by Benny Morris
initiated from the po liti cal center. Hundreds of documents published by the
Ottoman and later Turkish governments make clear that removal was a state
proj ect; it was not the incidental result of war time hardships and local clashes.
The deportation was a premeditated, calculated, and pedantically imple-
mented operation.
Two matters, however, are still in dispute. First, the exact timeline of de-
portation. Did planning begin after the outbreak of vio lence in Van and Zeytun
in March 1915? If so, one could conceivably argue that deportation was a re-
sponse, wise or unwise, just or unjust, to perceived Armenian treachery in
these conflicts. But perhaps there was already a plan in the making in the weeks
before Zeytun, and Van, not to mention the Entente landings at Gallipoli, an-
other event that historians have viewed as encouraging CUP fears and the
solution of deportation. If planning began before these events, there can be
no defense on the basis of paranoid miscalculation.
The second, more crucial, matter is whether the deportation was planned
as a genocide. That is, were the deaths— not just the deportations—of between
one and two million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians during Word War I
part of the plan? (We cover Assyrians and Greeks more thoroughly in Chap-
ters 8 and 9.) Or did these deaths result from a combination of war condi-
tions and local initiatives taken by governors, gangsters, and tribesmen driven
by ideology, fear, greed, sexual appetite, and religious fervor? If the latter was the case, then was the state ignorant of the killing, or was it just too weak to
intervene?
A Policy of Genocide
These issues remain controversial in part because there is no smoking gun:
no accessible Ottoman master plan or general order of extermination, no pro-
tocols of the CUP meetings in which this genocide was discussed and agreed
upon. Certainly no policy of genocide was publicly announced.1 Indeed, at
times Ottoman be hav ior seems inconsistent with such a blanket policy. In key
places, notably Constantinople and Izmir, there were almost no deportations
during the war and no mass killings. And where Armenians were deported in
large numbers, they were not always massacred, at least not at first. This was
the case especially in the early phases of deportation. If the leadership had
planned throughout to kill off the Armenians wholesale, wouldn’t the pattern
of action have been uniform around the empire and throughout the deporta-
tions? Even if one agrees that the government was responsible for mass
killings, one might argue that official be hav ior was not inconsistent with a
pro cess of gradual radicalization during the deportation campaign itself.
The controversy over exactly what the Ottomans planned and when echoes
that surrounding the genesis of the World War II Holocaust. In both cases
uncertainty has generated debate between so- called intentionalists and func-
tionalists. With re spect to the Holocaust, intentionalists argue that the destruction of Eu ro pean Jewry was planned well before it started. The seeds and
blueprint of the Holocaust are found in Hitler’s Mein Kampf and other writings of the 1920s and 1930s, which demonstrate that comprehensive ethnic
cleansing of the Jews was a Nazi goal from the first. The Final Solution— the
killing of six million Jews and millions of others in death camps and else-
where— may have begun years later, in 1941, but only because that was when
opportunity knocked following the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German
invasion of Rus sia.
Functionalist historians do not disagree that ideological under pinnings of
the Holocaust can be found in the earlier writings and speeches of the Nazi
elite, among other sources. But these historians argue that the extermination
proj ect began in an ad- hoc manner, spurred by Einsatzgruppen killings carried out at Babi Yar and elsewhere, amid the fog of Barbarossa. Like the per-
petrators of the Final Solution, the Einsatzgruppen and others in the SS and
Wehrmacht enjoyed the backing and direction of the state. But unlike the per-
petrators of the Final Solution, the early Nazi murder squads claimed that
their killings were improvised responses to war circumstances, whether
The Young Turk s
retaliatory or prophylactic. These first massacres and the mass murder of
prisoners of war initiated a pro cess of brutalization, whereby re spect for
life is thrown out the win dow by the act of killing, spurring more killings. On
this view, it was only after the first stages of mass killing that the predicates were in place for an orchestrated effort to exterminate the Jews, which was
then planned in Berlin and implemented at the death camps.
Today’s consensus synthesizes the intentionalist and functionalist perspec-
tives: bottom-up pressures from the field combined with top- down pres-
sures from the Nazi elite to create the Final Solution. On this understanding
Hitler was indeed determined to annihilate world Jewry and was the main
driving force behind the Holocaust, but he had had no master plan until well
into the war. The Holocaust was therefore a result of “cumulative radicaliza-
tion” inside Germany and at the front, inflamed by a genocidal ideology that
preceded the mass murder.2
The same cumulative- radicalization approach has been applied to the Ar-
menian case in 1914–1916, most notably by Donald Bloxham. He suggests
that CUP leaders opted for war partly in the vague hope that the conflict would
provide an opportunity to solve the Armenian prob lem once and for all. But,
according to Bloxham, evidence does not sustain the argument that solving
the prob lem meant physically destroying the Armenians. Rather, the idea of
mass murder, and even deportation on a grand scale, evolved gradually as the
war progressed. Killings may have begun already in January 1915 along the
Rus sian frontier, but these were local initiatives, not the initial episodes in a general campaign of genocide. “Only by the summer of 1915 may we speak
of a crystallized policy of empire- wide killing and death- by- attrition,” Bloxham writes.3
In an impor tant 2003 article, Bloxham pres ents a point- by- point argu-
ment against the intentionalist position. He begins by noting that the re-
structuring of the Special Organ ization in 1914 does not constitute proof of
genocidal intent. The Special Organ ization did become a kind of death
squad, but, Bloxham suggests, we need not question its initial redesign as a
covert, anti- Russian military unit on the eastern front. After all, the original Special Organ ization had been deployed for special operations in the Libyan
War. It stands to reason that, with a new war on, it was resurrected for mili-
tary, not genocidal, purposes.
A Policy of Genocide
Bloxham also notes that, until the war, there was no enmity between the
CUP and the Dashnaks. In fact, the parties had a strong relationship prior to
the hostilities. This may indicate that the CUP entered the war believing the
solution to the Armenian prob lem lay in some sort of cooperation with Ar-
menian nationalists. Only during the fever of war did that position change.
This shift, Bloxham argues, was
conceivably a product of Ottoman fears,
legitimate or overblown. The disarming of Armenian soldiers and civilians,
the formation of the labor battalions, and the mass arrest of notables need not
be understood as preliminary stages in the implementation of a planned
genocide. Instead the arrests could be seen as a reaction to the anticipated
Gallipoli landings and to the uprising in Van; the disarmament motivated by
genuine fear that Armenians, if armed, would assist the invaders. There was
of course serious concern surrounding a pos si ble Armenian- Russian alli-
ance, given that Armenian volunteers had joined the Rus sian army and
fought the Ottomans at Sarıkamış.
Bloxham further questions whether the earliest massacres and deportations
should be seen as evidence of an unfolding, top- down plan for ethnic cleansing.
It is true that in late 1914 and early 1915 the Special Organ ization perpetrated
massacres in the northeast and in eastern Van vilayet, on the border with Iran.
But this was in line with a known CUP policy of punishing recalcitrant vil-
lages and therefore not necessarily a signal of an overarching plan to totally
destroy the Armenians.
As to the deportations from Cilicia in January and February 1915, these
were isolated events, born of the fear of Armenian collusion with Entente
forces planning landings in the eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, the Ar-
menians from this region were deported to the interior, not on death marches
southward, suggesting that there was no annihilation plan at this stage. Mor-
genthau may have reported that Talât told him there was a “decision” to deal
with the Armenians, but a decision is not a plan. At this point there was only
an “ongoing search for a solution.”
Bloxham also notes that, during the course of April, committees were
formed in each province to suggest solutions for the Armenian prob lem. CUP
representatives in these committees insisted on massacre, but were instructed
by the governors to hold off. This suggests that, what ever ideas were brewing
in the CUP leaders’ minds, they had not yet settled on a course of action.
The Young Turk s
If they had, they wouldn’t have been seeking input from the provinces on
how to proceed.
Fi nally, Bloxham sees the timing of the first large- scale atrocities as evi-
dence that genocidal ideas did not become a plan of action until late May. On
May 24, 1915, the Entente announced that it would hold Ottoman officials
accountable for “crimes against humanity.” Thereafter the atrocities intensi-
fied. Talât admitted his fear of international condemnation, but once it
came, there was no longer reason to hold back the Turks’ most vicious ten-
dencies. They had already been damned for smaller- scale affronts to justice
and decency; refraining further would have no effect on their international
reputation.4
In his attempt to prove the case for cumulative radicalization, Bloxham blurs
two distinct questions. First, was there systematic, state- organized killing of
Armenians in the first months of 1915? Second, did a plan of physical exter-
mination take shape in the first months of 1915? Bloxham’s study offers con-
vincing evidence that there were no systematic, state- organized mass killings
in January and February of 1915. But he doesn’t achieve his goal of demon-
strating that no genocidal plan emerged in this period. We agree that mass kill-
ings of Armenians at this time, mainly along the Rus sian border, were in all
probability initiated by local commanders and governors, not by Constanti-
nople. Yet this does not preclude the possibility that a detailed plan for mass
killings was taking shape at the time and was kept secret until after the events at Van and Zeytun.
As we outline below, we believe that such a plan existed already in the early
days of 1915. Indeed, there is reason to believe that, even before the plan came
together during winter, the highest ranks of the CUP were preparing the
ground for annihilation of the Armenians. After the war, many officials testi-
fied that as early as September 1914, Talât had instructed the provinces to
start monitoring the local Armenian leaderships and their communications.
A short time later, Armenian police officers on active duty were dismissed.
Both of these moves would, at the very least, have been useful in preventing
or ga nized Armenian re sis tance.
The design was then finalized over some additional months, and imple-
mentation began in spring 1915 after the bloodshed at Van and Zeytun.
Though these events were not part of that plan, they did shape it, elevating
A Policy of Genocide
CUP fears and demonstrating the viability of deportation as a mechanism for
killing Armenians.
The 1915 plan would finish the job begun in 1894–1896. Massacring
Armenians in large numbers more or less openly had proven only partially suc-
cessful, as Western diplomatic intervention had helped stay the killing. Per-
haps there was a better way. War and its exigencies made mass deportation
opportune. Under the cover of war and deportation, Turks would have a
chance to carry out their annihilationist campaign.
Many officials viewed the destruction of the Armenians as a sacred mission
on behalf of the nation and their religion, some as a strategic necessity, and
still others as a financial opportunity. And there were decent and courageous
Ottoman officials who defied the central government and refused to carry out
the policy of genocide. But there was such a policy and, as we have shown, it
was implemented.
Preparation for Genocide
Although there is no documentation of the planning preceding the deporta-
tion decree of late May 1915, there are strong indications that the CUP lead-
ership discussed the coming effort and concluded in the early months of 1915
that it would perpetrate genocide. Evidence shows a small circle of CUP ac-
tivists began the planning in the wake of the debacle at Sarıkamış. The dis-
cussions were underway before the Allied naval attempts to break through the
Dardanelles in February and weeks before the uprising in Van and the alleged
rebellion in Zeytun. When Bahaettin Şakır arrived in Constantinople in March,
early talks solidified into a set of guidelines for action. In turn, these led to a concrete plan, which was consolidated in April. Fuat Dündar captures the
atmosphere:
Following these military defeats [Sarıkamış, Van], Unionists, who in par-
allel with German military war strategy had dreamt of destroying the
Rus sian and British armies with lightning strikes and of reaching Egypt
and the quasi- imaginary Turan, suddenly panicked about the security
of Anatolia. This led to the conclusion that the only pos si ble way of
saving Anatolia . . . was to change its ethnic composition.5
The Young Turk s
There is testimony to the effect that the Turks had by February developed, at
the very least, a plan to deport Armenians en masse. In his memoirs the Ar-
menian bishop Grigoris Balakian recalled a revealing conversation with an
Armenian acquaintance in Adana. This man tol
d Balakian that in February a
Turkish official urged him to save himself because calamity would soon strike.
“Go to Mersin, get on a steamship and escape to Eu rope,” the Turk had en-
joined him. “I say little; you must understand a lot. Do what you have to do
and get away from here as soon as pos si ble so that you also will not drown in
the coming storm.” When Balakian reported this to the Catholicos of Cilicia,
Sahag II, the latter asked to speak to Cemal Pasha, who was then passing
through Adana on his way to the Syrian front. Sahag then relayed the con-
tents of the conversation to Balakian. According to Balakian, Cemal told Sahag,
“During the deliberations over this matter in the council of ministers, I tried
very hard to argue that instead of deporting and exiling the entire Armenian
population, only the writers, intellectuals and Armenian po liti cal party
leaders— say fifteen or twenty people from each town— should be exiled. I
felt that the helpless common people should be spared, but I am sorry to say
that I was not able to make my voice heard.” 6
Also in February, the military command ordered the disarmament of the
Armenian soldiers and their transfer to labor battalions. There are, of course,
multiple interpretations of this decision. Like Bloxham, Zürcher and Akçam
believe that disarmament was a product of the government’s genuine distrust
of Armenian soldiers. In view of the expected landing at Gallipoli, Enver and
Talât, who took the decision, felt the urgent need to remove Armenians
from combat ranks.7 But, in light of other evidence, the move is highly suspi-
cious. Depriving the Armenians of their status as soldiers not only under-
mined their ability to defend themselves and their communities but it also
denied them legal protection. Technically, the deportation orders exempted
soldiers and their families— but what if the soldiers were no longer soldiers?
Enlisted men went missing all the time— died in battles, were taken prisoner,
or deserted. There was no real need to explain their disappearance. Recall
the case of the former soldiers massacred on their way from Harput to Diyar-
bekir in 1915. Prior to disarmament, Commandant Süleyman Faik erased the
names of all Armenian soldiers from the rolls. From this point on, he had no
