1915 Genocide Testimonies

Հուշագրութիւններ եւ վկայութիւններ 1915ի Հայերու ցեղասպանութեան մասին

HayBook presents a selection of Armenian and non-Armenian testimonies about the Genocide of the Armenians available in the world’s digital libraries :

In Armenian

[First published account as a booklet of the Ottoman army’s massacres against Armenians and Assyrians in Northern Iran (areas of Salmast and Urmiah) between January and May 1915. Good eyewitness account, seldom used by historians]

[First book in English denouncing the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman empire and the complicity of Germany, published at the beginning of 1916 by a famous American journalist, who had already extensively written on the topic in various American newspapers during 1915, had spent 5 years in the Ottoman empire, was a witness of Adana massacres in April 1909 and had taught as a professor at Robert College in Istanbul]

Translated in French : Les derniers massacres d’Arménie : les responsabilités / par Herbert-Adams Gibbons, Paris 1916 (47p.) (on gallica)

Translated in Western Armenian : Ժամանակակից պատմութեան սեւագոյն էջը՝ 1915ի հայկական դէպքեր. Իրողութիւններ եւ պատասխանատուութիւններ / Նիւ Եորք 1916 (on haygirk)

  • Esther Mgrdichian / Եսթեր Թ. Մկրտիչեան, Թուրքիոյ գեհենէն [Turkish Gehenna]. Հայ ընտանիքի մը հրաշալի փախուստը. Ականատեսի պատմութիւն / Աղեքսանդրիա (Egypt) : տպ. Արամ Ստեփանեան, 1918 (72p.) [picture of Mrs Esther Mgrdichian] (on haygirk)

[Esther Megerdichian was the wife of Thomas Megerdichian, vice-consul of Great-Britain in Diyarbekir, who had entered British diplomatic service in 1896. The preface mentions an article published in The Times on 21 June 1917 by Edmund Candler about the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman empire. When the Ottoman empire declared war on 1. November 1914, an order came from Istanbul to jail Thomas Megerdichian, but he already was on a boat which had left Beyrut an hour ago. Later, when Ottoman police searched the British consulate in Diarbekir and the house of Thomas Megerdichian, the drogman of the Ottoman authorities, Dikran efendi Ilvanian, sent Esther a note to warn her, through Professor Renekejian. At that time, Esther was in her Kharpert house and told what happened in Kharpert : Euphrates College was seized by the authorities. Armenians were mobilised, their wealth plundered, Armenian soldiers were sent to amele taburi. The first news of ill-treatment came from amele taburi soldiers based in the village of Habusi, 4 hours away from Kharpert. They had been detained in the “Red Palace” of Mezre and left without food nor water. Professor Renekejian’s and Hovhannes Chatalbashian‘s sons were among them. … p.15 ]

  • Կարապետ Մուրատեան / Մահապարտի մը յուշերը, Փարիզ : Imp. Araxes [no date, probably published during the military occupation of Paris by the Germans (1940-1944)] (48p.) [no picture] (on haygirk)

Garabed Mouradian/Muradian was from Marash, his testimony starts with 1895 massacres and stops at the end of WWI. Born in 1889, he was the son of Sarkis Muradian and grandson of Boghos effendi Muradian, who moved from the Armenian Highlands to Marash and owned a soap factory, cotton-carding machines and watermills.

Ottoman troops returning from Zeytun in 1895 massacred the Armenian population of Marash. Because of their wealth and influence, Garabed’s entire family was killed, except 3 children, including Garabed who was 6. As well as his father, Sarkis who managed his father’s factories, were also killed Sarkis’ brothers, Dikran and Hagop and mother, haji Dudu. Uncles, aunts and cousins (Bilezikjian, Hagop Kherlakian) took care of Garabed’s upbringing.

After graduating from Getronagan college of Marash, he was sent to the institute of sericulture in Bursa where he graduated in 1909. Marash area was ideal for sericulture and Marash Armenians owned many mulberry fields. In Marash, there were 40,000 Armenians out a total population of 70,000.

In 1909, a new law submitted Christians to military service. Garabed’s family was ready to pay the 43 gold lira exemption tax (bedel), but due to a mistake in his military file, the exemption request was denied and in 1913, Garabed was called to military service. He explains the organization of Ottoman army at that time. He served as a sergeant (kanon tchavouch, military inspector) in the Ottoman army. He was present in military uniform in Sis in May 1914 : he witnessed muron blessing ceremony by the Armenian Patriarch and believed in the miracle of muron blessing, because he saw the muron boiling without fire.

In October 1914, the 6th Ottoman army based in Aleppo was ordered to go to Istanbul. Ali Hilmi pasha, a Kurd, was appointed commanding officer of the 6th Ottoman army, he was known, as well as his staff, to be opposed to Ittihad and to Ottoman involvement in the war. There was in his staff a Kurdish-speaking Armenian, Mgrditch of Merdin. At that time, Garabed ceased to be kanon tchavouch and became posta tchavouch for the 6th army staff. The 6th army arrived in Istanbul in December 1914 and was garrisoned at San Stefano and Dardanelles (Çanakkale). In Istanbul, he met his cousin’s husband, Hagop Kherlakian, who was a member of Ottoman Parliament and who was invited at the wedding in Marash of the bodyguard of Ali Hilmi pasha, Rahmi bey. [Hagop Kherlakian was the husband of Mary/Mariam Muradian, a daughter of Garabed’s father’s brother, Kevork Muradian, and therefore Garabed’s first cousin, and not the husband of Garabed’s father’s sister (as written p. 4).]

After the first attacks of the Allies on the Dardanelles, in February 1915, an Armenian soldier, Shukri Karamanlian, was beaten and sent to prison by Ziya bey, one of Enver’s favourite officers. Garabed wanted to visit him, but the chief of staff of the 6th army denied him permission for his own good, saying that from now on Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army were under scrutiny because of the movement of Armenian volunteers in Russia. Later, Garabed’s relative, Hagop effendi Kherlakian, came to San Stefano to request a pardon from Djemil bey for an Armenian soldier who had been sentenced to death, Hovhannes Kouzouyan.

At Easter, Armenian soldiers were allowed to go to the church of San Stefano to receive communion. Hovhannes bey Dadian handed out cigarettes and candy to the soldiers.

A military inspector, Mehmed Shukri bey, was sent by the CUP to the 6th army : on his order, Arab soldiers were sent to the Eastern front, to Erzurum, and Armenian soldiers were sent to Romania as part of the Ottoman contribution to the war in the Balkans.

When the deportation of Armenians started in Anatolia (May/June?), the Armenian soldiers were scattered to other locations : many soldiers, as well as the orchestra of the 24th batallion, composed of graduates of Aïntab College, were sent to labor batallions. Garabed, with 46 other soldiers, was sent to the War ministry, where Nuri pasha, the brother of Enver, personnally decided the fate of each of them. Garabed was sent to Makri-köy where he could rest thanks to a military doctor’s report, Dr Hovhannes Ashekian, but the bridge between Makri-köy and San Stefano was blown by British Navy and Ottoman officers suspected Armenians to have done it. Therefore, they were sent to other locations.

Garabed was sent to the area of Derkos, north of Constantinople. That area, close to the Greek village of Kemer-Burgaz, was a strategic location, because of the presence of a telegraph line and also because the water supply of the capital came from that area thanks to a Roman aqueduct. It was the duty of a battalion of the 3rd army to protect that area from Russian incursion. As Christians were seen as a threat, the Greek population of Kemer-Burgaz was deported to the area of Konya. Greeks were given a three days’ notice before deportation. The Muslim population and soldiers began looting the village, when an Arab captain, Abdul Fettah, gave order to Garabed and a Muslim sergeant from Dobruja (Romania), Osman, to prevent the soldiers from looting. As a result, the major, Ahmed bey, was upset with Garabed and seized any excuse to punish him.

Thanks to Dr Hovhannes Ashekian‘s intervention, Garabed was able to go to Istanbul and request a change of duty from Djemil bey, who was quartered with the staff of the 6th army at the Said pasha palace (area of Neshan-Tash). He ordered Garabed’s transfer to the tailoring workshop where 70 tailors were working for the army, one of them was “Saraj” Hagop from Birejik, but the situation there was unbearable due to the scarcity of food. The tailors filed a petition to be sent to the front, which was accepted. They were sent to Makri-Köy to receive a new appointment. A Field Artillery officer, Kemal bey, took Garabed into service as a sergeant in charge of discipline. There again, Garabed’s situation was difficult, because of the hatred of Muslim soldiers towards Christians, and when his battalion was sent to Bulgaria, he started thinking of defecting.

In September 1916, they arrived at the Bulgarian town of Bourgas. From there, they went to Plovdiv, Varna, Dobritch. In Dobritch, a Bulgarian town near the Romanian border, the Turkish community came to greet the Ottoman soldiers and asked Garabed about the massacres of Armenians in Anatolia. Somebody asked him news about an Armenian, Armenag Shishmanian, extradited by the Bulgars to the Ottoman empire. Garabed responded he too was Armenian and showed a tatoo on his arm proving that he’d done the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and that he was a haji.

After Dobritch, the fighting started and they advanced to Mangalia in Romania. Ottoman soldiers were not properly clothed for the winter and started looting dead Romanian soldiers’ clothes. When Cossacks appeared in front of them instead of Romanians, Ottoman soldiers were seized with panic, tried to escape and suffered more than 4,000 casualties that day. Due to various plagues, food shortage and lack of warm clothes, the number of Ottoman troops was shrinking quickly.

In September 1917, they were in Samanle and Ojakhle (tatar villages) and a group of Russian soldiers surrendered, but it was only at the end of October that they heard about the October Revolution [25 October or 7 November 1917 according to Julian or Gregorian calendars]. They were then ordered to move forward. At that time, Mustafa Kemal was sent to the Romanian front as military inspector. His nickname among soldiers was “gyavur Kemal”, because he drank a lot. They advanced to Constanza, Cernavoda, Braïla.

In Braïla, when Garabed was on the bank of the Danube river, a Turkish horse doctor [the baytar is a mix of farrier/blacksmith and veterinary], Hamdi of Kayseri, who held a grudge against Garabed because of a Russian sword allotted to him, tried to shoot him from behind, but nearly missed. Garabed did not file a complaint and decided to find a way to leave the army.

At the Armenian church of Braïla, Khachig Popovich introduced him to a baker, Daniel from Sasun, who accepted to hide Garabed, but somebody snitched on Garabed, and two weeks later, Ottoman soldiers took him back to the army camp, where he faced a death penalty for desertion. He was subjected to severe beating and 25 days later presented to a military court. Garabed knew from Aleppo the attorney general, Juddi bey, an Albanian, who promised to help his case, but all the witnesses denied the attempted murder charge against the baytar Hamdi of Kayseri. The military court sentenced Garabed to death and execution was supposed to take place a week later, but it was extended to nine days.

Garabed was sent back to a cell, where he received visits every day from the petty officer in charge of chancery (kalembaş çavuş), Haji bey, who had been the military court’s secretary during Garabed’s trial. On the third day, an officer, Tevfik bey, was jailed in the same cell as Garabed. Tevfik bey, whose nickname was “the poet” (şair bey) among his fellow-soldiers, wrote a petition to the Sultan for a pardon, which was sent to Istanbul by Haji bey. On the day scheduled for Garabed’s execution, the response from the Sultan’s chancery granted him official pardon. Garabed thought his pardon was in some way related to the visit of the German Kaiser Wilhelm to Cp.

[Some comments on Garabed Muradian’s story : the memoirs are actually centered on the miraculous salvation of Garabed from a imminent death in 1917, not at all on the fate of Armenians in the Ottoman empire. Although Garabed was related to an Ottoman member of parliament for the Marash area, Hagop Kherlakian, who happened to be the husband of his first cousin, Mary/Myriam born Muradian, he doesn’t tell anything neither about the political situation in Istanbul, nor about the fate of Marash Armenians, which is strange, to say the least. The story ends abruptly with Garabed’s pardon, probably at the end of 1917, and he chose not to tell us what happened afterwards, which is also quite frustrating. For example, we know from others sources that most of the Kherlakian family tried to follow the retreating French army in January 1920, but were massacred. Hagop Kherlakian‘s cut off head was mounted on a pike.]

For references, see :

Krikor Kalusdian Գրիգոր Հ. Գալուստեան, Մարաշ կամ Գերմանիկ եւ հերոս Զէյթուն, 2nd edition, New York, 1988, p. 299 and 920

Mgr Jean Naslian, Mémoires, vol. 1.

https://www.houshamadyan.org/mapottomanempire/vilayetaleppo/sandjakofmarash/economy/industry-and-commerce.html (see an article by Varty Keshishian about Marash in Houshamadyan for information about the Kherlakian family and Boghos Muradian, the grandfather of Garabed Muradian, killed in 1895)]

Later Armenian family memories about 1915

In English

Non-Digitized Testimonies

Testimonies about 1894-1896 Hamidian Massacres

Կարնոյ յիշատակին, Յովհաննէս Կորկոտեան (Hovhannes Gorgodian/Korkotian), Վիեննա : Հ.Յ. Դաշնակցութեան տպարան, 1896 (on haygirk) (on 1895 massacres in Erzurum)

Եդեսիոյ սոսկալի դէպքը եւ ողբերգութիւն կոտորածին Եդեսիոյ, Կարապետ Քիլեճեան (Garabed Kilejian) / Շումլա (Bulgaria) : Տպարան Յ. Ավետարանեան, 1904 (32 էջ, 3 նկար) (on 1896 massacres in Urfa)

Testimonies about 1909 Adana Massacres in Cilicy

Ատանայի ջարդը եւ պատասխանատուները / Մուշեղ եպիսկոպոս Սերոբեան, Գահիրէ : տպարան Արարատ, 1909 (64 էջ)

Political history of Armenians in the Ottoman empire

Տաճկահայոց հարցի պատմութիւնը (Սկզբից մինչև 1915 թ.) / Հրաչյա Աճառեան (Hrachya Adjarian/Ajaryan/Acharyan), Նոր-Նախիջևան 1915 (79 էջ) [pictures of Nerses Varjabedian, patriarch of Cp, Khrimian hayrig, Nerses Narbey, Minas Tcheraz, Stepan Papazian] (about the history of Ottoman Armenians and the Armenian Question)

[The famous linguist Hratchya Adjarian dedicated this single publication to the political history of Western Armenians in the Ottoman empire. It is of course a precious source for historians as Adjarian was born in Istanbul and was a clever and very well-informed witness of the political events of his time. He offers here a brief and brilliant survey of the Armenian Question between 1878 and 1914. Adjarian starts with identifying the 3 main problems which contributed to perpetuate a situation of large scale oppression and violence for Western Armenians : the relations between Muslims and Christians as defined by Islam, the violence of Kurdish rule over Armenian villages and incompetent Ottoman administration. Armenians, in his opinion, had developed a slave mentality and had become accustomed to endure this situation of oppression. He then moved on to describe the gradual national awakening of the Western Armenians since the 17th c. Important milestones were the foundation of a network of Armenian schools all over Anatolia, the Constitution of 1860 for the Armenian millet. He then stressed the crucial role played by Khrimian hayrig who introduced the Armenian Question in international politics, created a yearly report submitted to the Ottoman government listing all unpunished criminal offences against Armenians. When Russia waged war against the Ottoman empire in 1877-1878, Armenians were divided between 2 factions : pro-Turkish (headed by Nerses patriarch of Cp and the catholicos Gevorg) and pro-Russian (headed by Grigor Artsruni director of the Mshak newspaper). The pro-Turkish faction was more afraid of Russian domination than of Ottoman oppression and trusted British promises, but on the ground, the Armenian population spontaneously supported the victorious Russian armies, led by Armenian generals (Loris-Melikov, Lazarian, Ter-Ghukasian…), while Armenian villages, the Armenian market of Van were looted and set on fire by Ottoman troops. The treaty of San Stefano, at the outskirts of Cp, was signed in the summer palace of the Dadian family. Nerses patriarch of Cp convinced the Russian prince Nicolas to introduce the 16th article in the treaty about Russian guarantees and the need for “reforms” in Ottoman Armenia. In 1877 Armenian delegates in Berlin requested self-rule and autonomy of Armenians in the East, the same rights as Bulgarians in the West, but under the influence of Great-Britain, the treaty of Berlin in 1878 removed all Russian guarantees protecting the rights of Armenians in the Ottoman empire. The Bayazid-Trabzon transit route was vital to British interests in order for British goods and merchants to have unimpeded access to and from Persia. As the UK had become the guarantor of reforms in Armenia, a society was founded in UK to defend the rights of Ottoman Armenian by the India-born tycoon Seth-Abcar and Stepan Papazian. In 1880 and 1883, UK requested that reforms be implemented, adding that the survival of the empire was at stake, but to no avail. Adjarian gives here the long quote of Khrimian hayrig‘s speech about the metal ladle and the paper ladle. “Next time there will be a distribution of soup, says the keeper of the soup, be ready with a metal ladle”. When Armenians saw that no reforms were implemented and that they had been given empty promises, they decided to follow Balkans nations’ example. Intellectuals in the Caucasus started to express the idea of revolt. In the Ottoman empire, Portugalian also started to convey that idea, and took refuge in Marseille where he founded the Armenia newspaper, which was forbidden, but found its way into Armenian homes and launched the Armenagan movement. Then the Hnchaks and the Dashnaks emerged. The Armenagans advocated self-defense, while the Hnchaks prescribed to attack Ottoman representatives. p.15]

Parsegh Parseghian : Հին յուշեր (Հայ յեղափոխական կեանքէ) / Բարսեղ Ս. Բարսեղեան, Կ. Պոլիս 1913 (96 էջ) (about the action of Dashnaks in the Mush/Bitlis area in 1907-1908)

Harutiun Jangulian/Djangulian : Յարութիւն Ճանկիւլեան, Յիշատակներ հայկական ճգնաժամէն. Մաս Ա. եւ Բ., Կ. Պոլիս : տպ. Կոհակի, 1913 (173p., portraits) (about the history of Van Armenians)

Յիշատակներ հայկական ճգնաժամէն. Մասն Գ. / Յարութիւն Ճանկիւլեան (Harutiun Jangulian/Djangulian), Կ. Պոլիս : տպ. Կոհակի, 1913 (155p., portraits) (about the history of the Hentchak party)

Յիշատակներ հայկական ճգնաժամէն. Մասն Դ. / Յարութիւն Ճանկիւլեան (Harutiun Jangulian/Djangulian), Կ. Պոլիս : տպ. Կոհակի, 1913 (222p., portraits) (about the history of the Hentchak party)

Յիշատակներ հայկական ճգնաժամէն. Մասն Ե. / Յարութիւն Ճանկիւլեան (Harutiun Jangulian/Djangulian), Կ. Պոլիս : տպ. Կոհակի, 1913 (240p., portraits) (about the history of the Hentchak party)

Հայրենի թանգարան / Յօգուտ Թրքահայաստանի պաշտպանութեան, Սօֆիա 1915 [picture book published by the Dashnaks in Sofia in March 1915 : 55 pictures of monastery of the apostle Bartholomew, Keri, Eprem, Khecho, Varak, Van, Avants, Narek kyugh, Tavriz, Digin Tangig, Mokhrapert, Ardziv printing press, Mokunk, Shadakh, Mush, Solukh (many pictures of Armenian peasants’ life and work)]