By Kevork B. Bardakjian
The vast corpus of documents on the Armenian genocide still awaits translation, annotation and publication. The collections published by Bryce, Lepsius and Andonian are well known, but they only represent a fraction of the countless documents found in numerous state archives throughout the world. The lack of a systematic effort and sponsorships seems to have been the main obstacle. The Armenian genocide was a taboo in Soviet Armenia until 1965, and Soviet Armenian scholarship has only since shown a growing interest in the topic. The Armenian dispersion has bee more productive, but both in Soviet Armenia and abroad the effort has been the result of individual initiative. It’s only in the past decade or so that a serious plan has been underway to collect the evidence in a systematic and organized fashion.
In documenting the Armenian genocide one can hardly overstate the significance of the Turkish testimony. The published evidence aside, such Turkish sources are scant and difficult, if not impossible, to procure, despite recent publicity regarding the opening of Turkish archives. No serious importance should be attached to this announcement. Scholars of the Armenian genocide know what they would like to see in the Turkish archives, but it would be unrealistic for them to expect to find any incriminating records in archives that have been under lock and key for seventy-five years and are now being carefully “catalogued.”
Yet, even the available material has been given only a cursory inspection. Andonian’s publication of telegrams may well have overshadowed the significance of any other Turkish documents. H. Ghazarian and Kriger have published excerpts from the records of the Ottoman courts-martial and, more recently, V. Dadrian has effectively used such sources in his articles. Still, the effort remains largely individual and, useful though they are, studies do not replace primary evidence. The availability of documents would decidedly generate a greater interest and would engage a greater number of scholars in the research on the Armenian genocide and its relevance to other instances of mass murder throughout history. And there are still some primary Turkish sources that await close scrutiny. For instance, there is the book entitled Harp Kabinelerinin Isticvabi – The Interrogation of War Cabinets, Istanbul Vakit, 1933 – which is a record of the interrogation of two wartime cabinet members. The investigation lasted nearly six weeks from early November to about mid-December, 1918. The hearings were conducted by the Fifth Committee of the Ottoman Chamber and, even though they had no legal consequences for the ministers, they offer some revealing admissions and details.
But a source of greater importance is the Ottoman courts-martial records. After preliminary investigations in the closing months of 1918, Ottoman courts-martial sat in Istanbul from early 1919 to the concluding months of 1920, to try the Young Turk leadership for war crimes and crimes against the Armenians While the central trial was that of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (here-after CUP) and cabinet ministers, there were separate trials conducted on the massacres and deportations in various places (such as Harput, Trebizond, Yozgat, Buyuk Dere, etc.) with separate indictments. An Inquiry Commission collected evidence from the provinces (e.g., coded telegrams all of which were authenticated by the Ministry of the Interior), depositions, preliminary interrogations and the testimony of witnesses thus preparing trial files for the suspects.
However, several factors, domestic and international, disabled the prosecution and weakened its position. The court was somewhat lenient, and went out of its way to dissociate the Turkish people from the crime, accusing the CUP of masterminding it and heaping the blame on the brigands that made up the Special Organization as the main instrument of death and destruction. The trials eventually degenerated into a meaningless process. They were abolished in January 1921, and in March 1923, a general amnesty was granted to all those found guilty by these courts.
In their entirety, these legal proceedings provide an Ottoman Turkish perspective and context for the Armenian genocide Found in these records are authentic documents, the unanswerable findings and unequivocal assertions of the prosecution, sentences and certain facts and admissions which represent a solid body of Ottoman Turkish evidence despite flat denials on the part of most of the defendants. What follows is a brief and incomplete description of some of the topics that emerged during the trials. The Principal Indictment
The principal indictment held that the CUP combined two contradictory identities – one public and the other covert – based on oral and secret instructions and activities; that its leaders Talat, Enver and Jemal, took advantage of the War and resorted to terror to solve the problems facing the country, amassed wealth, brought about disorder and major changes in the fate of the country, and dragged the country into the War through deceit and plotting; that the members of the Central Committee of the CUP engaged in wrongful and offensive activities to implement their secret intentions, they set up the Special Organization, and facilitated the criminal activities of convicts they released from prisons to carry out the aims of the CUP; that acting on instructions from their leaders and guided and helped by the CUP representatives, these individuals engaged in disgraceful acts of manslaughter, plunder of possessions and money, burning of corpses and buildings, rape, cruelty and torture; that the population of the country, without distinction of race or religion, was the object of these calamities and, although an important part of these victims were Armenians, a greater part consisted of other elements, particularly Turks; but that the subject of the investigation was the specific issue of the tragedies which took place during the deportations of the Armenians to various places at various times. These tragedies were neither local nor isolated events. They were organized and directed by a united central power, made up of the aforementioned individuals, and were carried out through oral and secret instructions. The Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa)
The prosecution believed that the CUP leadership’s secret decision to annihilate the Armenians was carried out mainly through the “Special Organization.” The interrogation of the defendants revealed that it was founded by Enver, the Minister of War. Commissioned by the latter, Suleyman Askeri set up a committee made up of Aziz, the head of Public Security, Atif and Doctor Nazim. This Commission dispersed at the end of April 1915, and Enver in the same year formally employed Cezayirli Ali to replace Suleyman Askeri who left for Iraq. While Behaeddin Sakir was stationed in Erzurum as head of the organization, Nazim and his colleagues recruited volunteers for the Special Organization. The volunteers were equipped in Istanbul and sent to the provinces with their commanders. Once at their destination, they were attached to the army and, the defendants claimed, maintained no contact with the center. Convicts were released from prisons to joint the Special Organization in accordance with a law made specifically for this purpose. The Special Organization, The CUP Central Committee and The Government
One of the prosecution’s main tasks was to establish that the CUP sponsored and directed criminal activities of the Special Organization, most of the leaders of which were also members of the Central Committee of the CUP; that both the Special Organization which, despite its military character, was run chiefly by civilians, and the Central Committee of the CUP, meddled in the affairs of they army and government to attain their goal; that the CUP secretaries and delegates were heavily involved in the crimes against the Armenians. To support its claims, the prosecution made public numerous documents. But the defendants automatically denied the charges. Faced with irrefutable evidence, Midhat Sukru (Bleda), Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the CUP, for instance, alleged that the Central Committee was simply rendering a service and performing a duty by helping organizations such as the Special Organization. The CUP and the Armenian Massacres
Not only did the prosecution believe that the CUP had masterminded the Armenian atrocities but also that is secretaries and representatives in the provinces had played a central role in the massacres. These functionaries travelled throughout the country carrying oral and secret instructions to organize the massacres. The defendants, as usual, denied this and the charge that the CUP secretaries and representatives had applied pressure on some of the governors who had refused to carry out the instructions of the central authorities.
However, it is extremely significant that none of the defendants in this particular case denied the bloody massacres. Their only defense was that they heard about the massacres all too late and that they nevertheless applied to Talat, the Minister of the Interior, to stop the massacres. There was, they said, nothing else they could have done. Ziya Gokalp, an ideologue of Pan-Turanism and a member of the Central Committee of the CUP, claimed that the Central Committee could in no way have found out about the massacres as the CUP officials, secretaries, representatives, etc., who came from the provinces to CUP meetings never raised the issue. Ziya alleged that when the Central Committee members became aware of the massacres they cursed the perpetrators and spoke of them with disgust. Midhat Sukru, tool, claimed that the Central Committee and all his friends were entirely opposed to the massacres. They were terribly upset, he said, by the news they received from people coming from places where massacres were taking place. When they appealed to Talat, both Midhat and Ziya went on, Talat replied that he had sent commissions of inquiry, had set up courts-martial, had delivered the criminals to these courts and that he was pursuing the matter.
The president of the court then told Midhat Sukru that Vehip Pasa, the former commander of the Third Army Zone, in his written statement attested that the Armenian massacres were carried out by the decision of the CUP and that a great amount of the sums accrued from the properties of deported Armenians were appropriated by the CUP. Midhat did not deny, nor did he comment on Vehip’s testimony that the massacres were masterminded by the CUP. He said that the allegation was nonsense, fabricated to render lawful the disgraceful acts carried out in the Third Army Zone. There was, Midhat Sukru alleged, no likelihood for Armenian properties and moneys, plundered from the bodies of slain children and slain women to find their way in the coffers of the CUP.
