The Official Beginning of Armenian Terrorism

The Hunchak’s call of action or their "manifesto" is found on pages 432-439 URAS book as translated from the text published in London in 1887. (See Uras, Esat, Tarihte Ermeniler Ve Ermeni Meselesi, 1976.) The students published in Armenia their party manifesto in the October-November 1888 issue of their newspaper. It is of interest to note that middle- and upper-class Armenians in both Turkey and Russia did not support the student cause. The Hunchak organization published a series of steps to be taken:

1.  The present order must be removed by a revolution and must be replaced by a new society.

2.  The first goal of the party is to obtain the political and national independence of Turkish Armenia. (Armeniansmade up less than a third of the population.)

3.  The methods to be used to reach this goal are propaganda, provocation, terror, organization, and the peasant and worker movement. The propaganda will consist of explaining to the people the basic reasons and the appropriate time of the revolt against the government. Provocation and terror are necessary to increase the people’s courage. The main methods of provocation will be demonstrations against the government, not paying taxes, not wanting reform, and creating hatred against the aristocratic class. Terror will be the method for protecting the people and obtaining their trust in the Hunchak program. The party’s aim is to use terror against the Ottoman government, but the government will not be the only target. Terror will also be used against dangerous Turks and Armenians working for the government, spies, and informers.

4.  A special branch will be formed to organize these terrorist activities.

5. The party shall include a central committee. Two large revolutionary groups shall be formed by workers and peasants. In addition to these groups, bands of guerrillas shall be formed.

6. The most appropriate time to realize the revolution will be when Turkey is at war.

7. After independence of the Armenia of Turkey, the revolution will be extended to the Armenia of Russia, and Iran, and a Federative Armenia will be established.

This "revolutionary program" adopted the views of Russian revolutionaries. The Armenian students founded their "workers and peasants" Hunchak Party in Geneva in August 1887. This student "revolutionary" party changed its name in 1890 to become the Revolutionary Hunchak Party, as this was the name of their newspaper.

The student leaders established their headquarters in Istanbul and organizers were sent to establish party support in Bafra, Merzifon, Amassya, Tobat, Yozgat, Arapkir, and Trabzon. These young people also expanded their operations into Russia and Iran. The Revolutionary Armenian Federation, or Dashnaksutyun as it is known in Armenia, was formed in Russia in 1890. In the beginning the leaders lived in the city of Tiflis in modern-day Georgia. The official "program" of this group was adopted during a General Congress meeting in 1892. This organization, like the Revolutionary Hunchak Party, also began to publish a newspaper, Droshak.

The official party manifesto stated the organization would form revolutionary groups and stage revolts to achieve its objectives. The basis upon which the revolutionary groups were organized was published in their official manifesto:

1.  To organize fighting bands.

2.  To use every means, by word and deed, to arouse the revolutionary activity and spirit of the people.

3.  To use every means to arm the people.

4.  To organize revolutionary committees and establish strong links between them.

5.  To stimulate fighting and to terrorize the government officials, informers, traitors, usurers, and every kind of exploiter.

6.  To establish communication for the transportation of men and arms.

7.  To expose government establishments to looting and destruction.

(See The Armenian Revolutionary Movement by Louise Nalbandian, 1963, p. 168.)

The Revolutionary Armenian Federation was a terrorist organization from day one. This would be the organization that would take control of Armenia after the end of World War I; they have continued state-sponsored terrorism to the present day.

As pointed out in Chapter One, the Armenian Church has been a sponsor of Armenian terrorism from the start. Consider this: In December 1882, seventy-six Armenians were arrested in Erzurum. Those arrested were members of the Defenders of the Motherland Society.

The Ottoman government convicted forty of the seventy-six defendants; they received prison sentences of five to fifteen years for their terrorist activities. However, most of the defendants were pardoned by the sultan the next year at the request of Patriarch Nerses and Bishop Ormanian. Those remaining in prison were pardoned in 1886.

From the year 1895 onward there was a constant series of terrorists acts instigated by Armenians. The Ottoman government reports that 1,828 Muslim men, women, and children were killed and 1,433 more were wounded; 8,828 non-Muslim men, women, and children were killed and 2,238 were wounded. (See Hazinei Evrak, Carton 302, Number 111, file 6, No. 74.)

In the years after 1895, there were constant Armenian rebellions or attempts at rebellion throughout eastern Anatolia. When World War I began on September 6, 1914, the Ottoman government sent a message to the provinces in Anatola directing officials to keep close watch on Armenian leaders. At this time the Ottomans were at war with Russia.

February 25, 1915, marks the date the Ottoman Supreme Military command sent orders regarding Armenians because many of them in the army were deserting. Other orders state that preparations were being made by Armenians to begin a rebellion. The day before, the ministry of interior directed that the Armenian committee centers be closed, their documents seized, and leaders arrested.

On May 30, 1915, the Ottoman Council of Ministers approved the removal of all Armenians from behind their army battle lines. The order was as follows: "It is absolutely necessary to annihilate and destroy by effective operations this harmful activity which has a bad effect on the war’s operations which are designed for the benefit of protecting the state’s security and existence». Details of the Armenian removal will be discussed in depth in a later chapter. There is no genuine proof the Ottomans desired to do anything but remove this very real threat to their army and this is why the Armenians were removed. It is noted that Armenians have produced fake documents in an attempt to prove otherwise. This is a part of the Armenian "genocide industry" that extorts money from the Christian world. In a report delivered by the ministry of the interior on December 7, 1916, there is a statement that "702,900 Armenians had been relocated and that in 1915, 25 million kurush had been spent for this purpose and until the end of October 1916, 86 million kurush had been spent; and until the end of the year the year 150 million kurush more would be spent» (See Genelkurnay, Vi, KLS361, file 1445, F. 15-22.).

If the Turks had wanted to massacre the Armenians why didn’t they just do it rather than spend 261 million kurush to remove the Armenians? The Ottoman government was in terrible financial condition and didn’t have this money to throw away. It makes no sense for them to spend a fortune to remove the Armenians and then massacre them along the way. Several American and British eyewitnesses actually saw the Armenians leaving the country (more on this in later chapters). Who is to be believed? Armenian terrorists or American and British officials?

The church participation also gave the religious blessing and approval to the armed rebellion. There are numerous examples of the church giving direct aid and assistance to help in an effort to overthrow the Ottoman Muslim government. There are several time periods in the region between 1827 and 1923 when there was inter-communal violence between Christian Armenians and Muslim Ottomans. It is likely the history of incidents are incomplete at best, because Armenian attacks on Muslims are not published. However, when Muslims attacked Armenians, the reports almost always were intensely exaggerated, claiming the Turks were making unprovoked attacks on Christians.

The actual truth is that Armenians attacked Ottomans more often than the Ottomans attacked the Armenians. Both Christians and Muslims knew each side was killing the other in growing numbers as the years passed. They also knew that as the ebb of battle flowed back and forth, the civilians on first one side and then the other would be forced to flee for their lives. They understood, firsthand, when inter-communal war came to them, they would surely be killed.

The animosity that began to grow between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks started when the Russians began their military conquests into the Caucasus. The Armenians were widely scattered throughout the southern Caucasus and eastern Armenia. In 1800 the Armenians were not a majority population in any region of any size, including the area known as Armenia today. The Armenians realized that without Russian help, they could never create and establish what they would later call their "ancient” homeland. It is interesting that the self-called Armenian "ancient" homeland had far more Muslims living there in 1800 than there were Christian Armenians.

Throughout the 1800s the Russians attempted to move ever westward by military conquest. When they took Muslim Ottoman lands, there were always two results: the forced removal of the Muslims regardless of how many generations they had lived there, and the moving of the Christian Armenians into the vacated Muslim lands to replace the fleeing Muslims.

There was almost one hundred years of warfare between the Russians and the Ottomans that began with the Russo-Turkish war of 1827-1829. In this, and each war to follow, the pattern was always the same. The Russians sent attacking armies into established Ottoman lands. The Armenians, living within this Ottoman territory, always supported the attacking Russians. The Russians acquired lands by force and the large Muslim majority population living there was forced out without compensation. The Russians then gave the Muslim lands to Armenians, who moved in right behind the departed Muslims.

In the 1827-1829 war, there was a massive population exchange between the Muslims and Christians of the Erivan region of the Caucasus. By the time the Russo-Turkish wars of 1855-1856 and 1877-1878, so many Christian Armenians had moved in from the Ottoman Empire they became, for the very first time, a majority population in a land called Armenia today. Thus the so-called "ancient" homeland dates from the mid-1850s.

By 1864 the Russians controlled the Caucasus. It was at this time the Russians began in earnest their program of forced removal of remaining Muslims. It was their objective to establish a Christian land that would be loyal to the Russian church.

"The Russians adopted a system of attack and repression that made it impossible for the Muslims to remain in their homes. Villages were plundered, then destroyed. Cattle and anything else necessary to survival were taken. The Russian method was a classic system of forced migration that would later be repeated again and again in the Caucasus and the Balkans – destroy homes and fields and leave no choice but flight or starvation” (7). The Armenians continue this brutal scheme in their invasion of present-day Azerbaijan.

In 1867, Grifford Palgrave, British consul, rode through the Abhazian region of the Caucasus. He reported: "It is very painful to witness the extinction, as such, of a nation whose only crime was not being Russian» (8).

Once the Russians forced the Muslim Turks out of their homes and off their lands, these poor people faced other enemies – disease and malnutrition. The Christian Russian conquerors gave the departing Muslims no provisions or assistance as they left their "ancient" homelands. It is no wonder so many of these destitute Muslims died before reaching safety within the Ottoman Empire.

When the Ottomans threw the Armenians out of the country for starting a rebellion and killing Turks in 1915, the Armenians cried they were mistreated because no one gave them supplies and provisions. However, when they were given Muslim lands and the Muslims were forced out with no supplies or food, the Armenians did not raise a finger to help them. Quite a double standard.
The Armenian dictatorial political organizations believed that once they helped the Russians defeat the Ottomans, the Russians would allow them to create an independent state within Russia. British Ambassador Layard viewed this situation correctly. He realized the Christian Armenian revolutionaries were deceiving themselves. The ambassador understood that if Russia did defeat the Ottomans, the Russian bear would swallow up the Armenians (9).

Because of this ill-founded belief, there were Christian uprisings and inter-communal battles between Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Muslims throughout eastern Anatolia during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. Armenian guerrillas slaughtered the inhabitants of Ottoman villages, and when the Muslims responded, Armenians would be killed in return. There is no way to know how many people died on each side during this civil war. However, the massacre and counter-massacre were sufficient to establish the hatred between Christians and Muslims in the region.

The war that led to the Ottoman government’s removing of all Armenians behind Ottoman battle lines began on November 2, 1914. This was the date Russian troops occupied Ottoman border regions. By the following spring, few Ottoman forces stood in the way of a Russian inland advance.