Having thus sketched as briefly as possible the early history, ethnology
and physical features of the country, we shall be better able to
understand what is commonly known as the “Armenian Question.”
When the Ottoman rule was established, the plain-dwellers and the
pastoral tribes of the mountain slopes still preserved their national
customs, language and vices, and they have retained these to this day.
The waves of conquest had swept over the cold, inhospitable plateau
into the richer and warmer plains beyond; but while the conquerors had
established governors and garrisons, they had never planted colonists;
this is the principal reason why there has been so little change in this
strange country. When we hear of the aspirations of the Armenians for
independence or absorption by Russia, we must always remember that from
all accounts the mountaineers, or Kurds, have been as long established in
Kurdistan as the plain-dwellers, usually called by the name of Armenians,
and have consequently an equal right to a voice in the matter.
How then is it that the Armenians have developed a national sentiment,
whereas the Kurds, who equally retain their former customs and language,
are bitterly opposed to any alteration in their present condition?
We all know that Constantinople was captured by the Osmanli Turks in the
year 1453. Their sultan, Mahomed II., a liberal and wise ruler, granted
religious freedom to the conquered races in his dominions and, in order
not to be troubled with their continual disputes, organized all the
non-Moslems into communities or “millets” under their own ecclesiastical
chiefs, with absolute authority in civil and religious matters. There
was already at this time a large number of Armenians in Stambul, who
in due course were formed into a community of this kind under their own
Ecclesiastikos or Patriach. When Selim I. conquered Armenia the Gregorian
Christians of that country were by an imperial iradé incorporated under
the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, while the Kurds, who had
embraced Islam under the Seljuk rule, received no special treatment since
they were of the same religion as their rulers.
The formation of the conquered races into separate communities under
their own ecclesiastical chiefs, though inspired by the most benevolent
principles, has, by fostering centrifrugal aspirations, been the root
evil of all the subsequent internal troubles in the Ottoman Empire.
Sir Charles Wilson in his article on Armenia, in the “Encyclopædia
Britannica” explains how this happened in the case of the Armenians:
This _imperium in imperio_ secured the Armenians a recognised
position before the law, the free enjoyment of their religion,
the possession of their churches and monasteries, and the
right to educate their children and manage their own municipal
affairs. It also encouraged the growth of a community life,
which eventually gave birth to an intense longing for national
life. On the other hand it degraded the priesthood. The
priests became political leaders rather than spiritual guides,
and sought promotion by bribery and intrigue. Education was
neglected and discouraged, servility and treachery were
developed, and in less than a century the people had become
depraved and degraded to an almost incredible extent. After
the issue, in 1839, of the hatt-i-sheriff of gül-Khaneh, the
tradesmen and artisans of the capital freed themselves from
clerical control. Under regulations, approved by the Sultan in
1862, the patriarch remained the official representative of the
community, but all real power passed into the hands of clerical
and lay councils elected by a representative assembly of one
hundred and forty members. The “Community,” which excluded
Roman Catholics and Protestants, was soon called the “Nation,”
“domestic” became “national” affairs, and the “representative”
the “national assembly.”
But there the process of evolution stopped, for although the national
idea became familiar to the Armenian population, there was no real
aspiration for a national or separate existence. A well-informed and
acute writer, ‘Odysseus,’ in his book “Turkey in Europe” tells us that
until the years succeeding the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878:
the Turks and Armenians got on excellently together. The
Armenians looked upon Russia as their enemy, and a large
Armenian population from that country migrated into Kurdistan.
The Russians restricted the Armenian Church, schools and
language; the Turks on the contrary were perfectly tolerant and
liberal as to all such matters.
They did not care how the Armenians prayed, taught and talked,
and in many ways found them the most useful and loyal of their
Christian subjects. The Greeks were always inclined towards
Hellas. But there was no Armenia.
The Armenians were thorough Orientals and appreciated Turkish
ideas and habits. While the wealthier members of the community
lived in accordance with Turkish custom, the poorer found
employment as domestics in Moslem houses. With the exception of
those who settled abroad for commercial purposes, the Armenians
were quite content to live among the Turks and spend their
money in Turkey.
The Armenians even went so far as to speak Turkish among
themselves, and their present language contains numerous
Turkish words (to the extent of almost forty per cent.), and
though Kurds and Zaptiehs perhaps rendered life at times
a little too eventful, on the whole the “Sarafs” or money
changers gained more than brigands and tax-collectors combined.
The balance of wealth certainly remained with the Christians.
The Turks Seated them with good humoured confidence and the
phrase “millet-i-sadika,” the loyal community, was regularly
applied to them.
The toleration of the Government and the friendly relations which
existed at that time between the Turks and the Armenians, as described
by ‘Odysseus,’ is fully corroborated by the following passages from Mr.
Geary’s book “Through Asiatic Turkey”:
The Chief of the Dominican Mission, a very enlightened man
who has been for some years resident in Mosul, did not share
these misgivings. He did not consider that he ran any risk
of losing his life through Mahommedan fanaticism. As for the
Government, he said that the religious toleration enjoyed under
it was complete. It never in any way interfered with what the
Christians did or taught in the schools or the churches. It
was impossible to desire more absolute liberty of worship or
teaching. But in civil administration there was great scope for
improvement, and, indeed, an absolute necessity for it. The
laws were good, but they were not steadily applied. The laxity
and want of thoroughness which characterised every department
were inexplicable and allowed even the best conceived measures
_to result in mischief_.... We found the village of Krelani
to be one of considerable size: the inhabitants being half
Christian and half Mohammedan. Religious differences seemed
to be completely disregarded, Christian and Moslem being on
the most friendly terms. The chief men of both sections were
sitting in a little circle in front of the Kahia’s house when
we arrived, and they rose and saluted me very civilly.... I can
only say, that if there be any bigotry amongst these people,
I saw no manifestation of it throughout my long journey: I
could not have been received with greater courtesy if I had
been myself a True Believer.... He is a very strict Mussulman,
though, like most Turks, whether strict or not, he is very
tolerant.
It should be observed that the Armenians as a race are considerably
scattered. The original territory known as Armenia having been annexed
by Russia, Persia, and Turkey, the bulk of the Armenian population is
divided between these three Powers. They are estimated to number in
Russia about 1,000,000, in Persia 150,000, and in Turkey, including
Salonika and the lost European Provinces, 1,500,000. In addition to these
there are about 250,000 Armenians scattered through Europe, America, the
East Indies and Egypt. As we shall subsequently see, all the troubles
originated from outside and not in Kurdistan itself. The first disturbing
element, in the opinion of ‘Odysseus,’ was the arrival of a number of
Protestant and other foreign missionaries. This judgment, disappointing
as it must be to many who are deeply interested in the religious side of
missionary work, is amply corroborated by Sir Edwin Pears, who admits in
his book, “Forty Years in Constantinople,” that “In a very real sense
it may be said that the fomenters of political agitation in Armenia,
as in Bulgaria, were the schoolmasters and the missions, Catholic or
Protestant.” These good men, as we are told by Sir Mark Sykes, in his
interesting and most important work entitled “Dar-ul-Islam,” soon found
that
It was as impossible to turn an Oriental Moslem into a
Christian, as it would be to transform an English Christian
into a Jew; hence their missionary effort was confined to
turning one kind of Christian into some other kind.[2] Large
sums of money were spent in transforming a Jacobite into a
little Bethel Peculiar Anabaptist, in converting the little
Bethel Anabaptist né Jacobite to Roman Catholicism, and in
reforming the Roman Catholic late little Bethel Peculiar
Anabaptist né Jacobite into an American Keswickian Presbyterian.
But the process of turning a Jacobite into an American Keswickian
Presbyterian spoilt a good Oriental and made him a discontented and
semi-europeanised Asiatic.
The first Armenian converts to Protestantism were subjected to fierce
persecutions by their fellow Armenians who clung to their old form of
faith, and for their protection from this persistent annoyance and
cruelty the Sultan about 1857 issued an iradé recognizing the Protestants
as a separate religious community independent from the Orthodox Armenian
Church and free from any interference by its officials.
The second disturbing factor were the clauses inserted, at the request
of Russia, in the Berlin Treaty of July 13th, 1878, whereby the six
signatory Powers acquired the right of superintendence and interference
in the internal affairs of Kurdistan. The clauses of this treaty imbued
the Armenians with the idea that they were entitled to the grant of
special privileges from the Porte, and this was easily fomented into
the notion of founding an Armenian kingdom, or at least an Armenian
autonomous state. These ideas were further encouraged by the formation of
the Bulgarian Principality and by the foundation in London in the year
1890 of the Anglo-Armenian Society “whose laudable object was hampered by
their invincible ignorance of the spirit and methods of the East.”[3]
The third disturbing element was the development, after the Russo-Turkish
war, of the Nihilist movement in Russia. The persecuted Armenians of the
Caucasus readily entered into the conspiracy, the Armenian branch of
which had its headquarters at Tiflis.
The Czar’s Government increased its severity towards the Armenians,
and when the Russian police made the existence of the secret societies
at Tiflis too precarious, the Armenian revolutionaries moved their
headquarters and branches to New York, Paris, London, and Geneva, where,
between the years 1889 and 1892, they founded their secret societies the
Hintchak, the Aptak and subsequently the most diabolical of them all,
the Dashnahsutium. They also founded a regular revolutionary propaganda
publishing their own papers and reviews.
These societies, by blackmailing and preying upon the rich Armenian
financiers and traders of Europe and America, soon became wealthy
corporations. Hunted out of Russia, they sent their emissaries into
Kurdistan, where they renewed their nefarious campaign. Although
denounced and hated by the respectable resident Armenians and the
priests, whom they blackmailed and murdered as occasion offered, they
even tried to embroil the central government with the European Powers by
committing crimes, the responsibility for which they attempted by false
evidence to fix on the Missionary Colleges. They committed murders in
the streets of London. In New York the police unearthed a conspiracy of
blackmail, bomb outrages and murder, which completely terrorized the
rich Armenian bankers and merchants. A little over two years ago the
London Press reported the discovery by the New York police of a further
conspiracy of terrorism and assassination.
The advent of these revolutionary agents into Kurdistan had the
inevitable result of embittering the former good relations of the Turkish
Government and the resident Moslem population with the Christian, and
especially the Orthodox Armenian section of the inhabitants.
This was natural for the reason that in Turkey the people have a horror
of secret societies and plots, founded on the experience of their
own suffering at the hands of the Greek Hetairia and the Bulgarian
Komitadjis. The fears of the Turks and the Kurds were genuine. They
believed that the members of the once loyal “millet-i-sadika” no longer
merited that title, and that they were arming and preparing to massacre
the Moslems. The whole country became like a powder magazine, and Europe
had not long to wait for the inevitable spark which started what are
known as the Armenian massacres of 1894 and 1896.