Remembering the Forgotten Genocide: Armenia in the First World War.

132 Pages·2015·1.44 MB·English

by  Dana Renee Smythe

East Tennessee State University
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Remembering the Forgotten Genocide: Armenia in
the First World War.
Dana Renee Smythe
East Tennessee State University
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Dissertations.Paper 118. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/118
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Remembering the Forgotten Genocide: Armenia in the First World War
__________________
A thesis
presented to
the faculty of the Department of History
East Tennessee State University
In partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Masters of Arts in History
__________________
by
Dana Renee Smythe
August 2001
__________________
Dr. Stephen Fritz, Chair
Dr. Ronnie Day
Dr. Dale Schmitt
Keywords: Armenian Genocide, Young Turks, Ottoman Empire, World War I
ABSTRACT
Remembering the Forgotten Genocide: Armenia in the First World War
by
Dana Renee Smythe
The Ottoman Empire was in serious decline by the late nineteenth century. Years of misrule,
war, and oppression of its various nationalities had virtually driven the Turks from Europe,
leaving the weakened Empire on the verge of collapse. By the 1870s the Armenians were the
most troubling group, having gained international sympathy at the Congress of Berlin. As a
result, violence against the Armenians had escalated dramatically by the turn of the century.
They felt, however, that their fortune had changed when the liberal Young Turks seized power
from the Sultan in 1908. Unfortunately, the Young Turks had a much more ominous plan for the
Armenians. When they entered World War I as an ally of the Central Powers, they decided to use
the cover of war to exterminate the Ottoman Armenians. Over one million Armenians were
murdered, and the Turkish government’s crimes went unpunished in the postwar world.
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DEDICATION
To my husband Mike,
the love of my life,
and
To my parents, E. C. and Ada Woodward,
for always encouraging me to follow my dreams
3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Dr. Ronnie Day and Dr. Dale Schmitt for editing and proofreading my
thesis. I especially want to thank Dr. Stephen Fritz for his invaluable assistance and
encouragement while I was writing my thesis. His comments were insightful and often gave me
a new direction to go in when I had writer’s block. He also very graciously translated the
German documents in Chapter Three that provided me with a much better and more well-
rounded understanding of the Armenian situation during World War I. Thanks again, Dr. Fritz.
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CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….. 2
DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………….. 3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………. 4
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………... 6
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE ARMENIAN QUESTION, 1875-1914………… 8
2. THE WORLD WAR I GENOCIDE OF OTTOMAN ARMENIANS………... 36
3. GERMAN COMPLICITY IN THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE……………… 68
4. THE ALLIES’ POLICY TOWARD THE ARMENIANS, 1917-1920……….. 95
5. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………….. 118
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………. 124
APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………... 129
VITA…………………………………………………………………………………. 131
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. The Ottoman Empire At Its Greatest Extent……………………………... 7
2. Editorial Cartoons of the Armenian Genocide…………………………… 129
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Figure 1. The Ottoman Empire At Its Greatest Extent. (Source, Collier’s Encyclopedia, 4th ed.,
s.v. “Turkey.”
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE ARMENIAN QUESTION, 1875-1914
The Ottoman Empire was in a rapid state of decline in the nineteenth century due to years
of misrule, corruption, and the persecution of its various minorities. As the different ethnic
groups within the Empire came into contact with the ideas of the French Revolution, they
became much more vocal about their discontent with the Sublime Porte, and, of all the
nationalities, the Serbs and the Greeks were the first to advocate independence from the Ottoman
Empire.1 Other groups, such as the Armenians, did not want to separate from the Empire but
rather called for reform within the Ottoman government itself.2
The Armenians were an ancient race who had resided in the Caucasus nearly two
thousand years before the invading Turks conquered their land in the sixteenth century. A
number of wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, however, had resulted in the Armenians’ division between the two Empires. As a
whole, the Armenians were intelligent and thrifty, and their trade often brought them into contact
with Western Europe, a fact that was unappreciated by the Turks who resented their education
and wealth. Consequently, they often referred to the Armenians as the “Jews” of the Middle
East. Despite being a progressive element within the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians, because

1 William Yale, The Near East: A Modern History, new and rev. ed. (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1958), 84.
2 Ronald Grigor Suny, Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993), 102.
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of their Christian faith, were treated like second class citizens, a fact that they were desperately
trying to change by the nineteenth century.3
The Ottoman yoke had never been easy for either its Moslem or Christian subjects to
bear. The ruling classes had bought off the courts and the police. Government positions and
special privileges were doled out in return for the courts and the police ignoring the abuses in the
system that were occurring. Therefore, the rulers of Turkey were able to live as extravagantly as
they pleased at the expense of their subjects who had to endure heavy taxation.4 Although life in
the Ottoman Empire was difficult for all of its inhabitants, it was doubly hard for the Christian
population which was relegated to a type of permanent underclass.5 Even though Islam did not
discriminate on the basis of race or economic factors, it did believe that there were three basic
inequalities in life. Women were inferior to men; slaves were inferior to their masters; and non-
Muslims or infidels were inferior to Muslims. While women and slaves could not change their
standing in society, Christians and Jews could convert to Islam. Non-Muslims did not have to
remain second-class citizens if they didn’t want to. Therefore, those who chose not to convert, in
the opinion of the Muslim ruling class, had no right to complain about being persecuted.6
Christians were in an impossible situation. They were subject to every form of discrimination
and injustice imaginable, yet because Muslims dominated society and because the gendarmes
and courts had been co-opted, they were without recourse. Although their Muslim counterparts

3 Akaby Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian Question: 1915-1923 (London: Croom Helm,
1984), 1-3.
4 Yale, 26.
5 Suny, 97.
6 Ibid.
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