The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity

The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire

Taner Akçam

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781400841844
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

An unprecedented look at secret documents showing the deliberate nature of the Armenian genocide Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in unprecedented detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. Presenting these previously inaccessible documents along with expert context and analysis, Taner Akçam's most authoritative work to date goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing.Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a "crime against humanity and civilization, " the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's "official history" rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that Akçam now uses to overturn the official narrative.The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic.By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.

INDEX

Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables.

Adana: assimilation-related policies in, 299, 302, 329–30

censuses in, 278

confiscation of missionary schools in, 329–30

deportation of Armenians from, 39, 58–59, 176, 188–89, 230–31, 240, 253, 276–77, 281, 376–82, 386, 410

deportation of Greeks from, 39, 57, 103, 192–93

dispersal of confiscated property in, 346–48, 364

massacres of 1909 in, 129

religious conversion in, 299

reports of unre st in, 178–81

and settlement of Muslim refugees, 52, 56, 57. See also Dörtyol

Ahmad Esat (Esat Uras), 13

Ahmed Rıza, 351

Ahmet Rıfat Çalika, 20

aid: offers of foreign humanitarian assistance, 264, 277–78, 373, 424n160, 426–30, 432–33

prohibited at Der Zor, 277–78, 437, 439

provisions during deportation, 266–67, 269

punishment for providing, 436–37, 439

Akheterim, 277

Aleppo: Celal Bey’s memoirs as record of events in, 6n8, 135–36, 179, 402–3, 428–29

census reports requested from, 278–79

deportation of Armenians to, 135–36, 161, 188–89, 230, 245–47, 248, 255, 256n100, 265–66

expulsion of Armenians from, 57, 192–93, 256, 275, 276–77

as gathering and detention site, 265–66

Muslim refugees resettled in, 57, 357–58

population estimates for, 256–57

reports of Armenian uprising in, 159

settlements created in, xviii–xix, xxxi, 268–69, 275

10 percent rule applied in, 248–49, 251–52, 256–57

Ali Münif Bey (Ali Münif Çetinkaya), 19–20, 282n193, 379–80

Ali Suat, 12–13, 198

Ankara government, 9

annihilation, x–xi

as alternative to assimilation, 290–91, 334, 337–38

of children, 199–200, 312

deportation as means of, 198–202, 425

disposal of bodies, 200, 212, 269–70, 432

economic rewards of, 212

genocide as, xxviii–xxix, 271–72

murder of Turkish administrators opposed to, 196

as obje...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Guide to Ottoman Turkish Words and Names
• Abbreviations
• One Ottoman Sources and the Question of Their Being Purged
• Two The Plan for the Homogenization of Anatolia
• Three The Aftermath of the Balkan Wars and the “Emptying” of Eastern Thrace and the Aegean Littoral in 1913–14
• Four The Transformation of Ottoman Policies toward the Ottoman Greeks during the First World War
• Five The Initial Phase of Anti-Armenian Policy
• Six Final Steps in the Decision-Making Process
• Seven Interior Ministry Documents and the Intent to Annihilate
• Eight Demographic Policy and the Annihilation of the Armenians
• Nine Assimilation: The Conversion and Forced Marriage of Christian Children
• Ten The Question of Confiscated Armenian Property
• Eleven Some Official Denialist Arguments of the Turkish State and Documents from the Ottoman Interior Ministry
• Twelve Toward a Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Index