by Benny Morris
Mukus . . . would fill a volume. . . . This district has been all but emptied of its Christian inhabitants. The taxes of those who have moved away are
demanded of those who remain although their fields have been all seized by
the Kurds. Those who remain are . . . beaten, imprisoned, and wish to emi-
grate, but are prevented from doing so and turned back to die in their deso-
late homes.” 6
Occasional Armenian re sis tance to raids, or reluctance to pay officials were
interpreted, or at least designated, by Ottoman administrators as rebellion.
Indeed, these were seen as violations of the natu ral order and unconscionable
lèse- majesté: resisting oppression, passively or actively, however ineffectually
and minutely, challenged the po liti cal and religious status quo and threatened
or seemed to threaten the sultan’s primacy, honor, and manliness. Such
thinking was linked to religious views and sharia law, which, as one Western observer put it, using a term for Christian subjects of the Ottoman regime,
“prescribes that if the ‘rayah’ Christians attempt . . . to overstep the limits of privileges (berat) their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind the Armenians had tried to
overstep those limits by appealing to foreign Powers. They therefore consid-
ered it their religious duty and a righ teous thing to destroy and seize the lives and property of the Armenians.”7 It appears that in the early 1890s there was a
rise in religious tempers, prob ably generated in part by the Islamist winds
blowing from Abdülhamid’s Constantinople. In Maraş, for instance, it was
reported that “Muslim fanat i cism” had grown into a “fierce . . . passion.” 8
There were, by then, Armenian nationalist parties, but most Western ob-
servers, and Armenians themselves, attributed their emergence not to a col-
lective revolutionary impulse but rather to despair following the complete
failure of the government to implement the Treaty of Berlin reforms.9 A British
diplomat explained that local officials believed that it was in their interest “to
The Massacres of 1894–1896
maintain the friction [ sic, fiction] of a perpetual Armenian agitation, which is only prevented from breaking out into open revolt by their zealous efforts.”
Moreover, these officials understood “that any act of oppression or injustice
towards Armenians will be overlooked, if not actually rewarded, by their su-
periors, an idea which has also taken root and borne fruit among the Kurds
of the country districts.”10
There also were acts of vio lence by Armenians, but neither Turkish offi-
cials nor the masses looked beyond their ste reo types about ethnic- religious
collectives: the actions or thinking of a few Armenians in specific places were
attributed to all Armenians. As one British diplomat put it, “The Ottoman
officials, instead of distinguishing between the guilty and innocent, chose,
some from ignorance, many from motives of personal pecuniary gain, to re-
gard all Armenians as traitors, scheming to throw off the Ottoman yoke.”11
In the story Ottoman officials told themselves, revolutionaries and “agita-
tors” had infiltrated from Rus sia or Persia and were preparing for “the day.”
Alternatively, Armenian revolts might coincide with war with Christian powers
along Turkey’s borders, in the Caucasus or the Balkans. Or a revolt could serve
as an excuse for, and trigger of, cross- border offensives by Christian powers
bent on aiding Christians. The fear among Turkish officials was very real, even
if the potential or reality of Armenian revolution were not.
The Ottomans therefore reacted harshly to even whiffs of sedition, and
tended to blame Christians without evidence. For example, when, in 1892 and
early 1893, seditious posters appeared on walls in Amasya, Merzifon, Tokat,
Yozgat, Ankara, and Diyarbekir, the authorities responded with mass arrests.
One poster read, “The last days have approached of Abdül- Hamid, the tyrant,
who has soiled the sacred Throne of Osman and rendered the religion of
Islam detestable. . . . The moment of vengeance has arrived.”12 Armenians— who
would not likely criticize the regime in Islamist terms— said the posters were
hung by softas (Muslim seminarians), who disliked the regime. Alternatively, discontented local ex- officials may have hung them in order to inflame
Turkish sentiment against Christians. What ever the case, the authorities
used the posters to crack down on the Armenians. The British consular
agent in Samsun, Alfred Spadaro, spoke in early 1893 of 1,800 Armenians
arrested in the eastern and central provinces of Asia Minor. Others thought
the real number was about half that.13
Abdülhamid
II
Although the Ottomans routinely upbraided the outside powers for under-
mining their authority, many bought into the idea that Christians were rebel-
ling with the aid of foreign powers. After meeting with Ankara Vali Abidin
Pasha, Robert Windham Graves, the British “consul for Kurdistan,” agreed
that “a widespread movement of disaffection existed among the Armenians
in this province, and that of Sivas, having its centre in Marsovan.” The move-
ment was “financed and inspired from abroad” and had recruited “a number
of adherents, mostly young and ignorant hotheads of the lower classes.” They
had been responsible for vio lence against government informers and other tar-
gets. Abidin produced a detained Armenian who said, according to Graves,
that “the intention of the movement was . . . to cause such disturbances in the
country as should attract attention to the oppressed condition of his fellow-
countrymen, and compel the interference of Foreign Powers.” Graves praised
the vali and noted that Christian prisoners were “treated with humanity.”14
But within weeks Graves was skeptical about “the genuineness of the sup-
posed insurrectionary movement” in the two provinces he had toured. The
Armenians, he wrote, “had no special grievances,” and “every thing points to
the fact that an insurrectionary movement was never seriously intended, the
design really being to create an appearance of revolt and disorder for the pur-
pose of attracting attention and provoking foreign interference.” Graves said
that a revolutionary committee had put up placards and recruited supporters
in the two provinces, but its outreach was largely unsuccessful. The “total
number . . . joining the movement can[not] have exceeded a few hundreds,”
he wrote. The Turks managed quickly to stifle the movement with mass arrests.
Graves thought the crackdown and occasional “misconduct” by the authorities
partially “justified the complaints of persecution.”15 He would soon become
a severe critic of Ottoman be hav ior.
Most Western observers agreed with Graves’s assessments. They recog-
nized in Armenian nationalism not some wayward collective revolutionary
impulse but an understandable response to oppressive conditions. These were
supposed to be ameliorated by reforms. But the Sublime Porte failed to im-
plement each of the successive schemes for reform. Instead the government
became increasingly paranoid, attributing to all
Armenians the rebellious ac-
tions of a few in isolated places. When Armenians acted up, they were usu-
ally refusing excessive taxation or resisting raiders, not revolting.
The Massacres of 1894–1896
“The Quarrelsome Eu ro pean Nursery.” Emerging nationalist parties in the Balkans and Anatolia were sometimes seen as proxies of the squabbling Eu ro pean powers.
When considering the Ottoman actions of the mid-1890s, it is impor tant
to keep in mind both motivations and realities. Yes, Armenians in eastern
Anatolia were buying small arms surreptitiously and by late 1893 there were
revolutionary groups at work, with foreign agitators adding fuel to the fire.
Christian missionaries sowed discontent merely by invoking and inculcating
foreign modes of thought.16 But, for all that, the Armenian national movement
posed no serious threat to Ottoman power— certainly nothing that could war-
rant the oppression they lived under and the slaughter that was to follow.
The Early Massacres
The under lying hatreds, fears and tensions of the early 1890s came to a head
in late 1893 and early 1894 in two episodes that heralded the giant mas-
sacres of a few months later. In Yozgat and Sason (Sassoun), local officials
and the Constantinople brass perceived a hint of Armenian assertiveness
and a wish for equality. This “alarmed the Palace considerably.”17 In both
places, but especially Sason, local Muslims and the state responded with
Abdülhamid
II
unpre ce dented ferocity, demonstrating the lengths to which they would go
to crush what they seemed to view as mortal threats.
Yozgat
The events immediately precipitating the bloodletting in Yozgat, in Ankara
vilayet, began in November 1893, when an Armenian activist in the nearby
village of Incirli (Indjirli) Keris killed an Armenian police informer.18 Fearing
collective punishment, the villa gers handed the killer over to the authorities.
But after Armenians accused of involvement in an armed revolutionary com-
mittee freed the man from custody, gendarmes responded by ransacking the
village. They robbed homes and arrested twenty “of the principal inhabit-
ants.” These men, unconnected to the supposed committee, were taken to
Yozgat, imprisoned, and tortured to elicit confessions. The gendarmes beat
them with chains, cut them with “blunt tin knives,” inflated their intestines
with bellows inserted a posteriori, and “squeezed” their testicles. An Ottoman
commission subsequently freed thirteen of the prisoners, but seven had signed
confessions and remained in jail.19
Then, in December, gendarmes raided another village, whose name ap-
pears in reports as Kara Chair. The gendarmes were looking for “committee
men”—or, alternatively, men who had cut telegraph wires nearby— and briefly
detained twenty villa gers. While the men were in custody, the gendarmes and
chief of police went to detainees’ homes and there raped six or seven women,
“three of whom were virgins.” Several other young women also were raped.
Although there was no evidence of crimes on the part of the detainees, fifteen
of them were taken to jail in Yozgat. On December 12, after officials refused to talk to the villa gers about the prisoners, the villa gers met in a Yozgat church to decide what to do. During the meeting, the Kara Chair Armenians “excited
the Yozgat Armenians to fury.”
Muslims, including soldiers, surrounded the church. The district governor
called on the crowd to disperse and promised the Armenians redress. When
Armenians emerged from the church, a Turkish soldier fired, hitting an
Armenian in the leg. Fearing impending massacre, Armenians fired back;
three Muslims and an Armenian died, and dozens were injured. Thereafter
Yozgat’s Christian shop owners defied official “ orders and entreaties” by
The Massacres of 1894–1896
closing down their businesses for two weeks in an effort to secure their goods
from pos si ble looting. Some Muslim- owned shops were shuttered as well.
The military commandant, Osman Pasha, prevented Turkish “reprisals”
against the Armenians. According to the local British consul, Henry Arnold
Cumberbatch, these events had “no connection with any ‘revolutionary’ move-
ment, as was at first suggested in some quarters.”20
After word of the mayhem reached Constantinople, the government sent a
commission of inquiry to investigate. Led by Hilmi Pasha— whom a Protestant
cleric described as “mild and civilized” but also a morphine taker, “indolent
and addicted to drink”— the commission arrested dozens of Armenians. “The
victims [ were] apparently selected for their wealth or position or because some
official bore them a grudge,” a British report stated.21
Hilmi’s commission never made much pro gress, in part because its work
was soon overtaken by new emergencies. On February 1, 1894, Yozgat gen-
darmes attempted to arrest a man “for alleged treasonable language.” In the
course of his flight, he shot and wounded a local police commander. The au-
thorities quickly caught up and arrested him. He was murdered by his jailers
that same day. The following day, a crowd of soldiers and locals attacked
Christian passersby, their homes, and Christian- owned shops, killing per-
haps fifteen and wounding eighty. The majority of injuries were reportedly
caused by bayonets, indicating the primary responsibility of soldiers. The
riot continued from morning till sunset. Hearing the hubbub in the streets,
Hilmi reportedly rushed out “into the snow . . . in a dressing gown and
stockings and with a coffee cup in his hand” and asked whether “the Arme-
nians were rising.” After soldiers explained what was happening, Hilmi re-
plied, “Thank god, I will finish my coffee” and returned to his rooms. The
British ambassador, relating the incident, said that “no Turkish officers took
part in the riot, but they did not attempt to restrain the rioters all day.” In the course of the pogrom, some 200–300 Armenians were jailed, and several of
these were murdered in prison. According to the ambassador, no Muslims
were killed, hurt, or imprisoned.22
The tumult was brought to an end on orders from Hilmi. The wounded
were taken to prison “and kept there till they recovered or died.” Armenian
civilian doctors were barred from attending; the injured were instead treated
by Turkish military doctors. Martial law was proclaimed, and Hilmi left town
Abdülhamid
II
the next morning without investigating the riot or completing the inquiry
into the previous incidents.23
That job would be left to a military court headed by Mustafa Pasha, whom
British Ambassador Philip Currie described as “an exceedingly fanatical
Turk.” Mustafa freed a hundred of the prisoners taken during the pogrom,
but the court was other wise hostile to the Armenians, abusing them and
ignoring their testimony. While the court addressed the events at Kara Chair,
Incirli, and the Yozgat church, it overlooked the pogrom and its perpetrators.
The women raped at Incirli were put on the stand, where the commission
“spoke to them severely and in
very coarse language.” The three ex- virgins
were “told . . . to describe the exact details. . . . The girls began to cry and said they could not tell a man of their own religion such things, much less
Turkish officers, and one of them fainted.” The married women “volun-
teered full details,” but the court nonetheless ruled that “as the persons said
to have been assaulted refused to confirm the details, there was no case.”24
Although no Turks were brought to justice, several dozen Armenians were
tried for crimes related to these events.25
The proceeding was a farce. Witnesses pres ent in court later said that the
judges intimidated, reprimanded, and harangued Armenian witnesses as in-
fidels. “You see the Islamic nation is great,” one judge proclaimed in the midst
of the trial. According to Western reports, Muslims were cajoled to “bear false
witness,” the local mufti having issued a fatwa declaring it “lawful to kill, as-
sault, and falsely accuse” men who oppose the government.26 Sentences were
carried out in April: one Armenian was hanged, fifteen more were condemned
to death, and three dozen were given long prison terms.27
The incidents in and around Yozgat deepened the conviction among
Ottoman officials and the Muslim public that Armenians presented a revo-
lutionary threat. Hearts and minds were conditioned for vio lence— whether
preemptive strikes against Armenians or vengeance following seemingly
inevitable rebellion. In February the American consul in Sivas, Dr. Milo A.
Jewett, raised the alarm. He warned his superior Alexander Watkins Terrell, the
American minister in Constantinople, of “rumors” concerning a “contemplated
assassination of the Christians at Sivas.”28 To the British consul in Trabzon,
Henry Z. Longworth, Jewett wrote of an impending “massacre”: “notables . . .
plotting an attack upon Christians.” Jewett had obtained the names of the
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