Gentlemen, this historic conference has come together to draw up a map
of a new Europe and a new Near East which will in no part violate the
principle of nationality--the great weakness and inherent injustice of
former treaties, which has been largely responsible for the disastrous
war now happily come to an end.
You have also assembled as a great international tribunal to uphold the
sanctity of law and humanity, and to give judgment as to the just
reparation that must be made, and as to the penalties to be exacted for
all outrages committed during the war against humanity and the laws and
usages of civilized warfare.
Among the multitude of problems, great and small, that await a just and
wise settlement at your hands, there is also the Armenian question.
This question may appear, to some of you at least, a small and
insignificant one in the presence of the great and weighty questions of
world-wide importance that await settlement. I claim for it without any
fear of contradiction that in point of outraged humanity and
civilization, measured by the sacrifice of innocence, the magnitude and
unspeakable horrors of the martyrdom, destruction and ruin that has been
brought upon this people with a calculated, deliberate object, and
without the slightest provocation; I maintain that, on these
incontestable grounds, this is the greatest Wrong that ever demanded
justice and reparation at the bar of a great International Tribunal.
And it is not Turkey and Germany alone who owe us reparation, although
upon their shoulders lies the guilt for the innocent blood that has been
ruthlessly shed, the wanton destruction that has been wrought and the
untold suffering and sorrow brought upon this people during the war. All
the Great Powers of Europe have their share of responsibility for
leaving them at the mercy of the Turk to be murdered, burned, outraged,
enslaved, to provide this or that European Statesman the satisfaction of
having scored a point against his opponent in the sordid jealousies and
rivalries of conflicting interests.
In 1877 Russian armies, partly under Armenian generals, occupied our
country, and we hoped and believed that the hour of our liberation from
the hideous nightmare of Turkish domination had struck.
It was a short-lived joy. The Congress of Berlin assembled soon after,
tore up the Treaty of San Stefano which had given us the blessing of
effective Russian protection, compelled the liberating Russian armies to
evacuate our country, and left us once again the sport and prey of our
Turkish and Kurdish tormentors.
After the butcheries of 1895-96 Great Britain was prepared to exact
effective guarantees from the Sultan Abdul Hamid, if necessary by force
of arms, against a repetition of these unspeakable barbarities; but the
Russian Government of the day, sore at the rebuff administered to it by
the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention, opposed Great Britain's
proposal of taking coercive measures to stay the hand of the Great
Assassin.
In 1913 a Scheme of Reforms proposed by Russia formed the subject of
discussion by the Powers, and was finally agreed to by Turkey after it
had undergone such modifications and revisions at the instance of the
Turks, backed by Germany, as to render it of little practical value. The
war intervened before the scheme could be put into operation, and it
remained a dead letter, as had all its predecessors. Meanwhile massacre,
outrage, rapine, plunder, and all conceivable forms of oppression and
persecution went on without respite, though in varying degrees of
intensity, culminating in the frightful hecatombs of the last two years.
Although, of course, such was not their object and intention, the net
result of these transactions was to give the Turk the opportunity, as
events have unfortunately proved, of murdering, burning, drowning,
torturing, violating, enslaving and forcibly converting to Islam at
least 2,000,000 unoffending and defenceless Christians within the
comparatively short space of forty years. I do not for a moment suggest
that the authors of these Treaties themselves foresaw such a result of
their efforts. But that makes no difference to the result. Europe backed
"the wrong horse," as Lord Salisbury had the courage to say, and the
stakes were the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent
Christians--men, women and children--and a sum of human suffering and
misery such as the world has probably never seen before.
I gratefully acknowledge the efforts made by the successive British,
French, Russian and Italian Governments, from time to time, to bring
moral or diplomatic pressure upon the Turks to treat us with less
harshness and inhumanity. But the Turk, Young and Old, knew that
coercion would never be used against him. He treated all European
representations with amusement and contempt and went his way
relentlessly, intent upon wiping out the whole race. He felt more secure
from the danger of coercion after the Christian Emperor William II, on
his return from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, paid a visit to and
fraternized with the Sultan Abdul Hamid while his hands were still red
with the blood of the fearful massacres of 1895-96.
That, gentlemen, has been the net result of the solemn promises given by
the Turks in the Treaty of Berlin, for which every Signatory Power has
its share of responsibility. Since that Treaty became the law of Europe
we have made numerous appeals and representations for the application of
Art. 61. The reply we received from the Ministers of the Signatory
Powers was almost the same every time and everywhere. "Insistence on the
application of Art. 61 will lead to complications; you must wait for a
favourable opportunity."
Gentlemen, that long-looked-for opportunity has at last come.
Armenia--"the little blood that is left to her"--stands at the bar of
this Conference, full of hope and expectation that the Entente Powers
will compel Turkey in the first place to make full reparation for the
untold horrors, outrages and injustices that she has inflicted upon her;
that they will compel Germany to compensate her for her acquiescence in
the atrocities committed by the Turks while Turkey was under her
influence and control; and that they will add their own quota as a debt
of honour and conscience in return for a part at least of what she has
had to endure as a result of the diplomatic transactions cited above,
for which they have their share of responsibility. You cannot give us
back our dead, but this Conference gives you the opportunity of exacting
and making a reparation as generous as our trials and sacrifices have
been heavy.
"What do you expect this Conference to give the Armenian people as their
adequate reparation and just rights?" I would probably be asked.
This is what I should expect the Conference to give to my nation, in all
justice and equity:
The formation of an autonomous Armenia, comprising the vilayets of Van,
Bitlis, Erzeroum, Kharput, Diyarbekir and Eastern Sivas, also Cilicia
with an outlet on the Gulf of Alexandretta, say from the port of
Alexandretta to a few miles south-west of Mersina.
This State to be an internationally guaranteed neutral State with its
ports and markets open to all nations. It would have an Organic Statute
drawn up for it by the Protecting Powers, England, France, and Russia,
giving equality before the law to all the different elements of the
population with extra-territorial rights and consular courts for
Europeans for a term of years. Russia to act as mandatory of the
Protecting Powers, and during the first few years the executive to
consist of a Governor-General or High Commissioner and a mixed
Legislative Council appointed by the Protecting Powers. A Legislative
Assembly to be called together as soon as the country regains its normal
state.
The country being at present in a more or less chaotic state, an army of
occupation will be necessary for as many years as will be required to
organize and train an efficient gendarmerie from the local population.
European advisers and heads of departments would be necessary, but there
are large numbers of experienced Armenian administrators, magistrates,
post and telegraph inspectors, engineers, etc., etc., in the Ottoman
Empire as well as in the Caucasus, Egypt and the Balkans, who would
gladly put their services at the disposal of their own country. Some
would probably come from America, India and elsewhere. Adequate
financial compensation by Turkey[30] and Germany would place at the
disposal of the executive ample funds to begin the work of rebuilding
the ruined towns and villages and reconstruction generally, and to carry
on the Government of the country until the first year's harvest is sown
and gathered and revenue begins coming into the Treasury.
This is the scheme I would propose in broad outline, it being impossible
to go into details here.
"But there is not a large enough number of Armenians left to form a
State," I may be told, as I have been told so often recently. (I may say
here, in parenthesis, that the Turkish and German delegates cannot
advance this objection, as their Governments have denied the existence
of any massacres.)
That is an entirely mistaken assumption, created by the frequent but
inaccurate use of the phrase "Armenian extermination." The Turks did
make a final ruthless attempt to exterminate us, and have dealt us a
staggering blow as a race; but, gentlemen, they have not quite succeeded
in their nefarious design, and it would be a sad day, indeed, for
civilization if such a design had succeeded.
There are to-day 500,000 Turkish Armenians in the parts of vilayets in
occupation of the Russian armies, in the Caucasus and Northern Persia.
Far from their spirits being broken, these people are animated with the
unshakable determination that their beloved country shall rise again
from its ashes and their nation revive and enter upon a new era of
security and free development. Armenians all over the world are animated
with the same spirit and determination. Of the above half-million 50,000
or 60,000, mostly able-bodied men, are in different parts of the
occupied provinces. There are a little over 250,000 refugees in the
Caucasus and Persia, and some 200,000 emigrants and refugees from
pre-war massacres; most of them are ready to return to their homes, one
potent reason for the readiness of the pre-war emigrants to return
being the growing scarcity and dearness of land in the fertile parts of
the Caucasus. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of Armenians in
concentration camps in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. How many are
alive to return to their devastated homes, I cannot say. Perhaps the
Turkish delegate will be able to inform the Conference on that point.
Then there are still large numbers of Armenians--though mostly old men,
women and children, so far as our information goes--in Anatolia and
Thrace, and over 200,000 mostly young, intelligent, ambitious men, who
have emigrated since the beginning of Abdul Hamid's reign of terror, to
the United States, Egypt, the Balkans, and different other countries. A
not unimportant number of these will return to their native land ready
to "do their bit" in the--to them--sacred work of its reconstruction and
regeneration with invincible industry.
This will give us within a very short time an Armenian population of not
much under one million souls in the proposed Autonomous Armenia. It may
not form a majority taken as a whole, but it will form the largest
coherent ethnological element. In many important centres, such as Van,
Alashgerd, etc., where there are almost no Turks left and a much smaller
number of Kurds than there was before the war, it will form an absolute
majority. This is an important fact which the Conference should bear in
mind. Although the Armenian element is sadly reduced in numbers, the
great majority of the Turkish and kindred elements in these occupied
provinces have, as is their wont, followed the retreating Turkish armies
and will probably never return. On the other hand, Armenians have for
some time past and do still percolate through the Turkish lines in
groups of various sizes and gain the Russian lines. This movement of
population will almost certainly continue for some years, tending to
increase the Armenian and reduce the Turkish element in the proposed
Armenian State, if such a State is set up. Similar movements of
populations have always taken place whenever any piece of Turkish
territory has passed under Christian rule.
I may also remind the Congress that when Greece achieved her
independence, the population of Greece proper did not exceed 400,000.
Another important point bearing on this question of population is the
fact, to which most students of Near Eastern affairs have borne witness,
that the Armenian race is endowed with extraordinary powers of
recuperation, is almost entirely free from the diseases that impede the
rapid growth of population, and is one of the most prolific races in the
world. Their neighbours, on the evidence of travellers and students, are
less free from disease and, in spite of polygamy, or perhaps partly
because of it, are much less prolific.
But apart from mere counting of heads, it is, I believe, generally known
and admitted that there is a vast difference between the moral,
intellectual, economic, and industrial value of the Armenian population
as compared with most of its neighbours, the Armenians being markedly
superior in every field of human activity. They have proved this even
under the most trying handicaps, and when they have had a fair field
they have easily proved themselves the equals of Europeans. In fact,
the Armenian mind is much more European than Asiatic.[31]
Lord Cromer has said that "the Armenians with the Syrians, are the
intellectual cream of Near Eastern peoples."
But apart from all these practical and certainly essential and vital
considerations there remains, messieurs, the moral argument which, I
feel quite certain, this august Conference, representing the will and
the conscience of Europe, is not minded to ignore.
After the massacres and deportations of 1915 Talaat Bey is reported to
have said: "I have killed the idea of Armenian autonomy for at least
fifty years." Whether he said it or not, that was clearly the object--to
kill the Armenian question by wiping out the Armenian race, and
incidentally to destroy the roots of Christianity in Asia Minor.
Is this Conference going to condone and justify the barbarous and
revolting practice, as a State policy, of the deliberate attempt to
murder a whole nation in cold blood, by permitting that infamous policy
to succeed in its object?
Is it conceivable that this historic Conference can bring itself to
decree that the myriads of our brothers and sisters who have fallen
victims to the super-tyrants' fury, for their religion and their nation,
as well as those who have fallen in the common struggle for Right, have
suffered and died in vain?
In the name not only of the living, but also of the dead, I appeal to
you; I appeal to the heart and conscience of Europe to desist from
enacting such a flagrant and cruel injustice.
M. Paul Doumer, late President of the French Senate, declared in Paris
not long ago, with a fine sense of French chivalry and outraged
humanity, that when the question of Armenian population came to be
considered at the end of the war, the dead must be counted with the
living. Who but my martyred nation has the moral right to invoke the
memorable and exalted words of the French officer who, at a moment of
dire straits for men, looked at his fallen heroes around him and
exclaimed "Debout les morts!"?
I appeal to you, in particular, great and noble-hearted Russia, our
mighty neighbour and protector. Our destiny is indissolubly bound up
with yours. Without the protection of your mighty sword and your most
generous grants to our refugees, the Turk would have succeeded in his
sinister design. We will remain ever grateful to you, and loyal to the
death. We have always proved our unswerving loyalty to you in your hour
of peril. We in our turn have rendered services which have been of value
to you. Your generals gave our men great praise. Your foremost
newspapers hailed our soldiers and volunteers, and with truth, as the
saviours of the Caucasus. Your great Statesmen and Ministers declared in
the Duma that our terrible sufferings were chiefly due to our loyalty to
Russia. Have trust in us. Help us to stand on our feet again and rebuild
our devastated homes. _Leave us freedom to develop and progress
according to our own national genius._ Some of your newspapers are
speaking of a scheme to plant Russian colonies in Armenia, "to create a
dividing zone between the Russian and Turkish Armenians."[32] If this is
true, it is an injustice. I am speaking candidly as a friend of Russia,
and a supporter of my nationality as my birthright. Russians will always
be welcome amongst us. To show our feelings towards you I may mention
the fact that in conversation between themselves Armenians do not speak
of you as "Russians" but as "kéri," which means "uncle." But it is
manifestly unfair to establish colonies and apportion lands before the
repatriation of our numerous refugees, some of whom may be the owners of
the land given away. Besides, what is the object or the necessity of a
"dividing zone" between the Turkish and Russian Armenians? We are all
ready to rally to your support again if the need should arise, as we
have always done in your righteous struggle against barbarism. Such
measures, before the blood of our numerous victims is dry on our land,
grieve and perplex us. I say again, we welcome your protection, but
enable us to say always, as Sir Wilfrid Laurier said of the French
Canadians, "We are loyal because we are free." With such just and
liberal treatment from you, we will not only create in a short time
important markets for your trade down to the shores of the
Mediterranean, but you will have in us a reliable bulwark and
counterpoise, on your southern frontier, against the turbulent elements
who are a standing menace to that frontier. The stronger you help us to
grow, the more secure that frontier of your empire will be.
To England, France and Italy I appeal jointly with Russia, to prevent
the Congress from finally condemning to death our long-cherished and
legitimate aspirations of national regeneration, for which we have paid
such a fearful price. In particular I appeal to you to give us an outlet
to the sea, not only as an indispensable necessity of our economic life
and development, but also as the avenue of Western Culture which a hard
and cruel fate has so long withheld from us.
Let the radiant sun of liberty and security shine again on our land of
sorrow and drive away for ever the stifling miasma of the Turkish
blight, and there will spring to life, within a generation, a people
with a passionate craving for the light and progress of the West--a
people morally and mentally equipped and adapted for the assimilation of
the New Dispensation not only for its own benefit, but also for its
dissemination amongst its less advanced neighbours--a well-qualified and
willing instrument and leaven of Christian civilization.