The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans 9781463209490

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The Forgotten Genocide

The Forgotten Genocide Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans

SÉBASTIEN DE COURTOIS

translated by Vincent Aurora

GORGIAS PRESS 2004

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Gorgias Press LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey.

ISBN 1-59333-077-4

GORGIAS PRESS 46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

In memory of Philippe de Courtois

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the people without whom this work would never have seen the light of day. First of all, my friend and translator Vincent Aurora, whom I thank for all his patience and devotion. Joseph Adlun, Georges and Myriam Antaki, Cosmas Brown, Jean-François Colosimo, Alain Desreumaux, Michael of Greece, Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim, Archbishop Cyril Aphrem Karim, Jean Hannouche, Maroun Kiwan, Victor Loupan, Raymond Melki, Claire Mouradian, Pierre Novakovic, Amandine Olivier, Jésus del Rio, Yves Ternon, Éric Van Lauwe, François Thual, Robin Woodhead, Joseph Yacoub, finally, of course, my mother. My gratitude goes out to all the Syriacs I met in the course of my travels, who graciously agreed to answer my questions. I also thank Sebastian Brock for his plentiful advice.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................v Table of Contents ..................................................................vii Introduction............................................................................xi Discovery ..................................................................................................xi The Historical Context ..........................................................................xii Research ..................................................................................................xiii Note to the Reader................................................................................xiv Transcription of Place Names.............................................................xiv Terminology of Syriac Denominations ................................. xv Chapter 1. The Land Of The Syriacs ....................................... 1 A Land and a People................................................................................1 The View of Travelers .............................................................................5 The Monastery of Saffron.......................................................................9 Chapter 2. The Church, The Patriarch And The Family: The Quest For An Identity............................................................ 17 The Weaknesses of a Nation ................................................................18 The Syriac Mindset and its Stereotypes ..............................................24 Chapter 3. A Land Of Missions ............................................. 29 The Catholic Temptation in Syriac Land............................................33 A Lasting Catholic Population?............................................................37 Chapter 4. Mixtures And Neighbors ..................................... 43 Syriacs and Armenians...........................................................................43 A Moral and Cultural Renaissance.......................................................47 The Nestorian and Chaldean Presence ...............................................48 Was Tur Abdin a ‘Mountain Refuge’?.................................................50 The Kurdish World, a Troubled Coexistence....................................52 The Devil Worshippers .........................................................................57 Chapter 5. A Population Difficult To Count ......................... 61 Diyarbakir, The Black City....................................................................63 Mardin, The Second Jerusalem ............................................................66 Tur Abdin and its Villages ....................................................................73 Villages and Monasteries .......................................................................75 A Christian Island, The Small City of Midyat....................................80

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Chapter 6. The Law Versus The Christians .......................... 85 The Dawn of a New Policy ..................................................................93 Chapter 7. Eradication By Massacre (1894-1896) .................. 99 “The City is in Fire and Blood, Save Us.”....................................... 105 The Situation in Tur Abdin................................................................ 113 A Syriac Exception? ............................................................................ 118 Chapter 8. Eradication By Conversion .................................123 Chapter 9. Ottoman Negligence Before The New Kurdish Powers...................................................................................131 The Murky Ottoman Game............................................................... 138 Chapter 10. The Years Of Blood...........................................141 The Calm Before the Storm............................................................... 146 The Ottoman Empire at War ............................................................ 148 Chapter 11. Planning And Deportation: Autopsy Of Destruction ...........................................................................157 The Caravans of Death....................................................................... 164 Chapter 12. A Sanctuary For The Syriacs?............................181 Tur Abdin Suffers Two Waves of Attacks...................................... 184 The Villages of the Resistance: Ain Wardo and Azekh................. 189 Contrasting the Assessments............................................................. 194 Chapter 13. The Time Of Recognition .................................201 What Were Their Claims? .................................................................. 210 Chapter 14. Towards A Syriac Nation: The Assyro-Chaldean Temptation ...........................................................................217 Annexes ............................................................................... 225 Documents From Diplomatic Archives............................... 229 Historical Introduction.........................................................261 The Origins of the Syriac Church: From a Syriac Tradition to a Syriac Religion...................................................................................... 261 Intellectual Effervescence .................................................................. 264 The Syriac Tradition............................................................................ 266 The Time of Councils: The Monophysite Rupture of Chalcedon in 451 ..................................................................................................... 268 Opposition After the Council of Chalcedon .................................. 271 A New Church is Founded in Resistance........................................ 272

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The Spiral of Violence ........................................................................ 273 Was Their Secession Based in Ethnicity? ........................................ 276 From Freedom to Isolation ............................................................... 277 On the “Tigris Border” ...................................................................... 279 “The Mountain of the Servants of God” ........................................ 281 Glossary ............................................................................... 283 Bibliography ........................................................................ 285 Sources................................................................................. 293 1. Archives Of The French Ministry Of Foreign Affairs (Quai D’orsay)................................................................................................. 293 2. Archives Of The Dominican Mission At Mosul (Centre Du Saulchoir) .............................................................................................. 302 3. Written Eastern Sources ................................................................ 304 4. Oral Sources: Interviews ................................................................ 304 Sample Documents.............................................................. 307 Index.................................................................................... 365

INTRODUCTION DISCOVERY The regular trips I have taken to Turkey and the Middle East over the last few years have inspired in me an interest in the various Christian communities still remaining there. During the summer of 1999, I had set out from Erzurum in Eastern Turkey to visit the ancient churches of Armenia, passing through Kars and the old Armenian city of Ani, and finally arriving at Lake Van, with its beautiful Aghtamar Church. A little further south towards Syria, my map showed a series of monasteries whose strange sounding names whet my curiosity: Mar Gabriel, Mar Yakup, Mar Malke, where “Mar” in Syriac means “Saint”. Huddled together within a few dozen square miles around the cities of Mardin and Midyat in the Tur Abdin hills, these were, I was to discover, the last survivors of one of the holiest sites in Eastern Christendom. Situated in southeast Turkey, this region is bounded by the Syrian border on one side, and the tall mountains of Kurdistan on the other. The war against the PKK Kurds that had been going on for several decades prevented journalists and tourists from reaching there easily. I jumped into the first bus I could find, thinking I would discover yet another pile of monastic ruins, at best deserted, if not transformed into mosques. This had been the case for many of the region’s Christian churches, such as the Armenian church of the Holy Apostles, built in the first half of the 10th century and converted into a mosque in the summer of 1998. Much to my surprise, I discovered that the monasteries were still inhabited and carefully maintained by monks! I had thought there were no longer any Christians left in that part of Turkey. In the course of my long conversations with these monks, I found out that they were the last representatives of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Heir to the glorious patriarchal see of Antioch, it was known to our history books as the “Jacobite” church. Before me stood the most authentic descendants of the 1st century universal Church. How had they been able to survive into our time, these people who still spoke the language of Christ, a form of Aramaic? How had this nearly two thousand year old tradition been able to weather the storms of time? In the chance of our accidental meeting, these people with the faces of patriarchs personified the memory of our origins. xi

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Back in Paris, my curiosity aroused. I looked everywhere for a book that could shed some light on these last Christians, both recent and ancient, but was able to find almost nothing besides foreboding encyclopedia entries on Eastern Christians rife with theological details telling of the first schisms of the 5th century Church. Nothing on their recent history, nothing on their suffering in 1915, which was nonetheless widely discussed among the Syriacs of the diaspora, be they in Aleppo, Syria or Europe. No book, no study except for the phenomenal memoir undertaken by Joseph Yacoub, who since his arrival in the west twenty years ago, has indefatigably defended their cause, the cause of memory, the cause of Justice, the cause of History.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT To what degree did the Syriacs suffer from the violence that accompanied the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire? This is the question that the research presented in this book will endeavor to answer. The “Syriac question”, if raised, was always considered part of the “Armenian question”, which in turn was considered part of the “Middle Eastern question”. The situation was exacerbated by the moribund Ottoman regime, which since the year Sultan Abdul Hamid had suspended the constitution, had relied on a blend of ever greater authoritarianism and bureaucracy. Starting at the 1878 Congress of Berlin, these “questions” offered the perfect framework for British, French, German, AustroHungarian and Russian expansionist schemes throughout the Middle East. On the diplomatic level, the Ottoman regime sought the support of new, strong countries such as Japan, which had emerged victorious from its war with Russia, and the new Germany. Within the country, the Sultan, aided by the Caliphate’s prestige, wooed Muslim minorities: the Kurds, the Bedouins, the Albanians and the Circassians. In this new context, the Empire’s Christian minorities became suspect. Since France’s intervention at Mount Lebanon in 1861 and the Western powers’ repeated incursions into the region, the Christians had slowly become outcasts within Ottoman society. Until the beginning of the 20th century, 90% of the Empire’s Christian minorities (mostly Armenians) in the six eastern provinces lived in farming communities. The various Syriac

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communities that had survived were but a minority of a minority: even the most generous statistics estimate only 250,000 individuals in the entire Ottoman Empire. The Syrian Orthodox community, called “Jacobite”, was essentially contained within the limits of Diyarbakir province. Their social organization, which had remained very traditional, stood firm on three pillars: the family, the patriarchate and the Church.

RESEARCH My review of primary sources led me along two distinct paths. First, towards western sources in French and English, easy to obtain, for the period between 1850 and 1919. Rummaging through the diplomatic archives at the Quai d’Orsay as well as those of the Dominican Fathers, who had been brought back to France from Mosul, Iraq after the Gulf War, I gathered all information directly or indirectly pertaining to the “Jacobites” with the aim of forming a clear picture of their situation at the end of the 19th century. As I advanced in this work, I realized that the tragic events which occurred during the First World War had been the result of a long process of rejecting Eastern Christianity that had begun in the 1880’s. Never could the genocide of 1915, at least in Diyarbakir province, have reached such immense proportions, and never could it even be understood, without the successive waves of massacres begun several decades earlier. The Syriacs were the forgotten, even despised victims of that horrible bloodbath, itself the precursor to all the genocides of the 20th century. Our collective memory cannot afford to ignore those events. Thanks to the eyewitness testimony that diplomats and missionaries present on the scene up to the 1914 declaration of war left in telegrams, letters, and reports to their superiors, we have a gold mine of information on this period. The second path of research led me to Eastern sources. I had the luck to come across extremely rare testimony of Syriac origin, never before used, and thus priceless. These include the writings of Father Isaac Armalet and Jean Naayem, as well as complaints lodged by the Syriac patriarchs, both Orthodox and Catholic, at the peace conference of 1919. I then systematically combined these two categories of information to bring out similarities between them, wherever

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possible. In this work, I have only repeated facts known to be true and confirmed by at least two sources, one western, the other eastern. Whenever there was a doubt as to a particular point, I have chosen to indicate so in the body of the text, while offering both versions. The structure of this book revolves chronologically around three long periods spanning the years from 1880 to 1919. First, I shall offer the information necessary to place the Syriac Orthodox communities in their geographical, social and human context. The second block of information concerns the period of the first organized massacre in 1895-1896. Finally, the last section directly relates to events tied to the First World War, up to the debates at the peace conference of 1919-1920.

NOTE TO THE READER The facts related in this book are the testimony of those who played a role in these events. Under no circumstances can the author be held responsible for the quotes taken from documents that belong to the public domain. This work concentrates on the destiny of the Syriac communities known as Western, Orthodox and Catholic. I shall not speak of the massacres of the Nestorian Syriac communities that took place in Hakkari and near Mosul at the same time, for several works on those massacres, including Joseph Yacoub’s and Joseph Alichoran’s, already exist. The goal of this work is to recreate in a lively manner a tragedy experienced by a forgotten people.

TRANSCRIPTION OF PLACE NAMES The difficulty of transcribing place names in this region of the Ottoman Empire renders any attempt at standardization impossible. Any one village can have a Syriac, Kurdish, Arabic, Armenian or Turkish name. All the Syriac names for villages were replaced by Turkish ones when the young Turkish Republic was founded. The names of large cities such as “Diyarbakir” have been altered to reflect modern Turkish spelling. In order to follow this evolution, the reader may turn to the chart “Modern Equivalents of Cited Place Names” at the end of the book.

TERMINOLOGY OF SYRIAC DENOMINATIONS It is best immediately to clarify often delicate questions of terminology concerning faiths of Syriac language and tradition, inherited from the Aramean world. These denominations are divided (setting aside the Marionites of Lebanon) into four branches: The Syriac Orthodox Church. We prefer this name to the one that has been long used to refer to it, “Jacobite”, a term overly tinted with a western view of the history of Christianity (the name derives from its supposed founder, Jacob Baraddaeus in the 6th century). The term “Jacobite” was often used by their Nestorian, Byzantine and Latin adversaries as a pejorative term. Nonetheless, we have preserved this name whenever it was used by an author or when the context of the report was favorable. This Church, like the Coptic, refused the doctrine of the two natures of Christ as defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Syriac Catholic Church. Ex-“Jacobite”, this church was born of a 17th century separation from the Syriac Orthodox Church, which was encouraged by French diplomats present in Aleppo at the time. The diplomats favored the separation in the hope of one day uniting the Eastern Churches with that of Rome. The Syriac Catholic Patriarch was enthroned in the 19th century in Mardin, also the place of residence of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, in order to compete with him. Monsignor Gabriel Tappouni was its first cardinal, named in 1937 by the Vatican. The expression Uniate Syrian Church or Syriac Catholic Church may be used indiscriminately, the term “Syrian” referring to a geographical zone, and not to the inhabitants of modern day Syria. The Assyrian or Nestorian Church. This name derives from that of Nestorius, who inspired the religious doctrine that was rejected by the Council of Ephesus in 431. This Church developed within the Persian Empire, beyond the borders of the Roman Empire. Discovering a missionary vocation by reason of its geographical context, starting in the 7th and 8th centuries, it founded churches throughout Asia, all the way to India and China. The Nestorians, like the other Syriacs, bridged the gap between Hellenistic thought and the Arab world. At the time of its greatest extension, the Nestorian church numbered 230 dioceses and 27 xv

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metropolitan sees. In the 19th century, the remaining Nestorians were mainly concentrated in the high Hakkari Mountains, the heart of modern Kurdistan, as well as in the Urmia basin in Persia, from which the Turks and Kurds drove them between 1915 and 1918. The Chaldean Church is a Catholic branch of the Nestorian church. The term “Chaldean” came into use in the 16th century. For a long time, their patriarch resided at Baghdad (hence the term “Patriarch of Babylon”) until he moved to Mosul, in northern Iraq, before returning to Baghdad. It was often urban Nestorian populations that converted to Catholicism, since they were the most accessible to the missionaries’ influence. They of course belong to the same ethnic and cultural group. According to Michel Chevalier, at the end of the 19th century, there still remained a few Chaldean mountain folk in regions around Tur Abdin (Zakho, Amadia, Akra, etc.) and also a very small minority in Hakkari. The name Assyro-Chaldean is used in modern terminology to refer to the whole Syriac population. It was used publicly for the first time at the peace conference of 1919. The concept is based on the idea that the Syriac populations of Mesopotamia are descended from the Assyrians of antiquity. This single term gathers all denominations of Syriac extraction, referring to common elements of identity, ethnicity, language and religion. Traditionally, this term mainly covers the Nestorian and Chaldean communities. Finally, devotion to the Aramaic heritage is found essentially in the language used, both in liturgical and in everyday speech. Syriac belongs to the family of Semitic languages, of which it represents an Aramaic branch based on the Edessa (Urfa) dialect.

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General Table of Syriac Eastern Churches (excluding the Maronite Church) Name of the Church Foundation

Other names used

Title borne by the Patriarch

Syriac Orthodox Church Opposition to the council of Chalcedon (451). Jacob Baradaeus, as of 542 (Metropolitan of Edessa) Syriac Catholic Church Formerly Syriac Orthodox Church, became Catholic at Aleppo in 1659

Syrian Orthodox Church; Jacobite Church; Church of Antioch and of all the East; Western Syriac Church Syrian Church; Syrian Catholic Church; Uniate Church

Patriarch of Antioch and of All the East

Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East Opposition to the Council of Ephesus in 431, 1st independent church, its name comes from Nestorius

Nestorian Church; Church of Mesopotamia; OrthodoxAssyrian Church; Syrian Church of the East; Ancient Apostolic Church of the East Catholic Chaldean Church

Catholicos of the East

Chaldean Church 1555, 1681, recognition by Rome of the patriarchal lineage

Patriarch of Antioch

Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon; or Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans

Present seat of Patriarchate Seat of Patriarchate before 1914 Damascus (Syria) Mardin (Monastery of Deir AlZaafaran)

Liturgical language used

Beirut (Lebanon);C harfeh (until 1831) Aleppo (1831-1850) Mardin Officially Baghdad (Iraq), but presently in Chicago Kotchannes (in Turkish: Hakkari)

Syriac and Arabic

Baghdad (Iraq) Diyarbakir, Mosul

Syriac and Arabic

Syriac/ Arabic

Syriac

CHAPTER 1. THE LAND OF THE SYRIACS A LAND AND A PEOPLE By the end of the 19th century, the Syriac Church had been greatly weakened. It was but a shadow of the great missionary church it had been during the Middle Ages. In the course of the centuries, its influence had waned to almost nothing. At its apogee, it had numbered more than one hundred dioceses and twenty metropolises, spreading from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to the Asian borders of Mesopotamia. Heir to the Apostolic see of Antioch, where Saint Peter is said to have been the first bishop, and also to the teaching of Saint Ephrem, the Syriac Church had for a long time been the symbol of Eastern Christianity, if not of the first Christians themselves. Yet at the end of the Ottoman Empire, its presence was limited to a few narrow areas, where a small number of scattered Syriac settlements had managed to survive. Contained for the most part in the province (or vilayet1) of Diyarbakir, in the southeast of modern-day Turkey, within the borders of the Tur Abdin diocese and of the upper Jezireh, a holy site of Syriac spirituality. Several dioceses had been abandoned during earlier, successive persecutions, and survived only in name. The Syriac church, also called “Jacobite”, suffered from the competition offered by the other Eastern Christian churches, as well as from its own internal divisions that had started in the 17th century with the creation of a rival Syrian Catholic Church under the instigation of both France and the Vatican. The sources we have today concerning this part of the Ottoman Empire on the border of modern Syria come mostly from travelers’ accounts, diplomatic reports and writings left by Catholic and Protestant missionaries. In their time, these were the privileged and, most often, sole witnesses to the events studied in the present work. In the 19th century, torn by international war as well as by internal state crises, the Eastern provinces were the Empire’s poor cousins. Trustworthy statistical, economic and religious data concerning these provinces is extremely rare, so much so that it can be dangerous to claim to understand these opaque societies, where The Ottoman Empire was divided into vilayet, a Turkish word meaning province. Six eastern vilayets are mentioned. 1

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all minorities, Christian as well as Muslim, were inextricably tangled together. Because of its geographic isolation, Diyarbakir province was itself disconnected from the other provinces. Rarely would the Sultan’s reforms reach this most distant of the Empire’s territories. It was only much later that the province would arouse the interest of archaeologists and missionaries, for travelers had normally limited themselves to the traditional beaten paths, following the ancient trade routes: from south to north, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and from west to east, along the ancient silk caravan route. Furthermore, only the cities situated at the crossroads of these roads were known. Tur Abdin, land of the Syriacs, was long neglected, both by the Ottomans’ hegemonic thrusts and by Western interests. The poorly maintained roads were dangerous. The 1876-1878 war with Russia had paralyzed the northern part of the Eastern provinces along a line stretching from Erzurum to Lake Van. Pitched battles against the last independent Kurdish principalities, in the Nusaybin and Hakkari region, on the northern border of upper Mesopotamia, also contributed to the widespread feeling of insecurity. Such was also the case with the nomadic Arab tribes living at the edge of the Syrian Desert, on the southern Mardin plain, between Jezireh (Cizre) and Jebel Sinjar. It was only at the beginning of the 19th century, with the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries, that anything of value was learned about Tur Abdin and its Syriac population. Situated in the southeast of the Diyarbakir vilayet, from Mardin to a bend in the Tigris, Tur Abdin served as a natural border with the neighbouring vilayet of Bitlis. Despite its obscurity in the West, Diyarbakir was one of the more important crossroads between the huge Armenian plain to the north, separated from it by the Taurus Mountains, and the province of Aleppo to the south. This central position gave it firstrate strategic importance during the Ottoman conquests around Kurdistan. Since Diyarbakir was surrounded in the south by the Syrian Desert, it took several days of walking to reach Aleppo. In the southeast, the wide plains along the Tigris lead towards Mosul, then to Baghdad, whereas in the East rise the high Hakkari Mountains, several of whose peaks reach an altitude of 4,000 meters.

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Those Syriacs still remaining at the time were mainly concentrated in the Tur Abdin region, where the people had managed to preserve a piece of their traditional territory. These populations, like the other equally numerous Christian communities in the other provinces (Armenians, Greeks, Chaldeans or Nestorians), did not form a majority. The scattering of Christian populations was the result of deliberate administrative separation, characteristic of the policy of dividing national entities practiced by Ottoman authorities in the second half of the 19th century. This policy aimed particularly at restricting the Christian element’s political influence. The region’s living conditions were mainly rural, with small farming villages and towns. Estimates of the number of Syriac villages varied between 70 and 140. Besides Tur Abdin, the Syriacs were located within the city limits of Diyarbakir, the province’s capital, where they were a small minority, as well as in several of the area’s mixed Armenian and Syriac communities. There was also a Syrian presence in the city of Mardin, a former Orthodox stronghold, which they shared with Armenian, Chaldean and Muslim communities. When in this study, I speak of Syriacs as a whole, without religious distinction, it is to be understood that I am speaking of “Jacobite” Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Chaldeans and Nestorians, if any were present. Outside of this province, which is believed to have supported three quarters of the Ottoman Empire’s entire Syriac Orthodox population, the rest of the Syriacs were grouped in the neighboring provinces and in a few large cities, such as Urfa or Harput. The isolated populations fleeing the insecurity of the countryside had added to these conglomerations. To the east of Tur Abdin, on the left bank of the Tigris, the remains of Syriac Orthodox villages could still be found at the end of the 19th century, as well as a few remaining communities at Siirt, Bitlis, and further south on the Mosul plain. They were often phantom bishoprics that owed their survival only to the few solid monasteries maintained and preserved by a handful of monks.1 In the provinces of Syria, the Syriacs, especially the Catholic ones, were still relatively few in 1 Cf. the study of Jean Maurice FIEY, Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus, Répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux, Beirut/Stuttgart, 1993. He believes that the bishopric of Siirt was no longer an independent bishopric, but that it was instead included in the bishopric of Bitlis.

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number, and were concentrated in the big cities of Aleppo and Homs. Relative to these facts, the battalion chief and French military attaché de Torcy, in a report written while he was on mission to Syria in 1881, mentions the existence of Sadad, a large Syriac village between Damascus and Homs, that was exclusively comprised of Jacobites, schismatic Christians of whom there are few in Syria, and whose religious center is located in Mesopotamia. These villagers, nearly lost in the middle of the desert, seem to suffer attacks from the Bedouins. Despite the tax they regularly pay to the chieftains of the Assezons, the largest of the tribes that camp in this region, they are constantly exposed to the depredations from looters, and thus, in front of the village, they have planted gardens that surround it like adobe barricades and that do not allow a man on horseback to enter into the city without first dismounting, which an isolated Bedouin rarely risks doing in enemy territory.1

This example of survival was probably unique in the northern part of Syria. The state of insecurity described in this report closely resembles the one under which their brethren from upper Mesopotamia in Tur Abdin were suffering at the same time. The city of Diyarbakir, called Amida in antiquity, was the capital of a province 46,800 kilometers wide. It was bordered on the north and west by the provinces of Mamuret-ul-Aziz and Erzurum, on the south by the provinces of Aleppo and Mosul, and on the east by the provinces of Bitlis and Van. The Ottoman governor general, the vali, resided in the capital. He was a dignitary directly appointed by the Sultan, and his authority was crucial in local affairs. Aided by a council representing civilian members of the community, he possessed almost all executive and administrative powers except the military and judicial, which since the reform of 1876, were supposed to remain independent. The reform of the Tanzimats, begun in 1839 by the Charter of GulHane, had meant to put an end to the confusion of executive and judiciary powers. Gradually abandoned by Sultan Abdul Hamid, these reforms never came to fruition. The 1876 constitution attempted to reactivate the reforms’ mechanism, but in vain. Very often, despite the official separation of powers, the provincial 1

(Mémoires et documents, tome 123, folio 368).

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governors accumulated all administrative duties in a given conscription, and their authority was not balanced by any legal counterweight. The Christians’ living conditions greatly depended on the governor’s disposition towards them. Often, when the governor’s policy towards the Christians became intolerable, Western diplomats present in the area did not hesitate to intervene, directly pressuring the government of Istanbul and repeating the injustices or mistreatments they had heard of. These complaints sometimes resulted in the removal of a governor, as is shown by the numerous diplomatic dispatches left by the vice-consul of France posted at Diyarbakir during the events of 1895. Information of an administrative nature is principally derived from the work Administrative Geography, with a foreword by Vital Cuinet, compiled in the 1890’s. Though foreboding in style, these elements of internal organization cannot be ignored. Diyarbakir province was divided into three sanjaks, or districts: Diyarbakir, Arghana and Mardin. The principle of their organization was copied from the French administrative system. Each of these sanjaks was led by a mutessarif who depended directly on the governor general’s authority. He resided in the capital of the sanjak (in Mardin for example) for which he was responsible. The sanjaks themselves were then divided into kazas, the equivalent of a subdistrict. For the sanjak of Mardin, Vital Cuinet numbered four kazas: Avineh, whose capital was Savur, Nusaybin, Jezireh (Cizre) and Midyat, each headed by a local diginitary, the kaymakam. All these posts were held by Turks, or exceptionally, by Kurdish notables. As they were poorly paid, corruption had become a widespread way to earn extra money. In practice, the dignitary regarded his nomination as a windfall that would allow him to get rich quickly during the few years his function would last. A vali’s worth, in the hierarchy’s eyes, was measured by his ability to keep order and to collect taxes.

THE VIEW OF TRAVELERS The Tur Abdin plateau long remained unknown to foreign travelers. It is curious that among the dozen or so travelogues mentioning Tur Abdin that have come down to us from the entire 19th century, very few indicate that the author actually stayed there himself. Many simply passed through, or even avoided it altogether

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on their way to the classic Mesopotamia road to Mosul and then Baghdad, which were much more attractive at the time. A slightly mountainous, limestone plateau, Tur Abdin stretches out over “a circumference of about thirty leagues, situated on the right bank of the Tigris between Mardin and Jezireh”.1 Part of the Taurus Mountain chain, the altitude varies between 900 and 1,400 meters, offering a typically Mediterranean landscape, full of valleys, rocky, and often crowned with peaks. The name Tur Abdin comes from Syriac and means mountain of the servants, with the implication, of the servants of God, in the sense of worshippers. Westerners call this region Jebel Tur, where Jebel comes from an alteration of the Arabic jabal, which means mountain, and which is thus tautological when added to Tur, which in Syriac also means mountain. These two names, Tur Abdin and Jebel Tur, were those most commonly used in diplomatic reports and by missionary priests. William Ainsworth, who participated in an 1835 expedition along the Euphrates wrote that a remarkably lonely and barren region of hard limestone tilted up by igneous rocks extends from the Tigris at Jezireh to the site of Dara, and is prolonged to Mardin, whilst on the plain at its south western extremity is the renowned city of Nisibis [Nusaybin] (…) This region, which took us two days to traverse, is known by the name of Jebel Tur, an old Aramean name for a mountain, which has entered into the composition of many significant names, as Taurus. There are some villages and patches of cultivation and verdure in this desolate region.2

Alluding to the lack of safety, he stayed there only briefly and left the plateau with relief to proceed on to Mardin. Before him, Reverend James Buckingham, coming from Aleppo to meet the Orthodox patriarch of the Syriacs, had not gone any further, contenting himself with visits to the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, where he stayed for a long time before going directly to the patriarchal monastery of al-Za`faran. Diplomatic dispatch #4, August 19, 1889. William AINSWORTH, A personal narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, London, 1888. Cf. the chapter titled “The Country of Jacobites”, p. 333ff. 1 2

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7

The classic traveler’s itinerary led first to Diyarbakir, coming either from Urfa, easily reachable from Aleppo, or from the Armenian plateau to the north. It was also possible to follow a caravan, already equipped and often accompanied by a detachment of policemen. The rest of the trip depended on the degree of danger in the region, which was often high in the 19th century because of Kurdish uprisings. Navigating the Tigris, according to the log left by Captain Mark Sykes, future negotiator of the Sykes-Picot accords during the First World War, offered the possibility of skirting around Tur Abdin by its northern and eastern slopes, without there being any need to enter the territory. This itinerary passed by the city of Hasankeif, perched on the cliffs of one branch of the Tigris and inhabited by a large Syriac community, and then led to Mosul, which was often the starting point for numerous expeditions towards Hakkari. It is the Eastern Taurus, and especially the Hakkari mountains in the upper basin of the Grand Zab, that make up the heart of Nestorian country. The Eastern Taurus, which for a long time provided the Nestorian tribes with a seemingly invulnerable refuge, represents, with its peaks more than 4000 meters high, the highest part of the Taurus.1

Tur Abdin could also be avoided from the south, by following the caravan road from Nusaybin to Jezireh. Syriac culture had more or less fallen into oblivion. Isolated and intermarried in a hostile environment, the Syriacs of Tur Abdin suffered from a bad reputation that was spread as much by foreign observers as by the other Eastern Christian communities often in competition with them. For a long time, Westerners considered them “savages” bearing all the stereotypical flaws of Eastern character. In the eyes of the intelligentsia of the time, the Syriacs were a “degenerate and decadent” Christian community. This opinion would remain unchanged until the arrival of the American and Anglican missions, followed by those of the Dominican fathers starting in 1880. There was also a theological reason for this: the Anglicans could not accept the religious views held by the 1 M. CHEVALIER, Les Montagnards chrétiens du Hakkâri et du Kurdistan septentrional. Paris-Sorbonne, 1985, 418 p. See the geographical description on p. 287, reproduced by X. de Planhol.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

“Monophysites”, and thus by the Syriac Orthodox, whereas the Nestorians of Hakkari seemed closer to them, and thus more able to be integrated into the Western churches.1 It seems that there were also rivalries between the Syriacs of Tur Abdin, and the Nestorian Syriacs from Hakkari. For example, Michel Chevalier reports that the Nestorians despised other Christians, including the Syriacs from Tur Abdin and from the plain, for not living in “tiari”, or independent tribes, as they themselves did, and that they considered them no better than herds, “raya”, meaning that they were under Muslim control. The raya tribes lived under the domination of a Muslim tribe, whereas the tiari tribes had maintained a semi-independent lifestyle within the wider tribal system of “ashirets”, from the Turkish for a group of tribes.2 “In Mesopotamia, the non-Armenians are the Syrian Catholics, and those who are not Catholics or Jacobites are Chaldeans and Nestorians. Except for these last two, who were living under the exceptional rule of the Ashirets, the others were subjects regularly paying their taxes, benefiting the State with their industry and work, without any political pretensions, faithful in all respects to the government.”3 The Nestorian tribes received much more attention and were the object of many expositions. The expeditions of the “explorer missionaries” George Percy Badger and Asahel Grant are the best known. The differing degrees of interest aroused by these two communities, both derived from an authentic Christianity, can in part be explained by ideas held on them in the West. British and American missionary circles long believed that the peoples of Hakkari were the descendents of one of the lost tribes of Israel. They created a sort of myth around the Nestorians, who are also of Syriac extraction, while the Orthodox Syriacs of Tur Abdin were ignored.

Cf. the preface written by George Percy BADGER in The Nestorians and their rituals; With a narrative of a mission to Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in 1842-1844, and of a late visit to those countries in 1850, 2 volumes, London, 1852. 2 M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., pp. 195-196. 3 Father Jacques RHÉTORÉ, Souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les Chrétiens en 1915, Les Chrétiens aux bêtes, cahier #1, p. 19. 1

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9

The first change in this attitude came with the travelogue left by Reverend George Percy Badger, who was able to cross Tur Abdin during an 1850 expedition to Hakkari. He chose to take the northwest plateau, setting out from Diyarbakir, and then crossed several mostly Kurdish villages, Coordirek, Dereesh, Savur, and then the large village of Killeth where 120 “Jacobite” families dwelled. Three days later, he arrived at Midyat, capital of Tur Abdin. It looked to him like a large village, whose population, made up entirely of Orthodox Syriacs, did not surpass 450 families. He only stayed there for a day, then continued on towards the interior, up to the monastery of “Deir-ool-Amar”: this is the famous monastery of Mar Gabriel, formerly known as Qartmin. The name used by Badger is a deformation of the Arabic name, Deir ul-Omar. His impression of it is extremely negative: It is a large Jacobite monastery inhabited by two monks and a few peasants that work the fields around it. From the outside, the monastery resembles a fortress, but the inside is in an advanced state of disrepair.

He only stayed there for one hour before setting off again for Azekh in the East, and he finished crossing Tur Abdin when he arrived at the small town of Jezireh. The richest testimony was left by Reverend Oswald Parry,1 a delegate of the Anglican Church who in 1892 remained for several months with the Syriac patriarch at the Deir al-Za`faran monastery. He describes the land of Tur Abdin as a country of naked hills cleft here and there by valleys with rich pastures and slopes carefully cultivated for their vineyards and cotton with, at the bottom, irrigated crops of rice, corn and tobacco. On the architectural front, the phenomenal work done between 1909 and 1911 by Gertrude Bell’s mission revealed the fabulous heritage of one of the most ancient Christian monasteries.

THE MONASTERY OF SAFFRON Deir al-Za`faran had been the seat of the Syriac Orthodox patriarch since 1293,2 and was also known as the monastery of Oswald PARRY, Six months in a Syrian monastery, London, 1895. Patriarch BARSAUM, 1933-1957, wrote a history of it that included a list of patriarchs from its origins down to the 20th century. Severius Barsaum, History of the Monastery of Za’faran (available in Arabic 1 2

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Saint Hnanya, in honor of its founder, a monk of Saint Mattai who lived around 811. “Deir” in Arabic means “monastery” or “house”, whereas “za`faran” means “saffron”. In 1293, the patriarchal seat was moved from Diyarbakir to Mardin, where it remained until the end of the First World War. The monastery was pillaged several times during its history, like all the monasteries of Tur Abdin, by the Turks, by Tamerlane’s Mongols, and more recently by the Kurds, who used the monastery library’s ancient manuscripts to load their rifles or as kindling for their fires.1 When he visited it, Badger only spoke of a hundred or so manuscripts, whereas Southgate had spoken of fifty volumes piled on a shelf covered with dust, books which according to him had never been opened.2 Situated only a few miles outside of Mardin, on the slope of a green hill, surrounded by gardens, vineyards and blooming pomegranate trees, the monastery had been nicknamed by Ainsworth “the yellow monastery” because of the color of its stones that shone in the sparkling sunlight. In order to reach it, one had to cross the village of Qalaat Marah, entirely inhabited by Syriacs, “qalaat” meaning fortress in Arabic. All travelers passed through there, and all were graciously welcomed by the patriarch and monks. The establishment consists of a patriarch, six matrans, and twelve catzees, for these are the titles they bear. [The patriarch] neither tastes flesh, wine, spirits, nor tobacco, neither can he marry. [Matrans] are permitted to marry one wife; but, if she dies, the husband cannot take another. [The catzees] are also permitted to marry, and on the death of their first wife they may take a second, provided she is a virgin. The duties of these and in Syriac). Honigmann and Fiey used a great deal of information they found in it. See also J. M. FIEY, op. cit., pp. 233-238. He offers a synthesis of the works of E. HONIGMANN, Le couvent de Barsauma et le patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie, Louvain, 1954, and of Mgr. Paul HINDO, Discipina Antiochena Antica Siri II, Vatican, 1951. 1 Horatio SOUTHGATE, Narrative of a tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia, 2 volumes, New-York, 1840; p. 226. 2 See the descriptions of the library by G. BADGER, op. cit., p. 51; by H. SOUTHGATE, Narrative of a visit to a Syrian (Jacobite) church of Mesopotamia, New-York, 1844, pp. 220-222; and J. BUCKINGHAM, Travels in Mesopotamia, 2 volumes, London, 1827, p. 180.

CHAPTER 1. THE LAND OF THE SYRIACS men consist in the performance of their church-service, seven times in the day […].1

11

Oswald Parry was able to stay there for several months. Each traveler left a detailed description of the church and of its decorations, which varied in richness according to the times: Buckingham in 1827 spoke of the “rich altar laden with gold and silver,”2 whereas in 1842 Badger mentioned only a filthy church, poorly adorned and decorated by a few miserable paintings. The services were celebrated by the Patriarch, and the witnesses left a fairly precise description of the liturgy. Custom had it that each Sunday the Christians, crowds of woman and men from Mardin and the surrounding regions, would come to the monastery to spend the day together. The women could remove their veils, cook, do the laundry and laugh, all the while watching their children play. The men, sitting apart, would speak and smoke far from the control and discrimination practiced against Christians in town. More than just a place of prayer, the monastery became, in Buckingham’s words, a place of “recreation”, and he compared its role to that of the Turkish baths for Ottoman women. Moreover, the monastery accepted the blind, the insane, and the outcasts of their community within its walls with the generosity its financial situation could afford, and it thus continued to play a prominent social role. The province’s economic situation was far from healthy. The Diyarbakir vilayet was particularly underdeveloped industrially, agriculturally and commercially in comparison to other Ottoman provinces. Its backwardness was one of the causes of the famines that blighted the population in the decade between 1880 and 1890. As this economic crisis was structural, it spared no one, Muslim or Christian, and caused endless frustration, which unquestionably widened the divisions already present in society, and especially the rejection of the Christian element, who were gradually accused of all evils. The region where Mesopotamia meets the Taurus Mountains, with its underlying lands and beyond that, the Armenian plateau, is an ancient urban region. Besides cities fallen into ruin and reduced to simple villages, of which Nusaybin is the best known example, 1 2

H. SOUTHGATE, op. cit., p. 226. J. BUCKINGHAM, op. cit., chapter IX, p. 180.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE an entire urban network can be seen, most often inherited from antiquity: Mardin, Siirt, Jezireh-ibnOmar (ruined by the Kurdish wars in the 19th century), and above all, Diyarbakir, which had been a metropolis of the upper Tigris since the end of the 4th century. All these cities, which had been large caravan markets and industrial centers of repute, took part in the Empire’s general decline over the course of the 19th century.1

The province suffered from an obvious lack of infrastructure and of means of communication, a lack that at least on paper, would be remedied before the First World War by the construction of long railway supposed to connect Berlin to Baghdad and thus to open up the province from the south. The war halted this project before completion. The most pressing inadequacy was the almost total absence of roads suitable for motor vehicles. In the last quarter of the 19th century, the total length of the province’s roads came to 329 kilometers, which were split between two main highways. The first, completed in 1883, allowed those traveling north to reach the road leading to Samsun, whose port offered access to the Black Sea. The second, in the south, connected the city of Diyarbakir to Mardin and then to Aleppo, and thus afforded access to the Mediterranean through the port of Alexandretta (Iskenderun). The rest of the province was entirely without roads. Because of the distance from the large maritime ports, commerce is in an unending quagmire. The cost of transportation is out of control. The only way to stem this tide of decay that will necessarily end up sooner or later in complete ruin is to build major railways, and to do so in short order.2

The sections of this railway, especially those leading towards Aleppo, would play an important role in the deportation of Christian populations starting in 1915. A caravan of camels, horses or mules needed six days to reach Samsun by a small mountain road 585 kilometers away. Mardin, which was only 73 kilometers away from Diyarbakir, required more 1 Xavier de PLANHOL, Minorités en Islam, Géographie politique et sociale, Flammarion, 1997. See the general introduction. 2 Vital CUINET, Géographie administrative, statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l’Asie mineure, t. II, «La Turquie d’Asie», Paris 1891. Cf. section on Diyarbakir, p. 510ff.

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than two days of traveling. We have no precise information concerning the length of time needed to move about within Tur Abdin, but it seems that travelers and missionaries went from village to village fairly easily despite problems related to highway robbery. They followed the centuries-old paths and were generally accompanied by a guide and an armed escort recruited on the spot. Often, paying a tribute to the local Kurdish chieftain, with a courtesy call, was enough to allow them to cross his lands freely. For lack of money to upkeep them, the roads that did exist quickly turned into muddy paths as soon as the autumn rains began. This complaint, addressed to the Diyarbakir vali in 1875 by the city’s archbishops of all religious persuasions, illustrates the situation: As far as the highway that has been under construction for the last nine consecutive years, a simple inspection of the work will reveal what has been done. The harsh winter conditions, as well as the abundance of rain and snow, have destroyed everything, despite the concerted efforts of all the inhabitants of the Diyarbakir sanjak.1

Besides the purely economic aspect, the failed infrastructure caused great hardship on the population’s general existence level. To return to the question of the roads, which have reduced the dispersed poor to a state of despair, helpless and without so much as a loaf of bread, the province’s emigration rate can be estimated at 30%.2

To this communication problem must be added the region’s inherent insecurity problem, rendered endemic by certain Kurdish and Arabic tribes’ extortion of the Christian villages. Only transportation on the Tigris was relatively safe. Transportation on this river is carried out by “kelek”, a kind of raft kept afloat with

1 There is a great temperature variation across the entire province: the temperature averages -11ºC in the winter (at that time), and at times could go down to -20ºC, while during the summer, the temperature averages 35-40ºC. This variation is even worse on the Tur Abdin plateau, because of its slight elevation. Note dated October 27th 1875, Contre l’autorité administrative du vilayet de Diarbékir, et adressée à la Porte Ottomane par Mgrs les évêques Grec, Arménien non-uni, Arménien catholique, et Jacobite de la dite ville. (Mémoires et Documents, tome 53, sans folio). 2 Idem.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

goat bladders. The current pushes these rafts along, and those inside steer it with a scull and wide oar. Table of distances and of estimated traveling times

Diyarbakir

Mardin

Midyat

3 days

Mardin (89 km) Samsun (585 km) Alexandretta (459 km) Midyat (60km) Nusaybin (29km) Jezireh (167 km)

2 days 6 days by caravan 5 days by caravan 1 – days 14 hours 4 days

Sources: Vital Cuinet, George Badger and Father Simon

Once they have arrived at their destination, the boat’s wood is sold and the deflated bladders are loaded on donkeys, and the caravan reforms.1 The river, navigable after the city of Diyarbakir, led to the rich plains of Mesopotamia via Mosul and then Baghdad, thanks to its steep drop. In the space of a few dozen kilometers, the river falls from an altitude of 620 meters at Diyarbakir to only 260 meters when it enters the Mosul vilayet. Industry was undeveloped. In the cities, it was limited to traditional crafts such as leather-working, coppersmithing, embroidery, pottery and gold-working, which had recently been complemented by numerous silk and cotton factories furnishing materials for rug production in Mardin and Diyarbakir. Some of this production also required primary materials such as wool, which the merchants, many of them Christians, bought directly from the townsfolk of Tur Abdin.2 Manufactured products were largely

V. CUINET, op. cit., p. 513. Oral testimony of Mr. Farid “Y”, whose grandfather regularly traveled to Tur Abdin to buy the primary materials he needed for his 1 2

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15

imported from abroad, especially England, Germany, France and Persia. These activities, mostly concentrated around Diyarbakir and Mardin, brought about the emergence of a mercantile and homeindustrial middle class, thanks to the energetic labor of many Christian, Armenian, Syriac and Chaldean families. On entering Diarbekir, by the Mardin gate, we passed through paved streets and crowded bazaars, till we came nearly into the centre of the city, where we alighted at the house of a certain Yussef, a Christian merchant, to whom the Syrian Patriarch, at Mardin, had given me a letter. He received us with great kindness, and offered his utmost assistance during our stay1

As far as agriculture was concerned, despite the soil’s fertility, farming was strictly limited to each village’s needs. On plots purposefully kept small, the inhabitants sowed only the amount of wheat and barley they would need for their own everyday necessities. Each village needed to be self-sufficient. The agricultural procedures and tools are very primitive, and […] the inhabitants let considerable swathes of their arable land lie fallow. The reasons for this apparent laziness and neglect are many, but can be summarized in a few words: the lack of capital and of markets to sell their produce. The dearth of practicable roads is the second reason for the decay of agriculture, for the produce can only be transported to the distant maritime ports of call of Alexandretta and Samsun for exorbitant sums.2

These comments, though insightful, nonetheless seem a little out of step with the region’s reality. Vital Cuinet neglects to mention the serious problem of insecurity that the local Ottoman officials’ inactivity only worsened. Christian villages, often richer than their Muslim neighbors’, were regularly looted by Kurdish tribes or forced to pay absurdly high taxes. The Christian populations living in the countryside, including Tur Abdin, were all sedentary, farming and animal-raising communities. Besides shepherding and silk-worm breeding, grapes business, particularly wool, which he bought directly from Christian villages. 1 J. S. BUCKINGHAM, op. cit., see chapter 9. 2 V. CUINET, op. cit., p. 510.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

made up the plateau’s main resource, “those vine fields, dotted with cabins where the families would go in the summer, and stretching out over several kilometers, mostly produced raisins.”1 The cities’ situation was a little different, since the rule of order allowed commerce to grow while also favoring the import of foreign products. The cities were also surrounded by wheat fields, fruit and vegetable gardens2 and even grape plantations that insured each community would be able to meet its own needs whenever insecurity prevented exchange with the countryside. In times of trouble, travel between cities and country was kept to a strict minimum. Before the First World War, it seems that the province’s oil deposits were not very well known. It is nonetheless troubling, as Stephen Longrigg has emphasized, to note that in 1900, the Sultan began buying large territories in the province with his own personal money as well as in the name of the imperial family. Moreover, Standard Oil and Rockefeller himself actively lobbied during the war, and then at the peace conference, for the United States to accept a mandate over a prospective independent Armenia that would also comprise these provinces of such high oil-bearing potential.3

M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 293. V. Cuinet cites the example of melons weighing up to 25 kg and of watermelons of 50 kg. 3 Stephen H. LONGRIGG, Oil in the Middle East, its discovery and development, London, 1961, p. 15. 1 2

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY: THE QUEST FOR AN IDENTITY Syriac Orthodox communities no longer represented a homogenous society: geographically scattered across a vast Muslim expanse, its different branches no longer used the same vernacular language. The human mosaic that formed Diyarbakir’s population was reflected in its mosaic of languages. Tur Abdin’s isolation allowed for the preservation through the ages of a derivative of the original Syriac-Aramaic language, “Turoyo”, also known as “Turani”. This vernacular language differs from classical Syriac in the same way that a dialect of spoken Arabic may differ from literary Arabic. The population also spoke fluent Kurdish and Arabic, the languages most commonly used by their neighbors. The village of “Killeth contains 120 Jacobite families, most of whom speak Arabic, as well as Coordish and vernacular Syriac.”1 Whether or not a Syriac spoke several languages depended on the context in which he lived. In Mardin, for example, a highly arabicized town, all Syriacs spoke Arabic, which had spread throughout the Christian communities, as well as Kurdish. The diversity of these languages was concentrated in a local dialect known as “mardini”, whose basis was Arabic, but which borrowed vocabulary from the other two languages. This was also the case with Azekh, where even today a strongly arabicized dialect survives, spoken only by Syriac families. In the cities of Diyarbakir and of Urfa, all Christians used Armenian to communicate, as they did wherever there was a high Armenian concentration, such as in the village of Tell Armen, south of Mardin.2 To this already vast linguistic puzzle must also be added the European languages, English, French, Italian and German, limited to the children able to benefit from the classes that missionaries from every country were giving. As for Ottoman Turkish, written in the Arabic alphabet, it was not common, and was used only by some of the social elite G. BADGER, op. cit., p. 54. For example the mother of Ibraham “Z”, an Orthodox Syriac, was born in Diyarbakir, but even today, speaks only Armenian. 1 2

17

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

who would use it when they had dealings with the authorities: the ecclesiastic hierarchy for example, or traders, merchants and bankers. From this, we can gather that while the Syriacs always spoke the language of their Muslim, Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic neighbors, as well as the languages of their Christian, essentially Armenian, neighbors, the reverse was rarely, if ever, the case. Faced with this linguistic and geographic diversity, the search for an identity common to all Syriac Orthodox, or “Jacobites”, stands almost wholly on a Church-Nation postulate, which would revolve around the rallying figure of the Patriarch. This idea can be seen in the facts until the end of the First World War, when the idea of an Assyro-Chaldean nation reuniting all Syriacs, whatever their faith, came to the forefront. This identity has many elements: first of all the language, whose common source linguists have now established as fact, can serve to group together first all the Syriac Orthodox communities among themselves, then the Syriac communities as a whole, including the Nestorians and the Chaldeans. Next there is without a doubt the more delicate question of “ethnicity” which, real or supposed, came into consideration in the idea that the Syriacs had of their own origin. They were more sure of what they were not than of what they were: that is, not Turkish or Kurdish, not Arabic or Armenian. The certainty that they were a people apart, descending from Antiquity, prevailed throughout the 19th century, as it still prevails today. Were they Assyrians, Aramaics, or something else? The question still remains largely unanswered. In any case, Syriac “identity” cannot be limited simply to belonging to a particular faith.

THE WEAKNESSES OF A NATION What bond could there be between a Syriac Orthodox from Urfa and one of his co-religionists living near Mosul? Or even between a Syriac from Diyarbakir and a villager from Tur Abdin, since it was almost sure they would never meet? This common bond, besides the fact that they were both heirs to the same culture, was faith in the same Patriarch, “father and chief”1 of the Church. Émile EID, La figure juridique du Patriarche, Rome, 1962. Eastern Code of Rituals and of Persons, canon 216. 1

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY 19 When Reverend Southgate had a conversation with a “Jacobite” priest from Harput and told him that he would soon be meeting his Patriarch in Mardin, the priest jumped up and answered with zeal, “Tell him that I kiss his hands!” This almost filial faith had its roots in the history of Syriac Christianity and of the dissidence stemming from the succession to the see of Antioch. It had been strengthened over the long centuries of isolation in Islamic land, centuries which should certainly have led to the disappearance of the Syriac churches’ distinctness, had the institution of the patriarchate not existed. Within the Ottoman Empire, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch and his Church were one and the same. He was the means by which each member of the church identified himself as a Christian, both from a spiritual point of view by religious practice, and from a social point of view by his payment of a tithe to the clergy. The bishops and priests symbolized this bond in each parish or in each village. This desire to belong was amplified by the problems of infrastructure that prevented people from moving about from region to region. In the 19th century, the strength of this community bond seems to have been severely weakened by the decline of the clergy, which had become ignorant for lack of theological instruction, and because of rampant internal divisions due to jealousy and ambitions. Besides the socio-economic factors inherent in the general situation common to all Christians, the weakness of the Syriac church after 1880 seemed to be the result of a weakness, if not a neglect, of identity. As father and chief of the Church, the Patriarch controlled its supreme government, as well as its general administration. He directed the Church’s business, managed its properties (fields as well as herds) from which he derived an income, part of which was paid to the Sultan. With the bishops, he nominated of the clergy. The priests, who could marry and have children according to Eastern custom were in theory appointed to a single village for life. A French Capuchin father from Mardin commented ironically, and perhaps maliciously, in 1882 on the strange image that the “Jacobite” Patriarch and his clergy had at the time: “Al Batrack Botros is certainly not the meanest man alive, but there are illusions that can leave you dazzled, centuries-old habits that can blind you and give you delusions. The great illusion of the Jacobite Batrack is

20

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE to take himself for a pope, at least the equal of the man venerated by three hundred million Catholics. His custom, consecrated by centuries-old habit, is the pious one of governing his flock without allowing the slightest contradiction. Recently, it was said of him that after he had had a small argument with one of his bishops, the bishop had been forced to bow his venerable shoulders under the rough and repeated blows of the patriarchal scepter.”1

The successive impressions that travelers left on the Syriacs were very negative. George Percy Badger noted that when he arrived at Diyarbakir, he found the level of the Jacobites, here as elsewhere, largely inferior to that of the other Christian communities: their ecclesiastic affairs are very poorly managed, and the level of their bishops and priests is much lower than that of all the other sects.2

“The bishops are generally illiterate men,”3 he went on to say. Poorly versed in the scriptures and ignorant of their own ecclesiastical history, they knew how to read the liturgy’s Syriac, but few of them, according to him, understood its meaning. In Tur Abdin, Badger remarked that in the village of Killeth, where he stopped on his way to Midyat, “the priests are completely illiterate.”4 The worst for him was that they seemed perfectly content to practice their religion in that way, simply reciting prayers in their dilapidated churches, all the while keeping up the trappings of their rituals, often exaggeratedly so in his opinion, and “paying the Patriarch his due.”5 The good priest of Killeth explained to Badger that he had not received a directive to rebuild his church (any reconstruction or restoration of a church at the time fell under the expressed authority of the Ottoman governor), and when Badger suggested that he might just clean it up, the priest affirmed that he would not be taking any initiative.

Letter dated May 3rd 1882 from Father Joseph, French Capuchin missionary, to his superior. A copy of this letter was also sent, at the same time, to the French vice-consul at Diyarbakir. 2 G. Badger, op. cit., chapter 4, p. 42. 3 Idem. 4 Idem. 5 Idem. 1

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY 21 In several far-off corners of Tur Abdin, the payment of the tithe was perhaps the only yearly contact between a village and its clergy. In Midyat, according to Badger, there was no priest able to read, nor was there a single school. Some time before he arrived there, the Syriac Orthodox Bishop of Midyat had fled to Diyarbakir to convert to Catholicism. “This secession did not seem to affect them in the least. ‘We can get another’, said they with the greatest indifference.”1 Several times, it seems that the members of the clergy suffered from a bad reputation even among their own flock. Priesthoods were often passed on from father to son with only rudimentary training. When Badger arrived at the Mar Gabriel monastery, he commented that the monks, “illiterate men,”2 were only interested in the income from their land, and that they complained about their Patriarch, who was asking for too much of a slice of it. The decline of the Syriac Church as an institution dragged the rest of the community down with it, especially among the rural populations of Tur Abdin, where the Church continued to play an important social role. The Syriac communities established in cities such as Diyarbakir, Mardin, Midyat or even Jezireh, more easily benefited from the Christians’ general rush to progress, which began to show with the proliferation of foreign missions, both Protestant and Catholic. Yet the villages of Tur Abdin, fiercely jealous of their independence, remained outside this desire for progress, with a few exceptions. Their way of life had remained the same for centuries. For example, the village of Bâ Sabrinâ, inhabited solely by Jacobites, inspired much the same impression in Badger. The priests led a lazy life in their ruined churches, while the population, for the most part farmers, was “ignorant in the extreme.” Several hours of walking later, when he arrived at the village of Azekh, an important town in Tur Abdin, the priests complained that they had to work their own fields to survive. As for the village church, it had been transformed into a silo for grain, part of which would have to go to pay the patriarchal tithe. The priests hurriedly said that the Patriarch was becoming a bit demanding with his requests.3 This allusion to the Patriarch’s monetary demands reappeared again and Idem, pp. 59-65. Idem. 3 Idem. 1 2

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again in the priests’ litany of grievances. Others openly complained of the Patriarch’s and his bishops’ inertia and greed. When reading Badger’s impressions, one is struck by the degree to which the Syriac Orthodox ecclesiastic hierarchy was aware of its own decline. This hierarchy, around 1850, was made up of the Patriarch, whose complete title was “Patriarch of Antioch and successor to Saint Peter, of eight metropolitans [an honorific distinction accorded to a bishop], and of eleven bishops, [one each for] Mosul, Urfa, Diyarbakir, Mardin, three for Tur Abdin, Jerusalem, and three without regular dioceses.” But far from offering itself as an example, besides a few instances of good will, the Syriac clergy seemed paralyzed and incapable of reform. In trying to explain this obvious lack of interest, Badger offered the example of Patriarch Elias, who spent the better part of his time trying to recover the churches and other property that had fallen under the sway of the Syriac Catholic Church. Meanwhile, “nothing was being done for the betterment of his people’s spiritual condition.” Several decades later, when in July 1881, the Dominican Fathers in turn discovered Tur Abdin, they noticed the same thing. The village we were camping near was inhabited by Jacobites. These kind people came to visit us, together with a few notables. It is hard to imagine the ignorance of these poor heretic priests and their belief in all the superstitions and absurdities current in their country.1

A week later, on mission to Siirt, among the twenty or so “Jacobite” villages still located on the left bank of the Tigris, Father Jacques Rhétoré, the mission’s leader, again commented on the clergy’s neglect. The heretics of these lands do not seem attached to the error of their ways; they are abandoned by their leaders and feel that their sects2 themselves are powerless and futureless. That is why the Protestants, who are the only ones working on them, have made such progress among them.3 Letter dated July 7th 1881 from Father Rhétoré to Father Duval, superior of Mosul. Voyage de Djézireh à Mardin. 2 The plural is used to include Jacobite villages in with the Nestorian villages that were still there at the time. 3 Letter dated July 14th 1881 from Father Rhétoré to Father Duval, in Siirt. 1

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY 23 The vocabulary used by the missionary fathers to speak of the Syriacs as heretics was marked by a very Catholic conception of the unity of the Church, one that held in contempt all the Eastern and Orthodox denominations, which they did not hesitate to call “sects”. This point of view forces us to take their assertions with a grain of salt, but at the same time, many of the details quoted were corroborated by other sources. A few months later, Father Duval, also a Dominican, furthered this analysis in a report that he addressed to the mission’s Provincial in France, confirming the point of view Badger had expressed a half-century earlier: The Jacobites are without doubt the most fallen Christian community in the country. They have no hope of being able to pick themselves up on their own, for their nation has neither the resources nor the vitality for the task. Their leaders take no care of them whatsoever, neither in the spiritual domain, nor in the temporal. Among them, ignorance has reached its ultimate point, so much so that their religion is nothing anymore but a shameful mess of superstitions one more absurd than the last. The Protestants have understood that they are easy prey, and thus they have surrounded them in their usual way.1

As for the single Syriac Orthodox school at Jezireh (Cizre), “its schoolteachers are generally incompetents or beggars…in fact, they are used for the domestic service of the ecclesiastic superiors, considering that ‘their nation’s school’ is an annex of their Church.”2 It seems however that the Syriacs of Jezireh, estimated at only thirty families, had managed to take advantage of their high numbers in Tur Abdin to grow in importance in the city and occupy social positions of dominance. Their way of life could then share certain similarities with that of the communities in Diyarbakir and Mardin. Despite their inferiority in numbers, in Jezireh, the Jacobites have a much better situation than the Catholics. This comes from the fact that they represent 1 Letter dated February 20th 1882 from Father Duval to the Provincial of France. 2 Letter dated February 9th 1882 from Father Duval to the Provincial of France, Rapport du Père Galland sur la mission de Djézireh et au Djebel Tour.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE a powerful nation spread out in the nearby villages of Jebel Tur. Jezireh is not in Jebel Tur, but it is the city where the business of the entire eastern half of the province ends up. This is why the Jacobites of Jezireh, ardent lovers of their nation, have always striven to gain a position of influence with the local government, which might allow them to give their community’s affairs a turn favorable to their interests and ambitions […] especially by their unscrupulous generosity toward the representatives of power […] the Jacobites have come to be all-powerful, with the upper hand in business, using that to give free rein to their hatred of the Syrian Catholics who sprang from their own ranks and whom they still consider as deserters.1

THE SYRIAC MINDSET AND ITS STEREOTYPES It is very difficult to imagine the Syriac mindset of the time, for many testimonies that have come down to us simply reflect clichés. The decay of the Syriac Orthodox Church also manifested itself as a loss of political influence. In the beginning of the 1880’s, a conflict broke out in Mardin between the two Syriac communities, the Orthodox and the Catholic, concerning the religious validity of a young girl’s marriage. This discord quickly spread and was one of the signs of the Syriac Orthodox decline, which shall be discussed later. The numerous details which will follow will clarify the affair, while at the same time informing us on the contemporary state of mentalities, at least from one point of view, through the detailed eye-witness account of a Capuchin father. Two and a half years ago, a girl of Jacobite origin named Martha was violently kidnapped from her parents by a young man of the same sect […]. Martha was not yet eleven years old. Dragged by force to a Report written by Father J. Galland, published in the periodical Les Missions Catholiques, 1882. We may imagine that these descriptions are exaggerated, for the point of the article was to state the case for the Syriac Catholic community’s grievances in order to raise funds in the West to finance the missions. We might also note how a nation that has “neither the resources nor the vitality” becomes, in the same year, and in the mouth of the same missionaries, “a powerful nation.” 1

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY 25 heretic priest who had been forewarned, she was made to take part, despite her tears and protests, in a wedding ceremony. When the police heard of this, they arrived on the scene, freed the child and returned her to her parents.1

Each community mobilized all its strength to throw itself bitterly into the fray. Both the city’s Bishops, Chaldean and Catholic Armenian, upheld the position defended by the Syriac Catholics, whereas the Syriac Orthodox Church was left alone to defend itself…with “English gold”, as the Capuchin father perniciously quipped. The “Jacobites” spoke of a “question of life or death”, and demanded that the city’s Ottoman governor arbitrate the dispute. Once a report had been addressed to the Pasha of Mardin, the Pasha officially invited the leaders of the different Catholic denominations to come together to pronounce their verdict on the nullity or validity of the marriage. There was really no question: the lack of consent was glaring, and the marriage was declared void.2

Some time later, the girl’s father decided to convert to Catholicism with the rest of his family. Martha’s hand in marriage, “with her full and free consent”, was once again given to a young man, this time from her new community, which immediately unleashed the rage of the Orthodox Syriacs, who still considered her first marriage valid. The Jacobite Patriarch was up in arms, and in full agreement with his priests and the other leaders of his sect, he decided to try another raid to take the child back. Martha was not safe. Following the opinion of his Beatitude Monsignor Patriarch of the [Catholic] Syrians, the Pasha sent us word to ask whether our nuns might agree to take the child in under their protection. That haven is considered inviolable in light of the firmans accorded by the Sultan of Istanbul. Since this matter touched upon a work of charity and upon the interests of the Catholic religion, we did not hesitate to answer his Excellency that we would take the child. Nonetheless, we did have concerns. The 1 Letter dated May 3rd, 1882 from Father Joseph, French Capuchin missionary, to his Superior. 2 Idem.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Jacobites, their Patriarch included, are men that would stop at nothing, no matter how base. Among these uncouth and ignorant people, more savage than the Blacks of the Seychelles, might makes right, and strength is everything. One evening, during our meal, rifle shots rang out from the direction of the nuns’ convent. Martha was not even there yet, but the Jacobites thought she was, and these gunshots at an unheard-of hour announced nothing good.1

The Capuchin father, generous with his nasty comments, emphasized the Orthodox leadership’s villainy. Oh Holy Land of the East! Fertile Land! In the circumstances we are writing about there was a casus belli of the greatest magnitude, and the campaign started out with a virulence announcing a war of outrages. The Jacobite Patriarch began hostilities with full confidence that he would prevail. Al Batrack Botros is certainly not the meanest man alive, but there are illusions that can leave you dazzled, centuries-old habits that can blind you and give you delusions. […] Another thing added to the Jacobite Patriarch’s blind confidence in a quick and easy victory: having returned only months before from a long trip to the Indias and to England, he had made his triumphal entrance into the city amid the ovations of a zealous people who knew he came bearing considerable sums. The prestige of gold here is a power nothing can resist. He tried to take advantage of that. He immediately presented his case to the Supreme Court of Constantinople.2

After a long debate, the government decided against the “Jacobite” Patriarch, who, according to the Capuchin Father, “felt profoundly humiliated”. The affair lasted four months, during which the Jacobites flailed about in all direction, bought able protectors, spent good money to send long and numerous telegrams between Mardin and Constantinople; to their eyes, this was a matter of life and death, for the Creed ‘of Eutyches’, all means were legitimate: threats, libel, falsification of documents, Idem. These trips to India can be explained by the large Syriac community that had lived there and they also explain the close relations with England since the 19th century. 1 2

CHAPTER 2. THE CHURCH, THE PATRIARCH AND THE FAMILY 27 plans for insurrection, etc. […] Moreover, the Istanbul government was taking its time, demanding explanations of the most minute details. The Catholics of Mardin remained in anguish, wondering to which side the scales of Ottoman justice would tip. One day, April 19th, 1882, I was returning to the city after a day’s absence: I was surprised to find a large crowd of onlookers. […] The Sublime Porte had just announced a decision from the Grand Vizier declaring the first marriage absolutely void, and allowing Martha to go join her legitimate husband. The joy of the faithful was feverish, the crowd was waiting with bated breath for the moment when Martha would come out of the convent. The Jacobites, especially the ones from the villages, today feel profoundly humiliated.1

The Syriacs had a very negative stereotype as being outdated and conservative. This affair brought out the whole gamut of clichés and caricatures concerning the “Jacobites”, as an attempt was made to portray the Syriac Orthodox Church as regressive, and thus inferior to the other Christian churches that had known enough to open themselves to Catholicism. Despite their excesses, the Capuchin Father’s comments allow us to see that the “Jacobite” church was already out of the loop of power. Defending itself clumsily, sometimes naively, the Church took a battle lost before it ever began and blew it out of all proportion into a question of political survival, which struck it a fatal blow. Starting from this period, foreign influences would take on their full intensity and allow the Syriacs to slow their decline, most notably by providing them access to new means of education. The Syriac Orthodox Church was no longer in any state to address the effort of reform needed for the Syriac community to recover some of its cohesion. It was thus with enthusiasm that the European influence was welcomed, for it afforded the Syriacs the feeling that they too enjoyed some of the network of “protection” that the Westerners had established. But in this respect, their impressions were always ambivalent: they were divided between their atavistic mistrust and their desire to belong to a society that they could feel evolving without them, especially in regards to the Armenians. By contrast, the Syriacs of Letter dated May 3rd, 1882 from Father Joseph, a French Capuchin missionary, to his Superior. 1

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Tur Abdin had been able to preserve their semi-independent way of life, similar to the Nestorian ashirets, by not offering any serious foothold to the missionaries’ proselytism outside of a few centers, such as Midyat or Azekh.

CHAPTER 3. A LAND OF MISSIONS In the first half of the 19th century, the American, Anglican and Protestant churches lingered compassionately over the long-ailing Syriac Orthodox Church. They made much of their great evangelical ambitions and seemed motivated, at least at first, by the idea of restoring the Church of the first Christians. The Anglicans first arrived in the 1820’s, when the young pastor William Jowett, was sent by the Church Missionary Society on a mission to meet with members of the Eastern hierarchy, in order to study the state of the Church […]. In the circumstances in which you find yourselves, you can act neither as declared enemies of your errors, nor as reformers of your behavior. But you can examine your Church with a friendly eye in order to discover the best ways to return it to its original health and vigor.1

The young pastor was supposed to work with the Eastern dignitaries on a plan to distribute Bibles to the Syriac clergy, and he was thus reviving a traditional vocation of the Anglican Church. When Reverend Southgate discovered the patriarchal library of Deir al-Za`faran, he was surprised to find among the dusty shelves a polyglot edition of the Bible translated into Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac, and published in London in 1656. Around 1900, this desire to spread evangelical texts led the Patriarch to create a printing press within the monastery’s very walls. Encouraged by the Easterners’ enthusiasm, William Jowett returned to England that same year, accompanied by the Syrian Orthodox archbishop of Jerusalem, who spoke in front of several committees of the Church Missionary Society, and of other missionary societies. This greatly impressed the English, who are always extremely susceptible to pomp and titles.

The first bonds between the Syriac Orthodox Church and England were forged during this visit. Afterwards, England regularly lent its monetary and financial aid, which would lead in 1882 to the recognition of “Jacobite” millet

1 J. M. HORNUS, “The Anglican Missions to the Middle East before the creation of the bishopric of Jerusalem” in Proche-Orient Chrétien, 1962, p. 11.

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by the Ottoman government.1 Until then, the interests of the Syriac Church had been represented at the Sultan’s court by the Apostolic (Orthodox) Patriarch of the Armenians. The Syriac Orthodox had been trying since 1873 to gain their own representation at the Sublime Porte. When Oswald Parry visited the Patriarch of Mardin in 1892, the Patriarch informed him that in Istanbul, he was represented by a bishop “with the right of audience in the presence of the Sultan”. The system of millets, or organized communities, provided the non-Muslim segments of society, both Jewish and Christian, with a personal and communal status, at once protective and discriminatory, implying rights and duties. On the American side, Reverend Southgate, a representative of the American Episcopal Church, was nominated to go to the Christians of Turkey with the express mission “to improve the Jacobites’ spiritual and material conditions”. When Badger met him in Istanbul in 1840, he found him in the company of the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Mosul who was living with him. This bishop had been sent by his Patriarch to defend the Church’s interests against the Syriac Catholics before the Ottoman government. The bishop eagerly accepted Southgate’s help. The American missions, including the powerful American Board of Missions, were very active, at first among the “Jacobites”, and later among the Armenian communities. Their motivations were doubly justified by an obvious desire to improve conditions for Eastern Christians living in the lands of the Old Testament. At the same time, they also wanted to contain the Roman Church’s, and thus France’s, influence in the region.2 The policy France had followed since the first Franco-Ottoman treaty of the 16th century allowed for regular incursions, under the true pretext of protecting the Catholic minorities’ interests, into Turkish domestic policy. The issue soon became a problem of 1 John JOSEPH, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: the case of the Jacobites in an age of transition, State University of New York, 1983, p. 29. He cites this date as that of the creation of Jacobite millet. 2 John JOSEPH, op. cit., chapter 4, Protestant, Piety and Politics. He nicely explains this evolution, from Reverend Southgate’s first mission to the years preceding the 1895 massacres. He particularly reveals the underlying sense of competition between the British and the American missions.

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international relations, since in the years following the 1878 Berlin Treaty, it turned the Ottoman Empire into a hub of many competing desires, particularly America’s and Britain’s, which were grouped under the term “Questions of the East.” The golden age of French influence at the Sultan’s court reached its apogee in the first half of the 19th century: first, in 1831, the government recognized a Armenian Catholic millet distinct from the Orthodox millet; then, in 1843, the Syriac Catholics were in turn granted their own millet. This double recognition accelerated the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Armenian Orthodox Church’s process of reconciliation, and brought about ever closer relations between these Churches and the Protestant missions. In this matter, Reverend Badger did not hide his aversion to France, which in his opinion, had “granted itself the right to protect Catholics in the Ottoman Empire”. The French had done so with such “impudence”, that the question was even debated in the House of Lords, to the conclusion that this right “had no foundation in any treaty ever struck between France and the Empire”. Legally, it does indeed seem that the Catholic missionaries, especially the French and Italian ones, very often overstepped the strict framework established by the Treaty of Capitulations. As early as 1770, the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Chevalier de Vergennes, had complained about these excesses and had asked that the firman negotiated in 1740 on the basis of the 1535, 1604 and 1673 treaties, be meticulously retranslated. The author of this translation noted: Even if this alternative in the Turks’ arbitrary procedures does often come from their side, it is nonetheless equally aided by the sometimes unclear wording and in the fairly weak expressions of certain articles in the Capitulations, which, since they were not rendered faithfully in the original translation, have encouraged the merchants, and even more so, the missionaries, in the liberties they believe they have the legal right to take and which can compromise our

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Ambassadors and Consuls in unpleasant disagreements with Turkish officers.1

The Protestant missionaries brought the non-Catholic churches aid aimed particularly at education, which led to the creation of dozens of schools in cities such as Diyarbakir, Mardin and Midyat. The school of Midyat remained an important center of Protestant influence until the 1880’s and 1890’s, and allowed the Protestants to gain a foothold in Tur Abdin. “Several influences are fighting over Tur Abdin and are seeking to take advantage of the tendency in favor of the European element in order to bend it to their personal interests,” wrote Father Duval, Superior of the Dominican mission, to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. But he also reassures him: “it is still the name of France that these peoples most warmly welcome, still the one that inspires the most goodwill and confidence.” John Joseph noted that “the ‘Protestant Jacobites’ of Midyat and the Tur Abdin villages were reported as having a clearer apprehension of their civil duties and rights, contributing to the relative prosperity of the villages in which they resided.”2

Father Duval’s words became quite virulent when he spoke of the Protestants who “seduce these populations, on the one hand by luring them with gold, and on the other by the if not official, at least unofficial and always very efficient protection that they grant them in the name of England.”3 In such a way, a strong antagonism seems to have built up between the Anglican and the American missions. The Anglican Oswald Parry mentioned that during his 1892 stay, the American missionaries were moved by a “crusading spirit” that led to a “frontal attack on other religious practices” which eventually discredited them because of their “misunderstanding of the local populations’ customs and habits.”4 1 Original document, translation in Constantinople by Master DEVAL, Paris, Royal Printing Press, 1770 (private Collection G. A.). 2 J. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 78. 3 Letter dated February 20th 1882 from Father Duval to the Provincial of France. This letter was forwarded to the Quai d’Orsay, which illustrates the longstanding collusion between missionaries and diplomats in the gathering of information. 4 O. PARRY, op. cit., p. 308.

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The American missions were set up in Mardin and Midyat. Several Protestant Syriac families still exist today, especially in the diaspora. The American mission’s church in Midyat, Mar Yoldat Aloho, is no longer open.

THE CATHOLIC TEMPTATION IN SYRIAC LAND The goal of the Missionary fathers was to support the effort of the Syriac Catholic Church, which was trying desperately to gain sway over the Orthodox masses of Tur Abdin. Only mass conversions would have allowed the “young” Syriac Catholic church truly to take root and spread. During the 17th century, Mardin had been chosen to play a pivotal role by the Capuchin Fathers, who had a school and a monastery there, building on the Dominican Fathers’ more established influence in Mosul. The Catholic Patriarch’s official residence was transferred to Mardin in 1854, making the city an important center of Latin expansionism and thus of confrontation with other denominations.1 The first Catholic Patriarch had been consecrated in Aleppo in 1662 with French help through the mediation of Ambassador François Picquet. The Patriarch left Mardin during the persecutions of 1915. Despite numerous efforts, Catholicism never took hold among the unruly peoples of Tur Abdin. In his journal, Reverend Joseph Wolff reported the words of a Jacobite bishop: “Catholic missionaries have no business showing their face in Jebel Tur, where even the Turks feel unsafe”.2 Catholic influence gained the strength it needed only in provincial towns and in a few large villages in Tur Abdin. It was mainly the poorest families that chose to convert, in order to take advantage of the assistance the missionaries offered with education, medical care, and emergencies. The Orthodox Syriacs’ attachment to their Church remained very strong, and the new converts often had to suffer harassment and humiliation at the hands of their former coreligionists within their villages or neighborhoods. This sometimes forced them either to flee their homes or, as often happened, to return to Orthodoxy.

1 2

J. JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 44-45. J. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 54.

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The reactions could sometimes turn violent. In Jezireh (Cizre) for example, the Orthodox “openly proclaim that they cannot wait to see the end of the Syrian Catholic community, and that they will burn their church if they are left with no other choice.”1 When he arrived in the village of Azekh, “a den of heresy”, but nonetheless a hotspot of Tur Abdin, Father Galland was surprised by the Orthodox Syriacs’ attitude toward him. “I was extremely taken aback by this haughtiness that I had not come across before and that I have not found since then in any other village. Afterwards, the Jacobites would assume less formal and rigid manners with us, but they would always maintain something of their initial attitude.”2 This did not prevent him from having political and theological discussions with Orthodox priests, each of whom showed different sensitivities. Thirty families had decided to convert to Catholicism, out of the four hundred families living in the village. Several of these converts complained to Father Galland about the insults, the beatings and the damage done to their property, and of the necessity of living locked in with their families; that was their daily bread. One night their house was besieged and demolished by a horde of Jacobites who threatened, if they did not recant, to burn them alive with their wives and children […]. Today, the struggle has lost some of the violence it had at the beginning, but there still remains what may be termed political persecution. This is seen mostly in the partiality of those holding municipal authority when the time comes for dividing out and assigning levies and taxes.3

The Azekh Syriac Orthodox’ resistance shows a more general state of mind, an authentic one indigenous to Tur Abdin. Society there was still at that time largely preserved from the influences of the outside world, and was the very archetype of the traditional Syriac community with a persistently strong feeling of identity. For this reason, Azekh was one among the few villages that violently resisted the persecutions of 1915. Many conversions did not last because they were often more motivated by material concerns than by spiritual ones. These Told by Father Galland, art. cit., Les Missions Catholiques. Idem. 3 Idem. 1 2

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defections commonly occurred on all levels of the ecclesiastic hierarchy. Mr. Ambassador, the high expectations we had after the conversion of Mgr. Butros, the Jacobite bishop of Homs, have just miserably disintegrated. The poor prelate at first resisted all attempts at seduction with a courage that seemed to us to guarantee his resolve. Unfortunately, his courage did not hold out. Just a few days after he abjured his faith, he allowed himself to be seduced by the wonderful promises that were continually dangled before his eyes. After a night spent in violent agitation, and despite everything we did to stop him, he left our residence in the morning. His defection was consummated. […] Now it seems more than likely that the Jacobites who had declared themselves Catholic at the same time as he will follow him in his defection. Though this unhappy event saddens us deeply, it does not discourage us. We continue to work just as zealously to increase Catholic, and French, influence.1

Father Galland continues thus:

[…] the lack of seriousness of these returns to Catholicism and the lack of resolve on the part of the converted, which are due to the clergy’s carelessness, is the great scandal of Jebel Tur that is diminishing Catholicism’s prestige a little more every day and that is everywhere opening the door to Protestantism, since those who have recanted only to become disenchanted with Catholicism are always the first to offer themselves to the Methodist Apostles.2

The missionaries and diplomats seem to have become aware of these setbacks early on. In November of 1844, long before the Dominican Fathers moved into Tur Abdin, the French consul at Erzurum made the following observation: Most of the Syrians have no idea what change occurred to their beliefs when they switched to Catholicism. The bishop of Mosul confided in a traveler to that city that the most effective instrument of conversion they had was the firman [recognizing the Syriac Catholic 1 Letter dated April 5th 1900, from a Jesuit from Beirut to the French ambassador at Constantinople. 2 February 9th, 1889, Father DUVAL, Rapport du Père Galland sur la mission de Djézireh et au Djebel Tour.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Church] that the French Embassy had obtained in Constantinople; among the population, the Roman Church’s fame had given rise to the idea that by placing themselves under its protection, they would forever after live in complete safety under the Pasha’s government. The people imagined above all that they would immediately enjoy all the privileges of the “free”, and that their condition would have to improve since they would be protected by an ambassador and by foreign consuls as subjects of a powerful church.1

This testimony shows that interpretations diverged depending on the speaker’s attitude to the missionaries’ “message”. A Syrian recently came to Erzurum from Mosul. He had converted only a short time before his departure. He introduced himself to me as a Catholic, a status that had gained him an unofficial letter of recommendation from “Mgr. Rotta”, and he quickly asked me to intervene in a matter involving customs, thinking himself already half-French. It is quite difficult to get the Christian populations of this part of Turkey to understand just how tightly bounded the protection that their hopes and needs have exaggerated actually is.2

The Catholic missions’ activities were strongly supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ policy, which had been reinforced in the region by the creation in 1856 of a vice-consulate in Diyarbakir at the request of the Vatican. The diplomats did not always share the missionaries’ enthusiasm and often thought that it was a useless waste of energy. In a report sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1893 on “The right to French protection”, Count de Sercey emphasized that the “existing communities of the Taurus mountains do not deserve the favor of a conversion”, all the while describing them as “savages”.3 He thus restated an argument that had been defended fifty years earlier when Mr. Cor, drogman4 at the French Embassy at 1 Dispatch dated July 12th, 1844 from the French consul at Erzurum (Mémoires et Documents, tome 41, no folio). 2 Idem. 3 (Mémoires et Documents, tome 133, folio 174). 4 The drogman was the Ambassador’s official interpreter. The consulates often recruited their drogman from minority communities, Christian or Jewish. He was then granted a special status as a “protected man” under Ottoman law.

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Constantinople, had expressed the idea that “in the face of the two massive populations of Greeks and Armenians, there was no need to take them [the Syriacs] into consideration.”1 This opinion certainly did not determine the France’s official policy, but it did reveal the French leaders’ hesitations as to what policy to adopt in these regions, hesitations that took concrete form on the terrain as erratic action. In 1884, after Father Duval’s and Father Rhétoré’s reconnaissance missions, the Dominican Fathers, who had been in Mosul since the 16th century, decided to create two branches in Tur Abdin, the first in Jezireh, the second in Midyat. They thus opened a dozen schools, including one in Midyat, where the level of studies “has risen considerably”, thanks to a new schoolteacher trained by the Fathers, “serious and devoted, and about sixty students, two thirds of whom belong to good Jacobite families.”2 The vice-consul’s role was to help them with the local Ottoman authorities or even to protect them against the Kurds’ extortion. The mission’s Prefect, Father Duval, was basing all his hopes on the protection of the vice-consulate that had been created at Diyarbakir at the Holy See’s behest. But the great distances and the difficulty of communication considerably limit my activities; my intervention only works when it is a question of a completely statutory misdemeanor.3

A LASTING CATHOLIC POPULATION? Two articles published in Les Missions catholiques in 1914 show us the state of conversions among the Syriac communities. The first of these articles, written by Gabriel Tappouni,4 the Syriac Catholic Patriarch’s vicar, depicts the advance of Catholicism, thanks to the (Mémoires et Documents, tome 40, folio 1). Letter dated February 9, 1889, from Father Duval to the Provincial. Report cited. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #4, August 19, 1889. 4 Gabriel TAPPOUNI, (Bishop), “Conversion et souffrance d’un évêque jacobite à Mardin”, Les Missions catholiques, #2341, April 17, 1914, p. 181. This article was mailed from Baghdad on February 5, 1914, nine months before Turkey entered the war. Gabriel Tappouni was 39 years old at the time. He had studied at the Syriac Catholic seminary at Mosul. 1 2

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recent conversion of an Orthodox dignitary from Tur Abdin. The second, written by Joseph Tfinkdji,1 a Chaldean priest, completes the first by offering statistics on each Christian community. On the eve of war, Joseph Tfinkdji claimed that Mardin was home to over 50,000 inhabitants; 30,000 Muslims and 20,000 Christians. This figure, which at first might seem high, might be explained by the fact that since the 1895 massacres, many villagers had fled the countryside’s growing insecurity to take refuge in cities. The sources the author uses are not official statistics, but his own observations. “In order to carry out the count, I had to conduct personal inquiries, whose exactness I guarantee.”2 All the Catholic denominations together came out to between 11,500 and 12,000 people. The proportion represented by the Catholic community had distinctly risen since the previous decade, unlike the Orthodox Syriacs’, who only numbered 1,300 families, or to Father Tfinkdji’s estimate, 7,000 individuals. On the other hand, the Syriac Orthodox community could still be considered as making up the largest Christian group in number, since the Catholics were divided between three distinct denominations: the Armenians at 6,500 individuals (1,300 families),3 the Syriac Catholics at 4,000 individuals, and finally the Chaldeans, at 1,000 individuals. The Syriac Catholics’ apparent success in Mardin over the preceding half century had come at the Orthodox’s expense. Their vigor was also seen in their high number of priests, fifteen for that single city, while the Orthodox Syriacs, for a practicing population at least twice as large, had only eight. Similarly, there were two Catholic bishops, whereas there was only one to represent the Syriac Orthodox community. In Mardin, the Jacobites have four parishes and three schools, where the education is perceptibly influenced 1 Joseph TFINKDJI, (Abbot), “Le Catholicisme à Mardin”, Les Missions catholiques, 1914, pp. 29-31. 2 Idem. 3 The Armenian community had the same number of families (1,300) as the Syriac Orthodox community, yet the author estimates the Orthodox number at 7,000, and the Armenians’ at 6,500. Was this 500 person difference linked to a higher birth rate or to the immigration of Syriac “cousins” fleeing the countryside of Tur Abdin for the safety of the cities?

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by Protestantism. Their relations with the Protestants have greatly diminished their religious sentiment, so much so that they let the Protestants indoctrinate them.1

Besides the growing influence of Catholicism, the Syriac Orthodox Church had also to contend with the increasing strength of the Protestant missions. Before the war, the Protestant community was 1000 people strong, most of whom, according to the author, came from Syriac Orthodox stock. “The 200 Protestant families in Mardin are almost entirely composed of former Jacobites.”2 In his publication, Gabriel Tappouni revealed the secrets that led a Syriac Orthodox archbishop to convert to Catholicism. The dignitary in question, Severius Samuel Lahdô,3 metropolitan of Mar Malke, was among the best known personalities in Tur Abdin. The details of this anecdote give us a clearer picture of mindsets within the Syriac churches, while also underlining the adversarial nature of their relations. The author spoke of his “colleague” the archbishop’s decision to make a “beautiful and characteristic” “return” to the Church, thus lyrically implying that movement towards the Roman church was expected, if not “normal”. We learn that the Archbishop was urged to his decision by a close relative, Simon Melke, a famous chieftain from the Syriac village of Badebbe. After staying for a few days in Mardin, where he met with Catholic prelates, Simon Melke returned to his village “accompanied, according to the custom of this land’s aghas, by a group of twenty guards armed to the teeth” to go visit his cousin the Archbishop of Mar Malke. About three months ago, the Agha, a Jacobite attached to his sect and to his position, came to see me at my residence in Mardin. “Monsignor”, he said without any preamble, “I come to you because I want to abandon J. TFINKDJI, art. cit. Idem. 3 G. TAPPOUNI, art. cit. This Metropolitan was born around 1849 in the village of Badebbe, and became a Jacobite monk in 1856 [at seven years of age?] at the monastery of Saint Awgin [Eugene]. Soon afterward, he left for the monastery of Saint James, called al-Gazal, and ended up settling at the Monastery of Darpharan [Deir al-Zaafaran], where he was ordained a priest in 1874. In March 1908, he was consecrated archbishop under the name Severius by his Patriarch, Abdallah II. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE my sect and become Catholic.”1 I question him on several notions related to the religion and find him completely ignorant of even the basic truths of the faith (religious ignorance is in any case the sad condition of all the Jacobites from the Tur Abdin Mountain). Then I question him as to the goal of his request and as to the reasons that led him to decide to become Catholic. Simon Melke (that is our Agha’s name) answers me, “Monsignor, I have noticed that everywhere the Catholics show charity to each other and that they love each other deeply, and where charity is, there is also truth, whereas among us Jacobites, we never see two bishops, two priests or even two lay people like each other. That is why I want to abandon my sect and join Catholicism…” It goes without saying that I did not hesitate to take him onto the Church’s bosom in the hope that his influential position on the Mountain would inspire a great deal of imitators…2

Religious ignorance, often remarked upon by travelers and the first missionaries, was thus once again forwarded. The new convert was named “wakil” (vicar) and was “awestruck and edified by the priests’ order and piety, as well as the flock’s regular attendance at mass, which are apparently rare things among the Jacobites,” according to Gabriel Tappouni. This archbishop was finally deciding to declare himself Catholic when his fellow Jacobites denounced him to the Vicar General of the Jacobite Patriarchate at Mardin. This Vicar summoned him from his monastery, locked him up in the monastery of Deir alZa`faran, where the Jacobite monks and the servants were told to watch him, and to mistreat him in order to force him to give up his plan. They went to every length, including confiscation of his property, mockery and even beatings, with all possible bad treatment, pushing their hatred of Catholicism so far as to say that

Is it even remotely possible that a high ranking dignitary of the Syriac Orthodox Church could have used the term “sect” to refer to his own Church? Should we not rather see the term as simply a form of insult, and thus relegate it to the level of the clichés most common among Catholic circles? (It is not a problem of translation, because this letter was written in French.) 2 G. TAPPOUNI, art. cit. 1

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they would “prefer to see the Archbishop go pagan rather than see him turn Catholic.”

Several weeks later, the new prisoner asked to see the Vicar of the Orthodox Patriarch at Mardin, in the hope of using the walk outside to escape. Luckily, they granted his request, but nonetheless, they led him from the convent of Za`faran to Mardin (six kilometers) with his hands tied and under guard. When he saw him, the Vicar upbraided him severely, as if he had been a criminal for wanting to become Catholic, and insulted him without any thought to his character or age…1 When he arrived before the door of our church, Monsignor Severius Samuel Lahdô used his strength, broke the bonds tying his hands and flung himself at our door, calling out to us for help while the Jacobite servant stepped on him, punched him and kicked him as he lay on the ground. One of our Syrian priests, Father Mathieu Kremo, and some of our servants ran out, and you can imagine their surprise when they saw the Archbishop in his torturer’s hands. They freed the poor victim and force his confused and desperate guard to go back and tell his tale to his Jacobite masters and sectarians.2

This prelate held an important position in the Orthodox Church, which may explain the violence of his native community’s reaction to his conversion. It is certain that his former hierarchy had to be afraid that others would follow his example. The diocese for which the Archbishop had been responsible for six years was centered at the monastery of Mar Malke, in the foothills of the Mount Izla in the south of Tur Abdin. The Archbishop furnished a detailed list of the villages and monasteries over which he had authority. The author made clear that this diocese was among the largest on the “Mountain”.3 Idem. Idem. 3 Idem. Kharabalé, a village situated 1 kilometer north of the Mar Malke monastery, inhabited by 80 Jacobites families (400 souls) with a priest named Dimeter. Kafro (4 kilometers north), 30 families (180 souls), a priest by the name of Joseph. Arbô (8 kilometers east of the monastery), 100 families (about 600 souls), a priest called Ephrem. Habab (Hbob) (2 kilometers to the east), 10 families (50 souls), a monk-priest named 1 2

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After this conversion, the “Jacobites” immediately sent an experienced priest out from Mardin to replace him. A former Vicar to the Patriarch, this man’s mission was to make sure above all else to preserve the monasteries and the churches for the diocese. After its remarkable expansion between 1850 and 1870, the Syriac Catholic Church seems to have come to a standstill, restricted to urban centers such as Mardin, Diyarbakir and Midyat. Catholicism, like Protestantism, never really took root among the peasant populations of Tur Abdin. In that bastion of the Orthodox Church, Father Tfinkdji in 1910 counted only 500 Uniate Syriac (Catholic) individuals and 600 Syriacs who had converted to Protestantism. The Syriac families remained very attached to their “old faith”. This resistance of old Syriac Orthodox roots came as a surprise to the missionaries as a whole, for it revealed that despite the advanced decline, traditional social structures remained solid.

Joseph. Badebbe (5 kilometers to the south of the monastery), the archbishop’s and the agha Simon Melke’s village, 50 families (250 souls), a priest called Gabriel. Sedaré and Kharab-Mishka. These two villages are very close to each other, 6 kilometers southeast of the Mar Malke monastery, they both had 40 families (250 souls), a priest named John. Mar-bab (Mar Bobo) (10 kilometers south of the monastery and 4 kilometers east of Nusaybin), 50 families (300 souls), two priests, Eugene and John. Grafshé (Gerfashe) (12 kilometers southeast), 30 families (150 souls), a priest, Malke. Mâarin (M’arrin) (8 kilometers south of the monastery and close to Nusaybin), 15 families (80 souls), a priest, Joseph. The archbishop also had 4 monasteries under his authority: The Monastery of Saint Malke (the archbishop’s residence), one monk-priest. The Monastery of Saint John, called al-Gazal, 4 kilometers from Mar Malke, a monk-priest. The Monastery of Saint Abraham, called Bagog, had three monks. The Monastery of Saint Elias situated in the village of Habab (Hbob), one monk.

CHAPTER 4. MIXTURES AND NEIGHBORS The Province of Diyarbakir was a human mosaic, where every race and faith in the Ottoman Empire was represented: Turks, Kurds, Arabs, (Kurdish) Yezidi, Armenians, Greeks, Chaldeans, Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs, Protestants, Jews, Circassians, Bohemians (Gypsies), etc. On the Christian side, this province was traditionally a meeting place for Eastern Christianity. The Churches of Syriac extraction, both Orthodox and Catholic, shared the land with the Armenian Gregorian (Orthodox), Catholic and Protestant Churches, as well as with those descending from the Byzantine tradition. On the Muslim side, until the last years of the 19th century, the land was a theater of confrontation between the Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic worlds. Peace had emerged from these conflicts thanks to a mixture of common political and Islamism. The Muslims’ interest in the Christians was most often limited to the money they could make from them, and they rarely paid any mind to the differences between the various denominations. All these different sects of Christians are looked on by the Turks in nearly the same light, being considered as a mass of infidels; and as they are all heavily taxed for their heresies, the Christians’ equal contributions to the governor’s treasury make the Turks indifferent to the distinctions between them.1

Whenever the Sultan’s arbitration came to resolve religious affairs, it was most often meant to enforce the collection of taxes.

SYRIACS AND ARMENIANS The majority of the Armenian population had become sedentary in the north of the province, in the kazas of Lice, Palu and Arghana. In the northern part of Tur Abdin, Badger mentions no Armenian village besides Saté, a few hours’ trip by foot east of Diyarbakir, and a few others, Armenian or mixed with Syriac, to the east of the city, such as the villages of Katrabel, Sa`diye, Maifarqin and Kuabash. The closer these villages were to Tur Abdin, the higher their percentage of Syriacs was. To the south of Mardin, only the large village of Tell Armen was still almost entirely inhabited by 1

J. BUCKINGHAM, op. cit., p. 240.

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Armenians, with a small Syriac Catholic and Chaldean community.1 By assimilation, the inhabitants had come to use Arabic as much as Armenian in their everyday life. It seems that from early on, there were no Armenian villages left in Tur Abdin. These populations lived off farming, cattle-raising and, in urban centers, from homebased crafts. Elsewhere, the Armenian communities were mostly concentrated inside the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, where they lived in harmony with their Syriac neighbors. The Diyarbakir and Mardin Armenian communities were very large, and also often made up the social elite of bankers, merchants, doctors and intellectuals, with whom the important Syriac families had mixed. The two communities’ closeness can be explained by affinities, such as religion, “the same faith” that allowed mixed marriages between the two groups. It seems that the bonds between Armenians and Jacobites were tighter [than with the Nestorians], for the Armenians were quite close to the Jacobites in doctrine.2

This common heritage left many bonds that enabled the Armenians and Orthodox Syriacs to live well with each other, even though by their history, the Orthodox Syriacs were closer to the Copts of Egypt. There are many examples of unions between Armenians and Syriacs in Diyarbakir or with families from Mardin and Aleppo.3 These connections were motivated by the same selfdefense mechanism as can be seen among the Christians who had remained Orthodox in the face of Catholic and Protestant missionaries. The foreign missionary invasions had nevertheless wreaked heavy damage among the Armenians: the Armenian community of Mardin had become almost entirely Catholic.

1 M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 73, note 1. “The last Armenian center towards the south was the large Catholic village of Tell Armen…” 2 Idem, p. 74. Concerning mixed marriages: “A practice formally authorized by Bar Hebraeus, the great Jacobite thinker of the Middle Ages.” 3 The grandfather of Farid “Y”, who belonged to the Orthodox Syriac middle class of Diyarbakir, had married an Armenian from the same city. Since he was a teacher (of Armenian and Turkish), they went to live in Mardin, where both of them had many cousins.

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On a larger scale, especially after 1850, this proximity of Christian denominations reflected the realization that it was to their common benefit to unite before the new, violently anti-Christian Muslim fanaticism. The Syriacs, who were less numerous and perhaps more exposed, were living, as John Joseph put it, “in the Armenians’ shadow”. In Harput, in 1841, Southgate said that the Armenians and Jacobites were living “on terms of the closest intimacy”, but that they did not intermarry.1 The Armenian Orthodox Patriarch represented the interests of the Syriac Orthodox Church at the Sultan’s court until the “Jacobite” millet was created. As these examples show, harmony was an established fact. Nonetheless, certain authors felt that the Syriac community had been much more vocal in its desire to integrate into Ottoman society. The Jacobites differed from their Armenian and Nestorian co-religionists. While steadfastly retaining their faith and loyalty to their church, the Jacobite people were never averse to social integration within the greater order of all citizens irrespective of religious difference. This normal behavior, combined with religious tenacity, accounts for their survival in their traditional homeland, unlike the Armenians and the Nestorians, who were either exterminated or dispersed.2

This position is interesting, but insufficient, for the Armenians were just as integrated into Ottoman society, if not more, than the Orthodox Syriacs. Did the Sultan not call the Armenians “the faithful nation”? The reality was that the Syriacs did not have the same human and monetary resources to single themselves out as a “national” community. Rather than integration, it was more usually assimilation, and often forced assimilation, into Islam that came to the Syriac communities, especially those living on the periphery of Tur Abdin. Oswald Parry, who lived among them for several months, wholeheartedly agrees with this assessment, noting that

H. SOUTHGATE, op. cit., p. 86. Dr. Aziz S. ATIYA, “Mongols, Turks and Kurds” in Syrian Tragedy (a publication of the Syriac Orthodox bishopric of the East Coast of the United States), excerpts from “A History of Eastern Christianity”, 1968. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE “they are not powerful or ambitious enough to have any desire to shake off the rule under which they live, like the Armenians.”1

Nonetheless, the comparison between the Syriac and Armenian communities quickly finds its limit, for in the difficult context of the last quarter of the 19th century, we must accept the fact that the Syriac communities held no interest for anyone, not for the Armenians themselves, nor for the Ottomans. Politically, there was never any “Syriac question” as there was an “Armenian question”. What could 150,000 Syriacs mean next to two and a half million Armenians? Since the 1878 war with Russia, the Armenians had found themselves in an ambiguous position, astride two Empires, that of the Tsar and that of the Sultan. John Joseph mentioned the beginnings of strained relations between the two communities, once the Treaty of Berlin’s stipulations on the future of Christian minorities had excluded Syriacs from the negotiations. It is difficult to measure the depth of this antagonism. When the first great massacres of 1895 began, several events illustrated the competition. In Urfa, the Jacobite patriarchal Vicar did not hesitate to sign a document denouncing the city’s Armenians. At the same time, the Ottoman authority was accusing the Armenians of conspiracy and inviting the leaders of the other Christian communities to sign a complaint restating the charge. The Jacobite patriarchal Vicar and, so it is said, the Syrian Catholic priest had the cowardice to sign this document; the Capuchins refused.2

We may rightly imagine that this signature was obtained under duress, as the French consul implied, but nonetheless, the document led to an unfortunate incident. A year later, on April 27, 1896, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch personally wrote the Grand Vizier a very obsequious letter to complain about the Armenians: My nation is very grateful to your Majesty for the protection that you have given us.[…] For a long time, the Armenians have tried to “armenianize” our language and our religion, which have long been J. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 92. Diplomatic dispatch dated June 30th 1899 from the French consulate at Aleppo reporting on the massacres in Urfa. 1 2

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protected by the law of Islam. […] Letters from our spiritual representatives in Urfa and Bitlis, as well as other places, and signed by many honorable persons, have arrived at my residence proving that the Armenians have put to death and pillaged many members of our community with the goal of completely annihilating them by famine. In these circumstances, we can only appeal to the Great Lord, our only refuge, and ask him to protect us in his great clemency.1

That same year, this prelate also wrote to Queen Victoria to express his greatest satisfaction with the Turkish authorities, and affirmed that the Armenians alone had been responsible for the unrest.2

A MORAL AND CULTURAL RENAISSANCE In Diyarbakir and Mardin, the proximity between Armenians and Syriacs enabled a number of important Syriac families to climb the social ladder. The Syriacs were also able indirectly to take advantage of the intellectual, literary and political Armenian renaissance to launch a Syriac renaissance of their own. Both cities were graced with several Syriac scholars, men such as Na’um Fayek (18681930), who participated in the movement by founding a newspaper at Diyarbakir, or later the great teacher and writer Mar Philoxenos Yohanna Dolabani, future bishop of Mardin from 1947 until his death in 1969. Na’um Fayek very quickly made his name in journalism, and his erudition led him to write books of arithmetic, geography, history and poetry (in the Syriac language). He is considered the founder of the Syriac cultural renaissance. He emigrated to the United States after the massacres of 1915. This renaissance had unexpected side-effects, such as an openness to new ideas coming from Europe and Istanbul which made certain members of the Mardin Syriac community sensitive to the concepts of freedom and equality forwarded by the Young Turks’ revolution.3 Idem. J. JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 92-93. 3 The grandfather of Farid “Z”, an Orthodox Syriac from Diyarbakir but living in Mardin, was a member of the Union and Progress Committee. As a gift from the Sultan, he received a uniform with golden 1 2

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Socially, progress had occurred through education, whose sudden advance was essentially due to the foreign missions. But by 1838, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch had already decided to reopen schools in the monasteries, beginning with Deir al-Za`faran, where he offered a modest education to 25 students. He had gotten the idea from the Armenian Patriarch whom he had visited in Istanbul and who had impressed upon him that a people without schools is a people destined to decline. Aided, financed and sponsored by foreign missions, first American, then British and French, this phenomenon had quickly caused a rupture between the Christians and the Muslim masses who did not benefit from any of these projects. Aware of the unequal conditions, the government sent a delegation from Istanbul in 1884 to inspect the Armenian and Syriac schools in Mardin. The delegates could do nothing more than write a report confirming the gap in order to ensure “the equalization of education between the different communities”. But the gap was never closed, and added greatly to the widespread Muslim resentment of Christians, whose standard of living was rising, at least in the cities or on the edges of urban centers. Such was not the case for the Syriac villages in Tur Abdin, which remained untouched by the changes and which continued to live as they always had, like their Kurdish neighbors, whose customs they often adopted in everyday life. This unbalanced development, even within the Syriac community, led at the same time to a growing estrangement between the Syriac communities in the cities and those living in distant villages in Tur Abdin. The urban populations felt a certain condescendence for the rural populations, with a particular contempt for the fact that the country folk spoke Turoyo, a vulgar pidgin language to their ears, even though that language would turn out to be an immense advantage later on.

THE NESTORIAN AND CHALDEAN PRESENCE It seems that between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, there was no longer any real Nestorian presence on the Tur Abdin plateau. The growing influence of the Syriac Orthodox buttons. Perhaps he was also elected to the Senate during the elections of 1913?

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Church on the plateau during the previous century had slowly but surely eroded their last remaining outposts, which until then had been confined to the southernmost parts of the plateau in the Nusaybin region, where the Nestorian Church had once possessed many monasteries. “Such was the case of the large Mar Awgin [Saint Eugene] monastery, which became Jacobite in the beginning of the 17th century, after existing for more than a millennium [as Nestorian].”1 The Syriac Orthodox monastic bastions, and especially the presence of their Patriarch in Mardin, the Church’s true “capital”, allowed them to gain the upper hand. The Jebel Sinjar, in the south of Tur Abdin, became Christian very early on. It was a center of the struggle between Jacobite and Nestorian monasticism, until the Kurdish Yezidi’s arrival eliminated the entire Christian presence. Similarly, the Tur Abdin plateau was slowly emptied of its Chaldean populations. We have found very little mention of them in our sources. Referring to the works of Joseph Tfinkdji, Michel Chevalier gives us some information on them. “Around 1910, 200 Chaldeans were said to exist in Jebel Tur beside 30,000 Jacobites, and 100 beside 1,100 Armenians in Tell Armen.” In 1913, the same author indicated, unfortunately without a reference, that the Chaldean diocese of Mardin, which in his time at the end of the 19th century numbered 1,700 members spread over six villages, had numbered 50,000 in thirty-six villages at the beginning of the 18th century. He estimated that the eradication had begun by the end of the 16th century. The Nestorian tribes had very often become Chaldean “rayas”, or subject tribes, in that part of Mesopotamia.2 The Chaldean villages were mostly concentrated on the right bank of the Tigris, in the eastern part of Tur Abdin. They became Catholic partly under the missionaries’ influence, but also because of their distance from Hakkari, the heart of Nestorian spirituality. Only Catholic Chaldeans remained in the cities, as in Diyarbakir, which was a bishop’s see, or in Mardin, where a M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 31. To follow the growth of churches of Syriac extraction—Jacobite, Nestorian and Catholic—in Mesopotamia from their origins, please refer to the monumental works of Ernst Honigmann and Father Jean Maurice Fiey. 2M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., see the map of Chaldean settlements on page 458. 1

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community was still living at the beginning of the massacres. Some of these Chaldean families became important through trade, like the Shuha from Mardin who were, in the words of Father Simon, “the oldest and most noble Catholic family in Mardin”.1

WAS TUR ABDIN A ‘MOUNTAIN REFUGE’?2 The works of Michel Chevalier and of Xavier de Planhol allow us to formulate a few answers to this question. The parallel between the two regions of Tur Abdin and Hakkari naturally comes to mind, since both present comparable features: “cohabitation between Christians and Kurds, the Christians’ possession of weapons, the preservation of a neo-Aramaic dialect [Turani or Turoyo for the Jacobites, Sureth for the Nestorians], and both are extensions of the Christian domain.”3 Planhol asserts that unlike the case of the Nestorians, the “Jacobites’” linguistic assimilation had been well underway. Only those from Jebel Tur still spoke a dialect of Sureth, the others were almost universally arabicized. […] The Jacobites have not really managed to establish a “national sanctuary” for themselves, whereas the Nestorians had much more effectively resisted assimilation than the Jacobites.4

It is nonetheless a delicate matter to engage any further in this comparison, for it is impossible to make an analogy between the averagely elevated Tur Abdin plateau and the high Hakkari mountains. While the mountains were obviously able to serve as a refuge for Nestorian Christian tribes persecuted in the plain, such

1 Idem, p. 32, and H. SIMON, op. cit., p. 100. “Ever since his arrival at the seminary (1898), Abbot Hanna Shuha had maintained a certain distinction that he had inherited from his origins, as well as something simple and almost naive that he had inherited from his virtue. The son of an honorary Spanish Consul to Mardin, he forgot his family’s former grandeur and humbly submitted to all the seminary’s exercises. […] He was the first priest that the persecution seized in 1915 at Nusaybin, in the most atrocious circumstances…” 2 A notion used by X. de PLANHOL to mark the difference with an “intact mountain population”, meaning “original population”. 3 M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 286, II/Note (very complete) on Jebel Tur. 4 X. de PLANHOL, op. cit., p. 173.

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was not the case of Tur Abdin, whose gently sloping valleys could not offer the same protection against persecutions and invasions. Xavier de Planhol thus describes it as a “partial and mediocre” refuge. For him, the reason for this Syriac Orthodox settlement does not pose the same questions as the Nestorian settlements in Hakkari: What is the connection between a small northern enclave and the raya villages on the plain or in the mountains? Does the first constitute a relatively late refuge, tied to the exodus of the low-lying lands’ populations during the invasions at the end of the Middle Ages? Or on the contrary, do we mean an ancient Christian pocket of resistance that remained untouched and that later helped to repopulate the surrounding plains and mountains?1

Were the Nestorians of Hakkari originally Arameans from the plain “kurdized” by contact with the Kurds, or were they Kurds who had become Christian under the cultural influence of the Aramaic world? Before it was a land of refuge, the initial vocation of Tur Abdin, as the Emperors of Constantinople had intended, was to be a vanguard of Christianity and of the Roman Empire in the East. Tur Abdin was the eastern limes, or border, of the Roman world, and its importance stemmed from the political desire for a lasting presence.2 We can easily perceive the conditions of this concentration of Western Syrians [the Orthodox Syriacs]. In that location, there had stood a very ancient center of Monophysite monasticism since the 5th and 6th centuries, and the great number of caves in this land of sandstone had favored the development of hermitry. Moreover, since the treaty of 363, Jebel Tur had constituted an outward bulge of the Roman limes into Persia, where the Monophysite Emperors of the beginning of the 6th century had encouraged the area’s settlement by monks of that sect. This monastic Idem, p. 171. This position might be compared to those of the numerous dead cities of northern Syria, where a high concentration of civil and religious buildings also bears the later mark of a marked political desire for colonization. This point remains hypothetical. Cf. “Historical introduction” at the end of this study. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE bastion was the hub of concentration whose progress we can follow down into modern times, with the withdrawal of the Nestorian population to the benefit of the Jacobites, who supplanted them in the 16th and 17th centuries in Nusaybin, Hasan Keyf and on the southern slopes of the Jebel.1

It is true that unlike the Nestorians, who lived in independent and often homogenous tribes, the Syriac populations of Tur Abdin were subject to the Kurds’ feudal system, into which they were integrated. This of course accelerated the process of assimilation by language, but also by life style. Xavier de Planhol does not hesitate to speak of a “lack of will for emancipation and independence”, and even though this judgment might seem harsh, it was confirmed by Jacques Rhétoré, to whose mind the whole situation was in part a result of a weakness intrinsic to the Syriac Orthodox community and Church. The Syriacs no longer had the means to win their own independence. With the exception of a few small groups of people, all their villages were located in the middle of a mass of Muslim Kurds. Never once did the question of Syriac autonomy, however limited, arise in the Ottoman Empire. By this, the end of the 19th century, the Syriac Orthodox Church had become a venerable, exhausted institution.

THE KURDISH WORLD, A TROUBLED COEXISTENCE The traditional zones of Kurdish population were located far to the east of Tur Abdin, in the Hakkari chain, in the Urmia basin plain in Persia, as well as in the Mosul plain, in the north of Mesopotamia. Outside of a few Christian villages, the Mosul plain is for the most part Kurdish, particularly towards the south (in the low valley of the great Zab) and towards the East. Here there are not only Sunni Kurds, but also the usual esoteric Kurdish sects: the Yezidi that occupy Sheikhan, to the northeast of Mosul, to the east and to the south of the Jabal Maklub and in the low valleys of the Hazir and the Great Zab.2

The Kurds were mountainfolk par excellence. Often seminomadic, the tribes followed the transhumance trails according to 1 2

X. de PLANHOL, op. cit., p. 171. M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 41.

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the season, especially towards the good pastures in the south, in the Nusaybin region, then towards Jebel Sinjar, where they took refuge in wintertime to erect their tents. The feudalism that survived until late in the 19th century was their only means of political organization. Since its origins, it had also been the source of bloody conflicts, first among the Kurds, then with their Christian neighbors the Armenians, “Nestorians” and “Jacobites”, and finally with the Ottomans. The great feudal leaders were only partially subject to authority before 1850, and even afterward, enjoyed broad autonomy. They struck a sort of tacit contract with the Ottoman government by which the Ottomans agreed not to bother the Kurds in their normal dealings, in exchange for which the Kurds would protect the borders against Russia and Persia, while keeping an eye on the local Christian populations. The goal of these two missions was confirmed by Sultan Abdul Hamid’s creation of Kurdish cavalry regiments, called “Hamidiye”, at the beginning of the 1890’s. Michel Chevalier does not hesitate to speak of “Kurdish tribal and feudal anarchy”. Until 1914, the regions of Kurdistan were to live under “a regime of divided tribes and feudal authority mixed together, sometime half-effectively, sometimes only in name, with the services of the Turkish government.”1 Many stretches of territory were not yet under the effective control of Ottoman troops. Moreover, a formal transfer of power had taken place among the Kurds since the large feudal principalities had disappeared, a change that is strangely reminiscent of what we find in the Muslim world today, as much in the Middle East as in Afghanistan. The most characteristic trait of the second half of the 19th century is the development, on the ruins of former principalities, of the authority of sheiks combining religious and temporal powers.2

In his chapter, Among the Arabs, the Kurds and the Turks, John Joseph demonstrates that the greatest reason that Kurdish society was misunderstood resides in the confusion that was commonly made between Kurdish tribes that had become sedentary and Kurdish tribes that were nomadic or semi-nomadic. These three types formed completely distinct social groups obeying complex 1 2

Idem. Idem, p. 60.

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networks of vassalage that depended on the personal position of their chieftain, the “agha”.1 Each village, even if Christian, was caught up in a tight web of feudal bonds tying it to other villages. The Christian villages were often at the bottom of the social ladder and thus had to pay tribute to the agha upon whom they depended, and who in exchange guaranteed them his “protection”. This pyramidal structure led to the emergence of several Kurdish clans who had ascended the hierarchy by force. Some tribes could reach a very large size and pose a real danger for the Ottomans as well as for the Christians. A British consul spoke for example of the Hamawand tribe that with its 2,000 rifles instituted a reign of terror in the region between Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah, as the Milly tribe did in the Mardin region. Most Kurds who were sedentary, living in villages like their Christian neighbors, only practiced agriculture and animal breeding for their own personal needs. Many of these sedentary tribes had specialized in the production of rugs that they exchanged or sold to their nomadic “brothers”. As for the semi-nomadic tribes, they divided the year into two periods: during the summer, they lived in their tents on high ground and sought pastures, and during the winter, they came back down to the shelter of their villages. They only engaged in a very limited form of agriculture, barely enough for their vital needs. Often, the Kurdish agha of a neighboring village imposed a toll for them to stay or even to cross over his lands, according to the customs peculiar to each village and to each valley. The nomadic tribes that freely followed the ancestral rhythm of their seasonal migrations were these regions’ scourge. Even the most proKurdish writers admit that theft and pillaging was endemic to these tribes.2 This terror was inflicted not only on the Christians, who were really secondary targets, but especially on other rival Kurdish tribes, both sedentary and nomadic. The Kurds’ military power always frightened the Ottoman authorities, who took all possible measures to combat the nomadic way of life. Out of vengeance, and partly because of their 1 A general term given to the chief of a tribe, whether he be Christian or Muslim. 2 W. CLARK, “The Kurdish Tribes of Western Asia” in New Englander and Yale Review, 1864, #23, pp. 36-38. Cited by J. JOSEPH, op. cit., note 61.

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accessibility, the Ottomans horribly repressed the innocent sedentary tribes, regularly cutting off the heads of known chieftains and exposing them in the public square. In Diyarbakir, Grant related this episode: The governor truly did try to keep the peace; he had the heads of five Kurdish chieftains cut off and exposed with about forty ears in the bazaar to frighten the people of that nation and to deter them from causing any damage to the citizens’ persons or property.

These tribes extorted Christian and Muslim peasants alike. As is shown by many diplomatic dispatches, the only trustworthy testimony, the Ottoman government never took the necessary steps to combat the “Kurdish question”, which unlike the “Armenian” or “Christian question”, represented a true blight on the countryside. In daily life in Tur Abdin, the Kurds’ and Syriacs’ life styles were identical, as were the clothes they wore and their general appearance.1 Captain Mark Sykes noted in his journal that it was very difficult to distinguish a “Jacobite” from a Kurd by his clothes or language. For example, it was possible for a Christian Syriac village to become powerful enough to impose its protection on neighboring Kurdish villages or even, in the case of mixed villages, to share this power with the Kurdish chieftain. In 1840, Southgate observed about forty Jacobite villages mixed with Kurdish, Arabic or Yezidi villages, the chief of this area living in the Kurdish and Jacobite village of Aznavur. But several decades later, when Sachau passed through in 1880, he would find these villages for the most part abandoned due to the continuous Kurdish raids, whereas Aznavur had become a strictly Jacobite village.2

Several years later, during his voyage across Kurdistan, Mark Sykes noticed that in a Christian village, all the Muslims were servants to Christian families.3

G. BADGER, op. cit., p. 55. M. CHAVALIER, op. cit., p. 63. 3 Mark SYKES, The Caliph’s last heritage: a Short Story of the Turkish Empire, London, 1915, p. 406. 1 2

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In the case of a struggle between different Kurdish chieftains, a Christian village could very easily be the coveted prize. It could then be devastated a first time by an agha as a challenge, and if the village was taken, it could be devastated a second time by the chieftain who considered himself wronged. In way of reprisals, this chieftain would also devastate another nearby village belonging to the enemy. The fighting was endless, with blood feuds going from one clan to another and laying waste to Tur Abdin up to the First World War. The relations between Kurds and Christians quickly deteriorated and fell out of the traditional framework of political domination. These relations gradually mixed the growing anarchy of independent, rival powers with the rise of a new religious fanaticism, both of which stemmed from the fall of the great emirates. This joint religious and feudal power finally took the place of any wider political system. Vital Cuinet’s description of the Kurds faithfully reflects a certain Western viewpoint, full of clichés, on non-Turkish populations. Theirs is a strong and warlike race that is profoundly ignorant and that ever since Antiquity has preferred to live off highway robbery than to work. Yet they are very good farmers and animal breeders. For many centuries, they have oppressed the other inhabitants with their cruel domination, and it has only been in the last few years that the government, with wise schemes rather than by force of arms, has managed to subject them to the rule of law. Most of those who have given up nomadic existence have become excellent farmers, peaceful, well-off, and not terrifying to live next to, but such is not yet the case everywhere. Although they profess the Muslim religion, the Kurds […] sometimes engage in exchanges of women, […] for prices that are open for haggling. On the other hand, the Kurds do not feel themselves bound by even the holiest of oaths, which they throw about without scruple. Nonetheless, we have noticed that when they swear on the head of their respective sheiks, they are fairly true to their word. The Kurds make it a point of honor to avenge insults themselves by killing their enemy, whom they refuse to report to the local authorities even on their deathbeds. Formerly, if they wanted to live in peace, each

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Armenian family was forced to pay a tribute to some Kurdish chieftain, who would then take them under his protection. Ever since the Bitlis vilayet was created, this practice, no longer useful, has fallen into disuse.1

This somewhat idyllic portrait was far removed from reality, and as Vital Cuinet unwittingly implied, the “wise schemes” that the government had set up after the Russo-Turkish War consisted of buying the Kurdish tribes’ loyalties at the expense of the Christian populations, which until that decisive juncture, had been more or less left alone. Reverend Badger noted that by 1850 the western part of Tur Abdin was essentially Kurdish, citing the villages of Koros, Dereesh, and Saoor (Savur) as all entirely inhabited by Muslim Kurds. The “border” of Syriac country was located “to either side of the Midyat meridian”. Xavier de Planhol rightly estimated on a wider scale that “the majority of Jebel Tur is in fact populated by Muslim Kurds who are totally interwoven among the Christians, who are most often sedentary, and who make up about two thirds of the population”.2 The Kurdish erosion had doubtless begun at the beginning of the 16th century with a succession of military attacks and waves of conversions. The Kurdish expansion westward out of their traditional territory had accelerated since the middle of the 19th century, when the rise in Muslim demographics had been favored by the new “peace” marking the end of the great revolts. The Arabs seem to have retreated before the Kurds in the middle of the 19th century. The recent advance at the Arabs’ expense was even more marked in Syria and around Jezireh (Cizre), in the southeast of Tur Abdin.

THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS “The presence of Yezidi and of Turkmen or Arabic elements had made certain sections of Jebel [Tur], particularly the northeast, a veritable ethnic puzzle.”3 The Yezidi comprised the largest of the many non-Sunni Kurdish religions. Nicknamed the “hairy Kurds” by the Turks, since their religion forbad them to cut their hair, they were also called the “devil-worshippers”. The sect was originally an V. CUINET, see the end of the chapter on the Diyarbakir vilayet. X. de PLANHOL, op. cit., p. 170. 3 Idem. 1 2

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Islamic heresy, but gradually detached itself from Islam completely to revive pre-Islamic paganism mixed with Shiite Islam and Persian duality. Remains of primitive Christianity can also be found in it. From the 13th to the 14th centuries, Yezidism was the national religion of Kurdistan. After the Ottoman intervention, the Yezidi were forced to convert to Sunni Islam, though they maintained a certain suspicious notoriety. The tribes that refused conversion were long persecuted. Many Yezidi groups remained nomadic, but began to settle down in the 19th century under pressure from the other tribes. “Once the great epoch of Yezidi highway robbery came to a close, the Christians and Yezidi lived together in relative peace.”1 Though originally the warlike Yezidi tribes were, like all nomads, somewhat unruly, once they became sedentary, their villages always tried to maintain peaceful relations with their neighbors, especially the Christians. The attraction that Syrian monasteries exerted on the Yezidi has been the subject of commentary before, as has the help the Yezidi sometimes offered the monks. After 1915, the Yezidi are said to have compassionately taken in many Armenian refugees from the Mardin region.2

This reconciliation can easily be explained by the common difficulties and discrimination that the other Kurds, as well as the Turks, inflicted upon on both groups. Indeed, the Turks went to much greater efforts to struggle against Islamic heresies than against Christians, who despite everything else, remained “people of the book”, sons of Abraham, like themselves. The Yezidi suffered widespread massacres until very late in the 19th century, often arranged and carried out by rival Kurdish Sunnite tribes. The number of Yezidi fluctuated enormously during this period, but they were easily recognizable by their long hair, beards, mustaches and sideburns. Contemporary witnesses speak of several hundred thousand individuals,3 mainly concentrated in Jebel Sinjar in the south, their traditional land of refuge, among the Kurdish and Arabic steppes.

M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 87. X. de PLANHOL, op. cit., p. 180. 3 M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 83, see note 1. 1 2

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They were also beginning to move into Tur Abdin, where they gathered in the lands of the Upper Tigris, between Jezireh and Hasankeif, all the way to Mardin and Diyarbakir. Gertrude Bell reported the presence of several Yezidi villages in Tur Abdin, including Gelîyeh in the south, and Kiwah to the west of Azekh.1

Gertrude BELL, Amurath to Amurath, London, W. Heimmann, 1911, p. 306 1

CHAPTER 5. A POPULATION DIFFICULT TO COUNT The dispersal of Syriac villages across Tur Abdin amid a vast Kurdish Muslim population stymied all attempts at census. The urban communities were much better known. The heretofore unused census of urban populations allows us to construct a basis for judging what would be their future extermination. When all denominations are counted together, the general tendency was markedly unfavorable to the Christian element. As they did not form the majority anywhere, neither in the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, nor in Tur Abdin itself, the 19th century Syriac habitat was but a remnant of its former self. Dwarfed by the much wider Muslim population, persecuted and reclusive, the last Syriac populations clung to their villages, valleys and monasteries. The permanent insecurity we have already mentioned, “maintained in the districts by the Kurdish tribes, forced the Christian populations to huddle together in the cities and thus to gradually abandon many small villages.”1 This phenomenon entailed population displacements from the countryside to the cities that were massive in Tur Abdin, where Midyat was the main point of attraction. The official census of 1881-1882, used by Vital Cuinet, showed that the Diyarbakir vilayet comprised 471,462 inhabitants, of whom 328,644 were Muslim and 132,549 were Christian. The rest, 9,000 individuals, had been relegated to a category apart, the “miscellaneous” that grouped together all the smaller minorities, such as the Kurdish Yezidi. The data presented by official censuses is not trustworthy and must necessarily be completed by information gathered by foreign observers present on the terrain. Father Rhétoré, a Dominican Missionary, came to a total of 174,670 Christians for the entire province, divided thus into different communities: Gregorian Armenian, 60,000 individuals; Armenian Catholic, 12,500; Syriac Catholic, 5,600; Syriac Orthodox, 84,725; Chaldean, 11,120; and Protestant. This census (1881-1882) was staggered over ten years and the first results, for the most accessible regions, only became available 1 Raymond KEVORKIAN and Paul PABOUDJIAN, Les Arméniens dans l’Empire ottoman à la veille du génocide, Paris, Afhis, 1992. Cf. pp. 56-61 on the Syriacs.

61

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in 1895. In the hard to reach regions, such as Tur Abdin was at the time, it was common for the census takers to simply ask a few tribal chieftains how many people they thought their tribes contained. No action was taken to remedy this situation and the numbers published reflected only the city populations, since it was accepted that the nomadic tribes had not been counted. Kemal H. Karpat estimated that 3 million Ottoman subjects had thus slipped past the statistics.1 The names used in the statistics to designate Syriacs often change from one author to the next. Vital Cuinet used the term “Jacobites” for Orthodox Syriacs and “Catholic Syrians” for Syriac Catholics. Kemal Karpat, whose analysis of the official censuses from 1844 to 1914 allowed for a much clearer understanding of the Ottoman population’s developments, used “Monophysite Syriacs”, “Syrians”, or even “Old Syrians”,2 a term often used by Muslims to speak of the Syriacs. There can be no ambiguity as to the identification of “Old Syrians” as Syriac Orthodox, since Armenians, Greeks, Catholics (Greeks, Armenians and Uniate Syriacs), Protestants and Chaldeans each have their own column. Only the chart from 1914 shows some confusion in the use of these denominations, for three different columns most probably designate the same community, “Jacobites”, “Old Syrians” and a new column under the heading “Suryani”, which is the name the Syriacs call themselves to this day. This multiplicity of designations, belying a real concern for exactness of identification, further underlines the lack of recognition from which the Syriac Orthodox were suffering. Living for the most part in rural settings, in Tur Abdin villages and in the immediate vicinity of the province’s two large cities, Diyarbakir and Mardin, the Syriac communities were not urbanized. Within these two cities, the Syriac Orthodox were but one minority among others in Diyarbakir, but they formed a larger community in Mardin, where there numbers could rival those of the Armenians, for example. In town, the majority of the Syriac population was comprised of a lower middle class of craftsmen and traders, some of whom could rise to importance by alliances with wealthier Armenian families. 1 K. H. KARPAT, Ottoman population 1830-1914: Demographic and social characteristics, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. 2 Used in the 1897 census. K. H. Karpat, op. cit., pp. 161-189.

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DIYARBAKIR, THE BLACK CITY Diyarbakir was for a long time the Ottomans’ key city along the Asian border. Situated on the caravan routes tying Asia Minor to Mesopotamia, its position was strategically an important springboard for conquest. For this reason, throughout its history, it was the subject of bitter disputes between Persians, Byzantines, Armenians, Arabs and Ottomans. Diyarbakir has always been a cosmopolitan city where all peoples of the region are represented, and early on, it developed the conditions that would allow the rise of a sedentary, urban, wealthy and enlightened society. The city seemed austere and somber because of the color of the basalt stones been used in its construction. All its neighborhoods were enclosed by high walls which completely isolated the city from the outside: “This city is surrounded by a double row of very high walls flanked by 72 towers and it is dominated by the inner citadel.”1 When Buckingham visited it in 1827, he wrote of four gates in the walls, whose names indicated their orientation: in the southwest, “bab el-Mardin”; in the west, “bab el-Rum” towards Asia Minor; in the north, “bab el-Jebel” towards the Armenian mountains; and “bab el-Jedeed” to the east, towards the Tigris (“bab” means “gate” in Arabic). “Only one of these gates remains open at night for travelers and latecomers”, for the authorities check those coming in and those leaving.2 The gates were used to isolate and protect the city in times of trouble. During the great Kurdish insurrection of 1847, the routed Ottoman army was forced to take refuge inside the walls, since the Kurds had occupied the roads, “sowing destruction and murder”.3 In contrast, these same gates were used as a deadly trap for the Christians during the first great massacres of 1895. The streets were narrow, winding and filthy, the air unhealthy. Only a few streets in the center of town were paved, and along these were located the most beautiful homes, notably the Governor’s palace and the bishoprics, including the Syriac Orthodox. In 1842, Badger stated that Diyarbakir had no V. CUINET, op. cit., description of Diyarbakir, p. 55. Idem. 3 Cf. Asahel GRANT, The Nestorians or the Lost Tribes: containing evidence of their identity, London, 1841, especially his description of Diyarbakir. 1 2

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“Jacobite” bishop because the city’s diocese was under the direct control of the Patriarch residing in Mardin. It was the arrival of the foreign consulates that would later favor the creation of an independent diocese. The Catholic and Jacobite Syrians also have a bishop at Diyarbakir, while at Mardin, the former have an archbishop and the latter a Patriarch. The Gregorian Armenians have a parish priest at Diyarbakir, the Armenian Catholics have an archbishop at Mardin and a bishop at Diyarbakir. […] The Armenian Protestants come under the American mission, whose seat is at Mardin, and they have a pastor at Diyarbakir, The Chaldeans have an archbishop in both cities. The Greek Orthodox have a Metropolitan at Diyarbakir, and for their part, the Greek Catholics have missionary monks.1

The Myriamana church, or the Church of the Virgin, the largest church in the city, belonged to the Syriac Orthodox. The Gregorian Armenians owned two “richly decorated” churches, the Armenian Catholics had one, as well as a monastery kept by Capuchin Fathers. The Greek and Syriac Catholics each had their own church. Unlike in Mardin, the Christian communities were huddled in the same neighborhoods, following the traditional urban organization for cities under the Ottoman Empire, and for the Muslim world in general. All Christians spoke Armenian and Kurdish, often in addition to their maternal language, and the ecclesiastic authorities and town notables spoke Turkish. In the bazaars, markets, and poor neighborhoods, the language was Kurdish. In 1827, Buckingham estimated the city’s population at 50,000. The majority was composed of Ottomans, which to his mind meant Turks and Kurds. 1,400 families were Christian, of whom about 1,000 were Armenian, and among this population, he estimated the Syriacs (Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics and Chaldeans) at 400 families. Most of these families were “Jacobite”. He also counted a small Greek Orthodox community of 50 families.

1

V. CUINET, op. cit., p. 515.

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This data was confirmed by Badger, who several years later in 1842, estimated the Syriac Orthodox community at 250 families, 40 families for the Catholic Syrians, and 120 families for the Chaldeans, for a total of 410 Syriac families, all denominations mixed together. By this count, and allowing for six members per family, the “Jacobite” population would have been around 1,500 people at the time. Following the estimate of Father Galland, who knew the land well, a Christian family, in the strictest sense of the term, would be made up of an average of 5 to 7 members. We might wonder whether the rural families had more children than their urban counterparts. In an 1880 report that is reproduced in R. Kevorkian’s and P. Paboudjian’s study1, the Armenian patriarchate based its figures on an average of 6 inhabitants per “Syrian” household. Several decades later, the statistics produced by Vital Cuinet in 1891 showed a slight decline in numbers, with only 950 individuals for the “Jacobites”, and 400 for the Catholic Syrians. But these numbers seem excessively low. This collapse in Syriac demographics, including the “Jacobite”, might be explained by emigration, which had already been reported, to safer cities such as Urfa, or even to Istanbul, where a large Orthodox Syriac population was already living. This migratory flux would not however explain everything, for at the same moment, the rural populations from the Diyarbakir region were surely coming to seek refuge in the city. It is possible, moreover, that some Syriac families could have been confused for Armenian families and counted as such because of the two communities’ proximity and because they all spoke Armenian.

Raymond KEVORKIAN and Paul PABOUDJIAN, op. cit., Cf. pp. 56-61 on the «Syriacs». 1

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Table summarizing the Christian population of Diyarbakir

City of Diyabakir

1827 Buckingham

1842 Badger

1891 Vital Cuinet

50,000

N/G*

33,701

1000 families

N/G

N/G

Syriac Orthodox Syriac Catholics

400 families

250 families

N/G

40 families

950 individuals 400 individuals

Chaldeans

N/G

120 families

N/G

50 families

N/G

N/G

Total population (individuals) Armenians

Greek Orthodox *N/G: not given

The official statistics from 1882-1883 that were analyzed by Karpat say nothing of the city of Diyarbakir itself, but do offer data on the kaza’s circumscription. The numbers presented in the census show a real Jacobite population of 4,000 individuals for the city and its near surroundings.1 This nevertheless remains a very small minority, about 6% of the kaza’s total of 62,870 inhabitants. This population was predominantly rural, limited to the outskirts of the city, for the percentage falls to 2.8% for the “Jacobite” community inside the city. Vital Cuinet counted 950 Jacobite individuals in a total population of 33,701 inhabitants of Diyarbakir.

MARDIN, THE SECOND JERUSALEM The position of Mardin particularly advantageous, expanse of fertile plains Perched on the southern

on the slopes of a rocky hill was for from there it dominated a wide stretching out toward Mesopotamia. face of the 1,100 meters high Mount

K. KARPAT, op. cit., p. 133. More precisely, 4,046, listed in the column “Monophysite Syrians”. 1

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Masius, Mardin was pressed up against the Taurus Mountains. The climate there was much gentler than at Diyarbakir, “[…] completely surrounded by green hills, fruit gardens and hillocks covered with grapevines, it was very pleasant to stay there. Its healthy climate is maintained by an abundance of perfectly clean water.”1 From its position 80 kilometers, or “18 hours by caravan”2, southeast of the capital, Mardin’s influence extended more widely into the southern plains, up to the eastern limit imposed on it by the Tigris. The houses were built of sand-colored stone, staggered on successive layers of terraces built one above the other against the rock slope, at the peak of which rose a fortress long reputed to be impregnable, but lying in ruins by the 19th century.3 Unlike Diyarbakir, Mardin’s walls no longer hermetically sealed off the city, since large sections of them had collapsed.4 Badger’s first impression of Mardin was negative. Once he entered the city, he was sure it had to be deserted, so dilapidated did it seem to him. Nothing much was left of its former luxury and wealth: “Mardin’s industry, which flourished so magnificently throughout the Middle Ages and the first part of modern times, is now but a dim shadow of what it once was.”5 The reasons for this were most probably the same as elsewhere: the lack of infrastructure, the scarcity of roads, its isolation, the competition offered by more active cities such as Urfa, and most of all, insecurity. Mardin nonetheless remained Diyarbakir province’s second city, naturally oriented more towards the Arabic and Kurdish world than towards Turkish Anatolia. According to Southgate, Arabic and Kurdish were the city’s predominant languages. It was also the capital, the administrative center of a sanjak, a district that included Tur Abdin, and which thus grouped together the highest concentration of Syriacs.

V. CUINET, op. cit., p. 254. H. SIMON, (Father), Mardin, the heroic city, manuscript (available at the Dominican Fathers’ archives in Paris, at the Centre du Saulchoir), chapter 2, p. 13. 3 G. BADGER, p. 49. 4 Idem, p. 48. 5 V. CUINET, op. cit., p. 525. 1 2

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The Mardin governor’s authority extended over the small towns of Savur, Midyat, Jezireh (Cizre) and Nusaybin, at least in theory, since the Kurdish tribes had not given up their own domination. Until Southgate’s trip in 1836, the Kurdish “beys”, or chiefs, had held the reins of power. Southgate spoke of an important Kurdish family (probably the Milly family) that was governing the city while refusing to recognize the Sultan. Turkish troops did not often venture into these steep and rocky lands, except to launch punitive operations. Mardin was the obligatory place of passage for all travelers. Descriptions of it abound. Everyone mentioned the city’s and its people’s particularly open nature. Far from the austerity and harshness of Diyarbakir, Mardin’s attitudes were much more tolerant towards Christians. Buckingham noted in his journal that a Christian in Mardin could greet a Muslim with a “Salam Alaikom” and would have that greeting returned, even from a sheik, which in another city, such as Damascus, would have been an outrage punishable by death. Christians are permitted to ride on horseback, a favour which, in the days of the Mamlouks, was not granted even to the Franks in Egypt and; and, at Mardin, the Patriarch’s having a green bridle and martingale gives no offence, though even now, in Damascus, such an invasion of the privileges of a true Mohammedan would probably cost an infidel his life.1

Still in 1827, Buckingham announced facts that revealed a deterioration of community relations, to the detriment of the Christians. For example, tradition held that Christian marriages should be celebrated in churches, and that afterwards, the party would be open to the public in the main square, but the Turks’ repeated insults and interruptions forced them to abandon this practice.2 The wealth Mardin possessed in human terms was born of a mixture of ancient Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Christian cultures, which had always lived in harmony. From this forced and long, peaceful cohabitation, there had arisen a certain tolerance that lasted much longer than in the other cities facing the tide of Muslim fanaticism in the second half of the 19th century. 1 2

J. BUCKINGHAM, op. cit., p. 184. Idem, p. 186.

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The city was home to about twenty mosques, nine churches and three monasteries, including two churches belonging to the Syriac Orthodox, Mar Shimon and Mar Behnam, this latter one being the larger, with no less than five altars. One of these altars was reserved for women, and often the priests, who would all officiate at the same time, would have to do so each on a different altar. Generally, Syriac churches had three altars.1 A third church, Mar Michael, had been built just outside the walls on the southern slope. All three were ancient, and their foundations could have dated from the first centuries of Christianity. In the region, there were three important Syriac monasteries, including the Patriarchal see of Deir al-Za`faran, situated some five kilometers outside the city. This high concentration of religious buildings gave it great importance to Eastern Christianity, and often, it was referred to as a second Jerusalem. As for the clergy, Badger remembered that when he passed through, four “Jacobite” priests were serving the city. At the time, the Syriac Catholics, who also had four priests, had not yet gotten their own church, and thus had to meet for mass in a private residence.2 This somewhat rosy picture must not allow us to forget the violence that was a constant throughout the region. Grant came across Mardin in the middle of a Kurdish insurrection. On September 6th, the Kurds of Mardin revolted, and in the light of day, in the municipal building’s courtyard, they killed their ex-Governor, as well as several high-ranking administrators; then, carrying their bloody weapons, they came to the house where Mr. Holmes and I were residing, with the avowed intention of adding us to the number of the dead and shouting to find out where we were.

After barely escaping their pursuers, they were forced to flee the city and to take refuge in the Deir al-Za`faran monastery, “until the trouble died down.” Once calm had returned, Grant and his See the extremely exhaustive article on the ritual and liturgical practices of the Syriac Orthodox church, I. ZIADE, “Eglise Syrienne” in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, tome XIV, 2, Paris, 1941, col. 30173088. Also see the more succinct descriptions offered by J. BUCKINGHAM, op. cit., p. 214. 2 G. BADGER, op. cit., p. 49. 1

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friend were able to return to their home at nightfall, dressed in Eastern garb. A little earlier, these bloodthirsty men had massacred a well-considered Christian native in his bed, declaring openly that putting an infidel to death was an act of charity for which God would reward them.

As for Badger, he was welcomed by the spectacle of seven decapitated heads exposed in the marketplace, “covered with dust, lying upon the ground”, heads that had belonged to Tur Abdin Kurds. In 1827, Buckingham estimated that the population came to 20,000 inhabitants, two thirds of whom were Muslim, and that there were 2,000 homes belonging to “Syrians”, meaning “Jacobites”, Syriac Catholics and Chaldeans, as well as 1,500 Armenian and 500 Catholic Armenian homes. He estimated the Chaldeans, or “Nestorians” at 300 homes. One home houses one family. In the remote villages, one also speaks of “hearths” or “households”. Reverend Southgate, passing through several years later in 1841, noticed that the city’s population had markedly declined since his last visit in 1838. In his opinion, the city had lost its prosperity because of the combined effects of famine and the oppression of Christians, who until then had been the local economy’s main motors. Badger, also in 1841, estimated a total population of 2,780 families, which means between 15,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, assuming 5-7 individuals per family, of which 1,500 families were Muslim, 600 “Jacobite”, 120 Syriac Catholic and 500 Catholic Armenian. A little later, in 1844, a dispatch from the French consul posted at Erzurum indicated that the entire Syriac population was now only comprised of 650 families (400 “Jacobite”, 250 Catholic).1 Over such a short period of time, it is difficult to determine whether the decline in numbers was a lasting tendency. However, thanks to the official data reproduced by K. Karpat, as of 1882, it is possible to confirm that the Christian numbers, and in particular those of the Syriac Orthodox, were dwindling. According to the official figures, there were only 3,559 Syriac Orthodox individuals left in the entire kaza, city and suburbs of Dispatch from the French Consul at Erzurum dated July 12, 1844 (Mémoires et Documents, tome 41, without folio) 1

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Mardin, and 4,227 Catholics of all rites, in a total population of 30,776 inhabitants. A little later, Vital Cuinet provided data further confirming the demographic decline, and attributing only 900 individuals to the Syriacs, of whom 810 were “Jacobite” and 90 were Syriac Catholic. On the other hand, the work gathered by R. Kevorkian and P. Paboudjian from the Armenian patriarchate’s archives offer a number of 12,609 “Jacobite” or Syriac Catholics (“AssyroChaldeans” in the authors’ terminology) for the entire Mardin kaza, instead of the 3,559 counted by the official census. They arrive at this estimate by contrasting the Armenian patriarchate’s sources with those of the Ottoman censuses quoted in K. Karpat’s work.1 Such a large difference underscores the variation between methods of counting, some of which might have been bent to political aims, whether by overestimating or by underestimating the size of a community. We can confirm the following tendencies before the 1895 massacres: the Christian presence in the cities had declined by half since the beginning of the century. The Syriac Orthodox and Catholics were no longer the majority among Christian communities. From a situation in which they were equal in number to the Armenians, they had been outstripped during the second half of the 19th century. The Syriac Orthodox community in Mardin found itself in the same situation as in Diyarbakir: a minority of a minority. This decline may be explained in part by the internal struggles stemming from their division into Orthodox and Catholics, and also by the atmosphere of insecurity that in 1850 led several families, including some of the largest, to emigrate to Europe or the United States. The city’s surroundings were still abundant with Christian Armenian and Syriac villages. Michel Chevalier2 names several of them: Mansuriye, Benebil, Killeth, Qusur, etc. Many were favorite targets during the attacks of 1895 and 1915. In an article published in 1914, the Chaldean Father Tfinkdji mentions more than 800 villages dependant upon Mardin. He was certainly alluding to the R. KEVORKIAN and P. Paboudjian, op. cit., p. 413. M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 62. Cf. also the list drawn up by Father Tfinkdji at the eve of the First World War, “The villages around Mardin” in Les Missions Catholiques, 1914, pp. 29-31. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

villages included in the administrative division of the Mardin sanjak, which also included Tur Abdin. Alas! These many villages, today mostly Muslim, were all Christian 500 years ago, before the conquests of Islam! The many Kurdish tribes, all Christian until the 16th century, had no choice but to embrace the faith of the Prophet imposed upon them by fire and sword.1

About twenty villages were cited, situated within a radius of 70 kilometers of Mardin. These estimates give an idea of the religious make-up and size of each village.2 J. TFINKDJI, art. cit. In the north of Mardin: Mansuriye (2 km distant), pop. 1000: 80 Syrian Catholics (1 priest, 1 chapel, 1 school), 500 Jacobites, 100 Protestants, the rest Muslim. Awina (35 km distant), pop. 600: 60 Chaldean and Catholic Armenians, no priest, no church, no school, the rest Muslim. Isa Bwâr (30 km distant): pop. 300: 80 abandoned Catholic Armenians and Chaldeans. In the neighborhood, the villages of Karapoir, Dereesh and Kordilek whose Catholics left to their own devices in the midst of Muslims without religious support. To the east of Mardin: Kalaat-Mara (4 km distant, near the Deir alZa`faran monastery), pop. 1500: 100 Syrian Catholics (1 priest, 1 church, 1 school), 80 Protestants, the rest Jacobite (3 priests, 2 churches, 1 school). Benebil, pop. 600: 30 Catholic Syrians (1 priest, 1 chapel), 50 Protestants, the rest Jacobite. Killeth (30 km distant), pop. 1,000: 60 Catholic Syrians (1 priest, 1 church), 100 Protestants, 600 Jacobites, the rest Muslim. Bafawâ (near Killeth), pop. 500: 50 Syrian Catholics (1 priest, 1 church), 300 Jacobites (3 priests), the rest Protestant. Ma’sirta (20 km distant), pop. 300: 20 Catholics (without a priest), 100 Jacobites, the rest Muslim. Dara (25 km distant), pop. 500: 100 Armenian Catholics, the rest Muslim. Nusaybin (50 km distant), pop. 2000: 200 Chaldeans (1 priest, 1 chapel in ruins, 1 school), 200 Jacobites, 60 Protestants, 600 Jews, the rest Muslim. South of Mardin: Ksor (Qusur) (8 km distant), pop. 1000: 120 Syrian Catholics (1 priest, 1 church, 1 school), 800 Jacobites (2 churches, 2 priests), 80 Protestants. Tell Armen (30 km distant), pop. 1,200: all Catholic Armenians. There were also 100 Chaldeans who for lack of a priest of their own, celebrated their liturgy with the Armenians. Despite all their efforts, the Protestants were never able to make headway into this village. West of Mardin: Derik (60 km distant), pop. 7,000: 60 Syrian Catholics (1 priest, 1 chapel), 200 Armenian Catholics, 600 Armenian schismatics, 100 Jacobites (1 priest), 50 Chaldeans who perform their religious duties with the Armenian Catholics, the rest Muslim. Pirane (40 km distant), pop. 600: 80 Armenian Catholics, formerly served by a priest, 1 2

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The Syriac population before the war was scattered, small in number, and divided among many villages.1 There was no tendency to move together into geographical zones where they might have united to better defend themselves. The situation in 1914 remained practically the same as at the eve of the massacres of 1895. Regrettably, the sources do not mention numbers in relation to the massacres or conversions. The war for the most part put an end to the last remains of this Syriac population. The isolated and defenseless villages were easy prey for Turkish and Kurdish aggression.

TUR ABDIN AND ITS VILLAGES Administratively, the region of Tur Abdin had no existence. It was split over several kazas, those of Midyat, Jezireh and Nusaybin. Midyat was the most accessible of these cities. To the east, the Jezireh region prolonged Tur Abdin all the way to the Tigris, whereas to the south, after Nusaybin, began the rich plains of Jebel Sinjar. To the south of Mardin rises Sinjar mountain, which has always been the terror of caravans; it can be fourteen leagues long, and stretches out from the north-east to the southwest on an immense plain, which in March and April is a charming prairie carpeted with green, sprinkled with sweet smelling flowers, and watered by several springs that the melting snows convert into large, rough torrents. This mountain’s peak offers a flat and fertile terrain where a thousand beautiful, babbling streams wind their meandering ways. Barley and millet grow there in abundance, and

now abandoned, the rest Muslim. Helela (250 km distant), 200 Muslim inhabitants and 60 Catholics without a priest. Viranshehir (70 km distant), formerly the famous city of Goranopolis (Constantina ?), pop. 7,000: 600 Armenian Catholics, 100 Chaldeans, 100 Syrian Catholics, 200 Jacobites (1 priest, 1 church, 1 school), 80 Protestants, the rest Muslim. Salme (between Tell Armen and Viranshehir), pop. 200, including a few Catholic families visited by a priest from Tell Armen. 1 The names of these villages should be compared with those in the list drawn up by S. HENNO, Schicksalsschläge der syrischen Christen im Tur Abdin 1915, Bar Hebraus Verlag, Holland, 1987, pp. 178-181, reproduced as an annex.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE the grapes and figs that it produces are famous for their beauty and their exquisite taste.1 Table summarizing the Christian population of Mardin

Mardin 1827 Buckingham 1841 Badger 1844 French Consulate of Erzurum 1891 Vital Cuinet 1914-1915 Father Simon

Total population

Armenians

Orthodox Syriacs

Syriac Catholics

20,000

N/G

33,701

N/G

2,780 families

N/G

N/G

120 families

N/G

40 families

400 individuals

250 families

N/G

N/G

810 individuals

90 individuals

42,700 (25,000 Muslims)

6,000 (all Catholics)

7,000

3,000 (+ 1,200 Chaldeans)

Nusaybin was the farthest city to the south. According to Buckingham, it seems that the city had been abandoned by part of its inhabitants. It was now fallen into great decline. At the present moment it is occupied by about 300 families of Arabs and Kurds, mixed, under the government of Sheikh Farsee, who is himself a Kurd houseman, and whose followers are mostly his own countrymen. […] There are also a few Christians, who live among them peaceably.2

One Syriac source in 1915 still asserted that there were 200 Syriac households, numbering a little over a thousand individuals, in Nusaybin alone.3 1 Description of the Baghdad Pashalik, pp. 96-97, cited by J. Buckingham, op. cit., p. 237. 2 Idem, p. 238. 3 S. HENNO, op. cit. (Translation by A. Desreumaux and S. Brock).

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In 1892, Oswald Parry described the Christian villages of Tur Abdin as “flourishing”, despite tribal conflicts and endemic highway robbery. Each village lived under a chieftain, generally called “agha”, who ruled over his community. A few of these Syriac communities could still live semi-independently whereas the great majority of Tur Abdin Syriacs were living under the control of larger Kurdish tribes.

VILLAGES AND MONASTERIES Tur Abdin society was one of families and villages. The villages, inhabited in whole or in part by Syriacs, were often built atop and around ancient monasteries. Of these monasteries, only fifteen or so were still occupied by the beginning of the 20th century, in contrast to the seventy that had existed during the Middle Ages. A great number of churches were also in ruin and abandoned, especially in the north of the plateau and in the region of Hah, to the northeast of Midyat. Many Syriac villages were hidden in the eastern depths of Tur Abdin, from Hasankeif in the north all the way to the steep borders going from Nusaybin to Jezireh. “It is there that we find […] Jebel’s second center, the large Jacobite village of Azakh [Azekh], with about 2,400 inhabitants, 30 kilometers west of Jezireh-ibnOmar.”1 In the northwest of Tur Abdin, the Savur district was still Christian at the beginning of the 19th century, but was completely converted to Islam by 1880. The only description of a Tur Abdin Syriac home comes from Father Galland, who was received in Azekh by a family recently converted to Catholicism. The wealthier homes in this land are invariably made up of three main rooms arranged thus: at the entrance, a sort of shed converted into a corridor where stone or earthen benches line the walls. This is the reception and meeting area, where strangers are welcomed, where councils are held, and where village affairs are dealt with, a room where anyone can feel at home and rest, hear the day’s news or just waste time as the Easterners do. After this room comes an inner courtyard, generally fairly large, around which are arranged the barns and the stables, and finally, all the way at the back, the 1

M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 291.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE house’s third room, the one bedroom housing the entire family.1

It is difficult to get a precise idea of the number of Syriac Orthodox in Tur Abdin. In their essentially rural setting, the population was scattered throughout a tight network of small villages. Only a comparison of several sources allows us to reach an estimate: as previously, three sources deserve consideration: the official Ottoman censuses, the information gathered by foreign travelers, diplomats and missionaries, and finally the information coming from the Syriac Orthodox Church. Statistical information persuades against the idea of a mostly Syriac population before the massacres, for the numbers given by Vital Cuinet hold that there were only 17,754 Christians out of the total population of 193,000 of the Mardin sanjak in 1892. This would put the Syriac population at less than 10% of the sanjak’s total population. This number could rise to as high as 18% if we take into consideration the much larger numbers given by R. Kevorkian and P. Paboudjian, who for the same Mardin sanjak counted 68,210 Assyro-Chaldeans, Orthodox and Christian Syriacs, as opposed to 359,869 Kurds. To the Kurdish population, we must also add the few Turks, as well as the Arabic tribes, who might lower the proportion again, for since they were nomadic, they were not counted. The source that the Syriac Orthodox Church produced at the Peace Conference in Paris (see Annexes) offers numbers between the two other sets’ extremes. These reflect the situation of Tur Abdin villages in 1915, twenty years after the great massacres of 1895 that must enter into the equation. This document indicates 5,693 households spread over 79 villages, or a population of between 34,158 and 39,851 individuals, assuming an average of 6-7 members per family. Vital Cuinet’s work was limited to reproducing statistical data available at the time that reflected a basically urban habitat (his numbers for the Midyat kaza do not seem realistic). As a consequence, these numbers do not directly answer the question of the number of Syriacs living in non-urban zones, where they composed the majority. Nevertheless, it is possible by deduction to reach a general size by basing oneself on the principle that over two thirds of the Syriac Orthodox habitat was concentrated in rural 1

Father Galland, art. cit., Les Missions Catholiques, 1882.

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zones. Thus, in order to have a true picture of the Syriac population, we would thus have to multiply the numbers given by Vital Cuinet by a factor of three. According to Cuinet, the “Jacobite” populations of the Midyat, Jezireh and Nusaybin kazas numbered 7,106 individuals.1 By multiplying this number by three, following the rule 1/3 city, 2/3 country, their number would rise to 21,318 “Jacobites”, at least, for Tur Abdin. This method, though risky, is confirmed in its proportions by the official Ottoman statistics of 1881/82-1893, reproduced by K. Karpat, who in the same administrative context, counted 6,724 “Syriacs” (not including Syriac Catholics). Following the same coefficient applied to Vital Cuinet’s numbers, this gives a number of 20,172 Syriac Orthodox for Tur Abdin alone. These results may be raised or lowered by several factors: by the birth rate, often higher in the country than in the city, but also by the rate of infant mortality, which can also be higher in the country than in the city because of the common famines and difficult living conditions. Western observers’ accounts clarify the situation even further and also allow us to measure the demographic changes. On the diplomatic side, in an 1844 dispatch, the French consul at Erzurum forwarded a figure of between 25,000 and 30,000 “Jacobites” in Tur Abdin; well informed, he also spoke of the 7,000 “Jacobites” in Jebel Sinjar, as well as of 10,000 individuals scattered through the cities of Urfa, Diyarbakir, Harput and Mosul.2 This comes out to a total of 47,000 individuals for all the Syriac population centers. On the missionary side, Father Rhétoré indicated that there was a total of 74,470 Christians in the Mardin sanjak, of whom 51,725 were “Jacobites”. Reverend Badger tried to write an overview of the general state of the Syriac population within the Ottoman Empire circa 1 3,006 + 3,100 + 1,000, to whom must be added the Syrian Catholics, 1,000 at Midyat. In such a way, V. Cuinet spoke of 4,600 Greek Orthodox in the Midyat kaza, which was highly improbable. Does he mean Syriac Orthodox (Jacobites)? This would increase their population by as many. This possibility is strengthened by an obvious mistake he makes when he speaks of 2,000 Greek Orthodox within the city of Midyat itself, which was impossible. J. Joseph caught the mistake. 2 Dispatch from the French consul, dated July 12, 1844 (Mémoires et Documents, tome 41, without folio).

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

1840. He offered a number of 150 Tur Abdin villages exclusively inhabited by “Syrians” (“Jacobites”).1 He also estimated the entire “Jacobite” population of the Ottoman Empire at 100,000 individuals. Oswald Parry, on the other hand, estimated it at between 150,000 and 200,000, in the 19th century, for the entire Ottoman Empire. This population, according to him, was spread among 230 villages: 150 in Tur Abdin, 50 around Urfa and Gawar, 15 at Harput, 6 for Diyarbakir, 5 near Mosul, and finally 4 in the hinterlands of Damascus. He does not mention Mardin, as he considers it part of Tur Abdin.2 With that estimate for a total village count, we may establish an average of approximately 434 inhabitants per village (100,000÷230), which when multiplied by the estimate of 150 villages in Tur Abdin, comes out to 65,100 “Jacobites” for the Mardin sanjak alone, including the cities of Mardin and Midyat themselves. This number comes close to the information presented above on the 68,210 Assyro-Chaldeans counted. Following the same principle as was applied to the information reproduced by Father S. Henno, the average of inhabitants per village is 432 (5,693 households divided by 79 villages) which is remarkably similar to the average of 434 established on the basis of Reverend Badger’s data. In 1889, two reports appeared to complete our information: the first written by Father Galland, a Dominican on mission to Tur Abdin; the second by Félix Bertrand, the French vice-consul posted at Diyarbakir.3 These numbers present the double advantage first of being offered by witnesses who had both been living in situ for several years, and second of constituting a solid estimate of the numbers before the massacres of 1895. Father Galland speaks of 20,000 Jacobites extended over 40 or 50 villages for “the land between Jezireh and Midyat”, 5,000 of whom live exclusively at Midyat. For the rest of Tur Abdin, G. BADGER, op. cit., pp. 62-63. O. PARRY, op. cit., p. 346. R. JANIN, in Eglises Orientales, published in Paris in 1926, spoke of “120,000 souls” and D. ATTWATER, Christian Churches of the East, volume II, p. 230 indicated “90,000 individuals” (reference found in Dr. Aziz S. Atiya, “Mongols, Turks and Kurds”, op. cit.) 3 February 9, 1889 from Father Galland to the Provincial of France. Diplomatic dispatch #4, August 19, 1889. 1 2

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excepting Midyat (20,000 - 5,000), we get an average of between 375 and 400 inhabitants per village, which also comes close to the averages we got based on Badger’s and Henno’s data. At the same time, the French diplomat, Félix Bertrand, cites the number of 30,000 to 35,000 “souls” for Tur Abdin, in the zone stretching “between Mardin and Jezireh”, much wider than the one considered by Father Galland since it also includes the city of Mardin. Felix Bertrand also speaks of 50 villages, but specifies the number of Syrian households as 6,000 in total for the whole of “Jebel Tur”. Using the same method, we come out to an average of between 400 and 500 inhabitants per village, depending on whether we take the low or high estimate. We may also note that how close this estimate of 6,000 households is to the 5,693 households counted by Father S. Henno. By multiplying the number of 6,000 households by 6 or 7 members per family, we come to 36,000 to 42,000 “Jacobites” for the entire Mardin sanjak. This would make a maximum number of 26,000-30,000 “Jacobites” for the Tur Abdin plateau alone. Unfortunately, the difficulty of transcribing the Syriac village names mentioned by S. Henno prevents us from continuing this exercise of comparison any further. Reverend Southgate, during his many conversations with Syriac priests, noted generally that fear often drove them to understate the size of their own communities, always giving lower figures than reality. He assured me that there were no more than 45 Syrian families in the town, and a few in four of the villages, in all about 150 Syrian families in the district of Harput. Such statements, however, are not reliable, as the poor oppressed Christians throughout the interior almost uniformly, through fear, make their numbers to appear as small as possible.1

This is paradoxical, for the Syriac sources most often give data markedly higher than those established by Western numbers. The comment is however confirmed by another Syriac source, the “List of grievances of the Syriac Orthodox nation”, issued by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate at the 1919 peace conference. This document counted 47 Syriac villages for the Midyat kaza alone, 26 1

H. SOUTHGATE, op. cit., p. 86.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

for the Jezireh kaza, and 50 for that of Nusaybin. These estimates would raise the Syriac population by a third as compared to the estimates presented earlier, all the more so since these “Syriac” censuses were conducted after the massacres of 1895, whereas all the other estimates were drawn up on the basis of earlier figures. We may complete this data with several conclusions: the number of Jacobite villages in Tur Abdin was cut in half between 1842 and 1889, from the 150 inhabited villages counted by Reverend Badger to between 47 and 79 villages a half-century later. At the same time, the number of inhabitants per Syriac village did not increase, for the average population of each village remained steady between 375-400, 434, 432, 400-500 at all times. Michel Chevalier also worked out his own estimates, coming to 30,00040,000 individuals. During the winter of 1913-1914, Monsignor Gabriel Tappouni still estimated that about 30,000 Christians were living in Tur Abdin, “most of whom are Jacobites living in a hundred or so villages” amid 80,000 Kurds. Unfortunately, he never once mentioned the demographic consequences that the massacres of 1895 and 1896 had had on the Syriac populations of Tur Abdin.1

A CHRISTIAN ISLAND, THE SMALL CITY OF MIDYAT Midyat, a center of Tur Abdin life, is “situated in the middle of a beautiful plain surrounded by mountain slopes and hills”2 and perched at an altitude 950 meters. There were at least six churches and two important monasteries in the vicinity, Mar Abraham and Mar Sharbel. Midyat was one of the symbols of the progress the Christians had made thanks to the missionaries’ arrival. Whereas Taylor, in the middle of the 19th century, found nothing there but “a group of miserable hovels made of rough-hewn stone”, in 1906, Captain Mark Sykes was struck by the city’s prosperity and its beautifully decorated homes built with freestone, which even today gives the city its charm.3 When Badger visited it in 1842, the city was still inhabited exclusively by Syriacs. The city’s climate seemed welcoming to him, despite the hidden struggle he could feel brewing with the neighboring Kurds. A man he met in the street Idem. V. CUINET, op, cit., p. 526. 3 Mark SYKES, Through the Five Turkish Provinces, London, 1900. 1 2

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proudly showed him the dagger hooked to his belt, and claimed he had used it to kill twenty Muslims. As far as the population is concerned, it is possible that during the last quarter of the 19th century, an immigration of the Christian populations into Midyat took place. According to several sources of information, the city’s Syriac population was constantly increasing. Badger gave the number of 450 “Jacobite” families, or about 2,700 individuals. Following the 1882-1883 statistics, K. Karpat said that there were 3,657 Syriacs living in the entire Midyat kaza (it is extremely unlikely that the kaza’s villages were counted), and finally Father Galland in 1889 did not hesitate to speak of “5,000 and more Jacobites who have remained attached to their schism”. Before the First World War, Father Tfinkdji counted 8,000 inhabitants for the city, of whom 6,000 were “Jacobites”, 450 Protestants (probably converted Syriacs) 100 Chaldeans and 1,300 Muslims, mostly Kurds.1 At almost the same time, S. Henno counted 1,400 Syriac households, which would make up a population of 8,400-9,800 individuals. Such an increase in population was completely possible. Midyat experienced rapid economic expansion from the 1870’s on, and had become attractive enough to appeal to the Tur Abdin Syriac populations who were forced to abandon their land and villages. This expansion, which occurred in part thanks to the Christians’ economic industriousness, was however of short duration, as it was interrupted first by the events of 1895, and then by the First World War.

1

M. CHEVALIER, op. cit., p. 288.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Table summarizing the Syriac population of Tur Abdin Tur Abdin

Total population of sanjak

Orthodox Syriacs

Number of villages

1841 Badger

N/G

N/G

150

1844 French Consul of Erzurum

N/G

25,000 to 30,000 individuals

N/G

1889 Father Galland

N/G

7,106 individuals (Midyat, Jezireh, Nusaybin kazas) 20,000 individuals (Tur Abdin)

1889 Félix Bertrand

N/G

30-35,000 individuals (Tur Abdin)

1892 Vital Cuinet

N/G

17,754 “Christians” (Mardin sanjak)

N/G

1892 Oswald Parry

N/G

N/G

N/G

1913 G. Tappouni

N/G

30,000 individuals (Tur Abdin)

100

1915 S. Henno

N/G

5,693 “households” (Tur Abdin)

79

1915 Father Rhétoré

N/G

51,725 individuals (Mardin sanjak)

N/G

1882-1883 Official Census

R. Kevorkian And P. Paboudjian

N/G

359,869 Kurds

68,210 AssyroChaldeans (Mardin sanjak)

N/G

40-50 50 (6,000 homes for Jebel Tur)

N/G

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Table summarizing the Christian population of Midyat Midyat

Orthodox Syriacs

Syriac Catholics

Protestant Syriacs

Chaldeans

1841 Badger

450 families

N/C

N/C

N/C

1882-1883 Official Census

3,657 individuals (Midyat kaza)

N/C

N/C

N/C

1889 Father Galland

5,000 individuals

N/C

N/C

N/C

6,000 individuals

80 indiv.

450 individuals

100 individuals

N/C

N/C

N/C

1914 Father Tfinkdji

1915 S. Henno

1,400 households (about 8,000 indiv.)

CHAPTER 6. THE LAW VERSUS THE CHRISTIANS The elucidations that follow are excerpted from five reports sent by Félix Bertrand, the French vice-consul at Diyarbakir, to the Count of Montebello, the French ambassador to the Ottoman Sublime Porte in Constantinople, and covering three years of events from May 24, 1887 to March 18, 1890. They note the slow disintegration of Ottoman society in the eastern provinces, while also revealing widespread famines and increasing insecurity that would lead to the first Syriac massacres in Tur Abdin. Muslim public opinion was gradually coming to think of the Empire’s Christian minorities as foreign communities. Their discriminatory legal status as “nonMuslims”, which until then had been defined within the strict framework of the millets, had so faded that it was almost confused with the status previously reserved for foreigners as Christians lost their title to citizenship. In his conclusion, “The decline of the status of non-Muslims”, Antoine Fattal very clearly explains this shift in status, which occurred most notably in the eastern provinces.1 The law was not the same for everyone. Ottoman subjects of Christian denominations had their own status, “non-Muslim”: The non-Muslim is by definition a second-class citizen. […] He is tolerated only for spiritual reasons, since there is still hope of converting him, and for material reasons, since he is forced to pay almost the entire fiscal burden. He is granted a space in the city, but only on the condition that he be constantly reminded of his inferiority. […] If the non-Muslim does enjoy judicial autonomy, a personal status and access to his own courts, it is because he could not share the benefits of essentially religious law with the Believers. The Dhimmi [non-Muslim] is in no way equal to a Muslim. In the contemptible caste to which he belongs, he is weighed down by social inequality: inequality in the enjoyment of individual rights, inequality in taxes, inequality in law since his testimony is not allowed in

Antoine FATTAL, Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam, Beirut, 1958. 1

85

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Muslim courts and since for equal crimes, his punishment will not be equal.1

This status provided the framework for the Christian communities’ social existence, and when they did not have the means to live autonomously, they were forced to accept it. Its application could be more flexible in certain circumstances, as it was for example for the Christians of Mardin, who long benefited from certain indulgences, unlike the Christians of Diyarbakir. In Tur Abdin, the vassalage implied by the old feudal system’s persistence also entailed wider discrimination of one village towards another, often of a Muslim village towards a Christian one. Within single villages, it could happen that Christians might not feel bound to respect the discrimination inherent to their condition, and that they might adopt the lifestyle of their Kurdish neighbors. But to live in the same way does not mean to live in equality, for this was a society that was structurally unfair, but it did at least permit the Christians in their everyday lives to endure the social and clothing differences their status imposed upon them. The Muslim populations had generally been imbued with this mindset and had come to look upon Christians with contempt. The French vice-consul, Félix Bertrand revealed a shocking fact when he informs his ambassador that serfs still existed in this part of Turkey. Thus at Zakho, a town situated midway between Jezireh and Mosul, all Kurds of any importance have their ghiaur, who is chosen from among the wealthiest Christians. The ghiaur is under his agha’s protection, but in exchange, he must comply with all his agha’s demands for money, grain, cattle, etc.; in this way, he can hide his property from the depredations of the other Kurds. When an agha is in financial difficulties, he sells his ghiaur to another agha.2

The most common form of discrimination involved inequality before the courts. The Christians were very often victims of arbitrary decisions that they could either accept or, if possible, request that a foreign consul look into for them. In his report, Félix Bertrand speaks of two cases that illustrate this injustice and in which he was asked to intervene. 1 2

Idem, conclusion. Diplomatic dispatch #1, March 18, 1890.

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In 1887, he reported a legal action that for six weeks had agitated the Christian populations of all denominations in Diyarbakir and Mardin. They are up in arms about an unspeakably arbitrary act perpetrated on a native lawyer named Nasri Tarzikhan, a Chaldean Catholic [from Mardin]. Because of his profession, this individual has often had unpleasant dealings with certain influential figures and with Mardin administrators whose extortions and embezzlements he has had to report to the courts. […] He was accused of hiding in his house a man he represents and who is currently charged with a case I know nothing about. [After a dispute with the policemen who had been ordered to search his house, he was arrested two days later] on the charge that he had blasphemed and insulted the law of the Prophet. One of the three zaptiyes [policemen] filed the charges and the other two said they were witnesses. […] He was thrown into a filthy dungeon with thieves and murderers, where he is kept in absolute secrecy.1

In this situation, the Christian clergy and notables of all denominations, including the Orthodox, sent a petition to the French consul begging him to intercede in the man’s favor before the province’s governor. The consul agreed, but soon realized that it was all a premeditated scheme meant to eliminate the lawyer, whose knowledge of the Ottoman administrators’ embezzlement had become troublesome. This is a matter of interest to all Eastern Christians: if on an arbitrary accusation, an individual, no matter how innocent, can be arrested, incarcerated, locked away and even exiled, then the Eastern Christians’ situation becomes intolerable, and their freedom seriously compromised. Once this precedent is established, it will be an easy matter for any Muslim to use this ruling against any Christian with whom he has a personal score to settle […] It is important to realize that these deeds in Muslim lands are very rare, and happen only in provinces governed by fanatics such as Arif Pasha, our present governor.2

1 2

Diplomatic dispatch #15, May 24, 1887. Idem.

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Another incident revealed on the other hand how Ottoman courts could be indulgent towards Muslims, whose value system, as opposed to that of the Christians, was considered as having the force of law. Abdi agha’s son, Mohammed agha, convinced that his wife was carrying on an illicit affair with Ibrahim effendi, a police lieutenant, stabbed the officer and left him dead in the public square under the eyes of the Kaymakam (local governor). […] After taking his revenge, he fled to the mountain where it was impossible to arrest him. Six weeks ago, armed to the teeth, he came to Diyarbakir, passed through the Konak gate on horseback without any of the sentries being able to stop him, rode directly to the shocked governor’s office and, laying his weapons down on the desk, told him that he was surrendering to him because he had heard that he was honest and fair, and that he was sure that if he had found himself in the same situation, he would have done the same thing. The governor assured him that justice would be served and though he turned him over to the police, he commanded that Mohammed agha be treated as his guest. He had a comfortable bedroom set up in the prison, where every day he would send him anything he needed to live.1

This treatment illustrates the different punishments accorded to Christian and to Muslim prisoners. When a Christian has trouble with a Muslim, he is in the wrong and the police make sure he understands it; if he is harmed in his interests, the courts are against him. In a trial between a Muslim and a Christian, it is very rare, as I was told the other day by a reasonable man, for the Christian to win, because when the court is composed, the Muslim element is always in the majority.2

The French consul was speaking of fanaticism, which further undermined the Christians’ already fragile civil status, as they Diplomatic dispatch #1, March 18, 1890. Gustave Meyrier to Paul Cambon. Report #2, February 9, 1895, p. 50. Gustave MEYRIER, Les massacres de Diarbékir: correspondance consulaire du Vice-Consul de France 1894-96. Text with foreword and annotation by Claire Mouradian and Michel Durand-Meyrier, L’Inventaire, Paris, 2000. 1 2

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seemed more and more like a category of sub-citizens slowly being stripped of their rights. The consuls’ repeated interventions, each time at the request of representatives of the Christian minorities, added to the confusion between “Christian” and “foreign” that was excluding them from Ottoman society. The beginning of 1888 was marked by a great famine. “The peasants are abandoning their villages en masse and are coming to the nearby cities, but they are stopped on their way by the season’s harsh conditions.” The temperature had plunged exceptionally low to -20ºC over the entire Diyarbakir province, and snow blocked all roads. That was how a caravan of about forty people of both sexes and all ages, coming to the Bitlis vilayet where life is easier, perished on the road, buried under the snow.1 […] This situation is all the more terrible because local authorities do not take any steps to help these wretches. Last fall, the Sublime Porte ordered the Diyarbakir vali to distribute grain at the State’s expense to sow in the districts most affected by locusts. [The plague of locusts had seriously compromised the previous three harvests across the vilayet. The yield of acorns that allowed the people to survive in case of famine had not been good either that year.] Nothing was done, no wheat was distributed, and the population is emigrating as much from the hunger it is suffering now as from the idea of not having anything to harvest next year.2 [The situation in Tur Abdin is dire, and] from the information coming to me from the kazas of Midyat and Jezireh […] most of their population is on its last leg. [As for the Midyat kaza,] out of its 366 villages, more than half the population has left to flee the famine. The other half, less prepared because they were counting on help that never came, remains trapped in the mountains because of this winter’s harsh conditions, and is condemned to annihilation if no one comes to their rescue.3 For a clear picture of the present situation, its origins must be sought higher up: Your Excellency well knows Diplomatic dispatch #16, February 6, 1888. Idem. 3 Idem. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE that eight years ago, Mesopotamia was decimated by a famine that took over 40,000 lives.1 [An American missionary from Mardin who wanted to see the situation with his own eyes went to Midyat and] visited a great number of villages; he reports that nearly ten thousand people there are literally dying of hunger; they are surviving on food that beasts of burden would refuse. In filthy little holes, without light or air, in dank caves, whole families are piled together, some in rags, others completely naked, all suffering the tortures of hunger.2

In the face of this disaster, both the Muslim and the Christian communities were abandoned without any help, which forced a large number of them to leave their villages. Thus the city of Diyarbakir was invaded by a horde of penniless peasants. Charity is not exactly the Easterners’ main characteristic to begin with, and it is even less so for Muslims. The local authority has taken, and will take, no steps to remedy the situation; in fact, the municipality has barely reacted at all to this state of affairs, [only the city’s bishops, at the missionaries’ instigation, have taken an initiative to] form an aide committee.

In the vice-consul’s opinion, there were many reasons for the famine. He named the State as primarily responsible: “the government’s negligence, the administrators’ corruption, and the damages that the tribes inflict upon each other”. The province, which has been bankrupt for the last ten years, never seems to have recovered from the first crisis that had devastated it similarly in 1890. No sooner had the scourge disappeared than the taxcollectors sprang into action to collect arrears. To this end, the treasury men showed up in Christian villages and through the mokhtars [village or neighborhood chieftains] demanded what was owed to the treasury be paid. As the villagers were in no condition to pay […] and after all sorts of harassment, including even canings, a settlement was paid to the tax-collector. In exchange, he presented them with a receipt for barely one fourth of the amount they had given him, and 1 2

Idem. Idem.

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since both the peasants and their mokhtar were illiterate, it was only several months later, when a new tax-collector showed up to collect a sum four to five times higher than what it should actually have been, that they understood they had been swindled.1

In addition to these abuses of fiscal administration, there was also the corruption of the administrators and of the governor, whom the French diplomat accused of having organized a black market with the grain sent by Istanbul. Where this is leading is easy to foresee: the ruin of the country, and then the ruin of the State, and still no one cares. These acts of corruption are notorious and practiced on a grand scale; a high-placed Turkish administrator passing through Diyarbakir admitted as much to me recently. He told me that the Diyarbakir vilayet farming population is no longer even a fourth of what it was twenty years ago, and yet, he added, the tax distribution has not been modified in the least, even though in all the villages throughout Kurdistan, barely a quarter of arable fields are still farmed and the number of households has declined in the same proportion.2

When the tax-collectors were unable to collect the taxes, the governor did not hesitate to use the military, “the largest concern was that the taxes be paid, and the Christians were the favorite target of their demands.3 The lack of security was beginning to be felt everywhere. It is certain that relative safety can be found on the large roads taken by caravans, but even there, the caravans have to be large and well-armed enough to impose respect, and moreover, the authorities constantly urge isolated travelers to hire an escort; even the mail is always guarded by a number of zaptiyes.

At the same time, Félix Bertrand reacted with derision to a report written by the British consul of Diyarbakir, whose rosy description of the province held that the standard of living had in his opinion risen considerably in the last ten years. [The British report goes so far as to say that] the Kurds have finally mended their ways, that security is perfect, that tax Idem. Diplomatic dispatch (unnumbered), January 30, 1888. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #1, March 18, 1890. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE collection and the levy of recruits are conducted with all due form, that the Christians live in peace; in a word, that all is for the best in this fortunate country.

His irony is a response to the British consuls’ allegations. Once past the initial shock caused by these obviously false and motivated assertions, the French consul explained the British consul’s doubletalk as motivated by his hierarchical superiors’ political interests, which force their representatives “who cross the country regularly” to agree wholeheartedly with the Ottoman government’s official version of the facts.1 Soon afterward, in June of 1889, Father Galland, the Superior of the Midyat Dominican mission, was attacked. “Father Galland was robbed by Kurds six hours from that town. Although the attackers are well known to local authorities, they have not yet been arrested.”2 On the following October 18th, the guilty parties had still not been found, for they had hidden in the mountains. Nevertheless, the governor continued to assure him that the authorities were “hot on their heels and that he hoped to have them soon.” Despite the vali’s laudable diligence, Félix Bertrand realized the difficulties that the governor faces in a land where administrators have no prestige, where the Kurdish aghas are absolute masters of the situation, where highway robbery is part and parcel of the mores of a population that can always find safe refuge in the mountains if they are being chased.3

Even if he did not yet speak of open revolt, the vice-consul of France asserted that “it cannot be denied that their [Kurdish] aghas are absolute masters in their tribes, that without their consent, authorities can do nothing, and that the Ottomans must be very careful with them if they want to continue governing”. The unruly state of affairs throughout Diyarbakir province would take a turn for the worse in Tur Abdin, where abuses quickly escalated beyond the usual limits of highway robbery. In total impunity, the Kurdish chieftains rushed headlong into all forms of depredation, and did not shrink from murder. 1 Article first published in the London Times, and reprinted in the review Tarik, #213, February 17, 1306 of the Hegira. 2 Diplomatic dispatch #4, August 19, 1889. 3 Idem.

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THE DAWN OF A NEW POLICY The first massacre was reported in a postscript to a diplomatic dispatch dated October 18, 1889. I have just learned that grave events have occurred in Jebel Tur: Sahran, a Kurdish agha and chief of the highway robbers, whose father was hanged for his crimes, has just attacked a number of Jacobite villages with his gang. Word has it that there are about forty victims, that their cruelty was ferocious and that they massacred women and children. Last year, when Sahran was caught in the very act of highway robbery, he was arrested by the military. Once he was handed over to the courts, he was acquitted, several months ago. His impunity encourages him to commit the crimes that it is my honor to report to Your Excellency.1

Several months later, an identical incident occurred in the Armenian village of Bleider, “where the Kurds massacred about ten people and burned sixty homes.” In June 1889, two hundred Gregorian Armenian families from Hazro, a town twelve hours east of Diyarbakir, abandoned their harvests, their homes and all their belongings and came to camp under the walls of our city [Diyarbakir].” Several of their representatives came into the city to ask the vice-consul of France for his protection, “begging him to intercede with the governor to deliver them from their agha Seweddin Bey’s violence.” The governor, after “sending a commissioner to conduct an inquiry,” decided that none of the facts relative to Seweddin Bey had been proven and that he could not take any action against him. I told Haji Hassan Bey that we were all well aware of how the Kurdish aghas treated Christians, and that it was not surprising that the commissioner had been unable to prove the allegations […] since no one dared testify against him.2

All these chieftains, who committed acts of violence even on their own villages, were known to the authorities and continued to commit their crimes with complete impunity. In Jebel Tur, Hajo Sarukhan, Chelikli Ali Mamo, Tammo Ghevrani, etc.; in Jezireh, Mohammed agha 1 2

Diplomatic dispatch #5, October 18, 1889. Idem.

94

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE and Musto chieftain of the Kochers; in Nusaybin, Seydo Messul and Miran agha; in the vicinity of Mardin, sheikh Usso and sheikh Saddo; […] each and every one of them is an independent petty tyrant crushing Muslims and Christians alike, and whose misdeeds would take too long to relate here.1

For example, the conflict between the “very powerful” Kurdish agha of Viranshehir and the large Arabic tribe of the Shammars devastated the entire region west of Mardin. In Tur Abdin in August 1888, “a Kurdish chieftain from Jebel Tur, Hajo Sarukhan, attacked a number of Jacobite villages, several people were massacred and many houses were burned.” The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch immediately lodged a complaint with the Istanbul government. An inquiry was conducted, and even if the crimes the Patriarch reported have not all been established, the fact remains that 18 people are known to have been killed in the skirmish and several homes burned. Nonetheless, Sarukhan roams freely through his mountains whereas the Patriarch was accused of whipping up public opinion by exaggerating the facts and by making false reports to Constantinople. Because of this, his Beatitude has been sent to Diyarbakir, where he has remained since November […] The unfortunate Patriarch has had all communication with his bishops and vicars cut.2

The Patriarch preferred to ask the French vice-Consul to intervene on his behalf to the governor, for he knew from the outset that the British representative would do nothing. The governor answered that “at the Sublime Porte, feelings are not favorable to the Patriarch”, and he asked the vice-consul to urge the Patriarch “to write him a letter refuting everything he had said and expressing his sincerest regrets”. Far from urging him down this road to compromise, “which would be an affront to his honor and which was contrary to reality”, the vice-consul advised the Patriarch instead to write a new, detailed report, which he would send to Istanbul himself. I do not know whether I should attribute the case’s success to that move, but a month after it was sent, the Patriarch received word from Constantinople that the 1 2

Idem. Diplomatic dispatch #1, March 18, 1890.

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charge that had been leveled at his correspondence had been dropped and I have also found out that the Vali received official censure for the affair. Last week, the Patriarch came to announce the good news to me and thanked me for the help I had given him.1

These events were but the first signs of the wide-scale massacres that during the next years would stain all of Diyarbakir province in blood. The sudden outburst of hatred and violence against Christian was without precedent in Ottoman history. The question of the mass massacres truly arose after the events of 1895. These events would affect all Christian communities of every faith that had lived in the region since long before the arrival of even the first Turks in Anatolia, and they would pose the question of Eastern Christianity’s eradication. The first Seljuk Turkish conquerors only reached Anatolia from Central Asia at the end of the 10th century.2 At the eve of the year 1895, the Syriac Orthodox Church numbered thirteen dioceses. Immediately after the First World War, it would have only five, plus a new one, Lebanon. What happened in the meantime?3

The Syriac communities’ lot was cast in with that of the Armenians, upon whom they closely depended. The “Armenian Question” was brought to the forefront of international attention by Westerners during negotiations leading to the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. Examining this point forces us to look at a broader picture than just Diyarbakir province. The Ottoman Empire was on its last legs. In 1876, Sultan Abdul Hamid (1842-1918) succeeded his uncle Abdul Aziz, who is believed to have been assassinated, and then his brother Murad V. The Balkan crises that led to the disastrous war with Russia destabilized the power of the Sultan himself. After a new constitution was adopted in 1876 to institute reforms insisted upon by Western powers, the Sultan was forced to suspend it in February 1878. The era of the Tanzimats that had proclaimed respect of individual liberties and equality of rights and responsibilities for Idem. See Etienne COPEAUX, Espaces et temps de la nation turque, analyse d’une historiographie nationaliste 1931-1993, Paris, CNRS, 1997. 3 Ray Jabre MOUAWAD, Les syriaques occidentaux de l’Empire ottoman au Liban, Beirut, unpublished (typewritten copy), p. 181. 1 2

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both Muslim and non-Muslim subjects, had raised many hopes in 1839: Modernization of the army, of the administration, of the system of taxation and of education, with the help of European experts and methods, increased centralization of power and reorganization of the provincial governments to rein in local feudal systems, improvement of the infrastructure, the beginning of industrialization, increasing the interior autonomy of millets, those ethnic and denominational communities that grouped non-Muslims together under their religious leaders, better access to public office for minorities.1

Mistrustful of liberal opposition, Abdul Hamid began a long personal reign that only came to an end after the Young Turks’ revolution of 1909. The reforms agreed upon in Istanbul had little effect on the Eastern vilayets. During their advance of 1878, the Russian troops had reached all the way to Erzurum, inflicting utter defeat on the Ottoman army. During the peace negotiations, the new Russian occupier explicitly raised the question of the Armenian populations’ safety. Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878, already stipulated the need to reform the Ottoman administration under the control of the occupying forces, which was an attempt to better protect the Christian minorities. Under pressure from the British, who were nervous at the new Russian dominance in the region, the treaty was renegotiated in Berlin on July 13th of the same year. The new terms demanded that the application of reforms be put not under the Russians’ sole responsibility, but rather under the joint responsibility of the five signatory powers: England, France, Austria, Germany, Russia with the Ottoman Empire. Shortly afterwards, Russia was forced to evacuate some of the lands it had conquered, leaving the Sultan alone to apply the reforms. Panic-stricken Armenians rushed back towards the Caucasus Mountains with the Tsarist army. The right of inspection furnished a pretext for many diplomatic incursions into Istanbul, for though the official reason given was “protection” of Christians, the real reason was a mixture of all sorts of religious, economic and commercial interests. The 1

C. MOURADIAN, op. cit., préface, p. 11.

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sheer number of these incursions was ill perceived by the Ottoman government, but especially by Muslim public opinion, which, resentful of foreign interference, developed a strong feeling of xenophobia towards “Christians”. A Christian citizen was no longer accepted as a member of the Ottoman Empire, but was seen rather as a potential enemy within the borders. On the eve of the massacres, the situation was nicely summarized by Paul Cambon, the French ambassador of the time. A Turkish administrator used to tell me two years ago “The Armenian question does not yet exist, but we will create it”. That prediction has come true. The Armenian question does indeed exist today. […] In Europe, we heard of an Armenian movement for the first time in about 1885. […] By continually telling the Armenians that they were plotting, they ended up making the Armenians plot; by continually telling them that Armenia did not exist, they ended up convincing the Armenians it existed.1

1 Paul CAMBON, Correspondence. 1870-1924. First volume (18781898), “[…] La Turquie d’Abdul Hamid”, Paris, Grasset, 1940. Letter to his mother, p. 395.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) For a long time, chroniclers perpetuated the idea that the Syriac communities had not been touched by the massacres of 1895. The account left by the Anglican Reverend William Wigram, who was present in the region around 1911, offers the most egregious example: The massacre was undoubtedly prompted by the government of Constantinople; but their agents were the fanatical Kurds who swarm in the slums of Diarbekir, and who flocked in eagerly from the surrounding villages to take a hand in the work of slaughter and to share in the plunder which followed. That the massacres were political and not religious was proved by the fact that the Syrian Christians (who are also numerous in Diarbekir) did not suffer anything like the same extent as their Armenian coreligionists.

The climate of insecurity that until then had been maintained by the Ottoman authorities’ passivity quickly degenerated after 1894 into what looks today like civil war. We can trace the changes in the diplomatic dispatches and reports sent by Gustave Meyrier, vice-consul of France at Diyarbakir, and well-placed witness to the events of 1894-1896. All his dispatches were addressed directly to Paul Cambon, future drafter of the Franco-British entente of 1914, when he would be French ambassador to Constantinople.1 The first trouble occurred out on October 4, 1894. I have learned that trouble broke out in the Bitlis vilayet near Mush, after the local Armenians supposedly tried an insurrection. About 3,000 Armenians are said to have met up on the mountain of Antogh Dagh and to have entered into open rebellion against the Sultan. They were probably forced into this act of desperation by the harassment to which the

Long excerpts of this correspondence have been published, both in Gustave MEYRIER, op. cit., with foreword and annotation by Claire Mouradian, and in the Livres Jaunes (LIVRE JAUNE, Armenian Affairs, Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1897. C.P.C. Levant, 1918-1940) put out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I shall mark the source with either G. M. (for Gustave Meyrier) or L. J. (for Livre Jaune) 1

99

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Kurds, and even the Ottoman administrators, subject them.1

The regular army intervened, and

upon an order from Constantinople, the commander of the 4th Army Corps at Erzinjan came to the area at the head of a considerable force of regular troops, of a contingent supplied by local Kurds and with a certain number of Hamidiye that had been mobilized by the vali of Bitlis. There is talk of 1,500 deaths. […] After annihilating those poor wretches, the Kurds are said to have attacked, pillaged and burned Armenian villages. They committed all sorts of atrocities on the Christian population. […] About 7,500 people are believed to have died, 30 villages burned and 400 women kidnapped. These events were then repeated on the border of the Diyarbakir vilayet, near Silvan, where several villages were looted and burned by the Kurds.2

At the same time, terror spread through the neighboring province of Diyarbakir, where the Kurdish tribes, emboldened by the impunity with which their brethren from Bitlis had been able to act, worked up public opinion against Christians. […] the Muslims’ hostility towards Christians seems to have doubled, and they show it, I have heard, without any sense of moderation. Thus, recently, in one of the main mosques in Harput, a Mullah, quite insane as he has been described to me, preached holy war and called upon all Turks to prepare to exterminate the Christians.3

The first aggression took place within the city of Diyarbakir itself on February 9, 1895. Yesterday, after a minor argument between a Muslim and a Christian, a group of 25-30 Kurds attacked without provocation the Armenian workers at the market, coppersmiths who were working peacefully, beat them and threatened them and their coreligionists

1 Report #10, October 4, 1894, G. M., pp. 43-44, “Massacre of Christians in the Bitlis vilayet”. 2 Idem. 3 Report #1, January 25, 1895, G. M., p. 48, “Arrests in Harput and in Kozat”.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 101 with death, saying with knives or swords in hand that they were going to kill all the Christians.1

The governor took no action. A calm, which for Gustave Meyrier, “is only superficial”, for it was only due, in his opinion, to the passivity of the oppressed and to the fear that they would only worsen their situation if they were to protest openly. Mass protest marches are rare, but the isolated facts abound and bear daily witness to the hostility that exists against Christians among the Muslims in general.2

The new situation was no longer restricted to the tight framework of the “Armenian issue”, since it had become a wider “Christian issue”. The vice-consul states this without ambiguity: This state of affairs affects all Christians regardless of race, be they Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian or Greek. It is the result of a religious hatred that is all the more implacable in that it is based on the strength of some and the weakness of others. We might even say that the “Armenian issue” is foreign to this matter, for if the Armenians are indeed the worst treated, it is because they are the most numerous and because it is easy to portray the cruelty to which they are subjected as a form of repression necessary for public safety.3

Obviously, the supposed activism of the Armenians was a fiction, for according to Gustave Meyrier’s testimony, the Armenians of this vilayet are unable, and indeed unwilling, to conspire against the Sultan’s domination. […] What they are asking for above all is a regime change, serious reforms that will provide them with better treatment.4

At the same time, the governor of the neighboring province of Bitlis, who is infamous for having let the massacres in his province occur, and who had been fired on January 28, 1895 under pressure from the Foreign Powers, was named to the post of governor of Diyarbakir. Was this provocation? The nomination did

1 Report #2, February 9, 1895, G. M., p. 50, “Situation of the Christians in the vilayet”. 2 Idem, p. 51. 3 Idem, p. 53. 4 Idem, p. 54.

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nothing to ease the situation. A large crowd cheered him as he arrived, giving him an ovation that was very noticeable in the present situation and which proves that the Muslims of Diyarbakir share the same sentiments their coreligionists in the Bitlis vilayet have towards Christians and I firmly believe that if the opportunity arose, they would be ready to follow their example.1

Several weeks later, the sheik of Zilan, the person mainly responsible for the massacres in Sassun, came to Diyarbakir to work Muslims up against Christians, reproaching the city’s Muslims for their lack of zeal for their faith. He is said to have asserted that the Kurds from his mountains had shown themselves more faithful to their beliefs by taking up arms against Christians.2

Gustave Meyrier was immediately concerned about this presence in the city. I must stress how grave the Christians’ situation is in Diyarbakir. The Muslims are more worked up than ever; they express their hostility openly with continuous attacks […]. As for the vali, he is useless and unable to take the smallest steps to enforce public calm. The Christians are very frightened and dread the worst excesses. They have taken most of their merchandise out of the market and brought it back home with them for fear that it will be set on fire, as was done in Mardin two years ago, when the present governor was the Mutessarif there.3

In 1892, in Mardin, arson had devastated all the shops in the market kept by Christians. The guilty parties were never punished. Once again, Gustave Meyrier stressed the authorities’ passivity, particularly that of the police, who in this matter did nothing to protect the Christians. The consul had the distinct impression that the situation could quickly take a turn for the worse at any moment and become a massive uprising against Christians.

Idem, p. 56. Encrypted telegram, March 20, 1895, G. M., p. 61. 3 Encrypted telegram, March 23, 1895, G. M., p. 63. 1 2

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 103 In the beginning of October 1895, the city’s Christians protested against the new governor’s provocative attitude by closing their shops and their churches. The Syrian bishop [this is most probably the representative of the Syriac Catholic Church], threatened with death, took refuge at the consulate. He fears that the Muslims will take advantage of the situation to rise up against the Christians.1

Several days later, “two gunshots were fired at the Jacobite bishop.”2 In Istanbul, massacres had broken out in the Christian neighborhoods during the month of September of the same year. Fearing that anarchy would spread throughout the Empire, the representatives of the western Powers put pressure on the Ottoman government to set the reforms already decided upon into action, though these were no longer the reforms promised in the Treaty of Berlin, which were too difficult to enact, but rather reforms the Ottomans had promised within the framework of a new, more concise plan that had been presented to, and then imposed on the Sultan in April 1895. This minimalist plan had dropped the idea of autonomy for the “Armenian” provinces and simply aimed “to guarantee the life, property and peace of the Armenians against the arbitrary tyranny of administrators and soldiers and against the attacks of the Kurds.”3 With little choice, the Sultan published these reforms at the end of October in an imperial decree that was poorly received by public opinion, which once again saw in it the mark of western “imperialism”. Several thousand kilometers away from the capital, news of the decree came to Diyarbakir and caused “great uproar among the Muslims”, who were convinced that the reforms were aimed against them; their only thought now was to avenge themselves on “the Christians”, which meant Armenians and Syriacs both. Wellknown Muslim personalities sent the Sultan a telegram of protest, affirming that they would put their murderous plans into action the very next day. “Armenia was conquered with blood, it will only be

Encrypted telegram, October 7, 1895, G. M., p. 77. Encrypted telegram, October 9, 1895, G. M., p. 78. 3 See note #63 written by Claire Mouradian, G. M., pp. 82-83. 1 2

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yielded with blood.”1 The tribal chiefs promised to send 10,000 Kurds. On October 17, Gustave Meyrier noted that “excitement is visible among the Muslims, who, it is said, are buying a great deal of weapons and ammunition.” On October 22, the Muslims bought all the weapons in the market at outrageous prices. Sinister rumors began to run through the city. Rumor had it that the most dangerous men in the land had come to town, such as the Sheik of Zilan and a certain Rashid Agha who is well known in the area, and we could see meetings going on among many Muslims.2

On October 30, Gustave Meyrier went to the governor’s office “to inform him of these rumors and to ask him to take measures”, and the governor responded “that there was nothing to fear, that the Muslims were calm, that their religion prohibited them from killing, and that he personally guaranteed public calm provided the Christians did nothing to disturb it”.3 The following Friday, on November 1, “at a prearranged hour, once the signal was given”, the massacre began to the vengeful cries of “Salavat Mohamed, as had been decided earlier, without any provocation from anyone”.4 The first gunshot was fired by a policeman on an unfortunate Chaldean who happened to be near the great mosque. The massacre began systematically with the looting of the market’s shops and the murder of all the Christians still present in the streets. The guilty parties, according to the vice-consul of France, were the city’s Kurds, as well as Muslims from all backgrounds, who were bent under the weight of “the heavy objects they had stolen”. The looting quickly spread. “From the windows of the consulate, Mr. Cassabian saw the Governor’s personal secretary, preceded by a hamal [a porter], both bent under their bundles, making several trips back and forth.” During the day, the marketplace was set on fire and burned down overnight, which according to Gustave Meyrier, caused more than 2 million Turkish pounds in losses. One Turkish gold pound was worth 22 French gold pounds. Encrypted telegram, October 31, 1895, G. M., p. 84. Report #18, December 18, 1895, G. M., p. 125, “General Report on the events of November: Massacre at Diyarbakir”. 3 Idem. 4 Idem, p. 129. 1 2

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 105

“THE CITY IS IN FIRE AND BLOOD, SAVE US.” The slaughter only began the next day. That day at sunrise, the carnage started and lasted until Sunday night. They had divided themselves into groups and proceeded systematically house by house, taking good care not to touch the Muslims’ homes. They kicked in the doors, looted everything, and if the people were home, they slit their throats. They killed everyone they could find, men, women, and children; the girls were kidnapped. Almost all the city’s Muslims, soldiers, zaptiyes and the Kurds, took part in the horrible butchery.1 A little further down in this dispatch, Gustave Meyrier specified that “the Kurds from the tribes did not come in”, which meant that the authorities had deliberately closed the city gates, since they knew full well that those hordes of savages make no distinction between religions, and that if their instincts for pillage and murder were loosed, the whole town, Muslim and Christian alike, would have been slaughtered.

Still, a few Christians managed to defend themselves with the few weapons they had and they successfully protected some neighborhoods. The streets were narrow and easily defendable, but no one could get out of the city. The Capuchin priests’ monastery took in more than 3,000 Christians of all denominations, and more than 1,500 had found refuge at the French consulate. The streets were no longer usable, since they were blocked by the bodies, so those poor people were forced to make holes in the walls of their homes to escape through the openings; and if they escaped, under a hail of bullets, they would cross from terrace to terrace over the street on planks to their place of refuge. One woman fell as I was watching, just as she was about to go in.2

During the night of November 2-3, the French consul was thoroughly panicked, fearing for his own life since he thought the consulate was about to be attacked. He could do nothing else but take in and comfort the families who had come to the consulate for

1 2

Idem, p. 131. Idem.

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shelter. In the middle of the night, he sent Paul Cambon a desperate telegram: “The city is in fire and blood, save us”.1 On November 4, Paul Cambon wrote a letter to his mother: Asia Minor is literally in flames. There are massacres everywhere. On certain points, the Armenians were the instigators, but on others, they were the victims of Muslim fanaticism. At Diyarbakir, they have been killing and looting since Friday. Our consul is locked in his house with 500 refugees and from his window, he watches policemen take up arms with groups of savage Kurds from outside the city and with Muslims from within. They are massacring all Christians without distinction.2

The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch’s presence in the capital, Diyarbakir, on the very day of the massacres is confirmed by two accounts, Father Armalet’s and Patriarch Barsaum’s,3 though it is not mentioned in the French vice-consul’s dispatches. According to these accounts, several days before the start of the massacres, the city’s Syriac Orthodox bishop, together with the other Christian dignitaries of Diyarbakir, was forced to sign a declaration stating that the region was unsafe, with the implication that the cause was alleged Armenian “terrorism”. The declaration could justify before the fact the events that were to occur. Indeed, the French consul mentioned a telegram that the province’s new governor, named to his position on October 4th, had the Christian representatives and notables sign the following day to thank the Sultan for his nomination. The heads of the religious communities and the Christian notables, invited to sign, at first tried to avoid it, but upon formal demand, they did not dare to refuse to sign a document handed to them by a zaptiye.4

The city’s Christians resented the weakness of the prelates who had signed, and openly rebelled against their representatives by occupying the churches and preventing the priests from saying 1

p. 85.

Encrypted telegram, “Urgent, November 2, 1895, 1:00 am”, G. M.

Letter from Paul Cambon to his mother, op. cit., p. 395. R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 186. The author had access to the Syriac text, The history of Tur Abdin, by Patriarch BARSAUM, and offers several passages translated into French. 4 Encrypted telegram, October 5, 1895, G. M., p. 76. 2 3

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 107 mass, even at times manhandling them. These acts of unrest gave the authorities the pretext they needed to use officially to start the repression. According to Father Armalet’s version, the governor summoned the Syriac Patriarch, Abdul-Masîh, to Diyarbakir, where he arrived just as the first massacres began.1 He left on time [from Mardin] and had barely reached the city when he heard the sound of rifles. He called a young Syriac and entrusted him with a letter for the vali announcing his arrival. But as soon as the young emissary reached Milik Ahmed souq, he was attacked by “ajlâfs” and killed. Seeing that he had been carrying a letter for the vali, they brought it to him. When the vali read it, he ordered a regiment to go to the Syriacs’ church to protect it. Many Christians, “Nazareans”, of all denominations ran to take refuge there until there were soon about 8,000 of them there, including people from nearby villages. Then the vali ordered an escort to go to get the Patriarch. He crossed the city, walking over the corpses. The government seat was filled with tribes brandishing swords red with human blood. Muslim notables were holding a council at the vali’s residence, but refused to see the Patriarch. The Patriarch went in, was kindly welcomed by the vali, who informed him that he was ordering all Christians to hand their weapons over to the government. The Patriarch promised him that it would be done. He returned to the church with Nazifân and Bekran effendis, and with a group of soldiers come to look for weapons, but when they found nothing, they returned

1 Oral tradition holds that this tragic episode caused the Patriarch to lose his mind. When he returned to Mardin, troubled by what he had seen, he began to drink. A few years later, he was deposed by a meeting of bishops, an extremely rare occurrence in the history of the Syriac Church, and was replaced by a newly elected Patriarch. He retired to a monastery in Tur Abdin for a few years, then decided to leave for India as a patriarch, and named new bishops. These nominations were the cause of a schism that still exists, in the community of (converted) Syriac Christians in Kerala (India) some two million strong.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE empty-handed to the vali, and the Patriarch remained in the church to take care of the Christians.1

The facts to be found in Patriarch Barsaum’s more concise account differ in fact and interpretation. Patriarch Abdul-Masîh arrived at Amid [Diyarbakir] on October 20th of that year; the Turks attacked the Armenians and ran them through with swords as fear came over the Syriacs, Chaldeans and Rum [Greek Orthodox]. The Patriarch sent a telegram to Sultan Abdul Hamid and obtained a formal order for the protection of the Syriacs. The Patriarch was the savior of the Syriac Orthodox Church and of its sons, and the Church of the Mother of God was like Noah’s ark for everyone…the vali of Diyarbakir sent telegrams to the governors of Mardin, Midyat and Jezireh, ordering them not to harm Syriacs.2

The sincerity of Patriarch Barsaum’s account is suspect, for until then, the authorities had done everything not to give a legitimate basis to the massacre. Is not the act of protecting a community also admitting by default that that same community could be victimized? How could it happen that Gustave Meyrier, who was aware of everything going on in that city, made no mention of the Patriarch’s arrival? Often Patriarch Barsaum’s comments on the bloody events of this period, and on those of 1915, conform to the official Turkish version. How could such indulgence on the Patriarch’s part be justified? The reason is to be found in the more recent history of the Syriac Orthodox church, for as the Patriarch was writing his memoirs, after the Second World War, the majority of the Syriac community was still living in Turkey, in Tur Abdin, and he had reason to fear reprisals. This could also explain the Syriac Orthodox authorities’ hesitation to defend the memory of the genocide. Gustave Meyrier assigns blame for the massacres with no ambiguity. The Ottoman authorities did not stop at being passive accomplices, and a number of their representatives, soldiers as well as policemen, actively participated in the slaughter.

1 Isaac ARMALET, Les calamités des Chrétiens, Beirut, 1919, p. 43. Father Armalet’s account, translated from the Arabic by the Maronite Father Maroun Kiwan, is a unique Syriac source. 2 Cited in R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 187.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 109 On Sunday, at about 3 p.m., near the consulate, I saw from my window, as everyone else saw, soldiers, zaptiye, Kurds and Muslims shoot together from the terraces and the minarets at the schismatic Armenian church. I brought this to the attention of the officer on guard.1

The entire city had begun to kill, since the Kurds from the tribes outside had not been able to enter, until then, we had been able to imagine that the armed force was trying to suppress the rebellion, and we had been able to hope that they would finish the job; but now, there was no doubt, everyone was against us.2

Acts of unbelievable cruelty were committed. “A father had his five children’s throats slit in his lap, and then he met the same fate”.3 Just as the signal had been given on Friday morning to announce the start of the massacres, the signal was given on Sunday evening to stop it. Around 8 p.m., I was informed that by order of the governor, a few Muslim notables and a Christian were busy restoring peace; two hours later, criers went through the streets announcing that the governor forbad any more gunfire, and that anyone found with a weapon in his hands would be severely punished.4

It is highly possible that the governor himself decided to give this order, rightly reckoning that three days of massacres had been sufficient. Letting it continue could have meant winding up with a widespread Kurdish revolt. It is more probable that he received an order from Istanbul, for at that very moment, Paul Cambon was telling the Grand-Vizier in person that he would have Aziz Pasha, the governor of Diyarbakir’s head if anything happened to the French vice-consul. In the report he sent Paul Cambon a month and a half after these sinister events, Gustave Meyrier once again stressed the authorities’ direct responsibility. In their version of events, the authorities had begun to insinuate that the Christians, and in particular the Armenians, had been the ones to revolt. Indeed, the Report #18, December 18, 1895, G. M., p. 132. Idem. 3 Idem, p. 137. 4 Idem, p. 133. 1 2

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Grand-Vizier himself told Paul Cambon “that the conflict had arisen from an Armenian invasion of the mosques”.1 To defend themselves, the Turks accused the Christians, as they would again in 1915, of “massacring” Muslims. I owe it to my conscience firmly to declare that the massacres at Diyarbakir were perpetrated, without provocation, by the city’s Muslims; that the Governor General, the military Commander and the Chief of Police stood by unmoved before these scenes of horror, and that they took no action to stop them; that if they did not take an active part in them, their attitude was such as to encourage them; that I saw with my own eyes the soldiers and the zaptiyes join the Muslims and Kurds to shoot at the Christians; and finally that the Christians only made use of their weapons to defend themselves when they were absolutely forced to. The police and the troops only intervened to attack the victims.2

Gustave Meyrier drew up a precise list of violent acts in his report of December 18: dead, wounded, and material losses. The Armenian community came out far ahead with more than 1,000 dead counted in the city of Diyarbakir alone. All the Christian communities were affected, regardless of faith. Gregorian Armenians: 1000 dead, 250 wounded, 1,500 homes looted, 2,000 looted and burned shops. Armenian Catholics: 10 dead, 1 wounded, 36 homes looted, 65 looted and burned shops. Jacobite Syrians [Syriac Orthodox]: 36 deaths declared, 150 actual deaths, 11 wounded, 35 homes looted, 200 looted and burned shops. Catholic Syrians [Syriac Catholics]: 3 dead, 1 wounded, 6 homes looted, 30 looted and burned shops. Chaldeans: 14 dead, 9 wounded, 58 homes looted, 78 looted and burned shops. Greeks: 3 dead, 3 wounded, 15 homes looted, 15 looted and burned shops. Protestants: 11 dead, 1 wounded, 51 homes looted, 60 looted and burned shops.3

1 Encrypted telegram, Cambon to Meyrier, November 2, 1895 at 4:00 am, G. M., p. 87. 2 Report #18, December 18, 1895, G. M., p. 134. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #44, December 18, 1895, L. J., “Complete report on the events”.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 111 167 Syriacs were assassinated, if we add Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics and Chaldeans together. We should also add to this number a few Protestants, just as it is also certain that some Armenian-speaking Syriac victims were counted as Armenians. Gustave Meyrier does not comment on the difference between the two categories “deaths declared” and “actual deaths” in the sentence on the Syriac Orthodox. Might we interpret this as a desire among the Syriac representatives purposefully to minimize their losses under pressure from the Ottoman government in order not to discredit the official Turkish position stating that only Armenians were targeted? To these numbers must also be added the number of those who disappeared: 1,000 for the city of Diyarbakir alone, and in the neighboring villages, 1,000 other victims “of all the communities” who came to work in the city every day. We must also count the material losses, for the large number of looted homes and shops meant financial ruin for many families, and the Christian communities’ progressive impoverishment. In the weeks that followed the massacres, the propaganda machine blaming the Armenians progressively set into action. The [Syriac] Bishop wants me to tell you that he no longer has any resources and that the government cut off the aide it was giving him because he refused to sign a document recognizing the Armenians’ guilt.1

At Urfa, which suffered equally violent massacres a year later, in 1896, the authorities used the same methods, which led to a marginalization of the Armenians among other Christians. Dividing and conquering, the Ottomans were in such a way able to justify the massacres as a simple police operation against an interior enemy. At the same time, the authorities were accusing the Armenians of conspiracy and were asking the heads of the various Christian communities to sign a complaint stating this. The Jacobite Patriarchal Vicar and also, it is said, the Syrian Catholic priest, had the cowardice to sign this document, the Capuchins refused.2 Encrypted telegram, December 6, 1895, M. G., p. 120. Report by Henri Pognon, consul of France at Aleppo, June 30, 1899, on the massacres of Urfa that took place on October 28, 1896. 6,000 Armenians were murdered in the center of the city. “There is talk of a Dervish who slit the throats of a hundred people himself.” 1 2

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The terror lasted another 46 days after the first events, until an official inquiry committee arrived from Istanbul at the request of the European governments. The Christians were again systematically disarmed. They were disarmed with the strictest rigor, whereas the Muslims were allowed to keep their weapons. They were imprisoned for causing the rebellion, and in prison, they were tortured to death so that they would denounce each other and give the authorities grounds to bring charges.1

All the Christian villages around Diyarbakir were laid waste: 119 villages from the Diyarbakir sanjak, numbering 6,000 families of 30,000 Christians [this figure seems exaggerated] dead or disappeared, were looted or burned. 50 girls or women kidnapped in the city. In the villages, the number is incalculable.2

Father Armalet supplies precise details missing from this report.3 Here we shall reproduce only the villages whose names have been able to be identified. The large village of Assadia [Sa`diye], two hours walking distance east of the city, was a village of 3,000 inhabitants mixed between Syriacs and Armenians. The Kurds first killed the men, then the women, and finally all the children. Some managed to take refuge in the church, but the Kurds made a hole in the roof to pour gasoline in, and then set fire to it. All those who escaped the flames had their throats slit. Only three made it out alive, and they had survived by hiding under the corpses. The village of Miaferkain [Maifarqin] which Father Armalet explains had been Christian since the 4th century, was inhabited by a population of 3,000 Armenians, Syriacs, and Protestants. On Friday November 1, the massacre began there at the same moment as at Diyarbakir. Only 15 people survived, including 3 women. Most of the 700 inhabitants died in the fire that engulfed the church and that had been started the same way as at Assadia [Sa`diye]. The witness noted that a man named Elias Moro had been able to survive by converting to Islam. “The number of

Diplomatic dispatch #44, December 18, 1895, L. J. Idem. 3 I. ARMALET, op. cit., pp. 42-65. 1 2

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 113 Syriacs noticeably declined in the village after the 1895 and 1915 massacres. In 1956, only four Christian families remained”.1 The village of Qarabâsh [Qarabash], to the east of Diyarbakir, was inhabited entirely by Syriacs and was destroyed. A Syriac Orthodox priest watched his daughters raped before his eyes, and then their throats were slit. Left alive, he went insane. The same thing goes for the village of Qotorbol [Qatrabal], on the Tigris not far from Diyarbakir. Out of the 300 Armenian and Syriac families, only 4 managed to survive. Just before the beginning of the massacres, a priest had urged his parishioners to confess and prepare for martyrdom. The church was burned in the same way, except that since they did not have gasoline, the Kurds used straw and oil. The villages of Kabia, Jarukia, Kan Akbwar, Arz ogli, Kozan, Olan, Kadia, Satia, Safia and Mashrakia all met the same fate, coming out to a total, according to the information gathered by Father Armalet, of 4,000 victims. Father Armalet says that “the Kurds and the Turks slit the inhabitants’ throats and erased them from the map.

THE SITUATION IN TUR ABDIN A new report from our consul in Baghdad confirms that the city of Mardin itself survived, though its surroundings were completely devastated.2

It is true that the city of Mardin itself was spared despite the fanaticism of certain Muslims who wanted to follow the example of their brethren in Diyarbakir. Several of the city’s influential notables, anxious above all to protect their own interests, and having everything to fear from Kurds plundering the city, wanted to maintain the image of tolerance that still marked the character of the city’s inhabitants. Father Armalet explained some of the reasons that allowed the city to escape massacre. The news of the first blood spilled in Diyarbakir reached the city the same day. On November 5th, the panic-stricken Christians took mass refuge in the churches: 150 families found shelter in the Capuchin Fathers’ monastery, 80 in the Syriac Orthodox church. Their fear was fed by the tragic sight of black smoke rising from J. M. FIEY, op. cit., p. 241. Paul Cambon to Marcelin Berthelot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on January 13, 1896. 1 2

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the first Christian villages in flames on the plain. It was the large village of Tell Armen that had been attacked the day before and whose inhabitants had fled to Mardin. In the evening of the same day, Father Armalet tells of the arrival of “soldiers” from Diyarbakir, twenty officers bearing letters for the city’s notables: “If you are true Muslims, you should have done the same thing.”1 The city’s Muslims were divided between the most fanatical on one side, worked up by two religious leaders, Sheikhs Al-Araj and Al-Hall Meri, as well as by some of the notables who indeed did want to “do the same thing as at Diyarbakir”, and those who were more moderate and worried that the town would be sacked by the tribal Kurds. The Muslims’ fear of seeing their own families murdered and homes pillaged was justified. The city’s layout, unlike Diyarbakir’s, did not allow the influx of outside elements, particularly of Kurds, to be controlled, since there were no sealed walls. Moreover, the Muslim and Christian neighborhoods were intermingled, which made it very difficult to distinguish a Muslim from a Christian home. In 1915, crosses were painted on the doors of Christian homes to remedy that problem. When the first Kurds reached the city gates on November 9th after burning the village of Ain Sanja along their way, they began by sacking the first houses they came across. A gunfight broke out, as several of the Muslim notables, accompanied by their armed guards, among them Ahmed agha, Mohammed Said agha and Faraj Bek, attacked the Kurds and managed to drive them back out of the city. With the support of the town chieftain, the Mutessarif, the decision was made to organize the town’s defense. He had 40 Martini rifles distributed among the Christians in exchange for a deposit of 300 Turkish pounds. “Whoever loves Mohammed and the government must take up arms and fight the Kurds”, he shouted. The second attack took place two days later, on November 11th. The Kurds reached the al-Bwaira gate, but were pushed back and did not manage to enter the city. To calm the situation, the town chieftain sent them an emissary, Sheikh Abd el-Rahmân, who told them to return home. According to Father Armalet, the Kurds’ response was to accuse the Mardin Muslims of having been 1

I. ARMALET, op. cit., starting on page 61.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 115 bought by the Christians to defend them, and they insisted that they were acting under orders from “the government”. On November 16th, the Kurds again attacked, and again were fought back. It was only at the end of November, after the situation had settled down, that the new governor of Diyarbakir gave the order to protect the churches, the monasteries and the Christians in general. The atmosphere in Mardin remained tense during the entire month of December as aggressions and arbitrary arrests continued against the Christians. Some Muslims, regretting what was happening, urged the Christians to reopen their shops and to go about normal life again, as they were encouraged by the governor’s new measures.1 A few weeks later, on Christmas Day 1895 [Catholic calendar], the situation again seemed to worsen for the Christians. Sheikh Mohammed Said, who had the sad reputation of having been one of the most notorious instigators of the Diyarbakir massacres, arrived in Mardin. Upon his arrival, Muslims visited him in great numbers to ask his permission to slaughter and rob “those damned pigs”, the Christians. He in return urged them to do the same thing as their brothers in Diyarbakir had against the “enemies of the faith.” That was when a fight broke out between Muslims, the ones from Diyarbakir accusing those from Mardin of being on the Christians’ payroll or even insulting them by calling them Christians themselves. Many Muslim families in Mardin were former Syriac families who had converted to Islam. They remembered this, which might help to explain their more moderate feelings towards Christians. All the city notables then began to debate amongst themselves over what position they should take (a heated debate that lasted until the middle of the night). Finally Ahmed agha and his brother decided to keep their word and continue to defend the Christians. They threatened the other Muslims and asked the government to impose law. They even went so far as to warn the Armenian bishop, Mgr. Malkun Nazarian, that a plot was hatching against him. At the end of February, a new “governor” reached Mardin and pressured the Christian dignitaries into signing a letter in which

1

Idem, page 67.

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they “thanked the government for allowing them to live in safety and peace” and stated “that only two villages had been burned.” On April 20th, two government inspectors from the commission formed at the foreign powers’ request to conduct an inquiry into the massacres, remained in the city for only ten days, and then returned to Midyat, where calm had just been restored. This special commission, presided over by General Abdullah Pasha, had arrived in Diyarbakir in the middle of December 1895. The order of these events is for the most part corroborated by the account given by the French vice-consul in a dispatch dated January 14, 1896.1 The testimony he offers was that given to him by a Muslim notable from Mardin who visited him several weeks after the events. Hussein Bey, son of Haji Kalaj Bey: when the events of Diyarbakir were announced in Mardin, the Muslims of this city planned to follow the example they had been shown […] They would certainly have done so had it not been for the energetic attitude of seven of their notables, who formally opposed the plan, and who of their own initiative and outside any authority, [The versions differ on this point. did Hussein Bey want to minimize the importance of his own role?] took steps to prevent an uprising and to make sure any Kurdish attempt to invade would fail. […] They took a solemn oath to defend them [the Christians] to the death. Several days later, the city is attacked by 1,500 Kurds. The Christians who had weapons joined the Muslims to fight back the attack; five or six Kurds were killed, the other fled after abandoning the objects they had looted from a village they had set on fire.

Gustave Meyrier was much less categorical about the actions and role of the governor of Mardin: Our Governor General, Aniz Pasha, was watching out for his vilayet’s tranquility. When he found the results insufficient, he replaced the director of Mardin’s Mutessarifate with Diyarbakir’s Mektubji. Rightly or wrongly, the notables of Mardin did not find this change to be in the best interests of their security; they declared to the new Director that they would hold him responsible for whatever events might occur and let Report #20, January 14, 1896, G. M., p. 157. “Report on the behavior of Muslims in Mardin and Jezireh.” 1

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 117 him know that if the slightest trouble came to pass, they would not hesitate to sacrifice him first. It is not known whether it was this threat that worked or whether the trouble-makers were cowed by the city leaders’ energetic attitude, but one way or the other, calm has reigned in Mardin ever since.1

Though Mardin was able to escape the events without damage, such was not the case of the surrounding Christian villages. All of them were completely destroyed in a radius of several dozen kilometers, just like those around Diyarbakir. This easy prey, isolated and defenseless (their inhabitants were mostly peasants), suffered the most violence at the hands of the tribes traveling to, or worse still, returning from Mardin, frustrated at having been driven back.2 The village of Tell Armen, situated three hours southwest of Mardin by foot, was completely sacked and burned on November 6th. The Church was partially destroyed. Before attacking the village, the Kurds, aided by the local Ottoman representative, had managed to extort first 90, then 400 Turkish pounds from the Christian families by promising to spare them. A little further east, the Syriac village of al-Kulye, made up of 300 Syriac Orthodox homes (about 2,000 individuals) was attacked “early Friday morning”, meaning on November 7th. The church was destroyed, and then the homes were burned. The inhabitants appealed to the governor of Mardin, who sent one hundred soldiers with the city’s notables, who instead of protecting the inhabitants, accepted the Muslims’ money not to take any action against the Kurds. The soldiers joined in the massacre. Witnesses counted 50 Syriacs murdered. Two hours by foot east of Mardin in the direction of Tur Abdin, Banabil, a village of 150 homes of Orthodox and Protestant Syriacs famous for their bravery, was attacked by “the Kurds and the Muslims from the village or the region.” The village of al-Mansurye managed to escape the massacre thanks to the mobilization of the Christians, who had had the time to ask for assistance from other neighboring villages. The Kurds

Idem. These excerpts are taken from the work of I. ARMALET, op. cit., pp. 54-61. 1 2

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were driven back with the help of the local military commander, who fired a canon from the village’s “castle”. Only a few kilometers from Mardin, the village of Qalaat Mara, near Deir al-Za`faran, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch’s see, was abandoned by its inhabitants who fled to the monastery, which in turn was attacked by the Kurds. The Syriacs who had taken refuge inside organized their defense. “They melted the printing press blocks into lead” to make bullets and “defended themselves for five days. They [the Syriacs] had only three killed.” Starting at this incident, Father Armalet cites two versions of events that differ particularly on the ambiguous role played by the Ottoman army. According to the first version, soldiers, including one officer, are said to have taken part in the attack on the monastery that ended up in 70 deaths, Kurds and soldiers together. Then the “government” is said to have sent 30 soldiers to protect the Christians and to lead them back under escort to their village of Qalaat Mara. How could they have attacked the monastery only to be willing to protect the Syriacs a few days later? Another version perhaps more representative of the governor’s account of events explained that “the Kurds continued to attack [the monastery] for three days.” The Turkish army was not named in this attack. Aniz Pasha, the vali of Diyarbakir [this attack took place at least one week after massacres in the capital had ceased], sent the Mutessarif an order to stop them. The Mutessarif sent soldiers and cavalry to the monastery under the command of Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Ansari, who was flying the Islamic flag. He ordered the Kurds to move off. When they refused, he killed 80 of them. Then the soldiers asked the monk David Kababe, the monastery’s Superior, to open the doors to them. He only obeyed when he had read the telegram sent to him from Diyarbakir. The soldiers thus entered and fought the tribes attacking the monastery.1

A SYRIAC EXCEPTION? It is clear that on the part of the Ottoman authorities, there was a formal desire only to attack Armenians, and to spare the Western Syriacs in 1895.2 The authorities 1 2

Idem, p. 54. R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 187.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 119 once again made manifest their desire not to attack Syriacs.1

According to Patriarch Barsaum,

On October 29th, two Syriac Orthodox notables Hanna Safar and his paternal cousin Shakoro, got a promise from the Turkish officer in charge of the region that he would protect the Syriacs and help them according to the directives he had received from the vali. He kept his word, for he protected Midyat and went to the villages to expel the Kurds. This situation continued from November 29th until April 1896. That was why Tur Abdin was not subjected to any horrors from Hasankeif to the Mountain of Mar Awgin, or from Jezireh to Mardin.2

None of the facts supports such an assertion. Gustave Meyrier never once states in his hundred or so telegrams covering the period that the Muslims made any distinction between Syriacs and other Christians. The vice-consul always spoke of “Christians” as a whole. We do not possess any direct information on Midyat, a town with a high Syriac majority, except for this aside Gustave Meyrier wrote on January 12, 1896, two months after the events in Diyarbakir: “I have been told that there have been new massacres in Midyat”,3 which would imply that massacres had already occurred there in November. But the vice-consul tempered the allegation: I cannot obtain any certain information, […] now that the government is carefully hiding all matters of this nature. Even Abdullah Pasha has not to my knowledge expressed himself openly. He told me it was a minor quarrel, of purely local interest.4

The Ottoman authorities are consciously trying to downplay the scope of the massacres. Paul Cambon repeated the information the very next day in a letter he sent the French Minister of Foreign Affairs: “A telegram from Mr. Meyrier yesterday informed me that a massacre took

Idem, op. cit., p. 193. Idem. 3 Encrypted telegram, January 12, 1896, G. M., p. 153. 4 Idem. 1 2

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place in Midyat, the county capital of Tur Abdin, to the southeast of Diyarbakir”.1 Midyat’s distance from the province’s capital more than one hundred kilometers away helped lessen the unrest, for in fact, we possess very little testimony to it. Unfortunately, it was not the same in the villages, where there was no consul of France in danger. There, the massacre lasted even longer than two weeks.2

Midyat was affected by the massacres, even if we do not know to what extent, as were the villages of Tur Abdin, as is suggested by the testimony of Father Galland, a Dominican on mission to Jezireh. The scenes of savagery start at Jezireh. Within Jezireh, against all expectations, nothing happened, and Father Galland lived up to that point in safety; but very close to Jezireh, in the Jacobite villages of Jebel Tur, the Kurds plundered and massacred to their heart’s content.3

Gustave Meyrier confirmed that nothing had happened within Jezireh itself: The results we can observe are due to the vigilance and energy of a Redif [Army Reserve] battalion chief, Riza Effendi. [This man seems to have acted on his own initiative and not] according to the orders he had received from the vali, for he has just been summoned to Diyarbakir to answer an accusation leveled against him by Mustapha Pasha, colonel of a regiment of Hamidiye, whom he carefully kept away from the city for the duration of the events.

Father Galland’s testimony offers a little more information on the turn of events in Tur Abdin, when he crossed the eastern part of the region the following year on his way to Siirt: I would not know how to express to you the pangs of sadness that gripped us when we saw, in the Christian villages we crossed, the still recent signs of looting and arson, the homes without roofs or doors, all wide open and emptied of their inhabitants, the profaned churches 1 Paul Cambon to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, January 13, 1896, G. M., p. 154. 2 Idem. 3 November 1, 1896, a letter reporting on Father Galland’s trip from “Jezireh to Siirt via Jebel Tur”.

CHAPTER 7. ERADICATION BY MASSACRE (1894-1896) 121 in the same state, the harvests abandoned in the fields for lack of hands and beasts of burden. Large towns almost deserted, where only a few groups of women and children wander through the ruins, since the men for the most part died under Kurdish knives and bullets […] In the smallest villages, the victims number in the hundreds, and it should be noted that everywhere, the first to be attacked were the priests, then the schoolteachers and the main landowners or other influential figures. […] The Kurds still come at any time to rob the Christian villagers of the few flocks they managed to save.1

Only this testimony speaks of massacres of Syriacs in Tur Abdin in 1895, but it would be an act of pure imagination to hazard a guess as to the number of victims. It nonetheless allows us to affirm that the Syriac Orthodox were indeed fully intended victims, unlike in Diyarbakir for example, where the large Armenian populations could lead some authors, such as Reverend Wigram, to suppose that non-Armenians had just been accidental victims.

1

Idem.

CHAPTER 8. ERADICATION BY CONVERSION The process of converting the Christians that had started during the first centuries of Islam, had greatly slowed during the modern period, and had finally become a rare phenomenon in the history of the Ottoman Empire. The millet system that the Sultan had established to give Christians and Jews a legal status theoretically did not permit religious proselytizing. The millet principle offered each Christian community, starting with the Armenians or Greeks, the framework of a personal status for its members and the guarantee of representation before the Sultan. “It had the merit of defining minorities and of recognizing a particular standing for them in an organized society”.1 The Sultan’s authority had always proven much more implacable towards Islamic heresies, as the martyrdom of the Kurdish Yezidi shows, than towards Christianity. It seems that the number of Christian conversions to Islam had been the result of progressive, rather than violent, assimilation, particularly in large Turkish cities. The new, forced conversions that took place between 1895 and 1915 were analogous to weapons, since wide-scale, systematic conversions were used to combat an “enemy”. The dramatic events that stained the end of the 19th century in blood were fed by a deep-seated resurgence of religious radicalism that in practical terms, entailed divisiveness and conflict between communities. The whipping up of religious sentiment shattered the status quo that had until then governed the Muslims’ attitude toward Christians. The status of non-Muslims, or dhimmis, was gradually emptied of its most favorable aspects and left with only its most openly discriminatory aspects; verbal, religious, clothing and even social harassment. The reforms set in place towards the end of the Ottoman Empire were unable to bridge the gap caused by the erosion of that status, and left the Christian communities without any real protection or rights. The testimony gathered from diplomatic and missionary sources often show that the forced conversions to Islam were a corollary to the massacres. The phenomenon was noted in 1895, when thousands of Christians, including hundreds of Syriacs, were 1

X. de PLANHOL, op. cit., p. 234.

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forced to recant their faith in order to survive. This was also the case, to a lesser degree, during the genocidal acts of violence in 1915. Recanting was the only practical way a Christian could survive an attack, if indeed his attackers left him the choice. The candidates were few, preferring to die as martyrs rather than embrace another religion. The men were often systematically executed, but some testimony cites a few cases of conversions that allowed families to be spared. In Diyarbakir for example, after the 1895 massacres, the vice-consul of France came to the defense of two Christian girls belonging to the Greek community, the daughters of Marie Mavraki. Their father had embraced Islam during the events of 1895 and until his death in 1899, had not stopped living with his wife and children, who were publicly known to be Christians, and during his lifetime, he himself had never once shown any desire to have them change their religion.1 The non-Muslim becomes Muslim by reciting the Islamic profession of faith. If he is an idolater, he must simply recite the following formula: “There is no other God but Allah”. Jews and Christians who already believe in one God must add the formula, “And Mohamed is his Prophet”.

Under duress, this confirmation of faith was relatively easy to obtain. The difficulty came later, since in his Muslim context, the new convert would have to live in strict accordance with the rules of Islam. The slightest infringement was never forgiven. Forced conversions affected all Christian communities without distinction. Gustave Meyrier tells us that “the Greek Orthodox village of Pakoz, with its hundred families and one priest, is now forced to convert to Islam.”2 Father Armalet wrote that during the massacre of the Syriac village of Maifarqin, one man out of a thousand inhabitants, Elias Moro, survived by converting to Islam. In a report sent on May 14, 1896 to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul Cambon mentioned several forced conversions in the Diplomatic dispatch #12, July 5, 1901. G. MEYRIER, November 7, 1896, L. J., “Information on Mardin”. 1 2

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north of the Diyarbakir vilayet, implying that Armenians, as well as Syriacs, were affected. He then spoke of the daily rigors that the new converts were made to endure. In Birejik, the inquiry had established that only those who had converted to Islam had been spared. The Armenians who had become Muslims had had to turn their church into a mosque in order to prove the sincerity of their conversion; now they wear turbans, show themselves very zealous at the mosque and they know that if they do not declare that they became Muslims of their own free will, they are in danger. […] In Siverek, in Diyarbakir province, Mr. Fitz-Maurice [the British consul] has noted that the Syrian population [meaning Syriac] has been affected as much as the Armenian population, and that often, the Christians had been given a choice between death and conversion. There are said to have been about 200 conversions.1

The French ambassador goes on:

These forced conversions, inspired by terror, not allowed and not recognized even today, are carried on just about everywhere by the Muslims, who keep up fierce pressure on the unfortunate converts and threaten to treat as a renegade apostate whoever tries to return to his original faith. This is one of the most delicate situations we have been called upon to deal with. It exists in Van, in Diyarbakir, in Marash, wherever in the provinces there has been blood spilled by massacres. […] Every time these particular facts have been brought to my attention, I have intervened, but my efforts have not yet been enough to cause a modification of the state of affairs that embarrasses even the Ottoman government. The British Ambassador has sent the Sultan information that had come to him concerning the annihilation of the Christian population of Birejik, where all the survivors had to convert to Islam.2

In the spring of 1915, the only peculiarity of the Diyarbakir massacres came from the amount of corroborated testimony telling of forced conversions to Islam. Unlike Harput, where “men’s 1 Dispatch #125, May 14, 1896, from P. Cambon to M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, L. J. 2 Idem.

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conversions were not allowed; as for the women, when they converted, they were required to do so in the presence of Muslims who agreed to marry them.”1 According to Father Armalet, the only Christians to survive were those who became Muslims. Father Rhétoré’s comments on Mardin also uphold this: There were also those who accepted Islam in order to escape death. This is what 250 Gregorian Armenian families did, 25 Armenian Catholic and 12 Chaldean families. Seeing the terrible tempest unleashed against Christians, these people had taken refuge with Muslim friends, but the merciless Reshid Pasha and his aide Bedruddin forced the Muslims to hand over those they were protecting. Since there was nothing ahead of them but death, they decided to become Muslims and live. This sad action, I have been told, was taken only by the families’ chiefs; the women, more honorable, are said to have exclaimed, “Let us die rather than betray the Christian faith.”2

The issue of conversions was formally brought up with the Ottoman government during the foreign powers’ recriminations after the massacres. But the subject seems to have been extremely embarrassing to the authorities, since it tacitly illustrated an obvious desire to be done with the Christians once and for all. The conversions were probably sanctioned by the government, for if it did not officially order them, it at least encouraged them by considering them as faits accomplis, as well as by attempting to find the legal pretexts necessary to cover a situation born of violence. Locally, Gustave Meyrier was asked to follow the example of the French ambassador at Istanbul by bringing the matter of corroborated forced conversions before the Ottoman courts as often as he possibly could. In the case of the two Greek girls cited above, the vice-consul officially requested that the case be submitted to the governor so that he could pronounce judgment either to return the girls to their Christian mother or to leave them with their new “adoptive” Muslim family. The Minister of the Interior, called upon by the governor, told him “to leave the girls where they were”, meaning with their Muslim family.

1 2

Idem. J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #1, p. 36.

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After receiving this response, the vali rushed to inform the vice-consul of his decision, which would in fact legitimize their conversion. Since the two girls in question had been with their Muslim father until his death, according to Muslim religious law, the “Mahkemei-Shiri” had to name a guardian for them who would place them with Muslim notables so that they would receive a Muslim education.1

He accuses the Cadi and the governor explicitly, since “these two administrators of the vilayet stand out by their outrageous fanaticism and their grudge against Christians, and since indeed they themselves are the instigators of most of the conversions going on in Diyarbakir”.2 Moreover, witnesses also gave testimony to cases of slavery. Certain Kurdish tribes took advantage of the chaos to deem kidnapped women and girls as saleable or exploitable booty. Gustave Meyrier wrote in a telegram dated April 3, 1896 that about one hundred women and children, whose names he had drawn up in a list, had been kidnapped.3 Faced with the vice-consul’s zeal, the governor decided to send a detachment into the Kurdish villages to look for them. “We have been informed that before the soldiers set out, the Kurds had been warned to hide the women they are holding and if need be, to move them from one village to another.”4 The commander of this military detachment, Abdullah Pasha, later let the French representative know that he had more important things to do and that he did not want to hear any more of these conversions. The kidnapped girls, often little more than children, were converted and then raised according to the rules of Islam by Muslim families, who considered them “ghiaurs”, without rights and cut off from their roots. Many were later sold as slaves to serve as domestic help for Muslim families. These facts are also confirmed at the same time by the French consul, M. Pognon, in a dispatch dated November 10, 1896. 1 Dispatch #125, May 14, 1896, from P. Cambon to M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, L. J. 2 Idem. 3 Encrypted telegram, April 3, 1896, G. M., p. 183. 4 Idem.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE I have just learned that Armenian girls kidnapped from Diyarbakir, Urfa, and towns where massacres took place have been on sale for the last few weeks, almost openly, in Aleppo, in the Bab-Nerab neighborhood. I could not even attempt an approximate guess as to how many girls have been sold: the Bab-Nerab district is inhabited by fanatic Muslims, Christians never venture there, and it is almost impossible for a European to go there without being attacked. It is therefore very difficult to know what is going on there, but that this sale is happening is sure, for an extremely honorable doctor told me that a Muslim notable […] had brought him a little twelve year old Armenian girl that he was intending to buy, and had asked him to examine her to find out whether she was in good health. It is almost a certainty that the authorities are well aware of these slave auctions and that they are doing nothing to stop them […].1

Later, during the First World War, in November 1915, a doctor of Armenian ancestry in the Turkish army was ordered by the government to visit the camps of the deported. Horrified by what he saw, he decided to run away at the end of his inspection in order to give testimony to what he had seen: “At Jerablus, at the very moment I pass through, the Chete are selling 300 slave girls who have survived from the convoys of Diyarbakir, Mardin and Harput.”2 After the massacres, the information gathered at each consulate enabled the foreign governments to gain a clear picture of the violence committed. The death and conversions taken into account were only those that could be confirmed. Consequently, it would be legitimate to consider the numbers reached as underestimates. Paul Cambon gave the number of 7,500 conversions for Diyarbakir province alone, with an official death toll of 5,000 individuals. In this case, the rural victims from Tur Abdin could not figure into the number. That the conversions were systematic is shown by their high number.

1 2

293.

LIVRE JAUNE, Supplement, pp. 123-124. Yves TERNON, Les Arméniens: Histoire d’un génocide, Paris, 1996, p.

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Assessment for 1895, according to the table of losses drawn up by Paul Cambon “The six provinces included in the reforms” (the reform of October 17, 1895)

Provinces Erzurum Sivas Harput Diyarbakir Bitlis Van

Total pop. 595,000 1,087,500 524,300 472,000 399,000 431,500

Christian pop. 125,700 173,000 81,400 133,600 138,700 175,200

Deaths 6,715 3,225 11,584 5,720 1,400 463

Conversions 5,200 1,600 12,500 7,500 6,500 3,000

For the purposes of comparison, it is useful to contrast these numbers with those from the neighboring provinces also affected by the massacres Aleppo Adana Angora Trebizond

410,500 403,500 210,000 115,500

46,650 97,500 48,500 14,000

6,600 50 350 978

1,500 3,000 150 832

CHAPTER 9. OTTOMAN NEGLIGENCE BEFORE THE NEW KURDISH POWERS The dispatches sent between 1901 and 1904 by the vice-consul of France at Diyarbakir show that after the 1895 massacres, the province drifted from the grasp of Ottoman authority. Ottoman political power no longer had the means, or even the will, to resist the state of anarchy ruled only by the law of the strongest Kurdish tribes. Not a single day passes that we do not receive news from all sides that most Kurdish tribes, Hamidiye or not, are engaged in hostilities amongst themselves, the seriousness of which becomes clear once the number of dead and wounded and of pillaged villages is taken into account. This situation, which is also crushing the Christians in villages throughout the territory occupied by these tribes, cannot fail to harm the Imperial government, which this year will mark a large deficit in tax revenues, whatever the vali’s deceitful reports or the articles inserted into newspapers at his command say to make Constantinople believe that the most perfect serenity blossoms here.1

To describe the situation of insecurity, the consul did not hesitate to speak of anarchy reigning supreme in this part of Kurdistan. Among the Hamidiye Kurdish tribes engaging in this national pastime, there are two that stand out among the others, two that for a long time have had the reputation of being the strongest and largest: the Kocher tribe, commanded by Musto or Mustapha, the Pasha of Jezireh, and the Milly tribe, whose chieftain is Ibrahim Pasha. These two chiefs, sure that they will not incur the disapproval of the Imperial government and especially of Zekki Pasha, commander of the Fourth Army Corps and creator of the infamous Hamidiye cavalry regiments, walk about with their people as absolute masters of this vilayet, and in the neighboring vilayets, kill, raid villages and caravans, cut off roads, do anything they want under the nose of local authorities

1

Diplomatic dispatch #13, July 18, 1901.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE that do not dare act against them for fear of calling down the ire of Constantinople.1

The tribal chieftains fight each other by systematically destroying the property belonging to their adversaries’ villages. In the Siverek district, the Hamidiye Kurdish tribe of the Karagechi, commanded by Hajil Bey, not satisfied with having raided most of the Milly and Turkan villages recognizing the authority of Ibrahim Pasha [a powerful Kurdish chieftain], […] about two weeks ago, burned the entire standing harvest those villagers had abandoned.2

This tribal division obeyed the laws of vassalage.

Near the city of Maden, a little Armenian village whose inhabitants were under one of the Kurdish beys’ protection was completely sacked by the men of another bey, his enemy. Moreover, the Christians who live in these two districts [in Hazro and Maifarqin, Armenian and Syriac villages] are persecuted on a daily basis by Muslims, and too often some of them are found murdered on the roads, so much so that they no longer dare to travel between villages without having a group of at least ten with them.3

In reprisal for the violence committed by Ibrahim Pasha, the Shammar tribe also went on a wide-scale pillaging spree. With more than a thousand mounted soldiers divided into several groups, they passed through the south of Tur Abdin, via Nusaybin on their way towards Tell Armen, they attacked the village of Shelin, whose inhabitants, all Yezidi converted to Islam, had taken part in Ibrahim Pasha’s raids on some of their camps, and after taking all the village’s flocks of sheep and killing six Yezidi, they ran rampant throughout the region, pillaging all of Ibrahim Pasha’s villages as well.4

This situation, which had existed long before the trouble of 1895, only worsened with time: There have always been wars among ashirets [tribes], but ever since the events of 1895, they have inexplicably become much more frequent in certain Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902. Diplomatic dispatch #13, July 18, 1901. 3 Idem. 4 Idem. 1 2

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regions, such as around Mardin, Beshiri […] and Jezireh. In the space of two months, there have been about ten of them.1

The conflicts, which were provoked by personal rivalries between Kurdish aghas, were usually power struggles. The Diyarbakir vilayet is completely at the mercy of the main Kurdish chieftains, who, sure that they will not be bothered, rule the land however they see fit, without any concern for the Imperial authorities, whose role […] is limited to tax-collection and to brutalizing the poor Christians.2

The unrest had lasting economic consequences, since the trade caravans were regularly attacked and then completely looted on the road from Diyarbakir to Aleppo, which only aggravated the province’s isolation. Most Christian families were ruined and once they were forced to sell their last belongings, many chose to emigrate. In light of the extreme poverty in which they live, canings, prison and the forced sale of the objects most indispensable to life are the most common means used against those unable to pay taxes such as the Bedelat Askeri [the bedel-i-askeri is the tax for exemption from military service for non-Muslims that was imposed between 1856 and 1909] and the Temetu [the temettuat vergisi was the tax on profits], etc.3

Starting in 1904, the clashes between the now extremely powerful tribes reached a fever pitch thanks to their chieftains’ personalities. This was the case with the Milly tribe, whose agha, Ibrahim Pasha is today the most powerful Kurdish chieftains. Very rich, most of all protected by the power a little more each day force them to pay him tribute.

of all this province’s intelligent, clever, and Palace, he extends his over his neighbors to

As for those who refuse to obey him, “they are sure that he will raid their villages.”4

Diplomatic dispatch #6, August 6, 1903. Idem. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902. 4 Diplomatic dispatch #12,, July 27, 1904. 1 2

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Many of these tribes were Hamidiye regiments, which means that they had been integrated into the regular army and could be mobilized by the Ottomans at any moment. The Hamidiye were Kurdish regiments of light cavalry, called in Turkish Hamidiye Hafif Süvari Alaylari, established by the Sultan Abdul Hamid. Their creation had been the result of a tactical reorganization of the Ottoman army, in desperate need of fresh troops. These fast, flexible regiments could quickly spring into action for military operations, since their principle was based on that of the Russian Cossacks. Since their creation in 1891, their numbers had only risen: “40 regiments in 1892, 56 in 1893, and 63 in 1899.”1 Each of the regiments had between 512 and 1,152 men, and they thus composed an available force of at least 50,000 men, trained and hardened by their natural aptitude for war. After Sultan Abdul Hamid was deposed, the nationalistic Young Turk government kept them, though they changed names between 1908 and 1910, becoming the “Tribe regiments”. They were widely used in foreign theaters of war, especially in Bulgaria and the Balkans. The regiments’ organization was based on the traditional structure of Kurdish tribes, which revolved around strict obedience to the laws of vassalage. The tribes, which were always Sunni Muslim, had to provide a number of men determined in advance. If this number were high enough, a single tribe could form a regiment of its own, and its agha would naturally be in command. If on the other hand, one tribe had to join another to form a regiment, they would make sure that the feudal bonds uniting them allowed everyone to obey the same chieftain. The command of each regiment went to the tribal chieftain in times of peace, and in times of war, either the chieftains could be named officers or the Turkish army could take over. The highest rank they could attain was colonel. The School of the Tribes, the Achiret Mektebi, was a military school, and the Hamidiye Süvari Mektebi, founded in Istanbul, was given the task of training Kurdish officers. These regiments were not always mobilized. The “soldiers” were therefore not always regularly paid. Very often, the information offered by contemporary witnesses suggested that the 1 Robert OLSON, Imperial meanderings and republican by-ways: Essays on eighteenth century Ottoman and twentieth century history of Turkey, Istanbul, Isis Press, 1996, p. 246.

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Kurdish “soldier” did not make a distinction between being mobilized or not. His life remained practically the same among tents and horses, and he always considered himself the man in charge. The advantages linked to this new status were essentially the right to bear arms, which in theory the tribes were supposed to hand over when they were demobilized, as well as the opportunity to receive honors, and connections with the government. The creation of these regiments lastingly and profoundly changed the traditional balance of tribal relations. The tribes that became Hamidiye could use their weapons and prestige with complete impunity to crush tribes smaller in number or resistant to their desire for hegemony. They also had the right to confiscate conquered territory, which turned them into large land owners under cover of the new policy.1 The Hamidiye system increased the sense of impunity that the most aggressive tribes already had, while also encouraging the renaissance of Kurdish nationalism, giving it a unity and confidence it had not had since the fall of the last independent emirates. The historian Olson supports this view, saying that if the Hamidiye system had not existed, Kurdish nationalism would not have emerged as strong as it did after the First World War. On the other hand, in one Kurdish point of view, these regiments paralyzed nascent nationalism by exacerbating internal divisions and tribal strife.2 Though their role was multi-faceted, it did remain first and foremost military. The regiments had been deployed in the north along the Russian border, along a line going from Erzurum to Van, and in the south between Urfa and Mardin. The French consul witnessed several of these regiments return from Europe to Diyarbakir in 1913: The Hamidiye light cavalry of the 20th, 23rd and 24th regiments, returning from Adrianople [Edirne], were dismissed to their homes after being disarmed by the military authority of Siverek. During the last war, these three regiments lost in all 182 men out of 1,720. They had brought back, hidden among their gear, more than 400 rifles they had taken from the Bulgarians.3

Idem, p. 13. Idem, p. 7-15. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #35, December 16, 1913. 1 2

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The battalions’ operational effectiveness was shaky at best, for the Kurdish chieftains, who had become arrogant potentates mindful of little outside themselves, only vaguely heeded orders coming from the Sublime Porte. The vice-consul of France noted in a dispatch that Ibrahim Pasha took nearly two weeks to answer a mission order in which he was invited to set out with his thirteen regiments [a force of at least 9,000 men] of Hamidiye cavalry for Baghdad, where he should put himself at the disposal of the Commander of the 6th Army Corps. He supposedly answered from Urfa that his and his cavalry’s departure would only offer the Arabic tribes of the Shammar, the Aneze and the Tai, with whom he was at war, the perfect opportunity to attack and annihilate his tribe. [He refused the order and left for his winter quarters in the desert] and since we know how clever he is, he will surely come up with some reason not to keep his word to the Palace.1

Besides their military function, the Hamidiye were sometimes asked to keep the peace and maintain order in the eastern provinces by forming a “front against the activities of the revolutionary Armenians”, to use the words of the historians Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw. “The new Hamidiye tribal force grew fairly rapidly, […] and it was used to suppress terrorism in eastern Anatolia”2 Yves Ternon brought this analysis even further when he affirmed that under the pretext of defending the borders in Asia Minor, an imperial irade [command] decreed the formation of a regular force of Kurdish cavalry, the Hamidiye—or Sultan’s cavalry—meant in fact to crush Armenian rebels. […] The Kurds, who coveted the Armenians’ lands in the fertile plains, are invited by the authorities to move there. Starting in 1892, […] the situation becomes untenable for the peasants as a whole, both Christian and Muslim.3 Diplomatic dispatch #16, December 30, 1904. Stanford SHAW and Ezel K. SHAW, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, volume II: Reform, Revolution and Republic, the Rise of Modern Turkey 1808-1975, Cambridge, 1977, p. 246. 3 Y. TERNON, op. cit., p. 84. 1 2

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The rural Christian communities suffered greatly under the violence. The regiments’ creation only increased the most powerful Kurdish tribes’ hegemony at the expense of the government’s authority, and thus aggravated the Christian minorities’ insecurity. The climate of civil war also highlighted a traditional, and deeper split between the “sedentary” world and the “nomadic”. The worst predator a peasant can meet has always been a “nomad”. The sedentary villages were the first targets of violence: laying waste to crops, theft of flocks and plundering of reserve stocks. From every side, we have heard of new misdeeds and acts of depredation committed against the small sedentary Kurdish tribes as well as against the peaceful Christian villages inhabited by Armenians, Jacobites, Chaldeans and Syrians […]. About three weeks ago, Ibrahim Pasha set out with a large number of cavalry across the Argana plain and thoroughly sacked eleven villages inhabited by Muslims and Christians.1

These raids followed the rhythm of the seasons, when the time of transhumance forced the nomads to leave their mountain pastures and come back down to the plains. “[…] as soon as the Kochers, who are now with their flocks at their summer pastures in the Hakkari Mountains, come back down into the plain to take up their winter quarters.”2 The Kurdish chieftain Musto Pasha, the great rival of Ibrahim Pasha, held the Jezireh region under a reign of terror. Muslims and Christians often prepared together to defend themselves when there was the rumor of an impending attack. A feeling of discouragement has come over everyone, the shops in the bazaar have closed; Muslims and Christians are wondering in despair what they should do. A number of them have decided to mount a lastditch armed resistance against Musto Pasha and his men, others have sold their belongings and their homes so that they can flee at the first sign of trouble.3

The vice-consul of France also reported fighting among Kurdish villages in Tur Abdin. At the end of last month and in the region of Midyat, the inhabitants of two large Kurdish villages attacked Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902. Idem. 3 Idem. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE each other for three days for no good reason, simply because their aghas told them to. Twenty-three people lost their lives.1

THE MURKY OTTOMAN GAME One result of the tribes’ growing importance, the collusion between local Turkish authorities and Kurdish chieftains, was also a widely discussed topic. The French vice-consul’s dispatch of August 13, 1902 implies that the government approved of the Kurds’ violence. The administrators “do not dare act against them for fear of calling down the ire of Constantinople.”2 The provincial governor still needed the great Kurdish chieftains’ support to prop up his authority. In this case, he did not hesitate to supply them with weapons, as was the case with the Milly tribe, which had governed Mardin province since the 18th century. As they were still very powerful a century and a half later, the vali was forced to rely on their support. By giving the Kurdish chieftains carte blanche to do whatever they please, to enrich themselves at the Christians’ expense and to satisfy their men’s whims under the pretext that that will prevent them from ever considering a revolt against Ottoman authority, the Sublime Porte has, for the last few years, been pursuing its goal of gradually annihilating the Christian element. But does my humble opinion not find ample proof in the very creation of the Hamidiye corps, a band of official highway robbers spreading terror throughout this vilayet and many others, and in the impunity they enjoy for the crimes they commit every day?3

The ambiguous position of the Ottoman government seemed to develop according to a dynamic of its own that above all tried to protect its immediate interests. The governor seemed to encourage the widespread insecurity of the entire population, both Christian and Muslim, in order to win the favor of one agha or to eliminate another. The Sublime Porte sought above all to gain the allegiance of the powerful chieftains, to whom, in exchange, they guaranteed total impunity. Idem. Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. 1 2

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The situation is far from good in the towns of Tur Abdin, and it will always be difficult as long as the Ottoman government continues to tolerate most Kurdish tribes living in an almost independent state and keeps supplying them with weapons and money so that they can indulge their savage and bloody instincts.1

This tolerance did sometimes have limits. Whenever the government did decide to intervene harshly, it preferred to do so against “non-Hamidiye” Kurds, openly taking sides against them and encouraging violence. Another event took place very recently and deserves to be mentioned because of the punishment that the Ottoman government, this time, was willing for once to inflict on a non-Hamidiye Kurdish tribe, the Kochers. […] About two months ago, the Alikians from Siirt attacked the Alikians from Beshiri and pillaged them after killing about ten men, including four military personnel, one officer and three soldiers from a company stationed there. […] They then stole twenty rifles and many cartridges belonging to the Government. As soon as the authorities of Diyarbakir and Bitlis got word of that last fact, they sent a telegram to the Palace, which answered that the Kurds were to be punished in the most exemplary way.2

The repression was very violent. The troops sent from Diyarbakir and Bitlis “killed a certain number of men, confiscated more than 20,000 head of cattle, and completely destroyed two villages belonging to the chieftain of their tribe segment.”3 This example showed that the government had the wherewithal to respond with force when it wanted to. By particularly protecting the Hamidiye Kurds and their chieftains, it has adopted a policy to create anarchy and to ruin the peaceful, sedentary populations of the countryside.4

It could also happen for two Hamidiye tribes to be rivals. By order of the Palace, the Governor General had come to Siverek last April 23rd […] to make peace between Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the Hamidiye Diplomatic dispatch #6, August 9, 1903. Idem. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902 (a long dispatch). 4 Idem. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Milly, and the Hamidiye Karagechi tribe. The vali’s conduct in this matter has been strongly criticized for his obvious partiality for the Milly. We now know that it was at his instigation that Ibrahim Pasha made his attack on the Karagechi to begin with.1

1

Idem.

CHAPTER 10. THE YEARS OF BLOOD The permanent state of insecurity revolved around Christian villages. Between the massacres of 1895 and the terrible years of 1915-1917, the Syriacs of Tur Abdin were particularly exposed to violence. “By giving the Kurdish chieftains carte blanche […] the Sublime Porte has, for the last few years, been pursuing its goal of gradually annihilating the Christian element.”1 In the Jezireh kaza, the sons of Musto Pasha killed the sons of the Batman tribe’s chieftain, whom they had invited into their tent to make peace with them. To avenge these deaths, the Batmans then began to pillage all the Keleks traveling along the Tigris and to sack two Christian villages that they knew to be subject to Musto Pasha’s sons. They also killed an old Nestorian priest. Since that time, the Christian of these two villages, reduced to the most horrifying poverty and deprived of everything, wander here and there begging for scraps of bread. [Near Midyat,] bloody battles are waged constantly between people from different villages, and about 90 were wounded and killed in the space of a month.2 It is difficult for me to describe the deplorable situation in which this province’s Christian populations, especially those who live in the countryside, find themselves. Oppressed to no end, stripped of their belongings, they are forced, in order to gain some form of protection from the Kurdish aghas and beys of their region, to work for these people and to accept the harshest conditions of slavery. Despite that, they pay a great deal for their protection and yet are still the most frequent victims of rivalries between Kurdish chieftains, who when wanting to inflict reprisals, find nothing better to do than to kill and pillage each other’s fellahs—meaning Christians—and vice versa.3

The French diplomat brought out that this state of affairs had not existed before. Since the events of 1895, Turkish high administrators, sent from Constantinople supposedly to reform the vilayet, have told the Kurdish Diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. Diplomatic dispatch #12, December 23, 1903. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE chieftains that instead of killing each other for their endless rivalries, [they should] make the Christians under their protection suffer instead.1

Despite the governor’s reassurances, the vilayet’s Christians were still to discover the full extent of the attacks against them. “Have no fear, we shall give you justice”, but no one believes it anymore […], how could anyone count on justice that the government obviously has no intention of ever granting? It is with this only too well-founded conviction that the Christians have often turned to the vice-consul through Father Gaufroy [the Superior of the Dominican mission at Jezireh] and through the Chaldean and Syrian bishops to beg him to ask the French government to intervene on the highest levels in the hope of being saved from a catastrophe they see as inevitable.2 The impunity of these highway robbers who have deserved to be hanged a thousand times over will bring about consequences whose seriousness could only be lessened by foreign intervention. The Christian nations would be overwhelmed with indignation and pity if they had a full picture of the atrocities committed by these “Kochers” and by the allied or dependent Kurdish tribes on the territory extending from Diyarbakir to Mosul and from Siirt to Mardin, with Jezireh at its center.3

In the cities that the Kurdish tribes could not reach, the notable and religious fanatics made sure to keep up the pressure on the Christians. The vice-consul at Diyarbakir commented that for the last few days, from the top of his minaret, the muezzin had been shouting out prayers for the safety of the Ottoman Empire from the Christian menace; after forbidding him to continue, the Kaymakam was attacked the very next day by a group of about sixty Hoca armed with guns, and was only able to save himself by fleeing to the post office under the zaptiye’s protection.4 [In the south of the vilayet] near Nusaybin, the Shammar, Tai and Jibur Arabs in control of the entire Idem. Diplomatic dispatch #17, August 13, 1902. 3 Idem. 4 Diplomatic dispatch #6, August 9, 1903. 1 2

CHAPTER 10. THE YEARS OF BLOOD desert move about at will, sowing terror as they come to pillage villages and small tribes all the way to the gates of Mardin.1 [In the countryside,] the Christian populations, finding themselves dispersed among the tribes [living on the southern slope of Tur Abdin, around Jezireh] are still living in deplorable conditions; one fact that must be noted is that the inhabitants of several Christian villages along the Tigris and around Jezireh [these must certainly be Syriac Orthodox villages or Chaldean villages], once very prosperous, are now forced to emigrate bit by bit to other regions in order to find shelter from persecution at the hands of these tribes that have utterly ruined them.2 In the afternoon of Friday, December 20, 1901, a detachment of Kocher Kurdish horsemen, Hamidiye under Mustapha Pasha, at the command, it is said, of the Pasha himself, attacked the Christian village of Babokat [Babekka in Syriac, Babek in Turkish]; five men from the village were killed, seven wounded, and all their flocks were stolen. [This village was located one hour away by foot from the large town of Azekh, in the eastern part of Tur Abdin, near Jezireh] The two villages […] are Jacobite. [Some people from Azekh decided to come to their rescue, but fell into a trap along the way]. In fact, as soon as they were half-way to Babokat, men on horseback jumped out on all sides, rushing at them from the front while cutting off their retreat from behind. With their longer range rifles, the Hamidiyes tore them to shreds: 11 inhabitants of Azekh were killed, 7 wounded. There were 2 killed on the Kurdish side, 2 wounded, and a few horses shot dead.3

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When news of this attack reached Jezireh, terror spread through the Christian neighborhood that a new wave of massacres would soon break out, identical to those of 1895. The fear was all the stronger because rumor had exaggerated the number of dead to 80 people. An inquiry revealed that the attack had been launched at the command of Musto Pasha, who was seeking revenge on the village’s Syriacs for having dared to lodge a complaint against him Diplomatic dispatch #10, June 3, 1904. Diplomatic dispatch #6, August 9, 1903. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. 1 2

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with the governor for an earlier matter, when the Kurds demanded that they pay six years worth of taxes in one lump sum. About a week ago, a Jacobite mission near the Dominican mission was utterly looted during the night because the master of the house had signed a masbata [a petition] against the agha. The Jacobite bishop of Azekh left for Diyarbakir in order to lodge a complaint with the vali.1 About two months ago, Mustapha Pasha, chieftain of the Kurdish tribe of the Hamidiye Kochers, with his sons-in-law, completely pillaged the villages of Takian, Kerki Bedro, Mahrovan, Wassad and Tell Kebbin, which are inhabited exclusively by Christians of the Chaldean, Jacobite and Syriac Catholic denominations. The villages’ chieftains have all come to Diyarbakir to lodge a complaint against Mustapha Pasha and his relatives, but since several of them were sure that they would not be able to get anything by using their bishops, they have come to me [the vice-consul of France] to ask me to look into their suffering. As I know his anti-Christian feelings, I have abstained from taking the matter up with the vali. In the meantime, those poor wretches will not dare to return to their villages since they know full well what sort of welcome that thug, who is devastating the whole region with his atrocities, has in store for them.2 Since the beginning of the present year [1904], The Beshiri and Midyat kazas have been in a desperate situation because of the rivalries among the many Kurdish tribes living there. […] The Christians and Yezidi that live there have been singled out and denounced to the Sublime Porte as disruptive elements who could cause the Government a great deal of embarrassment. I must not allow you to remain unaware that the situation of the Armenians and Jacobites, and of those Yezidi, is very different from that of the other Christians scattered among that vilayet’s Kurdish tribes: while the latter are reduced to the most brutal slavery, the ones from Beshiri and

1 Father Galland to the Father Superior at Mosul, December 29, 1901. Cited in diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. 2 Idem.

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Midyat have the privilege of being equal to the Muslims.

They were therefore obliged to obey their aghas, to take up their causes, and even to help them in tribal warfare.1 Faced with the threat of military intervention from the Diyarbakir authorities, as well as with this “equality” he spoke of, the vice-consul could still not help but foresee the partiality of the repression already forming on the horizon. Now it is more likely that if troops are sent into these kazas, their mandate will be to spare the Muslim Kurdish element as much as possible while raging against the Christians and Yezidi. A new massacre will therefore take place in these two regions.2 Finally, between Nusaybin and Midyat, Salkhan agha, the chieftain of a Kurdish tribe, another notorious bandit feared in this region, had his people kill five Christians, including a Jacobite priest, and seven Muslims when they sacked five villages, of which three were exclusively Muslim.3

The question of the utter eradication of Christian communities truly came to the forefront during the years between 1900 and 1905. All the prelates of the different Eastern denominations agree that if it [the Christians’ situation] goes on for a few more years, the Christian element will slowly disappear, either by apostasy, emigration, or massacre.4

This concern was officially taken up by the French ambassador and sent to the French minister of Foreign Affairs in a confidential note dated February 14, 1902. All the prelates of the different Eastern denominations, rightly concerned by these atrocities, do not hide their apprehension for such a state of affairs, which, if it continues, will bring about the complete disappearance of the Christian element.5

Diplomatic dispatch #10, June 3, 1904. Idem. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #12, July 27, 1904. 4 Diplomatic dispatch #2, January 9, 1901. 5 Diplomatic dispatch #21 from M. Constans, French ambassador, to M. Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, February 14, 1902. 1 2

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THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM [In December 1913,] for some time, as if by magic, our vilayet’s situation has improved. During this rare and exceptional time, there has been no talk of murder, looting or rape. The authority [the Union and Progress Committee] is for the moment doing everything it can not to give the Christians any reason to complain. Last week, the vali wrote a letter to all the city’s bishops asking them to prepare and immediately send the government a list of the crimes committed against Christians in the vilayet from last March until today.1

The government was thus hoping to give the Christian minorities a token of good faith. In April 1914, the region was still calm. “Our vilayet is enjoying perfect serenity for now” and despite the first military preparations and the rumor of war in Europe, the situation remained unchanged.2 The calm, mere months away from the declaration of war, may be explained by the Empire’s internal politics. By this time, the Unionists of the Union and Progress Committee had returned to power thanks to Enver Pasha’s uprising of January 23, 1913. Enver Pasha had been one of the leading figures of the 1909 revolution, but had then been squeezed from power by the so-called “Ententist” liberal coalition, which with the support of different parties, including several Christian ones, won the partial elections of 1911. This new coup d’état was motivated by the worsening of the Turkey’s external situation under the pressure of a new Balkan coalition. For a short period of time, the question of the Christian minorities took second stage to the delicate problem of new political divisions that occupied Turkish public opinion before the elections of the new chamber of representatives. The electoral campaign began a few days ago in the city as well as in the other parts of the vilayet. This time, the former representatives of the Unionist party are sure to win. The “Ententists” are not saying a word.3

These elections legally confirmed the Union and Progress Committee’s return to power. Nonetheless, it was a modest Diplomatic dispatch #35, December 16, 1913. Idem. 3 Idem. 1 2

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triumph, since, breaking with earlier practices in Turkish politics, the former directors of the liberal Entente were allowed to remain free on the condition “that they abandon any misplaced idea of opposition”.1 Among the eastern provinces, power relations were much more clear-cut between the new, openly secular and reformist “Unionist” government, and the Islamic conservatives: The city’s anti-Unionist Old Turks [as opposed to the Young Turks] approve of the behavior of Sheikh Mela Selim from Bitlis, who is said to defend the principles of the Muslim religion against enemies of Islam.

Sheikh Mela called for Muslims to rise up against the new government. Communications between Diyarbakir and Bitlis were cut. Moreover, our vilayet’s Kurdish chieftains are equally pleased to see this little insurrection against the present government, for they had been waiting for it to happen since last year so that the Kurdish cause would win out. These events have brought about such a state of affairs here that for the moment, the Muslims have set aside their anti-Christian sentiments.

The recently appointed governor of Diyarbakir was a Turk of Greek origin and “a thorough Unionist”, a fact that caused “despair among the Old Turks, who had hoped to have a different governor less attached to the Union and Progress Committee”.2 The split between Unionists and conservatives degenerated very quickly. The ill-will spread as the conservatives gradually joined forces with the Kurdish chieftains, who had no interest in seeing the old system reformed. Now that they see the harsh punishments inflicted on their co-religionists in Bitlis, the region’s Kurdish chieftains have become much more docile. But the hangings of Sheikhs and of Kurdish chieftains have spawned an implacable hatred between the Kurds and the Unionist government.3

1 François GEORGEON, “La mort d’un Empire” in Robert MANTRAN, Histoire de l’Empire ottoman, Fayard, 1998, cf. p. 608 and pp. 623-624. 2 Diplomatic dispatch #5, April 18, 1914. 3 Diplomatic dispatch #6, June 20, 1914.

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The French vice-consul mentioned the fact that during the elections, a boycott had been organized against Christians: “the boycott campaign that the Muslims have been conducting for the last few weeks”. By that, are we to understand a campaign against Christian parties? For lack of clear information, it is difficult to know who the instigators were or why it was started. Perhaps it was conservative “Old Turk” opponents contesting the election of Christian representatives? Once the elections brought the victory of the Union and Progress Committee’s local representatives, one Christian representative was nonetheless elected. “By arrangement with the government, six Muslims and one Unionist Christian Protestant were elected representatives of the Diyarbakir vilayet.”1 This did not prevent the anti-Christian campaign from resuming a few weeks later. “By secret order of the Muslim Committee in Constantinople, the boycott against Christians in general discreetly continued in the city.”2

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AT WAR The difficulties Turkey was experiencing internationally had direct consequences on life within the country and on the population’s morale. The slow dance between partisans of a nationalist revolution on the model of Western republics, and conservatives attached to traditional Islam, had its roots in a particularly troubled external context. At the same time, the country was going through a severe morale crisis. Turks were beginning to question political orientations and ideologies. The Italian aggression, the lack of action on the part of the other European powers, Albanian separatism all aggravated anti-Western tendencies among Islamic intellectuals, pushing them to stress the bonds of Islamic solidarity even more and to vehemently denounce the destructiveness of nationalism on Muslim countries.3

For a long time, the Italians had been eying North Africa in the hope of compensating the French and British presence on that continent as well as the Austrian push into Central Europe. Diplomatic dispatch #5, April 18, 1914. Diplomatic dispatch #6, June 20, 1914. 3 F. GEORGEON, op. cit., p. 602. 1 2

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Tripolitania was at the time the Ottoman Empire’s last African province. When the Italians landed there on October 4, 1911, they seized the coast in the space of a few weeks. But well aware that a defeat could arouse Middle East Arabs’ aspirations for independence, the Young Turk government organized their resistance further inland. The war greatly stirred pan-Islamic sentiments and even unleashed anti-Christian protests across the Empire. The Ulemas’ first call to Jihad was the culminating point. In 1912, under the new Greek Prime Minster Venizelos and King Constantine, a coalition of the Empire’s former western provinces formed between Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, to fight against the Ottomans, and the coalition decided to fully mobilize in September 1912. In the Diyarbakir vilayet, the Hamidiye regiments were mobilized and sent to the Bulgarian front. In 1912, the first year of war saw the loss of Thrace for the Ottomans, as well as the fall of the liberal government, which brought about the comfortable return to power of the nationalist government of the “Unionists”. The Ottoman troops were completely routed by the Bulgarians who bombed the city of Edirne, and soon afterward by the Greeks, who took advantage of the situation to launch an offensive. During this time of military maneuvers, the Turkish army was given a respite when the Bulgarians turned on their Serbian and Greek Allies to dispute the territorial gains. Thus Edirne was retaken by the Turks and peace was signed in August 1913 with the treaty of Bucharest, which made official the Ottoman abandonment of its European provinces. This military outcome resulted in a profound modification in the Empire’s ethnic and religious make-up. For the first time in their history, the Turkish and Muslim elements were clearly in the majority. This new composition opened the way to a “Turkification” of the country, now that “Ottomanism”, amputated of its ethnic and religious diversity, had come to an end. The nationalist government took advantage of the situation to relaunch the Young Turks’ reformist movement, while at the same time beginning the country’s reconstruction on principles befitting a more homogenous national population. The new regime particularly tried to base its power on the youth, who were always excited about new ideas, and on the emergent Turkish middle class,

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who were anxious for modernization. Meanwhile, the government continued to foster the Islamist element so dear to the Old Turks, to use the French vice-consul’s expression, in order to win the vast Muslim population’s favor and to keep Arabic public opinion on its side. To this end, the government did not do away with the institutions of the sultanate and the caliphate. German influence was at its peak. The Germans had truly entered the scene when Kaiser Wilhelm II had visited Istanbul in 1898. He had been the only European head of state to meet Sultan Abdul Hamid. His visit laid the groundwork for the collaboration that would take place between the two empires in the economic and military spheres.1 The German monopoly on the Turkish army, particularly in armaments and munitions, had started at the end of the 1880’s with the gradual introduction of Mauser rifles and Krupp canons, then with the training of Turkish officers, and finally with military strategy: “a Prussian strategy, called ‘continental’, that stresses the Ottoman Empire’s territorial might, rather than its military strength.” This shift in strategic orientation resulted in the abandonment of the last remnants of the Ottoman fleet in favor of a reinforcement of the army’s presence throughout Ottoman territories, particularly in the eastern provinces. The collaboration took a political turn as the Germans attempted to build a powerful Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad axis that would open the southern seas for them while checking French and British imperialism. During a trip to Jerusalem, the Kaiser publicly insured his political protection for the three hundred million Muslims living in the world. Germany was also taking advantage of the weakness of England, which, after an aborted attempt to intervene militarily in eastern Turkey after the massacres of 1895 and 1896, had its hands full with revolts in the Sudan and in South Africa. On the eve of the war, the eastern provinces in particular witnessed frantic activity on the part of the German ambassadors. The French representative posted at Diyarbakir wrote down his impressions after a visit from the German consul. Mr. Anders, the German consul to Erzurum, came to Mamuret-ul-aziz [Elazig] last week to tour Mush and Bitlis. He is studying the country and gathering information on a wide spectrum of questions. He met 1

Idem.

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with leaders of the Christian communities. In a speech, he encouraged the pupils of a German orphanage in Harput, promising them jobs in the German railway administration if they learned German. He also added that Germany would handsomely reward anyone who aided Germans.1

Already in 1899, The French consul to Aleppo had informed his superiors of his concerns about the Germans’ new, active role in the region. The Christians and Muslims are beginning to think that our role in the East is at its end, and that the Germans’ is beginning. Moreover the Germans had a flurry of activity after the massacres. In Urfa, an organization that had formed to aid the Armenians set up a home for widows and orphans, a clinic, and then, in 1898, a carpet factory meant to give them a livelihood. […] By creating a new industry in Urfa, the Germans have, in a word, found a way to rescue the Christian population without spending a cent.2

In this context of close collaboration, the German government very naturally formed an alliance for military cooperation with the Ottomans. Aimed against Russia, the alliance had defensive value for the two signatories. Turkey wanted to protect its Asian provinces, which were now more than ever crucial to the vast Anatolian plateau, while the Germans wanted to make sure there would be a Turkish-Russian front in the conflict that would take place across the European continent. The nature of this alliance, and the burdens it laid on Turkey, allow us to see the importance, in the Turkish military command’s strategic vision, of the eastern provinces, which were directly threatened by the Russian army after the 1878 defeat. This vital connection alone allowed the Turks to justify, on a purely military basis, the displacement of Christian populations, essentially Armenian, that was ordered in the spring and summer of 1915. When war was declared in Europe, Turkey wisely did not immediately enter the fray. The Turks dragged their feet before the central powers’ first defeats, when the French counter-attacked on the shores of the Marne, and at the hands of the Russians in Diplomatic dispatch #6, June 20, 1914. Diplomatic dispatch #23, June 30, 1899, from the French consul at Aleppo (long dispatch). 1 2

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Galicia. Turkey entered the conflict only in the middle of November, when the Germans decided they had no choice but to pay the Turks a great deal of gold to join the war. The Turks then began to bomb the Russian Black Sea ports with their “new” fleet. After the German vision for a continental strategy had brought about the abandonment of the old Ottoman fleet, the Turks “bought” two old German cruisers, the Goeben and the Breslau, which under Admiral Souchon’s command, would then patrol the Black Sea. War was officially declared on November 11, 1914. Germany’s supervision could be felt in every army corps, where its officers could be present in the field, at headquarters and even on campaign, and in the countryside, where German workers and engineers were busy building the “Berlin-Baghdad” railroad line. Several witnesses, including Father Armalet, attest to the presence of German officers at Azekh in Tur Abdin and in the Mardin region during the Christian massacres. Amid this mayhem, Ottoman Muslims united. On November 14, 1914, three days after the declaration of war, the representatives of several political tendencies in Istanbul, including Kemal Bey for the Union and Progress Committee, came together to exalt the spirit of national defense in an immense protest march through the city’s streets. This march was meant to demonstrate the people’s agreement with the Sultan’s declaration of holy war against the enemies of Islam; to show that the people are at one body and soul with the government and that they are ready for any sacrifice for the Empire’s wellbeing and greatness.1

This unity formed around Islam’s symbols and leaders. There, in the profound silence, [the grand Ulema] read the fatwas out loud again as well as a prayer for the victory of Ottoman arms, for the glory of Islam and for the defeat of its enemies. Then Seid bey, the representative from Smyrna, amid loud applause and cheers, gave a long, eloquent speech on the need for unity and concord among all Muslims for the holy war that would decide the life or death of the Muslim world. ‘All Muslims, he said, must fight together against the centuries-old enemy, the Russians, in order to crush “Yesterday’s great march”, in La Turquie (a daily newspaper in French), November 15, 1914. 1

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them. Let us go with our women and children to the Sublime Porte to show we support our government.’

As they set out, the procession looked endless to observers. The protestors marched in close ranks eight people across, with at their head the high dignitaries of Islam, ulemas and sheikhs. The Sultan had proclaimed “jihad”, or holy war, the day before the march. The terms he used were directed “against the enemies of Islam, who have proven their hostility by their attacks on the Caliphate”.1 The pronouncement of the Grand Council of Ulemas explicitly denounced the union of “tyrants called the Triple Entente.” This group of nations has conspired together over the last century to cause us to lose precious swathes of the Ottoman Empire. And at a time that was so recent that it could have been yesterday, those governments provoked the Balkan war, by encouraging and protecting our neighbors. They were also the moral and material cause of the loss of several hundred thousand innocent Muslim lives, of the ruin of the national treasury, of the loss of virginity of thousands of Muslim women, and of public defilement of Islamic sanctities that have become the playthings of passions.2

The complete text of this declaration was published on the same day as the Ulemas’ proclamation. Its attacks were concentrated only on enemy governments (Russia, England and France) wanting to destroy “the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire”, and made no mention of the domestic Christian minorities. The text showed no apparent interest in the Ottoman Empire’s non-Muslim subjects. It was addressed “only to Muslim populations” living under the imperialism of the enemy governments of “France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro”, whose duty it was to rise up against their dominating power. Yet a paradox arises under close scrutiny of the terminology used: where “Muslim populations” implies only Turks, Arabs and Kurds, “Ottoman subjects” also includes the Christian minorities. The successive use of these two terms maintained a certain confusion. Who was really the object of these calls to mobilization? 1 “Proclamation of the Grand Council of Ulemas”, Idem, November 16, 1914. 2 Idem.

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In the case of “Ottoman subjects”, a doubt remains as to its meaning: […] all Ottoman subjects aged 20 to 40 and living under the Caliphate’s Empire without exception have been called to arms and the Caliphate, as well as the Ulemas, or theology professors, are gradually summoning the army and the fleet to the Jihad’s battlefields. […] All believers moreover have received the order to take part in the holy war with all their belongings in order to reap the benefits of joining the Jihad.1

Did this declaration also call up the Empire’s Christians? It would seem that the answer is no, but then why was the term “the Caliphate’s Empire” used in preference to the wider term “the Ottoman Empire”? Furthermore, the Christians were subject to the same military duties as Muslim subjects, despite a law passed on February 21, 1915 allowing only non-Muslim subjects to buy exemption from service: Article 1—an exemption tax will be accepted for the entire duration of the mobilization decreed on July 21, 1912 from non-Muslim reservists and territorial soldiers, trained or otherwise, and from untrained Muslim reservists and territorial soldiers who have paid the tithe. […] The sum of this exemption tax is 40 Turkish pounds, paid to the Treasury, with a surcharge of 4 pounds paid to the vilayet.2

This offer was of course limited to those families that still had the financial means to afford it. Many Christian subjects, Armenians as well as Syriacs, generally urban and unable to afford the price, were drafted in the general mobilization. Many of them were later murdered by their own Muslim “comrades” during the first weeks of the war. The war started out very badly for the Turks. The army’s first bloody defeats took place on the eastern front at the hands of the Russian armies. Enver Pasha, then President of the Union and Progress Committee, personally led the Third Army based in Erzurum and attacked the Russian positions in December.

1 2

Idem, third paragraph. “Paid exemption from military service”, Idem, March 14, 1915.

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His idea had been to recover the provinces of Kars, Ardahan and Batum in his first assault, before conquering the eastern provinces, and thus to realize the old utopia of Pan-Turkism whose aim was to bring under one rule all the Turkish speaking populations in the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia. His offensive was smashed in Sarikamis by solidly entrenched Russian army, and in the space of several weeks two Turkish Army corps were lost nearly to a man. Frostbite and epidemics decimated the few who had survived. At the same time, towards the end of November, the British armies launched an offensive into the Persian Gulf and on December 21, took Basra in the south of present-day Iraq. This action was meant to distract the Turkish Army’s attention in Egypt, which had just declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire on December 18, 1915 as a British protectorate. There, the vital Suez Canal provided the French and British Allies with essential communication with their Asian, Indian, and IndoChinese colonies. The Turks then created an expeditionary corps at Damascus more than 80,000 men strong, with the express goal of taking the Canal. Once again, it seems obvious that Germany influenced this decision, since Turkey could have no strategic interest in undertaking such a distant and risky expedition that entailed such a burden of man-power and material, and that forced them to make deep cuts in the garrisons on their own eastern front. This offensive in Egypt was a total failure that offered the Turks the bitter experience of being repeatedly attacked on their way across the Sinai by Arab tribes manipulated by British, the harbinger of a massive uprising that would signal a definitive rupture within the Muslim world between Turks and Arabs. The empire then fell into a state of general desolation. The countryside was ravaged by famine and epidemics. The single glimmer of hope, besides the mirages offered by the German propaganda machine, came from the stiff Turkish resistance on the Dardanelles front that was led, notably, by an ambitious general, Mustapha Kemal. At the beginning of 1915, the Allied troops had decided to attempt to seize the straits and thus Istanbul, in order to open a maritime route to the Black Sea that would have allowed them to bring much-needed aid to the Russians struggling against the Germans. This offensive was also meant to allow the British to

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consolidate their positions in Egypt and especially to force Turkey to exit the war by signing a separate peace treaty. The confrontation, that took place on a thin strip of land for over a year, would remain engraved in the Allies’ and the Turks’ collective memory as the “Dardanelles hell”. Under the command of a German general, Sanders, the Turks won, though at the cost of 120,000 soldiers, whereas the Allies counted more than 200,000 killed and wounded. At this difficult juncture, the Turks decided to “displace” the eastern provinces’ entire Armenian population. The real reasons for this action, and the means of its execution, are still hotly debated by historians. But its consequence is not in dispute: the nearly complete disappearance of all Armenian and Syriac communities.

CHAPTER 11. PLANNING AND DEPORTATION: AUTOPSY OF DESTRUCTION The fate of the Syriac communities was cast with the more general fate of the Armenians. It is obvious that in their lack of demographic importance, the Syriac communities were most often swept along by the degenerating relations between Armenians and Turks. All the Christian communities living in the Diyarbakir vilayet suffered without distinction of faith under the same system of arrests, deportations and executions put in place by Ottoman government as of spring 1915 with characteristic organization and as of yet unequaled magnitude. It is in the context of the military failure and political neglect earlier described that in the middle of May, 1915, the Ottoman government orders the “displacement” of all Armenians living in the eastern provinces, as the Russians have already done on the other side of the border. This is done in principle to evacuate the battle zone, both to move the civilian population “out of harm’s way” and to protect the army from a possible betrayal by pro-Russian elements.1

The evacuation operation took place, in the unanimous opinion of historians, under horrendous conditions. All the eastern provinces with Christian populations were affected: Cilicia, eastern Anatolia, the provinces of Erzurum, Van and Bitlis, as well as the entire Diyarbakir province where all the Christian populations lived together. There were hundreds of columns of deportees that set off towards Syria and the Mesopotamian plains under the Special Organization’s beatings and sharpshooters’ bullets. Only 50,000 people made it to Aleppo, 120,000 survivors arrived in Hamah, Homs and then Damascus, whereas 200,000 were moved to the Deir-ez-Zor camp in the middle of the Syrian desert.2 The Armenians, who before the deportations numbered between 1.5 and 2.5 million people, depending on sources, were only 70,000 after the war.3 Several tens of thousands were able to flee across the Caucasus Mountains into Russia. F. GEORGEON, op. cit., p. 623. Idem. 3 Idem, p. 624. 1 2

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The goal here is not to discuss the eradication of the Christian population as a whole, or even to discuss the Armenian genocide. Many works already exist on those subjects. The goal is to expose the sufferings of the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic communities, sufferings that brought about the destruction of communities that had been living in Diyarbakir, Mardin and Tur Abdin since the first centuries of the Christian era. The process, which had already been under way for a few decades, as Paul Cambon’s account brought out, reached its endpoint in 1915. From the sources to be cited, it would seem that in that year, civilian and military authorities sought to make the trend irreversible. As much as the Armenians, the Syriacs were the scapegoats of the new Turkish nationalism, based on an “Anatolist” vision of the country’s future that had taken root since the death of the idea of the Empire. The historical theses on the genocide’s causes are of two types. First, there is the Armenian position, recognized the world over and defended by many historians and Turkish independent thinkers, stating that the deportations were a pretext for a planned and premeditated extermination, and that more than simply a massacre, it was genocide, the “systematic extermination of a human group, a society, a people”,1 according to legal definition presented during the Nuremberg trials and officially recognized in a bill signed into law by the French Parliament in January 2001.2 1

Petit Larousse Dictionary, 1999.

Law # 2001-70 of January 29, 2001. Article 1: France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915. The basis for genocide’s legal status was established by the Convention for the Prevention and Repression of the Crime of Genocide, approved on December 9, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations and valid since January 2, 1951. Article 2 of this convention specifies: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 2

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On the Turkish side, many studies based on official documents maintain that the Ottoman government never sought to annihilate the Armenian nation, and speak of the Turkish Army’s obligation to “move” a population from a zone that the war had rendered dangerous. The Turks’ fear was that the Armenians would rise up en masse on their rear flanks with the support of the Russian army. Unfortunately, those who maintain this theory do not shed much light on the way events unfolded on a day-by-day basis, preferring to keep to a more global discussion by bitterly contesting the exact number of victims involved. The exact number is impossible to discover because of the difficulties encountered in counting the communities. They also prefer to stress the number of losses among the Muslim population (for it must be remembered that the war continued until 1920), while denying that an Armenian massacre, or a massacre of any Christian communities, ever took place. Isolated, often ridiculous and pathetic, the numbers that they propose offer a fluctuating count in which the 300,000 Turkish victims match the 300,000 Armenian victims that this thesis comes up with.1 The historians Stanford Shaw and Ezel Shaw have gone even further in this game of one-upmanship, affirming that the Armenian community counted only 200,000 victims, whereas 2 million Muslims died: Specific instructions were issued for the army to protect Armenians against nomadic attacks and to provide them with sufficient food and other supplies to meet their needs during the march and once they were settled. Warnings were sent to the Ottoman military commanders to make sure that neither the Kurds nor any other Muslims used the situation to reap vengeance for the long years of Armenian terrorism. The Armenians were to be protected and cared for until they returned to their homes after the war. The deportees and their possessions were to be guarded by the army while in transit […]2

None of these dispositions was ever verified in the facts, and can be classified only as fiction in the present state of historical information. 1 The information given in these two paragraphs come from the article by F. GEORGEON, already cited. 2 S. SHAW and E. SHAW, op. cit., p. 315.

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The passions aroused by this debate must not be limited to a simple exercise of morbid numbering. On the contrary, we must humbly consult the eyewitnesses’ accounts, the very survival of which can restore a little humanity to events perpetrated on flesh and blood. On this subject, the account left by the Catholic priest, Father Armalet is the only testimony of Syriac origin that remains of the dramatic events that soaked Tur Abdin and the surrounding regions in blood from 1915-1918. His work, The Calamities of the Christians, traces day by day the tragic episodes that took place in Mardin and in many nearby villages, as far as the situation allowed. I thought that a war like that would only last a few months, but I soon lost hope when I saw and heard what I never could have imagined would ever happen.1

Father Armalet lived in Mardin for the whole duration of the war, taking notes clandestinely on the events he witnessed himself or transcribing accounts he heard from others, often from survivors who had barely escaped death. He even gathered testimony from several Muslims who either bragged about having taken part in the slaughters, or who were opposed to them. We tried very hard to be as precise as possible, which is why we made sure to cite in our work only those accounts that we heard from the very mouths of the rare survivors who escaped death.2

He finally left Mardin in 1919 for Lebanon where he took refuge in the Syriac Catholic monastery of Sharfet. He was then able to publish his notes in a work he perhaps prudently preferred not to sign, and long maintained his anonymity as an “eye-witness”. As for the events that more directly concern Tur Abdin, Father Armalet’s testimony is completed by that of two Dominican priests on a mission to the region, Father Hyacinthe Simon and Father Jacques Rhétoré. Both of them arrived at Mardin on December 26, 1914, where they stayed for two years until November 18, 1916, the date on which they received traveling permits from the Ottoman 1 I. ARMALET, Part II, Chapter 6. Father Armalet kept his notes in Syriac on loose sheets of paper that he hid each night for fear he would be arrested. 2 Idem, see the preface written in French.

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government allowing Father Simon to go to Aleppo and Father Rhétoré to Konia. Once he arrived in Aleppo, Father Simon, sick with typhoid fever, was taken into the home of the Marcopoli family, where he remained until May 1918. Then he was accused of espionage by the Turks and sent to prison until the Allies won the war. Father Rhétoré’s works, like Father Simon’s, are unpublished and unused documents. The first, Memories of the holy war proclaimed by the Turks against Christians in 1915: Christians thrown to the lions,1 was written in four notebooks that despite a certain amount of bombast in the style, do furnish a great deal of precise details, numbers and statistics. As for Father Simon’s account, it was written from notes he took each day of his stay in Mardin, until June 1916. He gathered his observations under the title Mardin, the heroic city, altar and tomb of Armenia during the massacres of 1915.2 From March to November 1915, an immense red line the color of blood streaked the sky of Turkey. Monstrous deeds were occurring, nameless, indefinable, as the young Ottoman land decimated, or rather annihilated its own sons with its own hands—most of them serving in its army—evicted them from their homes, raped their daughters, kidnapped their wives, scattered their families, torched their villages, deporting the survivors, burning the dead. Reader, may God permit the present work to reach its goal, which is to report and to glorify! My ambition (is it too pretentious?) would be for it to become an account and an epic. As an account, it will speak of the abominable events that took place in a corner of Turkey; it will tell of the extremes to which a country that has not shed its savage instincts can go, and by what barbarous finesse that same country, in the twentieth century, has delighted in covering

Souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les Chrétiens en 1915, les Chrétiens aux bêtes. These notebooks have been brought back to France thanks to the diligence of the Dominican fathers from the Centre du Saulchoir. The archives have not yet been inventoried, and cover about ten shelves. 2 Mardine, la ville héroïque, autel et tombe de l’Arménie durant les massacres de 1915. 1

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE unspeakable acts behind an respectable face, or rather behind a grimace of respectability. The shame of seeing the property of God and of individuals stolen in the light of day and auctioned off. The shame of seeing deep wells filled to the top with corpses, such as the wells of Dara [Oguz], of Dakikiye, etc. The shame of seeing wide Christian lands emptied of their inhabitants. The shame of seeing whole valleys covered with victims, their throats slit, their stomachs disemboweled, such as the valley of the Lice district to the northwest of Diyarbakir.1

The work of a Chaldean priest, Jean Naayem, also provides precious information on the Syriac communities, which he groups together under the term “Assyro-Chaldean”.2 Originally from Urfa, he lost his father in the massacres and managed to reach Aleppo at the end of August 1915 by disguising himself as a Bedouin. His book, published in France in 1920, is based on the testimony of surviving Christians from several regions in Turkey whom he met either in Aleppo or in Istanbul. He also relates the precious testimony of a German chaplain coming from the Mardin region. [I will] relate the details of the tragic martyrdom of the Assyro-Chaldeans from the Jezireh district on the Tigris and from Midyat, where more than fifty villages, whose names I know, villages for the most part fertile and flourishing that were about to be crossed by the great Baghdad railway line and whose future was so bright, were completely sacked and ruined, while the entire population was put to the sword.3

His is the only testimony informing us of the massacres of Syriac Orthodox in the Harput province north of Diyarbakir. Since the diplomats had been recalled to their own countries, only these men’s works take into consideration non-Armenian Christian victims. Since the beginning of the war, the Ottoman public opinion had turned violent against the Allies and Christians in general. The mind-frame of the Mardin Muslims seems a good reflection of these sentiments. Since 1895, all the Muslims without exception had been nursing a grudging hatred for Christians, but they said H. SIMON, op. cit., prologue, pp. 4-5. Jean NAAYEM, Les Assyro-Chaldéens et les Arméniens massacrés par les Turcs, Bloud & Gay, Paris, 1920. 3 Jean NAAYEM, op. cit., Introduction, p. 3. 1 2

CHAPTER 11. PLANNING AND DEPORTATION nothing as they waited, with the government, for the right moment to express it.1

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On August 19 and 20, 1914, the market of Diyarbakir had been sacked, then burned, though at first only the Christian shops had been targeted. These 1,687 shops were all pillaged and burned. Father Armalet’s account specifies that the governor was well aware of what was happening, but that he took no action to stop it. Three weeks later, on September 6, it was the whole town’s turn to be sacked. Both the Christian neighborhoods and the Muslim ones seem to have been attacked by groups of bored soldiers, who after being mobilized in the beginning of August, were making their way towards the first battles taking place around Van. This unrest was partly due to the arrogant and undisciplined Hamidiye regiments who took everything they could use, mules, donkeys, but also money by ransoming the wealthiest Christian families.2 The first disturbances had set the stage. Jean Naayem closely traced events in Harput where a large Syriac community was living. His testimony allows us to follow each step of the eradication. First, Turkish authorities ordered searches only of the Christian homes, under the pretext of looking for weapons. Then, the governor conducted arbitrary arrests of young men or influential figures, teachers, priests, notables. These arrests, which soon became executions, first targeted each community’s elite. The Turks first began by arresting a few notables and especially school teachers; among others, they seized Ashur Yussef, editor of the newspaper, Murshed (Monitor), spokesman of the city’s Assyro-Chaldeans and a professor at the American College. If my memory serves, that was at the beginning of May 1915. The people who were thus arrested were put into prison and their homes were searched. Luckily nothing compromising was found. The Assyro-Chaldeans’ (Jacobites’)3 homes were given the same treatment. The Christian notables and professors who were arrested remained in prison for two weeks. […] The marketplace was surrounded by soldiers. They sorted the people, and all Christians without distinction over I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part II, Chapter 5. Idem, Part II, Chapter 8-9. 3 J. Naayem’s parenthetical specification. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE the age of 14 were arrested and thrown into prison. […] I also witnessed the arrests of Boghos and Marderos Chatalbashe, two brothers, as well as of Abraham Tasho and of many other Assyro-Chaldeans. […] We had all fled along the terraces and we ran to the bishopric. […] Meanwhile, the crowded Christian neighborhoods were emptying out. Only a few young people were left. Almost all the men were brought to Mezre, where 1,500 of them were locked up. […] In Adyaman, a small city, there was almost no trace of Christians left. All of them had been massacred with axes and thrown into the river that crosses that land.1

THE CARAVANS OF DEATH [In the beginning of April,] the Turks relieved all Christians of duty on the false pretext that all Christians were traitors. Then they began to pillage Christian houses by night, and especially the Syrian Catholic monastery of Mar Ephrem.2

Father Armalet confirms this information while adding that several weeks later, on June 11, during mass arrests, “all the Syriac monks from the monastery of Mar Ephrem were put into prison, and the Syrian bishop was arrested as well.” [On April 25,] the Turks came to conduct searches of the Armenian bishopric and of the nearby church in order to find, they claimed, secret papers and hidden weapons.

The pretext of searching for hidden weapons had already been used during the massacres of 1895. Towards the middle of May, the Turks conducted searches of all the Christian homes, and took away all their weapons.3

Events began to speed up after June 3, 1915, when a chiefcommissar of the Turkish police, Memduh Bey, arrived. [His] gait betrayed arrogance, his conversation smacked of illiteracy, his right hand spilled blood, his left hand snatched jewels. The head of a bulldog planted on the J. NAAYEM, op. cit., pp. 143-151. Report presented by Patriarch RAHMANI, Damage caused to the Syrian nation, to the peace conference. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-29, Turkey, volume 128, folio 39-44). 3 Idem. 1 2

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shoulders of a dock-porter. The executioner of Mardin, it is he!1

He had the governor arrest the Armenian bishop, Mgr. Maloyan “with sixteen priests”, then notables, together with many members of the clergy, and all the Christians they could lay their hands on, regardless of faith, which came out to 550 people. They tortured them with canings, as well as with the falaka (beating the soles of the feet with a stick), which is a terrible punishment favored by the Turks; they even ripped out their fingernails. Then they sent 80 Jacobites back home.2

This distinction between Syriac Orthodox and Armenians was also brought up by Father Armalet, who even referred to the terms of an amnesty the Ottoman authorities supposedly called for “Syrians” (“Suriani”, or Syriacs). The matter of an amnesty for non-Armenians is also corroborated by Father Rhétoré’s testimony, at least as far as the first arrests in Mardin are concerned. “The Jacobites did not have the honor of joining their brothers’ sufferings. In government centers, they seem to have been spared, though they received no such mercy in the villages.”3 This might have been a favor accorded certain people able to buy leniency. A claim letter written by the Syriac Catholic Patriarch after the war also confirmed this type of practice: Amounts paid by his Greatness Mgr. Gabriel Tappouni […] by order of Chief of deportation during the 1915 massacres: 500 Turkish gold pounds; Amount paid by the monks of St. Ephrem who were imprisoned in 1915: 500 Turkish gold pounds, etc.4

Yet Father Simon’s account does not express the same hesitation: All of a sudden, on the morning of June 3, in a huge round-up operation, notables from the three Catholic nations, Armenians, Syrians and Chaldeans, were taken and thrown into prison with a few Protestants. […] Mgr. Maloyan was the first to have the honor of a cell. He was followed by a hundred other comrades taken This is the title used by fathers Armalet and Simon. RAHMANI report, op. cit.. 3 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #2, p. 68. 4 RAHMANI report, op. cit.. 1 2

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The first massacre was reported in the beginning of March near Mardin. They put to death Chief Burro, a local Christian notable, his son-in-law Youssef Saadohana, who belonged to our faith [Syriac Catholic], was with him. They put him to death with all the other Christians who were there. The murderers were soldiers who had ordered them to leave the city to go to Diyarbakir under their escort. Once they had left the city, the soldiers gunned them down on the road.2

A few days later, in Mardin, men belonging to all the Christian denominations, Armenians, Syriacs, Chaldeans and Protestants, were gathered in the town square by order of the governor, and then led to the “castle”, his place of residence. Without giving a precise date, Father Armalet mentions that during this pathetic procession through the winding city streets, they were insulted, spit on, and hit with stones by Muslim women and children. They were marching tied to each other with thick ropes. Some of them had chains on their arms, some had even been put in iron rings.3

The authorities began to use more radical methods as of June 10, 1915. On that night, Father Armalet’s account speaks of the departure of one of the first convoys of deportees, made up of “martyrs” of all Christian denominations, members of the clergy as well as young men. Where Father Armalet numbers them at 417, Patriarch Rahmani at 470, and Father Simon at 405, they were all murdered just after they left the city “through the west gate” by the soldiers escorting them. Earlier that evening, all other Christian families had been confined to their homes under orders not to come out for several days. Once the authorities had reached the decision to massacre them, the men who had escaped inclusion in the first convoy were again rounded up in the town square amid the bloodthirsty screams of the populace, “You’re going to die like your Christ!” The tension reached its peak when other priests and bishops were added to their numbers. The convoy left the city on foot at the end of the H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 3, pp. 17-18. Idem. 3 H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 4, p. 25. 1 2

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day, after the authorities had informed them they that were to go to Diyarbakir for “judgment”, to use Father Armalet’s term. What were their crimes? No one ever returned from this convoy. News of this was heard in Mardin the very next day, June 11, thanks to the indiscretion of certain “Muslims” who were said to have been opposed to the massacre. “Tension is very palpable against Christians”, Father Armalet was careful to note. This first episode is corroborated point by point by the Syriac Patriarch Rahmani’s report to the peace conference of June 11, 1919. A careful examination of the dates on which the two accounts were written seems to support the idea that they had followed two different paths, which would have prevented them from influencing each other. Patriarch Rahmani’s account also supplies further details on the nature of the executions: They were accompanied by Memduh Bey, by his aidede-camp, and by a crowd of Turkish army rabble. On the way, the soldiers were ordered to kill 70 of them between Encrai and Set Anna [villages along the road to Diyarbakir]. The 400 that were left were divided into two groups in front of the Zirzewan citadel, and some of the Kurdish soldiers beat them to death. Finally, near Diyarbakir on the black bridge, the survivors, including Mgr. Maloyan, were in turn executed by firing squad after their cruel martyrdom.1

The black bridge, built by the first Seljuks, crosses the Tigris a few kilometers south of the Diyarbakir walls. It still exists today. Father Simon’s account also names the same places. Then Memduh Bey made a first split. Of the 405 in the convoy, he took 100, whom he brought to the place called “the Sheikhan caves”. The deep caves that have still not given up their victims did not allow their last screams to be heard either. Barely had the executioners returned when Memduh Bey chose another hundred martyrs who were brought about an hour away from there to the place called “Zerzewan Kalaat”. There they were all massacred, in groups of four, with stones, knives, daggers, scimitars, and bludgeons, and then they were thrown down the wells.2 1 2

RAHMANI report, op. cit.. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 3, p. 29.

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A bishop, whose denomination is not mentioned, is said to have been spared at first, since the Muslims wanted to convert him. Father Armalet had been able to overhear this part of the conversation: —You don’t want to be a Muslim? —You’ve already asked me that question several times; I live and die only by the cross of my Lord.

He is said to have been killed after this response. Could that have been Mgr. Maloyan? This example of an attempt at conversion is among the few that have come down to us. The day after the first convoy, the Turks arrested Syriac Catholics to form “a second caravan of death”. “Now 370 Christians of different denominations were put in prison and mistreated.” Several days later, on June 14, 70 of them were singled out, 75 according to Father Simon, and led on foot towards Diyarbakir, where they met their end along the way, in the village of “Settmane”.1 By the way, let it be said in passing as a warning, do not be surprised if today you see a few old Kurds dressed in jackets of the latest Parisian fashion or in ecclesiastical overcoats. It was at Shiekhan that the prisoners finally figured out what destiny awaited them and what had befallen the first convoy.2

Father Armalet says that another convoy was formed on June 23, 1915. As was the case for the first arrests of June 3, it seems that a distinction was made, at least at first, between Armenians and Syriacs. Father Armalet specifies that this distinction concerned “Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Chaldeans and Protestants”.3 The governor summoned the remaining priests as well as several notables of all denominations and accused them of “working against the government”. The non-Armenians were asked “to raise their hands” so that they could be sent home.4 This third “caravan of death” left the city in the same way as the earlier ones and was eliminated near the village of “Hafkur”. The number of victims was not recorded. Patriarch Rahmani also describes a RAHMANI report, op. cit.. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 3, p. 34. 3 I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part II, Chapter 15. 4 Idem. 1 2

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convoy leaving around the same time, before June 29, made up of the prison populations of different denominations. Then, one morning, they had them leave the city through the gate called “the wall gate”; some of them were massacred not far from the city, others met the same fate near the village of Dara [south west of Mardin].

They were then thrown into deep wells that had once been King Darius’ old prisons. The words Father Armalet uses are precise, but might lead to confusion. He speaks of an “amnesty” supposedly decreed for Syrians, but fails to mention its extent. The term “amnesty” is imprecise, since it implies that one group is guilty where another is not. This method of assigning guilt has been shown to be operative under every genocidal mechanism of the twentieth century. What, for example, were the motives forwarded by the Turkish government to justify this differentiation? In the absence of more evidence, it is difficult to measure the consequences of these distinctions. Father Simon nonetheless mentioned a few that it is fitting to record here: To the violence of Muslim fanaticism were added the schemes of fraternal hatred. The Jacobites, our estranged brothers, joined with the Turks of Mardin to strike Catholics. Safe in the Padishah’s [Sultan’s] shadow, they remained sheltered from the rigors of persecution, at least in the city. And to prove their loyalty to the Empire, to further justify the title of “Orphans of Mohamed” that the Muslims give them, they found it useful to show all their old enmity for Catholic Syrians [Syriacs], so much so that the persecution changed its nature: once political, it had become Christian yesterday, only to become Catholic in Mardin today. And first the Jacobites, their bishop at their head, declared that in Mardin, the Armenians and the Catholic Syrians were one in their religious faith, and therefore, as their hateful logic added, “one in their political platform”. The argument was worthless, but its insinuation had great importance later on.1

The consequence of this jealousy was that the “Jacobites”, according to this testimony, reported two young Syriac Catholic 1

H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 7, p. 43.

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priests to the authorities, “Abbots Louis Mansourati and Joseph Rabbani, the one a director, the other a sub-director of the Syriac Catholic school”, under the pretext that they had continued to teach French. No mention of these complaints was found at the end of the war, or even in the report the Syriac Catholic Patriarch Mgr. Rahmani gave at the peace conference. It seems that this “denunciation” episode had no further consequences. This reflex of the Jacobite authorities was the same as was recorded twenty years earlier during the Urfa massacres. It was more an act of cowardice motivated by isolated members of a jealous clergy. In no instance can the Syriac Orthodox, or even Catholic families of Mardin be connected with these actions, since most of them were deported. The list of victims, without any pretense to scientific precision, only lengthened as lips grew looser with time. Thus the “Khdorshah” or “Khedershah” family lost 31 of its members, the “Kalash”, 28 members, the “Shullah”, 19, the “Dawleh” or “Dawle”, 43, the “Basmarji” or “Basmaji” (Orthodox), 28, the “Mneirji” or “Mnaiyerji” (Orthodox), 56, the “Bahhaddeh” or “Bahhade” (Orthodox), 18, the “Koss Bihname” or “Qass Behnam”, 32, the “Tawshan” or “Tochan” (Orthodox), 51, the “Arbajji”, 48, the “Zrenba” or “Zrompa”, 37, the “Madfouni”, 61, and finally the “Kacho”, 42. Such was the case for the following families, for whom, unfortunately, we do not have numbers exact enough to publish. These are the “Kuki”, “Yuhanna” or “Yohanna”, “Dolabani” or “Daulabani” (Orthodox), “Shahrestan” or “Shahrestan” (Orthodox), “Tuma”, “Malke” (Catholic), “Kaspo” (Catholic), “Koss Hanna” or “Qass Hanna” (Orthodox), “Shamsi” (Orthodox), “Karasti” or “Badlissi” (Orthodox), “Shullah”, “Hadayya” (Catholic), “Shaker” (Orthodox), “Abdel Nur” or “Abdalnur” (Orthodox), “Bahini” or “Bahine”, “Hannush”, “Haddad”, “Madfuni”, “Za’faro” or “Zaparo” (Orthodox), “Kawake” or “Qawaq” (Orthodox), “Ain Sanji” or “Ayn Sanje” (Orthodox), “Zrenda”, or the “Kacho” (Armenian Catholic), etc. All these families lost many close relatives, often dozens of them per family, which should rather be understood as “clan”.1 1 Inquiry conducted by the author based on oral testimony gathered among these families’ descendents living in Aleppo. The denomination to which each family belonged (Catholic or Orthodox) has been specified wherever possible.

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It should be noted that several Christian families from Mardin that were counted as belonging to the Catholic Armenian denomination do not automatically derive from the Armenian community in the ethnic sense of the word. Many Syriac families that wanted to convert to Catholicism during the 18th century turned to the Catholic Armenian church since there was no Syriac Catholic clergy in the city. In fact, the notion of “nationality” did not exist between Armenians and Syriacs, since they were all speakers of Arabic, like the Armenians from Aleppo. An “Armenian” could become a “Syriac”, and vice versa, by simply changing churches. The attacks intensified against Christian communities over the course of July 1915. Women who had until then escaped the raids were now the main victims. On July 2, a new “caravan of death” left Mardin. Numbering 600, they were killed just as they left the city. On July 15, all Christian homes were sacked. The soldiers extorted money from the richest families in exchange for promises of leniency. The Kaspo home [a Syriac Catholic family], among the richest in Mardin, was made up of the families of four brothers, the three youngest of whom had already disappeared in the chaos. The head of the household, Mr. Boghos Kaspo, by hiding, disguising himself and paying exorbitant amounts of money, had managed to escape imprisonment until then. This time, he was seized and sent off with his whole tribe of about forty people. Among them, we could see grandmothers, mothers, daughters-in-law, young men, a lot of girls and children. At the commanded time, the whole company came out of the paternal home under the careful eye of the police who, list in hand, checked each person as he or she left in order to be sure no one would escape. All the women and girls wore a white veil on her head, as if they were setting out on a voyage, and since it was nighttime, each one held a little candle to light her way through the uneven streets of Mardin.1

The Syriac community was ordered to pay 2,000 Turkish pounds to the city’s governor. It seems that the promises of leniency were not respected, for the next day, the women, who 1

J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #2, p. 134.

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Father Armalet said were of all denominations, were gathered in the public square in order to form a convoy. They left the city on foot during the night of July 16-17, 1915, “the soldiers undressed them outside the city and massacred them in small groups.”1 According to Father Simon’s account, Khalil bey, son of the great Kurdish chieftain Ibrahim Pasha, personally came from Viranshehir to take part in this massacre. In testimony gathered from a Syriac Orthodox woman who escaped this massacre when she was still a small child, she remembered being separated by force from her mother. She never saw her parents again, and she was placed with a Muslim family.2 The massacre continued until July 19, and was completed by the massacre of the victims of new convoys coming “from Diyarbakir” and “from Armenia”, that were made up essentially of Armenians.3 On August 2, “a second caravan of women of all denominations is brought to Aleppo. A small number of them were killed along the way.”4 The convoys of deportees coming from the Armenian plateau towards the Syrian desert, the location to which, in theory, the population was to be displaced, were forced to pass through the Mardin vicinity. On the evening of July 1, a convoy of Armenian women numbering more than 2,000 arrived at Mardin. It was the first image of the transmigrations in our region. Thirty-five days of walking and starving, dressed in rags with messy hair, gloomy, numb, barefoot, tanned from the sun, eyes staring as if haunted by distant visions of recent carnage. On July 5th, another arrival, more than 3,000 Armenian women I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part II, Chapter 28. Memories can be deceiving. After this separation, the young girl was taken in by (or placed with?) Muslim neighbors, and then at the end of the war, she was sent by train to Aleppo with one of her female cousins. Both of them Syriac Orthodox, they were raised by the Institution of Saint Odile, then, once they learned French, they were able to serve in various families and institutions, such as the French embassy in Damascus, then in a very important family in Aleppo, the Antakis. They now live a peaceful retirement in an “Old Persons’ Home” in Aleppo. One of them, Nejmé, died in the summer of 2001,after I met her. 3 I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part II, Chapter 29. 4 RAHMANI report, op. cit.. 1 2

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deported for the same reason, under the same conditions, and to the same destination.1

The convoys were then routed towards Ras-ul-Ain, 18 hours away by foot, near the new railroad, where the luckiest were boarded into a train for Aleppo. This city received a large number of Syriac families coming from Urfa who had no trouble integrating afterward. Few Syriac families from Tur Abdin were able to seek refuge there because of its great distance. The Syrian city of Al-Qamishli played this role during the protective period of the French mandate. Several thousand Christians, Armenians, Syrians and others, were deported to Aleppo with priests and even Bishops. They were left in the open outside the city under the burning sun without any shelter […]. Many of them died this way. Later on, they were allowed to enter the city. Since other inhabitants of Mesopotamia had also sought refuge in Aleppo, the number of these wretches reached 60,000, crammed together, with no other place to live but the Christian neighborhoods’ streets and the churches. In tatters, without any way to maintain hygiene, they soon fell victim to typhus which struck and killed a quarter of the population.2

The others headed towards the Syrian desert to reach the large center of Deir-ez-Zor.3 It is an almost entirely Muslim Arab city, with the exception of about one hundred Christian families, Syrians or Chaldeans. Thousands of Christians from Mesopotamia and Armenia were deported to that city, and they were made to suffer the cruelest tortures. One of my priests wrote me that he could not depict what he had seen with his own eyes as he had helped the victims with religious aide. To be even more certain that they would die, they brought them to the desert where they died from starvation.4

At Diyarbakir, the eradication mechanism apparently followed the same process as at Mardin and Harput. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 9, p. 55. RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 44. 3 All the deportation itineraries have been reproduced in many studies, including the seminal and essential work by Yves TERNON, op. cit., p. 264. 4 RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 44. 1 2

174

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE In Diyarbakir, and in many of the villages surrounding that capital, there were many Armenians, some nonCatholics, others Catholics, monophysite Syrians and Chaldeans. In April 1915, all the Armenian notables were arrested first, then those of the other denominations. They were thrown into prison under the false pretense that they were hiding weapons in their homes, and they were made to endure a thousand tortures. Among them, the bishop of the non-Catholic Armenians had been incarcerated with his priests, and they were burned alive. About one thousand other notables were transported 18 hours away from Diyarbakir on the Tigris on rafts and they were all shot dead.1

We know from Father Rhétoré that the first arrests of notables took place on April 16, 1915. But the testimony gathered gives little information on the convoys of deportees that left the city afterwards. New searches through all the homes to arrest other Christians who were deported in twenty successive caravans to a certain distance from the city, where they were stoned to death. […] Other priests of all denominations were massacred, some with the caravans, others in their churches or presbyteries. […] The women and children were deported, and on the road, the women were raped and sold. Only a small number of the deportees actually reached their destination; most of them died of exhaustion. All the Christians who lived in this region’s many villages were also massacred; among them there was a large number of non-Catholic Armenians and monophysite Syrians.2

An internal note from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated December 1915 corroborated this information: In Diyarbakir, the new vali [Doctor Reshid Bey, who succeeded Hamid Bey] arrived around April 1915. As soon as he was in place, he sent out public criers to order the Christian inhabitants to hand over the weapons he knew they had in their possession. All the Christians, Gregorian Armenians, Jacobites, Syrian Catholics and Chaldeans, rushed to hand over to military authorities the few weapons they owned. A few 1 2

RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 42. Idem.

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days later, the mass arrests of Christians began, in such a way that the serail’s prisons held over 1,600 individuals, who were beaten one by one, some were even tortured and beaten to death, and every day their bodies would be thrown off the city’s ramparts. The inquiry that the authorities pursued to find new arms continued under conditions as cruel as they were barbarous for more than six weeks. […] About one hundred were massacred.1

All communities were affected. The authorities made no distinction between denominations, and unlike in Mardin, no amnesty has ever been mentioned for Diyarbakir. The first convoy set out on May 30, 1915, “there were about 1,200 of them, for notables of the other Christian communities had been added to the Armenians.”2 Jean Naayem informs us of these arrests: After he held a council to discuss the matter, the vali decreed […] that all the weapons the Christians had at their homes should be handed over within three days. […] Everyone handed over whatever arms he had. A great amount of weapons and dynamite was transported from the serail and the vilayet’s army barracks to be used against the Christians. The bandits were taking photographs of this farce and reproducing them in brochures as propaganda for their evil plans.3

After the war, this type of photograph was used abundantly to illustrate Turkish school books. Those who did not hand over any weapons had “their fingernails pulled out or shoes nailed into their feet as if they were horses.” Finally, out of the 1,600 individuals thrown into prison in Diyarbakir, about 680 of the wealthiest notables paid for their military exoneration and were thrown in handcuffs into the Mosul desert, and no one knows how or where their exodus ended. As for the others, they were only paroled so that they could be made to work with those between 18 and 35 years of age compelled into military service in forced labor […], and so that one or two could be shot dead each day, which 1 Unsigned note. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-29, Turkey, volume 128, without folio.) 2 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #1, p. 32. 3 J. NAAYEM, op. cit., pp. 153-160.

176

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE was noted by American missionaries coming from Bitlis, Harput and Mezre to go to Aleppo. Apparently the young men were the policemen’s favorite targets, for the missionaries had seen the corpses of young men lying in the dirt all along the road.1

The law of February 21, 1915 let non-Muslim reservist and territorial soldiers pay a tax in order not to be mobilized. Those who could not pay it were forced to perform civilian or military tasks. In the first months of the war, thousands of young Christian soldiers were murdered within the army itself.2 The second act of cruelty began with a round-up of Christian soldiers. A notice was published that soldiers who knew a profession would be employed in town and unskilled workers would be used to build roads […] Fifteen hundred individuals were thus hired and a month later, mercilessly massacred. Not one escaped death. The scenes of their martyrdom are called Kara Jorun and Kara Dagh, two hours from Diyarbakir.3

These murders were committed by Turkish policemen and by an infamous bandit from the region, whose name Jean Naayem cites. Was this the personal initiative of a military chief, or was it an order given by the government, which was directly responsible for the police? For Father Rhétoré, there was no doubt that Doctor Reshid Bey was the government’s strong-arm in the region. After the “deportations” the city had suffered, the Armenian community of Diyarbakir numbered only 1,200 individuals, who converted to Islam, as well as a small community of 40 Catholic Armenians. Among the less numerous Syriac denominations, the Chaldeans had 34 murdered households, that is 34 families, and the “Jacobites” had 26, while 80 men chose to become Muslim.4 Two Syriac Catholic families famous in the city converted to Islam, the Shaqqâl family and the Bâlî family. Before the war, Father Armalet estimated the Diyarbakir diocese’s number of Syriac Orthodox families at 200. This estimate was for the whole of the Diyarbakir

Idem. (See the dossier “Armenia #887”, August 1914 and December 1915, folio 250 to 254) There exist dozens of accounts of these practices, which were also aimed at Syriacs. 3 J. NAAYEM, op. cit., pp. 153-160. 4 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 390. 1 2

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diocese, which thus included the city and a few villages close to the Tigris. J. M. Fiey offered no information on this subject. One may be struck by the smallness of this number given the data from the last Ottoman census, 1882-1883, which credited the “monophysite Syrian” community with more than 4,000 individuals. Are we to see in this demographic fall the indirect consequences of the 1895 massacres? In Diyarbakir, much of the population has been massacred or has died after their deportation, which was executed with the greatest cruelty, not to mention their devastated and looted properties and belongings. It is to be noted that many have also embraced Islam, by fear, to save their lives, or by constraint, others are still held as slaves by their aggressors.1 As for the monasteries, churches and Christians’ property, the same thing happened to them there as had happened in Mardin: the men from the government confiscated them.2

Father Armalet’s and Patriarch Rahmani’s accounts concur in affirming that all Syriac villages in the Diyarbakir region were attacked, and they name several of them: first of all the large village of Viranshehir, where all the Christians gradually disappeared in accordance with the system of extermination and deportation (Gregorian Armenians, 1000; Catholic Armenians, 650; Syrian Catholics, 250; Chaldeans, 450; Jacobites, 750). Led off in convoys of 200 or 300 each, they were sent in different directions.3

This was the case of the village of Qatrabel, which only had a few survivors left after the war. These last people were forced to abandon their village definitively by the government in 1927. We may also cite the villages of Deyrek, with a population of 3,000 Armenian and Syriac Christians and of Siverek, which were destroyed.

1 Grégoire HABRA, in a letter addressed to Commander Sciard from Mosul on November 27, 1918 (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, volume 49, folio 100). 2 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 342. 3 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #1, p. 40.

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The Syriac Orthodox priest from the village of Qarabash was killed, the population probably massacred, and all the Chaldeans were executed in March 1915.1 At the time of the massacres, the Syriac Orthodox of Ka’biye took refuge in Diyarbakir. When they no longer had any food left, they went to the residence of their bishop Abd el-Nûr who tried to intercede on their behalf with the vali, Reshid Bey, so that they might return to their village to work their fields. The vali ordered the region’s mudir2 to accompany them back to their village. He then took their names and distributed a piece of bread to each one of them. That very night he brought them towards Deyrek, saying he wanted to show them the fields that he wanted to give them to farm, but the soldiers massacred them. There were 564 of them. […] A schoolteacher from this village, Abd el-Masîh, deacon of Ka’biye, had his parents, brothers and sisters, wife and three children all killed, their throats slashed, while he was out of the village that night. He fled to Deir al-Za`faran.3

Father Rhétoré’s and Jean Naayem’s testimony also inform us of the massacres in Syriac villages in the north of the province, in the Al-Hattâkh diocese. In this whole northern region of the vilayet, there were fifteen Jacobite villages that were very prosperous, and which thus brought quite a bit of income to the State: it was a population of about 20,000 individuals. A spirit of insanity must have come over Turkey for it to send to their deaths hardworking and faithful subjects who did not have the fatal name of Armenians and who were even called “the orphans of Mohamed”. This important fact shows that Turkey was not just after Armenians, but after all Christians.4

The massacre of these villages inhabitants was confirmed by Jean Naayem, who also provides the names of a few others, such as Fûm, Shem-shem, Jûm, Tappa, Naghlé.5 J. NAAYEM, op. cit., p. 152-153. The mudir is an administrator in charge of a nahiye, a sub-division of a kaza. 3 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 454. 4 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #1, p. 51. 5 J. NAAYEM, op. cit., p. 172 1 2

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Father Rhétoré’s account stresses the victims’ courage in the face of torture, and repeated the many attempts at forced conversions to Islam. The text implies that these failed. He particularly mentions a certain “Rais Bero, a Jacobite from the village of “Isa Bwâr (near Maifarqin)” who refused to abandon his religion even after much torture. The former governor of Lice, in the north of the province, refused to execute the massacre orders, and when he was recalled to Diyarbakir, he was murdered on the way by the policemen escorting him.

CHAPTER 12. A SANCTUARY FOR THE SYRIACS? The destiny of the Syriacs in Tur Abdin has raised many questions among historians. As during the massacres of 1895, observers often formed the idea, by ignorance or maliciously, that the massacres had targeted only the Armenians, to the exclusion of the other Christian populations. The observation noted by the historian Ray Jabre Mouawad well illustrates this position’s ambiguity: It is the example of Tur Abdin that leaves us in doubt as to the central government’s intentions towards the western Syriacs. In these mountains, there are no Armenians, but for a few Catholic Armenians in the main city, Midyat, the governor’s seat. And yet, just like the Empire’s other provinces, Tur Abdin had its share of massacres. […] In 1895, since there were no Armenians living there, and Armenians were Abd elHamid’s exclusive targets, except for a few “mistakes” accidentally affecting western Syriacs, Tur Abdin had been spared.1

There were several reasons for this impasse. The first was the Syriac communities’ intrinsic weakness during the period. Divided, withdrawn into themselves, and demographically diminished, they had a great deal of trouble, despite Patriarchs Rahmani and Barsaum’s desperate attempts at the peace conference, to have their plight heard, let alone recognized by the international community. The second factor was the dearth of primary sources, as well as the scarcity of testimonials surviving to the present. The war, which went on until 1918 in Tur Abdin, as well as the young Turkish republic’s energetic clamp-down on these territories, prevented traditional diplomatic, military and ecclesiastical observers from reporting the massacres. Many times, Patriarch Rahmani complained that he had no news “from his brothers in Tur Abdin”. Finally, the questions raised by the matter of amnesties proclaimed for the Syriacs at Mardin and Nusaybin only sowed confusion. They turned an isolated instance, whose very factuality is in doubt, into historical fact implying that there were two categories of victims: the Armenians on one side, and the other 1

R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 211.

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Christians on the other. This notion, used to establish a sort of hierarchy of victims’ innocence, led to a simplification that slowly won out, denying or just ignoring the Syriacs’ genocide in order to stress that only Armenians were targeted. The following testimony will help clarify how the dramatic events should be understood. As for the Christian villages in the Mardin vicinity, which are many and inhabited by Syrians, the Turkish government ordered the army rabble to attack those villages, and they did not refrain from raiding and killing the inhabitants; the inhabitants of Tell Armen were brought to the church and burned with gasoline […]

This evokes the same methods used during the massacres of 1895.1 Father Armalet’s testimony confirms that starting on June 10, 1915, the Christian villages around Mardin were systematically attacked by soldiers and Kurdish troops. Father Simon’s account is in this respect more precise. He tells that the village of al-Qusûr (Gulliye or Ksor in Turkish), just outside Mardin, was attacked on July 3. Al-Qusûr was the very model of the hardworking and prosperous village. Its 250 homes, a true reservoir hiding the overabundance of the years of plenty, […] who would have imagined that they would be destroyed so quickly? There were no Armenians there, and thanks to their title of Jacobites, they hoped they would be spared any trouble. Yet on July 3, at dawn, the Mardinians on their high terraces witnessed a unique spectacle. More than four thousand Kurdish cavalry surrounded the village. The gunshots, so frequent during the night, had given way to slashes of the saber. The population was massacred under the fatherly eyes of the imperial government and within reach of the fortress…2

Father Armalet estimated the number of victims at 2,000 and 2,500 according to Father Simon, while 200 Syriacs from the same village managed to take refuge in a neighboring town where the

1 2

RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 41. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 8, p. 52.

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Kurdish sheikh of the village protected them until the end of the war.1 The Kurds threw some corpses into wells. As for the victims piled up on top of each other in the home of Chief Elia, they were burned. […] During this bloody drama, a man was sitting on the balcony of his terrace, sniffing the fresh morning air and contemplating the spectacle of fire rising from the plain: it was the governor of Mardin, it was Badreddin Bey. His barbarians slaughtered and burned beneath him, and he smoked his cigarette…2

The Patriarchal monastery of Deir al-Za`faran3 became the refuge for many Syriacs from the nearby villages, as well as from Mardin. According to Father Simon, there were 700, including those from Qalaat Mara, where at the end of the war, there were only 15 “homes” left, according to the information given by S. Henno, and those from Benebil, who were attacked by the Kurds on June 10, with heavy casualties of 60-80 dead. Benebil defended itself against the murderers, it is a village populated with Jacobites and Syrian Catholics. The Kurds surrounded them in compact masses, for the Benebilians are warriors they feared. Very tall, stronglimbed, brave, they are what is left of a race of giants that once lived in different regions of Kurdistan. Together with those qualities, they are also good marksmen. Barricaded in their homes that were riddled with shooting slits, they shot from there without ever missing their mark.4

Several weeks later, the Kurds, under the command of a Turkish officer, Nûrî from Bitlis, started to lay siege to the I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part III, starting on p. 345. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 8, p. 53. 3 The Syriac Orthodox patriarchate was vacant following the death of Patriarch Abd`allah II in Jerusalem on November 26, 1915. The new patriarch was elected only on February 12, 1918 at Deir al-Za`faran. It was difficult in the midst of war to gather together the college of bishops necessary for the election. The table of patriarchs drawn up by J. M. Fiey and presented as an annex does not reflect this rupture, as he stated that Ignatius Elias Shaaker (patriarch until 1933) succeeded Ignatius Abd`allah II in 1917. 4 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #3, p. 184. 1 2

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monastery. In exchange for his “protection”, the Turk extorted a daily ransom from Bishop Elias. Despite everything, the siege lasted until October of the same year, when it was lifted, which allowed many families from Benebil to escape towards Jebel Sinjar in the southeast, the traditional place of refuge. The villages of Ma`sarte, 800 inhabitants, Bafawâ, 600 habitants, and Al-Ibrahimiya, 400, all of them populated exclusively by Orthodox Syriacs, were entirely decimated by the end of June. The same for the village of Kelek, eight hours away by foot from Mardin, where all 2,000 Christian inhabitants were killed. To the south-west of the city, the mixed village of Deyrek, where 3,000 Armenian and Syriac Christians lived side by side with Muslims, was in turn affected. The soldiers started their executions on June 20, bringing all the men and women out of the village in small groups. Father Armalet indicated that on June 27, all the village’s priests were hanged in prison.1 The village was razed and emptied of its Christians. The Syriac village of Kiziltepe, two kilometers east of the large Armenian village of Tell Armen was also attacked by Kurds. Out of the three hundred inhabitants, all peaceful peasants, only about one hundred managed to survive by defending themselves in the church.2

TUR ABDIN SUFFERS TWO WAVES OF ATTACKS The first wave took place at the start of the summer of 1915, at the same time as the events in Mardin and Diyarbakir. The second wave occurred some months later, in 1917. a few villages managed to defend themselves at first, only later to become the favorite targets of the Turkish army that wanted to retake its positions in those regions. Midyat was attacked at the end of June, 1915. On June 21, Father Armalet says that all the Armenian “chieftains” were I. ARMALET, op. cit., Part III, starting on p. 345. Testimony of Elias “X”, whose family is originally from this village. The tale was told to him by his grandmother, a young mother at the time the events occurred. She remembered very well seeing the Kurdish horsemen arrive, and then sack the village among widespread panic. Many men were killed first, and the women were kidnapped. The father of the witness who was then a baby cradled in his mother’s arms, had his head slashed with a dagger that left a deep scar on his skull for the rest of his life. He died in Aleppo during the year 2000. 1 2

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arrested, along with a few Protestants. They were executed outside the city a week later. The city’s frightened Syriacs began to organize their defense. The city’s governor, according to Father Armalet’s account, was clearly responsible for the bloodshed, for against this resistance, he is said to have mobilized the nearby Kurdish troops, urging them to attack the Christian villages. He called upon the “tribes from Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt and Jezireh”. This excess of force once again shows the fear the fierce villagers could inspire. The city’s resistance lasted a week until it was overrun, and then part of the Syriac population was massacred, while about a thousand of them, mostly men, managed to escape during the night to the Syriac village of Ain Wardo situated several kilometers away in a deep valley. The children were spared by the soldiers, “who brought them to Enhel and told the Christians living there ‘Here are your kind, take care of them’.”1 Father Simon’s testimony leaves no room for doubt as to the tragic outcome to this situation. At Midyat, two days away from Mardin, a massacre of 16 Catholic priests, of a Jacobite bishop, of a convoy of 70 Christian notables, and of 7,000 Christians from the surrounding villages.2

Father Rhétoré’s account unfortunately is incomplete, for only the summary of Chapter 13, “Massacres in Jebel Tur”, has survived. This summary does, however, allow us to confirm Fathers Armalet and Simon’s testimony: Midyat and its disarmament. The Turks promise to protect the Christians against the Kurds but then have them massacre them. A group of 2,000 inhabitants of Midyat and another 600 fight back and lose. Courage of the women to avoid dishonor. Doctor Caragoulla and his family killed by the soldiers he was caring for. Attack on the villages of Jebel Tur. Ain Wardo and Azekh defend themselves. Massacre of the people of Bâté and of the Christians of Sor.3

In Tur Abdin itself, the Syriac villages of “Kerburân, Salâh, Killeth, Al-Saûr, Hisn Keifo, Kfar Jôzen, and Bâté” are attacked at I. ARMALET, op. cit., starting on page 399. H. SIMON, op. cit., Chapter 13, p. 87. 3 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook #3, p. 201. Chapter XIII (pp. 202-218) is missing. 1 2

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the same time as Midyat. “Qartmîn, Kfarbe, Deir el-Salib, Bâ Sabrinâ, and Ain Wardo” were attacked during 1917, which is not to say that they were not attacked in 1915. When he speaks of his documentation, Father Armalet insists that he chose certain village names among others because he wrote only of the massacres that he could personally confirm.1 The village of Kerburân, one of the most prosperous in Tur Abdin, was inhabited by more than 350 Syriac Orthodox families. At the mudir’s command, the Kurdish tribes attacked the village’s Christians, who despite everything, managed to hold out for four days. The Kurds burned the houses one by one with their inhabitants still inside. They imprisoned 600 men, whom they would then execute a few days later. Yaqûb, the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Deir el-Salib, renounced his faith and became a Muslim, but was murdered a few days later anyway.2

The government men stirred the notables from a neighboring village against the Jacobites of the village of Killeth. As always, the Jacobites took refuge in their church, where they were burned alive.3 The priests and monks were not spared. Patriarch Barsaum’s report names three Syriac Orthodox priests who were killed, Fathers Ibrahîm, Thomas and Massud, as well as one monk, Abdallah. Barsaum also mentions several men of the Church who were martyred under the same conditions, the hermit monk Adam from Kafro, for example, whose skin was ripped off and his eyes put out with a red-hot iron while he was still alive, or Father Sham’un, priest from the church of Dafné, who was also skinned alive.4 The same scenario took place in the village of Bote, which was entirely Syriac Orthodox. All the townspeople were burned alive in the church, with the exception of a small group of men who managed to escape to the village of Ain Wardo.5 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 399. Idem, p. 390. 3 Idem, p. 411. 4 R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 217. Barsaum also cites the case of Father David, priest from the church of Berâqa, and of the priest from Deir el-Salîb, in the village of Atâfié. 5 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 410. 1 2

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The village of Salâh, which at the eve of the war, numbered 30 Syriac and 80 Muslim homes, also suffered the same brutality. It was also the soldiers who on July 2, 1915, at the governor of Midyat’s command, massacred all the Christians living in the town. The only survivors were a few people who happened not to be there that day, and a few women, who were kept for the troops.1

The town of Hasankeif, where several hundred Syriac Orthodox lived, and where S. Henno counted 100 households before 1915, representing between 600-700 individuals, was completely razed by the Kurds and soldiers acting under the command of the governor of Midyat. The massacre lasted for 4 hours in an orgy of unheard-of violence that spared no one, neither women nor children. There were no survivors.2 J. M. Fiey confirmed that this Syriac bishopric was destroyed: “the bishopric lasted until 1915, when the monks from the monastery were killed.”3 The village of Savur, which was inhabited by Syriac Orthodox with an Armenian minority, numbered 300 individuals. All the men were killed in the first days of the attacks, while the women were deported towards Mardin, but murdered on the way. One of them was thrown naked into a well but then rescued half-dead and taken in by a Kurd, who brought her to his uncle in Mardin.4 The testimony left by the Syriac Catholic archbishop of Mosul allows us to identify by name many tribes and individuals involved in the massacres. In Jezireh, Takyan, Girgebadro, Wahsad, the guilty: the aghas of Sharmak, Slupiye, Bazamer, Shapsia, Hesné, and of the Kocher; Suleyman Ismael and the aghas of Sharnak and Slupiye and all their people. Names of the instigators of the massacre: the mufti, Feizi bey, congressman from Diyarbakir, Haji Nain agha, […] the sons of Sheik Mohammed Amin, Sayid Hindi, Yusuf effendi, etc.

A list of about twenty names follows. For the villages of Maszé, Tel Daré, Berké, Bara Betha, Emerin; R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 213. I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 410. 3 R. MOUAWAD, op. cit., p. 213. 4 S. HENNO, op. cit. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Executors: the Esené tribe. Villages of Jarahia, Khandak, Jded; the Mamman tribe. Villages of Mansuriyé, (high monastery and low monastery), Nahervan, Bispin, the Batwan tribe. Village of Herbol; the aghas of Sharnak. Village of Tel Kebbin; the aghas of Sharnak and of Slupiyé. And the village of Peshabur; the Miran tribe.

It is difficult to know to what extent the tribal chieftains acted on their own initiative or under orders. Father Armalet’s account stresses that regular army soldiers were involved. Finally, Patriarch Rahmani’s report, presented at the peace conference, confirmed this information about Tur Abdin: First, Christians from many villages were arrested, then they were killed. The Christians took refuge in the mountain in region’s main town, Midyat, where they organized their resistance against the troops the government had sent after them. The battle lasted several weeks, until the Christians finally had to surrender after losing their best fighters. A wide-scale massacre then took place in almost all the villages. All the monasteries, which were numerous in the vicinity, were looted; a good number of churches were destroyed, priests and monks were killed. Among the victims, there were about fifteen Syrian Catholic priests.

In the Beshiri plain, in the north of Tur Abdin on the left bank of the Tigris, There were many villages inhabited by Monophysite Syrians. They were deported and massacred even though the region’s Muslim sub-governor had refused to execute the orders of the government of Constantinople. His noble decision cost him his life, he was arrested and massacred.

The monastery of Mar Gabriel, where 70 inhabitants of the nearby village of Kfarbe had taken refuge, was attacked in the fall of 1917. All the monastery’s occupants were massacred together with the monks and two priests. The bishopric as such had ceased to exist in 1915, when the last bishop, Philoxenos ‘Abd al-Ahad Misti from Kafra, abandoned the monastery.1 Only two young boys managed to run away to safety, one to the village of Bâ Sabrinâ, the other to Ain Wardo.2 1 2

J. M. FIEY, op. cit., p. 255. I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 393.

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The inhabitants of the Syriac villages of Kfarbe and Deir elSalib met the same tragic fate. After holding out for a few weeks until the spring of 1918, they were massacred to a man.

THE VILLAGES OF THE RESISTANCE: AIN WARDO AND AZEKH That a few Syriac villages held out for a long time is corroborated by several accounts. The resistance of the impressive village of Ain Wardo lasted for weeks, while Azekh resisted for months. This tenacity was due to the fierce character of the inhabitants of Tur Abdin, who were used to living in difficult conditions and to fighting against the Kurds. They were most often united around their tribal chief. It is striking to observe how greatly the entirely Syriac population of the village of Ain Wardo increased since the beginning of the war. This village obviously sheltered many Syriac refugees from other, nearby towns, particularly from Midyat, Bote or Kfarbe. At the time, Father Armalet estimated its population at 6,000 inhabitants. “The men of Ain Wardo were famous for their pride and courage, only they and the inhabitants Azekh were said to have resisted the Turks”.1 The chieftain of Ain Wardo, Massud el-Mzizahi, organised the village’s defense, telling his men, “We will defend ourselves to the end.” To face them, the “government”, to use Father Armalet’s expression, mobilized a large force made up mostly of local Kurds. The Kurds had settled in around the village with their wives and children in a mass of 13,000 people, all waiting for the Christians to be defeated so that they could move into their homes. They managed to occupy a hill overlooking the city and from that position they kept shooting until they finally ran out of munitions. They sent men to get munitions in Diyarbakir and Mardin, and they even were given a canon. Meanwhile, chieftain Massud had everything made of lead melted down so that he could make cartridges out of them. Women and children were dying from hunger and fear, the Christians had already used up the better part of their cattle. Munitions ran out. The siege lasted fifty-two days, at the end of which the inhabitants were forced to negotiate. Once they 1

Idem, p. 405.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE were disarmed, they were killed in the months following their surrender.1

The village of Azekh held out until the end of the war, and still existed as a Christian village in 1926, when it was forced to surrender its arms in exchange for a promise of protection from Mustapha Kemal. Unfortunately, we have no statistics concerning it. “Azekh, a large Syrian village, withstood the Turkish assault so vigorously for months, that in the end, the Turks gave up and went home”, confirms the report presented by Patriarch Rahmani.2 The Syriac historian Jean Hannouche, originally from this village, offers further details.3 The attack of the Kurdish tribes and armed men began on August 17, 1915. Among the attackers, there were the Kochers from Miram and Hamidi, the Hadji from the city of Jezireh, and Abdi Agha’s men. Unable to penetrate the city and suffering heavy losses, they withdrew to the outskirts on the night of September 89, 1915. In the beginning of November of the same year, a regiment of the Turkish army under the command of Omer Naji Bey, with the help of thousands of armed Kurds, encircled Azekh. The attack began on the night of November 7-8 1915.

The men of the village managed to arm themselves, and the village’s strong defensive position allowed them to form a solid line of defense. Inside the city, all utensils, including the copper handles from buckets, were melted down to smelt bullets, and the gunpowder was extracted from sumac root. The inhabitants of Azekh led a counter-attack on the night of November 13-14 by choosing a group of fifty volunteers, fedayin ready to sacrifice themselves, and they laid waste to the Turkish camp, killing many soldiers as they slept. They were also able to bring back hundreds of rifles. Meanwhile, the children of the village crept through the tunnels dug beneath the ramparts so they could go strip the Turkish soldiers’ corpses of their cartridge belts.

This first siege lasted 24 days without the Turks being able to take the city. Commander Omer Naji had asked for reinforcements Idem, p. 405-407. RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 39. 3 This is oral testimony. 1 2

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from Commander Khalil Pasha in Mosul. Once again, the city withstood the attack launched on November 24, and the Turks decided to give up. This testimony is important because, like Father Armalet’s, it confirms the presence of a German officer among the Turkish officers taking part in the siege. This officer’s name is recorded as Bernard Pulls. He is said to have retired to a monastery of Trappist monks in Bavaria after the war. Even if this German presence is not shocking in the context of the Ottoman army, we must remain circumspect as we interpret it for signs of the Germans’ involvement in or responsibility for the massacres. Father Rhétoré’s Memories also speak of the presence of German soldiers in the province at the same time. The Germans, who witnessed the Christian massacres with total indifference and sometimes even approvingly, came in after the massacres in Tell Armen to set up an automobile station there for Turkey. They needed a good place to store their vehicles, so they used the Church that was still filled with the blood of massacred children and their mothers. It was a scandal among the Christians. These Germans, they said, are no different from the Turks. Luckily, the Austrians who came afterward took the Church and gave it their chaplain for Catholic services.1

At the same time, the German ambassador in Istanbul was declaring that the massacres were purely fictional, a “fable”, to use his expression.2 A little further south, events in the small city of Jezireh took the same turn as in the rest of the province. Still inhabited by 2,000 Christians according to Father Rhétoré, the city had no Armenian community, and its entire population was made up of Syriac Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants, including a large community of Chaldeans. Starting in June 1915, on the false pretext of disloyalty to the Turkish government, first all the notables of these three groups (Chaldeans, Catholic Syrians, Monophysite Syrians) were arrested and locked up. Then the Syrian Catholic bishop, Mgr. Flavien Michel Malké, a man of rare virtue and zeal, was incarcerated 1 2

J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., notebook # 3, p. 190. C.P.C. War 1914-1918, Armenia, volume 887, folio 209-210.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE with four of his priests, as well as the Chaldeans’ bishop, Mgr Jacques, with his priests. After two months’ captivity, they were brought an hour’s distance from the city, their hands and feet loaded with chains, and they were mercilessly butchered in a place called Chamme-Suss. Once they returned to the city, the Turkish soldiers looted the homes, grabbed the women, dishonored them and sold them off as slaves.1

The important Syriac villages in the vicinity, such as Esfess, Babek, Kusakh and Garessa, were also attacked. “In the Jezireh region, several Jacobite villages and 15 Chaldean villages were annihilated.”2 “The notables of the villages of Esfess and Meddo were also massacred; the rest of the inhabitants managed to escape”.3 On August 8, 1915, Father Simon’s account confirms these massacres, also mentioning 15 Chaldean villages destroyed in the city’s surrounding area. A little later, he gives the date of August 20, 1915 for the “massacre of all of Jezireh’s Christians, including 2 Catholic bishops and 10 priests, 3 Jacobites priests and 5,000 of their flock”.4 This number seems high for this small city, and Father Rhétoré’s figures seem more trustworthy, though it remains possible that the Syriac population had fled together to Jezireh as they had also done to Midyat, Ain Wardo and Azekh, even though Jezireh’s defensive capabilities are not particularly obvious. The city’s Syriac Orthodox bishop, Behnâm al-Aqrâwî, had fled and taken refuge at Azekh in Tur Abdin [Azekh is only a few hours’ walk form Jezireh], but three Syriac Orthodox priests from Jezireh or its surroundings fell victim to the massacres. On August 29, all the Christian men were arrested and four days later, led out of the city and massacred.5

J. M. Fiey states that the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Jezireh was also killed during the war: Cyril or Dioscorus Barsaum of Azekh is martyred in 1915. His successor, Jules or Yuwanis of ‘Aqra, who

RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 42. J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit, notebook #3, p. 234. 3 RAHMANI report, op. cit., folio 39. 4 H. SIMON, op. cit., chapitre 13, p. 89. 5 Idem. 1 2

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becomes Catholic in 1902, returns to Orthodoxy and dies in prison at Diyarbakir in 1927.1

For the Nusaybin region, and for the city itself, Patriarch Rahmani’s report bears very little information : The ancient city of Nusaybin had Christian groups of Syrians and of Chaldeans who were massacred; many Christian villages between Nusaybin and Jezireh were completely destroyed.2

Father Armalet’s account offers more details. He states that similarly to the announcement made to the inhabitants of Mardin, the governor of Nusaybin decided to call an amnesty for the Syriacs, despite the almost complete absence of Armenians in the city. The Ottoman administrator’s declarations apparently went unheeded, since on June 14, 1915, all the Christian men of the city were murdered. “In Nusaybin, 14 hours away from Mardin, a massacre of all Christians, more than 1,000 people”.3 The Christian villages in the Nusaybin region that were populated with Jacobites all met with massacre and the Kurds occupied them, so that now the entire region has become Muslim.4

In the surrounding villages, Father Armalet drew a distinction between villages whose Syriac populations were exterminated, such as at Mahraké, Guerké-Shamô and Khwaitla, and others, where the Muslim chieftains refused to take part in the massacre. They even helped many Christians to flee to Jebel Sinjar to take refuge with the Yezidi Kurdish tribes, such as the tribe of sheikh Hammô Sherrô for example. This sheikh’s father, Abd el-Rahmân, had already prevented a massacre of Christians in Nusaybin in 1895.5 or again, sheikh Suleyman al-Abbâs, chieftain of the village of Gershirân, and Mohammed Tavy for example. The reason for this clemency might be that these were former Syriac tribes assimilated into Islam several generations earlier, but who still remembered their origins. It has been corroborated that some Yezidi tribes helped refugees who had escaped into Jebel Sinjar. The Yezidi Kurds from the village of Kiwah are even said to have helped the Christians of Azekh fight the Turkish Kurds. J. M. FIEY, op. cit., p. 192. Rapport RAHMANI, op. cit., folio 41. 3 H. SIMON, op. cit., chapitre 13, p. 89. 4 J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., cahier n 3, p. 222. 5 I. ARMALET, op. cit., p. 419. 1 2

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The most striking aspect of these events is the agreement of different testimonials as to the simultaneity of the attacks. They all began in the beginning of the month of June, within days of each other: on the 10th at Mardin and its surroundings; on the 14th at Nusaybin, on the 21st at Midyat, and in June 1915 at Jezireh. Given these circumstances, it is hard to imagine some sort “spontaneous mistake” taking place at the same time in places often several days’ walk away from each other. Moreover, all the witnesses are in agreement as to the direct involvement of many regular “soldiers” in several massacres. The fact that the police executed several local governors judged too moderate in their anti-Christian sentiments, such as the governor of Lice, might lead one to suppose that they were obeying orders from higher up.

CONTRASTING THE ASSESSMENTS Two important sources propose a global assessment of the losses to the Syriac Orthodox community during this sad period. The first assessment, from a western source, was drawn up by Father Rhétoré, who was famed for his precision.1 The second, of Syriac origin, was drawn up by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate for the members of the peace conference of 1919. “Table of Christians of the Diyarbakir vilayet who disappeared during the persecution of 1915-1916”

Gregorian Armenians Catholic Armenians Chaldeans Syrian (Syriac) Catholics Jacobites (Syriac Orthodox) Protestants

1

Individuals before the persecution 60,000

Disappeared 58,000

Remaining after the persecution 2,000

12,500

11,500

1,000

11,120 5,600

10,010 3,450

1,110 2,150

84,725 *

60,725

24,000

725

500

225

J. RHÉTORÉ, op. cit., cahier n 3, p. 241.

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*The Jacobites say that they numbered at least 100,000 in the Diyarbakir vilayet; that number seemed too high to me and the one I have given is more likely. (Father Rhétoré’s note). (Source: Father Rhétoré, notebook #3, p. 241.)

Father Rhétoré continues: The Jacobites, who were also attacked outside of the Diyarbakir vilayet, state that the number of the people they know to have disappeared comes out to 96,000 (including those from the Diyarbakir vilayet). Those they do not know of are the ones from the Bitlis and Harput vilayet. It has been estimated that after their disaster, the Jacobites, who numbered about 200,000 in the Empire, now no longer number more than 60 or 70,000: 30 to 40 thousand in the Diyarbakir, Bitlis and Harput vilayets, 30 in Mosul, Urfa and Aleppo.

Father Rhétoré’s second table allows us to better count the Syriac victims of Tur Abdin. Table of Christians who disappeared in the Mardin sanjak during the persecution of 1915-1916 Persons in Mardin before the massacre

Persons in the villages and kazas before the massacre Idem

Disappeared

Remaining after the massacre

None Idem idem Gregorian Armenians 6,500 4,000 10,200 300 Catholic Armenians 1,100 6,770 6,800 1,070 Catholic Chaldeans 1,750 2,100 700 3,150 Syrian Catholics 7,000 44,725 29,725 22,000 Jacobites* 125 400 250 275 Protestants *The total number of Jacobites 51,725 (7,000 + 44,725), includes the 30,000 Jacobites of Jebel Tur. For the whole of the lands where they had the 96,000 victims mentioned above, the Jacobites count 2 bishops and 156 priests killed, 111 churches or monasteries occupied or destroyed by the Kurds. (Source: Father Rhétoré, notebook #3, p. 241).

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The following table, drawn up by the Syriac patriarchate includes further details, such as the number of families, corresponding certainly to the number of families before the massacres, and the exact number of villages destroyed. The villages or cities cited are either sanjak capitals such as Mardin, kaza capitals such as Midyat, Jezireh and Nusaybin for example, or are large villages, such as Baravat or Beshiri. We shall report only data concerning the Diyarbakir vilayet. “List of damages to the (former) Syrian Orthodox nation in Mesopotamia: Diyarbakir vilayet” Names of the cities and kazas

Number of villages

Number of families

Individuals Massacred

Diyarbakir and vicinity Silvan Lice Deirek Siverek Viranshehir Mardin Savur Nusaybin Jezireh Beshiri Baravat Midyat Total

30

764

5,379

174 658 50 897 303 880 880 1,000 994 718 282 3,935 11,535

1,195 4,706 350 5,725 1,928 5,815 6,164 7,000 7,510 4,481 1,880 25,830 77,963

9 10 30 16 8 7 50 26 30 15 47 278

(Source: Assessment presented by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate to the Peace Conference.)

Finally, Father Simon also proposed a more concise assessment that must have used the data produced by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate.

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“Victims in the vilayet of Diyarbakir ― (not counting victims foreign to the vilayet)”

Catholics Schismatics

Armenians, Syrians, Chaldeans Jacobites

15,000

Armenians

45,000

Protestants

1,200

96,000

(Source : Hyacinthe Simon, Mardin, the heroic city.)

Following this assessment, we must consider that Syriac victims are not only counted in the “Jacobite” category, for the “Syrians” mentioned are Syriac Catholics, like the Chaldeans, and probably also part of the “Protestants” of Syriac origin. The same fury laid in the same grave Catholic with schismatic priests, Chaldeans with Syrians and Armenians, Jacobites and Gregorians. The Catholic Chaldeans lost 3 priests, the Syrians 42 priests, the Armenians 14, the Jacobites 115 priests…Even archbishops and bishops were affected, though the Ottoman Empire had always sheltered them before in a shroud of privacy, with its shadow and its decorations.1

Father Rhétoré’s estimate as to the number of Syriac victims is basically corroborated by the one drawn up by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate. Moreover, it is almost certain that these two sources did not influence each other, for Father Rhétoré’s work was not even mentioned once in the peace conference’s minutes, or even in the preparatory diplomatic correspondence. We can suppose that if it had been known to the Syriacs of the time, they would not have failed to produce it to bolster their own claims. Father Rhétoré offers the number of 60,725 victims just for the Syriac Orthodox community, whereas the number offered by the Syriac Orthodox delegation was 77,963. This difference of 17,238 individuals may be explained by the fact that Father Rhétoré left Mardin in November 1916, thus before the second wave of massacres in 1917. Moreover, unlike the figures supplied by the Syriac patriarchate, it is difficult to understand how he would have 1

H. SIMON, op. cit., chapitre 14, p. 97.

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been able to reach a full count of all the victims in Tur Abdin while the war was still raging, for the foreigners who had been able to stay in Turkey were not allowed to roam freely. They had to ask the governor’s permission each time they wanted to leave town. This would explain why his numbers should be lower than the Syriac patriarchate’s. The data gathered by Father Rhétoré, including the number of inhabitants before the war, allow us to hypothesize estimates as to the proportion of losses for each Christian community. The data concerns only the Diyarbakir vilayet and in no way claims to reflect the wider situation in the other provinces. Christian Communities

Armenians (Gregorians and Catholics) Chaldeans Syriac Orthodox (Jacobites) Syriac Catholics

Proportion of losses in Diyarbakir province (disappeared / estimated number of individuals before massacres) 95 % 90 % 71 % 61 %

(Source: table drawn up by author based on information supplied by Father Rhétoré.)

This scale of proportions reflects each of these communities’ degree of vulnerability. The Armenians were the first victims and the most numerous, for they had been clearly targeted in the deportation plan the government had established. They were also the most vulnerable: artisans and traders in the cities, peaceful peasants and shepherds in the country, they had little predisposition to fight back. This was not the case of the Armenians living in the mountains, such as the ones from Zeïtun for example, who held out for a long time against the Turks. Or like the Syriac populations of Tur Abdin, certain tribes of whom still enjoyed a semi-independent status similar to that of the fierce Nestorian tribes of Hakkari. These populations had decades before learned to fight for their survival in a hostile environment. They had adapted to the Kurds’ violence by adopting the same combat methods themselves, and even by retaliating just as violently. Jean

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Hannouche states that several counter-attacks took place against Kurdish villages in the Azekh region as reprisals and especially as raids to obtain the munitions, weapons, food and salt they were lacking. The battles fought around the villages of Ain Wardo and Azekh serve as illustrations. Unfortunately the data furnished by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate does not allow us to establish proportions because of their lack of a global estimate of their own pre-massacre population. Nonetheless, the data does permit us to reach several priceless conclusions as to the situation in Tur Abdin. According to the table, in the Midyat, Jezireh and Nusaybin regions, more than 123 villages were affected by the massacres; this does not mean that each of the villages was completely destroyed, nor even that every village not included in this number was not attacked. By referring to the information gathered in 1842 by the traveler Georges Badger, who offered the number of 150 Syriac villages, and to that gathered by Father Galland, at the end of the century, who counted only 50 remaining (though it is true that he concentrated only on the area between Jezireh and Midyat, to the particular exclusion of the region around Nusaybin), it is possible to form several comparisons. A contrast of data allows us to reach several conclusions: there were actually more Syriac villages in Tur Abdin than those Georges Badger and Father Galland came across, even though the regions they studied were not exactly identical. The number of 123 villages may be regarded as the upper limit, since they are all accounted for in the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate’s assessment. The data must also be revisited in the light of the recent work of Suleyman Henno, who counted 79 Syriac villages for Tur Abdin alone. In the introduction to his book, Jean Naayem for his part spoke of the existence of about fifty ruined Syriac villages near Midyat, where the entire population had been slaughtered. Unfortunately he offers no names for them, though he does insist he knows them and does not offer any estimates as to the number of victims. This number of about fifty villages does indeed correspond to the number presented by the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate, which for the same geographic region of “Midyat”, counted 47. This is Tur Abdin in its strictest geographical delimitations.

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This observation, which pushes up the number of Syriac villages in Tur Abdin, also forces us to re-evaluate the numbers for the region’s total population. The previously cited estimates as to the pre-massacre population varied between 20,000 Syriacs and 35,000. In accordance with the clarifications presented in the Syriac patriarchate’s assessment, we note that for the same Midyat, Jezireh and Nusaybin regions, the total number of victims would rise to 40,000 individuals, which would increase by approximately 25% the estimate we can establish of the total population before the First World War. I must voice two reservations concerning this estimate. The first is the problem arising from the fact that different assessments divide geographical regions differently. Since the historical entity “Tur Abdin” was not an established administrative district, the geographical delimitation the observers make is not necessarily the same for everyone. This could have led some villages to be counted more than once, whereas other villages might simply have been overlooked. The absence of reliable numbers and data on the 1895 massacres prevents us from accurately measuring any real population shifts. Finally, it is possible that the numbers furnished by the Syriac Orthodox Church were purposefully inflated with a view to the damage claims it would make at the peace conference.

CHAPTER 13. THE TIME OF RECOGNITION At the end of the war in Europe, Turkey’s new situation allowed the Allied countries to establish plans to divide up the former Ottoman Empire. This meant cutting up the map of the East according to each country’s particular interests. The Sykes-Picot accords, negotiated in secret in January 1916 between France and Britain, had already provided for a division of the Empire into “zones of control” and “zones of influence” cleverly split between these two powers. The plan called for the allotment of the provinces of Eastern Turkey as well as the entire Middle East and Mesopotamia. France was to inherit direct control over the whole Mediterranean coast, Lebanon, Iskenderun (Alexandretta), Adana, Cilicia, the former vilayets of Urfa and Diyarbakir, as well as “Greater” Syria, which extended to Mosul. Great Britain was to take all of lower Mesopotamia, which would connect Egypt to the Persian Gulf, where Britain had already consolidated its positions in Kuwait and the Basra plain. The former vilayet of Van had been promised to Russia. News of the peace conference in the first weeks of 1919 brought a large number of foreign delegations to Versailles, and also led the representatives of the Allied powers to entertain the claims of nations that had suffered from the war. The whole thing offered the spectacle of a motley caravanserail where the most diverse nations rubbed elbows: Arabs, Ukrainians, Armenians, Chinese, South Americans. No “unpacking” of the entire world’s affairs had been so large since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.1

For the affairs of the East, which were still in flux thanks to the continuation of hostilities on Turkish territory, each Church rushed to send its own representative in the hope of having its voice heard. The delegations wanted to take advantage of the huge assembly to reveal to the world the immensity of the crimes perpetrated against their peoples. The conference also gave them the chance to formulate various requests, such as payment of indemnities for damages Michel LAUNEY, Versailles, une paix bâclée?, Paris, Complexes, 1999. See p. 80. 1

201

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incurred, and it allowed them to voice political demands, with the particular aim of gaining recognition for their desire for nationhood. Confronted with this situation, the Western powers saw in this mixture of peoples and nations future “client states”, a term the diplomats themselves used in their correspondence, which would help them found their policies. As the peace conference was starting in France, the war in Turkey continued on several fronts. On the eastern front, the Turkish military positions had reached a low point. The euphoria the Turks had felt on September 16, 1918, when they took Baku, had not lasted long. This offensive had been led by an “army of Islam” under the command of Nûrî Pasha, brother of Enver Pasha, and its objective had been to conquer Azerbaijan and Muslim Daghestan. It had been a bitter defeat, for the Turks had been unable to go any further than the Caucasus Mountains, which they could not cross. In Syria, the Arab nationalists supported by the British took Damascus on October 1, 1918. The French landed at Beirut on the 6th of the same month, as British troops rapidly advanced into Mesopotamia along the Tigris, and by this time were only a few kilometers from Mosul. The fatal blow for the Ottomans came from the collapse of their western front when the Allied army of Saloniki crushed the Bulgarian resistance, thus opening Thrace for the European armies. Soon Istanbul fell as well, and on February 8, 1919, General Franchet d’Esperay made his triumphant entrance in to the city, riding a white horse just as Mehmet II had five hundred years earlier, at the fall of Constantinople. Meanwhile, in Paris, news of these victories only reassured the victors, who were ever more confident they would be able to lead the post-war according to their own particular interests. As the first delegations were arriving from the East, the unity that had given the Allies their strength during the war gave way to a quiet struggle for influence, particularly between France and Great Britain, which were both deeply involved in Eastern affairs. The various parties acted precipitously, with a view to future gains, but without building anything solid. In people’s minds, the borders are already traced out: a Great Greece, swallowing western Thrace, Istanbul and western Anatolia; a Pontic Republic including a wide swathe of the coast populated with Christians from the Black Sea; an Armenian state which some people would

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like to see stretch from Trebizond to the Mediterranean; an autonomous Kurdistan at the heart of Asia Minor, between the Taurus mountains and Zagros; a Christian Assyria comprised of the provinces of Mosul, Harput, Diyarbakir and Urfa; a national Jewish homeland in Palestine; Arab territories placed under the jealous protection of the allies…1

Under the great King Constantine, the Greeks seized strategic points in Thrace, while French troops were taking up position in eastern Turkey, where they had landed in Cilicia in December 1918. In May 1919, the Supreme Council of the Entente, which brought together Lloyd George, Clemenceau and the American President Wilson, authorized the Greeks to occupy Smyrna and its surroundings. Considered by many as a slap to Turkey’s honor, the Hellenic landing (May 15) caused great emotion throughout the country and greatly stimulated the activity of various groups created for the defense of Turkey.2

The surprise regrouping of the Turkish army in Anatolia against the Greeks and against the French forces in Cilicia put an end to all these political maneuverings. Split into two distinct political entities, the Kemalists on one side and the Istanbul government on the other, Turkey was divided on the international scene. The Entente’s diplomats forced the Istanbul government to sign a separate peace treaty in Sèvres on August 10, 1920. For a time, this treaty made official an independent Kurdistan, the freedom of the Armenian provinces, Thrace, the Smyrna region, Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia, and limited the borders of the new Turkey to just the Anatolian plain. Foreseeing a future mandate in Syria, France was looking around for support. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs very quickly arose as the foremost contact for the representative of the Syriac Catholic Church in Paris. The Syriac legate’s Francophile and French-speaking arrangement continued the traditional axis of division that had come about during the 19th century between the Catholic churches, supported by France, and the Orthodox churches, that had been approached, and then supported by Great

1 2

F. GEORGEON, op. cit., p. 638. Idem, p. 639.

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Britain. France tried several times to extend its influence to the other Syriac churches. Diplomatic archives have kept a trace of the three Syriac delegations present in Paris in the spring of 1919. First of all, there is the delegation of the Syriac Orthodox Church, represented by an Archbishop, Severius Aphrem Barsaum, speaking for Patriarch Elias of Antioch. The Syriac Catholic Church was represented by its patriarch, Mgr. Rahmani, who had come in person. Finally, a lay delegation is also mentioned, called the Assyro-Chaldean delegation, which was made up of expatriates, living in Europe or America, who had come from the Nestorian or Chaldean Churches. Concerning this last group, however, in his monumental thesis on “the Assyro-Chaldean question”, Joseph Yacoub counted four delegations. An Assyro-Chadean delegation from Turkey, led by Saïd A. Namik and supported by the Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon; an Assyrian Nestorian delegation from the United States, led by Joel E. Werda, president of the Assyrian Association of America (founded on February 26, 1918); a delegation led by Jesse Malek Yonan, representing the Assyro-Chaldeans of Urmiah, Salamas and Sloduz […]; and finally a delegation of the Assyro-Chaldeans of the Caucasus Mountains, led by Lazarus Yacuboff, who presented a memorandum with the title of “President of the Assyrian National Council of Transcaucasia”.1

Joseph Yacoub also mentioned a memorandum sent to the peace conference by the Nestorian patriarch Mar Paulus Shimoun XXII, from the refugee camp in Bakuba with the help of the India Office, a memorandum that the French diplomatic archives unfortunately have not preserved. This camp, which the British set up in the heart of modern-day Iraq, was now home to thousands of Syriac refugees, mostly Nestorian, and few Syriac Orthodox or Chaldeans, who had been chased from Hakkari by Turkish Kurdish troops, and from the Urmiah basin by the Perisans. What weight did the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic communities carry at the debates? We may rightly wonder whether 1 Joseph YACOUB, La question Assyro-Chaldéenne, les Puissances européennes et la S.D.N. (1908-1938), 4 volumes, Lyon, 1985, volume I, pp. 94-95.

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this proliferation of delegations, while clearly illustrating the diversity and the historical heritage of the Syriac world, did not also prevent their claims from truly being taken into consideration. Divided and even sometimes opposed to each other, the delegations seem to have had great difficulty in having their voices heard. Though they were first and foremost victims, they found themselves despite their good will in the humiliating position of plaintiffs. The immense amount of unpublished documents forces us to limit our examination to only those claims forwarded by the delegations of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Syriac Catholic Church. On the Orthodox side, according to the initial plan, the Patriarch was to personally represent the Syriac Orthodox community at the peace conference. His beatitude Mgr. Elias, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Mardin is going to Paris, where he plans to obtain aide for his community that was so put to the test during the war.1

In a telegram dated November 21, 1919, Mgr. Elias informed the French authorities that for health reasons, he had to halt his trip at Constantinople and that he would be willing to go to Paris if his delegate deemed it necessary and if he received from the members of his nation residing in the United States the monetary help he has requested with the expenses involved in traveling to and staying in France.2

In these conditions, he decided to send his representative, Mgr. Severius Aphrem Barsaum (the future Patriarch). It seems that this man was chosen because he was the only Orthodox prelate who could speak French. He studied at the school and at the seminary of the Dominican Fathers at Mosul; at that time, he became a Catholic. When he left the Mosul seminary, he went to the Jacobite monastery of Deir al-Zaafaran, renounced Diplomatic dispatch, July 31, 1919, Beirut, Commissary of the French Republic in Syria and in Armenia. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50). 2 Diplomatic dispatch, November 21, 1919, from Constantinople to Paris, signed by Defrance. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 84). 1

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE Catholicism, and became a monk with the aim of becoming a bishop. The bishopric was a long time in the coming: Mgr. Severius was in fact not promoted until last year. Residing in Homs, then in Damascus, Mgr. Severius has proven an ardent supporter of Emir Faisal. His Patriarch brought him with him to Constantinople, for unless I am mistaken, Mgr. Severius is the only Jacobite prelate to speak French.1

He arrived in Paris in November 1919.

Traveling with a French passport as a “special protégé” and with recommendations from our High Commissary in Beirut and our High Commissary in Constantinople, this prelate presented himself at the Embassy [in Rome], made great protestations to me of his love for France, and asked me for a letter of introduction to the Quai d’Orsay […] This favor, and the others that he received from our authorities in the East were aimed at winning him, and his community, over to our interests.2

When they received him, the French diplomats were surprised by his pro-French declarations. They found his sudden enthusiasm suspicious. The Quai d’Orsay, ever prudent, requested confirmation from Patriarch Elias through the High Commissary of France at Constantinople of the extent of the powers that had been given to Mgr. Barsaum. The embassy answered a few days later that the Archbishop had received from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch the following mandate: 1) To solicit the protection of France for his nationals; 2) To give an account of the losses and damages incurred by the deportations and massacres and to ask for legitimate indemnities and reparations; 3) To solicit for his community the same material assistance that has been accorded to the Armenians.3

Note dated December 20, 1919 (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 97). 2 Confidential diplomatic dispatch, November 7, 1919, Rome. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 79). 3 Diplomatic dispatch, November 21, 1919, from Constantinople to Paris, signed by Defrance. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 84). 1

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Despite everything, the French diplomat voiced reservations stemming from the ambiguous political positions held in the past at Damascus by Mgr. Barsaum. I have learned from a sure source that this orthodox prelate was fairly closely connected with Emir Faisal in Damascus, and that he tried very hard to woo the Arabs, even in his public speeches. Moreover he has a marked tendency of riding the fence with everyone, and he asked the Italians for a recommendation for Mr. Tittoni. He intends to go to London after Paris. Under these circumstances, I think we should take care not to offend him, but that we must be wary of him.1

Soon afterward, this wariness was confirmed when a member of Ministry of Foreign Affairs drew an unflattering picture of this prelate’s dispositions. Negative and filled with disdain, these comments, which were then broadcast throughout diplomatic circles, reflected the diplomats’ attitude towards Easterners. He made great protestations of his love for France to me, but he mostly left me with the impression that he was just another of the intriguing priests the East abounds in. […] The Syrian Orthodox form a small community that comes under neither the Greek Ecumenical Patriarch’s, nor the Roman Pope’s jurisdiction. They use Syriac as their liturgical language and are more or less connected to the ancient SyroPhoenician race.2 Mgr. Aphrem, seeing that the French influence will soon be preponderant in Syria, now rushes over to us, forgetful of the flattery with which he showered the Turks and the Germans. […] Like every intriguer from Syria, Mgr. Aphrem is very agitated, he speaks loudly all the time, believing that this shall impose his will. There is no need for concern, for it is certain that he will have to begin behaving again, and his patriarchate and community are of no real consequence. Even if he goes elsewhere with his list of grievances, there is no danger. He will try to come to an understanding with Faisal, 1 Confidential diplomatic dispatch, November 7, 1919, Rome. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 79). 2 Internal note, November 26, 1919, from Mr. Goût (sub-director of the Asia department), (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 90).

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE that is fairly certain, but it is of no importance: between the Syrian Orthodox and us, when the agreement guaranteeing him his personal role is reached, Faisal will not fail to show his disdain for this small group of Christians. When that day comes, they will be very happy with whatever protection we agree to accord them.1

How great a role does back-biting gossip play in these comments? Does this opinion express an official position of France? The comments were repeated by Mr. Defrance, High Commissar, in a note he sent directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: During the war, the Turks dispossessed the Syrian Catholics because of their pro-French sentiments, to the benefit of their rivals. But they now ask to have their property restored to them, and Mgr. Barsaum, forgetting the flattery with which he did not stop showering the Turks and the Germans for five years, turns to the French, whose influence in Syria is becoming preponderant, in order to have them maintain the situation caused by the war and keep the Syrian Orthodox at the Mar Elian monastery.2

There is no indication in any of the numerous accounts of Fathers Armalet, Rhétoré or Simon that the Syrian Orthodox had any such intentions. The conflict mentioned by the diplomat for the possession of the Mar Elian monastery seems to have resulted from a purely local struggle. [Finally, in pragmatic terms] we cannot abandon our old protégés, the Syrian Catholics, whose requests moreover are justified, but on the other hand, it is not in our interest to openly offend the Syrian Orthodox at the very moment that we are moving into the country.3

In the same tone, another of the High Commissar’s reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this time concerning a meeting between Cardinal Dubois and the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, may leave us confused.

Idem. Confidential note, March 1919, Mr. Defrance, High Commissar at Constantinople, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (C.P.C. Levant 191840, Irak, volumes 49-50, [no folio]). 3 Idem. 1 2

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The Patriarch took pleasure in repeatedly mentioning the regret he felt to see the followers of Eutyches remain out of the Holy See’s control. And he asked the Cardinal to express to the Sovereign Pontiff, not only his homage and respect, but also his strong desire to contribute all his authority to the fusion of the Jacobite Church and the Roman church.1

What was the extent of these overtures? Was it simply a declaration of intention meant to arouse France’s interest to take the Syriacs’ claims under advisement? Was it just a form of politeness? The High Commissar thought it was a political maneuver, as he informed the Minister. Surely it would be premature to see in these overtures anything surpassing the usual marks of Eastern courtesy.

Measuring the interest such a conversion could arouse, he concludes: By moving closer to Rome, the Jacobites will try to place themselves under the religious protection of France. And perhaps it might be in our interest, in the region where they are most numerous, in Mesopotamia and on the borders of the Indias, to have at our disposition an element that would not be exclusively dependent on British authorities.2

On the Catholic side, Mgr. Rahmani came in person. Before leaving Syria, a part of which was still under British military occupation, Mgr. Rahmani had had to cheat in order to get out of the country, by “having the Pope send for him to come to Rome, since the British would never have let him leave otherwise”. This little incident illustrates the tangible tension between France and Great Britain on the Eastern Question. Patriarch Rahmani arrived in Paris in the first week of May 1919 and immediately contacted French authorities. He felt very close to France, since he was a native of Mosul raised by Dominican priests, and his understanding with the French was facilitated by the many cultural affinities and common interests he

1 Diplomatic dispatch, March 5, 1920, Mr. Defrance, High Commissar at Constantinople, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50, folio 111). 2 Idem.

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shared with them. The Syriac Catholics needed to find a protector, and France needed local support for its colonial policies. This high ecclesiastic dignitary, the head of a large Eastern, and particularly Syrian, Christian community, whose faithful have preserved Syriac as their liturgical language, claims a connection with the Phoenician populations of Antiquity. Mgr. Rahmani is an old friend of France; distinguished by his culture, he has always worked for the expansion of French language education among the members of his community, and is particularly well-known to intellectual circles in France. He stayed with his flock during the entire war, and thus shared their hardship over the whole period when Jemal Pasha exerted his tyranny over the Syriacs in general, and over the Christian Syriacs in particular. He is arriving from Aleppo and from Beirut, where he witnessed the beginning of the so-called Arabic government our allies the British have set up over the Syrian back-country. Like all Christians from Syria, he deeply fears the Muslim Arabs will continue Turkish traditions; he is even among those who assert that the Arabic yoke would be harder to bear than the Turkish yoke, and with all his heart he calls for France to provide his country’s administration.1

WHAT WERE THEIR CLAIMS? These minorities’ political claims were motivated in part by the Franco-English declaration of November 8, 1918, in which it was announced that the time for a “complete and definitive liberation” had come for the peoples under Ottoman domination. They would finally be able to construct a “national government whose autonomy would stem from the free choice of the indigenous population”. Britain and France had thus repeated the ideas coming from America concerning “the people’s right to decide their own future” which President Wilson defended at the peace conference, and they thus lent legitimacy to calls for the creation of Armenian, Assyro-Chaldean, or Kurdish states in the place of the former eastern vilayets. This impulsive rush forward common to both the Allies and the peoples in question made the mistake of counting on Confidential note, May 10, 1919, sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Irak, volumes 49-50). 1

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a Turkish defeat a little soon, and also neglected a geographical fact, for the regions claimed by the various “indigenous populations” were very often one and the same. More pragmatically, the Syriac Orthodox and Catholics’ claims at first simply aimed at having the scope of the crimes committed against their peoples recognized publicly, and showed little political ambition. Though they with great difficulty managed to agree upon a plan for the creation of a Christian state, they were radically opposed on the question of which power should sponsor that state. The Syriac Catholics favored a French mandate in Syria, while the Syriac Orthodox, like the Nestorians from Mesopotamia, were still under British sway. Meanwhile, the Assyro-Chaldean delegation from the United States campaigned actively for an American mandate over the region. It was easier to create unity to fiercely oppose Kurdish plans for independence and Arab nationalism in Syria. The most violent protests against installing Faisal, who had become the symbol of Arabic power in Damascus, came from the Syrian Catholics. By the end of 1918, the British supported the sharif’s government, so that they might keep the promises they had made to the Arabs before the Hejaz revolt, and in the hope of countering French influence with a local power favorable to Britain. Mgr. Rahmani complained openly about the intentions of the British government, which in his opinion, was the cause “of the artificial and arbitrary invention of a sharifian government”. Hejaz has nothing to do with Syria; the Arabic race is completely different from the Syrian race; that the language is identical is an extrinsic phenomenon, and must not be taken to suggest that the races are identical. It is therefore unacceptable that the idea be entertained of rewarding the son of the king of Hejaz, Emir Faisal’s services by submitting us to a new servitude after the one from which the war delivered us. This misfortune, worse than all the others we have undergone, would force us to emigrate. The sharifian government with time will be even more fanatical than that of the Turks, the Abbasids and the Umayyads, for

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE the simple reason that it will represent the dynasty directly descended from the sons of the Prophet.1

In the same report, which was addressed directly to the president of the French council, Mgr. Rahmani outlined his positions to call fervently for a French protectorate in Syria, a Syria which, in his opinion, should include “Palestine and northern Mesopotamia” (with Diyarbakir, Mardin and Mosul)”, whose “inhabitants all belong to a single race, the Syrian” (including the Muslims who for the most part are former Christians gone over to Islam after the Arab conquest).2 This distinction, which purposefully ignored the diversities of the Syrian population, was intended to stress the difference between the Arabs of Syria and those of Hejaz. This claim was among the first to posit characteristics of a “Syrian” identity that, beyond the different religions, was to define the framework for the future nation. It is clear that to his mind, the new Syria, to which many Syriacs from Turkey had emigrated, should rely on, if not be built on the Christian element. The Syriac Catholic Patriarch also mentioned his fears for the Christians’ safety. Where the Arabic government does exist, it has been handed over to former Turkish administrators or officers trained in German military schools. As far as justice is concerned, it is bought and sold, just as much and even more than before; security is lacking. All the inhabitants, and the Muslims more than the others, are unhappy.

To back up his fears, he spoke at length of the unrest that had occurred at Aleppo on February 28, 1919, during the Muslim antiFrench protests: A hundred Christians [were] killed, another hundred wounded, and two hundred disappeared […] I speak as a witness: I was at Aleppo at the time.3

Therefore, he asked France to act quickly, for “the British troops must be replaced by French troops, as soon as possible”, and “the Arabic government, a cause of unrest and discontent, must be replaced with French military administrators”. 1 RAHMANI report, June 18, 1919. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Turkey, volumes 128, starting at page 113). 2 Idem. 3 Idem.

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A few months later, the French representative posted at Rome, where Mgr. Rahmani stayed after leaving Paris, confirmed this wish: The Patriarch spoke to me forcefully on the need to create a complete Syria, extending from Mosul to Diyarbakir. He affirms that the Syrians, as clients of France, could never consent to exchanging Turkish domination for Arab domination and that the French, who have done everything for Syria, owe it to themselves not to let their influence be annihilated.1

This position, which was shared by all prelates of the Syriac Catholic Church, was also repeated, at the same time, by the Vicar General of the Patriarch, Mgr. Tappouni, in a letter he sent to the American International Commission on mandates in Turkey. The Church’s rejection of Arabic domination was without appeal, because of their character: completely without education, they have none of the knowledge necessary to lead a nation. Without personal intelligence, they cannot attempt or achieve anything on their own. Without religious tolerance, they sacrifice everything to a literal interpretation of their holy book without the slightest distinction. Ignorant, incompetent, fanatical, they are also blood-thirsty, because, without any humanity, their inborn ferocity surpasses even that of the Turks. Why should we recall 1850 and the butchery of Damascus and Lebanon? Let us rather cite more recent dates and catastrophes. It was the Arabs who in 1915 took part in the massacres of Urfa, of Mardin, of Deirez-Zor, etc. It was the Arabs who in February 1919, massacred in Aleppo, under an Arabic government. It was the Arabs who, on the Turkish payroll, finished off the extermination of the Christians in the desert. The Arab is imbibed with apparently liberal, but actually, deeply selfish ideas. He is a unionist [underlined by the author in the text] in the bad sense of the word. He thinks and acts like a Young Turk.2

1 Telegram, July 2, 1919, from Rome to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Turkey, volume 128, folio 64). 2 Declaration of the Vicar General of the Syrian Patriarch to the American International Commission on Mandates in Turkey, July 18,

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He affirmed that all the administrators and notables set up in Syria since the end of the war were the same as a few years before, representatives of the Union and Progress Committee. He also demanded “the exclusive mandate of France over the whole of Syria”. And if it should happen that France were not chosen as the protective power, if instead an Arabic government were established, the Syriacs would ask Europe to “send her boats, and we will emigrate without witnessing the moral death of our poor homeland.”1 The Syriac Orthodox distinguished themselves from the Syriac Catholics by not openly denouncing Faisal’s power in Damascus. To judge from the information supplied by the French High Commissary, we must imagine that through Mgr. Barsaum, they had already managed to establish relations with the Arab chief. This difference in political viewpoint between the Syriac Catholics and Syriac Orthodox illustrates the consequences of the new ethnic situation stemming from the war. Historically, over the course of the 19th century, the Syriac Catholics had moved into large urban centers, such as Aleppo and Beirut, where French institutions and missions had attracted them. Once they were chased out of Turkey, the Catholic populations naturally found refuge in Syria, and then in Lebanon. On the other hand, while part of the Syriac Orthodox had fled across the plain of the Jezireh, the majority of those who had survived remained in Turkey, in Jebel Tur. The Syriac Orthodox Church’s fear centered mainly around the creation of a Kurdish state. We protest against the attempt to establish a Kurdish authority that a so-called delegation is trying hard to create with the sole goal of killing Christian freedom and to repeat the terrible scenes of their barbarity2.

Indeed, the Syriac Orthodox proposed no political solution and very carefully avoided demanding a state of their own. In a memorandum dated April 2, 1920 to the Quai d’Orsay, Bishop Barsaum asked, in the name of his “Church-nation”, for the emancipation of the eastern vilayets of the Ottoman Empire to 1919, by Mgr. Tappouni (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Turkey, volume 128, folio 116-119). 1 Idem. 2 Idem.

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save the survivors from another massacre. “We ask that the vilayets of Diyarbakir, Harput, Bitlis, Van and Urfa be liberated from its yoke”. This request was added to another, “that our national and religious freedom be assured”, but remained very circumspect as to any political goal, “submitting ourselves to the decision that the Peace Conference will reach as to the destiny of our nation.” The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch adopted the same positions, which he expressed in a letter sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury on February 16, 1920. I, the undersigned Patriarch of ancient Syrian (Jacobite) nation, have the honor of informing you, very regrettably, that during this terrifying and horrible war that caused so much misfortune to the Christians of Turkey, my community living in Eastern Asia (in the provinces of Bitlis, Siirt and Harput, and their dependencies in Mesopotamia; in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin, and its dependencies in Urfa) was, like the Armenians, deported, hundreds of thousands of our members were massacred or died of poverty. […] Last year in October 1919, our bishop of Syria, Severius A. Barsaum, was sent by our patriarchate to submit our case to the Peace Conference and to your Grace. On March 12, 1920, a promise was made to him by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the name of the Supreme Council, and by Mr. Eric Phipps, authorized to fulfill this function by Count Curzon of Kedleston, in response to his letters of March 8. He was told that the interests of our nation would not be ignored when the time came to take them under consideration. Now, we write you and ask you for your help and your mediation at the London conference: to protect our rights and to obtain indemnities from those who illegally caused us such great losses and damages; to have our churches and monasteries returned to us with all the property belonging to them; to assure our future safety in Turkish territory.1

1 Letter from the “Syrian Patriarch of Antioch to the Archbishop of Canterbury”, February 16, 1921 (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Turkey, volume 128, folio 181-182).

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This true absence of political demands can be explained by the strong feeling of injustice felt by Syriacs after the massacres. On many occasions, their representatives complained that they did not enjoy the same aid as was given to the Armenians. The massacres exceed a figure of 90,000 persons […] We express the deepest regret to see that this glorious [Syriac] race is so forgotten by European politics and press, which wrongly name the Turkish massacres “massacres of Armenian”, when they should be given the more general name of “Christian massacres”, since all the Christians in the aforementioned territories met the same sorry fate.1

1

Memorandum, April 2, 1920, Mgr. BARSAUM, op. cit..

CHAPTER 14. TOWARDS A SYRIAC NATION: THE ASSYRO-CHALDEAN TEMPTATION The idea of an Assyro-Chaldean nation uniting all peoples of Syriac origin first appeared publicly during the peace conference debates. It was put forward by an Assyro-Chaldean delegation from Paris which does not seem to have had any official contacts with the Syriac Catholic or Syriac Orthodox delegations. It very discretely and clearly chose the path of prudence in order to protect the Syriac populations still living in Turkey. This way of proceeding will prevent the Turks from assembling its forces and working the Muslims up for a second massacre that the Assyro-Chaldean delegation had always striven to avoid by abstaining from speaking publicly before the conference; from announcing, printing, or publishing its demands, and from thus irritating the Turkish government and Muslim populations.1

The memorandum this delegation presented tried to define the bases of a new political entity. To this end, it supported a definition based on historical arguments. The two great empires of antiquity, Chaldea and Assyria, which were the cradles of civilization and which were masters of their own destinies for many centuries, after the eclipse of their stunning glory have left Assyro-Chaldean descendants, most of whom still today live on the soil of their homeland. Deriving from the same race, these noble descendants possess the same language and the same traditions. It was in the middle of the 5th century that great events of a political and religious nature created divisions among the Assyro-Chaldean people, and split it into various groups, which have continued on to the present day under the names of Catholic Chaldeans and Nestorian Chaldeans (both of which also currently bear the name “Assyrian”), Syrian Jacobites and Syrian Catholics. In the course of the centuries, various governments’ policies seized upon these divisions and strengthened them whenever to do so would serve their purposes. But today, recognizing that they are the same race, Memorandum of the Assyro-Chaldean delegation, October 19, 1919, at Paris. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Iraq, vol. 49-50, folio 194). 1

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE these diverse groups would be happy to recover their original national and political unity, under the name of Assyro-Chaldeans.1

For a long time, the different elements of this Syriac heritage were divided by historical circumstance into several groups split geographically among Tur Abdin, Hakkari and the Mosul plain. They only became aware of each other in the confusion of the exodus. On the local level, the Syriac populations did not feel they were part of the same “nation”, because they defined themselves first and foremost by their Christian identity and by the church to which they belonged. It was only during and after the war that they discovered each other, which allowed the idea of a nation to grow. The Assyro-Chaldean delegation proposed the following division of land. Considering their numeric density, the AssyroChaldeans occupy the following geographic position: They are located over the entire expanse of the vilayets of Mosul and Diyarbakir. In the Bitlis vilayet, they occupy the circumscription of the Siirt Sanjak, in the Van vilayet, the Kakkân Sanjak. They are also found in the independent Sanjaks of Urfa and Zor. In Persia, they are located in the area around Urmiah lake, especially in the regions to the west of the lake. They are found in the vilayets of Baghdad, Basra, Van, Damascus, Beirut, Mamurat ul-Aziz, Aleppo, Adana, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and in the Caucasus.2

This very extensive geographic definition includes all the regions, extending over Turkey, Persia, and what would become Iraq, where Syriac populations were living. According to this historical definition and geographical outline, it is clear that in the eyes of the Assyro-Chaldean delegation, the Syriac communities of the former Diyarbakir vilayet, including Tur Abdin, belong to their nation. This position was confirmed in the memorandum of July 30, 1919, in which the Syriac populations of Tur Abdin were included on equal footing with the “Nestorian” and “Chaldean” victims from Hakkari.3

Idem. Idem, folio 267. 3 Memorandum Annex, July 30, 1919. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Iraq, vol. 49-50, folio 53-59). 1 2

CHAPTER 14. TOWARD A SYRIAC NATION Thus our nation until the end of this war kept to its trenches; it did not lay down its arms, in order to defend its existence and serve the allies’ cause; of the 70,000 inhabitants of Urmiah, of Salmas, of Tergavar, of Marguevar [Mergavar] and of Suldusse [Sulduz], there only remain 30-35,000. What condition was our nation in on the Mosul plain in Derdkhil Badani, in Bezbar, in Amadia, in Tur Abdin, in Nusaybin, in Mardin etc.? We never knew.1

219

The concept of the Assyro-Chaldean nation seems to have been fairly quickly recognized by western observers, who, when meeting these populations, tried to untangle the story of their origins. A report from the French consul of Mesopotamia posted at Baghdad is very instructive on this matter. With the exception of the Armenians, the Bakuba refugees descend, like the Catholic Chaldeans, from the ancient Chaldeans and Assyrians, who at the arrival of Christianity, made up the great majority of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, modern-day Kurdistan and Iraq. Their language was neo-Chaldean, or Aramaic. Their national and political center was the city of Edessa in upper Mesopotamia, where the indigenous dynasty of the Abgar kings reigned. Thus of all Chaldean or Aramaic dialects, the Edessa dialect was the most literary and the most cultivated. It is this Edessa dialect, today called Chaldean or Syriac, that is widely used in the liturgies of all the eastern Christians: Chaldeans, Nestorians, Syrian Catholics, Jacobites, Maronites, Malabarese from the Indias. When Christianity spread to the Assyrian Chaldeans in the first century, the pagans called their Christian brothers “Syrians”, meaning “members of a religion that appeared in Syria”. […] In the middle of the 5th century, a deep religious schism occurred among Christian Chaldeans. Those from Syria and from Mesopotamia adopted the doctrine de Jacob Baradaeus, bishop of Edessa, and were therefore called “Jacobites”. As for the Chaldeans from Iraq and Kurdistan, they followed the doctrine of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and were thus called “Nestorians”. All of them however continued to call themselves “Syrians” out of pure religious sentiment, 1

Idem.

220

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE for even today, be they Jacobites or Nestorians, those who speak vulgar Chaldean mean “Christians” when they say “Syrians”, and never a people or tribe.1

The position taken by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation distinctly favored a French presence in the East and in Mesopotamia, even hoping for forces to be positioned in Syria itself, so that France might go about occupying the Eastern territories of these cities (Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Damascus) that stretch to the Euphrates. To facilitate the approaching occupation of upper Mesopotamia and Kurdistan up to the Persian border.

This hoped-for deployment would allow the foundation “of an Assyro-Chaldean state in upper Mesopotamia and in Kurdistan under French influence”, which would be a great support for French policies in the East. On the other hand, the creation of a Muslim state was unwelcome, for it would be “a permanent threat to French influence”.2 We have seen that according to the Franco-British accord, the French occupation must not pass 37º of latitude. It is with deep regret that we have noticed that almost the entire Mosul vilayet would remain outside the French zone. Mosul is at the top of our list of territorial claims that we presented in our memorandum of July 16, 1919 to your honorable ministry. It is useful to remember that the Mosul vilayet was not conquered by the British, but rather occupied in the name of all the allies who signed the armistice conditions. As a result, the English do not possess any special rights over Mosul. The importance that England puts on Mosul stems not only from its farming wealth and its river, but especially from its mines and its underground deposit of oil, which is the richest in the world. According to the treaty of 1916, Mosul must be included in the French zone. Mosul is the essential basis of our claims for the foundation of a future

1 Notice on the Nestorian refugees of Bakuba, March 3, 1919, French Consulate in Mesopotamia, Mr. Roux to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. (C.P.C. Levant 1918-40, Iraq, vol. 49-50, folio 118). 2 Mémorandum de la délégation assyro-chaldéenne, le 19 octobre 1919, Paris, op. cit., folio 194.

CHAPTER 14. TOWARD A SYRIAC NATION

221

Assyro-Chaldean state under French mandate. It is a minimum of our demands. […]1

The envisaged design was to have allowed the political concept to transform into a political reality on the land. The reconstitution of all Assyrian territories, be they in Turkey or Persia, into a political unity within the following limits: Urmia, Salmas, the Hakkari Sanjak (land of the free ashirets of Mar Shimun), the Mardin Sanjak, with the cities of: Jeziret-Ibn-Omar, Midyat, Mardin, the crest of the Tur Abdin mountain (Jebel Tur), Ras el-Ain, the northern part of the Mossoul vilayet with the city of Mosul, Arbil, Rewanduz, Ushnu and Sulduz.2

Several months after the peace conference, on August 10, 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres was signed among the victorious Powers and the Ottoman government remaining in Istanbul. This treaty made official the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The Syriacs’ claims found little support among the signatories, for the adopted text only provided for guarantees of protection for the Christian minorities within the legal framework of a newly autonomous Kurdistan. Article 62 of the section “Kurdistan” stipulates that a Commission based in Constantinople and made up of three members, British, French, and Italian, will prepare, in the six months following the application of the present Treaty, local autonomy for the regions where the Kurdish element is predominant. […]. As for the Assyro-Chaldeans, it is said: “This plan will have to include complete guarantees for the safety of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other ethnic or religious minorities within these regions.”3

The Assyro-Chaldean question was completely buried, to the benefit of a newly created Kurdish autonomous region. The western powers’ approach to the matter of the Christians quickly left the arena of “national” political demands to return to the narrower field of “protection of minorities”, which thus continued the political trend of the entire 19th century.

Idem. Idem. 3 J. YACOUB, op. cit., vol. I, p. 136. 1 2

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

This new policy lasted only a short time, for just three years after the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres, the Treaty of Lausanne, negotiated with the new Turkish republic, eliminated all the earlier dispositions taken to protect non-Muslim minorities. Section 3 of the Treaty of Lausanne nonetheless sported the title: “protection of minorities”. Articles 36 to 44 were specifically devoted to the defense of non-Muslim populations in Turkey. By virtue of these dispositions, Turkey promises to accord all its citizens full and complete protection for their life and liberty, without distinction of nationality, language, race, or religion; the non-Muslim minorities will fully enjoy the freedom to circulate and to emigrate, with the same civil and political rights as Muslims.1

The new context of a nationalist Turkey was not favorable to the protection of Christian minorities. As of 1923, the Turks conducted population exchanges, particularly with Greece, which allowed them to continue their process of homogenizing their ethnic base. It is difficult to know to what degree the Syriac populations were affected by these exchanges. The Assyro-Chaldeans are few in number, but by the fact of their race, their history, their religion and their suffering, they elicit more interest in the world than any other community of equal size. […] The interest that England has in them is not purely platonic, for England has spent more than 4 million pounds supporting them since the armistice. A large number of AssyroChaldeans live on Turkish territory. […] I hope that the Turkish government will give them complete guarantees with respect to their language, their schools, their customs and their religion.2

This single quotation of Lord Curzon illustrates all the hopes and disappointments that have continued down until our time. Not only was the question of autonomy for the Syriacs never raised again, but the martyrs’ children were also gradually forced to leave their land. Modern Turkey refuses to recognize its past. Those who remained, still numbering a few hundred today, were reduced to silence and humiliation. The others had to take the road to exile Idem, “Article 37”. Lord Curzon, Livre Jaune sur la Conférence de Lausanne, p. 151. Cited by J. YACOUB. 1 2

CHAPTER 14. TOWARD A SYRIAC NATION

223

and to lose themselves in the European countries so slow to recognize their own brothers. Among the attacks on their bodies, amid the blood spilled, they owe their perseverance, and in the end, their lives, solely to the formidable energy of a few monks, and especially to their deep faith. Little by little, memory returns. Though they have been traumatized, may this modest book be a sign of their freedom.

ANNEXES Comparative count of number of households in the villages mentioned (in 1915 A.D. and 1987 A.D.)

Names of villages

1915

1987

1. Nusaybin 2. Helwah 3. Doger

200 homes 40 homes 50 homes

0 0 0

4. Mharkân

15 homes

20 homes

5. Hwetlah

20 homes

10 homes

6. Gerkeshamu 7. Shalhumiyeh 8. Tel Khatun 9. Gerdahul 10.Tel Aryawon (Gershiran) 11. Bayazah 12. Laylân 13. Khaznah 14. Sarug 15. Gerfashe 16. Grebiyeh 17. Qanq 18. Qowal 19. Bâzâr 20. Tel Hasan

35 homes 50 homes 50 homes 10 homes 20 homes

0 3 homes 0 0 2 homes

50 homes 15 homes 15 homes 30 homes 40 homes 10 homes 50 homes 10 homes 10 homes 15 homes

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

21. Tel Gahan 22. Gremirah

15 homes 70 homes

5 homes 7 homes

23. Tel Manar

10 homes

0

24. Tel Yaqub 25. Qritha d-Gunduk 26. Tel Sha’ir 27. M`arre 28. Ârbo

10 homes 50 homes 10 homes 50 homes 70 homes

0 40 homes 0 0 10 homes

225

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

29. Ârkah 30. Kafro Tahtoyto 31. Hbob 32. Beth Debbe 33. Seyderi 34. Harabmishka

70 homes 30 homes 40 homes 40 homes 10 homes 10 homes

70 homes 15 homes 2 homes 1 home 18 homes 10 homes

35. Midyat 36. Salah 37. Anhel

1,400 homes 40 homes 40 homes

250 homes 8 homes 82 homes

38. Habsnas 39. Urdnus 40. Mzizah 41. Kfarzeh 42. Ayn Wardo 43. Bote 44. Kafro `Eloyto 45. Yardo 46. Benkelbe

100 homes 70 homes 70 homes 100 homes 200 homes 300 homes 80 homes 70 homes 30 homes

10 homes 20 homes 35 homes 27 homes 60 homes 0 25 homes 16 homes 0

47. Kfarbe-Fofyat

40 homes

8 homes

48. `Umod-Qartmin

33 people

55 people

49. Hâh

100 homes

42 homes

50. Qustan 51. Estrako 52. Dayr Qubbe

120 homes 20 homes 10 homes

30 homes 0 0

53. Shahirkan

20 homes

0

54. Beth Sbirina-Sare 55. Midun 56. Tamers 57. Zinawrah 58. Beth Ishoq 59. Hedil 60. Kfarshenne 61. Gariseh 62. Zaz 63. Dayro da-Slibo

200 homes 150 homes 20 homes 20 homes 20 homes 20 homes 25 homes 10 homes 200 homes 70 homes

46 homes 80 homes 0 0 0 0 0 0 25 homes 0

ANNEXES

227

64. Arbay

30 homes

0

65. Âhlah 66. Kfarburan 67. Mesthe

4 homes 500 homes 40 homes

0 0 0

68. Gelik 69. Zangân 70. Kfargusan 71. Hesno d-Kifo (Hasankeif) 72. Dufnê 73. Ârmun 74. Marwaniyeh 75. Barlât 76. Balaneh

10 homes 30 homes 30 homes (?) 100 homes

0 0 0 0

40 homes (?) 10 homes 10 homes 10 homes 5 homes

0 0 0 0 0

77. Derhad

1 home

0

78. Baglet

4 homes

0

79. Shufiranasa

1 homes

0

TOTAL

5,693 homes

1,032 homes

Source: Suleyman Hinno, Schicksalsschläge der syrischen Christen im Tur Abdin 1915, Holland, Bar Hebraeus Verlag, 1987, pp. 178-181. Note on original translation of this list by Alain Desreumaux and Sebastian Brock. The names of the villages in column 1 are simple transliterations distinguishing long vowels from short when the vowels are marked. The vowels not marked have not been transliterated (â, ê, î transcribe the vocalized olaph). The translation of columns two and three is literal.

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

Simplified Table of Syriac filiations from the origins to modern times

Arameo-Syriac Heritage Western Syriac group

Eastern Syriac group

Eastern Turkey, Tur Abdin, Mosul, Syria, Lebanon

Mardin, Mosul, Hakkari, Urmiah basin, Syria, Persia, Mesopotamia

Syriac Orthodox group

Assyrian group (Church of the East)

Syriac Catholic group

Catholic Chaldean group

DOCUMENTS FROM DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVES An example of a diplomatic dispatch, August 19, 1889, from the Count of Montebello, Félix Bertrand, to the French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Diyarbakir, August 19, 1889 Vice Consulate of France at Diyarbakir #4 Re: The Dominican Mission to Jebel Tur, The Attack on Father Galland near Midyat Mr. Ambassador, In 1884, the Dominican mission to Mosul created two branches in the Diyarbakir vilayet, the first in Jezireh, a small city of four to five thousand people located on the right bank of the Tigris, six hours’ walk south-west of my residence, and the second in Jebel Tur, at Midyat, its main city, which numbers seven to eight thousand inhabitants. Jebel Tur is a mountainous plateau in the Taurus chain, with a circumference of about thirty leagues, situated on the right bank of the Tigris between Mardin and Jezireh. Besides the Muslim population, it also has about fifty Christian villages with an approximate total of six thousand homes, or about thirty to thirtyfive thousand people. This population, though Christian (mostly Jacobite), is halfsavage. The American Methodist missionaries have created a few scholarly establishments there and actively engage in propaganda. But they inspire little sympathy among the inhabitants, who rush en masse to our priests whenever they appear in the surroundings. Encouraged by their welcome, The Dominican fathers opened a dozen schools and their work has begun to give good results. But they are victims of all sorts of harassment from Kurds and dissidents, and moreover, the local authorities give them no help. The mission’s Prefect, Father Duval, was basing all his hopes on the protection of the vice-consulate at Diyarbakir that had been created at the Holy See’s behest. But the great distances and the difficulty of communication considerably limit my activities; my intervention only works when it is a question of a completely statutory misdemeanor. Thus it was that last year, after going to the 229

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

police constantly for no less than six months, I was finally able to procure the arrest and punishment of the brigands who had robbed one of our missionaries, Father Bernard, just two hours from Jezireh. At the end of last June, the Father Superior of Midyat, Father Galland, was robbed by Kurds six hours from that town. Although the attackers are well known to local authorities, they have not yet been arrested; I have nonetheless been able to have almost all the stolen objects returned and I am actively pursuing the guilty parties’ arrest. In this instance, we are not dealing with a common act of highway robbery, but rather with a trap laid by our missionaries’ enemies, who are trying to discredit them, to create trouble for them with the authorities, and to thus force them to leave the land. The Kurds are not unwitting pawns; they will be punished for their audacity, but unfortunately, those who are truly guilty, the instigators, escape justice and, encouraged by their impunity, will continue to hinder the Dominican Fathers’ work and stir up the Muslims’ hatred of them. The situation would be completely different if I were allowed to go to that location myself, to talk with the authorities and notables there, to show by my presence that behind the missionaries, there is the flag of France standing ready to protect them. In this half-barbarian country, it is by appearances and shows of force that one cows the people, and even the authorities, who in that area are no different from the natives they are supposed to control, but who actually sway them. I saw this in 1887 during my trip to Mardin. The wonderful reception I received and the relationship I was able to form with the notables markedly improved the Capuchin Fathers’ situation; now they are treated with great respect by the authorities, their influence has grown and no unfortunate incident has occurred since that time. I can assure your Excellence that if he would allow me to tour Jebel Tur, I would facilitate the civilizing task of our missionaries by straightening out the problems certain parties are causing them and by preventing incidents that could have regrettable consequences and cause us trouble. I must however add that his Eminence Haji Hassan bey, our Governor General, has shown all the zeal we could hope for to arrest Father Galland’s attackers; if I have not informed your Excellence earlier of this incident, it is because I wanted to inform him at the same time of its solution, which I believe is near.

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231

Realizing the difficulties that the governor faces in a land where administrators have no prestige, where the Kurdish aghas are absolute masters of the situation, where highway robbery is part and parcel of the mores of a population that can always find safe refuge in the mountains if they are being chased, I have grown accustomed to being patient. The conduct I have adopted is to obstinately pursue the matters, though without causing offence whenever I have no cause to doubt the authorities’ good faith and good will. In these circumstances, your Excellence will allow me to voice a request not to contact the vali for the time being, a measure which would risk offending this high administrator whose conduct with me has thus far been good and marked by perfect courtesy. Please accept the homage of the respect I have the honor of expressing, Mr. Ambassador, for your Excellence as your humble and obedient servant, Félix Bertrand Telegram from Charles Roux, November 7, 1919, announcing Mgr. Barsaum’s arrival in France. Foreign Affairs Decryption of Telegram #2470 Rome, November 7, 1919, 9:00 pm Received November 7, 11:35 pm Confidential Yesterday, Monsignor Severius Aphram Barsaum, a Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite) bishop, must have left for Paris. Traveling with a French passport as a “special protégé” and with recommendations from our High Commissary in Beirut and our High Commissary in Constantinople, this prelate presented himself at the Embassy, made great protestations to me of his love for France, and asked me for a letter of introduction to the Quai d’Orsay, which I did not think I should refuse him. [The] French High Commissary at Beirut provided him, and his Patriarch, with the passport allowing them to travel freely to Constantinople. This favor, and the others that he received from our authorities in the East were aimed at winning him, and his community, over to our interests. I have learned from a sure source that this Orthodox prelate was fairly closely connected with Emir Faisal in Damascus, and

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

that he tried very hard to woo the Arabs, even in his public speeches. Moreover he has a marked tendency of riding the fence with everyone, and he asked the Italians for a recommendation for Mr. Tittoni. He intends to go to London after Paris. Under these circumstances, I think we should take care not to offend him, but that we [must] be wary of him. Charles Roux Letter from Mgr. Barsaum to Stephen Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, November 17, 1919. Syrian Archbishopric of Syria (Damascus-Homs) #319 November 17, 1919 from The Normandy Hotel 7, rue de l’échelle Excellency, I have the honor of bringing to your sublime attention that I arrived in Paris a few days ago. As Archbishop of Syria and Delegate of the Patriarch sent to deal with several delicate questions, I believe it is my duty to visit your Excellency and to offer you my, and my Church’s, respects. Moreover, I have been recommended to your Excellency by the French authorities of Beirut, Constantinople and Rome, from whom I bear a letter. I would thus be pleased to receive an appointment. Please accept, Mr. Minister, my respect and deepest regards. Severius A. Barsaum Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Syria and Delegate of the Patriarch of Antioch His Excellence Mr. Stephen Pichon Minister of Foreign Affairs

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233

Reply to a request for information on Mgr. Barsaum from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, who has remained at Constantinople, November 21, 1919. Foreign Affairs Decryption of Telegram #2126 From Constantinople, November 21, 1919, 2:30 pm Received on November 24, 4:50 am This is in response to your telegram #1889 (Nov. 14) Mgr. Aphrem Barsaum has received the following mandate from the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch: 1) To solicit the protection of France for his nationals; 2) To give an account of the losses and damages incurred by the deportations and massacres and to ask for legitimate indemnities and reparations; 3) To solicit for his community the same material assistance that has been accorded to the Armenians. Mgr. Elias has recovered from the sickness that kept him at Constantinople and would be willing to go to Paris if his delegate deemed it necessary and if he received from the members of his nation residing in the United States the monetary aide he has requested with the expenses involved in traveling to and staying in France. Defrance Ministry of Foreign Affairs report on a visit from Mgr. Barsaum. Note from Mr. Goût, November 26, 1919. Republic of France Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dept. of Political and Commercial Affairs November 26, 1919. I received a visit from Mgr. Aphrem Barsaum. He made great protestations of his love for France to me, but he mostly left me with the impression that he was just another of the intriguing priests the East abounds in. That is why I asked Mr. Defrance if he

234

THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

was indeed, as he claimed, his patriarch’s delegate, and what his mandate was. The Syrian Orthodox form a small community that comes under neither the Greek Ecumenical Patriarch’s, nor the Roman Pope’s jurisdiction. They use Syriac as their liturgical language and are more or less connected to the ancient Syro-Phoenician race. A large number of Syrian Orthodox broke away from their original church in the 18th century and formed the Syrian Catholic community, whose Patriarch is Mgr. Rahmani, who recognizes the Pope’s supremacy. The two groups are naturally great rivals. They particularly fight over a monastery near Homs: Mar Elian. This monastery was awarded in 1835 by Ibrahim of Egypt to our clients the Syrian Catholics. Despite the measures that the Syrian Orthodox have taken at the Sublime Porte, we kept our clients at the monastery. In 1914, because of their persistent attachment to France, the Ottomans took the monastery away from the Syrian Catholics and gave it to the Orthodox. Mgr. Aphrem, seeing that the French influence will soon be preponderant in Syria, now rushes over to us, forgetful of the flattery with which he showered the Turks and the Germans. In exchange for his protestations of love, he wants us to abandon the Syrian Catholics, who demand the monastery back and who have had Mr. Picot’s support to this end before Turkish authorities. It does not seem possible that we should take up position against our protégés, and the only thing to do is to recommend to General Gouraud that he stay out of the affair, at least for now. Like every intriguer from Syria, Mgr. Aphrem is very agitated, he speaks loudly all the time, believing that this will impose his will. There is no need for concern, for it is certain that he will have to begin behaving again, and his patriarchy and community are of no real consequence. Even if he goes elsewhere with his list of grievances, there is no danger. He will try to come to an understanding with Faisal, that is fairly certain, but it is of no importance: between the Syrian Orthodox and us, when the agreement guaranteeing him his personal role is reached, Faisal will not fail to show his disdain for this small group of Christians. When that day comes, they will be very happy with the protection that we will agree to accord them.

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235

Confidential report on Mgr. Barsaum requested by the French diplomatic services, December 20, 1919. Paris, Place St. François-Xavier, VII December 20, 1919. Sir, Here is the information I was able to gather concerning the bishop of the Syrian Jacobite faith (not united to Rome) who is presently in Paris, Mgr. Severius Aphrem Barsaum. He studied at the school and at the seminary of the Domincan Fathers at Mosul; at that time, he became a Catholic. When he left the Mosul seminary, he went to the Jacobite monastery of Deir alZa`faran, renounced Catholicism, and became a monk with the aim of becoming a bishop. The bishopric was a long time in the coming: Mgr. Severius was in fact not promoted until last year. Residing in Homs, then in Damascus, Mgr. Severius has proven an ardent supported of Emir Faisal. His Patriarch brought him with him to Constantinople, for unless I am mistaken, Mgr. Severius is the only Jacobite prelate to speak French. I would be pleased if this information proved to be of any use to you. In any case, please be assured of the pleasure I had in taking the steps to procure the information, and please accept my respectful and devoted sentiments. Louis [illegible] Report on the conversation between Cardinal Dubois and the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch about a fusion of his church with Rome’s. Constantinople, March 5, 1920. High Commissary of the French Republic Political Service Dept. of Political and Commercial Affairs Sub-Department of Asia-Oceania #139. Constantinople, March 5, 1920. Mr. Defrance, High Commissar of the French Republic in the East, to his Excellence Mr. Millerand, President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs at Paris

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE

Re: Conversation between Cardinal Dubois and Jacobite Patriarch During the course of a visit he paid to the Jacobite Patriarch in Constantinople, Cardinal Dubois heard from that prelate a little confidence that did not fail to surprise him. The Patriarch indeed took pleasure in repeatedly mentioning the regret he felt to see the followers of Eutyches remain out of the Holy See’s control. And he asked the Cardinal to express to the Sovereign Pontiff, not only his homage and respect, but also his strong desire to contribute all his authority to the fusion of the Jacobite Church and the Roman church. Surely it would be premature to see in these overtures anything surpassing the usual marks of Eastern courtesy. The Jacobite Patriarch’s words nonetheless got Cardinal Dubois’ attention, and presumably, Father Herret, a Dominican who spent a long time in Mosul at a Jacobite center, and who knows the Patriarch of Constantinople particularly well, will be asked, as soon as he returns to that city, to resume with the leader of the Eutychian heresy a conversation that perhaps holds some interest for us. More than one hundred thousand Jacobites are said to have been massacred (*) by the Turks over the course of the last five years. By moving closer to Rome, the Jacobites will try to place themselves under the religious protection of France. And perhaps it might be in our interest, in the region where they are most numerous, in Mesopotamia and on the borders of the Indias, to have at our disposition an element that would not be exclusively dependent on British authorities. That is why I have seen fit to keep your Excellence informed of the conversation in question. H. Defrance * according to the information given by Father Barre, a Dominican belonging to the Cardinal’s mission.

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237

Memorandum presented by Mgr. Barsaum on April 2, 1920 to the peace conference on the damage incurred by the “Syrian nation” during the war. Syrian Archbishopric of Syria (Damas-Homs) Memorandum We have the honor of informing the Peace Conference that his Holiness our Patriarch has asked us to come here with the echo of the misfortunes and desires of our Syrian nation, ancient descendent of the Assyrian race, generally residing in Mesopotamia and Armenia. These are our main points: It must be taken into consideration that this nation, with the exception of the misfortunes to which it was subject in past times, not to mention the massacres of 1895, was the one that suffered most under Turko-Kurdish domination during the war, relative to its number. In our own community, the massacres exceed a figure of 90,000 persons, as can be seen in the attached list. We express the deepest regret to see that this glorious [Syriac] race is so forgotten by European politics and press, which wrongly name the Turkish massacres “Armenian massacres”, when they should be given the more general name of “Christian massacres”, since all the Christians in the aforementioned territories met the same sorry fate. We ask that the Peace Conference render a verdict on criminal Turkey for the massacre of innocent Assyro-Chaldeans to whom it could not attribute any revolutionary tendencies; consequently, we ask that the vilayets of Diyarbakir, Harput, Bitlis, Van and Urfa be freed from its yoke. We protest the attempt to establish a Kurdish authority that a socalled delegation is trying hard to create with the sole goal of killing Christian freedom and of repeating the terrible scenes of their barbarity. We ask for compensation for the damage we incurred, especially for the damage to our monasteries, pious bequeathals, that can be estimated at 250,000 pounds sterling. We ask that after the liberation of the aforementioned Turkish vilayets, our national and religious freedom be assured, submitting ourselves to the decision that the Peace Conference

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THE FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE will reach as to the destiny of our nation that looks forward to a comfortable future in which it can once again play its role in civilization.

For our voice to be heard and our desires to be realized, we count on the justice and law of the honorable Peace Conference. Severius A. Barsaum Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Syria and Delegate of the Patriarch of Antioch Syrian Archbishopric of Syria (Damas-Homs) Memorandum: Annex 2

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239

List of damages incurred by the ancient Syrian Orthodox nation in Mesopotamia and in Armenia during the war of 1915-1918 Name of Vilayet

Diyarbakir vilayet 1.

names of Cities and Kazas

number of villages

number of families

people massacred

churches and monasteries ruined

Priests and monks killed

Diyarbakir &

30

764

5,379

5

7

Bishops and vicars

surroundings

2. 3.

Shirwan Lice

9 10

174 658

1,195 4,706

1 5

1 4

4. 5.

Deirek Siverek

30

50 897

350 5,725

1 12

1 12

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Viranshehir Mardin Savur Nusaybin Jezireh

16 8 7 50 26

303 880 880 1,000 994

1928 5,815 6,164 7,000 7,510

1 12 2 12 13

5 3 25 8

11. 12.

Besheriye Baravat

30 15

718 282

4,481 1,880

10 1

10 1

13.

Midyat

47

3,935

25,830

60

60

Bitlis vilayet 14. 15.

Bitlis Siirt

12

130 100

850 650

1 1

2

16. 17.

Shirwan Gharsan

9 22

283 744

1.970 5,140

2 12

4 9

Harput vilayet 18.

Harput

24

508

3,500

5

2

Urfa sanjak 19.

Urfa

50

340

_____ 13,350

______ 90,313

________ 156

_____ 154

TOTAL:

_____ 345

F. Siman, Episcop. Vicar Mgr. Denha, B. of Siverek

F. Stiphan, Patriar. Vicar F. Gibrail, Archimandrite F. Ephrem, Vicar; Mgr. Yacoub, Bishop of Deirsalib

F. Ibrahim, Vicar of Siirt

___________ 7

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Translation of a letter from the (Syriac Orthodox) Patriarch of Antioch to the Archbishop of Canterbury, February 16, 1921. Patriarchate of Antioch of the Syrians Monsignor, I, the undersigned Patriarch of ancient Syrian (Jacobite) nation, have the honor of informing you, very regrettably, that during this terrifying and horrible war that caused so much misfortune to the Christians of Turkey, my community living in Eastern Asia (in the provinces of Bitlis, Siirt and Harput, and their dependencies in Mesopotamia; in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Mardin, and its dependencies in Urfa) was, like the Armenians, deported, hundreds of thousands of our members were massacred or died of poverty. Our churches and monasteries located in these provinces, in the number of one hundred sixty six, were looted and destroyed. Last year in October 1919, our bishop of Syria, Severius A. Barsaum, was sent by our patriarchate to submit our case to the Peace Conference and to your Grace. On March 12, 1920, a promise was made to him by the Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs, in the name of the Supreme Council, and by Mr. Eric Phipps, authorized to fulfill this function by Count Curzon of Kedleston, in response to his letters of March 8. He was told that the interests of our nation would not be ignored when the time came to take them under consideration. Now, we write you and ask you for your help and your mediation at the London conference: 1. to protect our rights and to obtain indemnities from those who illegally caused us such great losses and damages; to have our churches and monasteries returned to us with all the property belonging to them; to assure our future safety in Turkish territory. The ancient Syrians greatly suffered during the deportations of Christians, our schools and churches were destroyed and our children, especially the orphans, live in ignorance. There are also thousands of widows living in indescribable conditions; unfortunately, we cannot meet all these people’s needs for care and food. This is profoundly sad for ancient Syrians who were the artisans of civilization and whose artwork adorns the museums of

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Europe. They were the first to accept Christianity and rendered innumerable services to the cause of our faith. I believe that all these details will suffice to show what our nation was and is, and we have decided to appeal to your high sense of justice and to take refuge in it, knowing that your Grace has generously aided the peoples who have suffered from the deportation, regardless of their race or religion. We hold out the hope that our entreaty will be taken under consideration, and we ask you to receive our request with magnanimity. We thank you for your humanitarian aide and would be greatly beholden to you if you were to be our mediator. Thanking you in advance, Ignatius Elias III Syrian Patriarch of Antioch Constantinople, February 16, 1921 Telegram from Cairo, March 23, 1919, announcing the arrival at Rome of Mgr. Rahmani (Patriarch of the Syriac Catholics) and the Mgr. Rahmani’s mission in Rome and Paris. Foreign Affairs Decryption of Telegram #278 From Cairo, March 23, 1919, 6:30 pm Received on March 26, 9:00 am Confidential Mgr. Rahmani, the Syriac Patriarch, who has taken a very active role in French propaganda, has just informed me that, summoned to [Rome], he was planning on going to the Vatican, after first stopping off in Paris. This Prelate can furnish the Department with interesting information [on] Aleppo and the [interior] of Syria, where the question of our action is perceived very differently than it is on the coast. Moreover, it seems to me that he can act very usefully on our behalf in a place as well informed about the allies as the Vatican. G. Picot.

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Long letter from Mgr. Rahmani (Patriarch of the Syriac Catholics) to the President of the Council, June 18, 1919. June 18, 1919 To his Excellence Mr. President of the Council, A native of Mosul, former metropolitan of the Assyrian Empire, and Bishop for 32 years, then Patriarch, having crossed all of Syria and Mesopotamia several times, in constant contact with the Christian and Muslim inhabitants, I have the honor of informing you of the following: Syria, including Palestine and northern Mesopotamia, forms a single country, both from a geographic and an economic point of view, and its inhabitants all belong to a single race, the Syrian. Now since it has been decided that all of Syria must have its autonomy, under the influence or protectorate of one of the allied Powers, it is to be noted first of all that: I.. On the one hand, only France (to the exclusion of any other Power) has since time immemorial had interests, traditions, and rights in Syria and in Mesopotamia. France has officially declared several times that not only did it not renounce its interests, rights and traditions, but that it also intended to have them respected. Again, just recently, the President of the Peace Conference affirmed that “France wants to take measures to ensure Syria its freedom”. Besides these declarations, in addition to the coast region that it especially assigned to France, the 1916 accord also put Cilicia, Syria, and the provinces of Diyarbakir and Mosul under French influence. Finally, the speeches that the High Commissar of France in Palestine and Syria gives at every occasion publicly and loudly proclaim that the whole of Syria is France’s responsibility. Thus, the honor of France must not permit its rights to be violated. II. Furthermore, Syria is proud to find itself under French influence, or under France’s protectorate and has confidence in its declarations. Its inhabitants were considered as being attached to France, and it is for that very reason that many of them were deported, others hanged, others still sent to starve, and why I myself was called before a court martial…Consequently, in the

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name of the past and of the right that our suffering has given us, we demand that the promises France made us be respected. Let us add that our character, our dispositions, our aspirations agree only with France’s. That is truth, that is justice, that is our future, our freedom, our happiness. III. Unfortunately, just as we thought our dearest hopes were about to come true, suddenly obstacles have been thrown in the way. 1. First, although the British government officially declared, as it informed Mr. Poincaré in 1912, that it had neither intentions nor aims of any sort on the aforementioned regions, now it is trying to mutilate Syria, to our disadvantage, in order to serve its own interests. We believe that the rich plains of Baghdad and Basra are sufficient to meet its desires. The second obstacle is due to the artificial and arbitrary invention of a Sharifian government. This government is in direct contradiction to the President Wilson’s principles and the goal of the war. To wit: Hejaz has nothing to do with Syria; The Arab race is completely different from the Syrian race; That the language is identical is an extrinsic phenomenon, and must not be taken to suggest that the races are identical. It is therefore unacceptable that the idea be entertained of rewarding the son of the king of Hejaz, Emir Faisal’s services by submitting us to a new servitude after the one from which the war delivered us. This misfortune, worse than all the others we have undergone, would force us to emigrate. The Sharifian government with time will be even more fanatical than that of the Turks, the Abbasids and the Umayyads, for the simple reason that it will represent the dynasty directly descended from the sons of the Prophet. Who does not see that by inventing this Sharifian government, the British are trying to fan the flames of Muslim fanaticism? The third obstacle comes from the Arab government established in Damascus, Aleppo and their dependent regions, whereas the British did not want an Arab government any more at Baghdad than at Basra. Even at Mosul, which according to the 1916 accord belongs under French influence, there is only a British government. At Deir-ez-Zor, where an Arab government had

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set itself up, the British replaced it in January with English authorities. Where the Arab government does exist, it has been handed over to former Turkish administrators or officers trained in German military schools. As far as justice is concerned, it is bought and sold, just as much and even more than before; security is lacking. All the inhabitants, and the Muslims more than the others, are unhappy. France has no interest in this Arab government which openly blocks its policies: it is the Arab government that instigated the meetings to protest against the speech given by his Eminence Mr. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was on the occasion of one of these meetings that at Aleppo, on February 28, there were a hundred Christians killed, another hundred wounded, with two hundred disappearances, and this despite the fact that there were British occupation troops present. I speak as a witness: I was at Aleppo at the time. IV. to remedy this situation: 1. The British troops must be replaced by French troops, as soon as possible. This replacement, which the population desires, will not cause any unrest, quite the contrary. 2. The Arab government, a cause of unrest and discontent, must be replaced with French military administrators. Mgr. Rahmani Patriarch of the Syrian Catholics Paris, 95, rue de Sèvres June 18, 1919. Precise memorandum listed by diocese, presented by Mgr. Rahmani (Patriarch of the Syriac Catholics) to the Peace Conference on the damages incurred by the “Syrian nation” during the war. It has been written and told how the Turks massacred the Armenians. The truth is that the Turks massacred other Christians along with the Armenians: Syrian Catholics, Syrian Monophysites, Chaldeans, Nestorians, etc. Concerning the Syrians, the report of the facts below proves that in almost every diocese in the Patriarchate, several thousands

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of them were massacred, and that in the dioceses where there were no massacres, many died from famine and epidemics.

Diocese of Baghdad

In 1915, two young Syrians were hanged on the pretext that they were spies. Over the space of months, even years, many Syrian notables and even simple inhabitants were deported to Mosul, Diyarbakir, Konia, just because they were Christians.

Diocese of Mosul In August and September, 1915, a Turkish soldier gunned down on a whim, and by his own decision, two young Syrian Catholic priests who were returning from Mosul to their village of Qaraqosh, just because they were priests. Once the Turkish military authority had summoned him and questioned him about the matter, he was acquitted. More than a third of the Syrians and Chaldeans of Mosul died, victims either from mistreatment at the hands of soldiers of the Turkish army or from famine, the price of grain having risen to three hundred times its price before the war, or from the typhus epidemic that raged for nearly two years.

Jezireh The Christians who lived at Jezireh were Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics, and monophysites. Starting in June 1915, on the false pretext of disloyalty to the Turkish government, first all the notables of these three groups (Chaldeans, Catholic Syrians, Monophysite Syrians) were arrested and locked up. Then the Syrian Catholic bishop, Mgr. Flavian Michel Malke, a man of rare virtue and zeal, was incarcerated with four of his priests, as well as the Chaldeans’ bishop, Mgr. Jacques, with his priests. After two months’ captivity, they were brought an hour’s distance from the city, their hands and feet loaded with chains, and they were mercilessly butchered in a place called Chamme-Suss. Once they returned to the city, the Turkish soldiers looted the homes, grabbed the women, dishonored them and sold them off as slaves. The notables of the villages of Esfes and Meddo were also massacred; the rest of the inhabitants managed to escape. Azekh, a

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large Syrian village, withstood the Turkish assault so vigorously for months that in the end, the Turks gave up and went home.

Mardin

I. The Turks relieved all Christians of duty on the false pretext that all Christians were traitors. Then they began to pillage Christian houses by night, and especially the Syrian Catholic monastery of Mar Ephrem. II. April 25—the Turks came to conduct searches of the Armenian bishopric and of the nearby church in order to find, they claimed, secret papers and hidden weapons. III. News comes that they have put to death Chief Burro, a local Christian notable; his son-in-law Youssef Saadohana, who belonged to our Church, was with him. They put him to death with all the other Christians who were there. The murderers were soldiers who had ordered them to leave the city to go to Diyarbakir under their escort. Once they had left the city, the soldiers gunned them down on the road. IV. Towards the middle of May, the Turks conducted searches of all the Christian homes, and took away all their weapons. V. On June 5th, the Feast of the Holy Sacrament, Memduh Bey, the Turkish High Commissar arrived in Mardin with the vali of Diyarbakir’s aide. They went to the Armenian church, and had the bishop Mgr. Maloyan with sixteen priests arrested; they threw them into prison, then they seized the notables. The next day they had the Syrian Catholic parish priest, Raphael Bardaami, arrested as well as the abbot Father Issa and the Capuchin priest Leon and all the Christians they could lay their hands on, regardless of faith, which came out to 550 people. They tortured them with canings, as well as with the falaka (beating the soles of the feet with a stick), which is a terrible punishment favored by the Turks; they even ripped out their fingernails. Then they sent 80 Jacobites back home. On June 10th, they led the 470 others out towards Diyarbakir at dawn so that no one would see them. They were tied to each other regardless of their age. They were accompanied by Memduh Bey, by his aide-de-camp, and by a crowd of Turkish army rabble. On the way, the soldiers were ordered to kill 70 of them between Encrai and Set Anna. The 400 that were left were divided into two

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groups in front of the Zerzewan citadel, and some of the Kurdish soldiers beat them to death. Finally, near Diyarbakir on the black bridge, the survivors, including Mgr. Maloyan, were in turn executed by firing squad after their cruel martyrdom. On June 11th, The Turks arrest the Syrian Catholics to form a second “caravan of death”. Among them, the Fathers Jean Tahe, Mathew Malashe, Joseph Memerbashi, John Maghzale, Jacob Farah, and others. They only left one Armenian priest and 370 Christians from different Churches who were put into prison and mistreated. On June 14th, the Turks stripped the first group of their clothes and led them down the road towards Diyarbakir. At Settmane, they massacred 70 of them, including the priests Then they declared that an amnesty had been granted, and they brought them to Diyarbakir. When one of these wretches tried to flee on the road, the soldiers opened fire and shot him in the foot. This was Father John Maghzale. When they arrived at Diyarbakir, they were allowed to start back to Mardin. Those that were able to went back to their homes; among these were the Syrian and Armenian priests who had survived the mistreatment. Soon after, they were thrown back into prison. Then, one morning, they had them leave the city through the gate called the “wall gate”; some of them were massacred not far from the city, others met the same fate near the village of Dara. On June 29th, soldiers seized Armenian workers, leading them out of the city, and killed them near Zennor. On July 2nd, they sent out a fourth caravan of about 600 Armenians and massacred them near the “wall gate”. On July 7th, the first caravan of Armenian women arrives in Mardin from Diyarbakir. On July 17th, they make this caravan leave Mardin with an Armenian priest, Father Deiv Wannes, force them to walk to Tellel-Armus, and then put them to death. Among the victims were the women of the highest families. This is when the Turks went about searching churches and cemeteries on the pretext that they would find weapons there. They went everywhere, and had no scruples against mistreating women and girls.

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On August 2nd, a second caravan of women of all denominations is brought to Aleppo. A small number of them was killed along the way. They throw into prison, but just for one night, the Superior of St. Ephrem monastery, together with his monks, whom they kept there for seven days. They were accused of helping the Armenians hide their belongings. The Turks robbed the monastery of all the precious objects and money deposited there. Then seven more caravans left, one of which headed for Mosul. The second caravan was to include Bishop Gabriel Tappouni, the Patriarchal Vicar at Mardin, but thanks to the intervention of his friend, one of the Turkish administrators, he was released. As for the Christian villages in the Mardin vicinity, which are many and inhabited by Syrians, the Turkish government ordered the army rabble to attack those villages, and they did not refrain from raiding and killing the inhabitants; the inhabitants of Tell Armen were brought to the church and burned using petrol. Later on, in May 1918, the aforementioned Bishop was arrested and escorted to Aleppo, where he was imprisoned and tortured for three months, under the false charge of espionage. He was only released after he paid a sum of money to influential people of the military court of Aleppo. Nusaybin and its surroundings The ancient city of Nusaybin had Christian groups of Syrians and of Chaldeans who were massacred; many Christian villages between Nusaybin and Jezireh [Cizre] were completely destroyed.

Jebel Tur and Besheiriye

Jebel Tur is a mountainous region located between Mardin and Jezireh. Scattered throughout it, there were Christian villages inhabited by thousands and thousands of monophysite Syrians, among whom there were also Syrian Catholics. First, Christians from many villages were arrested, then killed. The Christians took refuge in the mountain at the region’s main town, Midyat, where they organized their resistance against the troops the government had sent after them. The battle lasted several weeks, until the Christians finally had to surrender after losing their best fighters. A wide-scale massacre then took place in almost all the villages.

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All the monasteries, which were numerous in the vicinity, were looted; a good number of churches were destroyed, priests and monks were killed. Among the victims, there were about fifteen Syrian Catholic priests. Besheiriye, located to the west of Diyarbakir, is a plain where there were many villages inhabited by Monophysite Syrians. They were deported and massacred even though the region’s Muslim sub-governor had refused to execute the orders of the government of Constantinople. His noble decision cost him his life, he was arrested and massacred. The number of Syrians massacred in Jebel Tur and Besheiriye is estimated at 70,000.

Diocese of Siirt

In the city of Siirt and the surrounding villages, the number of Christians rose to about 80,000, Chaldeans and non-Catholic Armenians as well as Syrian Catholics and monophysite Syrians. Starting in May, the Christian notables from all these communities were arrested, together with the two religious leaders of the non-Catholic Armenians and the monophysite Syrians, and the priests of all denominations. Several days later, they were led to a certain distance from the city, to a place where the soldiers and the Kurds who had been summoned for this reason massacred them. Among the victims was Father Ephrem Kesrain, a Syrian Catholic who lifted his companions’ courage and exhorted them to persevere in their Christian faith and die for it. Soon afterwards, the government ordered searches of all the shops and homes to arrest the other Christians. As they were arrested, they were brought out of the city and put to death. Finally they took the women and children and deported, some to Mardin and others to Mosul. Barely a tenth of them reached their destinations; the weakest died from hunger and fatigue along the way, the others were sold to the Kurds. The other Christians who lived in the villages with their pastors were massacred in the same way as those from the city. Among the massacred priests, we particularly feel the loss of Father Menari, whose zeal was truly apostolic. The Bishop of the Chaldeans was well known to European intellectual circles for his profound knowledge of Syriac literature; he managed to hide for a while at the home of a Kurdish notable who was the chief of a

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village, but the Turks soon found him and massacred him after subjecting him to horrible torture. We deeply regret the loss of the Syriac manuscripts that belonged to this prelate.

Diyarbakir In Diyarbakir, and in many of the villages surrounding that capital, there were many Armenians, some non-Catholics, others Catholics, Monophysite Syrians and Chaldeans. In April 1915, all the Armenian notables were arrested first, then those of the other Churches; they were thrown into prison under the false pretense that they were hiding weapons in their homes, and they were made to endure a thousand tortures. Among them, the bishop of the non-Catholic Armenians had been incarcerated with his priests, and they were burned alive. About one thousand other notables were transported 18 hours away from Diyarbakir on the Tigris on rafts and they were all shot dead New searches through all the homes to arrest other Christians who were deported in twenty successive caravans to a certain distance from the city, where they were stoned to death. The Bishop of the Armenian Catholics, Mgr. Celebian, was led to a place named Gozli, where he was massacred. Other priests of all denominations were massacred, some with the caravans, others in their churches or presbyteries. As in the cities we just mentioned, the women and children were deported, and on the road, the women were raped and sold. Only a small number of the deportees actually reached their destination; most of them died of exhaustion. All the Christians who lived in this region’s many villages were also massacred; among them there was a large number of nonCatholic Armenians and monophysite Syrians.

Mamuret-ul-Aziz and Hisn-Mansur We still have very few details concerning this region, which was inhabited by Armenians and Syrians. Along with the Armenians, several of our faith were also deported and massacred. One of our clerics from Hisn-Mansur, feeling that the persecution was coming, fled through Persia and Russia to China, Japan and finally America, from where he has written us to ask for news of his family.

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Siverek and Viranshehir The city of Siverek numbered about 5,000 non-Catholic Armenian Christians, Protestant Armenians, monophysite Syrians, and Syrian Catholics. Here as well, under the pretext of disarming Christians, the government conducted one thousand searches of homes and shops. The notables were arrested first, the others next, and they were imprisoned and cruelly tortured, so much so that some died in the prison. Among the victims was our excellent priest Thomas Mergien, who did not stop exhorting the faithful to bear everything for their Christian faith. The Armenian and monophysite Syrian priests were massacred as well, some in the prison, others in the desert, where they had been dragged. As elsewhere, the women were dishonored, then sold. The small number of women and children who escaped were dispersed to Urfa, Aleppo and other cities. In the city of Viranshehir (formerly called Tella), where Christian groups of Syrians and Armenians had been living for about twenty years, the priests were massacred with the faithful, while the women were sold or dishonored.

Edessa (now called Urfa) In Edessa, there was a special neighborhood where about 25,000 non-Catholic Armenians lived. In June of 1915, the Turkish government threw the nonCatholic Armenians into prison, then deported them in seven or eight caravans escorted by soldiers. Along the way, the government had them massacred. Soon afterward, the government decided to deport the rest of the non-Catholic Armenian population, men, women, and children. But since these people had heard that the ones who had been deported before them had been massacred, they decided to defend themselves vigorously. The government then sent a column of troops with artillery to defeat them. The fight lasted eighteen days. When the men had all fallen, the women and children surrendered to the Turks. The women were dishonored, then deported and massacred on the way or left to die from starvation in the desert. The Turks inflicted the same fate on the inhabitants of the village of Garmush; these were non-Catholic Armenians, and not one survived.

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Besides the Gregorian Armenians and the Syrian Catholics, two priests were massacred; one of the regular clergy, a monk, the other of the secular clergy, because they absolutely refused to embrace Islam. Among the Syrian Catholic notables put to death, let us single out George Rassu Ghanime, the father of Father Habib and his brother, etc. They also imprisoned Father Vartan, the Catholic Armenian parish priest, then they deported him to Adana, where he was hanged. The Capuchins were imprisoned for months for having given this priest their hospitality.

Deir-ez-Zor It is an almost entirely Muslim Arab city, with the exception of about one hundred Christian families, Syrians or Chaldeans. Thousands of Christians from Mesopotamia and Armenia were deported to that city, and they were made to suffer the cruelest tortures. One of my priests wrote me that he could not depict what he had seen with his own eyes as he had helped the victims with religious aide. To be even more certain that they would die, they brought them to the desert where they died from starvation.

Aleppo Several thousand Christians, Armenians, Syrians and others, were deported to Aleppo with priests and even Bishops. They were left in the open outside the city under the burning sun without any shelter; woe to anyone who would give them something to eat or drink. Many of them died this way. Later on, they were allowed to enter the city. Since other inhabitants of Mesopotamia had also sought refuge in Aleppo, the number of these wretches reached 60,000. Crammed together, with no other place to live but the Christian neighborhoods’ streets and the churches, in tatters, without any way to maintain hygiene, they soon fell victim to typhus, which struck and killed a quarter of the population.

Hama and Homs In the region around these two cities, thousands of Christians of different denominations were also deported, most of whom perished. One of my most zealous priests, who had cared for them, succumbed to typhus.

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Damascus and surrounding villages Even today, you can meet in Damascus and its surrounding villages deportees and refugees who came there and now live in the deepest poverty.

Beirut For three years, famine ravaged Beirut and Lebanon. By famine and epidemic, the quarter of the population of some regions was wiped out, in others, a third. Not even his Beatitude Mgr. Ignatius Ephrem Rahmani, Syrian Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, was spared. He was dragged before a court martial under false charges. Mgr. Rahmani Patriarch of the Syrian Catholics Paris, 95, rue de Sèvres June 11, 1919. Declaration of the General Vicariate of the Syrian Patriarch to the American International Commission concerning mandates in Turkey. July 18, 1919, by Mgr. Tappouni. The present time requires that we express our ideas in precise and formal terms on the double question that is asked of us: Why do we reject the absolute independence of the Arabs? Why do we demand a French mandate over Syria? Our answer will be frank and categoric, for our opinions on these two points have never varied any more than our feelings have. We say loudly and firmly: We reject the absolute independence of the Arabs I. because of their character: completely without education, they have none of the knowledge necessary to lead a nation. Without personal intelligence, they cannot attempt or achieve anything on their own. Without religious tolerance, they sacrifice everything to a literal interpretation of their holy book without the slightest distinction.

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Ignorant, incompetent, fanatical, they are also blood-thirsty, because without any humanity, their inborn ferocity surpasses that of the Turks. Why should we recall 1850 and the butchery of Damascus and Lebanon? Let us rather cite more recent dates and catastrophes. It was the Arabs who in 1915 took part in the massacres of Urfa, of Mardin, of Deir-ez-Zor, etc. It was the Arabs who in February 1919, massacred in Aleppo, under an Arabic government. It was the Arabs who, on the Turkish payroll, finished off the extermination of the Christians in the desert. Must we cite illustrious names, names decorated with the titles of “pasha” or “bey”? We will do so in good time. We thus absolutely reject the absolute independence of the Arabs because of their character. II. We also reject it because of their mentality. The Arab is imbibed with apparently liberal, but actually, deeply selfish ideas. He is a unionist in the bad sense of the word. He thinks and acts like a Young Turk. For example, he threatens the Christian and even forces him to sign petitions in his interest. He keeps at his service the former creatures of the Turkish government; and thus it is that the Mayors, the members of the municipalities and of the Administrative Council are all ex-partisans of the Young Turks. Even the delegation from Syria is made up of unionist underlings. Finally, those who are called the country’s “notables” are all former propagators of the Union and Progress Committee, all of them back home now thanks to the confiscation. If they ask for absolute independence, it is from fear of seeing the Christian one day become a threat and bring them to justice for their deeds. Therefore, what would Syria become under masters of such a character and mentality? The Turk, after trying to govern for 400 years and more, has had to give up and leave, leaving nothing but ruins behind him. Will the Arab be any more capable than the Turk? Finally, we are asked: Why do we demand the exclusive mandate of France over the whole of Syria? We answer: We demand the exclusive mandate of France over the whole of Syria

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1. in the name of our fathers of yesterday, 2. in the name of our orphans of today, 3. in the name of our grandchildren of tomorrow. In other words: in the name of History, in the name of Justice, in the name of Progress. For our ancestors, sons and heirs to the Crusades, bequeathed to us a legacy of honor. When dying, they made us swear to love what they had loved, and to continue their dream of annexation to magnanimous France, or at least of French protection. All these centuries have shown us that the children of Syria are faithful to their oath. So that their dream would come true, they suffered and they died. They were martyrs, shall we now be perjurers? And what would the descendents of these martyrs say? What would our orphaned children say? God only took their natural mother so that he could entrust them to an adoptive mother, sweet France, whose name we learned to stutter on our mothers’ laps. Moreover, they are only orphans in the first place because of France, because before the war, they were under the French protectorate; simple justice demands that France herself should come cradle their pain, cover their nakedness and populate their solitude. If we acted otherwise, what weapon would our descendents not hold against us? With what right would they not accuse us not only of faithlessness towards our forefathers and of injustice towards our orphans, but even of treachery towards our grandchildren? For we would betray our interests doubly: first by stopping the march of true progress, progress by ideas, then by robbing our future generations of true life, the life of light. France has been giving us this true progress through ideas, this life of light for centuries with its schools scattered throughout the East; she alone must complete this eminently humanitarian and civilizing task. It is a sacred duty of simple gratitude to demand only France. If therefore Europe wants to see our nations die, let her impose on us the Arab yoke, and tomorrow we will no longer exist! If Europe, adopting the idea of absolute independence for the Arabs, still wants us to live, let her send her boats, and we will

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emigrate without witnessing the moral death of our poor homeland. If finally, Europe hears our wishes, let her send us France as mandatory over the whole of Syria, including Palestine, Mosul, Diyarbakir, Mardin and Urfa, all Syrian centers that naturally must come back to Syria. We conclude and we say firmly and loudly: Syria, we want it whole, and we refuse absolute Arab independence, for that would mean its decline and death. For Syria, we want a democratic and republican government under the exclusive mandate of France, for that would mean its rise and greatness. With divine help, July 18, 1919 G. Tappouni, Vicar General of the Patriarch of Syrian Catholics. Statement on the Mar Elian monastery affair Long before the year 1914, the Syrian Catholic community was in possession of the monastery of MAR ELIAN and other buildings located at QARYATAIN. On Muharram 16, 1330 (December 5, 1914), a ministerial decree from the Ottoman government expelled them from it to the benefit of the Syrian Jacobite Community. The motives for this decree, as indicated in the report of the Counselor to the Minister of Justice of Constantinople, are the following: 1. The Mar Elian monastery was erroneously inserted into the list of French establishments in the 1901 Treaty of Mitylene, and in the Franco-Turkish accord of September 12, 1913. 2. Moreover, since the capitulations were abolished, and with them, all foreign protection, the diplomatic accords of 1901 and 1913 were henceforth void.

Discussion This decree, and its consequences, cannot be accepted by the French government, which demands that the aforementioned accords be respected and that the Syrian Catholics be restored to the earlier status quo, providing that all parties have the right to a hearing of their age-old disagreement before the appropriate

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competent authorities. To justify this demand, France has taken its position on purely diplomatic grounds, and on the grounds of the principles of international law concerning the respect owed to treaties by the contracting countries. Since the 16th century, France’s protection of Eastern Catholics has never been unrecognized by the Foreign powers or by the Ottoman government. This protection was rendered official by numerous treaties, and particularly by the Treaty signed in 1901 at Mitylene between France and the Sublime Porte. This treaty gave the list of educational, charitable and religious institutions situated in Ottoman territory and protected by France, and “the Catholic Monastery of Mar Elian” appears on this list. Its character as a French establishment is thus clearly rendered official by this treaty. The Ottoman government could not modify this character and make it into an Ottoman establishment, by its own authority and without previous agreement with the French government. This is so true that the Sublime Porte’s attempts to do so with the French Ambassador at Constantinople in 1910 and 1911 came to naught before the formal terms of the Treaty of Mitylene. This is again so true that in the Franco-Turkish accord of September 12, 1913, the Mar Elian monastery still appears in the list of French establishments (this list was sent to the French Consul at Damascus by the Vali of Damascus on August 6, 1914). Turkey had to enter the war for it to stop recognizing what it had recognized until then. Under these conditions, until a new diplomatic accord, in which France would have to participate, is reached, the Mar Elian monastery must remain a French establishment. Thus the first half of the decree of Muharram 16, 1330 is refuted. It is also simple to refute the second half, namely that the abolition of the capitulations nullified the conventions of 1901 and 1913, since the privileges accorded to those protected disappeared with them. The capitulations are nothing other than treaties, and these treaties have had the strength to survive for centuries all attempts by Ottoman governments to abolish them or limit their range. As such, the agreement of the contracting parties is necessary for treaties to lose validity. Consequently, the Ottoman

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government had neither the right, nor the power to decree their abolition alone, without the French government’s consent. These arguments, culled from the very principles of international law, would be enough in and of themselves to justify the French government’s demand. They gain even greater strength and incontestable validity by the Treaty of Sèvres of August 10, 1920. Concerning the alleged abolition of the capitulations, article 261 states that “The Capitulations system, stemming from treaties, conventions and practices, will be reestablished to the benefit of the allied Powers that directly or indirectly profited from them before August 1, 1914, and that benefit will be extended to those allied powers that were not yet profiting from them on August 1, 1914. The Treaty of Mitylene of 1901 is a capitulatory treaty, at least in the dispositions it foresees for French protection of certain establishments (notably the Mar Elian Catholic monastery), which means that the current situation is a disagreement of the type provided for in article 261, which must enter into effect. To this pre-emptive argument, the Treaty of Sèvres adds another, which without any need for diplomatic recourse, would be enough in and of itself to have the Syrian Catholics’ property at Qaryetain returned to them. This argument is culled from article 287: “The property, rights and interests belonging to allied powers nationals in a territory that was under Ottoman sovereignty on August 1, 1914,…will be immediately returned to their rightful owners, free from all tax except those that could have been applied according to the terms of the capitulations. The Ottoman government will have to take all the steps in its power to return properties to their dispossessed owners…” The Syrian Catholics were dispossessed of properties they owned, and since their status as foreign nationals (in this case, of France) cannot be disputed, according to the terms of article 317 of the Treaty of Sèvres, worded thus: “The term ‘allied Power national’ applies…to the religious, charitable or scholarly institutions in which nationals or protégés of the allied Powers are involved…the Ottoman government, or any other government acting as its surrogate, must take all steps to return properties to their dispossessed owners.”

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Conclusions: By reservation of the parties’ rights, the Government of Damascus, surrogate to the Ottoman government’s obligations to the French government, and as such, required to respect them, must annul the decree of Muharram 16, 1330 and consequently reinstate the previous status quo.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION THE ORIGINS OF THE SYRIAC CHURCH: FROM A SYRIAC TRADITION TO A SYRIAC RELIGION In the beginning there was Antioch. Once a shining light of antiquity, Antioch at the dawn of the Christian era was nothing like the backwater town it became under the Ottoman Empire. From its location on the Orontes River, twenty kilometers from the Mediterranean coast, Antioch quickly rose to become one of the major cities of the Middle East. Constantius II would even have a port built there, “costing more gold than the Pactolus ever kept for Cresus”.1 The city was founded in 300 B.C. by Seleucus I, son of Antiochus, after whom it was named. He naturally made it his monarchy’s capital. Antioch was in position to be a crossroads between empires and cultures. After Pompey conquered it in 64 B.C., Antioch asserted its role as one of the most important centers of the Roman Empire’s Asian provinces. From his Metropolis of Antioch, the comes Orientis, or Count of the East, exerted his authority over many provinces as the hierarchical superior to all the governors.2 Starting in 297, Diocletian’s reform established a dozen dioceses for the entire Empire to group smaller provinces together. From the end of the 3rd century A.D, the number of dioceses rose from 47 to more than 100. The Vicar of the diocese of the East would gain the more prestigious title of comes as of 334. When the Empire was divided into four prefectures, Antioch was suddenly able to rival Rome, Constantinople and Alexandria. A particular source of pride and legitimacy is that in Acts of the Apostles 11: 19-26, it is at Antioch that the disciples de Jesus of Nazareth are for the first time called “Christians”, meaning followers of the Chrestos, the anointed one, the Messiah. Even if the circumstances of this first usage remain unclear, the pagans’ acceptance of the term implies that the first Christian community was identified as a group distinct from Judaism, and

1 A. J. FESTUGIERE, Antioche païenne et chrétienne: Libanius, Chrisostome et les moines de Syrie, Paris, 1959, 536 pages. Translated by Roland Martin. 2 Eugen CIZEK, Mentalités et institutions politiques romaine, Fayard, 1990, p. 317.

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defined by the policy, imposed by Paul on Peter, of not requiring its converts from paganism to undergo circumcision. Tradition holds that Peter was the first of the twelve apostles to travel to Antioch to preach, and that he became its first bishop, thus founding the Church of Antioch. Later, the city was to benefit from the teachings of Paul, who also came to preach the good word and to help organize the new Church. Peter and Paul’s stay in Antioch supports the idea of apostolic foundation, and justifies the prestige that would make the city into the third patriarchal see, after Rome and Alexandria. The Council of Constantinople of 381 accorded Antioch second position after Rome,1 whereas Constantinople, the “new Rome”, received the same primacy of honor as the former capital (Canon 3). Antioch kept this privileged position until the Council of Chalcedon, where for political reasons, Jerusalem was granted a distinct regional jurisdiction, which indeed weakened Antioch’s position. Like Alexandria, Antioch distinguished itself in the third century by organizing episcopal synods, each of which was presided over by its own bishop. From the year 25 to the year 380, more than 10 councils were held at Antioch. This ecclesiastic distinction only added to its political and administrative importance. The city was rich, and proud of its supremacy over the rest of the East. Libanius left us testimony of this almost glowing with love. What city can rightfully be compared to ours? More lovely than the ancient cities, our city surpasses others in its grandeur, excels others by its nobility, and still others by the fertility of all its lands produce. If there is indeed a city that beats her in the size of her ramparts, she is still superior in the abundance of her water, the gentleness of her winters, the elegance of her inhabitants, her practice of wisdom; and her beauty outstrips that of an even bigger city [referring to Rome] in what is most beautiful of all, Greek culture and the art of oratory. In a word, all the others seem in comparison either too small, or graceless in their largeness: here, on the other hand, the Goddess Mother 1 John JOSEPH, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The case of the Jacobites in an age of transition, State University of New York, 1983, 240 pages. See p. 151, note #30.

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of Eros has spread her grace over the expanse. If you have come here from elsewhere, you forget everything you knew before. So we must forgive those who abandon their families and homelands under the love potion of Antioch: they have seen a city like none other, and they know that they will never find anything like it again. 1

The city has not always been a paradise, even if Christians, Jews and pagans were indeed able to live together there in peace. The new religion was able to grow rapidly and form its own religious hierarchy despite the opposition of the Jews and the resistance of the pagans. Jews and pagans there would not be allowed to own Christian slaves or to show the least disrespect to Christianity. The Christians were able to practice their faith in a city where, in Emperor Julian’s words, “each person should have the right to live as he sees fit”. In 268 a council of 70-80 Bishops from all regions of Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor took place in Antioch.2 Antioch was mostly spared the persecution of Christians under Diocletian and Licinius. Violence was soon overcome, but it did enter the people’s minds enough to stir the first signs of mistrust towards the Empire. Later, when the Emperor Valens (364-378) passed through the city, he set off a wave of violent repression of Christians, under the pretext of upholding the Council of Nicaea, since he himself was favorable to the Homoousian heresy.3 It was only in 313 that Licinius and Constantine met in Milan to come to an agreement on the principle of a new religious policy. Known to history as the “Edict of Milan”, their agreement “put an end to the persecution of Antiochos, op. cit. Jean MEYENDORFF, Unité de l’Empire et division des chrétiens, Paris, Cerf, 1993, 427 pages. See p. 39. 3 The Homoousians supported the doctrine briefly adopted at Constantinople in 360 under Constance, in a compromise between radicals of all stripes in the debate over Arianism (Theodosius’ edicts against Arianism would put an end to it, at least officially, in 380 and 381). The heresy may be summarized thus: “Christ is like his father in all respects”, which though aiming at consensus, actually pleased no one. Arius taught that in the Holy Trinity (defined in 325 in the Nicene Creed), only the Father is truly God, which implies that the son’s nature is not of the same divine substance as his Father’s. 1 2

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Christianity by declaring it a “religio licita”, by restoring formerly confiscated property and by establishing a rule of religious tolerance.1 It was not until Theodosius I (379-395), the first Emperor to be baptized at the beginning of his reign, that Christianity became the state religion. The continued peace of Constantine allowed the Christian communities to blossom and grow in a city that in the middle of the 6th century was the home to 500,000-800,000 people.2 In 390, Chrysostom judged the city almost completely Christian. It was fertile ground for an unprecedented intellectual explosion, despite the population’s many revolts against imperial authority, including the revolt of 387 in which pagans, Arians, clergy members and monks all took part. These events reinforced the idea of an agitated and passionate people, forever ready to rebel.

INTELLECTUAL EFFERVESCENCE The end of the 4th century and the first decades of the 5th century were the golden age of Christianity at Antioch. Theology took pride of place in the debates of the time. What would later be called the “Antioch school” gathered together a series of exegetes whose names would appear prominently in this saga. Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodorus of Mopsuestia and John Chrysostom were the “school’s” main representatives. Tempers flared at the extreme complexity of theological disputes concerning the nature of the Trinity and of Christ that quickly turned into fierce polemics. Hellenic Alexandria faced off with Antioch’s more Semitic view of Christianity in an antagonism that reached its apogee in the struggle between Nestorius and Cyril. Like Libanius, the religious and political elite were proud that Antioch had “Greek culture and the art of oratory”. Greek was the language used in the churches and intellectual circles, which was a harbinger of troubles to come, since the population did not speak Greek. But unlike Latin in the West, Greek was not the only vehicle for civilization in Antioch. Until the fourth century, Latin remained the language of the courts and the administration in the 1

J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., p. 1.

Joseph KELLY, Dictionnaire du Christianisme ancien, Translated by Jean Denis Berger, Brépols, 1994, 276 pages. See pp. 150-154. 2

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East. Though the issue of pluralism often arose in imperial life, the notion gained its full meaning in the Roman East, where traditions, each more ancient than the last, competed for supremacy: the Coptic, the Hebrew, the Aramaean, the Syro-Palestinian, and the Syriac. The East was a mosaic of cultures and civilizations, some of which dated to pre-history. In this respect, Constantinople was always torn between its desire to centralize by imposing Greek as the main bearer of doctrinal unity, and a certain political pragmatism. Most important was not to anger the turbulent Eastern peoples who defended the Empire’s outermost border against the Persians; insuring their loyalty was worth a few sacrifices. The Empire used the East as a bridgehead into foreign lands, for Christianity was already overflowing across the imperial borders, borne by the zeal of missionaries. Armenia and Georgia, already evangelized, allowed Christianity to flow into the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and Persia into the fortresses of India and China, Nubia into Arabia and Ethiopia. Greek was the language in which the texts of the New Testament were written, and it was also the language used by those who took part in the Councils. Therefore, all the doctrinal and theological debates also took place in Greek. Faced with this hegemonic situation, the populations of Syria and Palestine, who for the most part spoke Aramaic, were left on the wayside of religious evolution. By converting en masse to Christianity, the Syriac populations enabled their culture, which was already rich in literature, to create its own model for theological and liturgical development. Translations into Syriac of the Old and New Testaments existed very early on, and the Christian school of Nisibis (modern-day Nusaybin), created on the model of Talmudic schools, quickly gained celebrity. In the 4th century, Syriac Christianity produced not only theologians such as Aphraate (circa 270-345), but also “the greatest poet of the patristic era”, Saint Ephrem (circa 306-373). Neither knew Greek, but that did not prevent Saint Ephrem from being venerated as a Father of the Church in both the East and the West.1

During the councils, and then during the schisms, the linguistic and cultural fracture transformed into a struggle between 1

J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., p. 39.

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the supporters of Hellenism (Alexandrian culture) and the supporters of Asiatic culture (the Semitic world). Unlike Alexandrian culture, however, what we call “Asiatic culture” did not form a homogenous whole. It was rather a network of “influences” that consolidated slowly over time, particularly by its opposition to Alexandria. In matters of Christology, its “materialism” would conflict with the strictest Alexandrian spiritualism. Antioch was the city that best represented these contradictions, whose flashpoint would be the struggle between Nestorius, trained in Antioch and Bishop of Constantinople (like Chrysostom before him) and Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. The dispute culminated in the Council of Ephesus in 431, at which Nestorius was condemned for heresy. Nestorius had reflected on the part played in the Trinity by Christ’s human nature, and has gone down in history as a defender of Christ’s “humanity”, “two natures of Christ after the Union”, whereas Cyril’s school offered a “single nature after the Union”.

THE SYRIAC TRADITION “Tradition” is a term preferable to “culture”, because it enables us not to confuse Alexandrian culture with Asiatic or Semitic culture. The Syriac tradition was part of Asiatic culture. Syriac, a dialect derived from Aramaic, the language of Jesus himself, was then spoken from the Mediterranean coasts all the way to the borders of Mesopotamia. Syriac belongs to the Semitic linguistic family, whose Eastern Aramaic branch it forms together with Mandan and the language of the Babylon Talmud. Syriac is founded on the Aramaic dialectic of Edessa.1

According to Jean Meyendorff, “the roots of Syriac Christianity go back to Judeo-Christian groups of the apostolic era”, an assertion Robert Murray seeks to prove by affirming that Syrian Christianity descends from the original Judeo-Christian community of Jerusalem.2 This tradition’s specificity stems from the quality of its exegetic and liturgical heritage, embodied in the spiritual and poetic 1 Paul KRÜGER and Julius ASSFALG, Petit Dictionnaire de l’Orient Chrétien, translated by Joseph Longton, Brépols, 1991, 551 pages. 2 Robert MURRAY, Symbols of Church and Kingdom. A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, Cambridge, 1975, pp. 4-38.

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Syro-Antiochene liturgy. Antiochene exegesis, such as can be found in Chrysostom’s homilies, is literalist, a modern approach that starts from the text and then returns to it. It was opposed to Alexandrian allegoricism, often considered to be excessive and arbitrary, and it particularly depended upon an instructional system copied at the beginning from the synagogue schools at Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, and based on memorization and recitation of Scripture. But the school was also a place of confrontation for different ideas, where theologians and their students took turns debating different positions. After the Council of Chalcedon, the Edessa school was split between the most extreme Christological positions, Nestorianism and Monophysiticism. Similarly, in the spiritual domain, Syrian monasticism immediately distinguished itself from other forms as it flourished at Antioch and its surroundings during the 4th century. This was a rigorous form of monasticism, sometimes extremist in its expression, that preached the strictest asceticism, and that led monks to retire to the most inaccessible areas and even to adopt stylitism, the most famous practitioner of which, Symeon, played a leading role in the conversion of the Arab tribes to Christianity. Syrian monasticism naturally found its home on the Tur Abdin plateau. In the 4th and 5th centuries, Syriac-speaking Christians lived mostly in Antioch and in the whole of the Diocese of the East all the way to Mesopotamia, where they provided the manpower for centuries to come for the missionary vocation of the Nestorian and Syriac Orthodox Churches. Antioch was taken by the Persians, reconquered by Justinian, but then definitively lost after the Arab conquest. In order to protect themselves politically, the Christians of Persia declared their doctrinal independence from Constantinople, though they continued to recognize their spiritual dependence on Antioch, the traditional center of Syriac Christianity. The ideas of Nestorius would later develop within this Christian Church of Persia, and thus consummate their rupture form the rest of Christendom. The Syriac Christians who had remained faithful to the Empire fled to Edessa, where tradition holds that Christianity was introduced very early on, under King Abgar between 9 and 46 A.D. by Christ himself, who is said to have sent Baradaeus as his

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apostle.1 Astride over several borders, Syrian Christianity was “a world apart, culturally very distinct from the civilization that was gradually working out a synthesis between Christianity and Hellenism within the Roman ecumene”.2 It produced eminent theologians in the tradition of Ephrem, who took part in the growing struggle to defend either Nestorius’ ideas or monophysiticism. The vigor with which these two theologically extreme doctrines were defended illustrated above all the passion of Syrian Christianity. Syriac tradition and language did not belong exclusively to any one nation or community. The peoples living in Syria and Mesopotamia at the time did not have the same background, and thus had different theologies and even Churches, but because of these very differences, Syrian Christianity was extremely adamant on the universality of its evangelical message. Too often historians associate the Nestorian and Monophysite ruptures with a desire for ethnic separatism, where they stemmed more directly from a desire to include others in salvation.

THE TIME OF COUNCILS: THE MONOPHYSITE RUPTURE OF CHALCEDON IN 451 If the theological question cannot be analyzed separately from the political question, the reverse is also true. Jean Meyendorff’s work allows us to situate the Christological debate within its context, where it has too often been overlooked in favor of the political debate. Christology is the heart of Christianity. Who was Christ? Was he a man or was he God, or was he both at the same time? Who suffered on the cross? What is the connection between his two natures? It has too often been said that the Christological schisms of the 5th and 6th centuries were due less to the Nestorian or monophysite theologians’ convictions than to the ethnic separatism of Syrians and Copts opposed to the Empire. But this idea is only partly According to Jean Meyendorff, this legend has a basis in historical fact, and he retells the first steps of Christianity among the Syrians, op. cit., p. 144, note #1. See also Alain DESREUMAUX, Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus: présentation et traduction du Texte syriaque intégral de «La Doctrine d’Addaï», Paris, 1995, 184 pages. 2 J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., p. 116. 1

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corroborated by the facts. Not only did Greeks make up the majority of the dissidents’ intellectual leaders, but solid proof attests to the fact that initially, Nestorians and Monophysites both were loyal to the idea of the Empire, and to the Empire itself, and that in fact they availed themselves of Imperial protection each time that they could attain it. Dioscorus of Alexandria imposed monophysiticism with the help of Emperor Theodosius II in 449 and Severus of Antioch for a time enjoyed the support of Justinian’s government between 513 and 519. Jean Meyendorff goes on to say that all parties accepted the idea that the Christian Empire had been founded by Providence to insure the universality of the Christian message.1

When the aged Emperor Marcian decided to convoke the largest council Christianity had ever known, his ambition was to consolidate the Church’s unity within the Empire. More than 500 bishops participated, as well as the Patriarchs of the four great Eastern sees, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and even Pope Leo of Rome sent representatives. The Emperor was Christ’s image and agent on earth, and the Empire insured the temporal framework for his message’s universality. Marcian wanted to reestablish Orthodoxy with a reaffirmation of the faith agreed upon at Nicaea. Convoked by Constantine in 325, the Council of Nicaea formally rejected Arius’ doctrine and under the sway of Alexander of Alexandria, adopted the Church’s profession of faith, which would become the Creed. A violent quarrel had already set Alexandria against Antioch, where theologians were defending Adoptionist theses, considering Christ not as an autonomous person, but rather as the form God took to appear to men. Arius brought this thesis to an extreme, denying that Christ was of the same nature as God the Father. There had been two previous Councils of Ephesus: the first in 431, where Nestorius, coming from the Antiochene tradition and forwarding Jesus’ humanity, demanded that the Virgin Mary no longer be called Theotokos, “Mother of God”, but Christotokos, “Mother of Christ”. In 449, the Alexandrian party had their 1 J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., note # 67 p. 40. A. JONES, Were ancient heresies national or social movements in disguise? London, 1959. The only schisms that Jones considers as possibly motivated by nationalism are those of the Arian Germans and the monophysite Armenians.

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revenge in the second Council of Ephesus, which has gone down in history under the name “highway robbery”. Dioscorus of Alexandria, the successor to Cyril (who had had Nestorius condemned), won the rehabilitation of Eutyches, an influential theologian at the court who had been condemned by the Constantinople Synod of 448 for espousing the extreme position that Christ’s humanity was not of the same nature as that of man. This position, which exalts the divinity of Christ after the Incarnation, offered a foretaste of the foundations of future monophysiticism, and though opposed to Nestorius and to Antioch, it gives a misleading image of Saint Cyril’s theology, which would often be misinterpreted, deformed and used to political ends. Eutyches has gone down in theological history as a supporter of extreme monophysiticism. He is called the father of the Syrian Orthodox Church, which is false, for that very Church would condemn him several times, and would never itself adopt monophysiticism. The theological scene at Chalcedon witnessed the confrontation of the three great Christian systems of thought of the time: the Latin world, Hellenic thought and the Semitic-Asiatic universe. Faced with what he saw as a revolt, the Roman Pope Leon, first threatened to hold a council in the West if the Emperor did not halt Dioscorus’ offensive. He presented a long document, his tome, on this subject, which he wanted to have accepted as a definitive Christological declaration. It was around this document that resistance at Chalcedon would form. After the victory of Cyril of Alexandria1 over Nestorius’ Christology, the Antioch school was weakened. Pope Leon’s arguments still remained too “Nestorian” for Dioscorus of Alexandria since the Pope’s tome spoke of two distinct natures after the Incarnation, but they bear a striking resemblance to Antiochene theology, which itself was split between its proNestorian tradition and a marked desire for compromise with what they considered a form of provocation from Alexandria. Though at this Council, there was not yet a true split between West and East, the new configuration does allow us to foresee the future line of rupture. 1

Bishop from 412 to his death in 444.

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The Council of Chalcedon confirmed Nestorius’ condemnation, and Eutyches was condemned as well. Under Monophysitic pressure from Egypt, Saint Cyril’s doctrine, relayed by Syrian monasticism, took the upper hand. At a time when only spiritual fame counted, the ascetic monks, stylites and anchorites, had great moral authority. Gradually the situation was reversed, and Antioch began to relay Alexandria’s toned down form of monophysiticism. Long internal struggles led to the progressive oblivion of the Nestorian thesis. This loss of influence was worsened when the school of Edessa moved to Nisibis, which was at the time situated close to the Persian Empire’s border. Now situated at the foot of the mountainous Tur Abdin plateau, the school went about founding the first monasteries and a new spirituality.

OPPOSITION AFTER THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON In opposition to the final declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, which declared anathema on Eutyches’ and Nestorius’ heresies, while reestablishing “orthodoxy”, Antioch and Alexandria presented themselves as the champions of the true faith. This feeling of being the defenders, then the guardians, of the apostolic heritage of the three Councils contributed to the longevity of many Eastern Churches down to modern times. The many repressions they all suffered until the end of the Empire, then the long isolation imposed on them by the Muslim Arab, and then Ottoman Turkish domination, only deepened emotional attachment to this role. Resistance to Chalcedon immediately became an ordeal. The power struggle steadily grew more radical between the proChalcedon ecclesiastic authorities and the population of the Syrian countryside, fervent in their renewed faith and in the mystique of resistance. Revolt was on the rise. In a riot reminiscent of those in Egypt, Bishop Stephen, a Chalcedonian who had been directly named by the Emperor, was killed by the mob in Antioch. In the following decades, it was with slogans, insults, dogmatic declarations and then repression that the Empire responded. No one, be he a member of the clergy, an administrator, or of any profession, should ever speak publicly on Christian faith or discuss these issues in

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This division went all the way back to Constantinople, where part of the court, including Empress Ariadne and Emperor Anastasius Flavius espoused the Alexandrian cause. AntiChalcedonians now constituted more than half of the populations of the East, and a number of Episcopal sees had come into their possession. This attempt to fill the prelates’ ranks with anti-Chalcedonians set off a long power struggle for the major sees of Eastern Christendom. Henceforth, the Empire’s religious policy would be split between a desire to impose the “Orthodox” canon of Chalcedon by force and the subtler imperative not to alienate the peoples of the East. Even at the moments of fiercest repression, the Syrians never questioned their loyalty to the Empire. The Syrians remain fundamentally loyal to it [the Empire], even if most of them have rejected Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and suffered persecution. To their mind, their opposition to Chalcedon did not stem from national distinctiveness, since neither their culture, nor their language, nor again their liturgical traditions had been suppressed by the Empire, but rather from the fact that their spiritual leaders (who often spoke Greek) considered Chalcedon a betrayal of the true faith.2

They hoped to convert the Emperor, but never to see the end of the Empire, or even the creation of another. This balance would not last long however, for in the 6th century, a second church would be created under the impetus of a Syriac monk, Jacob Baradaeus.

A NEW CHURCH IS FOUNDED IN RESISTANCE Justinian was brought to power by his uncle Justin I, who named him co-Emperor in April 527. His reign, among the longest in Byzantine history, would last until 565. The memory of Justinian remains tainted with blood and repression in the East, where he is said to have sacrificed Christological heresies at the altar of his 1 2

Decree of the Emperors Valentinian and Marcian, January 27, 452. J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., p. 42.

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imperial vision. The truth is more nuanced, and his initial policies bear the mark of the same hesitations his predecessors had experienced. His reign began by a period of dialogue and tolerance towards opponents of the Council of Chalcedon. His concern was at first political, as he did not want to stir up Easterners at the very time as he was undertaking his military reconquest of Germany and Spain. But it was also religious, for he too had a taste for religious discussion, and he wanted to close the debate. He therefore adopted his wife Theodora’s advice, which maintained a benevolent, even conciliatory attitude towards the opposition. The anti-Chalcedonian leaders addressed the Emperor with terms of great praise. Thus peace will prevail in your kingdom by the power of the right hand of Almighty God, whom we pray to help you and lay your enemies at your feet without trouble and unarmed.1

Despite the wounds of the past, everything still seemed possible. The Emperor wanted to restore the Church’s theological unity to accompany the new importance he was intending to give the concept of the Empire. The anti-Chalcedonian side was openly dreaming that Justinian’s peace would transform into an antiChalcedonian peace. As W. H. C. Frend put it, it is clear that “despite all the ill-will generated by the controversy, the antiChalcedonians were far from political rebels”.2 Theodora’s plan was to achieve a reconciliation in which she sincerely believed, by repeating gestures of openness to antiChalcedonians, helping some attain Episcopal thrones, urging others to dialogue by organizing meetings between theologians from the different parties. She worked for the unity of the Empire, and the reconciliation of the prelates.

THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE Despite everything, Justinian’s zeal for unity and order took the shape of a radical repression of all forms of religious dissidence. The Emperor’s wrath fell primarily on the last partisans of the Arian heresy, particularly in the reconquered Western provinces, and then on the last pagans, with the destruction of their last 1 W. H. C. FREND, The rise of the monophysite movement, Cambridge, 1972, 392 p. 2 Idem.

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temples, including those of Baalbek and Philae, and the closing of the school of Athens. Radical Monophysites, formal supporters of Eutyches still rejecting the nomination of Chalcedonian bishops in Egypt, were considered heretics by the Emperor and paid a price for it, as happened with the last Samaritans in Palestine.1 With the support of John of Ephesus, Justinian encouraged the conversion to Christianity of thousands of pagans in Asia Minor, and of Arabs in Syria. The anti-Chalcedonian party did not remain homogenous. Once again, the Egyptians were the most intransigently opposed to the ideas of Chalcedon. Theologians and representatives from Alexandria refused all compromise, so much so that Justinian had to send six thousand soldiers to Alexandria to reinstate the moderate Bishop Theodosius, a maneuver that cost three thousand lives. Imperial policy towards Syrian anti-Chalcedonians would be much more nuanced. Soldiers were only called in periodically to install Chalcedonian bishops. This difference in treatment was due to Severus of Antioch, who in following with Theodora’s plans, would prove to be an agent of reconciliation between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians. A theological moderate, he tried to encourage discussion between the different Christological positions. He therefore took a very clear stand, as the only antiChalcedonian leader to officially condemn Eutyches’ heresy, certain of whose supporters did not hesitate to assert that Christ could not have suffered on the cross since he had no human body. Eutyches was condemned definitively. Severus similarly condemned Dioscorus of Alexandria’s excesses at the “highway robbery” of Ephesus. This position made him the perfect liaison for Justinian’s policy in Syria. But he would come to refuse this role, and would end up becoming the leader of the foremost anti-Chalcedonian tendency, called the “Verbal”. Despite numerous concessions, Severus was forced to leave his See at Antioch so that a Chalcedonian bishop might replace him, and he left for forced exile in a monastery. The Council of 536 condemned Severus and his supporters. Starting from that date, Eastern Christianity changed its face. The temptation to create a parallel Church, which before then had been dismissed, 1

J. MEYENDORFF, p. 230.

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now surfaced under the oppression among many prelates, encouraged by Empress Theodora’s favor and protection. Severus remained circumspect, but John, Bishop of Tella (a city in Eastern Syria) did not hesitate to take action, conducting mass ordinations of anti-Chalcedonian priests1. He was only able to act for a few years, for in 536, he was arrested by agents of the Chalcedonian Patriarch and died in prison two years later. The repression thereafter grew in violence, and after 536, Justinian adopted severe administrative measures against antiChalcedonians. The time for dialogue was over, and many bishops lost their throne. When they were banished, they headed for the desert to swell the ranks growing clandestinely. We may assume that as of 537, there existed a parallel antiChalcedonian hierarchy operating secretly in Syria. To avoid repression, since “all major sees had gone to Chalcedonians”, it acted in seclusion in the far-flung regions of the Syrian desert. These were the foundations that several years later, Jacob Baradaeus, Bishop of Edessa, would transform into an autonomous and independent church, based on the masses who only spoke Syriac, who understood nothing of the theological subtleties debated at Antioch, and who very often remained loyal to the “old” faith. Officially named anti-Chalcedonian Metropolitan of Edessa in 542 in a gesture of reconciliation from Theodosius, Patriarch of Constantinople, acting at the request of the Emperor himself, Jacob used his position to convert many Arabic tribes to Christianity, while at the same time training a new clergy of people often from the lower classes.2 Gérard Troupeau rightly reminds us that these Arabic tribes played an essential role in the formation of this form of Christianity, and al-Harith, one of the sovereigns of the Banu Ghassan tribe saved the anti-Chalcedonian hierarchy in 543, by having Justinian enthrone two bishops, one of whom was none other than Jacob Baradaeus.3 He established his see at Edessa, and for years traveled throughout the many provinces of Syria, Asia Minor and J. MEYENDORFF, p. 249, note #47. According to John of Ephesus, John of Tella conducted no less than 170,000 ordinations, an obvious exaggeration. 2 See D. BUNDY, Jacob Baradeus, Le Muséon 91, 1978. 3 Gérard TROUPEAU, Histoire du Christianisme, Desclée, 1993, vol. 4, art., p. 381. 1

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Mesopotamia, “dressed as a beggar to escape the imperial police”.1 Thanks to his spirituality, he immediately gained immense prestige among the population. His influence spread through the Syrian countryside and through the hundreds of monasteries the Middle East then numbered. These monasteries played an essential formative role in the development of this new Church, allowing Jacob Baradaeus’s disciples to consolidate their influence on the terrain. They also served as refuges in a hostile environment, a role they would continue to play throughout history and still in modern times. This Church has been called a religion of monasteries.2

WAS THEIR SECESSION BASED IN ETHNICITY? Jean Meyendorff remains moderate on the issue of antiChalcedonian Syriac separatism. The question of their loyalty to the Empire has often been raised. But in his commentaries, the Orthodox historian prefers to speak of “Monophysites” in general, without making ethnic distinctions. Even during the most troubled times, loyalty to the Empire was never questioned. They thought that they could have two Churches in the Empire, and always hoped that theirs could bring about the conversion of Constantinople’s.3

Based on contemporary sources, W. H. C. Frend affirms that The new Emperor [Justin II] and his wife were very well disposed toward monophysitic theology, and that the Monophysite leaders John of Ephesus and Jacob Baradaeus, by now very advanced in age, were fundamentally loyal to the Emperor and to religious unity.

1Pierre MARAVAL, Le christianisme de Constantin à la conquête arabe, PUF, 1997, 460 pages. See p. 419-420. This information is contradicted by Jean Meyendorff who writes several times that Jacob Baradaeus was received at the court or at theogical meetings long after this missionary period. Should we not see in these “rags” the exaltation of a faith forcing him to strip to the essentials? In any case, we have little information on Jacob Baradaeus, and the nature of his ties with the Empire seem very complex. 2 Dictionnaire de l’Orient Chrétien, p. 256, definition of Tur Abdin. 3 J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., p. 290.

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One result of the creation of this new Church was to anchor the schism in time and reality. The debate heated up, some speaking of “converting” anti-Chalcedonians to the Council of Chalcedon’s faith, others suffering “martyrdom” for the “true faith”. The “clandestine” leaders, proud to endure persecution, now at last began slowly seeing their struggle as their own cultural identity. The constant military pressure from Persia nonetheless forced the Emperor to maintain a certain moderation in his actions. Jacob Baradaeus was acting alone, and his unofficial activities did not meet with the approval of his superiors, particularly not Patriarch Theodosius, who gave him warning several times. For Pierre Maraval, the anti-Chalcedonian Church, heir to Antioch was not a “national” church, but it would soon concretely define its identity by rejecting, or at least limiting the use of Greek, in favor of Syriac.

Jean Meyendorff also defends this point of view: the future ethnic separatism is just a consequence of purely theological divisions, and not the other way around.

FROM FREEDOM TO ISOLATION Just before the Persian invasion of 611 marking the fall of Antioch, and then the Arab invasion of 638, the Monophysite parties are explicitly called “Syrians” or “Egyptians”, whereas the supporters of Chalcedon were called “Greeks” or “Melkites” [from the Syriac “melek”, meaning “king”]. The Syriac Church is very solidly rooted among the rural population, who were fiercely loyal to their spiritual leaders. Its hierarchy, dozens of bishoprics strong, took possession of many monasteries, and spread its influence from the plains of Beeka to the south, all the way to the edges of Mesopotamia in the north, and to the east, from Amida [Diyarbakir] to Dara [south of Mardin], which in the course of many retreats, would become its refuge.

The Syriacs’ long resistance to Chalcedon had understandably left bad memories of the Byzantine Empire in the minds of these peoples, even if their theology, liturgical traditions and spirituality owed much to the time when they had fully shared in the Universal

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Church. Their loyalty to that tradition and to a Christology that was still fundamentally Cyril’s was unanimously recognized by intellectuals of the 19th century. It becomes more and more problematic to use the term “Monophysite” to speak of these ancient churches, since the term has acquired a pejorative connotation over centuries of polemics. Our firm conviction in this volume is that the term “Monophysite” in and of itself does not imply a Christological heresy, but simply indicates an exclusive preference for Cyril’s formula: “one incarnate nature of God the Word”.1

The Syriac populations turned inwards, huddled around villages and monasteries. Antioch was no longer the great and flourishing city Libanius had spoken of, but was already on the decline. The Greek and Latin cultures were definitively forgotten, together with the dream of universalism they had conveyed, and were replaced by a new, burgeoning Syriac culture that became very rich in its position of dominance. Once the Empire was defeated on its Eastern borders, it is undeniable that the Syriac Church must have breathed a new air of freedom. The Chronicles of Michael the Syrian give us a taste of this: With the invasion, “all memory of the Chalcedonians disappeared from the Euphrates to the East” [meaning Syria] and the Jacobite Patriarch Athanasius of Qennesrin (595-631) wrote to his counterpart in Alexandria: “The world has rejoiced in peace and love because the Chalcedonian night has finally dissipated”.2

As we have seen, the anti-Chalcedonians’ loyalty to the Empire has often been the subject of long debates. Jean Meyendorff answers this question with the example of the Copts, who were even more hardened than the Syrians in their resentment toward Chalcedon, but who never came to such an extreme point of view. Recent research does not in the least confirm that nonChalcedonian Copts welcomed the Muslims as their liberators for Roman domination: even then, despite Chalcedonian persecution, loyalty towards the Christian empire was strong in Egypt. J. MEYENDORFF, op. cit., Epilogue, p. 395. Chronicle X, by Michael the Syrian, 25, II, pp. 380-81. (Cited by Jean Meyendorff). 1 2

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ON THE “TIGRIS BORDER” Syriac Christianity now found its identity. It was about to write its history and especially carve out a land for itself by finding a sanctuary. The Tur Abdin plateau had always aroused conquerors’ interest. Located on the west bank of the Tigris, it was the northern extremity of the Mesopotamian plateau, a necessary point of passage between Mesopotamia and Anatolia. The expansionism of the ancient Assyrians, who called it Mount Kashyari, had opened Tur Abdin’s way toward Amida, Asia Minor and the Armenian plateau. From this period, there still remains extant a long tale of King Assurnasirpal II, an Assyrian king who crossed Tur Abdin in 879 B.C. on his way to conquer the Amida region.1 This plateau was at the time populated with Aramaeans, who eventually become the reservoir of future Christians, and many place names and names of villages, as Andrew Palmer, a specialist on the region notes, are still the same today, such as “Matiate”, which became Midyat. This confirms a certain continuity, if not a direct descent, between the Aramaean world, the Syriac world, and the Church that would bear that name. At the time of the Roman Empire, after 363, for two and a half centuries [until the Persian conquest], Tur Abdin represented the most easterly stronghold of the Roman Empire. The infamous peace treaty that Jovian negotiated with the Persians after Julian’s death in Mesopotamia created what we can call the Tigris border.2

Nisibis was yielded to the Persians, leaving the city of Amida (Diyarbakir) as the most solid outpost on the Eastern Roman limes. The city had been fortified during Constantine’s time. Tur Abdin was split between the two empires on a south-west, north-east line going from Dara to the south of Mardin, along the low part of the plateau, and meeting the Tigris to the north, leaving Nisibis, Azekh, and the future Jezireh in Persian hands. The region’s main centers, Mardin, Midyat, and the future monastery of Mar Gabriel remained in the zone of Roman influence. During peacetime, the native peoples had no problems 1 Andrew PALMER, Monk and mason on the Tigris frontier. The early history of Tur Abdin, University of Cambridge Oriental Publication 39, 1990, 265 pages. See Introduction, p. 15. 2 Idem, p. 4.

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whatsoever passing from one Empire to the other across artificial borders officially, if ineffectually dividing a vast Aramaic-Syriac population. Fortresses were built on both sides of this line, including the castle of Tur Abdin, a cornerstone of the Roman defensive system. It was rebuilt by Constantine in 348, together with the fortress of Tella, then reinforced by Justinian two centuries later against the Persians. For their part, the Persians fortified Sargathon across from Dara to the south, in the Mardin plain, as well as the city of Nisibis, and Sisauranon which was situated directly across from the Tur Abdin castle, where observers could follow each others’ movements over the border. The last great wars between the two empires, at the end of the 6th century, and continuing on until the Persian conquest of 613, gave Tur Abdin a essential military and strategic role. It soon became the key to the region, and the two armies regularly devastated its rich lands. The description offered by a contemporary witness, Theophylact, affords us a glimpse of the strength and character of the inhabitants of Tur Abdin, and of the suffering they endured. The Izala Mountain, Tur Abdin, is very fertile in its production of wine and large varieties of fruit. This mountain is very populous, filled with men of good reputation who are very attached to their land; it is particularly exposed to attack since it is the subject of many disputes, as the enemy does not live far away. You can not convince these people to leave their lands, even with threats or promises, and even since their neighbors the Persians have been encroaching on, and frequently pillaging their territory.1

Thanks to this testimony, we know that throughout the twenty years that the Roman-Persian war lasted, the inhabitants of Tur Abdin were unswerving supporters of the Empire. It was with these war-hardened people that the Syriac Orthodox Church built up its resistance over the centuries, when the Arabic, then Turkish conquests made Mesopotamia into a land of Islam.

M. WHITBY, The History of Theophylact, 1986, p. 44. Cited by Andrew Palmer, op. cit., p. 8. 1

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“THE MOUNTAIN OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD” “The Mountain of the Servants (of God)” is another name for Tur Abdin, that refers to the dozens of monasteries there—70 monastic complexes according to a recent study—a monastic density unequaled until then in the East. This made Strzygowski say that this “mountain”, and not Egypt, was the true cradle of Eastern monasticism.1 Travelers of the 18th and 19th centuries easily called Tur Abdin the Mount Athos of the Syriacs, or even the Mount Athos of the East. The most ancient monuments still extant in Tur Abdin seem to be Christian. The first sedentary populations in antiquity already had a long history in the region as heirs to several influences and traditions. It seems that once the first monks arrived there in the 4th century, the plateau was Christianized within a few decades. Accelerating the disappearance of the last traces of paganism and Zoroastrianism, the churches and monasteries were often built atop sites that had been dedicated to pagan worship. As a result of these developments, Tur Abdin was transformed, in the space of a few decades, into a bastion of Eastern Christianity. Its location on the border made it a forward outpost of the Christian Empire. A Syriac source, The Chronicle of 819, dates the foundation of the Qartmîn Monastery to 396.2 At the time, the Syriacs still referred to the Seleucid calendar, which began on October 1, 312 B.C. Situated east of Midyat, at the peak of fertile, planted slopes that give it a dominant and central position, the Qartmîn Monastery was for centuries the episcopal see for the many bishops of Tur Abdin, and has lasted to the present day. Within its walls, Syriac liturgy and tradition were jealously preserved over long periods of isolation. The first monks were not necessarily natives of Tur Abdin; they came from the West, from Antioch, Edessa and more surely 1 Paul HINDO, (Syrian Archbishop of Baghdad), Disciplina Antiochena Antica Siri II, Sacra Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale, Vatican, 1951, in Latin and French. 2 In the Middle Ages, it was one of the wealthiest monasteries in all the East, and had the capacity to shelter 300 monks. See STRECK, in his article Tur Abdin, in the Encyclopédie de l’Islam, Tome IV, (1948 Edition), pp. 870-76.

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from Nisibis when it entered the Persian sphere of influence. Accepted by the locals as “welcome parasites”, to use Andrew Palmer’s words, they were quickly able to acquire the reputation of being “holy men” and to move in without difficulty, since they spoke the same language. By living outside the village communities, they impressed the locals with their spirituality, and were often called upon to intervene in case of disputes. The monasteries the monks built did not serve the same function as the first retreats, which were built into the natural caves that abound in the region. These caves also served as a place of refuge for Christians during the massacres of 1895 and 1915, and often, such as in the case of those in the rock face behind the Deir al-Zaafaran monastery, they housed the first churches. The monasteries acquired a social and economic function besides their religious role. They became centers of commerce and hired many workers for their extensive crop fields, which they either farmed themselves or had others farm for them. The period before the Chalcedonian schism was very lucrative for them, since the government supplied them with all the material and human support they needed. During the periods of Chalcedonian oppression, the resistance was able to organize itself around monasteries thanks to the monks’ activism. Afterwards, long periods of war forced the more important monasteries of Tur Abdin to fortify themselves in order to be able to serve as places of refuge for local populations in times of trouble. The monks abandoned the monasteries that could not defend themselves to avoid widespread looting and even massacres. In 581, the Qartmîn monastery was destroyed during a Persian raid. These acts of butchery offered the young Syriac Church its victims and martyrs. Afterwards, including during the events that compose the topic of this study, Arabs, Turks and Kurds have all viewed the monasteries as their favorite targets.

GLOSSARY Ashiret: system of social organisation based on a tribe. Agha: title given to high placed personalities, such as tribal chieftains; equivalent to “master” or “lord”. Bey: title given to a military chief, though also used as an honorific for tribal chieftains. Dhimmi or zimmî: non-Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire, either Christian or Jewish, protected under a definite status defined within the millet framework. Drogman: translator and interpreter for an embassy or consulate who enjoyed special protection. Effendi: title equivalent to “Sir” or “Mister”, often given to middleranked administrators. Fatwa: verdict/sentence rendered by a religious chief. Ghiaour, giaour, gâvur: pejorative term used for non-Muslims, most often Christians. Hamidiye: Kurdish light cavalry regiments created by Sultan Abdul Hamid. Hamal: porter. Harem: part of a house reserved for women. Jihad: holy war Jizya: poll tax levied on non-Muslims as protection money. Kadi: equivalent to a judge in charge of administering justice to a kaza. Kaymakam: administrator in charge of a kaza. kaza: administrative subdivision of a sanjak. Mar or Mor: Saint (in Syriac) Masbata: a petition Millet: term referring to an organized community offering nonMuslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire (Jews and Christians) a both protective and discriminatory status. Moktar, moksas: chief of a village. Mullah: teacher or doctor of Koranic law. Mudir: an administrator in charge of a nâhiye. Müfti: high religious dignitary able to pronounce a fatwa. Mutessarif: governor of a sanjak. Nâhiye: administrative subdivision of a kaza (often a city and its surrounding villages). Pasha: title reserved for Army generals and high administrators (such as the vali). 283

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Raya (ra‘ya): civil subject of the Sultan; more precisely those who are subject to taxes (producers and farmers). Rédif: reservist in the army. Sanjak (pronounced: sanjak): administrative division of a vilayet. Analogous to a county. Sharia (shérî‘a): Koranic law. Sheikh: religious chief, though the term was sometimes given to tribal chiefs as well. Sublime Porte (the): term used by diplomats of all nationalities to refer to the Ottoman government. Tanzimat: Ottoman reforms inspired by the West between 1839 and 1876. Ulemah (ulemâ): doctors of Koranic law. Vali: Governor General of a vilayet or a province. Vilayet: a province, made up of several sanjaks. Zaptiyé: police corps under the vali’s authority.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AINSWORTH, William, Francis, Research in Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldea, forming part of the labours of the Euphrates expedition, 2 volumes, London, 1838, 343 p. [Ainsworth was the expedition’s surgeon and geologist.] AINSWORTH, William, Francis, A personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, London, 1888, 447 p. “The country of Jacobites”, p. 333. ALICHORAN, Joseph, “Du génocide à la diaspora: Les AssyroChaldéens au XXe siècle”, revue ISTINA, 1994, n 4, October-December, June 1995, 38 p. ANDERSON, Rufus, History of the Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Oriental Churches, 2 volumes, Boston, 1872. ANDERSON, Rufus, Mr. Southgate and the missionaries at Constantinople, Boston, 1844. ARMALET, Isaac, (Fr.), Les Calamités des Chrétiens, Al-Qusara fi Nakabât an-Nasara, Beirut, 1919. ARMSTRONG, H. C., (Captain), Mustapha Kemal, Payot, 1933, 292 p. BADGER, Georges, Percy, (Reverend), The Nestorians and their Rituals; With a narrative of a mission to Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in 1842-44, and of a late visit to those countries in 1850, 2 volumes, London, 1852. [Crossing Jebel Tur between 1842 and 1844, description: Mardin-Azekh p. 4876] New edition, London, 1987, Darf Publishers Limited. BELL, Gertrude Lowthian, Amurath to Amurath, London, 1911. [Good quality account of a trip to Tur Abdin in 1909; Many names of villages and monasteries p. 301-327] BELL, Gertrude Lowthian, Churches and Monasteries of the Tur Abdin and the neighbouring districts, Heidelberg, 1913. New edition with an introduction by Marlia Mundell Mango, London, The Pindar Press, 1982, 183 p. [very complete photo section on the monasteries of Tur Abdin.] BEYRELIAN, Arthur, Les grandes puissances, l’Empire Ottoman et les Arméniens dans les Archives françaises, 1914-1918, Paris, Sorbonne, 1983, 234 p. BORE, Eugène, Correspondances et mémoires d’un voyageur en orient, 2 volumes, Paris, 1840.

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286 BREZOL, Georges, Les Turcs ont passé là …, Paris, 1911, 398 p. [Collection of documents, files, inquiries and petitions. Account of the Adana massacres of 1909.] BROCK, Sebastian, The Hidden Pearl, The Syriac Orthodox Church and its ancient Aramaic Heritage, Rome, 2001, 3 volumes. BUCKINGHAM, James Silk, (Reverend), Travels in Mesopotamia, Journey from Aleppo, across the Euphrates to Orfah through the plains of the Turcomans, to Diarbekir, in Asia Minor. From thence to Mardin, on the borders of the great desert, II volumes, London, 1827, 571 p. [See Chapter 12, From Diarbekir to Mardin, Dara and Nisibis, long descriptions of the monastery of Deir Al-Za`faran and of religious services, with ideas on the state of the Syriac Church.] CAMBON, Paul, Correspondance, 1870-1924, First volume (18701898), La Turquie d’Abdul Hamid. Grasset, 1940, 461 p. [See “Letters to his mother” p. 395] CHEVALIER, Michel, Les montagnards chrétiens du Hakkâri et du Kurdistan Septentrional, Paris, Sorbonne, 1985, 418 p. CHOLET, Armand-Pierre, (Count), Voyage en Turquie d’Asie: Arménie, Kurdistan et Mésopotamie par le Comte de Cholet, Paris, 1892, 394 p. [See pp. 108-111: Taxes in Asian Turkey; p. 248255: Powerlessness of the Diyarbakir court system.] CLARK, W., “The Kurdish Tribes of Western Asia”, New Englander and Yale review #23, 1864, p. 36-38. CUINET, Vital, La Turquie d’Asie. Géographie administrative statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l’Asie-mineure, 4 volumes. Paris, 1890-1894. DAUPHIN, Claudine, “Situation actuelle des communautés chrétiennes du Tur Abdin”, Proche-Orient Chrétien, 1972, p. 323-327. DAUVILLIER, Jean, Provinces Chaldéennes de l’extérieur au moyen-âge, Mélanges F. Cavallera, 1948, p. 261-316. DAUVILLIER, Jean, Histoire et Institution des églises orientales au Moyen-Âge, London, 1983. DEFRANCE, Albert, “Excursions en pays Jacobite, à Rhancke et à Razonan”, Année Dominicaine, 1884, p. 205-210. DILLEMAN, Louis, Haute Mésopotamie orientale et pays adjacents: contribution à la géographie historique de la région, du V e siècle av J-c au VIe de notre ère, Paris, 1962, 359 p.

287 DORYS, Georges, Abdul Hamid intime, preface by Pierre Quillard. Paris, 1901. [Abdul Hamid was the “Great Assassin” for Gladstone, the “Red Sultan» for Albert Vandal, and the “insane Despot” for Anatole France.] DUVAL, Pierre-Gonzales, La Mission des Dominicains à Mossoul, Paris, 1889, 59 p. EID, Emile, (doctor of canonic and civil law), La figure du Patriarche: Etude Historico-juridique, Rome, 1962, 245 p. EVANS, Laurence, United States policy and the partition of Turkey, 1914-1924, Baltimore, 1964, 437 p. [See p. 73] FATTAL, Antoine, (conseiller d’État, docteur en droit), Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam, Imprimerie Catholique de Beyrouth, 1958, 394 p. [Distinctive elements of Christians (wearing of certain clothes, etc.); Property rights; Conversions; The statute for places of worship; The statute for religious leaders; The Church and the State; The decline in the status of non-Muslims.] FIEY, Jean Maurice, “Le pèlerinage des Nestoriens et des Jacobites à Jérusalem”, Cahier de Civilisation médiévale, n 12, 1969 [p. 113-126]. FIEY, Jean Maurice, Nisibe, métropole syriaque orientale et ses suffragants des origines à nos jours, Louvain, 1977, 301 p. FIEY, Jean Maurice, Pour un Oriens Christianus novus: répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux. Beirut, 1993. In Kommission bei Franz Steiner verlag Stuttgart, 286 p. [Azekh p. 172; Jezireh p. 191; Edessa p. 195; Hah p. 195; Hasankeif p. 214, etc.] FREND, William Clifford, The Rise of Monophysite Movement – Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries, Cambridge, 1972, 392 p. GABRIEL, Albert, Voyages archéologiques dans la Turquie Orientale, 2 volumes. Paris, 1940. [Many drawings and photographs of Diyarbakir and Mardin.] GALLAND, J., (o. p.), “Une tournée en pays Jacobite”, Les Missions Catholiques, 1882, p. 190. [Description of the village of Azekh] GASFIELD, Nicolas, (Lieutenant), Au front de Perse pendant la grande guerre. [Account of the Nestorians’ stuggle against Turks and Kurds; Exodus to Mosul and Urmiah; Arrival of British troops]

288 GEORGEON, François, Aux origines du nationalisme Turc, Paris, éditions A.D.P.F., 1980. GEORGEON, François, Des Ottomans aux turcs, naissance d’une nation, Istanbul, Isis, 1995, 488 p. GEORGEON, François, “La mort d’un Empire”, Robert Mantran (dir.), Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris, Fayard, 1998, 810 p. GEORGEON, François and Paul DUMONT, Vivre dans l’Empire Ottoman: sociabilités et relations intercommunautaires (XVIII et XXe), Paris, 1997. GRANT, Asahel, The Nestorians; or, The Lost Tribes: containing evidence of their identity. London, 1841, and New York, 1845. Translated into French by Madame Henriette Winslow, Paris, 1843, 217 p. and map. It was also translated at the same time into German at Basel. [Trip of 1839-1841. The many translations show the success the book had when it first came out. Grant is convinced that the Nestorians descend from an Israelite tribe in Palestine; Description of Mardin, during the Pasha of Mosul’s offensive against the Turks.] GRISELLE, Eugène, (Canon), Syriens et chaldéens, leur martyr, leur espérance, Paris, 1918, n 115-116, 123 p. GUEST, John, S., Survival among the Kurds: a history of the Yezidis, New-York (reprint), 1993. GUEST, John, S., The Euphrates expedition, New-York (reprint), 1992. HENNO, Süleyman, Schicksalsschläge der syrischen Christen im Tur Abdin 1915, Bar Hebraus Verlag, Holland, 1987, p. 178-181. [Comparative count of the number of households in Syriac villages of Tur Abdin between 1915 and 1987] HENNO, Süleyman, Tur’ Abdinli Süryanilerin, 1914-1915, Katliami, Atina, 1993. HINDO, Paul, (Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad), Primats d’Orient ou Catholicos Nestoriens et Maphriens syriens, Vatican, 1936. XV, p. 105-127. HINDO, Paul, Disciplina Antiochena Antica Siri II, Sacra Congregazione per la Chiesa Orientale, Vatican, 1951, in Latin and French. [Description of Tur Abdin; Villages and population; Lists of the schisms of Tur Abdin; List of the Bishops of Mardin; Complete list of 53 monasteries in Tur Abdin.]

289 HONIGMANN, Ernest, Le couvent de Barsauma et le patriarcat jacobite d’Antioche et de Syrie, Louvain, Imprimerie Orientaliste, 1954, 358 p. HORNUS, Jean-Michel, (Pastor), “Les missions anglicanes au Proche-Orient avant la création de l’évêché à Jérusalem”, Proche-Orient Chrétien, 1962. [Trip to Aleppo and Mesopotamia; Visit with the Jewish communities; Visit with the Jacobites of Urfa and Mardin, in whom he sees the descendants of the first Judeo-Christians of Jerusalem]. JANIN, R., (Assumptionist), “La ruine des chrétiens de Turquie: Bilan d’après-guerre”, Echos d’Orient, 1923, p. 66-72. JOSEPH, John, Muslim-Christian Relations and Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The case of the Jacobites in an age of transition, State University of New York, 1983, 240 p. [Very complete; The only contemporary history of the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic Churches, seven chapters: The Background; Among Arabs, Kurds and Turks; Catholics, Consuls and Conversion; Protestants, Piety and Politics; Russia, Rebellion and Refuge; Syrians, Lebanese and Iraqis; Foreword and Conclusion.] JOWETT, W., Christian research in Syria and the Holy land in 1823 and 1824, London, 1824, 454 p. [Very little information on the Syriacs: a short definition of the Jacobites; Translation of the Bible into the vernacular, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek and Turkish.] KARPAT, Kemal, H., Ottoman population 1830-1914: Demographic and social characteristics, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985, 242 p. KARPAT, Kemal, H., An inquiry into the social foundations of nationalism in the Ottoman state, from social estates to classes, from millets to nations, Princeton University, 1973. [Statistics on the Syriac populations; Elements of general economy; Role of the millets; p. 116: Pensum of the Armenian Patriarch representing the Syriacs.] KEMAL, Oke Min, The Armenian question 1914-1923, Oxford, Rustem & Br, 1988. [Pro-Turkish theory on the massacres.]

290 KEVORKIAN, Raymond, H., and Paul, B. PABOUDJIAN, Les Arméniens dans l’empire ottoman à la veille du génocide, Paris, Les Éditions d’Art et d’Histoire, 1992, 603 p. [See pp. 53-61; many photographs of Diyarbakir; Population statistics for Diyarbakir and Mardin.] LAUNEY, Michel, Versailles: une paix bâclée?, Editions Complexe, 1999, 188 p. LEFUR, Louis, Le protectorat de la France sur les catholiques d’Orient, Paris, 1914. LEROY, Jules, (abbé), L’état présent des monuments chrétiens du sud-est de la Turquie, Paris, C.R.A.I.B.L, 1968, 480 p. [See pp. 478493] LEROY, Jules, (abbé), Moines et monastères du Proche-Orient, Paris, Horizons de France, 1958, 279 p. LEWIS, Bernard, Islam et laïcité: La naissance de la Turquie moderne, Paris, Fayard, 1999, 520 p. LONGRIGG, Stephen, Hemsley, Oil in the Middle East, its discovery and development, London, Oxford University Press, 1961, 305 p. [See pp. 10-47: “Birth of the Industry”; “Petrol before the first world war”.] MACCARTHY, Justin, Muslims and minorities: The population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire, New York, 1983. MEYRIER, Gustave, Les massacres de Diarbékir: correspondance consulaire du Vice-Consul de France 1894-96. Introduced and annotated by Claire Mouradian and Michel Durand-Meyrier. Paris, l’Inventaire, 2000, 253 p. MOUAWAD, Ray, Jabre, Les syriaques occidentaux de l’Empire ottoman au Liban 1850-1930, Lebanon; Photocopied university thesis, 278 p. [Lebanese historian; translated into French, a very well documented work based on many primary sources, including the accounts of Fathers Armalet, Simon and Rhétoré.] MUTAFIAN, Claude, and Eric VAN LAUWE, Atlas historique de l’Arménie, Proche-Orient et Sud-Caucase du VIIe siècle av. J-C. au XXIe siècle, Paris, Autrement, Juin 2001. [Rich and complete cartography: see the maps on pp. 37, 41, 65 and 69.]

291 NAAYEM, Jean, (former prison chaplain for Allied prisoners of war in Turkey), Les Assyro-Chaldéens et les Arméniens massacrés par les Turcs, Paris, Bloud & Gay, 1920, 170 p. [Testimony to the massacres of Urfa, Siirt, Harput and Diyarbakir.] NICAULT, Catherine, Jérusalem 1850-1948, Autrement, Ouvrage Collectif: see article by Claire Mouradian, “Les chrétiens à Jérusalem: Un enjeu pour les puissances”, 1999. OLSON, Robert, William, Imperial meanderings and republican byways: essays on eighteenth century Ottoman and twentieth century history of Turkey, Istanbul, Isis press, 1996, 332 p. PALMER, Andrew, Monk and mason on the Tigris frontier. The early history of Tur Abdin, University of Cambridge Oriental Publication 39, 1990, 265 p. PARRY, Oswald, H., (Reverend), Six months in a Syrian monastery, London, 1895. With a preface by the Bishop of Durham. [Long descriptions and commentaries on the Syriac Orthodox Church before the massacres of 1895; Deir alZa`faran; little on Tur Abdin; very complete map of Tur Abdin, pp. 168-169] PLANHOL, Xavier de, Minorités en Islam: Géographie politique et sociale, Flammarion, 1997, 507 p. RHÉTORÉ, Jacques, (Father), Les Chrétiens aux bêtes, 4 manuscript notebooks, 379 pages. [available at the Dominican Fathers’ archives in Paris, at the Centre du Saulchoir.] SAINT-DIDIER, Philibert de, “En Syrie et en Mésopotamie: La mission capucine”, Missionnaires Capucins, Paris, 29, n 133, 1949, 1-14. SELIS, Claude, (o.p), Les Syriens orthodoxes et catholiques, Collection Fils d’Abraham, Brépols, 1988. [Lexicon, maps; Very good introduction to the Syriac world.] SIMON, Hyacinthe, (Father), Mardine, la ville héroïque, manuscript notebook, 185 pages. [available at the Dominican Fathers’ archives, in Paris, at the Centre du Saulchoir.] SOUTHGATE, Horatio, (Reverend), Narrative of a visit to the Syrian (Jacobite) church of Mesopotamia; with statements and reflections upon the present state of Christianity in Turkey and the character and prospects of the eastern churches, New York, 1844.

292 SOUTHGATE, Horatio, Narrative of a tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia and Mesopotamia, 2 volumes, New York, 1840. STRECK, M., “Tur Abin”, Encyclopédie de l’Islam, Tome IV, Paris, 1934 (1948 edition), p. 870-876. SYKES, Mark, (Captain, then Sir), Through Five Turkish Provinces, Bickers & Son, London, 1900, 149 p. [Confusion as to the different Eastern Churches, called “the sects”; Few comments on Christians; more interested in the Kurds and Hamidiye. Sykes was the Ottoman affairs negotiator for Britain during the First World War.] SYKES, Mark, Dar ul-Islam. A record of a journey through ten of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey, Bickers & Son, London, 1904, 290 p. SYKES, Mark, The Caliphs’ Last Heritage: A Short History of Turkish Empire, London, 1915. TAPPOUNI, Gabriel, (Syriac Catholic Bishop), “Conversion et souffrance d’un évêque Jacobite à Mardin”, Les Missions Catholiques, 1914, p.181-183. TAYLOR, J. G., (British consul at Diyarbakir), Travels in Kurdistan, London, 1865. [see pp. 21-58]. TERNON, Yves, Les Arméniens: Histoire d’un génocide, Paris, 1996, 437 p. TERNON, Yves, Mardin 1915, anatomie pathologique d’une destruction, special edition of the Revue d’Histoire Arménienne Contemporaine, tome IV, Paris, 2002. TFINKDJI, Joseph, (Abbé), “Le catholicisme à Mardin”, Les Missions Catholiques, 1914, p. 29-31. THOBIE, Jacques, Intérêts et impérialisme français dans l’Empire ottoman: 1895-1914, Paris, la Sorbonne, 1977, 817 p. THOBIE, Jacques, Les intérêts économiques, financiers et politiques français dans la partie asiatique de l’Empire ottoman, de 1895 à 1914, Lille, Department of thesis reproduction, 1973, 3 volumes. THUAL, François, Le douaire de Byzance, Ellipses, 1998, 128 p. VALOGNES, Jean-Pierre, Vie et mort des chrétiens d’Orient, Fayard, 1994. VEOU, Paul du, La passion de la Cilicie 1919-22, Paris, 1954, 432 p.

293 WALWORTH, Arthur, Wilson and his peacemakers: American diplomacy at the Paris peace conference 1919, New York, London, W. W. Norton, 1986, 618 p. WIGRAM, Edgar Thomas Ainger, (Sir) and WIGRAM, William Ainger, (Reverend), The Cradle of mankind: life in Eastern Kurdistan, London, 1914, 373 p. [Voyage of 1911; p. 34, The Armenian Massacres. He claims the Jacobites were not massacred to the same extent as the Armenians; Mardin and Jebel Tur, descriptions.] WIGRAM, William Ainger, The Assyrians and their neighbours, London, 1929, 239 p. YACOUB, Joseph, La question Assyro-chaldéenne, les Puissances Européennes et la Société des Nations (1908-1938), doctoral thesis [Research Director: Nikita Elisseeff], Université Lyon II, 1985, 4 volumes. YACOUB, Joseph, Babylone chrétienne. Géopolitique de l’Eglise de Mésopotamie, Descléé de Brouwer, 1996, 334 p. YACOUB, Joseph, Les Assyro-Chaldéens, un peuple oublié de l’histoire, Paris, Groupement pour les droits des minorités, 1988, 75 p. YACOUB, Joseph, “Les Assyro-Chaldéens originaires de Turquie”, Les annales de l’autre Islam, Paris, INALCO-ERISM, 1995, n 3, pp. 451-466. YACOUB, Joseph, “La tragédie Assyro-Chaldéenne”, Esprit, June 1984, pp. 164-166. YERASIMOS, Stéphane, Questions d’orient: frontières et minorités des Balkans au Caucase, Paris, Hérodote, 1993, 247 p. ZIADE, I., “Syrienne (Église)”, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, t. XIV, 2, Paris, 1941, columns 3017-3088.

SOURCES 1. ARCHIVES OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (QUAI D’ORSAY) • Memoirs and Documents Tome 40: ―The Christian populations of Kurdistan.

293 WALWORTH, Arthur, Wilson and his peacemakers: American diplomacy at the Paris peace conference 1919, New York, London, W. W. Norton, 1986, 618 p. WIGRAM, Edgar Thomas Ainger, (Sir) and WIGRAM, William Ainger, (Reverend), The Cradle of mankind: life in Eastern Kurdistan, London, 1914, 373 p. [Voyage of 1911; p. 34, The Armenian Massacres. He claims the Jacobites were not massacred to the same extent as the Armenians; Mardin and Jebel Tur, descriptions.] WIGRAM, William Ainger, The Assyrians and their neighbours, London, 1929, 239 p. YACOUB, Joseph, La question Assyro-chaldéenne, les Puissances Européennes et la Société des Nations (1908-1938), doctoral thesis [Research Director: Nikita Elisseeff], Université Lyon II, 1985, 4 volumes. YACOUB, Joseph, Babylone chrétienne. Géopolitique de l’Eglise de Mésopotamie, Descléé de Brouwer, 1996, 334 p. YACOUB, Joseph, Les Assyro-Chaldéens, un peuple oublié de l’histoire, Paris, Groupement pour les droits des minorités, 1988, 75 p. YACOUB, Joseph, “Les Assyro-Chaldéens originaires de Turquie”, Les annales de l’autre Islam, Paris, INALCO-ERISM, 1995, n 3, pp. 451-466. YACOUB, Joseph, “La tragédie Assyro-Chaldéenne”, Esprit, June 1984, pp. 164-166. YERASIMOS, Stéphane, Questions d’orient: frontières et minorités des Balkans au Caucase, Paris, Hérodote, 1993, 247 p. ZIADE, I., “Syrienne (Église)”, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, t. XIV, 2, Paris, 1941, columns 3017-3088.

SOURCES 1. ARCHIVES OF THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (QUAI D’ORSAY) • Memoirs and Documents Tome 40: ―The Christian populations of Kurdistan.

294 Tome 41: ―Folio 123-124: [Translation of a Firman concerning the Syriac Catholics of Mardin, August 9, 1841.] “(…) having no special church, they hold their services in their bishop’s home and are harassed by the authorities for that reason, at the instigation of the Jacobites, who are part of the schismatic Armenian nation.” Tome 49: ―Folio 123-124: L. Castagne’s report on the situation of Capuchin religious establishments in the East at the beginning of 1828. Tome 53: ―Folio 328-329: Note for Count Walewski on the establishment of a consular agency at Diyarbakir, 1856. Tome 107: ―Practical studies on the French protectorate of the East, by Georges Outrey, Consul 1st class, Constantinople, September 8, 1898. [Unpublished and confidential study, only 12 copies made, including this one, addressed to Théodore Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs.] ―The Syrian Catholics, p. 197. ―Origin of the schisms and heresies of the Eastern Churches separated from the Church of Rome, p. 296. ―The Jacobites, p. 343. ―Charter of the Christian Communities of the East and Firmans on Patriarchs and bishops, p. 347. Tome 123: ―Folio 368: Journal of a trip to Syria by the Batallion chief, military attaché de Torcy. [Discovery of the Jacobite village of Sadad.] Tome 124: ―Folio 265-266: Letter from Campenon to Barthélémy Saint Hilaire, Minister of Foreign Affairs, concerning the seven reports sent by Capitain G. Marmier, on mission to the Taurus Mountains, November 3, 1888.

295 ―Folio 272: [Reflections on foreign claims, such as those of the United States and Britain missions.] Tome 133: ―Folio 58-88: Note on French protection of Christian Churches in the Great Lord’s lands, written by Pierre de Montalivet in February 1882. ―Document #23: Report on the Eastern Christian denominations by A. Lacaze, at the French Embassy to the Holy See, May 29, 1883. ―Document #24: [idem.] ―Document #36: Report on France’s situation pertaining to the Latin Catholics and the Eastern Churches of united denominations, 1894. ―Folio 174: The Count de Sercey’s report on his mission to the East, and on the Easterners’ right to France’s protection. Addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexandre Ribot, Paris, February 1893, 556 pages. Tome 134: ―Folio 388-389: Eastern Affairs: trouble in Armenia, Nov. 1895. ―Folio 390-397: Historical run-through of the general situation in the East, July 22, 1895. ―Folio 398-413: General ideas on the population distribution in Asia Minor, October 12, 1895. ―Folio 414-418: Negotiations pertaining to Armenia [after the 1895 massacres]. ―Folio 420: Financial report on Turkey in 1898. [Very complete] ―Folio 494-506: Historical run-through of the situation in the East. [continuation] • Various Political Affairs, 1815-1896 Volume IV. Sub-heading: Turkey ―#41. 1879-1890: Armenian affairs. ―#42. 1891-1896: Armenian affairs.

296 • Correspondance With The Hierarchy - Turkey Inventory of the French Embassy in Turkey’s Archives. Former Constantinople collection, 1947. [This collection is found in the diplomatic archives building in Nantes. The references of the Quai d’Orsay inventory are not the same as those in Nantes.] Section II: Consular correspondance – Diyarbakir, 18741899 [#23, 2 boxes] From Felix Bertrand, vice-consul of France at Diyarbakir to the Count of Montebello, Ambassador of the French Republic to the Ottoman Sublime Porte. ―Dispatch #15. May 24, 1887. [The matter of Nasri Tarzikhan (Chaldean); Christians unite to write a petition at Mardin; Relations between Christians and Muslims degenerate.] ―Dispatch #16. February 6, 1888. [Famine in Diyarbakir vilayet, Midyat and Jezireh; Number of Syriac villages; Mention of the famine of 1880; Taxes weighing down on peasants; Economic crisis; Arrival of the Dominican Fathers in Midyat.] ―Dispatch #4. August 19, 1889. [Report on the Dominican missions to Midyat and Jezireh; Description of Jebel Tur; Kurdish attack on Father Galland; Allusion to the consul’s trip to Mardin in 1887.] ―Dispatch #5. October 18, 1889. [Father Galland’s matter still not settled; First massacre in Jebel Tur of a Jacobite village.] ―Dispatch #1. March 18, 1890. [(Long dispatch, 24 pages) The situation in Kurdistan in 1889; Reactions to the publication in the press of a report from the British consuls at Erzurum, Van and Diyarbakir; Twisting of the truth; General thoughts on the lack of security, particularly in the countryside; Pressure exerted by the Kurdish aghas; The authorities’ injustice; Several examples of misdeeds; The massacre of a Jacobite village; The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch speaks to the French consul.] Section II: Consular correspondence – Diyarbakir, 19001914. [Vice-consul’s name illegible], to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador to Constantinople.

297

―Dispatch #2. January 9, 1901. [The Christians’ general situation in the vilayet; The Hamidiye’s cruelty; Ottoman excuses and prevarications; Description of the massacre and pillaging of a Jacobite village; Letter from a Dominican father.] ―Dispatch #12. July 5, 1901. [Concerning two Greek girls the Turks want to convert to Islam; Example of a forced conversion during the 1895 massacres.] ―Dispatch #13. July 18, 1901. [Political situation; Conflicts between Kurdish tribes; The “Shammars” against the “Milly”; The village-dwelling Christians; The Christians unite with some Muslims against the Kurds.] ―Dispatch #17. August 13, 1902. [General insecurity; Civil war; Villages destroyed; Example of government repression of Kurds.] ―Dispatch #21. February 14, 1902. [From Constans, French Ambassador at Constantinople, to Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Unrest in Anatolia; The question of the Christians’ eradication is brought up.] ―Dispatch #6. August 9, 1903. [New governor Nazim Pasha; The vilayet’s chronic instability since 1895; Intertribal combat; the Christians’ poverty.] ―Dispatch #12. December 23, 1903. [Fighting, raids, and robbery; Rivalries between tribes in Mardin and Jezireh; Admitted powerlessness of the military government to stop the Kurds.] ―Dispatch #10. June 3, 1904. [Conflict between Hamidiye Kurdish tribes; Nomad Arabs have taken control of the desert.] ―Dispatch #11. June 23, 1904. [Continuation of the battle between Hamidiye forces; Road cut between Diyarbakir and Aleppo; fields laid waste; Midyat; The Syriac villages belong to the Kurds’ feudal system.]

298 ―Dispatch #12. July 27, 1904. [Absolute control of Ibrahim Pasha, chieftain of the Milly; Murder of five Christians and a Jacobite priest between Nusaybin and Midyat.] ―Dispatch #16. December 30, 1904. [Unrest after the uprising of the first Arab tribes; Ibrahim Pacha refuses to go to Baghdad, despite an order from the Sultan; Insecurity is growing.] ―Dispatch #35. December 16, 1913. [Calm; security reinstated; Request for a list of those killed; Elections; Struggle between Unionists and Ententists in Diyarbakir; The Hamidiye return from Bulgaria; Construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railroad.] ―Dispatch #5. April 18, 1914. [Continuation of the elections; The Christians are boycotted.] ―Dispatch #6. June 20, 1914. [Continuation of the boycott; Military preparations in the vilayet; Mobilization; German propaganda.] Section II: Consulary correspondence - Alep; Series “E”; #636. From Henri Pognon, French Consul at Aleppo, to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador at Constantinople. ―Dispatch #23. June 30, 1899. [(Long dispatch, 22 pages) Situation at Urfa; Full account of the massacres of October 18, 1896; Complaint against the Armenians signed by the Jacobites; The number of victims had been settled in advance; In Crete, the British execute those responsible for the massacres; German and American influence in Urfa; Decline of Capuchin Fathers; Decrease in French influence; Infighting between the Capuchin and Dominican missions.] Section III: Thematic Files – Religious Affairs ―Capuchins (1895-1902); Mardin Prefecture, box 152. [Account of the massacres at Urfa; The Capuchins’ small numbers; Italian Capuchins in Mardin replaced in 1900 by French Capuchins from the Lyon province; Matter of the marriage of young Martha; Struggle between Syriac Catholics and Jacobites (handwritten letter very difficult to read).]

299

―Capuchins (1908-1914); Continuation on Mardin Prefecture, box 152. [irrelevent.] ―Melchites; Syrians; Maronites (1895-1900): Dispatch from the French Consul at Aleppo, September 22, 1897. [Conflict concerning the restitution of the “Syrian churches at Mosul usurped by the Jacobites”.] Dispatch from the French vice-consul at Mosul, May 24, 1895. [Notes on the United Syrian dioceses and prelates; The Syrian Catholic Church’s small numbers “but which might one day be increased by converting 45-50,000 Jacobites from the Ottoman Empire”] Report from Henri Pognon, consul at Aleppo, June 5, 1898. [Concerning the next Syriac synod; The bishops’ votes are influenced (particularly by the Powers that pay for their traveling expenses to attend the synod).] ―Chaldeans and Nestorians (1893-1898). [Long report by the French Consul at Baghdad; Origin and present state of the Nestorians and Chaldeans in 1890; The Nestorians move towards Catholicism.] • Political/Commerical Correspondance (P.C.C.) WAR 1914-1918; Sub-heading: TURKEY ―Volumes 890- 895: [Refugees from Port Saïd; Creation of the Legion of the East; Insistance on the “Syrians’” military worthlessness; They are kept in the army for political reasons; The Armenians are much more highly regarded.] ―Volumes 896-902: [Details on measures against foreigners; Religious orders, including Catholics, are put under the protection of the U.S. embassy; Declarations of holy war; Censorship of the press (folio 49).]

300 ―Volume 926, July 1914-February 1915: [France’s religious protectorate; State of the French missions in Mesopotamia; Mardin: the Capuchin fathers and Franciscan nuns are expelled and return to France; Their real estate is confiscated; “An Italian Capuchin and a native priest have stayed in Mardin (also in Urfa and Diyarbakir)”.] WAR 1914-1918; Sub-heading: ARMENIA ―Volume 887: [Long discussion of the cultural and political aspects of Armenian-Kurdish relations (folio 1-33); No mention of the Syriacs. The German ambassador affirms that the massacres are pure fiction, a “fable”. (folio 209-210)] ―Volume 888, January 1916 to March 1917: [Description of the aide given to the Syrians and Armenians (folio 108-124); Nothing on the Syriacs.] P. C. C. EAST 1918-1929; Sub-heading: TURKEY ―Volume 128: [The peace conference; Arrival of the Syriac Catholic Patriarch at Paris (and his long correspondance with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs); Lists and damage claims; Syriac Orthodox representative present in Paris (long correspondance); Lists and damages claimed; Issue of the French mandate in Syria; Mgr. Severius Barsaum’s memorandum followed by two important annexes on the disasters of “the Syrian nation”.] ―Volume 286-287: [Peace accords; The Armenians are recognized as “combatants” in the First World War; Nothing on the Syriacs.] P. C. C. EAST 1918; 1940 (at the end of the black volume); Department: TURKEY ―Volume 62: [Massacres in Asia Minor (printed documents) 1921-1924. These are supposed massacres of the Turks by Christians (propaganda); Greek atrocities in Asia Minor; The Pontic tragedy; the burning of Smyrna. ―Volumes 63-67: [Mesopotamian front; Syrian-Palestinian front (1918-1919)]

301 ―Volumes 127-128: Chaldean and Nestorian Patriarchates (1918-1929); Syrian Catholic Patriarchate (1918-1922); [General information.] ―Volumes 258-260: [Expulsion of Christians (people and property) by the Turks (1924-1927); The question of the Syrian Orthodox in Urfa; Are they Syriac Orthodox?; No mention of the expulsions of Syriacs from Tur Abdin.] ―Volumes 429-431: Oil; French oil politics; The Lyon Union of Eastern mines and oil; [“Negotiations between Standard Oil and the Turkish imperial family to cede the Mosul oil deposits”; Diyarbakir’s oil deposits were still unknown.] P. C. C. EAST 1918-1940; Department: IRAQ. ―Volume 49 / Assyro-Chaldeans / General File, May 1, 1918 to June 30, 1919: [Daily dispatchs from the French Consul in Baghdad, M. Roux; First statistics concerning the massacres; Intrigues surrounding Chieftain Agha Petros; Note on the Nestorian refugees from Bakuba, their origin, their name, their present state; Declaration of the National Assyrian Council of Transcaucasia (December 20, 1918 at Tiflis); Assyro-Chaldean delegation in Paris; Exhaustive note on the Assyro-Chaldeans written by Commander Sciard, stationed at Baghdad (June 8, 1918); No information on Mardin or Tur Abdin.] ―Volume 50 / Assyro-Chaldeans: [Copy of a memorandum sent by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation to the president of the peace conference (July 16, 1919); The same memorandum completed on October 19, 1919.] P.C.C. Livres Jaunes ―#187, Armenian Affairs: Plan to reform the Empire 18931897. [Publication of the dispatchs written by the French consul at Diyarbakir; Report on the beginning of the Armenian question; Reactions to the reforms made to vilayet administration and a new plan for reform; Reaction of the Powers after the massacres of November 1895; Gustave Meyrier to Paul Cambon; Mention of the massacres at Mardin and Midyat; Chart recapitulating the massacres that took place in the Diyarbakir vilayet; Complete statistics, 1896,

302 on the Christian population; Confusion between “Syriacs, Syrian Orthodox” and “Syrian Jacobites”.] ―#188, Armenian affairs (supplement) 1895-1896: [Events at Diyarbakir; Gustave Meyrier’s dispatches to Paul Cambon; Accounts of the massacres; Cases of forced conversions.]

2. ARCHIVES OF THE DOMINICAN MISSION AT MOSUL (CENTRE DU SAULCHOIR) There is no exhaustive inventory of the Dominican archives brought back from Mosul. Box: Mosul 17-27 (1881-1889) Section III / Series K ―May 19, 1881, letter from Father Duval to the French Provincial, Father Chocarne: [Plan to extend the Dominican mission; New foundations.] ―July 7, 1881, letter from Father (signature illegible) to the French Provincial, Father Chocarne: [Trip from Jezireh to Mardin; Discovery of a Jacobite village in Jezireh; The priests’ ignorance.] ―July 14, 1881, Father Réthoré on mission at Siirt to Father Duval, Superior of the Mosul mission: [ “these lands’ heretics are easily brought to see the error of their ways…] ―September 14, 1881, letter from Father Duval to the Provincial of France: [Mention of Father Galland’s mission to the Taurus Mountains; The opening of the Jezireh mission is underway (May 1881).] ―December 19, 1881, letter from Father Duval to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: [The European missions’ struggle for influence as they “fight over the country”; Plan to open a new mission in Siirt in 1882.] ―February 20, 1882, letter from Father Duval to the French Provincial: [Report on Siirt; Discovery of many Jacobite villages; The Christians’ ignorance; Discovery of Jebel Tur; The Protestants are recruiting among the Jacobites.]

303 ―December 15, 1882, letter from Father Duval to the French Provincial: [Return to Mosul from Diyarbakir (via Mardin, Jebel Tur and Siirt); Crossing Jebel Tur, “the home of Jacobitism”.] ―March 17, 1885, letter from Father Duval to the French Provincial, Father Faucillon: [Father Galland’s mission to Jezireh; The hope for a lasting presence in Jebel Tur.] ―February 9, 1889, letter from Father Duval to the French Provincial: [Father Galland’s report on the Jezireh and Jebel Tur mission; Midyat district; Jezireh’s schools; Insufficient staff; Estimate of the number of Jacobite villages.] Box: Mosul 28-40 (1889-1901): ―December 11, 1895, a letter from Brother Delamette, Superior of Mosul, to the French Provincial, Father Boulanger: [The mission’s condition amid events; The Diyarbakir massacres are immediately known in Mosul; The French consul intervenes, to no avail; No Armenians in Mosul; Massacre in the region around Jezireh and in Jebel Tur; “many Christian orphans have been sold, and we will have to buy them back, many girls are homeless, and we will have to gather them up”] ―Friar Delamette’s death; [In January 1896, Father Galland must abandon the Jezireh mission to go replace Brother Delamette as Superior of Mosul; Father Louis Sayegh takes control of the Jezireh mission.] ―November 1, 1896, account of Father Galland’s tour from Jezireh to Siirt via Jebel Tur [No signatures; The Christian villages have been destroyed; All the men have been killed; Groups of women and children wander through the debris; Famine.] ―State of the Dominican mission in 1897: [Residences (Mosul, Mar Yacub, Jezireh, Siirt, Van); Works (seminaries, dispensaries, schools, orphanages, printing presses); The Jezireh mission closed at the end of 1897 for lack of funds.] ―Les Missions catholiques (The Catholic missions); 1882, [(one volume, Centre du Saulchoir, PER 994); Two articles, pp. 190-194;

304 Father Galland’s account of his experience in Jebel Tur; Midyat; Jezireh; Azekh; The issue of Martha’s marriage; pp. 208-212; Comparison of the relative influence of Catholic and Protestant missions on the Jacobites.] ―Father Henri Simon’s typewritten manuscript on the Mardin massacres, Mardine, la ville héroïque (Mardin, the heroic city, 185 pages) and Father Jacques Réthoré’s, Souvenirs de la guerre sainte proclamée par les Turcs contre les Chrétiens en 1915: Les Chrétiens aux bêtes, (Memories of the holy war proclaimed by the Turks on Christians in 1915: Christians thrown to the lions, 4 untyped notebooks, 379 pages in all). [These notebooks were brought back to France thanks to the Dominican Fathers of the Centre du Saulchoir. The archives have not yet been inventoried. They occupy about ten shelves.]

3. WRITTEN EASTERN SOURCES ―Les Calamités des Chrétiens, (The Christians’ calamities) Al-Qusara fi Nakabât an-Nasara, by an eye-witness (The Syriac Catholic priest Isaac Armalet), Beirut, 1919. “An authentic and rare document relating in great detail the martyrdom of Turkish and Mesopotamian Christians, particularly in Mardin, courageously withstanding oppressions, agressions, kidnappings, deportations, captivities, massacres and all sorts of crimes in 1895, and between the years of 1914 and 1919.” [Only the preface and table of contents were written in French, the rest of the work is in Arabic; photocopied, unpublished document, a unique source.]

4. ORAL SOURCES: INTERVIEWS During the trips I made to Aleppo, Syria in March and April of 2001, I had the chance to interview at length several members of the Syriac Orthodox and Catholic community. These interviews revolved around two general themes: ―The memory of suffering and displacement: Testimony from Odile and Nejmé. [Women in their nineties. They are two cousins born in Mardin, Syriac Orthodox who converted to Catholicism when they arrived at Aleppo; Orphaned during the First World War, they were deported by train from Mardin to Aleppo, where the Sisters of Saint Odile took them in; Precise

305 memories of their relatives’ murders in 1915; Nejmé’s mother was decapitated before her daughter’s eyes; French-speaking and Francophile, Odile later became the governess for General Catroux’s family in Beirut, then for the important Antaki family in Aleppo. Nejmé worked as a housekeeper for the French Embassy at Damascus. ―Testimony from Elias “X”, whose anonymity I shall preserve; [A Syriac Orthodox from the small village of Kiziltepe, south of Mardin; English-speaking; 50 years old; Account told to him by his paternal grandmother of the Kurdish tribes’ massacre of her village; His father, then a baby, received a stab-wound to the skull. ] ―Testimony from Farid “Y”; [descended from an important family in Mardin and Diyarbakir; English-speaking; Refined and elegant gentleman in his late sixties; a long account of his grandparents’ life at the end of the 19th century in Mardin.] ―History of the Syriac Church: [Interview with Ibrahim “Z”; a cultured and well-read member of the Syriac Orthodox community at Aleppo; owns a large library of works and manuscripts unpublished in the West on the history of the Syriacs.]

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INDEX Abd el-Masîh (Syriac Orthodox deacon), 178 Abd el-Nûr (Syriac Orthodox bishop), 178 Abd el-Rahmân (Sheikh), 114, 193 Abdallah (Monk), 186 Abdi Agha, 190 Abdullah Pasha (General), 116, 119, 127 Abdul-Masîh (Patriarch), 107, 108 Adam (Monk), 186 Adana, 129, 201, 218 Administrative Geography, 5 Adyaman, 164 Ahmed (agha), 114, 115 Ain Sanja, 114 Ain Wardo, 185, 186, 188, 189, 192, 199 Ainsworth, William, 6, 10 Al-Araj (Sheikh), 114 Albanians, xii Aleppo, xii, xv, xvii, 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, 33, 44, 128, 129, 133, 151, 157, 161, 162, 171, 172, 173, 176, 195, 210, 212, 213, 214, 218, 220 Alexandretta, 12, 14, 15, 201 Al-Hall Meri (Sheikh), 114 Al-Ibrahimiya, 184 Alichoran, Joseph, xiv Al-Qamishli, 173 al-Qusûr, 182 Al-Saûr, 185 American Board of Missions, 30 Amida, 4 amnesty, 165, 169, 193 Anatolia, 67, 95, 136, 157, 202, 203 Anders, Mr. (German consul), 150

Angora, 129 Aniz Pasha (Governor General), 116, 118 Antioch, xi, xvii, 1, 19, 204, 206 Arabs, 43, 57, 74, 142, 149, 153, 155, 207, 210, 211, 212, 213 Archbishop of Canterbury, 215 Ardahan, 155 Arghana, 5, 43 Arif Pasha, 87 Armalet, Isaac (Father), xiii, 106, 107, 112, 113, 114, 118, 124, 126, 152, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 176, 177, 182, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191, 193, 208 Armenian Catholic(s), 31, 38, 43, 61, 62, 64, 70, 110, 126, 165, 170, 171, 176, 177, 181, 194, 195, 197 Armenian Christian(s), 15, 18, 30, 43, 49, 66, 71, 74, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 118, 121, 123, 125, 137, 144, 151, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 165, 166, 169, 173, 174, 177, 184, 187, 198 Armenian genocide, 158 Armenian Orthodox Church, 31 Armenian Orthodox Patriarch, 45, 48 Armenian Orthodox, Gregorian(s), 31, 43, 61, 62, 64, 70, 93, 110, 126, 174, 177, 194, 195 Armenian Protestant(s), 64 Assyrian Church of the East, xv, xvii, 204 Assyro-Chaldean(s), xvi, 18, 71, 76, 78, 82, 162, 163, 164, 204,

365

366 210, 211, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222 Avineh, 5 Azekh, 9, 17, 21, 28, 34, 59, 75, 143, 144, 152, 185, 189, 190, 192, 193, 199 Azerbaijan, 202 Aziz Pasha, 109 Aziz, Abdul (Sultan), 95 Aznavur, 55 Bâ Sabrinâ, 21, 186, 188 Babek, 143, 192 Babokat, 143 Badebbe, 39 Badger, George Percy (Reverend), 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 43, 57, 63, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 199 Badreddin Bey, 183 Bafawâ, 184 Baghdad, xvi, xvii, 2, 6, 14, 113, 136, 162, 218, 219 Baku, 202 Baravat, 196 Barsaum (Patriarch), 106, 108, 119, 181, 186 Basra, 155, 201, 218 Bâté, 185 Batum, 155 Bedouins, xii, 4 Bedruddin, 126 Behnâm al-Aqrâwî (Bishop), 192 Bell, Gertrude, 9, 59 Benebil, 71, 183, 184 Berlin Treaty 1878, 31 Berlin-Baghdad railway, 12, 152 Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad axis, 150 Bero, Rais, 179 Bertrand, Félix (French viceconsul), 78, 79, 82, 85, 86, 91, 92

Beshiri, 133, 139, 144, 188, 196 Birejik, 125 Bitlis, 2, 3, 4, 47, 57, 89, 99, 100, 101, 102, 129, 139, 147, 150, 157, 176, 183, 195, 215, 218 Bleider, 93 Bohemian(s), 43 Bote, 186, 189 Buckingham, James (Reverend), 6, 11, 63, 64, 66, 68, 70, 74 Bulgaria, 134, 149 Burro (Chief), 166 Cambon, Paul (French ambassador), 97, 99, 106, 109, 110, 119, 124, 128, 158 Capuchin(s), 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 33, 46, 64, 105, 111, 113 Chaldean(s), xvi, xvii, 8, 15, 18, 38, 43, 44, 48, 49, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 70, 71, 81, 83, 87, 101, 104, 108, 110, 111, 126, 137, 143, 144, 162, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178, 191, 192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 204, 217, 218, 219 Chamme-Suss, 192 Charter of Gul-Hane 1839, 4 Chatalbashe, Boghos and Marderos, 164 Chelikli Ali Mamo, 93 Chevalier, Michel, xvi, 8, 49, 50, 53, 71, 80 Church Missionary Society, 29 Cilicia, 157, 201, 203 Circassians, xii, 43 Congress of Vienna 1815, 201 Constantinople, 26, 36, 37, 51, 85, 94, 99, 100, 131, 132, 138, 141, 148, 188, 202, 205, 206, 218, 219, 221 Cuinet, Vital, 5, 14, 15, 56, 57, 61, 62, 65, 66, 71, 74, 76, 77, 82 Curzon, Lord, 215, 222

367 Daghestan, 202 Damascus, xvii, 4, 68, 78, 155, 157, 202, 206, 207, 211, 213, 214, 218, 220 Dara, 6, 162, 169 Dardanelles, 155 Defrance, Mr. (High Commissar), 208 Deir al-Za`faran (Monastery), 6, 9, 29, 40, 48, 69, 118, 178, 183 Deir el-Salib, 186, 189 Deir-ez-Zor, 157, 173, 213 Dereesh, 9, 57 Deyrek, 177, 178, 184 Dolabani, Mar Philoxenos Yohanna, 47 Dominican(s), xiii, 7, 22, 23, 32, 33, 35, 37, 61, 78, 92, 120, 142, 144, 160, 205, 209 Dubois (Cardinal), 208 Duval (Father), 23, 32, 37 Edessa, xvi, xvii, 219 Edirne, 135, 149 Egypt, 44, 68, 155, 156, 201 Elia (Chief), 183 Elias (Bishop), 184 Elias of Antioch (Patriarch), 22, 204, 206 Emir Faisal, 206, 207, 211, 214 Encrai, 167 England, 15, 26, 29, 32, 96, 150, 153, 220, 222 Entente, 147, 153, 203 Enver Pasha, 146, 154, 202 Erzurum, xi, 2, 4, 35, 36, 70, 77, 96, 129, 135, 150, 154, 157 Esfess, 192 Esperay, Franchet d’ (General), 202 Faraj Bek, 114 Farsee (Sheikh), 74 Fattal, Antoine, 85 Fayek, Na’um, 47

Fiey, J. M., 177, 187, 192 First World War, xiii, xiv, 7, 10, 12, 16, 18, 56, 81, 95, 128, 135, 200 Fitz-Maurice, Mr. (British consul), 125 forced conversions, 123, 124, 125, 126, 179 France, xii, xiii, 1, 15, 30, 31, 32, 37, 96, 104, 120, 124, 136, 137, 144, 153, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 214, 220 Franco-British entente 1914, 99 Franco-English declaration 1918, 210 Franco-Ottoman Treaty, 30 French Consulate of Erzurum, 74 French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 36, 174, 207, 208 Galland (Father), 34, 35, 65, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 92, 120, 199 Garessa, 192 Gaufroy (Father), 142 Gawar, 78 Gelîyeh, 59 genocide, xiii, 108, 158 Germany, xii, 15, 96, 150, 151, 152, 155 Gershirân, 193 Grand Council of Ulemas, 153 Grant, Asahel, 8, 55, 69 Great Britain, 31, 201, 202, 204, 209, 210, 211 Greek Catholic(s), 62, 64, 101 Greek Christian(s), 43, 124 Greek Orthodox, 62, 64, 66, 101, 108, 110, 124 Guerké-Shamô, 193 Hah, 75 Haji Hassan Bey (agha), 93 Haji Kalaj Bey, 116

368 Hajil Bey, 132 Hajo Sarukhan, 93, 94 Hakkari, xiv, xvi, xvii, 2, 7, 8, 9, 49, 50, 51, 52, 137, 198, 204, 218, 221 Hamid Bey, 174 Hamid, Abdul (Sultan), xii, 4, 53, 95, 96, 103, 108, 134, 150, 181 Hamidiye, 53, 100, 120, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 143, 144, 149, 163 Hamidiye Süvari Mektebi, 134 Hammô Sherrô (Sheikh), 193 Hanna Safar, 119 Hannouche, Jean, 190, 199 Harput, 3, 19, 45, 77, 78, 79, 100, 125, 128, 129, 151, 162, 163, 173, 176, 195, 203, 215 Hasankeif, 7, 52, 59, 75, 119, 185, 187 Hazro, 93, 132 Hejaz, 211, 212 Henno, S. (Father), 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 183, 187, 199 Homs, 4, 35, 157, 206, 220 Hussein Bey, 116 Ibrahîm (Father), 186 Ibrahim Pasha, 131, 132, 133, 136, 137, 139, 172 Isa Bwâr, 179 Islam, 45, 47, 58, 72, 75, 112, 115, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 132, 147, 148, 152, 153, 176, 177, 179, 193, 202, 212 Istanbul, 5, 27, 30, 47, 48, 65, 91, 94, 96, 103, 109, 112, 126, 134, 150, 152, 155, 162, 191, 202, 203, 221 Jacobite(s), xi, xiii, xv, xvii, 1, 4, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55, 62,

64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 93, 94, 103, 110, 111, 120, 137, 143, 144, 145, 163, 165, 169, 170, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185, 186, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 205, 206, 209, 215, 217, 219, 220 Jacques, Mgr. (Bishop), 192 Jebel Sinjar, 2, 49, 53, 58, 73, 77, 184, 193 Jemal Pasha, 210 Jerablus, 128 Jerusalem, 22, 29, 66, 69, 150, 218 Jew(s), 43 Jezireh, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 21, 23, 34, 37, 57, 59, 68, 73, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 86, 89, 93, 108, 119, 120, 131, 133, 137, 141, 142, 143, 162, 185, 187, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 199, 200, 214 jihad, 149, 154 Joseph, John, 32, 45, 46, 53 Jowett, William, 29 Ka’biye, 178 Kababe, David (Monk), 118 Kaiser Wilhelm II, 150 Karpat, Kemal H., 62, 66, 70, 71, 77, 81 Kars, xi, 155 Kaspo, Mr. Boghos, 171 Katrabel, 43 Kelek, 184 Kemal Bey, 152 Kemalists, 203 Kerburân, 185, 186 Kerki Bedro, 144 Kevorkian, R., 65, 71, 76, 82 Kfar Jôzen, 185 Kfarbe, 186, 188, 189 Khalil Bey, 172 Khalil Pasha, 191

369 Khwaitla, 193 Killeth, 9, 17, 20, 71, 185, 186 King Constantine (Greece), 149, 203 King Darius, 169 Kirkuk, 54 Kiwah, 59, 193 Kiziltepe, 184 Konia, 161 Koros, 57 Kremo, Mathieu (Father), 41 Kuabash, 43 Kurdistan, xi, xvi, 2, 53, 55, 58, 91, 131, 183, 203, 219, 220, 221 Kurds, xi, xii, xvi, 10, 37, 43, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 69, 70, 74, 76, 80, 81, 82, 86, 91, 92, 93, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 127, 136, 138, 139, 144, 147, 153, 159, 168, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 193, 195, 198 Kusakh, 192 Lahdô, Severius Samuel (Metropolitan), 39, 41 Lebanon, xii, xv, xvii, 95, 160, 201, 213, 214 Lice, 43, 162, 179, 194, 196 Longrigg, Stephen, 16 Ma`sarte, 184 Maden, 132 Mahraké, 193 Mahrovan, 144 Maifarqin, 43, 112, 124, 132, 179 Malké, Mgr. Flavien Michel, 191 Maloyan, Mgr. (Armenian bishop), 165, 167, 168 Mamuret-ul-Aziz, 4 Mansourati, Louis (Abbot), 170 Mansuriye, 71

Mar Abraham (Monastery), 80 Mar Awgin (Monastery), 49, 119 Mar Behnam (Church), 69 Mar Elian (Monastery), 208 Mar Ephrem (Monastery), 164 Mar Gabriel (Monastery), xi, 9, 21, 188 Mar Malke (Monastery), xi, 39, 41 Mar Michael (Church), 69 Mar Sharbel (Monastery), 80 Mar Shimon (Church), 69 Mar Yakup (Monastery), xi Mar Yoldat Aloho (American mission church in Midyat), 33 Mardin, xi, xv, xvii, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 54, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 86, 87, 90, 94, 102, 107, 108, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 126, 128, 133, 135, 138, 142, 143, 152, 158, 160, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 177, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 189, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 205, 212, 213, 215, 219, 221 Mardin, the heroic city, altar and tomb of Armenia during the massacres of 1915, 161 massacres of 1895, 38, 46, 63, 71, 73, 76, 78, 80, 99, 121, 124, 131, 141, 150, 164, 177, 181, 182, 200 massacres of 1915, 47, 113, 165 Massud (Father), 186 Massud el-Mzizahi, 189 Mavraki, Marie, 124 Meddo, 192

370 Mehmet II, 202 Mela Selim (Sheikh), 147 Melke, Simon, 39, 40 Memduh Bey (Turkish police commissar), 164, 167 Memories of the holy war proclaimed by the Turks against Christians in 1915: Christians thrown to the lions, 161 Meyrier, Gustave (French viceconsul), 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 116, 119, 120, 124, 126, 127 Mezre, 164, 176 Midyat, xi, 5, 9, 14, 20, 21, 28, 32, 33, 37, 42, 57, 61, 68, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 89, 90, 92, 108, 116, 119, 120, 137, 141, 144, 145, 162, 181, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192, 194, 196, 199, 200, 221 Miran (agha), 94 missionaries, xiii, xvi, 1, 2, 8, 13, 17, 28, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 42, 44, 49, 76, 80, 90, 176 Mohammed (agha), 88, 93 Mohammed Ali al-Ansari (Sheikh), 118 Mohammed Said (Sheikh), 115 Mohammed Tavy, 193 Monophysite(s), 8, 51, 62, 66, 174, 188, 191 Montebello, Count of (French ambassador), 85 Montenegro, 149, 153 Moro, Elias, 112, 124 Mosul, xiii, xiv, xvi, xvii, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 14, 18, 22, 30, 33, 35, 36, 37, 52, 77, 78, 86, 142, 175, 187, 191, 195, 201, 202, 203, 205, 209, 212, 213, 218, 219, 220, 221 Mouawad, Ray Jabre, 181

Murad V (Sultan), 95 Murshed (Monitor), 163 Muslim fanaticism, 45, 68, 106, 169 Muslims, 38, 43, 55, 62, 81, 88, 90, 94, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 123, 125, 126, 128, 132, 133, 137, 145, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 159, 160, 162, 167, 168, 169, 184, 212, 217, 222 Mustapha Kemal (General), 155, 190 Mustapha Pasha. See Musto, Mustapha Pasha (Colonel) Musto, Mustapha Pasha (Colonel), 94, 120, 131, 137, 141, 143, 144 Myriamana (Church), Church of the Virgin, 64 Naayem, Jean (Father), xiii, 162, 163, 175, 176, 178, 199 Namik, Saïd A., 204 Nazarian, Mgr. Malkun (Armenian bishop), 115 Nestorian(s), xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, 7, 8, 18, 28, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 70, 141, 198, 204, 211, 217, 218, 219, 220 non-Muslim(s), 30, 85, 96, 123, 124, 153, 154, 176, 222 Nuremberg, 158 Nûrî (Turkish officer), 183 Nûrî Pasha, 202 Nusaybin, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 14, 49, 52, 53, 68, 73, 74, 75, 77, 80, 82, 94, 132, 142, 145, 181, 193, 194, 196, 199, 200, 219 Official Census 1882-1883, 82, 83, 177 Old Turks, 147 Omer Naji Bey, 190

371 Ottoman Empire, xii, xiii, xiv, 1, 3, 19, 31, 43, 52, 64, 77, 78, 95, 96, 97, 123, 142, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 197, 201, 214, 221 Paboudjian, P., 65, 71, 76, 82 Pakoz, 124 Palu, 43 Paris Peace Conference 1919, 16, 76, 79, 167, 188, 194, 196, 197, 200, 201 Parry, Oswald, 9, 11, 30, 32, 45, 75, 78, 82 Paulus Shimoun XXII, Mar (Patriarch), 204 Persia, xvi, 15, 51, 52, 53, 218, 221 Philoxenos ‘Abd al-Ahad Misti (Bishop), 188 Picquet, François (Ambassador), 33 Planhol, Xavier de, 50, 51, 52, 57 Pognon, M. (French consul), 127 Protestant(s), 32, 39, 43, 110, 112, 165, 166, 168, 194, 195 Pulls, Bernard (German officer), 191 Qalaat Mara, 118, 183 Qarabash, 113, 178 Qartmîn, 186 Qatrabal, 113 Qatrabel, 177 Queen Victoria, 47 Qusur, 71 Rabbani, Joseph (Abbot), 170 Rahmani, Mgr. (Patriarch), 166, 167, 168, 170, 177, 181, 188, 190, 193, 204, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213 Rashid Agha, 104 Ras-ul-Ain, 173

Reshid Bey (Doctor), 174, 176, 178 Reshid Pasha, 126 Rhétoré, Jacques (Father), 22, 37, 52, 61, 77, 82, 126, 160, 161, 165, 174, 176, 178, 179, 185, 191, 192, 194, 195, 197, 198, 208 Riza Effendi, 120 Roman Church, 30, 36, 39, 209 Roman Empire, xv, 51 Russia, xii, 2, 46, 53, 95, 96, 151, 153, 157, 201 Russo-Turkish War, 57 Sa`diye, 43, 112 Saadohana, Youssef, 166 Sadad, 4 Saddo (Sheikh), 94 Sahran (agha), 93 Salâh, 185, 187 Salkhan (agha), 145 Samsun, 12, 14, 15 Sanders (General), 156 Sarikamis, 155 Sassun, 102 Saté, 43 Savur, 5, 9, 57, 68, 75, 187, 196 School of the Tribes, Achiret Mektebi, 134 Second World War, 108 Seid Bey, 152 Seljuks, 167 Serbia, 149, 153 Sercey, Count de, 36 Set Anna, 167 Severius Aphrem Barsaum (Archbishop), 204, 205 Sèvres, 203 Seweddin Bey (agha), 93 Seydo Messul, 94 Shakoro, 119 Sham’un (Father), 186 Sharfet, 160 Shaw, Ezel, 136, 159

372 Shaw, Stanford, 136, 159 Shelin, 132 Shiite Islam, 58 Siirt, 3, 12, 22, 120, 139, 142, 185, 215, 218 Simon, Hyacinthe (Father), 14, 50, 74, 160, 161, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 182, 183, 185, 192, 196, 197, 208 Sivas, 129 Siverek, 125, 132, 135, 139, 177, 196 Sor, 185 Souchon (Admiral), 152 Southgate (Reverend), 10, 19, 29, 30, 45, 55, 67, 68, 70, 79 Special Organization, 157 Sublime Porte, 27, 30, 31, 85, 89, 94, 136, 138, 141, 144, 153 Suez Canal, 155 Sulaimaniyah, 54 Suleyman al-Abbâs (Sheikh), 193 Sunni Islam, 52, 58, 134 Sureth, 50 Sykes, Mark (Captain), 7, 55, 80 Sykes-Picot accords 1916, 7, 201 Syriac Catholic Church, xv, xvii, 1, 22, 33, 35, 42, 43, 103, 203, 204, 205, 213 Syriac Catholic Patriarch, 33, 37, 165, 170 Syriac Catholic(s), 24, 25, 27, 31, 34, 38, 43, 44, 46, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 74, 77, 83, 101, 108, 110, 111, 144, 158, 160, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 177, 183, 187, 188, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198, 204, 208, 210, 211, 212, 214, 217, 219

Syriac Christian(s), 15, 99, 112, 113, 115, 137, 154, 156, 157, 158, 163, 166, 173, 177, 184 Syriac cultural renaissance, 47 Syriac genocide, 182 Syriac Orthodox, 3, 8, 9, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 30, 33, 34, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 51, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 82, 83, 101, 106, 108, 110, 111, 113, 117, 119, 121, 143, 158, 162, 165, 168, 170, 172, 176, 178, 184, 186, 187, 191, 192, 194, 197, 198, 204, 205, 207, 208, 211, 214, 217 Syriac Orthodox Church, xi, xiii, xiv, xv, xvii, 8, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 52, 76, 95, 108, 113, 200, 204, 205, 214 Syriac Orthodox Patriarch, xv, 6, 9, 18, 19, 22, 46, 48, 94, 106, 118, 205, 206, 208, 215 Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate, 79, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200 Syriac Protestant(s), 32, 33, 39, 42, 61, 62, 81, 83, 111, 117, 191, 197 Takian, 144 Tammo Ghevrani, 93 Tanzimats, 4, 95 Tappouni, Gabriel (Monsignor), xv, 37, 39, 40, 80, 82, 165, 213 Tarzikhan, Nasri, 87 Tasho, Abraham, 164 Taylor, J. G. (British consul), 80 Tell Armen, 17, 43, 49, 114, 117, 132, 182, 184, 191 Tell Kebbin, 144 Tfinkdji, Joseph (Father), 38, 42, 49, 71, 81, 83 The Calamities of the Christians, 160

373 Thomas (Father), 186 Thrace, 149, 202, 203 Treaty of Berlin 1878, 46, 95, 96, 103 Treaty of Bucharest 1913, 149 Treaty of Capitulations, 31 Treaty of Lausanne, 222 Treaty of San Stefano 1878, 96 Treaty of Sèvres 1920, 221, 222 Trebizond, 129 Tur Abdin, xi, xvi, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 62, 67, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 89, 92, 94, 108, 113, 117, 119, 120, 121, 128, 132, 137, 139, 141, 143, 152, 158, 160, 173, 181, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 198, 199, 200, 218, 219, 221 Turks, xvi, 5, 10, 31, 33, 43, 57, 58, 64, 68, 76, 95, 100, 108, 110, 113, 148, 149, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 185, 189, 190, 191, 198, 202, 207, 208, 211, 213, 217, 222 Turoyo, 17, 48, 50 Union and Progress Committee, 146, 147, 148, 152, 154, 214 Urfa, xvi, 3, 7, 17, 18, 22, 46, 47, 65, 67, 77, 78, 111, 128, 135,

136, 151, 162, 170, 173, 195, 201, 203, 213, 215, 218 Usso (Sheikh), 94 vali (Ottoman governor general), 4, 5, 13, 89, 92, 100, 102, 107, 108, 119, 120, 127, 131, 138, 140, 144, 146, 174, 175, 178 Van, 4, 125, 129, 135, 157, 163, 201, 215, 218 Vatican, 1, 36 Venizelos (Greek Prime Minister), 149 Vergennes, Chevalier de, 31 Viranshehir, 94, 172, 177, 196 Wassad, 144 Werda, Joel E., 204 Wigram, William (Reverend), 99, 121 Wolff, Joseph (Reverend), 33 Yacoub, Joseph, xii, xiv, 204 Yacuboff, Lazarus, 204 Yaqûb (Bishop), 186 Yezidi, 43, 49, 52, 55, 57, 58, 59, 61, 123, 132, 144, 145, 193 Yonan, Jesse Malek, 204 Young Turks, 47, 96, 134, 147, 149, 213 Yussef, Ashur, 163 Zakho, xvi, 86 Zeïtun, 198 Zekki Pasha, 131 Zilan, Sheikh of, 102, 104