by Benny Morris
assisted or incited by soldiers, reacted with both spontaneous and or ga nized
mass killings of Armenian men in Constantinople and nearby villages including
Bebek, Rumeli Hisar, and Hasköy. According to Michael Herbert, the British
chargé d’affaires, the Turks had been vaguely aware of the impending bank
raid and, once the slaughter began, ordered troops and police not to inter-
fere, giving the “fury of the Turkish mob” free rein. “A large number of
Softas and other fanatics, were encouraged to come over from the Asiatic
side and there is nothing improbable in the stories current that the clubs and
iron bars with which they were armed were furnished by the municipal au-
thorities,” Herbert reported. Some Turks later told their Eu ro pean employers
that they had “been enrolled by the police as special constables, provided with
knives, and told to kill Armenians during 36 hours.”381
Armenians were shot, knifed, and clubbed in the streets, and mobs broke
into houses, including those of Eu ro pe ans.382 Ware houses, shops, and homes were pillaged. One British diplomat reported two Armenians killed by soldiers “ under my own eyes” in a house next to the embassy.383 Here and there
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policemen handed Armenians over to the mob.384 The killing went on for two
days. On the eve ning of August 27, under Western and Rus sian pressure, the
government began to restore order, but clashes continued for several days.385
On the 29th, sixty Armenians holed up in a building threw grenades and fired
shots at soldiers, killing a captain and wounding several before the building
was stormed.386
As the mayhem unfolded, Western diplomats mediated an agreement be-
tween the bank raiders and the government: the raiders would be allowed free
passage out of the country in exchange for release of the hostages. Early on
August 27, the surviving raiders were conveyed to a French merchant vessel,
the Gironde, which took them to Marseille.387
Many were not so lucky. According to Terrell, 4,000–6,000 Armenians
were killed during the rampage.388 The British reported some 200 Turkish
soldiers killed or wounded.389 Terrell told an eerie story of massacre charac-
terized by “ little noise. No shouting by the Turks and no loud pleadings for
help or mercy by the victims. They were slaughtered and seemed to consent
to their sacrifice like sheep.” At one graveyard he counted seven hundred
bodies. Criticizing the ineffectuality of the powers— including his fellow
Americans— Terrell described the victims as “mute witnesses against timid
and blundering diplomacy.” As to the “better class of Turks,” during the days
of massacre they sat around in the coffee shops “solemnly smoking or sipping
their coffee in dignified silence.” At one point during the massacres, Terrell
was struck by the sight of “a solemn- looking old Ulama.” He trod the streets
“with white turban, flowing white robe and staff in hand” and “stop[ped] by
the body of a dead Armenian. He struck the body with his staff, kicked it three
times and then resumed his deliberate walk.” Terrell was not blind to what
had occurred at the bank— “the atrocious scheme of desperate men to . . .
deliberately and wantonly provoke a massacre of their own race”— but he
believed this could neither “excuse nor palliate the crime of the Turks in
butchering the innocent.” He predicted that “Asiatic Turkey will be again the
scene of massacres.”390
After the killings Herbert concluded, “ There is evidence that the authorities
organised and armed the mob which committed all the massacres on Wednesday
and Thursday. It was only on Thursday eve ning that the Sultan sent orders
to stop the mob, when they were instantly obeyed.” The sultan subsequently
The Massacres of 1894–1896
sent Herbert a message explaining the delay: supposedly the court had not
at first realized “how grave the situation was.” But Herbert knew this was a
lie because the government had informed him early on Wednesday, during
the bank raid, that “all the necessary orders were given for the preservation
of order.”391 “The Mohammedan mob is always entirely under the Sultan’s
control,” Herbert wrote.392
In the weeks after the massacre, the authorities rounded up and imprisoned
hundreds of Constantinople Armenians. Thousands in the city and its outskirts
holed up in churches, which afforded relative safety.393 Thousands more were
exiled to distant parts of the empire; about three thousand reached Trabzon,
Giresun, and Samsun by boat.394 The exiles arriving in Erzurum were “cruelly
treated and half starved,” Graves reported.395 The massacre also triggered a na-
tionwide wave of Armenian emigration. On September 11 Shipley, the British
consul in Trabzon, reported that some 1,400 Armenians, mostly “small traders,
silversmiths, and artisans,” had boarded steamships bound for Rus sia.396
Fearing further anti- Christian outbreaks, some diplomats suggested that a
combined ground and sea campaign by Rus sia and the Western powers might
keep the Turks in check. In the absence of such intervention, Terrell wrote,
Ottoman Christians were at the mercy of the soldiers and “twenty thousand
Ulama and Softas and a fanatical mob” that could spring into action at an
hour’s notice.397 But the Christian powers declined to intervene. Instead, they
lodged a few protests and dispatched small detachments of marines to pro-
tect their own legations.398
Eğin
Unlike the Constantinople demonstration of September 1895, the attack on
the Ottoman Bank did not trigger widespread massacres. Rather, the effects
were localized and constrained. That the response was so limited is further
proof of the central government’s firm control over anti- Christian vio lence
throughout the country: following the bank takeover, the relative quiet in the
provinces came at the Porte’s command, with local officials nipping potential
massacres in the bud.399 Most likely the central government had determined
that it needed to quell anti- Christian vio lence in order to appease outside
powers and prevent pos si ble foreign intervention.
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There was, however, one significant massacre following the bank raid,
possibly authorized by the Sublime Porte. The killings occurred at Eğin, in
Mamuret- ül- Aziz vilayet. Eğin was a mixed Christian- Muslim town, with a
population of 12,000. It was noted for its wealth and refined inhabitants. In
autumn 1895 the town’s Armenians had “purchased exemption from mas-
sacre and plunder” by paying the surrounding Kurdish tribes 1,500 lira and
handing over their weapons to the authorities. The Eğin Armenians under-
stood their peril. A good number of family members lived in Constantinople,
where they suffered after the bank raid. Some seventy were killed in the mas-
sacre in the capital; others abandoned their businesses and fled.400
In Eğin itself the vio lence broke out in mid- September. On the fourteenth,
Kurdish tribesmen gathered on a slope overlooking the town, unquestionably
a menacing
sign. Initially soldiers held the tribesmen back, while the Arme-
nians closed their shops. The next day the governor ordered the Armenians
to reopen their shops, assuring them of “perfect safety.” The Armenians com-
plied. The slaughter began with the firing of a gun by an unknown shooter at
about noon.
The killings lasted three days. According to one report, 857 of the town’s
5,000–6,000 Christians were killed; 50 of the dead were women.401 Another
report put the death toll at 2,000.402 Evidently many ran to the konak seeking
refuge but were cut down nearby.403 Most of the killing appears to have been
done by soldiers, who also guarded the marketplace, to prevent its destruc-
tion.404 Armenians “fled hither and thither” and hid in basements, caves,
drains, and gardens. They were hunted methodically. “ Every male above
12 years of age who could be found was slain,” Fontana reported. Muslims
were forbidden to shelter Christians.405
The murders were accompanied by widespread arson and rape. Most of the
town’s 1,100 Christian homes were put to the torch.406 Two Armenian churches
also went up in flames. Thirty women were abducted; a missionary reported
that “many women and girls threw themselves into the Euphrates.” 407 The vali’s
aide- de- camp apparently described the massacre as “enough to break a heart of
stone.” A missionary reported the feeling among many survivors, who had lost
their homes and bread- winners: “ there is nothing left . . . but emigration.” 408
As with other massacres, the damage wasn’t limited to the town itself. In
the days after Eğin burned, Turkish soldiers and Kurdish tribesmen attacked
The Massacres of 1894–1896
nearby villages, killing hundreds of Armenians.409 One soldier, a Lieutenant
Kiamil, later wrote that a hundred Armenians and eight Kurds were killed in
the village of Pingan. “I myself killed nine of the biggest swine,” he boasted.
“ These blasphemed our lord and prophet.” 410
Muslims did at times come to the Armenians’ aid. Fontana wrote that
Kyamal (Kemal) Bey, the “most influential Turk” in Çemişgezek, went out of
his way to protect Armenians, earning the wrath of local Kurds, who attacked
his farm and granaries. Another Turk, Mustapha Bey of Khoshgeree (Hoşgeri?),
reportedly sheltered and protected about 1,000 Armenians. In Eğin itself a re-
tired col o nel, Hussein Effendi saved Armenians. Fontana also reported that the
acting kaymakam of Çemişgezek “acquired the re spect and gratitude of the
Armenians” and Hassan Bey, the mudir (administrator) of Eğin, was even
more averse to “injustice and outrage, displaying real heroism.” 411
After Eğin settled down, its Armenian bishop was forced to send Constan-
tinople a cable asserting that the “massacre originated with the revolutionary
Armenians” and that the Turks merely defended themselves.412 But there is
solid evidence to support an American missionary’s conclusion that the at-
tack “was carefully planned with intent to exterminate the Armenians.” 413
Fontana pointed out that Haji Muhammed of Saracık, who reportedly
played a “prominent part” in a massacre in and around the town of Arapgir a
year earlier, arrived in Eğin three or four days before the killings. He may have
had a hand in organ izing the vio lence. Fontana also found that, just before the
massacre, the municipal authorities had ordered from Christian artisans a hun-
dred axes that were later used to break down doors. Drawing on the testi-
mony of what he described as eight or nine prominent Eğin Turks, including
“an officer of rank” and “a corporal of gendarmes,” Fontana determined that
the mob and soldiers must have coordinated, as they used primarily “bayonet,
dagger, club and axe” in preference to firearms, which were “more noisy.”
These sources also told Fontana that Eğin officials had conspired for weeks
and that, days before the massacre, had gone to the countryside and informed
Kurdish chieftains and Muslim villa gers to prepare themselves, for “Eghin
would burn.” 414
While there can be little doubt that the killings were planned, the question
of local versus central- government culpability is harder to answer. Constanti-
nople denied ordering the massacre and insisted, to the contrary, that it had
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II
given “stringent instructions . . . to prevent an outbreak.” The government
maintained that “the whole blame for the disturbance rests with the acting
Kaymakam and the local functionaries.” 415 But the government had reason to
target Eğin, the hometown of Siuni, the bank- raid leader. And a Turk who
worked for the telegraph system told Fontana that “the Palace” sent Eğin of-
ficials a tele gram warning that Armenians there were about to cause trou ble.
The message did not explic itly order massacre, but local authorities knew
what to do when instructed to “take the necessary action.” At the very least,
it seems that the army was involved in the planning. On the first day of the
massacre, September 15, Mustapha Pasha, the military commandant at
Harput, wired instructions to Eğin officials— including acting kaymakam Zade
Hakki Effendi—to arm themselves and muster Muslims.416
An American missionary, basing his views largely on the testimony of “two
candid Turks,” was convinced that “the massacre was official”— the effort of
local and central- government authorities working in concert. The Armenians,
he claimed, had offered “no re sis tance what ever”; the killings were unpro-
voked. “ There was no disturbing ele ment, except in the imagination of a few
officials.” 417 Yet, during the weeks leading up to the massacre, local officials
had complained to Constantinople that there were “seditious characters” in
the town. The government “was persuaded . . . and orders were sent to elim-
inate” the disloyal ele ment.418
Halting Massacres
The waves of vio lence ended in autumn 1896, when the Sublime Porte sent
the provinces “the most stringent orders” and “ every pos si ble instruction” to
“prevent fresh disturbances.” Officials who disobeyed would be “held respon-
sible,” the grand vizier warned.419 Provincial officials followed through. In
Erzurum, for instance, the vali separately called in the town’s Armenian and
Muslim notables and read them the “tele gram of the Grand Vizier.” All dis-
turbers of the peace, he said, would be dealt with on the basis of “impartial
severity.” The vali also ordered Muslim clerics “to preach peace and de-
nounce . . . vio lence.” 420
Even before receiving the cessation order, some local officials did what they
could to resist vio lence. This was pos si ble because the central government’s
The Massacres of 1894–1896
orders concerning Christian minorities were often inexplicit, which meant
local officials were allowed a mea sure of discretion. To be sure, many local
officials interpreted “do- what- needs- to- be- done” orders as authorizations for mass murder. But such phraseology also allowed for less lethal interpretation.
Som
e officials exploited this opening to act humanely, stymieing massacres
before or just after they got under way and thereby preventing bloodshed.
One such case occurred in November 1895, when an “infuriated mob”
of Arabs gathered in Aleppo. Reportedly, “ women [took] the leading part in
the demonstration . . . shouting out curses on the ghiaours.” But the ferik
quickly dispersed the mob.421 In Ankara, similarly, Vali Mamduh Pasha
stopped would-be rioters in their tracks after Muslims began purchasing
arms and threatening “to exterminate . . . every Christian.” A clandestine
committee reportedly was “arrang[ing] for a sudden and simultaneous at-
tack,” but the vali dispatched patrols with strict orders to arrest “any dis-
orderly Christian or Turk,” enjoined café proprietors to prohibit po liti cal
discussion, and exiled six Turkish conspirators.422
That same month, officials prevented major vio lence in Muş. Taking note
of the massacres elsewhere, Muslims there paraded “the streets fully armed,
declaring that Muş must not be the only exception in the good work of
exterminating the Christians.” 423 Several Armenians were killed or wounded,
including one by a softa who, according to multiple reports, “drank [the vic-
tim’s] blood afterwards.” But “the better class Mussulmans,” as Vice- Consul
Hampson put it, saved Armenians. The mutesarrif himself rode “into a crowd
of softas and dispers[ed] them with blows of his whip.” 424
Local officials of outstanding character and energy again came to the rescue
of Armenians during the second, smaller bout of massacres, in summer–
autumn 1896. For instance, in Ankara Vali Tevfik Pasha and a number of se-
nior military commanders were unwilling to massacre Christians or see them
massacred. In September, after Turks attacked Armenian passersby “with
bludgeons and knives,” Tevfik ordered his troops to take a hard line. They
killed a Turk and arrested between fifteen and thirty more. One day that
month, the vali made official resolve clear by patrolling “the streets person-
ally” for “six hours.” 425
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Explaining the Massacres
The questions of who instigated the massacres and for what reasons are not
