Ummm…look at the years involved. Probably the Soviet occupation.
This book is good reading for anyone interested in the compelling if depressing story of genocide and civilized inaction in the 20th century. Judging from Darfur, I don’t think the 21st is going to be much better.
There’s no reliable census numbers to take a look at the number of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, or the exact number killed for that matter. Here’s a site that talks about the ranges of numbers from different sources, with a range of 1,000,000 to 3,500,000 million Armenians prior to 1915.
Thanks for the excellent link, Jeff B! We should note that even if we take the Turkish government at their word, (and we probably shouldn’t) that’s still 300,000 people killed. I’m not sure why this is a good thing, though I suppose it’s not as bad as 1.5 million.
Turkish denial on this subject is odd. The Germans are building a holocaust museum in Berlin. We’ve got a museum of the American Indian on our mall. Why the Turks can’t own up to their past misdeeds is beyond me.
I believe the criterion is per-regime, or per-period-of-anarchy rather than per-nation or per-administration. Notice that at the time the list is compiled (1987), the USSR and PRC are quoted as still-ongoing; and the count for the Turkey/Armenia situation ends at 1918 eith the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
And it looks also like the list does not only consider systematic genocide, but also regimes that simply did not care how many lives it cost to stay in power, and incidental death due to starvation, disease, etc. consequent to the turmoil.
IIRC, for much of the pre-1948 period the parts of China dominated by the KMT vs. those dominated by the CCP (and by assorted freelance warlords) already operated for practical purposes as separate governments.
Mostly, but it surely includes other conquered Asians
As mentioned, this is Soviet-occupation period, before the formal establishment of the Communist Polish goverment. So it’s Stalin’s smaller-scale western branch office, where he sought to crush what of the Polish nation had survived the Nazis, PLUS accomplish the annexation of half of prewar Poland into Byelorusia and that of Silesia, East Prussia and Pomerania into Poland and Russia – lots of ethnic cleansing.
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I wondered about the inclusion of this one in the list. The years cited are the “official” time period of the Mexican Revolution – which like most revolutions did not really neatly begin and end at either date anyway – and this would imply that they’re counting civilian casualties of internal war against the tally of state-sanctioned murder (in this case, on the heads of the Díaz and Huerta governments?). A civil war with civilian casualties in the millions is appalling, yes, but how do they compute it to attribute to a specific “regime”, when the country was in near-anarchy?
If sfTruth comes back, which I am doubting, I’d like to know what similarity s/he sees in one ugly incident versus several years of ugly incidents.
I agree to the doubt.
But were I an Admin I’d keep an eye out for Acts of Board-War by those who hold views akin to his.
Who was responsible for these deaths? The military government? Indian-Pakistani wars?
Thanks!
WRS
It’s an interesting movie, though not one of the greatest I watched.
It’s centered around an armenian movie maker making a movie about the armenian genocide (so, the scenes about the genocide are actually a movie in the movie), and mix the stores of various characters who all have something to do with the genocide/movie making, like a homosexual turkish actor, an armenian painter, a young guy who’s detaind at the airport by a zealous immigration officer who thinks he’s bringing back drugs from Turkey, the film maker himself, etc…
I rather liked the way the stories are intertwined…
For nearly a century, the Western World has wholeheartedly accepted that there has been an attempt by the Ottoman Turks to systematically destroy the Armenian people, comparable to what the Nazis committed upon the Jews during World War II. Many Armenians who have settled in America, Europe and Australia (along with other parts of the world, known as “The Armenian Diaspora”) have clung to the tragic events of so long ago as a form of ethnic identity, and have considered it their duty to perpetuate this myth, with little regard for facts… at the same time breeding hatred among their young. As descendants of the merchant class from the Ottoman Empire, Armenians have been successful in acquiring the wealth and power to make their voices heard… and they have made good use of the “Christian” connection to gain the sympathies of Westerners who share their religion and prejudices.
“A lie travels round the world while Truth is putting on her boots”, Sturgeon.
http://www.tallarmeniantale.com just check and try to understand what turks genarally think about this issue.
The people who live in Turkey have no hatred against them, altough they’ve done so many massacre in Anatolia and killing our valuable diplomats through the years. Nowadays there are lots of Armenians here in Turkey living in peace and wealthy just like the other ethnic groups. If The Armenian Diaspoara do want to do real things, just force their government to open up their archieves. Turkish Prime Minister has already offered this issue, we are always ready to open our archives even military ones and let this issue to discuss to historians. So do something real.
Peace!
It’s documented.
It’s a fact.
Deal with it.
What year was the census taken and why did the French take it (rather than the Ottomans)?
I’m willing to believe you, but you’re going to have to provide proof that we can verify. Citing some other event doesn’t do any good in provng your assertion that there were only 1.2 million Armenians (at some unknown date.)
To second Sage Rat’s statements: you need to provide not only data backing your claims but also an explanation as to how the data and documentation we have is flawed or misinterpreted.
WRS
Oh, if only Holocaust Deniers were receptive to the facts of the matter. The world would be so much nicer if that were the case.
The Thirty Worst Atrocities, according to the Historical Atlas of the 20th Century. He cites all his sources and can be used as a bibliography, if nothing else.
His essay on the margins of error inevitable when recording war and atrocity death tolls. It’s quite enlightening if you’re a schlub like me who spends more time in the Science (and Science Fiction) section of the library.
Damnit, disregard my second link. It isn’t what I though it was. This is the bloody SOB I was looking for. This gets down into the ranges of deaths he found for various events from various sources.
It’s a fascinating read, if you have an interest in politics, psychology, and statistics.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm
To be fair, his site isn’t operating on zero sleep. I am.
This is, of course, the classic denial argument used by the Holocaust-deniers, as well. “All the Germans I know are such nice people, they wouldn’t have done something so horrible.” After some of the atrocities committed by Americans in Viet Nam, and more recently in the Iraq prisons, we tend to hear lots of people screaming that these accusations are all lies – obviously, no American soldier would ever do anything that awful.
Note that it doesn’t take the active participaton all Germans, or Turks, or Americans, for a government/military to commit atrocities… nor does it require the consent of the entire German/Turkish/American government or military for a few soldiers to commit atrocities. Although, of course, that’s always their defense: “I was only following orders, it was the fault of the entire military complex, not mine.”) Similarly, it doesn’t mean that all Turks are barbarians if we acknowledge the the Turkish government and military (almost 100 years ago) not only massacred over a million people, but engaged in a well-engineered cover-up.
One of the clear signs of bigotry is the tendency to attribute qualilties or actions to an entire group of people, rather than to recognize that the qualities (or actions) should be assigned to a select group of individuals. Thus, as soon as we hear that “[all] the people who live in Turkey have no hatred,” we know we are dealing with someone who stereotypes. I’m damn sure that there are plenty of people who live in Turkey who have enormous hatred against Armenians, against Greeks, against Belgians, against whatever.
And, of course, similarly we see that “they” have “done so many massacre” … again, stereotyping. Whether a few Armenians have committed murders through the years, I don’t doubt. But characterizing the entire population by the actions of a few is clearly stereotyping, an indication of bigotry and bias.
OK, monkeykarma’s question dealt only with Armenian genocide, but how could an entire column on the subject not once mention the 500,000 ethnic Greeks who were similarly slaughtered, in basically the same place, by basically the same people, and for basically the same reasons?
Cecil concludes that it is creepy that a million Armenian deaths could be expunged from human memory so thoroughly, and his inquiry into this matter never turns up one mention worth printing of half a million Greeks? Now that’s creepy.
I, too, can purchase a domain and host it for as little as $60/year. In order to validate your random ramblings, it would serve you best to cite literature from historians and scholars.
Furthermore, Nagorna-Karabagh has nothing to do with the Armenian Genocide. If you read Cecil’s article, you see that promised Armenian homeland was not delivered post-World War I. Stalin further divided Armenia and granted Nakhichevan and NK to Azerbaijan. Those are Armenian lands, as history quite clearly shows.
Cecil - I do want to let you know; however, that the sources out there are not limited to Armenian and Turkish sources. (Also, there are Turkish sources that acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.)
U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, our Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time of the Genocide, wrote and published the book Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story that also documents the Armenian Genocide in at least four complete chapters.
Also, Caravans to oblivion : the Armenian Genocide, 1915 / G.S. Graber ; foreword by Roger W. Smith. Or Revolution and genocide : on the origins of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust / Robert Melson ; with a foreword by Leo Kuper. Or something from England’s archives - Anthology of historical writings on the Armenian massacres of 1915 [by] Viscount James Bryce [and others].
I have much more, but I think you understand. I want to thank you Cecil for answering the question so thoroughly and eloquently. It was published in our local paper and helped me answer the questions I am always asked - what’s an Armenian? Where is Armenia? If you’re Armenian, how come you were born in some random Middle Eastern country? THANK YOU!
[QUOTE=sfTruth]
So called Armenian genocide
Cecil I can not understand how you can make such a mistake. You can look at the census records which were conducted by the French and saw that there were about 1.2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. So can explain to me that how the Ottomans did killed 1.5 million Armenians.
You have answered yourself. The question was only about the Armenians, the answer was only about the Armenians. If someone asked about black slavery in the southern USA, Cece would not need to also bring up the extermination of the Native Americans in the same column.