by Benny Morris
Sea and in the old city of Jerusalem.3 A few weeks later, a British agent counted 253 freshly minted Armenian corpses, “men, women and children,” between
Salt and Amman. They all “had had their throats cut, except some babies
who had been stamped on. The men were apart, and tied together.” They
had just been rounded up and butchered by Circassian irregulars. Nearby,
some forty- five deportees who had lived in Madaba reached British lines—in
the nude. Their clothes had been stripped by Bedouin.4 The British encoun-
tered their first large group of deportees, some 30,000 strong, when they en-
tered Damascus in October 1918.
The subsequent year of British rule was generally characterized by calm.
As Irish- American missionary Thomas D. Christie, the president of St. Paul’s
Collegiate Institute at Tarsus, put it: “ Under British control the entire vilayet of Adana . . . was perfectly quiet.”5 “This was the year of freedom, happiness,
enlightenment, and reward for the Armenians,” Abraham Hartunian, the mem-
oirist, wrote.6
But from the first there were also signs of trou ble for the British occupation
and for the Christian minorities. In November 1918 the British trouble-
shooter Mark Sykes, while touring northern Aleppo vilayet, predicted the
friction ahead: “Obstruction, stimulation of [Muslim] fanat i cism, local
propaganda among the Muslims, spread of dissension among Arabs and
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
reestablishment of Turkish prestige by demonstration of Turkey’s power to
challenge our decisions.”7 A month later, he noted that the Turks were dis-
tributing arms to villa gers, preparing for re sis tance to the occupation, and
readying massacres of Christians. Discussing the situation, he thought the
Entente must “show [it] means business by immediate removal of all Turkish
authority in Adana, Marash, Shekere, Aintab. . . . Unless such action is taken
I respectfully warn HMG whole future of Cilicia, Syria and Mesopotamia
is endangered.” Specifically, he cautioned that, with the aid of Arabs and
Kurds, “Turkish ascendancy [would] be established and last remnants of
Armenians destroyed.” 8
On December 28, 1918, Allenby informed the War Office that a Turkish
general, Nihad Pasha, was busy organ izing and arming the populace. Large
quantities of weapons were available, left in the villages when Ottoman Army
units demobilized or withdrew from Cilicia. Soldiers and deserters were “wan-
dering about . . . seizing goods and houses of exiled inhabitants.” Nihad was
said to be “exhorting Turks” to or ga nize for re sis tance.9 Demobilized soldiers were joining the gendarmerie.10
Within weeks, a large number of Muslim brigand bands formed and
began operating in the countryside, mainly outside areas of British control.
At first, they appeared lawless, in the manner of the prewar marauders
who persecuted Armenians throughout the east for their own reasons. But
soon the bands coalesced into more or ga nized bodies and were said to have
“enlisted in a Crusade nominally for the defense of Turkish in de pen dence”
from Western occupiers.11 Andrew Ryan, the British number- two in Con-
stantinople, reported that “common brigandage” was transforming into
“po liti cal brigandage,” with former CUP agents guiding the pro cess.12 By
August 1919, with the Nationalists having taken over much of Anatolia, re-
gional governors had largely shifted allegiance from Constantinople to An-
kara and began ignoring or even countermanding British instructions. They
did not fight the British, though. Instead they directed their efforts at at-
tacking Turks who refused to accept Nationalist authority and toward
creating armed groups to persecute Christians. A Turkish gendarmerie of-
ficer, one M. Sherif, reported from Gebze, near Izmit, that “bands are being
or ga nized . . . under the knowledge of the authorities. Their intention is . . .
to attack the Christian villages. . . . The initiator of all this is the kaymakam
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
of Gebze. . . .
The authorities are nothing but the accomplices of the
brigands.”13
Accompanying and compounding the chaos engendered by disintegrating
governance were dramatic demographic shifts. The country was being
swamped by “a migration of peoples which reminds one of the migrations of
the Middle Ages,” observed British Deputy High commissioner Admiral
Richard Webb. He was referring to the influx of Armenian returnees but even
more so to the “million Mussulmans— Bosnians, Pomaks, Macedonians,
Kurds, Lazes, etc.” and Muslims from “east of Erzingan” who flooded into
central and western Anatolia.14 There were also intimidated Christians fleeing
their homes and large numbers of demobilized Muslims returning to theirs.
All these people in motion faced considerable pressure from bad weather and
the Spanish flu, not to mention the destruction wrought by the Rus sian
and Turkish militaries in eastern Anatolia. Large areas had turned into waste-
land.15 By summer 1919, as kaymakam Zia Bey of Michalıç put it, “C’est une
anarchie complète.”16
From the first, Turkish officers and officials were determined to reassert their
authority, especially in unoccupied areas of Anatolia and the Caucasus. Local
CUP cadres enlisted Kurdish support.17 Kurds were easily persuaded, seeing
in the Western powers interlopers and in the Armenians their traditional, con-
temptible vassals. “A watery chestnut, a mongrel and an Armenian— don’t
trust any of them,” ran a Kurdish proverb.18
Turkish views of the Cilicia Armenians were not much diff er ent. In the
prewar years, their disdain had also been flavored by envy and resentment due
to Armenian prosperity and, here and there, the transfer of Muslim- owned
property into the hands of Christian creditors.19 On top of this, by late 1918–
1919, fears of Armenian sovereignty were elevated, and Turks had to worry
about Armenian revenge for the war time massacres. Already in December 1918
Turks complained that Muslims were being robbed by Armenian members
of the French occupying force that had come ashore in Alexandretta. Yet few
Armenians did exact revenge, and the occupying powers generally were able
to curb depredations against Muslims.
In some Cilician towns old CUP hands or ga nized meetings to plan re sis-
tance against the occupiers and “to provoke the Muslims into continuing the
strug gle.”20 British troops were rushed to Antep, Kilis, and Islamiye, “quelling any idea of disorder.” But apparently they reached Antep only after Muslims
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
The Franco-Turkish War, 1920–1921, Sieges and Battles
Zeytun
Van
Pozanti
4-5/1920
5-6/1921
N
Maras
1-2/1920
Antep
Adana
Hacin*
3/1920-12/1921
Mersin 2/1920-11/1921 2-10/1920
Urfa
2-4/1920
Iskenderun
Tigris
Aleppo
Euphrates
Beirut
<
br /> Damascus
* Hacin = Osmaniye
0
100
200
300
French supply port
Siege and battle
KM
had “systematically destroyed” houses in the Armenian quarter and “defiled”
churches.21 Sykes wrote of Turkish “impertinence,” citing the desecration of
an Antep convent the night the commander of the British 5th Cavalry Divi-
sion was to visit the city.22 CUP officials in the town declared that “their in-
tention” was “to massacre all Armenians, drive out the British garrison” and
declare a “small Turkish republic.” They openly discussed attacking the
British military, but they took no action. The British warned Turkish officials
that, if their people failed to keep the peace, they would be held to account.
Entente troops would occupy the region’s towns in force, mutesariffs would
be replaced with British governors, “rabid ‘Young Turks’ [would] be de-
ported,” and the number of Armenians in the gendarmerie would be in-
creased.23 Early Turkish violations of the armistice included the occasional
sabotage of railway lines.24
Muslim anger mounted in the first months of 1919, as the Allied-
controlled government in Constantinople issued a stream of directives to
local officials to restore Christian orphans and women to their communities,
assist refugee return, and return stolen property.25 British troops managed to
nip in the bud massacres planned in Antep and Maraş and at least partially
disarmed the Antep Turks. The British punitively closed cafes, shops, and
markets.26 They also exiled to Aleppo six of the town’s notables.27 But in
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
Armenian returnees in Merzifon— all women and children— collect wool to weave into clothing for orphans. The covered women may be converts to Islam.
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
Aleppo a massacre took place on February 28, at “Turkish instigation.” Be-
tween forty- eight and eighty- three Armenian refugees were murdered and
more than a hundred wounded. The attack was carried out “principally by
Arab police and gendarmes.” Intervention by British troops prevented
higher casualties. The British later hanged three assailants, jailed others, and exiled fifteen to Sudan.28
On March 24 British troops occupied Urfa “to preserve order and protect
the Armenian population.”29 Thereafter the British reacted to depredations
with firmness and lethality, even resorting to the aerial bombardment and
strafing of local tribesmen who had defied their authority. The British also
curbed Armenian nationalist demonstrations that might anger the Turks,
though the latter were not satisfied.30 Although in July the troops in Urfa
instructed local Armenian leaders to cease “provocative” be hav ior, Ottoman
officials remained convinced that the British favored the Christians.31
Muslim depredations against Christians increased in late 1919 throughout
Anatolia. Armenian girls were abducted and merchants were robbed. Local
authorities jailed Armenians on trumped up charges.32 Constantinople, citing
attacks by Armenian gangs, turned a blind eye.33 Over a year later, Bristol was
to write, perhaps with a dash of exaggeration, “Even when the British were in
occupation [of Cilicia] they allowed Christians to be persecuted, intimidated,
robbed and killed.” The British, like the French who succeeded them, were
reluctant to “antagonize the [majority] Moslem ele ment” or use “force to pro-
tect the Christian races.”34
Se nior British officials were aware of the situation. In November 1919
Gough- Calthorpe’s successor as high commissioner, Admiral de Robeck, re-
ported, “The most flagrant cases of injustice to Christians have to be left
unredressed. . . . The Christians are now bewildered and terrified.” Brigands
“posing as patriots,” were regularly robbing Christians and “taking posses-
sion of property restored to their Christian owners.” Supported by the au-
thorities, Muslims were boycotting Christians and preventing them from
earning a livelihood. Indeed, some Christians were terrorized into fleeing their
homes. “ Behind all these ele ments of disorder,” de Robeck said, “stands Mus-
tapha Kemal.”35 American diplomats agreed. Captured documents signed by
Kemal proved “beyond all doubt his responsibility for [the] disorder . . . by
inciting to holy war.”36
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
But not all British officials were clear about Kemal’s personal responsibility.
De Robeck’s successor, Rumbold, as late as February 1921, opined that Kemal
“does not himself encourage or countenance the massacre of Christians, but
rather . . . he is powerless . . . to protect from massacre the Christian popu-
lation of the areas in which military operations are in pro gress.”37 Rumbold
was soon to change his tune.
Early on, the Armenian Patriarchate understood what Rumbold did not.
It reported in summer 1919 that Kemal had “issued telegraphic orders
everywhere” for the formation of bands and that the Turks were preparing
for a “big insurrection.” The Patriarchate also found that “many Turkish of-
ficers” had moved to Cilicia, where they were going about in civilian dress to
“direct the movement” and whip up the Muslim population.38 And soon the
British discovered that ele ments in the Constantinople government were in
cahoots with Kemal. In March 1920 de Robeck reported that the War Min-
istry had ordered the 15th Corps, in Erzurum, “to distribute to the neigh-
boring army corps and to the Nationalists . . . arms and ammunition.” The
13th Corps, at Diyarbekir, was also ordered “to comply” and duly distrib-
uted arms at Maraş and Urfa.39
By autumn 1919 there were murderous raids on Christian villages in
“diff er ent parts of Cilicia.” In the area of Cihan (Djihan), bands raided Pa-
pakhli, Hamdili, Kerune, Köprü, Yenice, and Merdjin (Mercin?). In Küçük
Mangheri, Turkish raiders murdered three men and a woman. Eleven Ar-
menians, including women and children, were killed in Sheikh Mourad
(Şeyh Murat), near Adana. Many of the perpetrators wore gendarmerie
uniforms.40
Return
In the months after the armistice, the British and French encouraged and in
part orchestrated a mass return of Armenian and Greek deportees, particu-
larly to Cilicia. The British recognized a moral obligation to redress war time
wrongs, and the French believed that the presence of a large Christian popu-
lation would make it easier to administer the region, which they hoped to add
to their imperial holdings.41 By late December 1918 more than 40,000 Ar-
menian and Greek deportees had returned, according to the Constantinople
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
government.42 All were destitute and many in ill health. Indeed, “some . . .
were quite insane.” 43 The numbers grew. According to a possibly exaggerated
analy sis by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, 138,070 Christians—62,721 Greeks
and 75,349 Armenians— had returned by February 1919 and 276,000 by
June 19
19.44
A mea sure of repatriation had begun already during the Great War. In
winter 1915–1916, there was a largescale return of Armenian refugees in the
Caucasus to Russian- occupied areas in Van, Bitlis, Erzurum, and Trabzon
vilayets.45 As many as 35,000 reached Van. But a new Turkish push sent them
scuttling back to the Caucasus in 1917.46 Talât and Enver may have told a vis-
iting German Reichstag deputy that “urban Armenians” were allowed to re-
turn to their cities, assuming these were not in “war zones.” 47 But this was
hogwash. The CUP leaders remained dead set against a return of deportees,
aside from a few exceptions at select sites, such as Tekirdağ and Adana.48
The real return began at war’s end, when the Turks were no longer capable,
at least for a time, of preventing it. The British authorities had a natu ral desire to be rid of the burden of refugee care in greater Syria and Iraq, and they sought to do the humanitarian thing by facilitating repatriation.49 The challenge was
enormous. In December 1918 Sykes estimated that there were 80,000 Arme-
nian deportees in Aleppo and Damascus vilayets. Some 4,000–5,000 children
of both sexes had been sold to Arabs— bedouin, villa gers, and townspeople—
“along the road” between the two towns. In Aleppo, he wrote, 200 girls
were being “reared as prostitutes.” The repatriation of these deportees
needed “careful organ ization.” “Indications show that unless steps are taken
by Entente to supervise repatriation, Turks will grow more obstructive as
they know that while Armenians remain exiled birthrate is diminished and
death rate increased,” he noted. He also anticipated that the Turks would
“flood” Antep and Maraş with demobilized soldiers, then “begin killing [Ar-
menians] on a small scale.”50 He urged Her Majesty’s Government to send
“permanent military forces” into the six vilayets and to Adana to ensure that
the return was peaceful. He also recommended setting up “repatriation com-
missions . . . to or ga nize the reception of repatriated people when spring
comes.” Meanwhile, camps had to be established in Aleppo, Homs, Hama,
Damascus, Adana, Urfa, and Antep, where the deportees could be tempo-
rarily housed. He added that unor ga nized “individual trekking home should
