Abstract
The period from 1912 to 1914 was a time of military disaster for the Ottoman Empire as war erupted in the fall of 1912. Following the failed counterinsurgencies in the periphery of the empire and the loss of Libya to Italy, the cumulative defeats of 1912 enabled the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) to seize control of the government. This led to a brief period of strategic pause wherein the exhausted Ottoman state and the Armenian revolutionary committees recognized the possibility of a shared political future. Unfortunately, this short period of hope disintegrated rapidly as the Great Powers once again began to meddle in the affairs of the “sick man of Europe” by demanding the implementation of an intrusive Armenian reform plan. In turn, the CUP and the Armenian committees again moved in divergent directions toward an increasingly militarized capability, which essentially reset them in opposition.
You do not understand the kind of warfare the Turks wage. It is not such as Western Europe knows. There is no mercy shown. It would do you no good to be a non-combatant. You would be slain, just the same, if they caught you. The askares never take prisoners.
—Arthur D. Howden Smith, Fighting the Turk in the Balkans, 19081
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Notes
Arthur D. Howden Smith, Fighting the Turk in the Balkans: An American’s Adventures with the Macedonian Revolutionists (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), 25.
Dikran Mesrob Kaligian, Armenian Organization and Ideology under Ottoman Rule 1908–1914 (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 132.
Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, A Compete History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 135.
Vatche Ghazarian (trans. and ed.), Boghos Nubar’s Papers and the Armenian Question 1915–1918 (Waltham: Mayreni Publishing, 1997), ix.
Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism & the Armenian Genocide (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 2000), 218.
Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel K., History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 290–91.
See Erickson , Defeat in Detail, The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), for information regarding Ottoman military operations in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13.
Roderick Davidson, “The Armenian Crisis: 1912–1914,” American Historical Review, vol. 53, no. 3 (April 1948), 491.
See also Fikret Adanır, “Non-Muslims in the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman Defeat in the Balkan War of 1912–1913,” Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman M. Naimark, A Question of Genocide, Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 113–25.
Antranig Chalabian, General Andranik and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement (USA: First Edition, 1988), 199–200; and Kaligian, Armenian Organization and Ideology, 240.
Şadi Sükan, Türk Silahli Kuvvetleri Tarihi, OsmanlıDevri, Balkan Harbi (1912–1913) IInci Cilt 3ncu Kisim, Edirne Kale EtrafindakıMuharebeler (Ikinci Başkı) (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1993), 341–46. See also Erickson, Defeat in Detail, 146–53, for information in English regarding the operations of the Kircaali Detachment’s operations.
Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, Cemalettin Taşkıran, and Ömer Turan, The Armenian Rebellion at Van (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2006), 163–64.
See, e.g., ATASE Archive 392, Dosya 1554, File1–5, Records and Reports of the Hunchak Committee, Kilkis Branch, dated January 9, August 25, and November 3, 1913, reproduced in Arş.Ş.Mud.lüğü (ATASE staff), Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni Faaliyetleri 1914–1918, Cilt I (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 2005), 17–25.
Hratch Dasnabedian, History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dasnaktutiun 1890/1924 (Milan: OEMME Edizioni, 1990), 101.
ATASE Archive 1–2, Dosya 1036, File 5–22, Circular Number 3, Central Committee, Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, December 23, 1909, reproduced in Arş.Ş.Mud.lüğü (ATASE staff), Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni Faaliyetleri 1914–1918, Cilt IV (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 2006), 453–57. Hereafter Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni, Cilt IV. 40. ATASE Archive 1–2, Dosya 1052, File 1, The General Statutes Governing the Ottoman Social Democrat Hunchakian Organization, reproduced in Arş.Ş.Mud.lüğü (ATASE staff), Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni, Cilt IV, 439–47.
45. ATASE Archive 1–134, Dosya 1035, File 1–36, Courts-Martial Indictment, May 25, 1915, reproduced in Arş.Ş.Mud.lüğü, Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni Faaliyetleri 1914–1918, Cilt III (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 2006), 337–40. Hereafter Arşiv Belgeleriye Ermeni, Cilt III.
Mehmet Talāt Pasha, Talāt Paşa’nın Anıları (ed. Alpay Kabacalı) (Istanbul: İletşim Yayinları, 1984), 63–67.
Jehuda L. Wallach, Bir Askeri Yardımın Anatomisi (Turkish edition of Anatomie einer Miltaerhilfe), trans. Fahri Çeliker (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1977), 118–22;
and Ahmed İzzet, Feryadım, (Istanbul: Nehir Yayınları, 1992), 157–58.
M. Naim Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks; Politics, the Military and Ottoman Collapse (London: I.B.Tauris, 2000), 327–30.
Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks, 348–50; and Metin Ayışığı, Mareşal Ahmet İzzet Paşa (Askeri ve Siyası Hayatı) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1997), 108–14.
Selahattin Karatamu, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Tarihi, IIIncü Cilt 6nci Kısım (1908–1920) (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1971), 209–20.
Ibid.; and Edward J. Erickson, Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War 1, A Comparative Study (Abingdon, OX: Routledge, 2007), 8–10.
Mesut Uyar and Edward J. Erickson, A Military History of the Ottomans, From Osman to Atatürk (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009), 237–38.
See, e.g., Taner Akcçm, The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity, The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 157–285;
Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 175–96;
Raymond H. Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, A Complete History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), 167–206.
Safi, The Ottoman Special Organization, 15. Some historians assert that the SO has direct antecedents that are traceable to the period 1908–1909. For these assertions, see Stanford J. Shaw, The Ottoman Empire in World War I, Volume 1 Prelude to War (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurum Basımevi, 2006), 356; and Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, 37–38.
See Philip H. Stoddard, The Ottoman Government and the Arabs, 1911–1918, A Premininary Study of the Teşkilât- İMahsusa, unpublished PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1963, 53, asserting Enver’s involvement; and Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide, 175, for CUP involvement.
İsmet Görgülü, On Yıllık Harbin Kadrosu 1912–1922, Balkan-Birinci Dünya ve İstiklâl Harbi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurum Basımevi, 1993), 43–44. See also Stoddard, The Ottoman Government and the Arabs, 53–55.
Otto Liman von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey (Nashville: The Battery Press, 2000, reprint of the 1928 edition), 8–9.
Cemal Akbay, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi, lnci Cilt, Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nun Siyasıve Askeri Hazırlıklarıve Harbe Girisi (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1970), 212–13. See also Erickson, Ordered to Die, 37–39 for a comprehensive explanation of the new war plan.
Ibid., 231–33. See also Edward J. Erickson, Ordered to Die, A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 40–47, for a comprehensive explanation of the mobilization and concentration plans.
Erickson, Ordered to Die, 19–47; and see also Mustafa Aksakal, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), for the definitive comprehensive treatment of this subject.
Safı, The Ottoman Special Organization, 28. Safınoted that there are estimates of over 40,000 SO files maintained at ATASE. For information on the Turkish military archives, see Edward J. Erickson, “The Turkish Official Military Histories of the First World War: A Bibliographic Essay,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 39, no. 3 (2003), 190–98.
Ibid. See also, e.g., Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act, The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 161–66; and Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, 179–82.
Some historians have expressed doubts that a dual-track SO existed. These include Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 69–71.
In fact, 100 percent of all accounts of the SO two-track system base their assertions on the work of Vahakn Dadrian, who published several articles in 1991 about the organization. See Vahakn N. Dadrian, “A Textual Analysis of the Key Indictment of the Turkish Military Tribunal Investigating the Armenian Genocide,” Armenian Review vol. 44, no. 1/173 (Spring 1991), 1–36;
and Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Documentation of the World Warı Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal,” International Journal of Middle East Studies vol. 23 (1991), 549–76.
However, Vahakn Dadrian stands accused of mistranslating, misquoting, and using phrases out of context to support his claims. See Erman Şahin, “Review Essay: The Armenian Question,” Middle East Policy, vol. XVII, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 144–62, with particular attention to “On Yusuf Rıza Bey’s Testimony,” 153.
Michael A. Reynolds, Shattering Empires, the Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 121.
I am indebted to Garabet K Moumdjian for providing information from Hratch Dasnabedian, History of the Organizational Structure of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Other Studies (ed. Yervant Pampukian) (Beirut: Hamazkayin Press, 2009), 374–75.
Rupen Der Minasian, Rememberences of an Armenian Revolutionary, Vol. 7 (Tehran, 3rd edition, 1982), 126–27. I am indebted to Garabet K Moumdjian for providing this information.
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© 2013 Edward J. Erickson
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Erickson, E.J. (2013). Invisible Armies. In: Ottomans and Armenians. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137362216_6
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