivas, 4,000 just in Malatia, but probably most of them in Aleppo: at least 20,000 Armenians still live in this district. It is understandable that they were able to survive in places where German and American missions are situated, such as in Sivas, Malatia, Mezré, Marash, Aintab and so on. The Armenian boys were noticeable in all the towns, making themselves useful everywhere and leading a completely wild and neglected existence. The number of orphans that have been accommodated in Turkish houses cannot be estimated. Scattered groups are also to be found in the mountains. The Behaviour of the Kurds. It is interesting that in the area of the Dersim Kurds not only those Armenians who already lived there in a serf-like kind of relationship were spared, but that it was just this Kurdish tribe that safely led large groups of Armenians through its territory and across the Russian border, certainly not out of love for the Christians, but out of hatred against the Turks. Unfortunately, this obligingness has now stopped since the Dersim people no longer have the Russians to protect their backs and, due to diplomatic and extremely wise measures by the last commander on the Caucasian front, Isset Pasha, they once again became obedient to the Turkish government. A feeling of their own insecurity and fear of the infamous punitive expeditions that were previously carried out against them led them, at the order of the Ottoman government, to turn over all the Armenians that are still hiding with them. Naturally, this immediately results in executions. About 500 women and children who came from Dersim territory are in Mezré. The Dersim people are not the only ones who are loyal to the persecuted. In the wild mountains between Malatia and Urfa, for example, a Kurdish robber-chief, Bozo, ruled for a long time. Whenever he could catch them, he enjoyed undressing Turkish officers and soldiers, entertaining Armenian families in this manner. The Behaviour of the Old Turks. This government measure also caused great displeasure among the Old Turk population. Mustafa Agha, the mayor of Malatia of many years’ standing, himself saved the lives of many Armenians. The old-established population was in no way fanatic. It is understandable that, in the end, many of them were pulled along and, following their lowest instincts, took part in the atrocities out of acquisitiveness and brutal greed. Every Armenian man was a walking gold depot, so to speak, and every Armenian woman exposed, the great mass outlawed. No wonder that many of them allowed themselves to be led to do things that they would otherwise not have thought of.

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The Causes. I now come to the causes. There is no doubt in my mind that an order was sent from Istanbul, not in writing or by telegram, but orally through couriers with secret orders. I was told so accordingly in Malatia by Mustafa Agha, for example, who personally attended that infamous meeting in which a secret courier from Istanbul brought the order to annihilate the deportees. The deportation was a military measure. The reason for this measure is known to everyone and certainly justified. But the annihilation of the deportees, which succeeded only too well and too thoroughly, was a political measure by the government. I am more certain of this than ever. The time had been chosen as well as possible. Battles were raging in the Dardanelles. It was a question of to be or not to be, not only for the Turks, but also for us. The German government was bound hand and foot, especially because at that time it was heavily indebted to Turkey because it could not fulfil its promises as long as the path through the Balkans was not free, and Turkey had entered the war solely on the basis of these. Our representation in Constantinople did what it could, right up to the limit, yes, even beyond the limit of what was possible, if not to say permitted, in the national interest. Turkey acted in all consciousness, in a self-satisfied manner, without caring about the judgements of either friend or foe, and carried out what Abdul Hamid had wanted, but could not do at that time. Everywhere on my journey I came to realise that this was a very systematic procedure, a methodicalness that was even more astonishing in this unmethodical country. Germany’s Guilt. Not just our enemies, but also the broad masses of the people put the guilt on us, a burden that we will continue to bear heavily for a long time. The Armenians themselves believe so ineradicably in our guilt that one would like to go red with anger and shame. How could things go so far? It is clear that we are indirectly guilty because we compelled Turkey to enter the war, thus creating the only situation in which this was possible, but this is of no consequence. Far more serious is the fact that higher German officers unfortunately repeatedly made remarks that caused severe damages, without being aware of the political consequences, but simply applying a strategic military point of view. It may well be possible that such remarks were deliberately provoked and then intentionally spread about. Turkey has mastered this art when it needs someone to take on the responsibility and appear to the rest of the world as the scapegoat. It must be admitted that mistakes were made here, not from any bad will, but out of a lack of insight. But I am also now certain of what I was previously convinced of, namely that the slogan, “Germany wants it” was spread about by governmental circles themselves. For example, the following was reported to me in Malatia by ear witnesses: when in the late autumn of 1915 or spring of 1916 Hashim Bey, the Member of Parliament for Malatia, returned to Malatia from his parliamentary session in Constantinople, he gathered together all the notabilities of the town to inform them that he himself had been present when the German Ambas-

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sador appeared one day at the Sublime Porte to pass on official congratulations in the name of his government to the Imperial Ottoman government on the extensive implementation and excellent success of the annihilation of the Armenian people. Such shamelessness exceeds all limits. It must be considered how cut off the towns in the east are from the rest of the world. Life in Malatia is like living on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Even in the days when a new sultan succeeded to the throne nothing definite could be found out. Not a single report on the war upset the peaceful contentment of the owners in that rich area. If someone arrives there who can point to his eyes and his ears and deliver a report from Stambul, then it is just as true as if the Prophet had spoken. The main fault lies herein. However, the files on the catastrophe have not yet been closed, and it must be strongly hoped that we, too, will speak out again. But Germany has protested long enough and strongly enough: to the Sublime Porte, but not in public. A time must come in which that which has been neglected must be made up for, otherwise the Turkish captain who sits between Malatia and Sivas and meticulously records in a chronicle all the shameful deeds carried out by his countrymen would, in the end, turn out to be right when he says, “If the German government does not cleanse itself of the shame that rests on it, then I must despise it even more than my own.” He does not believe in Germany’s guilt, but he has a strong feeling for the shame that exists simply because of the bad appearance. No doubt he is right, and such a cleansing will have to take place, for the sake of our German name and the name of Christianity. The Return of the Deportees. Lately a regulation was issued that the deportees were allowed to return. At present I still have strong doubts. This issue was and is still treated differently in the individual vilayets, just as everything is treated completely arbitrarily and without consequences by the higher government officials. In some towns, repatriation had begun, but it soon stopped. A rather strong return to the former residences had secretly taken place, especially from the south, from Aleppo and Urfa, even though there is the strongest ban against this and the Armenians are not allowed to move from where they are. Actually, this regulation is carried out quite strictly everywhere. It may be that one official or another is prepared to look the other way. It is questionable whether or not the new regulation will be of any assistance. The opinions on the possibility of returning are quite divided. Some people say: if the central government has ordered this, then most of these people will arrive at their destination, especially since it concerns almost only women and children. But this is exactly where the difficulty arises. I watched with my own eyes as the unfortunate Mohadjirs, i.e., Mohammedans who had fled from the Russians in Erzerum and Erzindjan and were temporarily settled in the area around Konia or Angora now returned to their home towns at the instigation of the government, hundreds of them dying along the way because they had no bread. Will it be any different for the Armenians? The others say that for this reason they will strongly distrust the government’s regulation, even though they have

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no greater desire than to return home, and think about it a hundred times, unless an international mission is entrusted with the supervision or even implementation of this regulation. They will fear that in this way, possibly, they will be finished off. But as long as the Turkish government holds power it will not allow foreigners to become involved. “We set all our hopes on Germany; we expect nothing from Turkey,” two older women from Samsun said, whose husbands and sons had been killed and who now work with their daughters in Turkish field hospitals in Malatia under dreadful moral dangers. They long to return, not only for economic, but far more for moral reasons. Indeed, the moral danger is the worst of all, and Turkey is cutting off its nose to spite its face, especially in this respect, perhaps even more so than it has already done in an economic respect. It is an act of unparalleled imprudence to force the Christians to become proletarians without any possessions, and it will be revenged bitterly. Turkey is really raising a proletariat that, once it is released from its own soil, will be capable of all existing mean tricks simply to escape starvation. This proletariat will gather mainly in the towns, where it will act in a manner similar to the Jews in many European towns, like a parasite, and criminals will be recruited from among its midst. For this reason, too, Germany will once again have to speak out, not only for its own sake and the sake of its name, but also for the sake of Turkey and humanity. The moral need of those remaining is a greater scandal than the blood of those who were murdered. The Question of Settlement. The deportees did not settle anywhere. That order was probably given in the beginning for humane reasons, but it was not meant seriously, nor was it taken seriously. A classic example is the fate of the 30,000 who were lucky to arrive in Der-el-Zor at the lower end of the Euphrates River during their journey through the desert. The benevolent Mutessarif Ali Suad wanted to settle them there “according to orders.” The immediate result was that he was recalled and a Circassian took his place, who literally led all of them, without exception, into the desert and had them killed there. Independent Armenian Districts. It follows from this that the Turkish government will never allow individual districts in Turkish Armenia to be resettled with a majority of or purely Armenian population. It is completely out of the question that old, originally Armenian vilayets might be re-established, thus achieving a certain independence in the lives of the remaining Armenian people in their home country by separating them on a local level. A man such as Ali Issan, who received his military training in Germany and speaks perfect German, the present Commander of the 6th Army in Mosul, has stated a countless number of times for the attention of German ears that within the boundaries of his command he will not permit a single Armenian to be left alive. He boasted to German officers that he personally killed Armenians. As long as such men occupy influential positions and as long as such remarks go unpunished, there can be no

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question of independence in a political sense for the Armenians within Turkey. Nor is there hardly a chance outside Turkey. The independent state of Armenia that has now established itself and appeared on the scene like a volcanic island arising out of the chaotic mass of people and races in a sea made stormy by sinister powers is, under no circumstances, capable of survival in the form in which it presents itself today. It will not even be able to feed those who live there today, let alone be in a position to accept others within its borders. But the Turkish nation will never allow an Armenia that is truly capable of survival to exist along its border, and the Armenians will never receive permission from Turkey to emigrate there. There is no hope in this direction. Returning Armenian Property to Its Owners. A further serious question concerns the future of personal Armenian goods and real estate. Will property be returned to the deportees, should they be allowed to return to their homes? Fundamentally speaking, this is solely a matter of real estate. This will be treated very differently in each of the districts. The Turks are masters of the art of keeping up appearances with regard to what is right. Generally, for example, a division of the fields did not take place. The properties, houses, fields, including the inventory, are called “Emval Mettrukke,” that is “property left behind.” Special committees were set up (so-called “Emval Mettrukke Committees” or Tasvieh Committee) that were given the task of putting matters in order. The inventory was usually “sold.” The houses, however, as far as they were not destroyed by the rabble, as happened in many places, and the fields are considered to be unsalable and are held by the government, which leases them again every year. This avoids foreign intervention, which they appear to fear. In most cases, however, this procedure, which appears to protect the rights of the owners, is nothing more than liquidation by the state. As far as returning property to its former owners is concerned, this has happened, wholly or partly, in individual cases in some towns. But it was always achieved only surreptitiously by means of baksheesh or through personal connections. The entire matter can only be resolved by legal means. A regulation already exists allowing heirs of Armenians who died before deportation to take possession of their inheritance. Naturally, these are only individual cases. However, Preacher Christoffel became aware of about 5 or 6 such cases, in which the heirs actually achieved their goal after having overcome the usual harassments and by applying well-known means. Reckoning on a large scale could be carried out legally in a similar manner. A small, albeit not very agreeable consolation with regard to this matter is that the Armenians surpass the Turks in shrewdness and cunning in these matters as well, and may well achieve their goal more quickly in their own way than if foreigners took official steps. Germany, however, will have to use its influence here as well to create a legal foundation. The Return to Christianity of Those Converted to Islam. Far more serious is the problem of the return to Christianity of those who were forced to convert to Islam. Will such a return be allowed? How shall it be done? The

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number of people who converted to Islam varies in the different districts. Conversions were infrequent in Mezré, while the people in Malatia and Sivas, for example, converted in droves. Their figure is set at 95 % in Malatia. Again in other towns, such as Mersivan, Tokat and Amasia, the Armenians wanted to convert, but were not permitted to do so. Here, too, the authorities acted in an arbitrary manner. The Turks played cat and mouse with their victims. Conversions to Islam were generally not taken seriously and often merely a means towards an even more thorough annihilation. Either the offer caused distrust, the people had second thoughts that were interpreted as refusal and used as an excuse to execute them, or they agreed only to experience the greatest difficulties; doubts were cast on their sincerity or they were heaped with scorn: you are not worthy of becoming Mohammedans, and the result was the same. This, in particular, is a very painful matter, especially if one thinks of the children that were spread out throughout the entire empire in Turkish orphanages, and of the girls that are in Turkish harems. It will never be possible to bring either group back. Most of the independent adults are positively craving to return to Christianity. Their souls suffer from terrible pressure, while there is a frightening spell on their consciences. This is what I experienced, for example, when visiting the widow of a Protestant clergyman from Samsun who, in order to save her children, converted to Islam and is presently enjoying the hospitality of Bethesda in Malatia. How can all of these unfortunates be helped? In addition to economic and moral needs there is also a religious need. In 1895/96, under the pressure of the European powers, freedom was given to people to reconvert to their former religion. Many, if not most of them, are said to have made use of this. Once again, only a legal regulation can be of assistance here, or they will have to emigrate to the United States. The Present Situation of the Remainder of the Population. Accordingly, the situation of the remaining Armenians is conceivably the saddest. They have lost all of their rights. They have been made slaves and will remain slaves. They are Helots. They have been treated as goods and they must accept such treatment even today. They were and are today still being traded as slaves. Girls and children were sold. A change in this hopeless state is not in sight. They themselves are too worn down, too dulled and too cowardly to do so. This is the political state of things. The religious state is no better. Here, too, the historical context has been hopelessly torn. The Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople, who was the representative for all of the Ottoman Armenians in public matters with the Turkish government, was deported to Baghdad during the period of persecution. At the same time, a law was enacted that in future the Patriarch was no longer to have a seat in Constantinople, but rather in Jerusalem. This simply robs him of his power, for he has been removed from his parish. There are no Armenians in Jerusalem; instead, the British are there. The ecclesiastical unity of the people is gone. The Catholicos of Cilicia, who has his seat in Sis near Adana, only has command over a minority in the districts of Adana and Aleppo. With regard to religious matters, by far the majority of the Armenians in the northern vilayets are subject to the Catholicos of Echmiadzin.

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The People Have Been Annihilated. Thus, as a people, the people have been annihilated. Will it manage at some point in the future with its inherent tenacity to rise up again? I doubt it very much. However, the tenacity of this people is amazing. There is an economic power in these people that cannot be admired enough. One meets countless boys in Aleppo, in Mardin, in Harput, in Malatia and in other towns who, separated from their families, their homes, left to stand on their own feet, actually manage to get by selling little bits and pieces or enter service as an apprentice with a Turkish master craftsman, soon surpassing the master by means of their skilfulness and their zeal. Many of them, however, also become prostitutes, with no hope of being saved. There is no more hope for the people as a people. It is over. But how can the rest be protected? There appears to be only one radical solution for the Armenian question: emigration. But it is not certain whether Turkey will give its permission. In addition, the Armenians are also sons of the soil. From an economic and missionary point of view it must be regretted, and yet I agree with Preacher Ehmann, who said: there is only one piece of advice to give them: emigrate, and it is our duty to help them to emigrate. All of this, however, under the condition that Turkey stays as it is and that the peace agreement does not bring about a radical change in the political situation in the Orient. The Question of Guilt. It is almost superfluous to raise the question of guilt. This is a matter of racial opposites and violent historical evolutions, and today we are not yet able to discern how they relate. No one will deny that the Armenians are also guilty on their part. The following must be taken into consideration when reaching a fair judgement: much has been written in the newspapers about atrocities that were carried out by the Armenians against the Mohammedans. Such atrocities did, in fact, happen. This fact cannot be denied, even if each source here in the Orient must first be met with the greatest distrust because all of the parties involved lie shamelessly, and the Oriental fantasy can produce the most amazing results. Despite its Christian tradition of 1500 years’ standing, the cultural state of the Armenians is a very low one. The Armenian is also capable of baseness, especially if he holds the power in his hands. He, too, can torture. One brother has betrayed the other countless times. But it must be differentiated: those Armenians who live in the vilayets situated in the north on the Russian-Persian border were all oriented towards Russia and, more or less without exception, anarchistically-nihilistically infiltrated and contaminated. They were capable of all kinds of cruelties, and in the country there were a great many similarities between them and the Kurds. The Armenians in the middle vilayets, especially Sivas, Elaziz and Diyarbekir, are culturally on a completely different level. They were oriented towards the West. During the course of time they lost all of their warrior-like characteristics, became peaceful craftsmen and farmers, the economic power of the rich provinces in which they lived and, thus, never really a danger for Turkey. While the first group also relied on Russia economically, the second lived off the Ottoman soil, which they developed to an exceptionally high level and from which they drew

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great wealth. But that was just what caused greed and avarice, and this also led to their undoing. Closing Remarks. Actually, all non-Turks in the Ottoman Empire share the fate of the Armenians: the Syrians in Mesopotamia, the Druze in the Lebanon, the Greeks along the coastlines, the Kurds in their wonderful mountains, yes, even the Arabs. And yet we have still not reached the end of the tragedy that took place in this country during the war. Who has counted the hundreds of thousands of Turkish soldiers and, lately, the Turkish emigrants as well who died, not actually because of the war, but because of indifference, unscrupulousness and lack of order, and are continuing to die every day, even though they are Mohammedans? There is not a single country among the powers at war that has actually suffered such a dreadful loss of human lives as has Turkey, not just proportionately, but in real figures. And the end is not yet in sight. But on the other hand, there is not a country on the continent among the powers at war that is so rich in everything, literally everything, that is necessary for life, raw materials and food, that it could be completely independent, as is the case for Turkey. It is just this contrast that is so terrible. The attentive observer can see it in little things every day in shocking images on the streets. When will the hour of salvation arrive, and who will the Master of History honour as the new Moses, who will lead the oppressed people from slavery to freedom?

1918-11-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14105; A 49683; pr. 21.11.1918 a.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy in Constantinople (Waldburg) to the Imperial Chancellor (Prince Max von Baden) Pera, 1 November 1918 No. 257 5 enclosures. 3 carrier bags with 11 volumes of files. With reference to the instructions given to me on the 30th prev.,160 I enclose Decree No. 590 dated 4 August 1915 together with the corresponding draft of a letter. To complete the picture, I enclose volumes 17-27 of the local Armenian files. Waldburg. 160. A 45880.

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Enclosure 1 [Decree No. 590 from Zimmermann to the Embassy in Constantinople, 4 August 1915]161 Enclosure 2 [The author of this report is Legation Secretary Hösch. It was edited by Ambassadorial Counsellor Neurath and written for the Ambassador in office. A detailed version can be found in the enclosure to Document 1916-09-18-DE-001] Pera, December 1915 In response to Decree No. 590. Re: Publication of a White Book on the Armenian Affairs. I, too, consider it a very good thing, yes, even necessary, to publish our stand in the matter concerning the deportations of the Armenians. We have been suspected of joint responsibility for that oppressiveness not only by our public enemies and not only the hostile elements in neutral countries; charges have also been raised against us by the most various circles in Germany that, if nothing else, reproach us for being too lax in our attempts to ease the rigorous measures of Turkish government organs. Public justification is therefore necessary. This must be carried out by us, after our attempts showed that it is not to be expected from the Turks. The report by the Imperial Embassy and our consular authorities included extensive material for Your Excellency that could be used for this purpose. It makes the indisputable fact clear that a widespread Armenian movement against the government existed in Turkey, and that it became necessary for the government to suppress this movement during the confusion caused by the war. The movement also secretly took hold of those circles that had formerly shown a pro-Turk attitude. These elements were also incited for decades; the younger generation was raised in the conviction that the lot of the Armenians could only be improved by violent action against the Turkish government. The teachers concealed the fact, however, that formerly the Armenians lively peacefully and in a satisfied manner in the tolerant state of Turkey and never had cause for a rebellious movement. It is, however, without doubt clear that the stimulation for the traitorous actions of the Armenians, originally as well as lately, was not given by this hard-working tribe, but brought in from outside. The activities of the Armenian “committees” in London, Manchester and other British cities, in Paris, Marseilles, etc., that became more intensive about three decades ago, are only too well known. Their work received all kinds of stimulation and support, especially from those nations that always acted 161. See Doc. 1915-08-04-DE-001.

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as if they were friends of Turkey. These “friends,” who concluded the Contract of Hunkiar-Iskelessi and others with the Sublime Porte, who signed the well-known Cyprus Contract with it, who gathered a fleet in Mytilene to enforce the less honest demands of a Levantine against the Turkish government, and who so often made up or exaggerated “Turkish atrocities” so that the riots caused by goaded parts of the Christian population that took place and provoked Turkish revenge would be forgotten; 20 years previously, these same friends had brought about the well-known Armenian assassinations, which were followed by huge massacres. There can be no doubt that the machinations have come from the side that is known today under the collective name of “Entente” and that these have led to the subversive activities of the Armenians, especially during the World War. If warlike means could not be used to deal with the Turks, inner revolts were to be used to shatter the government’s power. It is known how Russian money rolled into the Armenian provinces along the border; how the Russians advancing against the Turkish armies are not only joined by numerous Armenians, but that excellent Armenian personalities (deputies) are standing at the head of Russian troops to lead them against their native Turkish country. Turkey saw itself confronted by powerful enemies in all the corners of the Empire, who used financial support to keep up a lively espionage and who found many willing accomplices in a country in which espionage has always been very widespread. No further reason is required why, under these circumstances, suspicious elements had to be removed from the coastal strips and the border provinces, why the war laws had to be carried out so rigorously against numerous Christian citizens convicted of treason. It is certainly extremely regrettable that an entire people had to suffer in such measure under the subversive activities induced by foreign influences and carried out by a limited number of nationalists who had been “won over.” The moral responsibility for this must be borne by those who initiated the “suggestions.” Under the present, difficult conditions, which other European nation would not also have taken the strictest measures against traitors in its own country? Unfortunately, it must be admitted that, despite the justification of the strict special measures that the Turkish government saw itself forced to take, their implementation led to the regretful acts of violence. It cannot be assumed that the orders for this were sent out by the central government, even if any means were acceptable to individual members, who had set the annihilation of the hated Armenians as their objective. Many provincial governments and their subordinate organs must be reproached even more harshly for expanding in many cases the necessary hard measures against the guilty to include the innocent, thereby displaying a despotism and brutality that must be severely condemned by the entire world. Right at the very beginning of such procedures, therefore, and as soon as the regrettable facts became known from the reports by the consulates, the Imperial Embassy initiated earnest petitions at the Sublime Porte without waiting for instructions from the Imperial Government, issuing serious and repeated warnings both orally and in writing concerning measures that had gone too far, and in particular demanding that the persecution of the innocent should stop.

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The Imperial Embassy has thereby taken the point of view that it does not contradict the recognised diplomatic principle, making it inadmissible to become involved in the inner affairs of a foreign country, if it gives the Turkish government friendly pieces of advice, particularly considering the special moral obligation placed upon it by the existing military alliance. In fact, our true friendship for Turkey could not have been proven more effectively than by emphatically and openly expressing our opinion, with no care for the fact that this embarrassed leading circles. As instructed, the consular representatives of the Reich also attempted to end these violent measures through their influence on the provincial governments by warning them urgently of the political, moral and cultural consequences. In addition, the Embassy and the consulates did their best towards easing the existing misery and, wherever possible, to intervene financially and have bread distributed, etc. Various consular reports that provide an in-depth description of the misery caused by the over-enthusiasm or the ill-disposition of subordinate organs of the municipal governments give more exact information on the steps that were undertaken in this regard. If, considering the extent of the misery, the measures of our consular representatives were not sufficient to provide far-reaching assistance, the petitions sent by them to the central government, which were supported by the other foreign diplomatic representatives, did manage to end the persecution of innocent people. I have no reports of new excesses. But this does not eliminate the misery that has been caused. If German circles have reproached the Imperial diplomatic missions concerning our continued activities to issue warnings and give assistance, this can only be due to insufficient information. It is no further cause for wonder that our enemies accuse us of supporting and even active engagement in the atrocities that have taken place, as happened recently in the British House of Parliament. It should be beneath our dignity and also useless, considering that the supposed eye-witnesses cannot be found, to refute such assertions. In contrast, our consular reports speak quite plainly. Our circles back home should be informed of them, together with the steps undertaken by the Embassy in order to convince them that, from the very beginning, the Imperial diplomatic missions in Turkey did not neglect their duty. If our attempts were not at first crowned by success, this is due to the circumstances arising from the war, as well as the animosity against the Armenians that has existed for a long time and been aroused by foreign agitation, finding its way deep into the Muslim people. The fact is, however, extremely regrettable that even the highest state officials and officers in the province were among those who did the least to counter the widely spread opinion that it was we who advised that the Armenians be persecuted, yes, and obviously even spread this opinion themselves. It is no wonder that the upright Turk believed this version passed on by his authorities; but it must be regretted even more that the central government did not oppose this immediately on its own initiative, thus giving the impression of being jointly responsible for spreading such a fairy tale. I will once again strongly oppose this. If, in my report above, I have touched on this matter once again and repeated that which has already been reported, it was for the sake of giving a brief summary that

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might serve as an introduction to a publication. I have just received the enclosed report from the management of the Anatolian Railway Company, written by a German who is presently in their service and has lived in Turkey for many years. Generally, this report contains a not incorrect judgement on the Armenian question, and I leave it to your discretion to use parts of this (without revealing the source). Enclosure 3 [From the Chairman of the Baghdad Railway in Constantinople, Franz Johannes Günther, to the Counsellor at the Embassy in Constantinople, Neurath, 10 August 1915] Dear Mr. von Neurath, I enclose a report that I have received which you may use as you see fit. I remain, Respectfully yours, Günther Enclosure 4 Strictly Confidential! … However, I use the opportunity at hand to send you confidential news via an intermediary agent. This courier is also able to give you confidential information that must be withheld from the public. This concerns the extensive persecution of the Armenians in the eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire. Before I go on to give details, I would like to explain that I am no friend of what, to me, is a very dislikeable people. I know for certain that, seduced by the Russians, the Armenians were prepared to rise against Turkey; I have gained knowledge of the fact that large numbers of bombs, military weapons and bullets were found in many Armenian houses; I know that Armenians in Samsun and Dört Yol gave signals to enemy ships, making them guilty of treason; I have heard that they murdered Turks in Van and Bitlis; in short, I know that strict and exceptional measures were needed to ensure the country’s safety. Certainly no one would have been upset if the guilty had been publicly executed in groups, but unfortunately this only happened in individual cases, and unfortunately there are definite signs that the Armenians in the east, despite all of the denials in German newspapers, are systematically being completely slaughtered; in short, that we are confronted with the annihilation of a people comparable only to the Roman Bar Kokhba Wars against the Jewish people. It is clear to me why the German government agreed to the removal of the dangerous, pro-Russian people from the border and coastal towns, but it is quite impossible that it can agree with the slaughtering of the Armenians, as the Turkish people here

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have been taught—and how often, unfortunately, have I been assured of this by the people and the military. Yes, I was even asked to recognise how well the “work” was being done. I have travelled throughout the eastern part of the Vilayet of Angora, the Mutessariflik of Kayseri, the country north of Kisyl Irmak, as well as a large part of the Vilayet of Sivas. In the latter, I found some of the villages completely empty, some of them robbed of their male inhabitants. I watched with my own eyes as pretty women were dragged off by Turks, saw Turks come out of the bushes with Armenian women and heard the screaming and wailing of women and girls coming from locked houses. I watched as the pitiful household goods of these people were carried off on pack animals and carts. My presence did not bother the looters; on the contrary, they happily assured me that Germany had ordered this and I should take a good number of chickens with me, which I could use on my journey. North of Shar Kishla, on the right embankment of the Kisyl Irmak, I met a soldier I have known for years, as well as others. I was told that they had shot about 2,000 Armenians in a small ravine, not far from the nearby hot baths, only a few days ago. When I arrived in Shar Kishla in the evening, I saw about 300 ox carts, loaded with Armenian women and children carrying nothing but ragged blankets with them and often not even that, no household goods, no provisions: it was sad to see these starving and miserable people; in total, there must have been about 12-15,000 people. Supposedly, they were to be sent to the barren country of Uzunjaila, a dreary place situated between the Euphrates River and the volcanic area east of Argaus. It is impossible to feed a larger number of people here; I know the area from former journeys. In the end, the soldiers admitted openly that these people were to be led to the “ditches,” and the fate of these miserable people is, after all, death; listening to them talk, there was no doubt about it. In the town of Sivas there were no more Armenians to be seen; women and children, old people had been deported to the Uzunjaila area. The old Koran schools of the Seljuks had been turned into prisons that were stuffed full of Armenians; the officer accompanying me said, “We will kill them all.” The Armenians shops in Sivas have all been closed and sealed off. The town has 60-80,000 inhabitants and probably 30,000 Armenians, who hold the important trade in this town in their hands; it has been destroyed for a long time to come. When I returned to Kayseri, I met long columns of more well-off Armenians who were being led from Samsun on long detours via Sille to Sivas; among them were Catholic priests and nuns of Armenians nationality. I wonder about that; if one wants to clear up areas along the Russian border of dangerous elements, one does not lead them back to the east!162 Again, long columns of Armenian women and children had arrived in Shar Kishla who were to be deported to the Uzunjaila area. I met Count Schulenburg’s expedi162. Note by Mordtmann: Informed Monsignor Naslian on 11 August, who referred to J No. [Journal Number …] and inquired into the fate of these priests and nuns.

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tion there, whom I informed of my observations. I had also found out that in the area around Erzindjan women and children had been slaughtered by soldiers in the most terrible way, that Red Cross nurses who expressed their indignation were expelled from the country by the Mutessarif of Erzindjan, roughly treated and escorted by Zaptiehs, without any effective objections being made by the head of the German Medical Ward.163 I have been in this country for 20 years, and this is the third Armenian persecution that I have observed. I may say that this last one is the most thorough because it is almost a certainty that the entire population of the Vilayets of Erzerum, Sivas and the bordering provinces has been killed or will be killed. When I returned to Kayseri after having been away for almost a month, the male population was just being led away and, strangely enough, back to the east to the great grave of the Armenian people. Kayseri is an extremely important place for trade; it rests completely in the hands of the Armenians. I found all of the Armenian shops closed, the bazaar desolate, industry, weaving and carpet factories suppressed. All of this can have only the most bitter consequences. “Is there proof of what you have told me?” Count von der Schulenburg asked me. The gravest circumstantial evidence surely; I know the country and the people well, better than Dr. E. Jäckh and his companions, designated by the German press as “competent authorities” on Turkey, who wrote a treatise on the Adana massacres that contradicted the truth, who claimed that a regiment of Anatolian Rediefs was better than the First Guards Regiment on foot. This Redief which he held in higher esteem than our Guards is now carrying out heroic deeds and killing women and children! Our German press is denying the massacres in good faith, but it is being deceived. We Germans are waging our war in a decent manner; we are being slandered by our enemies, cursed; but we can despise them because we have only shed the blood of the guilty. If someone is a traitor, he should die; thousands of the Armenians are guilty. They should be publicly executed. But murdering women and children, annihilating an entire people who, even if offensive, is still a necessity for the commercially untalented Turks: apart from the inhumanity of it, this is just too stupid, for it leads to the bankruptcy of the nation and makes the country unable to survive. As our enemies are everywhere, we must avoid giving them a reason for a justified attack, and demand of our allies that they carry out this war in a humane manner, albeit with all necessary strictness, in both our honour and theirs. Our brave army, which does not differentiate among religions, prays the Dutch prayer of thanks, but we cannot appear before a just God if we do not practise justice ourselves. It is wrong on the part of Germany to believe that the lives of thousands of Armenians do not matter, a statement made by German officers; the existence of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even several million people is at stake. All those who are guilty shall be 163. Note by Mordtmann: Dr. Colley, Miss Elvers and Miss Thora Wedel-Jahrlsberg; cf. p. 5, second-last paragraph.

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publicly condemned without mercy, but there must be no murders, for we will have to pay for this. I would not dream of publicising what I have seen and heard, as it would do harm to my country; but you will easily find a way of informing the Embassy, which will have heard of many things, of my observations. The punishment of the Armenians must be carried out legally and handled in such a manner that we can justify it before God and before our friends, even our enemies, and also before the German people themselves. I believe it would be a very good thing if the Imperial Embassy were to send a special mission to the East to gain reliable knowledge of the sad occurrences there and to make urgent petitions; but upright people should carry this out, who can and wish to see everything. The heads of our hospitals in the East, in the immediate vicinity of which dreadful things are happening, are unfortunately being led by the nose and lied to by the Turkish authorities. If you should wish to learn more, the courier of this confidential report would most likely be inclined to give you confidential information. Enclosure 5 [Corresponds to Document 1915-07-31-DE-002]

1918-11-20-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14105; A 50121; pr. 24.11.1918 a.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From Johannes Lepsius to the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office (Solf ) currently in The Hague, 20 November 1918 Nassau, Zuilensteinstr. 3 Your Excellency, I request that you consider whether I could be appointed as a delegate for questions concerning the Orient, and in particular for Armenia, at the peace negotiations. The questions concerning the political, religious and economic reorganisation of Turkey, the limitation of national areas for Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Syrians, etc., the consideration of the individuality of religions, churches, schools and missions, the preservation of Germany’s economic and cultural interests, in the Turkish interior as well: all of this requires exact knowledge of the conditions before the war and the changes during the war, which few Germans have had the opportunity to acquire. Our former diplomacy in Constantinople knew only the European, but

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not the Asian face of Turkey. It must be the earnest will of the new Germany to rectify the mistakes of its policy, its actions, as well as its omissions already at the peace negotiations. The sympathy of the Christian nations and the Mohammedan people which we have lost can only be won back if we look after their real interests in life as justly as possible. I have been in the most lively touch with all relevant questions for the past twenty years, have not only travelled in all directions throughout Turkey, but also got to know the elements of the population through my work among them, by founding large humanitarian institutions and economic companies in Turkey and northern Persia. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I am practically the only German who, even now, still has the complete trust of the Armenian people and its leaders, both the Turks and the Caucasians. For years I have been personally acquainted with the delegates of the Armenian nation who will represent the new Armenia at the peace congress; I also know the members of the British parliamentary phil-Armenian Committee from working with them, as well as the leading men from the American missions in Turkey and Persia, who are extremely influential in Washington. I also have a personal relationship with the Armenian friends in the neutral countries. These special circumstances led me to make my request. I hope to be in Berlin in a few days’ time to present my suggestions to the government for steps that are to be taken now or later, but I would like to make the government of the Reich aware of my request today. Your Excellency, I remain respectfully yours, Dr. Johannes Lepsius [Note by Solf ] Application must be taken into earnest consideration. Lepsius has a reputation abroad! [From Johannes Lepsius to the German Foreign Office, 20 November] Your Excellency, I request that you present the enclosed application to the Council of People’s Representatives. I have sent a transcript of the application to Dr. David, the Undersecretary of State, whom I know personally. No one but Your Excellency will understand so well the demands made on German policy by the changed situation in the Orient. It is especially important to head off the moral offensive by the Entente in the question of Germany’s joint responsibility for the Armenian mass murders with all the means at hand and to exonerate Germany. With great respect, I remain, Your Excellency’s most faithful, Dr. Johannes Lepsius

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[Memo by Göppert, 14 December] Dr. Lepsius has been ordered by the Secretary of State to publish the files on the German government’s position in the Armenian question. He has accepted the order and first plans to print a few files in preface to his written work on the persecution of the Armenians that will now be published in German, French and English. This is to be followed as soon as possible by a collection of files with no accompanying texts.

1918-11-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14105; A 51050; pr. 30.11.1918 p.m. Translated by Vera Draack Deutsch-Armenische Korrespondenz (German-Armenian Correspondence) The German Government and the Armenian Question The Accusations of the Entente. The German government has constantly been reproached by the Entente press that it could have prevented the deportation of the Armenian people if it had only wanted to do so. Therefore, it must have been in agreement with the Turkish government on this matter. Yes, they even went so far as to see Germany as the actual instigator of the deportations with all of their atrocities. Armenia appears next to Belgium on the balance of Germany’s guilt caused by its barbarity. This is based on the following line of reasoning: undoubtedly, Germany is the leading power in the alliance of four. Turkey is dependent on it in all matters. It was pulled into the war by Germany, without any personal inclination. It received the means to fight, especially the money to carry on a war, from Germany. German army leaders drew up the war plans, German troops made the decisions, both on the Dardanelles as well as at Kut el-Amara. Before the Germans came, the Turks under Enver’s leadership suffered only losses on the Caucasian front; the Turks lost Erzerum because the Germans retreated or were sent back. Turkey can do nothing without Germany’s assistance; therefore, it must act according to Germany’s will in all matters, and Germany must be made jointly responsible for all of the undertakings carried out by the Turks, especially something as drastic as the Armenian deportations. This inference appeared to be so conclusive that even the Turks were caught up in it. Senior primary school teacher Niepage reports in his brochure that more humane Turks were not able to explain the dreadful events that happened during the deportations in any other way than that their government was not acting of its own free will here. The Hodjas preached in the mosques that it was the work of the Germans, who had ordered the Turkish government to do this.

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Germany’s Guilt. There is a grain of truth in this charge. First and foremost, the deportations were a military measure and, therefore, could not very well be kept secret from the German army leaders in Turkey. In fact, the plan was also presented to Field Marshall von der Goltz and approved by him. However, the official version looked harmless enough. The government’s order had the following wording: “Article 2. The commanders of the army of independent army corps and divisions may, in case of military necessity, and in case they suspect espionage and treason, deport individual or groups of inhabitants in villages or towns and resettle them in other places.” The orders allowed for the deportees’ real estate to be entered in lists and taken into safe-keeping by the authorities, for the deportees to be sent to areas owned by the Baghdad Railway, where new property would be surveyed for them. Von der Goltz agreed to the plan in this form, which was reasonably consistent with the necessary military measures of civilised nations. Considering his long residency in Turkey, he must be reproached for not having foreseen how such a measure would be carried out by Turkish officials, for not having become suspicious, taking into account the history of Turkish-Armenian relations and the ever-spreading Pan-Turkism. But Goltz lived with the same incorrect estimation of the nature of the Turks as everyone else who knows the Turks only as soldiers. The Ottomans have always been a warrior-like people, putting their best foot forward as armed forces, and this is the origin of the saying about a Turk being the only gentleman in the Orient, that is known to date back to Bismarck. In addition, one always observes the same experience, namely, due to the separation between the lives of the individual peoples in the Orient, even when they live in the same towns, foreigners always regard the character of the individual tribes as unknown territory, even after they have lived in Turkey for a long time. One very crass example is the German master potter in Naumann’s “Asia,” an example to which, however, anyone who has really had a good look around the Orient would be able to add hundreds. The German-Turkish Power Relationship. This is the Germans’ fault: they do not know the Orient and, therefore, treat the Orientals the wrong way. From this, a completely different power structure has emerged between Germans and Turks than the one foreign countries expected. It is now apparent to everyone that Germany was never as strong in this war as outsiders believed it to be, that it was only by summoning all of its strength, which also included the strength of its allies, even such a weak one as Turkey, that it was able to withstand the attack of such superior numbers for so long. Germany was always obliged to show consideration for Turkey, and Turkish diplomacy took advantage of this everywhere,

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particularly in financial matters. Turkish diplomacy is the most skilful in the whole world; history has taught it to be so. Only by dint of the skilfulness of its diplomats did the Ottoman government manage to prevent the division it has been threatened with for over half a century. The fact has been admitted that the same cannot be said for German diplomacy. Turkey had a means in hand with which to put constant pressure on the German government; right from the beginning of the war, unofficial Turkish negotiators stayed in Lausanne, maintaining relationships with the Entente. Consequently, Germany had to show great consideration for its ally; it could never overstep the mark so as not to risk losing everything. There was a time, not so far from the Turkish measures against the Armenians, when everything possible was attempted to involve Turkey more strongly in public. That was the time when princes made visits, when members of parliament travelled to Constantinople; the time when it rained medals. This must all be taken into consideration in order to judge the German-Turkish power structure correctly. Germany was always the giver, but it never understood how to keep the upper hand in the alliance. German Assistance for Armenia. Despite this, there was no lack of German diplomatic steps in favour of the Armenians. We hope that those files will soon be opened that show proof of the repeated petitions made by the German government against the deportations. Until now, only the main committee of the German Reichstag has been informed of this, and the public was only told that the German government was interested in saving the Armenians. At any rate, at that time our Turkish friends were not satisfied with the attitude of the German Foreign Office. There was no lack of goodwill towards the Armenians in other ways as well. In its attempts to ease the fate of those Armenians from enemy countries that were staying in Germany, the German-Armenian Association was happy to have the government’s support. Collections for deported Armenians were not publicly permitted, so that only a few could take place. Public discussions on the events in Armenia were not allowed, which would have led to generous advertising. But the unofficial collections were carried out with the approval of the authorities. Out of consideration for Turkish antipathy, permission was not applied for to send a commission to bring larger financial amounts to the suffering Armenians, but in the negotiations carried out on this subject the strong sympathy held by the influential circles for the dreadful fate of the deportees became obvious. At any rate, the German government’s position was fundamentally different from the one it had taken at the time of the Hamidian Massacres, when collections were forbidden and Armenian lecturers were deported and the German Emperor sent his picture to the red sultan immediately after these events. Then, pure, so-called “Realpolitik” with no regard whatsoever for humanitarian feelings; now, 100% humanitarian sympathy, which was not able to assert itself sufficiently merely out of regard for the war situation and the vacillating ally.

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The Fault in Germany’s Policy. While fully recognising the difficult situation in which the German government found itself with regard to the Armenian question, it must be reproached for having missed a means of employing a possibly very effective pressure on Turkey. It abstained completely from using public opinion to support its position. On the contrary, it used the measures of censorship to do everything possible to strengthen Turkey’s position towards Germany and to justify the judgement in neutral and enemy countries on Germany’s involvement in the Turkish atrocities. The German press remained completely disoriented. There was an almost fearful and rigorous restriction of free expression of opinion on the Armenian question. Just sending a small number of confidential messages as letters was forbidden, even if they only reported facts and refrained from any attack on the Turkish government whatsoever. This is just a small example of the numerous sins of censorship, which certainly lost no fewer battles than the army won. But with regard to our question, it can be proven without doubt how the government cut off its nose to spite its face in this matter. The Turkish government admitted the measures against the Armenians only gradually and hesitantly. On 4 June it stated in the first communiqué on the Armenian question that its measures “by no means represent a movement against the Armenians.” Only in the fifth communiqué dated 16 July does it give the information that due to the claimed revolutionary movements “these Armenians have been removed from the border zones and the areas in which military roads have been set up” in order to remove them from Russian influence. On 27 August the Turkish Consul General in Geneva still gave assurances in the newspaper that “the entire Armenian movement, men, women and children, were enjoying the complete protection and safety of the authorities.” It was only when the entire German press took Turkey’s side on the Armenian question and no longer willingly and indiscriminately accepted Turkish assertions, but instead even surpassed them, that the Turkish government dared to come out into the open. After the capture of Van, the Milli agency reported, “Of the 180,000 Muslims residing in the Vilayet of Van, hardly 30,000 were able to save themselves. The rest were murdered by the Russians and the Armenians, and until now no one has found out anything about their fate.” The German press turned this into, “It has been proven that 150,000 Mohammedans were the victims of the Armenians,” while in reality hardly anything happened to even one Mohammedan and the vast majority of those Mohammedans consists of Kurds who were safe in their mountains. It is no wonder that such partisanship in the press encouraged the Turks to reply to the petitions of the German Government with an energetic, almost scornful refusal. If the German Government had only given German public opinion some room, the abhorrence felt by the most extensive circles in the German population towards Turkish measures would have become apparent—and this would have been obvious as soon as it would have been possible to learn something about the facts—against the unanimous judgement of the civilised world, not even

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Turkey could have developed the cynicism with which it proceeded in the Armenian question. There were sufficient slight attempts by the German Government along these lines. Discussion of the Armenian question was prohibited twice in the press reports in Berlin. But each time this was immediately followed up by official Turkish reports, which the Germans felt under obligation to have Wolff’s office spread about. While the pro-Armenian articles were completely banned from being printed without any such official decree, there was never a lack of distorting, anti-Armenian articles in the press which, upon complaints from the friends of the Armenians, were objected to from above, but nothing really serious was ever undertaken to ensure that this would not be repeated. The discussion has now been opened. We can no longer feel happy about this because we are faced with many problems. Only when traffic with foreign countries can take place unhindered again will the German public realise what great damage Germany did to itself by means of these incorrect censorship measures, and what a serious contribution the incorrect judgement made abroad concerning Germany’s position in the Armenian question has made to the opposition in the world against Germany.

1918-12-26-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R 14105; A 54420; pr. 28.12.1918 p.m. Translated by Vera Draack Notes by the Legation Councillor in the Foreign Office Göppert Transcript Turkey and Bulgaria 2. The Armenian Question. The assertion that we did not prevent the persecution of the Armenians, even though we would have been in a position to do so, and that we actually advised the Turks to annihilate the Armenians is still believed, especially in American circles. It would seem advisable to justify our behaviour by publishing information on the actual course of events, before the Armenian question is raised during the negotiations with our opponents. As official German declarations are seldom believed, Secretary of State Solf has ordered the well-known friend of the Armenians, Dr. Lepsius, to take over this task. He is highly respected, especially in enemy countries, and, since the beginning of the persecutions against the Armenians, as is generally known, took a stance somewhat opposite to that of the government. The decision was made at a time when the publication of other information in our files was expected in the near

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future. Even though this is now no longer the case, it is recommended that this decision should not be changed. The reasons against opening our archives if our opponents do not open theirs cannot be taken into consideration in this special question which affects only us. In the meantime, Dr. Lepsius has also informed his friends of the order he has received. He plans to publish the most important documents in the preface to a piece of work on the persecution of the Armenians that is ready to be published, and this will be followed as soon as possible by a collection of all the important decrees and reports, without an accompanying text. Furthermore, the head of a local mission wishes to present the position of German circles with religious interests during the critical period, making use of official material to defend the government’s position. Public opinion will hardly consider these publications to be a complete justification of our policy. The reproaches, however, that can then be raised against us are far less grave than the accusations that are presently general belief.

1919-06-28-DE-002 Source: PA-AA; R14106; A 18715; pr. 29.06.1919 p.m. Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the German Foreign Office to Johannes Lepsius Berlin, 28 June 1919 Transcript. Dear Doctor Lepsius, Your book on “Germany and Armenia” has not yet been published. I do not know whether this is due to typographical difficulties or to an order from you. I myself favour this delay and would like to ask you to consider whether publication under the present circumstances should not be delayed even longer. As you know, the Entente intervened forcefully in the proceedings against the members of the “Unity and Progress” Committee and had the defendants taken to Malta. It is now certain that sentencing will be carried out by an inter-alliance court which, naturally, can only meet in several weeks or even months. Therefore, should your book come out now, we would have to expect that our enemies would make use of it during the proceedings. The Public Prosecutor would certainly not pass up the chance to make use of one strong word or another uttered by the German ambassadors and consuls in his requisition. It is an embarrassing thought that in this way we would be supplying our enemies with weapons against our former friends. This

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does not serve justice. In any case, there is enough material with which to determine the actual course of events. It is questionable, therefore, whether the purpose of all this publication makes it necessary that the book is in everyone’s hands at the time when the question of responsibility for the Armenians’ murders is being determined in court. I believe this question can be answered with a “no.” It is the task of the interalliance court to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants. It does not have to determine whether, for example, the German Government has a joint responsibility. Naturally, the prosecutor and the judges will not miss the opportunity to make hostile attacks against Germany, German diplomats and officers. But we will also be exposed to this if they are familiar with the book. In this case, your naturally biased criticism of Germany’s position, as is made clear in the book, will be dangerous for us because the entire world will become aware of it, while our reply would be more or less swept under the carpet. We must tell ourselves that we will really have only one chance to speak out in public. That will be when your book is published. I would consider it a good thing if, at the same time, this publication would be the answer to the criticism concerning Germany’s attitude that, without doubt, will be given in the proceedings. You, my dear Doctor, have far greater experience than I in matters concerning the press and the effect of propaganda, but I did not want to refrain from informing you of my opinion in this matter which, naturally, you alone must decide upon. [Göppert]

1919-08-21-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; R14106; A 23177; pr. 26.08.1919 p.m. Report. Translated by Vera Draack From the Minister in Stockholm (Lucius von Stödten) to the Foreign Office A.J.No. 1750/No. 471 Stockholm, 21 August 1919 The local press, particularly the left-wing liberals and socialist newspapers, also busied themselves during the war with the smear campaign against Germany because of the so-called Armenian atrocities. It is therefore to be recommended that the book by Dr. Johannes Lepsius, “Germany and Armenia,” published by Tempelverlag in Potsdam, which gives documentary clarification on Germany’s position in this matter, be distributed here to a certain extent as a means of enlightenment, and to this end I request that you send me approximately 30 copies of the book. Lucius

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[Reply from the German Foreign Office (No. 231), 8 September] The requested copies of Dr. Lepsius’ book on “Germany and Armenia” will be sent shortly. For your information, I would like to note the following with regard to the book: The following has only been written to the offices in Copenhagen, Bern and The Hague, A 13677. The formation of the collection is made clear in the preface. According to this, Dr. Lepsius is solely responsible for the selection of files. The introduction is also his work alone, and does not represent the opinion of the German Government. We are only interested in clarifying Germany’s position towards the measures taken by the Turkish Government. We are not required to take a stand on the question as to which Turkish offices are responsible for the occurrences, what were the motives of these offices, and to what extent the measures of the Turkish authorities were caused by the military treason of the Armenians. Unfortunately, the book has not been received as well as one would wish by the press in enemy and neutral countries. The “Times” sees in it the documentary proof of Germany’s joint responsibility and is using it in a smear campaign against our present policy in the Upper Silesia question. The effect in Denmark also appears to be very unfavourable. Under these circumstances, it would be advisable to be cautious in using the book as planned. I would like to add that Dr. Lepsius is preparing a French and an English version of the book.

1921-04-25-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; /NL/Rössler/Vol.1. Private Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack From the former Consul in Aleppo, Walter Rössler, to Johannes Lepsius [Upon the request of Johannes Lepsius to examine the French version of the book by Andonian on the Naim documents (Dok. 1921-04-13-DE-001), Rössler replied:] Eger, 25 April 1921 Dear Dr. Lepsius, I have received the book by Aram Andonian on the Armenian massacres that was kindly sent to me and while reading it I vividly felt myself to be back in Aleppo. In the following review I will first state some reservations and then go into the value of Naim Bey’s report and the documents.

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In my opinion, the author is not capable of being objective; instead, he lets himself be carried away by passion and, in addition, he writes with a certain tendency that, as we are unfortunately familiar with, goes against Germany. In the most diverse places in the book he writes about Germany in the most hateful manner; on the other hand, he generally suppresses news on German protests in favour of the Armenians. If he has no choice but to recognise Germany’s intervention, he attempts to weaken the effect by making additional remarks. If the telegram from Enver Pasha on p. 158 is genuine, the German influence he speaks of was of the greatest importance and a sweeping success. The author puts it down to Liebknecht and Ledebur! If he recognises the intervention of the Anatolian and Baghdad Railways, he mentions only the Swiss. Only on page 51 does he speak generally about “the engineers,” but immediately limits the impression by a remark in which he gives praise to a Swiss. Not a word about the work of Sister Beatrice, Sister Paula Schäfer, about Urfa and Marash! He attempts to put the fact that large numbers of Armenians were driven to Der-el-Zor down to German inducement (page 56) and claims that the drafting of the Yildirim Army was the cause of this. He forgets that the deportation to Der-el-Zor took place in the years 1915 and 1916, but that the Yildirim Army was only drafted in the summer of 1917. The author may be confusing this with military wishes that might have been mentioned by the Germans in the years 1915 and 1916 and that were aimed at preventing a contamination of the railway by the deportees who were ill, an attempt that, as is known, was only partially successful. Such wishes, however, were uttered with the greatest consideration for the Armenians and actually used directly in an attempt to assist the Armenians and keep them at a distance of 10 to 20 kilometres from the railway, such as in Bab, to enable them to receive food from the railway. Errors occasionally occur in the dates of the published documents that would make the entire document impossible, but these are obviously mistakes. The document on page 132 of the book only makes sense if it is dated from 15 January 1916 and not from 15 January 1915. The same applies for the document on page 133, no. 853, which must be dated 23 January 1916 and not 23 January 1915. Similarly, the error on page 148, document no. 762 is obvious. On that page, a telegram is given as being dated 17 December 1915 in answer to a telegram dated 2 December 1916. On page 72, it says 20 January 1917 in the text, while in the telegram it says 20 January 1916. The author does not always clearly grasp the connections. Especially in Chapter III (The Massacres in Der-el-Zor), the depiction constantly jumps back and forth and in many places it seems to be dictated merely by the attempt to weave all of the available documents into the depiction (e.g., the telegram on page 70 does not fit into the connection). Apart from these issues I must say that the contents of the book in its individual features make a credible impression and that, compared with the course of things, the documents certainly have an inner plausibility. Many of the individual features of which I am aware are described very accurately, others of which I had previously been

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unaware explain phenomena that I have observed and which I could never explain to myself. This applies, for example, to the fact that for a while a number of Armenians returned to Aleppo from Meskené. The author’s explanation is now given credibly on page 13 of the book, namely, that neither Naim Bey nor the Mudir from Meskené, Hussein Bey, carried out the cruel orders they were given. I believe I myself remember Hussein Bey, but at any rate there was a moment in which, by means of a letter of recommendation to Meskené, I was able to achieve that six Armenian women who had been deported from an American college were given permission to return to Aleppo. In his preface, the author mentions the Office of Deportation (Sousdirection générale des déportés sise à Alep) as being the main organisation for deportation. He is no doubt correct. When the Commissioner of Deportation arrived from Constantinople, and I believed at first that this was an attempt to organise food for the deportees or even just to care for them a little bit, and I approached the Commissioner of Deportation with a request to release some Armenians who were employed by Germans, he refused this in the most brusque manner and said to me in an incredibly arrogant tone of voice which I will never forget, “You do not understand what we want. We want an Armenia without Armenians.” With this, he described his task, which is now clear from Andonian’s book. I have, however, forgotten the Commissioner’s name, but it must have been Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey, unless it was his superior, Shukri Bey, who was previously in Aleppo for a while.164 Nor do I remember Naim Bey’s name, but that is of no surprise because I had to keep a low profile towards the deportation officers and could only intervene through intermediaries. On the other hand, I remember Eyub Bey very well, who was responsible for deportations before the commissioner arrived from Constantinople, and he was later assigned to him. I consider the description of him in the book to be very accurate. It is, of course, very difficult to determine if the telegrams from Constantinople containing the orders of the Ministry of the Interior are genuine because they only show the handwriting of the telegraph official or the writer who deciphered the message. On the other hand, I believe I remember the signature of the Vali, Mustafa Abdul Halik Bey. At any rate, this signature can be checked in Aleppo, and in this way there would be indirect proof that the telegrams from the Ministry of the Interior are genuine. The author divides the documents (page 16) into those kept by Naim Bey and those that he wrote down from memory (transcrite au fur et à mesure de ses souvenirs). It is certainly possible that Naim Bey kept official documents in his private possession instead of placing them in the files. As far as I know, the Turks never organised their files. Although some offices had quite a well-ordered records 164. Vahakn N. Dadrian in “The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide,” International Journal for Middle East Studies 18, no. 3 (1986): 311–360, note 55, considers Shukri to be the author because Abdulahad Nuri did not speak French well enough while Shukri mastered this language. Therefore, both Abdulahad Nuri as well as Shukri are listed in the index as the authors of this remark.

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office, it is very doubtful whether such a temporary office, as was that of the Office of Deportation, would have placed any value on keeping records, especially considering the nature of its work. Therefore, those documents described as being originals may very well have been genuine. Concerning those written down from memory, one would have to have knowledge of Naim Bey’s personality in order to judge the degree of reliability here. I have not come across one among those documents written from memory, the contents of which seem to be improbable. On the contrary, the facts of which I am aware are well explained by the documents. Their composure speaks more for their being genuine, rather than the opposite. I cannot say whether or not the extremely important letter sent by the Young Turk Committee to its representative in Adana, Djemal Bey, and dated 18 February 1915 (page 96 of the book) before any deportations took place is genuine or fake, nor concerning the other letters from the Young Turk Committee, nor do I know of any means for proving whether they are genuine. I respectfully leave it to your discretion to ask Sister Beatrice Rohner for her comments as well. She often negotiated directly with the deportation commissioners. She knows Eyub Bey personally. I cannot say whether or not she also knows Naim Bey or Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey. At any rate, her comments will be valuable. Consul Hoffmann, presently in the passport office of the German Foreign Office, Behrenstrasse 21, might possibly be able to give a justified judgement. A few more details on the author’s attacks on Germany. The photograph behind page 56, “God punish England,” shows the crew of the cruiser “Emden” at a garden party given in its honour by the Germans in Aleppo, covered with Arabian headscarves such as they were forced to wear as protection against the heat in Arabia after losing their own sailor’s clothes. The Vali of Aleppo had also presented both the officers and the crew with new headscarves and some of them with coats as well, which they are wearing here. In the end, it is understandable that members of the German Navy, that suffered so much at the hands of the British, chose a slate with the words, “God punish England” under which to have their picture taken. The author puts the photograph in a context that is completely wrong. Mücke already passed through Aleppo in May 1915. This had nothing to do with propaganda among the Arabs to drive them to fight against the British. The crew of the “Emden” did not even speak well of the Arabs. You can read up in Mücke’s “Ayesha” how they had had to fence against the Arabs and lost three men. I am not well informed about the propaganda of which the author accuses Mrs. Koch. An Arabian brochure demanding a holy war, a page of which has been photographed on page 60 of Andonian’s book, never passed through my hands. But it could be that this was an individual case of German clumsiness; and it could also be that a brochure meant only for North Africa lost its way to Aleppo. I would like to thank you very much for your information on the status of publication of the files. This lays the foundation. But in order to achieve the success we so bitterly require, to convince the world of the untruth of the foundations of the Peace

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of Versailles, work would have to be done with untiring attention to detail to assist the truth in winning the world’s opinion. With deep respect, as always, Yours,

1921-05-30-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; NL/Rössler/Vol. 2.. Translated by Vera Draack From the former Consul in Aleppo (Rössler) to the German Foreign Office Concept165 If the German Foreign Office should give its permission that I be examined as a witness in the proceedings against the murderer of Talaat Pasha, I would have to be released from official secrecy and would be obliged to answer all of the presiding judge’s questions under the oath I would swear as a witness. I would not be able to avoid expressing my conviction that Talaat Pasha is, in fact, one of those Turkish statesmen who wanted the Armenians to be annihilated and carried this out according to plan. All of the softening effects that might arise, for example from my depiction of the exceptional danger that the Armenian question was, in fact, for Turkey as it was to be used by Russia as a means of dividing up Turkey, would recede to the background compared with the main impression that my testimony would make. I suppose that the court will present me with documents that were published by the Armenian, Aram Andonian, and which contain accounts of Talaat Pasha’s orders in the matter concerning the deportation and annihilation. I would have to give testimony to the effect that these documents are, in all probability, genuine. I would also have to testify that a remark made to me by the Commissioner of Deportations, who was sent from Constantinople to Aleppo, was actually made, “You do not understand what we want: we want an Armenia without Armenians.”

1921-06-01-DE-001 Source: PA-AA; NL/Rössler/Vol.2; Correspondence. Translated by Vera Draack 165. The date of the document has been estimated and is based on a remark written at the top of the page, “Draft of a statement to the German Foreign Office by Consul Rössler in Eger, dated the end of May 1921, with regard to the examination as a witness in the proceedings against Teilirian.”

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From the Secretary of State of the German Foreign Office (Haniel) to the Defence Attorney in the criminal proceedings against Teilirian, Gordon Berlin, 1 June 1921 Transcript No. I H 3160. In reply to the letter dated 27 May of this year Before your request to give Consul Rössler permission to testify as a witness in the criminal proceedings against the Armenian student, S. Tehlirian, can be granted, I request a list of the questions that Mr. Rössler will be asked. Without such a detailed description, the political consequences of the examination of a public official of the German Foreign Office are not clear. [v. Haniel] [Haniel’s brief to Gordon, entitled “Concept” and dated 2 June 1921] Dear Privy Judicial Councillor, In reply to your kind letter of the 1st inst., I have the honour of replying that Consul Rössler, as I have already written in an earlier letter under today’s date, cannot be authorised to testify as an expert witness on Turkish-Armenian relations, but that the German Foreign Office would have no misgivings if Mr. Rössler were examined on pure facts without judgement on the instigation and its consequences and without any remarks of a political nature whatsoever. With this restriction, however, which would especially exclude all of Consul Rössler’s subjective opinions and value judgements, the examination of Mr. Rössler would lose in importance, particularly when considering the fact that the purely factual relations have been made sufficiently well known in the literature. As far as the supposed remark on the Turkish desire to have “an Armenia without Armenians” is concerned, this was, as far as we know here, merely the personal remark of a subordinate Turkish official and, therefore, it could not be interpreted as being an official expression of the intentions of the Turkish government. [Haniel]

Glossary

Agha Ashiret Badveli bashibazuk bastinado Bayram bedel Belediye Bey Bimbashi capitulations caravansary Catholicos cavass cessat Chaldean chetes

dönum dragoman Effendi Evkaf ferman Grand Vizier

Title of respect for a civil or military leader Tribesman, clansman Teacher; Protestant Armenian minister Ottoman irregular soldier, notorious for preying on civilians Beating of the soles of the feet as a punishment or torture Muslim festival to end fasting at the end of Ramadan Fee for exemption from military service Mayor’s office Title of respect Major in the Turkish army Special Ottoman trade privileges and tariff exemptions granted to selected foreign states Inn Head of independent eastern church like the Armenian An armed and uniformed attendant attached to the suite of a person of distinction A completed but withheld act Chaldean Christians connected to the Roman Catholic church but retaining Aramaic as the liturgical language. Irregular troops, originally intended for guerrilla activity behind enemy lines; specially recruited and organized groups for the killing of Armenians 0.5574 square metres of land Interpreter, chiefly of oriental languages in consulates and embassies Title of respect, esp. for a state official, for an educated man or a man of the upper classes Management of all church property and religious foundations Official edict of the sultan Chief of government in the Ottoman Empire

glossary

hamal Hamidiye irade Ittihad ve Terakki jihad Kaymakam khan Kizilbash konak medjidie millet

mudir mufti muhadjir mukhtar mutessarrif Nestorian obashi oka Pasha pfennig sanjak Sublime Porte teskeri Vali vilayet zaptieh

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Porter, bearer Kurdish cavalry troops made up of irregular Kurds established by Sultan Abdul Hamid Written edict from the Sublime Porte, i.e., the Ottoman Government Committee for Union and Progress, a political party otherwise known as the Young Turks Muslim holy war against unbelievers District governor Caravansary Kurdish Turks in eastern Turkey, originally followers of a Shiite Sufi order, sometimes even perceived as Armenians. Mansion; an official residence in the Ottoman Empire Ottoman silver coin worth 20 piastres Ottoman political and social system whereby each religious group is granted autonomy, so long as they collect and remit taxes to the central government Head of a canton, to whom a mukhtar is subject, and who is himself subject to a kaimakam Sunni Islamic scholar Muslim refugee, esp. from the Balkans Head of a village Governor, administrative authority of a sanjak Ancient Orthodox Christian sect, Assyrian Sergeant Old Turkish unit of weight, approx. 1.3 kilograms General. The highest title of civil and military officials in the Ottoman Empire Penny Subdivision of a vilayet, district Seat of government in the Ottoman Empire Travel permit Governor General of a vilayet or province Province in the Ottoman Empire Ottoman military policeman,

Index

A Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey (commissioner for deportation at Aleppo), 69, 70, 574, 766, 766n, 767 Abdul Halik, Mustafa (Renda) (Vali of Bitlis and Aleppo), 766 Abdul Hamid (Sultan), xvii, 1, 2, 54, 78, 142–43, 150, 164, 207, 213, 251–52, 254–55, 277, 364, 365, 367, 376, 388, 395, 420, 499, 592–93, 596, 629, 637, 660, 697, 699, 742 Abu Hrera, 651 Abuhayatian, Armenak (renamed Arif ) (Armenian doctor at German hospital in Urfa), 538 Adabazar/Adapazar, 51, 53, 277, 291, 293, 323, 364, 394, 411, 413, 739 Adana, xvii, xxvii, 3, 18, 46, 55, 60–62, 69, 86–87, 95, 138–40, 149, 152–53, 155–59, 170, 183, 195, 200, 246, 248, 268n, 275, 278, 294, 301, 303–4, 310, 316, 326, 333–34, 338, 341, 348, 358–61, 364, 374, 376–78, 381, 386–87, 401–10, 432, 448, 473–75, 511–12, 516, 533, 535, 540–42, 562, 565, 593, 754, 767; CUP, 207, 227, 232; deportations, 3, 25, 39, 74, 230, 325, 336, 350, 354, 450, 456, 480, 505, 508, 603–04, 634–37, 674, 746; expropriation, 42, 44; Islamization, 326, 502, 530, 633 Adiaman, 265, 305, 307, 487, 489, 663 Adil, Hadji (CUP leader, Kaimakam of Everek, Vali of Adrianople), 395 Adrianople, 213, 395, 564, 587, 688, 740 Afion Karahissar, 224, 257, 295, 310, 358–59, 386, 398, 406, 432, 602 Agabalian, Simon (Armenian employee of the German Consulate in Adana), 61, 153–55, 158

Agence Milli (official Ottoman pressagency), 93, 268 Ahmed (the Circassian), 298n, 299 Ain-el-Arus, 526–27 Aintab, 24, 29, 31, 33, 36, 48, 99, 162, 164, 166–68, 173, 177, 192, 213, 265n, 319, 387, 390, 427, 498, 672–76, 712, 741; deportations, 270, 274–76, 344, 346, 348, 351, 353–354, 385, 508, 556, 559, 563, 581, 604, 607, 638–40, 644 Airan-Punar, 23, 38, 352–53 Aknuni, E. (Khachatur Malumian) (Dashnak leader in Constantinople), 394 Alabash, 211, 275, 317, 672, 675 Alayund, 432 Albarian, Mkhitar (protestant in Hadjin), 477 Albistan, 17, 40, 211, 219, 275, 317, 335, 353–54, 676 Aleppo, xvi, xxvi, xxvii, 3,5, 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 23, 37, 56, 65, 79–82, 95, 99, 147, 155–64, 166, 168, 189, 195, 204, 298–301, 336, 338–39, 342, 373–74, 484, 491 502, 520, 522, 536–40, 553, 562–64, 572–77, 588–89, 599–604, 607–9, 614, 628–44, 650–51, 661–65, 671, 711–13, 739–41, 764, 766–68; deportations, 26–31, 44, 52, 69, 70, 76–77, 120, 194, 217–18, 227–28, 239, 254, 260–61, 265–71, 274–76, 290, 304–6, 312–20, 323, 381–93, 395, 398, 424, 442–44, 456–58, 464, 504–10, 512, 514, 517, 542–46, 555–60 617–19, 675–77; deportees, 104, 171, 293–94 325, 335, 343–48, 350–61, 381, 433–34, 472, 477, 487–89, 494–98, 531, 580–82; help by local Armenians 525–26; orphans 673–74, 747 Alexandretta,12, 57, 62, 65, 81, 152, 154, 158–59, 194, 200, 208, 334, 392, 395,

index

442–44, 499, 504, 511–12, 631, 633, 644; deportations 79, 265, 372–74 Ali Pasha (brother of Nuri Bey), 77, 475, 490 Anders, Edgar (German Consul in Erzerum), 140–41, 233, 238, 296, 728 Andonian, Aram, 764–68 Angora, 17, 39, 53, 78, 80, 213, 285, 293, 310, 358–64, 378, 393, 398, 404, 405–9, 457, 538, 545, 562–63, 577, 601, 688, 743, 753 Antioch, 63–64, 174, 265, 335, 343, 385, 442, 463, 644 Armenian Revolutionary Federation. See Dashnaks Ashkale, 279 Aslanbey, 277 Asraf Bey (Turkish doctor in Mush), 471 Assyrians, 2, 55, 152, 181, 209, 220, 271, 384, 436, 343–44, 346–47, 411, 435, 455, 514, 539, 636, 693, 755; deportations, 177, 213, 537, 666, 673 , 694, 748. See also Chaldeans, Nestorians, Syrians Atif Bey (Vali of Ankara), 364 Atkinson, Albert (British missionary in Diyarbekir), 347 Atkinson, Henry H. (American doctor in Harput), 22 Axenfeld, Karl (leader of a German missionary movement), xix, 109, 451, 737 Ayash, 249, 362 Azik, 435, 438 Aziz Bey (head of the Interior Ministry’s Office of State Security), 250, 310, 360 Azmi Bey, Huseyin (Vali of Sivas and Beirut), 325 B Bab, 270, 305, 344, 509, 542–43, 553, 559, 580, 605, 639, 765 Baghdad Railway,10, 14, 17, 25–30, 40, 43, 63, 70, 78, 80–83, 98, 119, 120, 218, 228, 238, 261, 267, 304, 318, 344–45, 357, 374, 382, 385–86, 402, 422, 443, 447, 505–9, 517–18, 525, 555, 603, 608, 632–33, 637, 703,

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758, 765; Armenian employees, xxiii, 100 Baghtshedjik/Baktshedjik, 277, 309 Baibourt/Baiburt, 15, 75, 213, 240, 242, 279, 284–86, 328–29, 392, 398, 623–46, 735 Bakrmaden, 345 Bardizag. See Baghtshedjik/Baktshedjik Bastendorff (German engineer for Baghdad Railway), 27–28, 40, 47, 70, 523, 527 Bebudoff, Count (Russian-Armenian commander in Trebizond), 729 Becker, Carl Heinrich (German Orientalist), 29, 529 Bedri Bey, Osman (police chief of Constantinople), xxviii, 27, 402 Beilan, 265, 268, 346 Belgium, 102–5, 123, 378–80, 388, 424, 449, 571, 701, 713, 757; deportations of civilians, 119 Benabil, 384 Bergfeld, Heinrich (German consul in Trebizond), xxvii, 2, 38, 42–43, 50, 58, 68, 75, 79, 81, 85, 216, 240, 244, 263, 264, 331–32, 360, 736–37 Bernau, August (German employee of American Vacuum Oil Company), 78, 80, 651, 656, 673 Bernstorff, Johann Heinrich Graf von (German ambassador in Constantinople), 4, 560–61, 718, 721–24 Besniye, 19, 270 Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von (German chancellor), xix, xxviii, 59, 79, 83, 88, 90, 106, 122, 125, 426, 446; assurance for German Christians, 110; directive; intervention; indifference to Armenian suffering, 89 Biegel, Georg (German teacher in Konia), 324 Bissing, Baron Moritz Ferdinand (German governor general of Belgium), 103 Bitlis, 49, 52, 66, 121 142–43, 170–71, 199, 202–3, 362, 692, 707, 735, 752; deportations, 213, 266, 294, 440, 445, 470, 741; Kurds, 8, 141, 454 Bityas, 63, 343

774 | index

Björn, Bodil (Swedish missionary in German services), 440, 470 Blank, Karl (German missionary in Marash), 25, 81, 162, 166, 189–90, 193, 312 Bölveren, 17, 354 Böttrich, Sylvester, Lieut. Colonel (German military responsible for Ottoman Railroad), xxiii, xxiv, 465–67 Bozanti, 25, 323, 325, 432, 675 Bozo (Kurdish chief ), 741 Bronsart von Schellendorff, Fritz (German Chief of Turkish General Staff), xix, 107, 185n Bryce, James 1st Viscount (British Liberal politician), 123, 273, 498, 669 Büge, Eugen (German consul in Adana), xxvii, 16–17, 18, 39–44, 55, 60–61, 69, 74, 76–77, 86, 95, 149, 153, 342, 378, 381, 502, 530, 635 Bünte (German lieutenant and engineer), 711 C Catholic Armenians. See Deportations Chaldeans, 385, 537. See also Assyrians, Nestorians, Syrians Chamberlain, Houston Stewart (British writer), 123 Chamshkavank, 284 Cherkess, 351. See also Circassians Chilingirian, Anna (daughter of Rupen Sevak Chilingirian), 577 Chinasi, Jounos (CUP member in Erzerum), 67, 245 Christoffel, Ernst Jakob (head of German Home for the Blind in Malatia), 18, 56, 567, 614, 713, 739, 745 Chrysanthos, Philippidis (Greek archbishop of Trebizond), 728–29 Chulussi Bey/Chlusi Bey (director of police in Erzerum), 67, 70, 244–45, 541 Circassians, 10, 35–37, 41, 119, 145, 157, 209, 266, 271, 336, 345, 525–26, 573, 617, 674–77. See also Cherkess Colley, Theodor (chief German doctor of Red Cross Hospital in Erzindjan), 262–63, 754n

Committee for Union and Progress, x, 43, 55, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 101, 170, 207, 240, 242, 245, 264, 281, 283, 286, 298, 299, 330, 331, 332, 344, 362, 367, 370, 371, 377, 378, 388, 389, 395, 400, 422, 467, 494, 578, 588, 646, 659, 666, 679, 680, 683, 687, 691, 692, 694, 695, 699, 762, 767. See also Young Turks Constantinople, x, xvi, xx, xxii, xxv–xxviii, 3, 6–9, 26, 42, 46, 49, 55, 61, 67, 69–71, 73, 76, 79, 82, 84–86, 88–90, 92, 94, 99, 101, 105–10, 116–18, 122, 135, 139–40, 146–53, 156, 158, 160, 167, 169, 172–74, 176–77, 180, 183–84, 186, 188, 190, 194–99, 201, 203–10, 212–13, 215–16, 218, 221, 224–25, 227, 229, 230, 232, 235, 238–39, 241–46, 249–50, 255–57, 259, 261–62, 264, 266, 271, 274, 276–78, 287, 290, 292, 294, 301–3, 307, 309, 311, 315, 321–22, 326–27, 330, 332– 34, 336, 341–43, 357, 361–64, 370, 372, 374–77, 379–81, 388, 390–95, 402, 411, 419, 421–22, 424–26, 428–32, 436–38, 444–46, 450, 453, 455, 459–60, 464–65, 467–68, 470, 476, 480–84, 488, 490–91, 493–505, 511–12, 530–32, 536, 537, 539–40, 542, 545, 553, 555–56, 559–70, 573–79, 586–91, 594–95, 600–601, 603, 605, 608, 615–17, 619, 625, 631, 634–36, 648, 660–63, 666–69, 672, 674, 678–88, 691, 693, 695–96, 698, 700–705, 708–12, 718–19, 723–24, 727–28, 733–34, 737–42, 746, 748–49, 752, 755, 759, 766, 768 Crewe-Milnes, Robert Offley Ashburton, 1. Marques of Crewe KG (British politician and writer), 273, 427 Cromer, Evelyn Baring, 1. Earl of Cromer (British statesman and diplomat), 273, 427, 498, 500, 596 CUP. See Committee for Union and Progress D Daily Chronicle, 96, 378, 423, 499, 707, 710, 725

index

Damascus, 31, 73, 99, 191, 276, 335, 344–45, 348, 351, 356, 509, 539, 559, 565, 581, 588, 602, 618, 674, 707 Dardanelles, 12, 80, 97, 175, 202, 224, 241, 366–68, 371, 398–99, 421–22, 599, 707, 709, 742, 757 Dashnaks/Dashnaktsagans/Dashnaktsutiun, 27, 49, 50, 52, 56, 113, 115–16, 118, 122, 143, 148, 165, 169, 171, 175, 177, 181, 188, 196, 199, 200, 208, 214, 233, 240, 262, 295, 296, 298, 320, 362, 364, 387, 391, 393, 394, 592, 595, 667, 689, 694 Davis, Leslie A. (American consul in Harput), 1, 5, 11–12, 15, 22, 54 Davitian, Dr. (employee of the Armenian Patriarchate in Constantinople), 261 Deissmann, Gustav Adolf (German Protestant theologian), 210, 418, 451, 570 deportations of Armenians, 1–3, 20, 32, 93; Catholics, 78, 157, 181, 187, 230, 241, 258, 262, 277, 288, 290, 292, 293–94, 305, 308–10, 324, 326, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 364, 373, 377, 447–48, 454, 480, 495, 505, 537, 539, 561–64, 574, 575, 576–77, 582, 600, 601, 602, 646, 714, 717, 739, 740, 753; other Christians, 344, 347; Protestants, 122, 181, 258, 277, 309–10, 324, 326, 353, 359–62, 373, 447–48, 454, 473, 477–78, 480, 495, 505, 516, 539, 558, 567, 575, 582, 600, 601–2, 632, 638, 648, 714, 717, 740; economic consequences and enrichment, 37–45; German incitement, 90–92, 105–6, 120; German officers, 98–102, 107–10; German disapproval, 74, 85, 88–89; intention, 67–70, 72, 78–79; justification of, 46–66, 71–72; killing of men, 13, 15–18 ; routes, 24, 29–37; role of policemen, 67, 77; Turkish disapproval, 10, 80–82 Der Boghossian (Armenian preacher), 612 Der el Zor/Der Zor/Deir-es-Zor, 32–37, 41, 211, 275, 313–14, 348, 363, 461–64 617–20, 651, 672–77; deportees, 261,

| 775

494, 526, 543–46, 575, 580–81, 601, 608, 606–7, 640–42, 744, 765; relief, 525; ten percent regulation, 608 Deutsch-Armenische Gesellschaft, 452 Deutsch-Armenische Korrespondenz, 757 Didsun/Didszun/Didzun, Magdalena (German missionary), 11, 26, 473n104, 480, 486, 489, 502 Diyarbekir, 2, 11, 13–14, 17–20, 27, 40, 53, 65, 76–78, 80, 99, 143, 176, 181, 188, 211, 217–20, 226–27, 232, 240, 242, 245, 249, 260–61, 265–66, 269, 299–300, 303, 306–8, 311, 318, 333, 345–50, 357–58, 362, 384–87, 392, 394–95, 402, 433, 435, 437, 457, 459, 484–85, 503, 505–6, 562, 641–44, 739–41; Clergymen, 28; extermination of Christians, 290, 320 Dinkel, Christoph, (Swiss historian), 108 Djambulat Bey, Ismail (chief of state police at Interior Ministry), 87 Djavid Bey, Mehmet (finance minister), 422 Djebel et Tor, 385 Djelal Bey (Vali of Aleppo), 66, 80, 161, 166, 218, 265, 459, 572 Djemal Bey (police chief of Adana), 44–46, 68, 408–10, 421, 541, 767 Djemal Pasha, Ahmed (minister of the Navy and commander of the 4th Army), 52, 69, 72, 99, 164, 266, 275, 299–300, 303, 332, 335, 344–45, 356, 382, 386, 397, 437, 443–44, 465, 490–91, 523, 539, 556, 558, 565; American relief, 240, 494, 542, 588–89, 600–601; deportations, 72–73 Djerablus, 98, 260, 265, 318, 515, 559, 634, 639, 673 Djevdet Bey (Vali of Van), 392, 394 Djezireh, 375 Djeziret ibn Omar, 385 Djibedjian, Araxia (Armenian employee of Beatrice Rohner), 34, 608 Dobbeler, Benno von (German leader of orphanage in Haruniye), 38, 81, 246–48, 317, 341–42 Dönme (Jewish converts to Islam), 371 Dort Yol/Dört Yol/Dortyol/Dörtyol, 58, 61–62, 152–55, 159, 170–71, 189, 194,

776 | index

200, 211, 317, 325, 334–39, 373, 386, 409, 474, 511–12, 752 E Eckart, Franz Hugo (German entrepreneur in Urfa), 100, 222, 305, 703 Edhem Bey (Turkish diplomat in Berlin), 7, 400 Egin, 181, 188, 196, 199, 213, 642 Ehmann, Johannes (leader of German missions in Mesereh/Mamuret-ul-Aziz), 55, 57, 180–82, 196, 472, 583–84, 739, 747 Elfasian, Gregory (dragoman for German consulates), 233, 235–39, 244 Elvers, Eva (German missionary), 13, 20, 26, 47, 67, 262, 322, 621 emigration of Armenians, 143, 393, 686, 747 Enderessi, 627 England, 112–13, 120, 138, 142, 145, 171–72, 199, 208, 296, 379–80, 388, 423, 499, 571, 590–94, 597–99, 669– 70, 678, 704, 707, 719, 722, 727, 767 Entente, 61, 89, 96, 171, 199, 201–2, 241, 267, 277, 333, 378–79, 423, 427–28, 448, 492, 563, 592, 599, 601, 603, 615, 697, 707, 710, 720, 725, 736, 738, 756–59, 762; deportations; Ottoman Armenians, 96, 139, 207–10, 214, 231, 499, 595, 597, 750 Entilli, 317, 433, 613, 675 Enver Pasha, Ismail (Minister of War), xxii, xxiii, 7, 51, 72, 79, 91, 105–6, 108, 122, 159, 172, 194, 212, 291–92, 298n, 344, 361, 366–69, 387, 391–94, 399, 411, 418–22, 441, 456, 470, 490–92, 514, 561, 578, 597, 616, 633, 682, 697, 702, 723, 728, 765 Eregli, 25, 294, 323, 325, 359, 393, 401, 566, 602 Erginis, 284 Erzberger, Matthias (German politician), 430, 453, 537, 561, 722 Erzerum/Erzurum, xvi, xxv, xxvii, 2, 4, 7–8, 12, 15–16, 21–23, 46–47, 50–51, 53, 57–59, 66–67, 70, 75–76, 79, 81,

98, 107, 113, 120–21, 138, 140–41, 143–44, 146–47, 149–52, 170, 172–74, 177–80, 183–86, 188, 195, 197–200, 202–3, 208, 211–13, 222, 226, 230, 232, 234–38, 240–42, 244–45, 249, 262–63, 266, 272–73, 278–82, 284–88, 290, 293, 295–96, 301, 303, 327–30, 345, 348, 350, 355, 358, 360, 362–63, 386, 387, 391–92, 394, 399, 404–5, 419, 439, 445, 456–57, 469–70, 473, 487, 489–90, 497, 499, 540–41, 562, 572, 577, 584, 622–23, 642, 647–48, 691, 693–94, 706, 719, 723, 728, 730–35, 739–43, 754, 757 Erzindjan, 133, 213, 222–23, 226, 230, 240, 242, 244, 262, 263–64, 273, 279–80, 286, 327–29, 392–93, 439, 457, 473, 489, 566, 572, 577, 622–26, 645, 647, 730–33, 754 Eski Shehr/Eskishehir, 43, 293, 308–31, 323–24, 359, 602, 719 Essad Bey (head of Turkish Secret Service), 393–94 Essen, Leon van der (Belgian historian), 104 Euphrates, 109, 223, 271, 294, 327–29, 335, 345, 392, 395, 599, 611–12, 617, 623, 642, 651, 733, 739; corpses, 63, 218, 240, 265, 275, 293, 318, 351, 462, 464, 509–10, 639, 643; route, 10, 19–21, 25, 28, 31, 34–35, 37, 48, 98, 120–21, 211, 213, 226, 261, 270, 284, 314, 351, 544, 553, 559, 606–8, 619–20, 634, 652–56, 672–76, 707, 744, 753 Everek, 10, 53–54, 77, 176, 188, 250–56, 478–79 Eyub Bey (commissioner for deportation in Aleppo), 69, 510, 766–67 F Faber, Friedrich (chairman of the union of German newspaper publishers), 7, 110, 112, 417–18 Fahri Bey (photographic department of the war ministry), 728 Fakhri/Fakri Pasha or Fahreddin Pasha (Turkish general), 64, 486, 658

index

| 777

Fatin Bey (Kaymakam of Alexandretta), 373 Fehmi Bey (director of the interior ministry), 525 Feldmann, Colonel Otto von (head of Department I, Operations, Ottoman General Headquarters), xxii, 108 Fethi (Feyzi) Bey (deputy from Diyarbekir), 19, 375, 409 Fezi Hodja, 739 Fischer, Fritz (German historian), 114 Fossum (American missionary in Persia), 693 France, 104, 112–13, 122, 138, 145, 150, 179, 199, 202, 379, 590, 593–94, 596–99, 704, 707, 720 Frankfurter Zeitung, 48, 105, 115, 496–99, 727 Fuad, Dr. (instigator of massacres in Trebizond), 692 Fundadjak, 62–66, 351, 604; rebellion, 442, 506, 512 Furnus, 193, 313, 317, 352–53

Gräter, Eduard (Swiss teacher in the German school in Aleppo), 393 (misspelled as Gräber), 522, 631, 632 Great Britain, 199, 202, 379, 573 Greece, 102, 367–68, 376 Greeks, 13, 30, 50, 91n410, 101, 102, 108, 135, 152, 209, 213, 214, 255, 257, 277, 326, 331, 344, 347, 365, 367–68, 369, 376, 383, 397, 412, 419, 421, 426, 514, 591, 592, 602, 623, 626, 627, 628, 636, 646, 647, 659, 666, 687, 699–700, 723, 728–30, 735, 736, 748, 755 Grothe, Hugo (German Orient propagandist), 91 Gümüshane, 48 Günther, Franz J. (German vice-president of the Anatolian Railway), xxiii–xxiv, 322, 326–27, 431, 752 Gürün, 23, 38, 40, 352–53, 386 Güshana, 293 Gwinner, Arthur (chairman of the Baghdad Railway), 413, 422

G Gaidzak, Mrs. (Armenian from Trebizond), 488 Garmudj, 220, 525 Garo, Armen. See Pasdirmadjian, Karekin Geben, 314, 317, 639 Gehlsen (German pharmacist in Erzindjan), 21, 222–23 Geive, 293n, 412–13 Gemerek, 18, 566 Georgian, Garabeth Hadji Oglu (Armenian farmer), 284 Geranian, Vartan (Armenian preacher), 612 Göppert, Otto (diplomat and specialist for Turkey in the German Foreign Office), xxi, xxiv, 6, 71, 90, 125, 358, 542, 695–97, 715–16, 757, 761–63 Goliye, 384 Goltz, Colmar Freiherr von der (German advisor of the Sultan and Commander of the 6th Turkish Army), xxi–xxii, 12, 98, 102, 108, 119, 271, 399, 435–38, 455, 501, 574, 634, 692, 758 Gordon (defence lawyer of Tehlirian), 769

H Habably, 63, 343 Hadigian, Krikor (Armenian priest), 376 Hadji Bedr Bey (Kurdish leader), 16, 489 Hadjin, 11, 213, 219, 260, 316–17, 319, 335, 337, 386, 473–79, 487, 502, 606, 638, 640, 676 Haeften, Hans von (head of the German propaganda division), 122–23 Hahn, Kurt (employee in the propaganda department of the Foreign Office), 123 Haidar Bey (Vali of Mosul), 693–94 Haidar Pasha (Mutessarrif of Marash), 161–62, 167, 411, 431, 721 Hakki Bey (Vali of Adana), 44, 46, 304, 326, 408, 541 Halil Bey (Menteşe, president of Chamber of Deputies and Foreign Minister), 6, 72, 302, 427, 428n84, 429n86, 438, 490–91, 503, 530, 540, 597, 656, 661, 696, 697, 726 Halil, Lieutenant (CUP emissary), 76, 173, 298, 299, 346, 437, 524, 692, 692, 694

778 | index

Hamam, 32, 463, 549–51, 581, 608 Hamandjan, Agop Effendi (Armenian civil inspector in Interior Ministry), 396 Hamdi Bey (Muslim informant in Zeytun), 43, 163, 408 Hamdi Bey (Turkish doctor in Urfa), 300 Harnack, Adolf von (German church historian), 418, 451 Harput, 1, 4, 15, 17, 20–22, 38, 40, 54, 57, 134, 141, 143–44, 225–26, 230, 254, 263, 266, 269, 270, 279, 290, 328–29, 345, 348–50, 355, 362–63, 384, 386, 402, 440–41, 445, 473, 497, 562, 622–23, 625, 641, 647, 649, 730–33, 740, 747. See also Karput Hashim Bey (Member of Parliament for Malatia), 742 Hassan Agha (Kurdish leader), 352 Haussleiter, Gottlob (German professor of theology), 418, 451 Heizer, Oscar (American consul in Trebizond), 644 Hedjaz, 31, 335 Hilal (official Turkish newspaper), 367, 370–71, 399 Hilmi, Filibeli (CUP leader in Erzerum), 245, 330 Hindenburg, Paul von (German army leader), 82, 399, 669 Hintchags/Hintchaks/Hintschaks, 165, 181, 196, 262, 320, 592, 596, 667 Hoesch, Alexander von (German embassy counsellor), 124 Hoffmann-Fölkersamb, Hermann (German vice-consul in Alexandretta), xxvii, 12, 62, 79 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Ernst Fürst zu (German ambassador in Constantinople) Hollbach, von (German official in the Turkish state tobacco monopoly), 322, 326 Holstein, Walter (German vice-consul in Mosul), xxiii, 7, 15, 19, 20, 28, 76–77, 102, 245–46, 307–8, 375, 435, 437–38, 456, 503, 505–7, 515, 632 Holy War. See Jihad Hüppauf, Bernd (German historian), 112

Humann, Hans (German naval attaché in German Embassy in Constantinople), xxii–xxiii, 7, 51, 105–7, 122, 291 Hussein Kasim Bey (Mudir of Meskeneh), 27, 73, 320, 588–89, 766 Hussein Pacha, 142 I Ibrahim Bey (Turkish official in Adana, 1908), 278, 294 Ilidya, 234, 236, 734 Ineboli, 278, 293, 502 Ionescu, Take (Rumanian politician), 397 Irdazur, 284 Ishkhan, Ngoghayos Poghosian (Armenian deputy from Van), 177 Islahiye, 523, 534, 542, 558 Islamisation, 2, 163–64, 230, 242–43, 258–59, 278, 287, 292–93, 319, 330, 363, 371, 376, 387, 389, 393, 402, 407, 443, 447, 448, 450, 473, 479, 489, 502, 516, 530–31, 538–40, 563–66, 582, 601–2, 618, 629, 636, 640, 642, 664, 696–97, 714–15, 745–46 Ismid, 41, 51, 277–78, 291–94, 301, 303, 308, 323–24, 358–59, 364, 393, 394, 409–13, 431, 562, 602, 739 Israelian, Stepan (Armenian Catholic bishop of Harput), 290n47 Issan Pasha, Ali (commander of 6th Army in Mosul), 79, 744 J Jäckh, Ernst (German author and proTurkish academic), 421, 430, 666, 702, 704, 754 Jackson, Jesse B. (American consul in Aleppo), 5, 167–68, 643 Jagow, Gottlieb von (German foreign minister), xxiv, xxviii, 84, 89, 101, 139, 146, 483, 492, 501, 670–71, 677, 685 Janson, Heinrich (German foreman in Konia), 324 Jeppe, Karen (Danish missionary in German service), 5, 217, 222 Jews, ix, xiv, xxv, 4, 52, 59, 113, 114, 123, 136, 258, 282, 295, 297, 365, 367–68,

index

371, 372, 420, 421, 448, 498, 514, 517, 596, 602, 636, 744, 752 Jihad, 482 Johansson, Alma (Swedish missionary in German service), 5, 8–9, 11, 13, 15, 19–22, 26, 440–41, 445, 468n, 473, 716 K Kabbusiye, 63, 343 Kadir Bey (Muslim deputy from Marash), 163, 165 Kadir Pasha (Muslim notable in Marash), 17, 165, 353 Kafafian (Armenian doctor in Erzindjan), 21 Kalat Mara, 384 Kara Biber Bey (department head of Vali of Smryna), 686 Karabashian, Martha (Armenian deportee from Furnus), 313 Karaböjük, 351–53 Karahissar. See Afion Karahissar Karaköprü, 14, 346 Karput, 293–94. See also Harput Kasim Bey, Hussein (ex-Vali of Saloniki and Aleppo), 73, 588–89 Katma, 346, 424, 433, 444, 488, 508–9, 542–43 Kayseri, 10, 18, 53–54, 134, 176, 188, 250–54, 263, 358, 363, 375, 393, 394, 403, 457, 478–79, 539, 562, 566, 587, 628, 753–54 Keghi, 22, 473, 585, 642 Kejejian, Mariza (Armenian deportee), 641 Kemach/Kemagh gorge, 20–21, 67 Kerak, 31, 335, 345, 509–510 Kern, Paul (German engineer), 41, 401 Kessab, 63–64, 265, 268, 343, 644 Khabur River, 10, 34–36, 41, 78, 109, 617, 618, 619, 620, 651, 655, 672, 674, 675, 676, 711, 712 Khänus, 279–80 Kharpert. See Harput Kharput. See Harput Khatchadurian, Leon (Armenian worker on Baghdad Railway), 604

| 779

Kherlakian, Hagop (Armenian deputy from Marash), 191 Khider Bey, 63, 343 Kiamil Effendi, 489 Kiamil Pasha, Mahmud (commander of the 3rd Army), 70, 327, 330, 541, 577 Kiazim Bey (chief of staff of 5th Army), 686 Kieselkilisse, 284 Killis, 274–76, 351, 463, 543, 556, 580, 664 Kirlakian, Hosep Effendi (son of Armenian deputy from Marash), 164 Kirsinkos, 284 Konia/Konya, 322, 324, 358–59, 538, 636, 743; deportations, 25, 39, 61, 177, 189, 193, 211, 254, 309–10, 324–25, 364, 391, 404, 409, 412, 432, 558, 601; Islamization, 326, 502, 587, 620 Köshkerian, 155 Kramer, Alan (Dublin historian), 103 Kress von Kressenstein, Friedrich (Djemal’s chief of staff), 72, 444, 488, 491, 494, 539 Kubla, 325 Kuckhoff, M. (Honorary German Consul in Samsun), xxvii, 2, 51, 257, 375–76, 502, 530 Kühlmann, Richard (German ambassador in Constantinople and later secretary of state), xvi, 79, 682, 685–88, 698–702, 704, 726 Künzler, Jacob (Swiss deacon in Urfa), 1, 5, 11, 14, 55, 64–65, 76, 217, 220–21, 298, 300, 304, 343, 346, 522, 525, 538, 540, 609, 614, 673 Kurds, 3, 7–10, 12, 16, 19–21, 27–28, 37, 67, 75–76, 115, 120, 140–44, 176, 181, 198–203, 208, 215, 219, 222–24, 226, 239, 242, 262, 266–68, 270, 279, 282, 284–85, 296–97, 307, 320, 349–50, 352, 356, 367, 375, 392, 402, 411, 420, 440–41, 445, 447, 469, 472–73, 488–89, 507, 511, 518–19, 523, 525–26, 554, 581, 622–23, 628, 629, 633, 641, 643–44, 648–49, 658, 692, 694, 731–33, 747–48, 755, 760;

780 | index

Dersim, 196, 230, 285, 567, 732, 741; uprising, 142, 146, 217, 221, 454 Kurtbelen, 293n50 Kyrmenikian, Manug (Armenian deportee), 35, 41, 672, 675 L Langenegger (German officer), 35, 712 Ledebour, Georg (Deputy in Reichstag), 705–6 Lemkin, Raphael (Polish lawyer, defined genocide), 126 Lechnig, W. (German embassy employee at Alexandretta), 520 Lepsius, Johannes (German theologian and missionary), x–xi, xv, xvii, 1–2, 5, 7, 49, 79, 91–93, 98, 100, 108, 110, 114–25, 195, 204–6, 210, 215, 229, 291–92, 416–19, 422, 528, 621, 669–70, 677–78, 708, 756–57, 761–64 Leslie, Francis H. (American missionary in Urfa), 443, 460 Liebknecht, Karl (deputy in Reichstag), 92–93, 527–28, 765 Liman von Sanders, Otto (head of the German military mission in Turkey), 12, 71, 91, 101, 107–8, 680–85, 688, 691 Lindenberg (German doctor in Erzindjan), 625–26 Linsmeyer (German engineer), 269–71 Litten, Wilhelm (German consul in Tabris), 31, 33, 97, 543, 555 Loeschebrand (German captain), 35 Lossow, Otto von (authorised military representative in German Embassy in Constantinople), 102, 105–7, 435, 436n, 616, 682 Lucius von Stoedten, Hellmuth (German minister in Stockholm), 125 Ludendorff, Erich (quartermaster in the German Army Headquarters), 82, 103, 122–23, 682 Lufti Effendi (Muslim pharmacist in Marash), 163 Lüttichau, Siegfried Graf von (preacher of German Embassy in Constantinople), 78–79, 738

M Maarra, 580 Mala, 293 Malatia/Malatya, 77, 126, 347, 352, 393, 398, 418, 562, 614, 713, 738–41, 743–44, 746; deportations, 143, 218, 489–90, 516, 566, 567, 585, 747; exterminations, 18, 73, 262, 320, 457, 473, 742 Mama Hatun/Mamahatun, 21, 75, 279, 284–85, 328, 626. See also Terdjan Mamuret-ul-Aziz, 26, 56, 196, 445, 472, 717, 739; deportations 1, 2, 5, 11, 22, 55, 70, 226, 230, 320, 473 Mann, Thomas (German writer), 112 Mansuriye, 384 Manukian, Sarkis (Armenian teacher at German school), 16, 76, 487–88, 490 Marash/Marasch, 11, 17, 23, 29, 31, 38, 60, 62–63, 69, 99, 147, 158–68, 173–74, 177, 189–93, 213, 226, 254, 270, 274–76, 303, 311–13, 316, 319, 334, 335, 338, 341–42, 345–46, 348, 350–58, 363, 385, 386–87, 398, 452, 460, 463, 497, 505, 508, 516, 536–38, 558–59, 562–63, 572, 574, 581, 587, 601, 604, 613, 638–39, 672–77, 707, 741, 765 Mardin, 20, 28, 40, 51, 77, 245, 262, 266, 293, 303, 308, 321, 334, 349, 384–86, 402, 435, 436, 455, 506, 562, 642, 644, 739, 747 Marzovan, 262 Masar Bey (governor of Ankara), 80 Maurer, J.E. (German engineer), 324 Max, Adolphe (mayor of Brussels), 103 Max(imilian), Prince von Baden (German chancellor), 123 Maximov (Russian consul in Erzerum), 150 Mayer, Georg (German military doctor), 18 Meghmuni (Armenian priest), 376 Melchisedechian, Joseph (ArmenianCatholic bishop of Erzeroum), 288 Merril, John R. (superintendant of American College in Aintab), 712 Mersina, 293, 334, 348, 403, 613, 637

index

Meskene, 32, 462, 543, 546, 553, 581, 605–6, 608–9, 617, 651–54, 656, 673–74, 766 Mikusch, Dagobert von (German major), 19, 75, 239, 268, 357, 575 Möhring, Laura (German missionary), 16, 254 Mordtmann, Johannes (Armenian expert in the German Embassy), 12, 15, 18–19, 22, 25, 37, 51, 53, 57, 70, 71, 87, 90, 94, 104, 121, 134, 159, 172, 198, 205, 211, 215, 225, 226n20, 238, 249, 250, 252n39, 256, 261, 262, 275, 277, 291, 293n50, 294, 309, 310, 311, 322, 324, 326, 360, 361, 375n70–71, 424, 427n83, 428n84–85, 429n86, 440, 468, 471n103, 501, 503, 535, 536, 555–56, 557, 566, 579, 703, 704–5, 710–11, 712, 718n158, 753n162, 754n163 Morel (French colonel of Armenian troops), 735 Morgenthau, Henry (American ambassador in Constantinople), xx, xxii, xxvi, 88, 90–91, 94, 97, 101–2, 105, 119, 122 Mosel, Louis (German agent), 116 Mosul, xxiii, 7, 15, 19–20, 26, 28, 34, 76–77, 79, 101–2, 195, 211, 226, 239, 245, 301, 307, 320, 345, 375, 381, 384, 387, 389, 395, 398, 402, 435–38, 445, 456–57, 503, 505–6, 509–10, 527, 540, 555, 558, 565, 572, 581, 588, 607, 617, 620, 631–33, 640, 643, 673–74, 691–94, 707, 720, 744 Mount Cassius, 63, 343 Mrat Pasha (Armenian troop leader), 732 Muara, 32, 556 Mücke, Hellmuth von (German lieutenant commander), 651, 767 Mudurga, 23, 350 Muhammed-i-Djemal (head of the Criminal Court in Marash), 163 Mumtaz Bey (Muteserrif of Marash), 161–62 Munif Bey (secretary of state at the Ministry of the Interior), 74, 377–78 Muradian, Nazaret (Armenian deportee), 36, 672, 676

| 781

Mürdar Zadé, Achmed (CUP leader in Erzerum), 67, 245 Mush, 4, 8–9, 121, 143, 199, 202, 213, 215, 317, 329, 469, 562, 730; deportations, 61, 66, 170, 295, 391, 440–41, 445, 454, 457; exterminations, 15, 19–20, 52, 470–72, 717 Mustafa Agha (ex-mayor of Malatia), 73, 405, 739, 741–42 N Nadji Bey (Turkish colonel), 435–37 Nafis Bey (Turkish major) Nail, Yenibahçeli (CUP-leader in Trebizond), 646, 659 Naim Bey (deportations official in Aleppo), 764, 766–67 Nalbandian, Mateos (member of Parliament from Kosan), 43, 408 Nazariantz, Liparit (collaborator of Johannes Lepsius), 118 Nestorians, 344, 694. See also Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syrians Neukirch (German doctor from Erzindjan), 120, 222n19, 439, 572, 622 Neuner, E. (travel companion of German Deputy), 26, 42, 719, 721–22 Neurath, Konstantin Freiherr von (ambassadorial councillor in Constantinople, later Hitler’s foreign minister), 86–91, 102, 106, 110, 322, 426, 577, 752 Niepage, Martin (German teacher in Aleppo), 26–27, 79, 98, 522, 615, 631, 757 Nigde, 39, 41, 358, 404, 406, 409 Nizami (military adjunct of the 4th Army), 386 Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (semiofficial newspaper of the German Foreign Office), 93, 268, 458, 491–92, 511 Nuri, Abdulahad Bey. See Abdul Ahad Nuri Bey O Ohanian, Hakob (Armenian mediator in Adana), 44, 408–10

782 | index

Omer Nadji (CUP leader and propogandist), 101, 691–93 Oppenheim, Freiherr Max von (German minister resident responsible for propaganda in the Orient), 31, 51, 62, 65, 95, 332, 337, 387, 390, 484, 511–13 Osman Bey (director of a Turkish orphanage), 27, 320, 402 Osmania, 153, 155, 161, 227, 304, 316, 325, 334, 402, 403, 409, 476, 532–33, 535, 739 P Padishvan, 284 Pallavicini, Johann Margrave von (Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Constantinople), xvi, 616 Papazian (Armenian member of Parliament for Bitlis), 362 Päräz, 279, 284–85 Pasdirmadjian, Karekin (Armen Garo) (Armenian deputy for Erzerum), 172–73, 200 Peet, William W. (treasurer of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Constantinople), 536, 555–57, 608, 613, 704–5, 711, 713 Pfeiffer, Klara (German missionary), 13, 22, 54, 583 Pfeiffer, Maximilian (member of Parliament in the Reichstag), 26, 42, 719, 721–22 Pieper, Ernst (German engineer), 11, 26, 80 Pietschmann, Victor (Austrian geographer), 22, 263, 286 Posseldt (German commander in Erzerum), 12, 57, 98, 152, 173, 179, 278, 290 Protestant Armenians. See deportations R Rade, Martin (German theologian), 418–19 Rahmi Bey (Vali of Smyrna), 395 Rakka, 24, 266, 335, 424, 509–10, 519, 523, 525, 527, 606–7, 651, 658, 672–73 Ras-ul-Ain, 26, 38, 336, 523, 601; deportations, 80, 266, 269–71,

345, 348–50, 382, 384, 488, 496, 525–26, 542, 556, 573, 574, 642, 707; exterminations, 434, 525, 581–82, 587, 637, 642 Rayak, 345, 444 Refik Bey (Turkish journalist), 728 Reshid, Mehmed Bey (Vali of Diyarbekir and Ankara), 20, 70, 77, 245–46, 505, 541, 601 Richter, Julius, (German historian of Missions), 109 Riza Bey (Turkish doctor in Erzindjan), 624–25 Rohner, Beatrice (Swiss missionary in German service), 5, 32, 34–36, 312, 532, 535–36, 556–58, 580, 599, 604–5, 607–12, 650, 662–63, 672, 711–12, 767 Rohrbach, Paul (German author and propagandist of German FO), 104, 112, 114–15, 117, 119–22, 210, 281, 397, 418, 452, 665–66 Rosenberg, Frederic (Turkey specialist in German FO), 90, 106, 110, 123, 206, 215, 242n, 251n, 400, 417n, 453, 468, 561, 570, 657, 706n Rössler, Walter (German Consul in Aleppo), xvi–xxvii, 3, 58, 60, 63–66, 95, 99–100, 120, 124, 147, 166, 21, 271, 458–60; and deportations, 14–15, 17, 19, 23, 24, 26–30, 34, 35, 38, 40, 48, 56, 68–70, 72, 74–78, 80, 93, 158, 160, 173, 190, 221, 260–61, 265, 274–76, 290–91, 298–99, 304–5, 312, 343–48, 381, 385, 390, 427, 442–44, 461–62, 487–88, 496–98, 504, 522–24, 525, 531, 538–39, 542–43, 564–65, 573–74, 581–82, 599–600, 603–4, 608–9, 614, 650–51, 663, 671, 674, 703–4, 711, 739–40, 764, 768–69; request for intervention, 86, 88, 204, 240, 572 Russia, xxi, 3, 5, 8–9, 65–66, 95–96, 115–17, 120, 126, 135–52, 166, 170–81, 184, 188, 195–97, 199–203, 208–9, 214, 224–25, 267, 282, 296–98, 301, 314, 317, 329, 332–34, 347, 392, 394–95, 397, 399, 411–12, 425, 440, 445, 456–57, 494, 498–99, 578,

index

589–91, 593–99, 603, 637, 668–69, 693–94, 701, 704, 722, 726–36, 741, 743, 747, 750, 753, 760, 768; Caucasian Armenians, 7, 46, 49–53, 58, 113, 121, 123, 169, 188, 207, 212, 215–16, 229, 241, 361, 379–80, 419–23, 694, 706–8, 747; Ottoman Armenians, 12, 83, 200, 207, 291, 362–68, 443, 469–70, 525, 562, 688; Kurds, 146, 221, 454 S Sabcha/Sabha/Sabkha, 32–34, 120–21, 463–64, 543, 545–46, 548, 551, 581, 608, 612, 617, 674 Safa, Ismail (CUP leader in Adana), 69, 377–78 Sahag/Sahak II (Catholicos of Sis), 159, 211, 227–28, 265–66, 275, 383, 637, 746 Said Halim (Grand Vizier 1913–1917), 52, 137, 139, 151, 175, 198, 231, 261, 275, 302, 412, 466, 493, 495 Saldjian, 154 Salich Bey Gourdji, 425 Sambat (Armenian-Grigorian Bishop of Erzerum), 186 Sami, Beshir (Vali of Aleppo), 305 Samsun, 2, 22, 51, 225, 241, 257, 292–93, 387, 393, 457, 578, 646, 744, 752–53; Islamization, 258, 278, 502, 530, 587, 746 Sansar, 279 Sarkissian, Hosep (Armenian deportee), 36, 41, 672, 674 Sautshbulak, 215 Schacht (German Captain in the medical corps), 461 Schäfer, Paula (German missionary), 24, 532, 534–36, 558, 608, 614, 765 Schaefer, Richard (secretary of Lepsius), 91 Scheidemann, Phillip (Deputy of Reichstag), 614–15 Scheler, Max (German writer), 112 Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von (German deputy consul in Erzurum), 2, 4, 7, 113, 177, 184, 186, 195, 197–98, 212, 237, 238, 239, 285–86, 288,

| 783

295, 435–37, 456, 691; deportations, xxv, xxvii, 15, 57–60, 67–68, 78–79, 81, 86, 98, 107, 198, 232, 240, 244, 272, 278–84, 290, 445, 483, 487, 572; rebellion, 50, 53, 102 Schipen, 284 Schlimme, Carl (German military volunteer), 15, 38, 284, 286, 328 Schreiber, August Wilhelm (director of the German Evangelical Missionary Relief ), 416–17, 419 Schuchardt, Friederich (director of the German Christian Charity Organisation for the Orient), 8, 86, 91, 189–91, 216, 310–11, 316, 321, 340–43, 418, 431, 453–54, 532, 535–36, 557, 578, 583, 715 Schulenburg, Friedrich Werner Graf von der (German consul in Erzerum), 238, 263, 557, 579, 659, 753–54 Schulenburg, Meta v.d. (German missionary), 693 Schwartz (Russian general in Trebizond), 729 Schwarz, Paul (German consul in Erzerum), 46, 290 Seeger, Willy (German businessman in Konia), 324 Sefi Bey (head of the II Department at the Turkish Headquarters), 728 Sembat (Armenian bishop in Erzerum), 197 Servet Bey (Mutesarrif in Mush), 441, 470 Seyfulla Bey (deputy of Erzurum), 67, 245, 330 Seynal Bey (Kurdish leader), 16, 77, 489–90 Shabin Kara-Hissar, 257, 393, 627 Shakir, Behaeddin (CUP leader), 67–68, 75 Sharki-Karahissar, 602. See also Afion Karahissar Sharkyshla, 393 Shatak, 200, 391 Sheer, 317, 319 Shefket, Mahmud (Grand Vizier), 137 Shepard, Fred (American doctor in Aintab), 164, 168, 535 Sherif Pasha (Turkish opposition leader), 209, 333, 364

784 | index

Shükri, Kaya (leader of deportations in Aleppo), 69–70, 527, 766 Shükri Bey (court-martial's chief judge), 163 Shükri Bey (deputy from Marash), 165 Sibikoi, 286 Simmel, Georg (German writer), 112 Sinbadur, 731 Sivas, 14–15, 24, 70, 78, 81, 87, 126, 141, 143, 177, 179, 226, 230, 249, 262, 263, 273, 280, 293, 304–5, 345, 348, 350, 354–55, 358, 362, 363, 386, 393–94, 398, 404, 409, 433, 441, 445, 497, 539, 562, 566, 577, 602, 625–28, 712, 741, 743, 746–47, 753–54 Smyrna, 9, 42, 70, 92, 101, 109, 148, 272, 395, 398, 448, 450, 459, 496, 504, 565, 587, 666–67, 674, 680–91, 707, 739 Solf, Wilhelm Heinrich (Secretary of State for German Colonial Office), 123–24, 755–56, 761 Solikian, Sarkis (Armenian in German service), 235–38, 285 Spieker, Marie (German teacher in Aleppo), 15, 522 Spieker, W. (German Baghdad Railway engineer), 17, 30, 40, 63, 271, 345, 355 Spörri, Johannes (Swiss missionary in German services in Van), 8, 454 Stange (German infantry officer), xvi, 15, 38, 42, 47, 51, 58, 75, 98, 327, 659 Staszewski, von (German officer), 98 Steiner (Austrian journalist), 727 Stier, Ewald (collaborator of Lepsius), 703–4 Stockmann, Helene (director of the German school in Marash), 163, 167 Straubinger, I. (German-Catholic Priest in Constantinople), 537, 576–77 Stürmer, Harry (German journalist), 121 Stumm, Ferdinand Carl Freiherr von (head of the Political Department in the German Foreign Office), 92, 527–28 Stumpf (German Officer), 99 Suad, Ali Bey (Muteserrif in Deir es Zor), 34, 581, 608, 655, 744 Suediye, 18, 64–66, 100, 174, 385, 442, 506, 512–13, 515

Sungurlu, 17, 405 Suren (Dashnak leader in Erzerum), 188, 199–200 Switzerland, 5, 111, 122, 426, 572, 614, 669–70, 678, 727 Syrians, 55, 152, 181, 209, 220, 271, 343, 344, 346, 347, 371, 384, 435, 436, 455, 514, 529, 537, 539, 581, 636, 666, 673, 693, 694, 748, 755. See also Assyrians, Chaldeans, Nestorians T Tahmissian, Vahram (Armenian-Protestant preacher), 539 Tahsin, Hassan (Vali of Erzurum), 68, 70, 173, 180, 235, 237–38, 330, 541 Tanin (official Young Turk newspaper), 367, 728 Talaat, Mehmed (internal affairs minister; Grand Vizier from 1917), 7, 51–52, 60–61, 67, 70–73, 87, 91, 101, 104, 106, 172, 175, 205, 207, 211, 226, 240, 302, 309, 326, 358, 362–64, 369, 371, 381, 387–91, 395–97, 418, 420, 422, 424–25, 492, 494–95, 561, 575–77, 633, 660, 684, 687, 697–700, 702–3, 707, 723–24, 726, 768 Tehlirian, Solomon (assassin of Talaat), 91, 769 Tel Abiad, 265, 357, 508 Tell Ermen, 19, 75, 239, 268, 506 Terdjan See Mama Hatun Terme, 293, 502 Terzian (Paul Peter II) (Armenian-Catholic Patriarch), 360, 563 Teswiri Efkiar (Turkish official gazette), 667 The Times, 273, 388–89, 498 The Westminster Gazette, 389, 400, 427 Thoumayan (representative of the Armenian-Catholic Patriarch), 262 Tibni, 543 Tigris, 294, 320, 395 Torosoglu, Agop (Armenian in Alexandretta), 62, 511–12 Trebizond, 2, 50, 58, 138, 284–85, 540, 562, 578, 706, 728; CUP, 68;

index

deportations, 22, 38, 70, 75, 85, 87, 216, 225, 230, 240–42, 244, 263–64, 286, 292–93, 303, 328–29, 331, 358, 360–62, 387, 439, 457, 473, 488, 645–47, 657, 737; extermination, 15, 79, 81, 279, 398, 658–59, 692, 729; Islamization, 278, 363, 502 Trotha, Lothar von (German commander in German South-West Africa), 109 Tshaush, Nazareth, (leader of deserters in Zeitun), 161 Tshiradjian, Stepan (Armenian Deputy for Arghana-Maden), 503 Tyszka, von (German journalist in Constantinople), xxvin56, 8, 48, 53, 55, 57, 61, 71, 76, 80, 390, 393 U Ulukirchla, 25 Umudum, 284 United States of America, 5, 53, 87, 94–95, 97, 113, 126, 169, 188, 195, 214, 226, 232, 243, 251, 291, 297, 332, 420, 429, 473, 560, 601, 641, 651, 669, 671, 685, 698, 702, 704, 746; Armenian relief, 111, 564, 634 Unieh, 293 Urfa, 1, 5, 100, 217–18, 298–300, 703, 741; deportations, 2, 11, 14, 19–20, 23– 24, 26, 47, 55, 258, 266–67, 270–71, 279, 289–90, 304–7, 318, 320, 329, 343, 346, 349, 357, 363, 387, 390, 392, 395, 433, 471, 473, 505, 516, 522–27, 538–39, 585, 604, 609, 613–14, 632–33, 658, 673, 765; rebellion, xxv, 64–65, 220–21, 434, 442–43, 458–59, 461, 484, 506, 512–13 Urla, 687 V Van, 18, 49, 57, 59, 65, 141–44, 170–73, 175, 199, 202, 208, 221, 360, 411, 442, 490, 497, 505, 730, 735; rebellion, 7–9, 53, 60, 66, 71, 85–86, 96, 99, 121, 176–81, 183–84, 188, 197, 200, 203, 215–16, 224, 225, 241, 257, 278, 295–97, 317, 333–36, 362, 391–92,

| 785

394, 395, 397, 399, 420, 428, 440, 445, 454, 469–70, 484, 511–13, 583, 597–98, 622, 625, 707, 709, 725, 729, 752, 760; Muslim victims, 8, 92, 203, 219, 291 Vartges/Vartkes (Ohannes Seringulian) (Armenian deputy of Erzerum), 188, 249, 266, 299, 362, 387–89, 392–93, 395 Vehib Pasha (Turkish Army commander), 578, 728 Vischer, Andreas (Swiss doctor), 564–65, 580, 665, 703 Vramian, Onnik Derzakian (Armenian member of Parliament for Van), 178, 362 W Wangenheim, Hans Freiherr von (German ambassador in Constantinople), xix, xxi, 12, 49–51, 53, 57, 60, 66, 75, 78–79, 82–91, 95, 97, 101, 105, 113–14, 116– 19, 121–22, 135, 139, 140, 149, 151, 152, 153, 156, 158–60, 169, 172–77, 180, 183–84, 186, 188–89, 194–99, 204–6, 210–12, 227, 229–32, 239–40, 244, 246, 249–51, 257, 272, 276, 411, 426, 637, 657, 660, 708 Wedel-Jarlsberg, Thora von (Norwegian missionary in German service), 5, 13, 20, 26, 47, 67, 262, 322, 392n Weitz, Paul (German journalist for Frankfurter Zeitung in Constantinople), 48, 81, 105, 727 Werth, Carl (German diplomat in Turkey), 578–80 Westernhagen, Thilo von (German informant), 411–13 Wolf Hunecke, Frieda (German missionary in Everek), 10, 53–54, 77, 250–51, 256 Wolff-Metternich, Paul Graf (German ambassador in Constantinople), xx, xxiii, xxvii, xxviii, 6, 42, 44–46, 48, 52, 70–74, 78–79, 88–92, 94, 96–97, 106, 124–25, 465, 480–81, 483–84, 490, 492–95, 500–504, 530–31, 537, 540, 564, 565–68, 601, 603, 605, 615–19, 657, 697

786 | index

Wolffskeel von Reichenberg, Eberhard Graf (German major and artillery officer), xxv, 99–100, 160, 166, 191, 442–43, 460, 484, 486, 513 Woodley, E.C. (Canadian leader of U.S. mission in Marash), 168 Y Yarpuz, 275 Yozgad, 363, 405–7, 409, 566 Z Zabel, Rudolf (German journalist in Constantinople for Tägliche Rundschau), 25, 322, 324–26 Zaven II (Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople, Mikayel Ter-Yeghiayan), 197, 391, 393, 481–83, 586–87 Zeytun, 36, 58, 60–61, 63, 65, 81, 99– 100, 107, 119, 134, 147, 156–68, 171, 173, 177, 189–93, 199, 200, 202–3, 211, 213, 219, 254, 266, 275, 311–13, 315, 317, 323, 334–35, 337, 342, 354, 364, 386, 387, 391, 428, 463, 485, 512,

544, 598, 639, 672, 676–77, 707, 709; Armenian deserters, 85, 159, 162 Zeki Bey (Kaimakam in Everek), 77, 253 Zeki/Zekki Bey, Salih (Mutesarrif in Deires-Zor), 34, 36, 78, 80, 619, 651, 672, 674 Zierrat, 651, 655 Zimmer, Max (German businessman in Turkey), 148 Zimmermann, Arthur (undersecretary and later secretary of state for foreign affairs), xix, xxviii, 7, 60, 72, 86, 89, 92, 95, 96, 110–11, 112, 114, 115, 117, 118, 124, 125, 148, 149, 204, 206, 214, 215, 229, 271, 276, 321, 342, 390, 416, 426, 427, 430, 464, 465, 492, 616, 656, 661, 665, 669, 682, 686n152, 695, 705, 725, 749 Zohrab, Krikor (Armenian Parliamentarian), 172, 188, 266, 299, 387, 392, 395, 408 Zollinger, Emil (Swiss intermediary in Aleppo), 712 Zweig, Arnold (German writer), 112