by Benny Morris
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
be stopped,” again for the protection of the returnees. To encourage the re-
turn of Armenian children, he recommended paying rewards to Muslim fam-
ilies that gave them up and punishing those concealing them. He also sug-
gested examining Muslim- Armenian marriages from the war period.51
Britain’s director of military intelligence felt that Sykes did not “fully ap-
preciate” the manpower prob lem involved in such an effort.52 But British
officials—as well as American offcials and Armenian leaders— did generally
agree in winter 1918–1919 that the deportees should stay put at least until
spring.53 The War Office thought “premature” repatriation would trigger “in-
cidents.” It was better to temporarily maintain Armenians in Syrian and
Mesopotamian camps where they could be efficiently fed or else, the dip-
lomat Thomas Hohler suggested, “in the town[s] where they have taken
refuge.”54 Without delay until spring, the American consul in Salonica
wrote, “the remnant of the [Armenian] nation stands a fair chance of per-
ishing on the return trip.” Over it all hovered a larger, po liti cal question:
Should the Armenians be returned to “their former homes or perhaps the
new Armenia that may be formed?”55
But that winter, no matter the weather, Turkish obstructionism, and the
hesitancy or contrariness of Western diplomats, large groups of deportees
voted with their feet. The trickle turned into a “stream . . . and it is now very hard to check it,” Webb reported in December 1918.56 “Apparently the desire to return to their former homes has been much stronger than the logic”
of sitting out the winter, the U.S. diplomat Lewis Heck explained. By early
January 1919, Heck reported, some 800 of Izmit’s prewar Armenians had re-
turned; in Bardizag, of 10,000 prewar Armenians, some 1,500 had returned.57
By February about 2,000 returnees had reached Maraş.58 In early April 2,761
reportedly had returned to Adapazarı and its surrounding villages, out of the
original Armenian population of 26,000.
Armenians came home to insecurity. Most Christian houses had been de-
molished or were still occupied, churches and cemeteries had been devastated,
and Armenians feared tilling their fields outside town, where they would be
vulnerable to assault by Muslims. They also feared being conscripted into the
Turkish army.59 This despite official Ottoman policy during November 1918–
March 1919, which was to enable Christian return, restore their property,
and free abductees from Muslim homes. Even before the armistice was signed,
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
the Constantinople government asked provincial officials for details about re-
turnees and their properties, apparently with returnees’ welfare in mind. In
October 1918 national officials instructed governors to assist the return to
their homes of “ people who have been . . . deported during the war by mili-
tary decisions,” and even to support them financially. Governors were also or-
dered to evict Muslims from Armenian houses, protect empty homes, and
allow converts to revert to Chris tian ity.60
Constantinople’s early willingness to alleviate Armenian misery prob ably
reflected Turkish fear of retribution. And the government was certainly under
pressure from the British. On February 7–8, 1919, the redoubtable General
Allenby, who had thrashed the Ottomans in Palestine and Syria, visited the
capital and told the Turkish ministers, “Armenians will be repatriated by me
when this is desirable. Their houses, lands and property are to be restored
now.” 61 The officials promised to enact appropriate legislation but never did.62
This undercut Allied efforts at the local level to get Turks to give up confis-
cated property. Provincial officials were under another kind of pressure: from
Muslims who occupied Christians’ houses and cultivated their fields, held cap-
tive women and children, and opposed Christian repatriation on ideological
grounds.63 Indeed, many officials were among the appropriators resisting the
restoration of Armenian lives. At least one British officer suggested that hostile Turkish officials— inspired not only by nationalism and “pan- Islamic doctrines” but also by “the desire to keep” what they had “stolen”—would have
to be purged before a general repatriation could be considered.64
This is not to suggest that every local official opposed return. In Muratça
and Çalkara, in Eskişehir sanjak, the authorities helped returning Armenians
and even expelled squatting muhacirs.65 Officials also expelled muhacirs in
Erzurum and Kayseri, and houses were restored to returnees in Akşehir and
Antep.66 Occasionally, the Turks even covered returnees’ rail fares.67 But more
commonplace was the attitude, if not the be hav ior, of the mutesarrif of Amasya,
who imprisoned returnees and then forced them to go back to “their places
of deportation.” 68
Even if Constantinople had wished to impose a serious return policy, it held
little sway in the localities or over the muhacirs. Central- government policy
quickly fell into step with local Muslims’ wishes. Just a few months after the
end of the war, Constantinople switched formally to obstructionism, for
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
Armenian survivors of deportation and massacre, mostly women and children. The
majority wished to return to their places of origin after the war.
example forbidding refugees returning “in groups” and preventing them set-
tling in cities other than their places of origin.69
Returnees also suffered from widespread brigandage. A group of returning
Armenians were reportedly murdered by Kurds near Birecjik; others were
killed in Mardin. The Mardin brigands exploited the survivors, forcing Chris-
tian girls to “cut and carry wood in the forests.”70 Initially the Christian re-
turnees put their faith in Allied protection, especially in Cilicia, northern
Aleppo vilayet, and Ionia. But such protection often proved feeble. Near
Samsun in early summer 1919, brigands robbed a column of returnees— after
first disarming their Indian Army escort and relieving the British commander
of his shoes.71
While some of the brigands attacking returnees sought only profit and
plunder, others were po liti cally motivated and received assistance from the
Nationalists and local officials. This was prob ably true of the men who mur-
dered a dozen Armenians near Catalcham (Çatalçam), a village on the Tokat
road, on July 7, 1919. A British “control,” or repatriation, officer, John Shays
Perring, reported that three of them, girls, were raped “and their bodies cut
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
up.” The party had consisted mostly of women and children “reclaimed from
Moslem houses.” A Turkish investigation found that the killers were led by
“Suleyman Ismail Bey, an ex- Turkish officer” and were “part of the Mustafa
Kemal organ ization.” Directing this band from behind the scenes was Rifat
Bey, Kemal’s agent in Sivas.72 Perring also reported that “this state of affairs
is encouraged by the local Turks, both civil and military, . .
. a complete
working arrangement is in existence for the supply of arms and ammunition
to the Turkish brigand bands by the local military authorities.”73
Given the hazards along the roads, the breadth of destruction in former
Armenian communities, and the pervasiveness of Muslim expropriation, re-
turnees often made stops along the way before returning to their home towns.
When they did reach home, they sometimes used threats or force to regain
properties, often assisted by Allied troops or control officers. More frequently,
Muslims employed threats or force to prevent restoration of property.74 Al-
ready by mid- December 1918, vio lence between locals and returning Arme-
nians was reported from Tekirdağ, Bahçecik, Bey Yayla, Karaağaç, and Ya-
lova.75 (According to Ottoman reports, some incidents were instigated by
Armenians who, protected by the Rus sians, wreaked vengeance upon
Muslim villa gers in the foothills of Mt. Ararat.76) In Samsun and elsewhere,
Muslims torched the homes of newly returned Christians. Fearing for their
safety, large numbers of Armenians were induced to leave yet again. In the
first year of the return, almost all rural Armenians in the interior fled their
farms and villages and concentrated in towns and cities where they were better
protected.77 Many returnees to the interior, if they had the means, drifted off
toward Constantinople and Smyrna.78
An American missionary defined the core prob lem facing Christian repa-
triation. As the war was winding down, he wrote, “The Turk has become
drunk with blood and rapine, and plunder and power, and he will be a dif-
fer ent man from what he was before the [1915] atrocities.” The missionary
spoke of minds “obsessed with Moslem fanat i cism seven times heated.”79
Thus were returnees, mostly women and children, to be found along the roads
north from Mosul and Aleppo “without money, food, shelter, or clothing . . .
victims to death and disease” and with so little to go home to.80
At the end of 1919, the French governor of Cilicia, Col o nel Edouard
Brémond, put the number of returnees who had reached the region at
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
120,000.81 Some of the return had been facilitated by the British and French.
But “many more,” according to Jackson, had repatriated themselves, especially
from territories outside Jackson’s ken, such as Rus sia and the Balkans.82
By summer 1919 restitution of Christian property had more or less ground
to a halt, save for exceptional cases where British officers intervened directly.83
Indeed, local Turkish “administrative or judicial action” led to the reversal of
restitutions that had already been made.84 In some places, Turks demolished
empty Armenian buildings rather than see them reoccupied by Christians.85
By September 1919, the Allied high commissioners had concluded that “it
was imprudent to press, in pres ent circumstances, for the restitution of
property.” 86
By mid-1920, 12,000 deportees had arrived in Adana town, an American
missionary reported; to its 36 surrounding villages some 30,000 had returned;
to Hacin, 10,500; to Maraş, 8,000 and less than 3,000 to its surrounding
villages. Zeytun now had 1,200 returnees, and its surrounding villages,
1,000. Altogether, the missionary calculated, of Cilicia’s prewar 200,000 Ar-
menians, about a third had returned.87
Serious aid for returnees came from American missionary institutions—
after January 1919, mostly from Near East Relief, which emerged as the chief
foreign aid agency in Turkey. Many of NER’s officers were former mission-
aries in Turkey, including its chairman, James Barton, and its general secretary,
Charles Vickery. Originally called the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief, NER had been set up at the urging of Morgenthau in
September– October 1915 to aid Armenians during the deportations.88 In Au-
gust 1919 it was incorporated by act of Congress and changed its name.89 In
late 1922 much of its work was transferred to Greece, where it operated along-
side the American Red Cross aiding Greek refugees. The officers and their
help saved countless lives. But, in Turkey, one missionary put it like this, re-
ferring to the Armenians: “It seems to me that the relief work is a good deal
like fattening sheep for the slaughter.” Rather, he favored promoting emigra-
tion. “I can see no hope for them in this country.”90
NER and other relief organ izations provided food, shelter, and medical ser-
vices. They also ran orphanages, refugee camps, and rescue or “neutral”
houses for recovered abductees.91 The agencies also offered a small mea sure
of relief to destitute Turks, whether for humanitarian reasons or in an effort
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
to appease the authorities and persuade them to allow continued aid for the
Christians. But as the Christians were gradually cleansed during 1919–1923,
relief operations tapered off. The missionary and educator Cass Arthur Reed
wrote from Smyrna in October 1922, “Relief for Christians is finishing because
there are no Christians [left].”92
In March 1919 the British set up within their high commission a special
Armenian and Greek Section (AGS) to monitor what was happening to these
communities, including with re spect to repatriation and relief.93 That month
the British also installed repatriation officers in a number of towns. The first
two, Captain L. J. Hurst and Lieutenant Perring, went to Samsun; others were
stationed in Smyrna, Aydın, Ayvalı, the Dardanelles, Bandırma, Izmit,
Tekirdağ, Ankara, Konya, Sivas, and Edirne.94 Their task was to facilitate
return. In many localities, the British set up commissions to adjudicate prop-
erty claims. The commissions consisted of a British chairman, a representative
of the Constantinople government, and local Turkish officials and Armenian
or Greek representatives. The British thought it would be easier to repatriate
Armenians than Greeks, who “seek inspiration and obtain moral and mate-
rial support from Greece,” making their future “a national question.” More-
over many Anatolian Greek expatriates had joined the Greek army and
“fought against Turkey.”95
A March 1919 report by one repatriation officer in Beylik, near Con-
stantinople, illustrates their modus operandi. The officer observed that mu-
hacirs, now “wealthy beys” thanks to their expropriated property, had sown
Christians’ fields. “We brought the Greek owners and the Muslim squatters
face to face,” the officer wrote. The Muslims promised to give up the fields
the following autumn, after they had reaped them and received “compensa-
tion for the ploughing and other expenses incurred.” But the British officer
demanded that they hand the fields over at once, “unconditionally. . . .
Unless pushed to it by force repeatedly, the Turks will stop restoring prop-
erty as soon as they feel that they are no more watched.”96
The arrival of spring, with improved weather, facilitated return. But Turkish
obstructionism increased apace. It was most pronounced concerning real es-
tat
e and the rescue of women and children, and paralleled, and was in part
due to, the growth of the Nationalist movement.97 The Turks petitioned the
British to halt return. They also threatened renewed massacre, actually killed
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
and robbed returnees, and were unwilling to give up expropriated property.98
One knowledgeable missionary, C. F. Gates, the President of Constantinople’s
Robert College, estimated in early 1921 that “not more than one third of the
real estate of the Armenians who have returned has been regained.”99 The
Greek ecclesiastical authorities reported that in the first quarter of 1919 in
the Trabzon and Samsun districts alone, Muslims had murdered sixty- eight
Greeks and eleven Armenians and raped ten Greek and Armenian women.
No one had been “brought to book.” The British high commissioner com-
mented that “while such conditions prevail, it is inadvisable to proceed with
repatriation on a large scale.”100 In Trabzon, the condition of both Muslims
and Christians was one of “practically complete destitution.” “The whole at-
mosphere of the vilayet breeds decay, misery, starvation and fear,” a British
officer reported.101 The Turks were busy demolishing Christian houses, and
returnee families, usually missing their breadwinners, who had been mur-
dered, were hungry.102 The Christians’ fields were in Turkish hands and
Turks boycotted Christian shops and wares.103 Muslim clerics promoted the
boycotts. In Everek, the Armenian Patriarchate reported, “the motto of the
Mufti is that the laws of the [sharia] forbid trading with the Mourtad, which
means religious turncoat.” Local shop keep ers, too, promoted boycotts, out
of concern about competition from returnees.104 Here and there, returnees
were arrested and charged with crimes against Turks during the war;
others were conscripted into the army.105
In the east, along the borders with the Caucasus and Persia, Turkish ob-
structionism was expressed in a consistent effort to bar Armenian refugees in
Yerevan from returning to homes in Kars and Nakhchivan.106 Talk during
April– May 1919 of an Armenian return to Van caused “ great consternation”
