by Benny Morris
early 1920 there was to be a steady Armenian evacuation, southward to
Syria- Lebanon; eastward, to Russian- held territories; and westward, to Con-
stantinople and beyond. In April 1920 the Armenian Archbishop of Smyrna,
Hovhan Vartabed, basing himself on reports from the field, noted that the
Nationalist campaign in Cilicia and northern Aleppo vilayet was causing a
“general exodus” of Armenians.553
This exodus more or less paralleled the gradual shrinkage of the French
zone of control. Sometimes the Armenians joined withdrawing French col-
umns; sometimes they preceded or followed the French. Occasionally, for a
time, the French impeded evacuation. But, more often, they ordered or ad-
vised Armenians to evacuate. So it was with the orphanage in Haruniye,
with 200 children, and the rest of the town’s Armenians, who were ordered
to leave for Adana at the end of March 1920.554 So it was with the Arme-
nians of Sis and Chara- Bazar.555 So it was with the large village of Ekbez,
whose inhabitants had, for a time, taken refuge in a monastery from which
they fought off the Turks.556 Many Armenians, such as those who fled Kay-
seri, were not prodded by immediate threat but still feared for their ultimate
safety.557 Each mass uprooting from one place triggered departure from
neighboring sites.558
The first wave of departures followed the massacre at Maraş. The French
understood that leaving behind defenseless Armenian communities would re-
sult in massacre, so the French sought Armenian evacuations, sometimes
even from areas they had not yet left themselves. It was the humanitarian thing
to do and might also protect France’s reputation— they did not want to be
blamed for abandoning Christians to massacre. By the end of March, the
French were talking of facilitating the “transfer of [the] Armenian population
[of Cilicia] to Erevan.”559 By early April the “congestion of refugees in Adana”
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
was so great that refugees were being “pushed” toward Mersin, Adana’s Med-
iterranean port. The French told the Armenians that they would not be af-
forded protection if they stayed. Brémond recommended that the missionaries
move their orphans to Mersin, “pending a pos si ble removal to [British- ruled]
Cyprus.”
From the missionaries’ perspective, the French were no humanitarians.
“The French are using the Turks as a whip to drive the Armenians out of the
country,” an American missionary explained.560 Another wrote that “the de-
portation” of the Armenians was “being carried out by the French and Turks
combined.”561 This “seems to be a system of deportation carried out by the
French in a [covert] manner, that is, they are allowing the Turks to drive out
the Armenians . . . while the French appear to protect them. . . . The net re-
sult . . . is that the country is being absolutely cleared of them.”562 At Antep, U.S. vice- consul in Aleppo Digby Willson wrote, “the starving of the people . . .
is only part of a plan to force the Armenians to leave.” It seemed to him “dif-
ficult to credit the French military with such inhuman policies” and with such
be hav ior “ towards another Christian people.”563
The March– April 1920 arrival in the Adana plain of masses of refugees
triggered a British relocation effort. On April 7 the Lord Mayor’s Fund in
London asked the government to facilitate the transfer of 2,000–3,000 orphans
to Cyprus.564 In June, after the start of the twenty- day Franco- Turkish cease-
fire, 700 orphans were shipped from Mersin to Limassol.565 There were also
appeals for Armenian relocation to the United States. The secretary of the Ar-
menian Red Cross and Refugee Fund in London, Emily Robinson, com-
plained that the Turks were barring Armenians from leaving for Amer i ca. She
asked the Foreign Office to ask the Americans to allow Armenians in.566 By
the end of May, Armenian emigration was reaching “alarming proportions.”
Most were heading for South Amer i ca, but substantial numbers were going
to the United States.567 Jackson anticipated increased emigration after the
spring harvest.568
Many Armenians were driven out of western Anatolia. An Armenian named
Garabed Djordian reported that the entire male population of his town,
Eskişehir, was deported eastward in May 1921 along with the Armenian men
of Kütahiya and Konya. With a group of 380 men, he was first sent to Kayseri,
then to Sivas. Gendarmes escorted the party. Ten days later they continued
to Malatya and then Harput. From there most were dispersed in Kurdish
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
Armenians evacuating during the French withdrawal from Cilicia.
“Like little French Soldiers.” Armenian orphans evacuating during the French
withdrawal from Cilicia.
villages. Djordian fi nally made it to Aleppo. There were no killings along the
way, but many died of hunger, illness, or exhaustion. “The Armenian women
that one meets in the towns lead a life of slavery,” he said.569
As late as the end of 1921, after the signing of the Franklin Bouillon– Kemal
agreement, Bristol opposed Armenian emigration and tried to prevent mis-
sionaries encouraging it. He even changed his tune on repatriation of World
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
War I deportees, arguing for the first time that their return home from Syria
should be promoted.570 But the French in Cilicia were “most anxious to get
rid of as many as pos si ble.”571 In October about 900 Armenians, 200 of them
ex- legionnaires, were shipped to Constantinople.572 On the way 150 of them
disembarked at Smyrna, possibly to offer their ser vices to the Greek Army.573
The signing of the accord induced “a state of panic” in all the Christian
communities.574 During the resulting rush to trains and ports, a few people
were reportedly trampled to death.575 All feared massacre, and with good
reason. In Sis, according to an Armenian prelate, six old- timers who had
stayed behind after the community’s departure “ were soaked in petroleum
and burnt alive.”576 By mid- November Christians were leaving by the thou-
sands.577 The exodus was like “flight from a plague or escape from a burning
house.”578
The Nationalist takeover of the civil administration in Adana and Mersin
likely reinforced the pro cess.579 “In a hundred little ways the Turks are showing themselves to be very arrogant,” a visiting British diplomat reported. Initially
the French barred Armenian departure. They feared being encumbered in
Lebanon- Syria by a new wave of refugees. But under Armenian pressure, they
gradually relented. At first they allowed those they had repatriated from Syria
to return to Syria. Then others were allowed out. The exodus was swift.
During November– December, some 40,000 Armenians left by boat for
Smyrna or points farther afield, including Port Said and Constantinople.
Mersin, the main port of exit, was awash with “thousands” of destitute refu-
gees who lacked visas.580
The refugees sold what they could for a pittance. Real estate, of course,
proved impossible to sell at any pri
ce.581 Pianos went for “one pound gold.”582
Many burnt “all they cannot take with them rather than leave [it] to the
Turks.”583 “Cilicia is terror- stricken from end to end,” a missionary wrote.584
The guerrilla war and the Franco- Kemalist accord also affected sites to the
east. In late 1921 there was “indescribable consternation” among Antep’s re-
maining 8,000 Armenians.585 The French governors at Antep and Kilis at
first refused permission to leave.586 But soon the French were no longer in
control. The Turks took over the administration of Antep on December 4,
and the French evacuated on December 25. Many Armenians left with the
French, though about 3,000 remained.587 The British consul in Aleppo wrote
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
optimistically, “It is probable that they will not be molested for some time.”588
But during the following months they were subjected to a quiet, and then very
public, boycott, and a few were charged with pillaging or other offenses.589
In June 1922 Turkish ruffians raided the “shops of packsaddlers, farriers, and
Koshker [slipper- makers] in the Odoun Bazaar” and threatened customers.590
The French military cemetery was desecrated. The town’s officials, headed
by mutesarrif Munir Bey, were actually well- disposed toward Armenians, but
“a secret clique of extremists,” an Armenian notable complained, “ really ruled
the roost.”591
The majority of Christians in Cilicia and northern Aleppo vilayet left the
country, mainly through Mersin and Alexandretta, in the last months of
1921. Others trekked by land to Syria. At the two ports, the refugees
camped in churches and other public buildings. In Mersin the altar of the
Armenian church served as “home for three families”; a field next to the
Greek church was “dotted with tents. . . . On rainy days, which meant practi-
cally all the time, the field was literally a mud swamp. . . . The basement of
the Mission School had over 300 people.” There was hunger and disease,
including smallpox. As the Christians left each town, Turkish refugees
poured in. At a train station outside Adana, an American missionary noted
two lines of refugees heading in opposite directions. Adana transformed,
almost overnight, from an Armenian to a Turkish town.592
In Adana, the largest Armenian concentration in Asia Minor in 1920–1921,
flight was propelled by the fact that many Christians were squatting in Turkish
homes. In addition, many had served the French in one capacity or another.
The local Christian leadership issued instructions to emigrate.593
All the Western powers, whether or not they supported the Armenians, re-
garded the mass evacuation as a disaster. None had a solution to the prob lem
of resettlement. None— Britain, France, Italy, the United States— wanted the
Armenians in their countries, and France and Britain also didn’t want them
in their Middle Eastern protectorates and mandates, as local officials made
all too clear.594 Only the Greeks were willing to take in large numbers of
refugees, including Armenians.595
The Americans spoke with the clearest voice. Bristol opposed the evacua-
tion of the “Christian races from Cilicia.” Where would they go and who would
provide for them?596 He spent long hours trying to order or persuade the
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
missionaries to cajole Christians to stay. If they had already left, he wanted
them to return.597 He even opposed shipping out the Armenian orphans
because this would “stampede” the rest of the Christians— better to “sacri-
fice these orphans,” that is, consign them to Turkish hands, so that the bulk of
the Christians might stay.598 In December 1921 he instructed his agents in
Mersin to stop relief in the hope that this might induce Christians to “return
to their homes.”599
The French, most directly responsible for and affected by the evacuation,
broadcast contradictory messages. In early November their officials in Mersin
ordered “all Christians to leave,” giving them a fortnight’s grace.600 But the
official line, as enunciated by Paris, was that Christians, principally Armenians, should stay put.601 France’s good name was at stake; Christian flight blackened
France’s image. And there were good concrete reasons to keep the Armenians
at home. The French didn’t want the area’s estimated 100,000–150,000 Ar-
menians.602 On November 14 the French ordered a stop to the exodus toward
Aleppo- Damascus- Beirut and ceased issuing the necessary passes.603 They
even prohibited Armenians from boarding Greek steamers, though an excep-
tion was made for Armenians who had served with the French military or
administration.604 But the policy swiftly changed. In the second half of De-
cember, accepting the impossibility of stemming the floodtide, the French per-
mitted, encouraged, and even or ga nized the departure of Adana’s remaining
Christians.605
However, even at this stage the French made prob lems for refugees. Those
without tickets had difficulty boarding steamers headed for Syrian- Lebanese
ports.606 Some ex- deportees returned from Cilicia to Syrian “villages where
they took shelter during the Great War” in the areas of Jerablus, Manbij, Rakka,
Deir Zor, Hama, Homs, and Antakya.607
In Aleppo both Christians and Muslims resented the Armenian refugees.
Preachers railed against them in the mosques, and homeowners refused to rent
them quarters. According to an American consul the hard feelings were a res-
idue of World War I, when the first wave of deportees drove up the cost of living
and created a housing shortage. In addition the Armenians’ “industry and al-
leged unscrupulousness,” enabling them “to turn their exile to profit,” resulted
in hostility. There were also terrible sanitation prob lems in the sites where they were temporarily resettled. Typhus was the major source of concern.608
Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924
By April 1923 Aleppo’s 50,000- odd Armenian refugees, with NER help,
had adequately or ga nized their living spaces. The same could not be said for
the ten- thousand “indescribably wretched” Greek refugees in and around
town. Many lived in caves.609 It was a similar story in Alexandretta. In late
April 1922 there were some 17,000 refugees there, living in a veritable swamp.
A local doctor feared “a massacre by mosquitoes.” Christian women were re-
portedly prostituting themselves to French soldiers.610
Some Turkish officials were unhappy with the spectacle of the mass evac-
uation, as it seemed to cast the Turks as villains. They also worried that the
Armenians’ departure would denude the territory of professionals, craftsmen,
and artisans. In Mersin and Adana, reportedly, not one dentist remained. But
the “mass of unreasoning, uneducated Turks” was happy with the exodus.611
One prominent Nationalist, Turkish Red Crescent Director Hamid Bey, be-
lieved the “excitement and anxiety” of the Armenians “is due to the fact that
they are aiming at covering up the atrocities they committed there and appear
as innocent.” 612
By January 1922 the Armenian evacuation of C
ilicia and northern Aleppo
vilayet was “more than 90%” complete, according to Rumbold. The lot of
those who had stayed behind, many of them infirm or old, was not always
happy. In August Rumbold wrote that he did not see what advice he could
offer the remaining Cilician Armenians. To leave meant dispossession and a
life of exile; to stay meant suffering the “bitterly and actively” hostile attitude of the Turks.613
In early 1922, after most of the dust had settled, there were still 4,000 Ar-
menians left in Antep, 8,000 in Maraş, 4,000–5,000 in Urfa, 400 in Adana,
and 2,000 in Mersin.614 In April Ankara issued a law effectively confiscating
all “abandoned” Armenian property in Asia Minor.615
During November– December 1921 Kemalist officers, gendarmes and
administrators moved into the Cilician and northern Aleppo vilayet towns.
Military units followed. On January 4, 1922, the last French troops with-
drew. The handover proceeded without a hitch. However, within days Turks
desecrated the French and Armenian cemeteries in Mersin, Tartus, Cihan,
and Antep. “In Dörtyol they have even opened the tombs on the pretext of
searching for bombs,” an Armenian reported. “As they cannot attack the living,
they attack the dead.” 616
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
But Turkish passions were directed primarily against the quick rather than
the dead; they wanted every last Christian out of Asia Minor. Events in Izmir
in September– October 1922, discussed below, served as an augury and cata-
lyst for what the Kemalists had in mind. The press conveyed Nationalist orders
to evacuate all Christians from Antalya, Makri, and southern Anatolia.617 And
Nationalist leaders spoke clearly. The day after he occupied Izmir, General
Nureddin, commander of the 1st Army Corps, said that “the Greeks and Ar-
menians must leave Asia Minor,” and Kemal himself said “the situation now
demands that the Greeks and the Armenians leave Anatolia.” 618 Ankara in-
formed NER that Christian orphans in their care “should leave Anatolia im-
mediately” along with NER’s native Christian employees.619 There were even
rumors that the “government are . . . preparing to expel entire Christian pop-
