Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923

The final years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic ones for its non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities. From 1913 to 1923, its rulers deported, killed, or otherwise persecuted staggering numbers of citizens in an attempt to preserve “Turkey for the Turks,” setting a modern precedent for how a regime can commit genocide in pursuit of political ends while largely escaping accountability. While this brutal history is most widely known in the case of the Armenian genocide, few appreciate the extent to which the Empire’s Assyrian and Greek subjects suffered and died under similar policies. This comprehensive volume is the first to broadly examine the genocides of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in comparative fashion, analyzing the similarities and differences among them and giving crucial context to present-day calls for recognition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781785334337

Book preview

Preface

Most of the studies in this collection have their origins in the International Conference on the Ottoman Turkish Genocides of Anatolian Christians, held at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in May 2013, co-organized by the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, the Armenian National Committee, and the Assyrian Center for Genocide Studies. This scholarly gathering was a special effort to treat the genocidal experiences of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Eastern Thrace in the early part of the twentieth century as an integrated history and, in the process, bring representatives and scholars of those three communities together to share an understanding of this catastrophic era. In their own languages, the Armenians and Greeks both use the term great catastrophe to describe these events, while the Assyrians use the term seyfo, which means sword.

That meeting and this book are the latest in a series of activities that are part of a long-term project of the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center (AMPHRC) to promote the study of the larger pattern of genocide in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic.¹ They are the product of a dedicated group of volunteers, who give of themselves tirelessly so that this knowledge may be shared and hopefully the lessons of this history may be learned in our time. Even though it is not possible to acknowledge all of those whose hard work and talent has gone into this work, special mention must be made of the organizing committee comprised of George Mavropoulos, founder of the AMPHRC, Greg Bedian of the Armenian National Committee, and Dr Norman Solhkhah and Joseph Tamraz of the Assyrian Center for Genocide Studies. Kelley H. Szany, Associate Director of Education and Genocide Initiatives at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, must also be recognized for her support in this endeavor.

The AMPHRC is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization established in January 2011. The Center’s goal—unique in its kind—is to document and raise awareness of the Great Catastrophe that resulted in the uprooting and destruction of the Greek communities in their homelands of Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace in the early decades of the twentieth century after a 3,000-year-long presence there.

The Greek experience, similar to the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, although officially recognized as genocide by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS Resolution, 2007), is not widely known to the English-speaking world. The AMPHRC’s mission is to promote knowledge and understanding among contemporary scholars and the public at large of the events that led to the events now known as the Great Catastrophe. Organizing academic conferences, collecting documentation, publishing, preparing educational materials, and disseminating information on the genocide and destruction of Hellenism during a decade of relentless persecution and destruction at the end of the Ottoman Empire is essential to helping ensure these atrocities never happen again.

Each of the chapters has gone through a process of careful revision in order to shape the book into a coherent volume. I would therefore like to express my personal thanks to each of the authors for giving so much of their time and expertise to help make this book a reality and contributing towards filling a gap in the literature. I offer a special word of appreciation to George Mavropoulos, for his inspiration, leadership, and active involvement in the entire project. I also would like to acknowledge Erin Ball, Kylie J. Cumming, and Dr Anastasia Giannakidou for their talent, hard work and editorial assistance in the preparation of the text for publication. Finally, I must express profound gratitude to my own institution, the Zoryan Institute, for its extensive support and encouragement to enable me to complete the research, editing and preparation of this book.

George N. Shirinian

Notes

1. See George N. Shirinian, ed., The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923 (Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012), 9–10.

Bibliography

Shirinian, George N., ed. The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923. Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012.

INTRODUCTION

George N. Shirinian

Origin of the Concept of Ottoman Genocides

In the midst of World War I, and after decades of violent and political internal conflict, the Young Turk regime recently in control of the Ottoman Empire rounded up the political, religious, and intellectual leaders of the Armenian community and executed most of them. Thousands of Armenians were arrested, 2,345 in Constantinople alone.¹ Thus commenced a process that would lead to the deportation, massacre, and ultimate destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. At the time the mass deportation and killing of the Armenians began, observers were keenly aware that it was not the Armenians alone who were being targeted. As early as March 7, 1915, the German vice-consul in Alexandretta had written:

During the last few days house-to-house searches took place at all the homes of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire residing here—Armenians, Syrians, Greeks—on order from higher up (most likely from Constantinople). In some houses, papers were confiscated, apparently only because they were in a foreign language, as well as books, especially English ones. Nobody has been placed under arrest because of these occurrences so far. As far as I know about the character and doings of the small local population, I do not believe that they would commit treason. For this reason, many of the local foreigners who were not affected by these measures shook their heads in disbelief…

As I heard from the military, these actions were taken because of the rising mistrust which has largely been growing in government circles against the Christian (and especially Armenian) elements of the population in Syria and Cilicia—and I am sure elsewhere—and which has been fanned here and in the surrounding area by a few small incidents…²

As Armenians and Greeks began to be deported from their homes en masse, it was obvious to contemporaries that the deportations were not intended merely to relocate the Christian minorities from strategic areas for military reasons, as the government was claiming, but to exterminate them under the guise of wartime necessity. Already by June 22, 1915, Rev. Johannes Lepsius wrote from Potsdam to the German Foreign Office in Berlin:

According to information from the Imperial Ambassador in his telegram of 31 May, Enver Pasha plans to settle in Mesopotamia those families from the currently insurgent Armenian centres who are not irreproachable.

As I have already stated in my letter dated 18 June, this is not a case of deporting individual families, but rather of mass deportations of large parts of the Armenian population from Anatolian areas and from Cilicia to various districts, especially to Mesopotamia.

These measures cannot be justified for military reasons. They are out of all proportion to the unimportant reasons which motivated them. They are also in contradiction to the official statement made by the Turkish Government on 4 June (W.T.B. [Wolff’s Telegraph Bureau—GNS] to Constantinople) that the Armenians from Erzerum, Derdjan, Egin, Sasun, Bitlis, Mush and Cilicia were not subjected to any measures whatsoever by the Imperial authorities because they had committed no acts which would disturb the public law and peace. For mass deportations have also taken place in these areas and they are gradually being extended to all the Armenian areas. Even the passage, If certain Armenians had to be removed from their places of residence, this was done because they lived in a war-zone, cannot be used as a lever, for generally speaking this concerns areas which lie in central Anatolia, far from the war-zone.

The news so far is that until now about 200,000 Armenians have been affected by the deportation measures … As the Greek population in the villages of Thracia between Adrianople and the Sea of Marmara was also deported, this is obviously an attempt to decimate the Christian population in the empire as far as possible under the veil of martial law and by putting to use the Muslim elation aroused by the holy war, abandoning it to extermination by carrying it off to climatically unfavourable and unsafe districts along the border.³

In fact, the Greeks had been targeted even earlier, in 1913 and 1914, with an economic boycott, violent persecution, and deportations.⁴ Due to German pressure, the Young Turk regime temporarily suspended the deportation of the Greeks, but in the meantime, once the deportation and killing of the Armenians was in full operation in 1915, it was often said that the Greeks would be next.⁵ On July 21, 1914, the Ottoman government declared a general mobilization of all men aged 19 to 45. The Greek conscripts were not provided with uniforms, hats, or shoes and received only a single ration of bread per day.⁶ With the Ottoman Empire’s entry into World War I on October 28, 1914 and a series of military defeats in the first months of the war, the Young Turk leadership blamed the Christian minorities for their military failures. They disarmed the Armenian and Greek conscripts and formed them into labor battalions under very harsh working conditions designed for their ultimate demise due to exposure, hunger, exhaustion, and disease. As a consequence, some chose to survive and deserted the army, further fueling the authorities’ suspicion about their loyalty.⁷

The needs of the army were used to justify the Ottoman government’s requisitioning of food, textiles, and all manner of goods from Greek businesses, paying them little or nothing, while taking much less from Muslims. On the pretext of tracking down robbers and deserters, local authorities took advantage by seizing the wealth of the Greeks. The Ottoman Parliament enacted special laws and then proceeded to strip the Greek rural populations of their property. With farm workers drafted into the army and removed from the land, there were food shortages, and the confiscation of private property contributed additionally to the ruin of local economies. In October 1915, a new law to deter deserters provided for their families to be deported.

In April 1915, the inhabitants of Matsouka, for example, were ordered to abandon their homes and were deported across the Pontic Alps to the interior of Asia Minor, most of them to the Erzerum plateau. The sufferings they underwent in the region’s chill April weather were indescribable. The freezing cold was the main cause of death among deportees. Starvation and infectious diseases would deal the final blow. Any who survived were forced to convert to Islam. In some locations, such as the Pontos region, the oppressed people created partisan groups to rescue Greeks in rural areas.

The Assyrians, too, were targeted for deportation as early as October 26, 1914.⁸ The Assyrian Genocide was part of the same process of dealing with the Christian minority, with massacres sometimes taking place in the same locations and at the same time as the Armenians.⁹

As the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, later noted,

The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain modifications about the Greeks and the Syrians. Indeed, the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea … It was probably for the reason that the civilized world did not protest against these deportations that the Turks afterward decided to apply the same methods on a larger scale not only to the Greeks but to the Armenians, Syrians, Nestorians, and others of its subject peoples. In fact, Bedri Bey, the Prefect of Police at Constantinople, himself told one of my secretaries that the Turks had expelled the Greeks so successfully that they had decided to apply the same method to all the other races in the empire.¹⁰

For this and other reasons, some scholars today feel that the term Armenian Genocide does not capture adequately the intent and breadth of the Young Turk exterminatory campaign against all the Christian minorities from 1913 to 1923.¹¹ Thus, the term Ottoman Genocides was introduced in a resolution passed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars in 2007,¹² and has begun to catch on.¹³

There are many benefits to studying the genocidal experiences of these three peoples together. The social and political environment of the Ottoman Empire influenced the development of the Christian minorities similarly, setting them apart from and subordinate to the ruling Muslim majority, leading to violence against them, both individually and collectively, on numerous occasions. The extreme nationalist policies of the Young Turk regime also impacted the Christian minorities similarly. We can understand better the causes, methods, and impact of the extreme violence against each of these groups when we study them together, holistically, within that broader context. Tragically, extermination of Christian populations in the Middle East has resurfaced recently on a large scale, and the lessons that can be drawn by studying the twentieth-century Christian genocides will help us better contextualize and understand current events, and hopefully offer insights into how to prevent current or future crimes against humanity.

Along with the many similarities, however, we must also be conscious and respectful of the differences between each of these cases. It is for this reason that we use the term Ottoman Genocides in the plural, because each case has its significant particularities that must be examined and appreciated.

Why Did the Events of 1915 Become Known as The Armenian Genocide?

The genocidal experience of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks during the final years of the Ottoman Empire and beginning years of the Turkish Republic ought naturally to have been studied together as an integral part of Ottoman history. There are several reasons this did not happen.

The Issue of the Armenian Reforms

The issue of reform in the Ottoman Empire was promoted by the European Powers from the early 1800s. The idea of Tanzimat, a program of reorganization, gave them an instrument to intervene in the governance of the empire, ostensibly to protect the Christian minorities, but also to insinuate their control. While this intervention was unwelcome to the Ottoman leadership, they shrewdly accepted Tanzimat for its ability to help them modernize the system of government, army, and economy and make them better able to cope with pressures, both internal and external.

The reforms legislated in 1839 and 1856 largely failed. This was due to their being implemented half-heartedly by a conservative ruling class, and being not well thought out in the first place. The introduction of reforms for the Armenians, in particular, during the peace negotiations following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 (the Treaty of San Stefano and the Treaty of Berlin), was again used by the European Powers as leverage over the sultan. This time, the Armenians had been singled out. Dissatisfaction with Sultan Abdul Hamid II for his handling of that war and its peace negotiations resulted in harsh criticism from the Ottoman Parliament. In 1878, Abdul Hamid suspended the constitution, dismissed Parliament, and reasserted his role as monarch and caliph. He did not comply with the Armenian reforms required by the Treaty of Berlin.

The Armenians were singled out for annihilation in 1915 not only because they challenged their inferior status as Christians, but also because the Young Turk regime was convinced that the Armenian reform issue, which was very much alive and being pushed by the European Powers in 1913–14, would lead to the break-up of the empire.¹⁴

The Armenians Were the Primary Target

Morgenthau suggested that up to the time he wrote in 1918, the deportation of the Greeks was not as destructive as that of the Armenians, and that may also help explain why the genocide is more identified with the Armenians.

Everywhere the Greeks were gathered in groups and, under the so-called protection of Turkish gendarmes, they were transported, the larger part on foot, into the interior. Just how many were scattered in this fashion is not definitely known, the estimates varying anywhere from 200,000 up to 1,000,000. These caravans suffered great privations, but they were not submitted to general massacre as were the Armenians, and this is probably the reason why the outside world has not heard so much about them.¹⁵

Indeed, the measures taken against the Armenians were explicitly not to be used against the other targeted groups. The Turkish Minister of the Interior, Talât Pasha, sent a telegram on July 12, 1915 to the local authorities in Diarbekir ordering that the disciplinary and political measures taken against Armenians should absolutely not be extended to other Christians. Any measures threatening the lives of local [non-Armenian] Christians are to end immediately and should be reported.¹⁶ On September 9, 1915, the German vice-consul in Samsun wrote to the German Embassy in Constantinople: … some Armenian mothers had hidden their children with Greek families. Upon threat of heavy punishment, these poor creatures, among them babies, were torn away from their foster parents who showed only Christian kindness! The Greek Christians are trembling, and with good reason, for at the first opportunity they are sure to suffer the same fate as the Armenians.¹⁷ An American report in December 1915 stated that many Armenians were hiding in Greek villages.¹⁸ Such reports show that Greeks were not under attack at the time. In another example, some Armenian women from Adapazar, visiting Egin in 1915, were caught up in the deportation there. They were speaking Greek to each other, which they had the habit of doing when they didn’t want others to know what they were saying. When the guards heard the women speaking Greek, they reacted by saying that Greeks were not supposed to be deported. When asked if they were Greek, the Armenian women readily claimed they were, and they were allowed to stay in Egin until the matter could be confirmed.¹⁹

The Turkish State Policy of Historical Revisionism and Denial

When Kemal Ataturk established the Republic of Turkey in 1923, part of his plan for building a new nation was to dissociate the fledgling republic from the negative aspects of its Ottoman past. He thus took measures to ensure the history of the end of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the Turkish Republic was told from an exclusively flattering, Turkish point of view.

As part of that effort, Ataturk officially replaced the Ottoman alphabet, which had been based on a Turkish form of the Arabic script, with one based on the Latin alphabet. This was a high personal priority for him, and he engaged himself in the alphabet’s development directly. He enacted legislation on November 1, 1928, which came into effect on January 1, 1929. While the stated goals were to rid Turkish culture of Arabic influence, enhance Turkish nationalism, and modernize Turkey, a by-product of the alphabet reform was that all the books, newspapers, and official documentation of the time describing the mass deportations and killings of the Christian minorities would become inaccessible to future generations, allowing this history to become malleable and ultimately forgotten.²⁰

A couple of years later, in 1931, Ataturk established the Turkish Historical Institute (Türk Tarih Kurumu). This official government agency had the task not only of writing official Turkish history to promote Turkish nation-building, but also of rewriting history to ingrain selected national myths that Ataturk wanted to promote about the end of the empire and the founding of the republic. According to one of those myths, there was no such group in Turkey as Armenians, and therefore there could not have been an annihilation of them. Thus, an attempt was made to write not only the Armenians but also the Assyrians and Ottoman Greeks out of history.²¹

The Different Circumstances and Responses of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks

It was as a response to that official policy of selective historical amnesia and denial that the Armenians began, in April 1965—the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Armenian deportations and massacres—to call attention to what had by then become the Forgotten Genocide.²² There was a massive public demonstration of some 100,000 people in Yerevan on April 24, 1965 calling for the Soviet government to recognize the Armenian Genocide, to build a memorial to it, and for the return of land in Turkey to the Armenian people.²³ This public outpouring of nationalism is remarkable, considering that it was totally contrary to Soviet nationality policy at the time, and it has inspired such demonstrations around the world annually ever since.

The Armenians, absorbed in trying to survive and perpetuate their culture in the aftermath of such devastation, as well as in dealing with their own psychological trauma arising out of a genocide actively denied by Turkey and its supporters and unacknowledged by most of the world, inevitably focused on their own identity politics and engaged in reconstructing their own history. Owing to the fact that many Armenians had settled in Western countries by the late 1970s, their efforts at cultural preservation were informed by the languages and cultures of such places as Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where there was a strong political and academic tradition. The Armenians found a fertile environment in those places for their political and academic activities, organizing political parties and lobby groups, and by the 1980s they had invested in Armenian Studies chairs and departments in several universities. The Armenians were thus able to start producing a body of political activity and scholarly work that promoted awareness and understanding of the Armenian Genocide. The influence of the Armenian terrorist movement in the 1970s to the mid 1980s must also be taken into account in this regard.²⁴ That movement did garner coverage in the international press, but also caused the Turkish state to escalate its genocide denial efforts, which, in turn, only further motivated Armenian efforts to produce scholarship countering it. Despite the lack of greater political success in genocide affirmation, the Armenians, along with non-Armenian scholars, have been effective in establishing a solid, academic basis for the acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide through the fields of Armenian Studies, Genocide Studies, and Comparative Genocide Studies.

The Assyrians and Greeks had to deal with such post-genocide problems as well, but did so differently. Few Greek historians in the diaspora have pursued the study of the destruction of the Ottoman Greeks. There are important studies produced in Greece, but they remain inaccessible to those who do not know the Greek language, and, moreover, the Greek government has not been supportive of promoting awareness of this subject. Some feel it is because it exposes errors in Greek foreign policy at the time; others feel it is so as to not strain already difficult relations with neighboring Turkey, which is also a NATO partner, with all the political considerations that entails.

There are still only a handful of studies in Western languages on the Assyrian experience of genocide. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the Assyrians have suffered repeated persecution in Turkey, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East. They are now in the process of reorganizing in the diaspora and some fine scholarly work is being produced on their history by both Assyrian and non-Assyrian scholars.

The subject of why the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks responded to the Ottoman Genocides differently is an interesting one, larger and more complex than can be examined within the limits of this brief introduction. We can say that it is understandable if one group tends to focus more on its own genocidal pain and not on the pain of others. Regardless of the full explanation, it is clear that these three victim peoples did react to their genocidal experiences largely in isolation of one another.

The Legacy of the British Blue Book

Another factor contributing in some measure to the genocide of the Christian minorities being identified primarily with the Armenians was the publication in 1916 of the influential British parliamentary Blue Book, The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–16: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, by Viscount Bryce.²⁵ It reproduced, among its many documents, reports from the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.²⁶ Yet, while the massacre of Assyrians is reported in the book, the Assyrians were omitted from the book’s title.

The Influence of Raphael Lemkin

It is worth noting that Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term genocide and made its study and prevention his life’s work, had extensive notes for a separate publication on the Armenian Genocide and spoke publicly about it. He also planned significant chapters for his magnum opus on the Assyrians and Greeks,²⁷ but it is likely that one of the reasons he did not write on the Assyrians or Greeks by the end of his life was the lack of material available in the languages he knew.

The Availability of Published Information in Western Languages

A substantial body of primary source material and secondary literature on the Armenian Genocide has been published in the major languages of Western scholarship. This is much less the case for the Assyrian and Greek Genocides. One of the objectives of this book is to help redress this imbalance and to view these three related cases through a single lens, as a shared experience.

The Benefits of Studying the Late Ottoman Genocides of the Christian Minorities as a Whole

The logic of approaching the genocides of the Christian minorities in the late Ottoman Empire as a whole, rather than as completely separate case studies, is clear. To a large extent, the experiences of these three peoples took place in the same country, during the same period, as part of the same historical, social, economic, and political forces, involving a continuity of perpetrators with the same motive. There are significant benefits to a collective, comparative approach to the Late Ottoman Genocides.

From a theoretical perspective, comparative scholarship in the humanities and social sciences is valuable because one cannot derive general truisms from only a single case study. Individual case studies are by nature narrow, self-contained, and, as such, are of limited value if one wants to build a theory of how recurrent, predictable patterns emerge. In their general thrust, individual case studies are descriptive, and inherently do not allow us to see patterns, which are underlying generalizations based on common denominators of several cases.

Comparison, on the other hand, is essentially an analytical task. The characteristics of genocide can be brought out in the interplay of such common denominators. Only the comparative approach can yield carefully delimited generalizations about the nature and mechanics of genocide as a general problem of humanity. Even though generalizations distilled from comparative studies reflect the common features and characteristics among the cases being compared, their elaboration does not need to exclude other features that are not common. Each case of genocide has its own contribution to make to our understanding. One need not limit one’s self to the quest for common denominators in order to do justice to the comparative method. By taking into account those factors that are particular to each case, one may in fact underscore the importance of the common features.²⁸

By approaching these three genocides chronologically, in a single, interwoven narrative, rather than separately by ethnicity, we can see the development of the common historical, political, economic, and social processes taking place in the Ottoman Empire that led to the Young Turks’ destructive policies and a common, tragic outcome. Such an approach will be utilized in the first chapter in the present volume, The Background to the Late Ottoman Genocides.

The Studies in this Collection

The studies in this collection cover a wide variety of subjects and can be seen as part of the extremely dynamic paradigm of Genocide Studies. Five of them are explicitly comparative in nature, and three treat the three Ottoman Genocides together in a holistic way. Other studies examine the particular cases of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Ottoman Greeks, but make reference as appropriate to the other cases.

The first chapter lays out the historical, social, political, and economic background of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and the situation of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks within it. It attempts to explain why these three ethnic minorities were targeted for destruction by the Young Turk regime, and also the expulsion of the Greeks by the Kemalist regime.

Dikran Kaligian provides a historical background to the conditions of insecurity in which the Ottoman Armenians and Greeks lived. After the Young Turk revolution in 1908 and the restoration of the constitution, personal security for the Christian minorities improved. However, the government’s policy of resettling embittered Muslim refugees from the Balkan Wars into the areas inhabited by the Christians caused renewed clashes. Also, after the defeat of the Ottomans in the First Balkan War in 1912, there was a wave of persecution and forced emigration of Greek villages in Eastern Thrace. The Westenenk Commission, created to investigate complaints of violence against the Armenians in the eastern provinces, was the last straw for the Ottomans, who perceived it as the final step that would lead to the partition of Turkey by the Europeans. This was a key factor in the Young Turks’ decision to enter World War I and commit the genocide.

Anahit Khosroeva makes a new contribution to the small number of studies in English on the Assyrian Genocide. Such descriptive accounts are essential to lay the groundwork for more analysis that will begin to answer such questions as why the Assyrian Genocide took place, how it was implemented, and what its impact has been on the Assyrian people. Most especially, it is indispensable for understanding the characteristics the Assyrian experience has in common with the Armenian and Greek cases, as well as how it may differ.

Paul Bartrop analyzes an example of a survivor memoir from each of our three case studies. Survivor memoirs are a special kind of historical source. They convey the sense of the genocidal experience on a very personal and detailed level for those who read them. They are also cathartic for those who write them. In the case of the Armenian Genocide particularly, because of the aggressive and ongoing denial by the Turkish state, they have not been well incorporated into the scholarly literature nearly as much as, say, Holocaust survivor memoirs. Nevertheless, they can contribute to our understanding of how genocide takes place and its impact on the victims in a unique and invaluable way. The importance of survivor memoirs is seen in several of the studies in this collection.

Stavros Stavridis describes the successful approach taken by Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek scholars in Australia to promote awareness of the Ottoman Genocides. They have told this story through the lens of Australian sources, thereby making these genocides a part of Australian national history. There is a rich source of information in the letters and memoirs of ANZAC soldiers who were prisoners of war in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The Australians and New Zealanders are particularly interested in this subject because of their great sacrifices at Gallipoli, Palestine, and Syria. Stavridis illustrates how the Assyrian issue was represented in the Australian press and official documents.

Robert Shenk, using the letters and memoirs of courageous female American missionaries, recreates vividly some of the scenes of violence between Turks and Armenians and Turks and Greeks. He illustrates the anti-Armenian attitude of American officials Admiral Mark Bristol and General James Harbord and contrasts it with the more balanced and often pro-Armenian and pro-Greek perspectives of the American missionaries.

Ellene Phufas shares the story of the Greek journalist Kostas Faltaits, who collected Greek survivor accounts and published them as a book in 1921. Once again, these survivor testimonies provide invaluable information on the Greek experience during the period of the Great Catastrophe.

Tehmine Martoyan reconstructs the infamous destruction of the Armenian and Greek communities of the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna. Drawing on archival sources, she represents this genocidal event as a single, shared history. Utilizing eyewitness testimony, she makes clear that the burning of the Armenian and Greek sections of the city was done deliberately by the Turkish army. She is able to conclude that the destruction of Smyrna by the Kemalists was a continuation of the Young Turk policy of genocide.

Steven Jacobs looks at Raphael Lemkin, who invented the term genocide, devoted his life to its study and the establishment of an international law for its punishment and prevention, and may be considered the father of Genocide Studies. As noted earlier, Lemkin had planned an extensive publication of the history of genocide, and Jacobs examines Lemkin’s notes on the genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.

Gevorg Vardanyan gives an innovative comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between the Armenian and Greek cases of genocide. While the active killing was more extensive among the Armenians, large numbers of both Armenians and Greeks died of starvation, exposure, and illness during their deportations and suffered just as painfully. He notes that the role of the Kurds was major in the case of the Armenians, but was mostly absent in the case of the Greeks.

Thea Halo observes that beside the denials of the Armenian Genocide, the genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire during the same period is even more widely misrepresented, when mentioned at all. She re-evaluates various assumptions used to discount the brutal treatment of the Greeks during the period of the Great Catastrophe and offers valuable correctives.

Georgia Kouta’s chapter discusses the role of the Anglo-Hellenic League in London in shaping Western public opinion and British policy on the Ottoman government’s treatment of its Greek minority. The League collected valuable documentation on the atrocities through Greek and non-Greek eyewitness reports, church and newspaper accounts, and published pamphlets. Other groups and writers in London are also examined. Kouta traces the attempt to promote the Megali Idea and a national consciousness among Greeks, at the same time describing the growth of Turkish nationalism and the ensuing conflict between them. It is an interesting study of how a diaspora group tried to influence its host country’s policies in favor of its homeland.

Hannibal Travis takes a legal approach in considering the role of deportation in the genocide of the Ottoman Christians from 1914 to 1924. His chapter compares the findings of diplomats and other contemporary reports on the deportations to the jurisprudence of international and domestic criminal tribunals concerning deportation as a genocidal act. He challenges in impressive detail those scholars who, in recent years, have made their academic reputations by staking out a middle position on the Armenian Genocide—somewhere between the traditional Armenian Genocide story and the Armenian allegations narrative propounded by the Turkish government. Examining in depth the legal basis for treating the partial destruction of a group by deportation as genocide, he concludes that there is important evidence of genocidal intent to be found in the strains of extremist ideology that emerged in the Ottoman Empire during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth century.

Suren Manukyan explores the question of how an ordinary Turk could become a mass murderer. Drawing on social and psychological theory, and making comparisons with Nazi Germany, he discusses the different classes of perpetrators and examines their various motivations. He argues that the ability to participate in mass murder is not inherent in the human character, but is developed socially. He illustrates how the Ottoman state conditioned its majority population to be able to murder its Christian minorities.

Taken together, these studies provide valuable historical, comparative, and theoretical insights into the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Genocides and contribute towards the growing view that the events of this historical period can be better understood when these three cases of genocide are examined together. It is possible to see more clearly, for example, the importance of the subordinate political and social position of the non-Muslims within the Ottoman reality, a condition that holds true in other cases of genocide. This enabled a pattern of violence against all three millets (i.e., ethnic or religious groups) prior to 1912, though at different times and under different circumstances. This repeated violence and its impunity made the genocidal actions of 1912–23 not only possible, but even likely. Thus, a comparative study shows that violence against these three ethnicities was governmental policy, whether the government was that of the sultan, the Committee of Union and Progress, or the Kemalists.

We see the cumulative effects of the policies of the European Powers, as they played up to each of the three millets and played them off against the Ottoman state and against their rival European Powers. It is possible to understand through a comparative study that it was neither ethnicity nor religion alone that made the ruling Turkish majority see the Ottoman Christians as the other, but their relative prosperity and the envy that it generated. It helps illustrate and solidify the intent, motivation, and strategy of the perpetrators through a consistent policy against all three. Establishing intent is useful as a tool to fight revisionism and denial, if intent and motive are clearly illustrated across multiple groups. Comparative study allows us to see patterns and adaptation of violence both chronologically and regionally.

A comparative study of these three cases also sheds light on themes that require further study and analysis, such as the role of the Kurds as an instrument of governmental policy against all three millets. This only begins to explore what we can learn from the comparative study of these three cases of genocide. Because the necessary details to go deeper are still lacking in the English language, we hope that these studies will contribute towards a deeper knowledge of this history, which can enable deeper analysis, not only of these cases themselves but also of their relation to other cases of genocide, and will be of value to the broader field of Comparative Genocide Studies.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, with the extermination and depopulation of Yezidis and Christians in the Middle East resurfacing through the actions of the Islamic State since 2014, the lessons that can be drawn by studying the genocides of late Ottoman Christians can help us better contextualize and understand contemporary identity-based violence in the region, and hopefully offer insights into how to recognize and prevent current or future crimes against humanity.

Notes

1. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, 6th rev. ed. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), 221.

2. Wolfgang Gust, ed., The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014), 152, March 7, 1915 report from the vice-consul in Alexandretta (Hoffmann) to the Ambassador in Constantinople (Wangenheim), 1915-03-07-DE-011.

3. Gust, The Armenian Genocide, 212–13, June 22, 1915 private correspondence from Rev. Johannes Lepsius in Potsdam to the German Foreign Office in Berlin, 1915-06-22-DE-001-E.

4. See Matthias Bjørnlund, The 1914 Cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a Case of Violent Turkification, Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 1 (2008): 41–57; Tessa Hofmann, The Genocide against the Christians in the Late Ottoman Period, 1912–1922, in The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923, ed. George N. Shirinian (Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012), 43–67, esp. 48–50; Taner Akçam, The Greek Deportations and Massacres of 1913–1914: A Trial Run for the Armenian Genocide, in Shirinian, The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide, 69–88.

5. See, for example, Gust, The Armenian Genocide, 331, August 28, 1915 report from the German consul in Trebizond to the Imperial Chancellor in Berlin, 1915-08-27-DE-003; 365, September 5, 1915 report from the German correspondent von Tyszka to the German Foreign Office, 1915-09-05-DE-001; 376, September 9, 2015 report from the German consul in Samsun to the Embassy in Constantinople, 1915-09-09-DE-002.

6. Arthur Beylerian, Les Grandes Puissances, L’empire Ottoman et les Arméniens dans les Archives Françaises (1914–1918): Receuil de Documents (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1983), 52.

7. See Speros Vryonis, Jr., Greek Labor Battalions in Asia Minor, in The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 2007), 275–90.

8. David Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim–Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006), 447.

9. On Armenians and Assyrians being killed in the same locations and at the same time, see, for example, Beylerian, Les Grands Puissances, 50–51, report of M. Guys to the French Embassy in Constantinople, July 24, 1915; Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors, 81; David Gaunt, Death’s End, 1915: The General Massacres of Christians in Diarbekir, in Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2006), 309–59, esp. 316–17.

10. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1919), 323.

11. See Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer, Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Population and Extermination Policies, Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 1 (March 2008): 7–14, esp. 9–12.

12. See the chapter by Thea Halo, The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks 1913–23: Myths and Facts, in the present volume.

13. For example, the special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 1 (March 2008) titled, Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Population and Extermination Policies; the chapter titled, The Ottoman Destruction of Christian Minorities, in Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 149–78; and Matthias Bjørnlund, The Persecution of Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna, 1914–1916: A Special Case in the Course of the Late Ottoman Genocides, in Shirinian, The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide, 89–133.

14. See Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 101–2, 155–56; Taner Akçam, The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), 129–35; Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide, 207–9, 213–16; Hans-Lukas Kieser, Nearest East: American Millennialism and Mission to the Middle East (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 83–84; Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 356.

15. Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, 324–25.

16. Akçam, A Shameful Act, 186–87.

17. Gust, The Armenian Genocide, 376, 1915-09-09-DE-002.

18. James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, by Viscount Bryce, uncensored ed. (Reading, UK: Taderon Press, 2000), 374 (355 in the original 1916 edition).

19. Fatma Müge Göçek, Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789–2009 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), x–xi.

20. Taner Akçam, The Genocide of the Armenians and the Silence of the Turks, in Studies in Comparative Genocide, ed. Levon Chorbajian and George Shirinian (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 125–46, 136. For more on the reasons for Turkey embracing this historical amnesia, see ibid., 137–44.

21. Of course, Turkish state denial evolved and adapted over time with different arguments, as it had to deal with the evidence that was gradually produced.

22. Marjorie Housepian is credited with writing the first modern article in English calling attention to the Armenian Genocide, with The Unremembered Genocide, Commentary 42, no. 3 (1966): 55–61. While after Raphael Lemkin himself, Joseph Guttmann may have been the first to use the term genocide in relation to the Armenians in the publication The Beginnings of Genocide; a Brief Account of the Armenian Massacres in World War I (New York: Armenian National Council of America, 1948), it is interesting to note that the Commemorative Committee on the 50th Anniversary of the Turkish Massacres of the Armenians still used the term massacres in its name in 1965.

23. Nora Dudwick, Armenia: The Nation Awakes, in Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States, ed. Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 261–87, 272.

24. Groups such as the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Armenian Justice Commandos assassinated Turkish diplomatic representatives and committed other acts of violence in Western countries, partly to wrest Western Armenia from Turkey, and partly to bring world attention to the case of the forgotten Armenian Genocide. Thomas de Waal, Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 152–53.

25. London: Sir Joseph Causton and Sons, Limited, 1916. The Blue Book was influential in its day and for generations afterwards, being subsequently reproduced in different editions in 1965 and 2000. Bryce, in particular, was central in defining and using the Armenian case to describe the killings as an ‘exceedingly systematic’ ‘premeditated’ crime committed with the intent to exterminate an entire population. This framing of the massacres against Armenians would come to influence Raphael Lemkin’s coining of the term genocide in the 1940s to describe crimes against Ottoman Armenians and German Jews. Michelle Tusan, Humanitarianism, Genocide and Liberalism, Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 1 (2015): 83–105, 98.

26. This organization, founded in 1915, became the American Committee for Relief in the Near East or Near East Relief in 1919, and finally the Near East Foundation in 1930.

27. See the chapter by Steven Leonard Jacobs in this volume, and Raphael Lemkin, Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide (Glendale, CA: Center for Armenian Remembrance, 2008).

28. Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Comparative Aspects of the Armenian and Jewish Cases of Genocide: A Sociohistorical Perspective, in Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, 3rd ed., ed. Alan S. Rosenbaum (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009), 139–74.

Bibliography

Akçam, Taner. The Genocide of the Armenians and the Silence of the Turks. In Studies in Comparative Genocide, edited by Levon Chorbajian and George Shirinian, 125–46. London: Macmillan Press, 1999.

———. The Greek Deportations and Massacres of 1913–1914: A Trial Run for the Armenian Genocide. In The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923, edited by George N. Shirinian, 69–88. Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012.

———. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.

———. The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Beylerian, Arthur. Les Grandes Puissances, L’empire Ottoman et les Arméniens dans les Archives Françaises (1914–1918): Receuil de Documents. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1983.

Bjørnlund, Matthias. The 1914 Cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a Case of Violent Turkification. Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 1 (2008): 41–57.

———. The Persecution of Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna, 1914–1916: A Special Case in the Course of the Late Ottoman Genocides. In The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923, edited by George N. Shirinian, 89–133. Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012.

Bryce, James, and Arnold Toynbee. The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, by Viscount Bryce. Uncensored ed. Reading, UK: Taderon Press, 2000.

Dadrian, Vahakn N. The Comparative Aspects of the Armenian and Jewish Cases of Genocide: A Sociohistorical Perspective. In Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide, 3rd ed., edited by Alan S. Rosenbaum, 139–74. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009.

———. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. 6th rev. ed. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008.

de Waal, Thomas. Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Dudwick, Nora. Armenia: The Nation Awakes. In Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States, edited by Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, 261–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Gaunt, David. Death’s End, 1915: The General Massacres of Christians in Diarbekir. In Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, 309–59. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2006.

———. Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim–Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006.

Göçek, Fatma Müge. Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789–2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Gust, Wolfgang, ed. The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2014.

Guttmann, Joseph. The Beginnings of Genocide; a Brief Account of the Armenian Massacres in World War I. New York: Armenian National Council of America, 1948.

Hofmann, Tessa. The Genocide against the Christians in the Late Ottoman Period, 1912–1922. In The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, 1912–1923, edited by George N. Shirinian, 43–67. Bloomingdale, IL: The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, Inc., 2012.

Housepian, M. The Unremembered Genocide. Commentary 42, no. 3 (1966): 55–61.

Jones, Adam. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.

Kieser, Hans-Lukas. Nearest East: American Millennialism and Mission to the Middle East. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010.

Lemkin, Raphael. Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide. Glendale, CA: Center for Armenian Remembrance, 2008.

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Morgenthau, Henry. Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1919.

Schaller, Dominik J., and Jürgen Zimmerer. Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Population and Extermination Policies. Journal of Genocide Research 10, no. 1 (March 2008): 7–14.

Tusan, Michelle. Humanitarianism, Genocide and Liberalism. Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 1 (2015): 83–105.

Vryonis, Speros Jr. Greek Labor Battalions in Asia Minor. In The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, edited by Richard G. Hovannisian, 275–90. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 2007.

PART I.

CONTEXTS

CHAPTER ONE

THE BACKGROUND TO THE LATE OTTOMAN GENOCIDES

George N. Shirinian

Introduction

Medz Yeghern, Seyfo, Megali Katastrophi. These are among the terms used by Armenians, Assyrians,¹ and Greeks, respectively, for the horrific, massively destructive, and psychologically traumatic experience they underwent during the years 1913–23, an experience today we call genocide. The purpose of this study is to examine a number of interrelated factors that culminated in the Young Turks, and subsequently the Kemalist leadership, believing that the solution to Turkey’s political problems lay in the removal or destruction of its Christian citizens. We will also explore reasons the rest of the population went along with, and even participated in, this horrific policy. As this is a long and complex subject, the material presented here is selective and told in a compressed manner. Ample references are given, however, to allow the reader to pursue the various topics further.

The Political and Social Structure of the Ottoman Empire and the Status of the Non-Muslim Minorities

The political and social structure of the Ottoman Empire was based on the separation of its subjects into distinct communities (millets) along ethnic and religious lines. While this arrangement gave these communities a measure of autonomy, power and privilege rested with the ruling nation (millet-i hâkime), primarily ethnic Turks who were Muslim. The non-Muslim minorities—primarily Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Jews—were giavours, non-believers in Islam, and conquered peoples. They had a significantly inferior status, legally, politically, and socially.

There were a number of ways in which the distinctions between Muslims and Christians were observed and enforced. These include but are not limited to the following.

It was forbidden for non-Muslim men to marry Muslim women, although Muslim men could marry non-Muslim women. Non-Muslims were repeatedly forbidden to live near mosques, or to build tall houses. Churches were not to be higher than mosques. It was not permitted for Christians to ring a bell to call the faithful to church, only to hit a wooden board with a mallet.² Christians were not allowed to serve in the army, but had to pay a special tax for that exemption. They were not allowed to bear arms, so they could not defend their farms, property, or families when attacked by predatory nomads. If a Christian on horseback encountered a Muslim on horseback, the Christian must dismount until the Muslim passed by. The testimony of a Christian against a Muslim in court was not valid unless it had been extracted by torture.³ The punishment of a Muslim for a crime was halved if the victim was a non-Muslim.⁴

The complex system of clothing regulations is of special interest in this context. Up to the reforms of Sultan Mahmud II (ruled 1808–39), non-Muslims were required to dress differently from Muslims, to make their inferior status instantly recognizable. A British traveler and advisor to the Foreign Minister observed that [t]he marks of distinction between Greek or Christian and Turk, are dress, name, and mode of salutation; the most important, however, is dress; every one must have felt this who for a day has worn the two costumes in Turkey. When these distinctions are no longer matters of right and law, they will fall into disuse….⁵

In 1580, for example, considering that their attitude from the point of view of the sheriat [Muslim holy law] and of logic should be humility and abjection, Jews and Christians were formally forbidden to dress like Muslims, to wear silk, fur, or red shoes, and required instead to wear dark blue colors. Only Muslims could wear white or green turbans and yellow slippers. Greeks, Armenians, and Jews were distinguished respectively by sky blue, dark blue (later red), and yellow hats, and by black, violet, and blue slippers. The rules governing the costume of religious minorities were regularly reasserted, suggesting they were continuously challenged.⁶ Violators of the clothing laws could be executed. There was the sad case of a Christian beggar who was executed for wearing a pair of used yellow slippers—a color reserved for Muslims—that he had just received from a charitable Muslim.⁷ The adoption of the fez for all government employees in 1829, while supposedly intended to promote social equality, still included small badges to distinguish Christians from Muslims, at least up to the 1840s.⁸ Christians were even to wear signs suspended from cords around their necks, so that they might be distinguished from Muslims when undressed in a public bathhouse.⁹ The Amiras—wealthy bankers and moneylenders who were also an essential part of the state tax collection system, and who were mostly Armenian¹⁰—were allowed to wear special clothing that distinguished them from Muslims and non-Muslims alike.¹¹

Such restrictions prevented Muslims and Christians from developing positive social relations with each other. The clothing regulations, for example, led many non-Muslims, especially the more prosperous ones in larger urban centers, to embrace the fez and the new official dress code as a means of escaping discrimination. Paradoxically, freed now from state-imposed clothing laws premised on religious differentiation, non-Muslims expressed their wealth visibly and publicly through their clothing. Thus, wealthy non-Muslims not only aspired to appear like their Muslim countrymen, but even competed with the highest government officials in ostentatiously differentiating themselves from ordinary people of all faiths.¹²

As a result of this inferior social status and visible differentiation, the Christians tended to develop social ties with other non-Muslims, who were either members of other Ottoman minorities or foreign residents of the empire, who were often connected to European embassies. This religious divide in Ottoman society was a significant factor in the social fragmentation of the empire.¹³ In the Ottoman concept of the social and political order, the non-Muslim subjects had their assigned place. When they were felt to be gaining too much wealth or power, it caused profound resentment among those in the ruling nation.¹⁴

The Economic Status of the Armenians and Greeks

The growth of international trade led to the non-Muslim Ottomans becoming dominant in this activity in the nineteenth century. This was especially the case after the Anglo-Ottoman commercial treaty of 1838, which led to a large influx of foreign capital into the Ottoman Empire.¹⁵ The European merchants were not as familiar with the business markets and practices locally as the native Christians. In many cases, the local markets were too small to make it worth the European merchants’ efforts. And significantly, the nature of buying and selling depended on extending credit to the local consumers, which the Ottoman Christians were able to supply. Thus, the foreign merchant and the local Christian agent complemented each other profitably.¹⁶

In Constantinople especially, the non-Muslim minorities lived close to the large European colonies. Unlike the Muslims, they had no restrictions in associating with Europeans. Jews and Christians were proficient in European languages, which enabled them to act as translators for foreign embassies and trading companies. Furthermore, European merchants were conscious that any contract entered into with a Muslim could be struck down in a Muslim court. Thus, Europeans increasingly partnered with non-Muslim merchants and helped them obtain the same economic benefits from the capitulations that they enjoyed, i.e. exemption from paying the poll tax, lower trade duties, and therefore lower costs.¹⁷ Perhaps even more significantly, the Europeans increasingly provided special legal protection for the non-Muslim merchants, which prevented the sultan from confiscating the latter’s wealth.¹⁸

In addition to foreign trade, the non-Muslims were well represented in finance (banking and moneylending), mechanized transport, export-oriented agriculture, and modern industries. They were also prominent in the professions, such as medicine, pharmacy, engineering, law, and teaching.¹⁹

Ottoman Christians, mainly Greeks and Armenians, represented the majority of officially registered merchants in Constantinople in 1911—as high as 90%. Two-thirds of the largest textile importers were Armenians.²⁰ Of the 654 wholesale companies in Constantinople in 1911, 528 (81%) were owned by ethnic Greeks.²¹ Of the 40 private bankers in Constantinople in 1912, none had a Muslim name; of those who could be identified with reasonable confidence, 12 were Greek, 12 Armenian, 8 Jewish, and 5 Levantine or European. Of the 34 stockbrokers, 18 were Greek, 6 Jewish, 5 Armenian.²² In Smyrna, one of the principal economic centers of the Ottoman Empire and the major exporting port involved in trade with the West, Greeks made up between 40 and 50% of the city’s merchants during the second half of the nineteenth century, and shipping between Smyrna, the islands along the Anatolian coast, and with Greece was dominated by Greeks.²³ Between 1880 and 1910, over 1,500 industrial plants were established in Smyrna with Greek capital.²⁴ In the vilayet of Aydın (in which Smyrna was situated), 4,008 of the estimated 5,308 industrial establishments were owned by Greeks, some 76%, and they employed some 78% of the workers there.²⁵ In 1915, a German observer noted, The whole of the bazaar in Adana is Armenian. The cotton cultivation is also almost exclusively in Armenians’ hands; trade with this commodity in Greek hands.²⁶ The Christian minorities preferred to pay the special head tax in lieu of military service, as the possibilities of a military career were almost non-existent, and pursue more lucrative commercial careers. All this contributed to resentment by the majority population towards the non-Muslim minorities.

The Role of Education in the Status of the Armenians and Greeks

During the Reform Period (Tanzimat), 1839–76, the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire surpassed the Muslim majority in education; this, in turn, led to an increasingly dominant role for the Christians in the economy. In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with a total of some 140,000 students, a figure that far exceeded the number of Muslim children in school during the same time. By 1895, the gap had narrowed, but still only 6.5% of Muslims attended school, compared to some 9% of non-Muslims. The non-Muslims were found especially in the foreign and medical schools.²⁷