The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

344 Pages·2005·4.24 MB·English

by  Donald Bloxham

THE GREAT GAME OF GENOCIDE
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T H E G R E AT G A M E
O F G E N O C I D E
imperialism, nationalism, and
the destruction of the
ottoman armenians
Donald Bloxham
1
3
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PREFACE
Thecentralhistoricaleventofthisbookisthedestructionofsomeonemillion
Armenian Christians under the auspices of the Ottoman government in
1915–16. The accompanying analysis seeks to cast new light on that event
andonthewaysithasbeenreshapedinthepoliticalandhistoricalconscious-
nessoftheworldeversince.Thebook’stitle,derivedfromthepopularname
for the nineteenth-century Russo-British race for hegemony in central Asia,
alludes to the importance throughout of inter-imperial struggle and the
changinggeopoliticsoftheNearEast.
Theprojectfromwhichthebookevolvedoriginallyintendedtofocusupon
Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide, and Western acceptance of that
denial.Butitsoonbecameclearthatdenialanditsaccommodationcouldnot
beproperlyunderstoodwithoutknowledgeofhowtheoutsideworldrelated
to the deeds of the Ottoman empire during and immediately after the First
World War itself. I then realized that, in turn, it was impossible properly to
explain this pattern of interaction without reference to the vital earlier
interaction between the Ottoman state and the ‘Great Powers’in the ‘Arme-
nian question’ up to and during the genocide. Indeed, as I argue hereafter,
that interaction was one of the main causes of the genocide in the long and
shortterms.Thesethreechannelsofenquiryareintimatelyconnected,andin
reverseorderconstitutethethreesectionsofTheGreatGameofGenocide.
My contentions are based on synthesis and re-evaluation of scholarly
studies,andonresearchamongthediplomaticarchivesofGermany,Austria,
France, Britain, and the USA, and published Ottoman and Russian primary
sources. The research and much of the writing were completed during a
SpecialResearchFellowship fundedby theLeverhulmeTrust andheldatthe
University of Southampton from 2000 to 2002. The manuscript was com-
pletedduringaperiodofleavefromtheUniversityofEdinburgh,aninstitu-
tionthatIjoinedatthebeginningoftheacademicyear2002–3,andaperiod
of matching leave provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Board
(AHRB).Iwouldliketoexpressmyprofoundthankstobothfundingbodies
andbothuniversitiesfortheirdifferentformsofsupport,withoutwhichthe
projectwouldhavebeenmuchlongerinmaterializingifitdidsoatall.
My intellectual and personal debts are of course manifold, but before
recounting them I will reverse the traditional order of things in a list of
acknowledgements and begin with the regulation caveat rather than the
names of those concerned. The Armenian genocide is a controversial topic,
anditisinevitablethatmytheseswilloffendsomereaders.Indeed,fewofthe
viii Preface
peoplewhohavedirectlyandindirectlyshapedthisbookwillagreeprecisely
withmyinterpretations,andsomemaybeupsetbythem.Itisthusmorethan
usually important to state at the outset that not only are the analyses pre-
sented here my own, so too are their flaws, and the naming of individuals
below innowayindicatestheirconsenttomyarguments.
I have benefited from discussions on early twentieth-century history with
PaulBaileyandJillStephenson.DavidBrownprovidedmanyinsightsonthe
Eastern question; more importantly, we have maintained the strong friend-
ship that we began as impoverished doctoral students. Tony Kushner was a
source of common sense. Akaby Nassibian gave early encouragement when
theprojectwasingenesis.FikretAdanir,RonaldSuny,RichardHovannisian,
and,particularly, Hans-LukasKieserhaveadvisedmeinvariousways.Aram
Arkun,RoubenAdalian,HilmarKaiser,FuatDu¨ndar,andTanerAkc¸amhave
generously responded to my questions. Hew Strachan helped secure the
AHRB leave by kindly agreeing to act as a referee for the project. Ruth Parr
andAnneGellingatOxfordUniversityPresshaveoncemorebeenmodelsof
friendly efficiency and enthusiasm. Colin Richmond again agreed to the
arduous task of reading a Bloxham typescript; Cordelia Beattie was intro-
duced to the same experience. Finally, I should record my heavy intellectual
borrowing in this project—a debt whichwill be obvious to anyone who has
readhisground-breakingworksongenocide—toMarkLevene.
Onapersonallevel,Iwanttothank,inadditiontomanyoftheabove,Nick
Kingwell, Simon Payling, Tom Lawson, David Laven, Seamus Spark, Jim
McMillan, James Nott, Martin Rourke, Paul Nugent, Julius Ruiz, Jeremy
Crang, Paul Addison, Tom Brown, Frank Cogliano, Nick Phillipson, Harry
Dickinson, Harry Hagopian, Hagop Bessos, Nareg Bedrossian, and the late,
much-missedTimReuter.My parentsandmybrotherare,asever,owedmy
deepestgratitude,mypartnerLuciamylove.RoupenNahabedianhasbecome
agoodfriendsinceourfirstmeetingfiveyearsago,whileLarryDay,another
withpersonal connections totheArmeniangenocide, hasencouraged meto
writewhatIfeltIshouldwriteratherthanparrotingreceivedwisdom—atrue
markoffriendshipgivenhisbackground.ItistoLarry’smotherthatthisbook
isdedicated:BerjoohiisaCypriotArmenianwhosegrandparentsweremur-
deredin1915;shetaughtmethemeaningofapassionforhistory.
D.B.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Portions of this book have appeared in different forms as the following
publications:‘TheArmenianGenocideof1915–16:CumulativeRadicalisation
and the Development of a Destruction Policy’, Past and Present, 181/1 (Nov.
2003), 141–91; ‘Three Imperialisms and a Turkish Nationalism: International
Stresses, Imperial Disintegration and the Armenian Genocide’, Patterns of
Prejudice, 36/4 (2002), 37–58; ‘A Reassessment of the German Role in the
Armenian Genocide of WWI’, in Hans-Lukas Kieser and Dominik Schaller
(eds.), Der Vo¨lkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah (Zurich: Chronos,
2002),213–44.