No denigration of Turks here, but an attempt to malign the character of Armenians.

This is not Wikipedia
http://www.atour.com/history/1900/20080717a.html

† 1909: Ottoman Archives Related to the Adana Massacres

by Dr. Racho Donef — Sydney, Australia. 2008.

Posted: Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 05:11 PM CT

Document
Source: Prime Ministerial Ottoman Archives, Y.PRK.AZN 25/40;

Transliteration cited at Ýris Muzaffer, Bütün Yönleriyle Süryaniler, 2003, Ekol Yayýmcýlýk, Istanbul Imperial Palace Telegraph Office 1327

To the Imperial Threshold

In Adana and its bounds without any reason land, people and possessions were subjected to great damages. Now for them [the Christians] to reside in this area and be assured of their safety is up to the judgment of the Court Martial. But what transpired thus far has demolished our hopes and caused us despair. This is because rather than searching for those responsible for the massacres and damages and punish them so it may be a warning to others, common murderers are being sought. Poor ignorant Muslim villagers who obeyed orders without knowing, and some Christians who were convicted due to malicious false testimonies or innocent citizens, who defended their lives, are being convicted. The Court Martial is pursuing the policy of absolutely finding the Christians at fault. In this predicament, who can we tell about our affliction? How can we provide assurances and comfort to our helpless congregation?

For the love of God, show mercy.

SyrianCatholic Patriarchate Representative: Head Priest Father Filipos

Protestant Clerical Leader: Hampersom

Armenian Catholic Bishop: Bishop Bagos

Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate Representative: Father Mansur

Greek Catholic [Melkite] Clerical Leader: Father Ilias

Armenian Bishopric Representative: Father Aras

Chaldean Patriarchate Representative: Father Stephan.

Massacres at Sivas, Van, and Bitlis, in Armenia, followed the signal set at Constantinople, while four hundred Armenians perished at Trebizond on the gth of October. Throughout Armenia October was a month of blood and horrors. Late in the month the people of the district of Zeitoun, a race of hardy mouutaineers who had managed to save arms or to procure them, rose in revolt against the Turks, and Turkish troops were sent against them. The Armenians generally were without arms, having been disarmed long previous even to the earlier massacres of 1893, atrocities of which the world heard little, and which have been dwarfed into insignificance by the slaughter of 1895.

Early in November 1895 it was estimated that in the series of massacres that immediately followed the outbreak in Constantinople not less than 10,000 Armenians perished, 1,500 at Balboort alone. All through November 1895 Turkish cruelty raged, and it is said that at Trebizoud, December 12, a second massacre took place, and that the Armenian bishop and five other ecclesiastics were burned alive. The Anglo-Armenian Association stated, on November 18, that 100,000 Armenians were then dying of starvation.

The attitude of Europe was one of observation. That the great powers remonstrated with the sultan frequently was true, but that monarch reckoned, and, as the dreadful consequences proved, accurately, that their jealousies would prevent them from going from remonstrance to action. So far back as January 1895 a European commission, representing England, France, and Russia, visited Armenia and saw enough to more than confirm all that had been said of the extent of the massacres, but its labors were greatly impeded by the intrigues of the Turkish authorities. June 18 the Porte accepted the principles of a scheme of reform suggested by the powers, and asked time for discussion, which was granted. The sultan, late in August 1895, rejected the proposals of the powers that the reforms in Armenia should be placed under the control of Europeans. October 16 the Porte agreed to accept a scheme of reform suggested by Great Britain, but a week later it was announced that Lord Salisbury was not satisfied with the extent of the sultan's acceptance.

The details of these reform projects were and are so much waste paper, and it is reasonable to believe that their publication only precipitated fresh massacres. Yet since June 1895 a fleet of warships, mainly British, had been off the Turkish coast, part of the time off Beirut, Syria, and latterly just outside the Dardenelles. Yet the discords of the powers kept the fleet at their anchors. Lord Salisbury, in a speech at the lord mayor's banquet, uttered words that, while indicating the responsibilities of the Turkish government for misrule, said the reforms must be carried out by the sultan.

The incidental effect of the English-American disturbance in releasing England from the demand upon her to interfere on behalf of Armenia may be understood from these words, written by Mr. Gladstone a day or two before the Venezuela matter suddenly engrossed English attention. Mr. Gladstone's words, addressed to the Rev. Dr. Parker as a representative of the nonconformists of London, were these:

"We witness at the present momenta strange spectacle. The six great powers of Europe which between them spend over 200,000,000 pounds sterling in each year upon what are termed defenses, lie prostrate at the feet of the impotent Sultan of Turkey, who, with their cognizance, appears to prosecute massacres at his will from day to day. Presumably this is a condition of deep disgrace for us all-presumably now, and if it continues then finally and irrevocably. Which power or powers are to blame we know not. Ourcountry is quite able to cope not only with Turkey, but with five or six Turkeys, aud she is under peculiar obligations." The touch of apology for England here, Mr. Gladstone went on his letter to make more distinct, but entirely without other justification than that of English sentiment.

On about the same date Canon Gore said in Westminster Abbey, at the close of the Saturday afternoon service, that it seemed to him that the peculiar obligation under which England lay to the Armenians was commonly kept out of sight. They knew, he said, how, seventeen years ago, Armenia was on the way to obtain some relative measure of good government through the influence of Russia; how Great Britain intervened and prevented the carrying out of the treaty between Russia and Turkey; how, in the treaty of Berlin and the convention of Cyprus, England obtained her political ends and prevented Russia from carrying out her proposal; how, by serious pledges on behalf of Armenia, England baffled Russia and secured "peace with honor"; and how, nevertheless, England did nothing. Canon Gore added that sixteen years had passed, that tremendous massacres had taken place, that an ancient race was to a considerable extent exterminated, and that unless they were prepared to make sacrifices incomparably greater than any hitherto made, the cry of massacred Armenia would do nothing less than bring down upon England the curse of a righteous God.

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Massacre followed massacre in terrible succession; at Egin, January 2, at Harzan, February 12, and at Kara-Hissar, in March. In these slaughters hundreds, if not thousands, perished, and a long trail of desolation was left in provinces whose inhabitants were guilty of no crime, unless professing the Christian faith be such. There was a pause in the atrocities that lasted for so many weeks that Europe began to think that the Armenian question could be brushed aside as something whose interest had died under Turkish swords. In August the work of massacre was resumed, and at Posekan and Segurkan, near Tiflis, on the 14th of that month, the Kurds, ever foremost in rapine, whether acting on their own inclination or incited by higher authorities, worked their cruel will on the unarmed villagers. Several hundreds of Armenians were killed or plundered.

September 27 the Moslem fanaticism which had inspired the massacres in Armenia manifested itself in Syria, and ten persons were killed and many wounded in a Christian church in Antioch. September 30 Constantinople itself became the scene of fierce fighting, which raged for several days. The Armenians of the city attempted to present a petition for redress of grievances to the sultan. The procession of petitioners was attacked by Softas, or Mohammedan students, and later by the police, and more than two hundred were killed. These scenes went on until the remonstrances of the foreign ambassadors procured a cessation of them.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/...

Armenian Massacre of 1894-1895

Overshadowing all other events of 1895 was the decrepit and infamous Turkish government's methodical massacre of the Armenian element of its people - an appalling course of wholesale murder, rapine, and destruction - prosecuted in security owing to the disgraceful deadlockin the international politics of Europe. The year 1894 closed with the world slowly waking to a realizing sense of the horrors that had been going on in the plains and mountains of Armenia, far removed from the ordinary viewpoints whence Europe looks for signs of danger. With the opening of 1895 came tidings that forced open the eyes of sleeping Europe to see that the Eastern Question would not down.

Details were received early in January 1895 of terrible massacres in the district of Sassoun, where forty villages were destroyed and sixteen thousand persons, first accounts said, perished in the massacres, in which Turkish regulars participated. This latter circumstance was the more important because of the charitable interpretation put upon the previous atrocities by some commentators that they were the work of wild Kurds whom the Turkish government was too weak to restrain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adana_massacre

The Adana massacre occurred in Adana Province, in the Ottoman Empire, in April 1909. A massacre of Armenian Christians[1] in the city of Adana amidst governmental upheaval resulted in a series of anti-Armenian pogroms throughout the district. Reports estimated that the massacres in Adana Province resulted in 15,000 to 30,000 deaths.
Turkish and Armenian revolutionary groups had worked together to secure the restoration of constitutional rule, in 1908. On 31 March (or 13 April, by the Western calendar) a military revolt directed against the Committee of Union and Progress seized Istanbul. While the revolt lasted only ten days, it precipitated a massacre of Armenians in the province of Adana that lasted over a month.

The massacres were rooted in political, economic,[6] and religious differences. The Armenian segment of the population of Adana was the "richest and most prosperous", and the violence included the destruction of "tractors and other kinds of mechanized equipment."[2] The Christian-minority Armenians had also openly supported the coup against Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which had deprived the Islamic head of state of power. The awakening of Turkish nationalism, and the perception of the Armenians as a separatist, European-controlled entity, also contributed to the violence

Why has our US State Department been encouraging the formation of Islamic Fundamentalist regimes throughout the Greater Middle East? This is a direct threat to Israel. Christians of all stripes have been arbitrarily killed in Iraq, Egypt, etc. If only there could be regime change in Iran, Israel and Armenia would no longer be allied with enemies of each other.. I supported Jimmy Carter, but didn't know then that his administration engineered the downfall of the Shah and establishment of the current regime in Iran. The Shah was pro-Israel. The current regime in Iran wants Israel to disappear from the Middle East just like Azeri President Aliyev wants Armenia to disappear from the Caucases.