The conflict continued after the Young Turks came to power and was intensified by the refusal of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation at its meeting in 1914 to organize an insurrection in Russian Armenia if a war was declared. In a book edited by Arnold Toynbee, The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916, this is described as follows:
At the beginning of the European war, the Dashnaktzoutioun’ party met in congress at Erzeroum in order to decide on the attitude to be observed by the Party. As soon as they heard of this congress, the Young Turks sent their representatives to Erzeroum to propose that the Party should declare its intention of aiding and defending Turkey, by organizing an insurrection in the Caucasus in the event of a declaration of war between Turkey and Russia. According to the project of the Young Turks, the Armenians were to pledge themselves to form legions of volunteers and to send them to the Caucasus with Turkish propagandists, to prepare the way there for insurrection.... The Erzeroum Congress refused these proposals, and advised the Young Turks not to hurl themselves into the European conflagration – a dangerous adventure which would lead Turkey to ruin.29
In postwar Turkish writings, the Armenians are described as instruments of foreign agitation, tools of the European powers, an avenue for their mingling in the internal affairs of Turkey and for pursuing their designs on the empire.
Did the Armenians represent a dangerous internal enemy? There was some violence by Armenians against Turks in the early part of the First World War, its extent a matter of dispute. According to Turkish writers, as the war started, invading Russian Armenian troops were joined by Turkish Armenian volunteers, killing Turks, with estimates as high as 150,000 to less than 40,000 killed. Apparently, the source of some of these estimates was the unreliable and repeatedly revised claims of the Ottoman government, for example, claims presented to their German allies.30 Non-Turkish sources claim that participation by Turkish Armenians was very limited. They also claim that uprisings by Turkish Armenians were attempts at self-defense as the genocide began.31
An uprising at Van in April 1915 was the immediate justification for the deportations that started in May 1915. The nature of this uprising is also in dispute. Armenian writers minimize its scope. Missakian, for example, claims that it was only a defense of the Armenian quarter of the city when it was attacked by Turkish troops; Turkish troops had massacred Armenians in outlying villages, and the deportations had already started in Cilicia before the fighting broke out in Van.32 Richard Hovannisian, a leading historian of the genocide, also sees the uprising as defensive. It started after three leaders of the Armenian community were killed and refugees from surrounding villages were coming into Van (personal communication).
Gurun, a Turkish writer, claims that Armenians seized Van and delivered it to the Russians.33 Turkish writers claim Armenians endangered Turkey through acts of sabotage, defection, spying, and mass uprisings. Their actions made it necessary to deport them “from the neighborhood of the front and from the vicinity of railroads and lines of communications. “34 There was no genocide. Lives were lost during the deportations as were Turkish lives in the war, but much fewer than the number claimed by Armenians.
Justin McCarthy makes singular claims. There was a civil war. “Large elements of the Muslim population in the Kars region of the Russian Empire aided the Ottomans whenever possible, and Armenian activities at the rear of the Ottoman army were a factor in Ottoman defeats.”35
Other non-Turkish accounts make the claim of a civil war untenable. There were some Turkish Armenian attacks on Turks, but the Armenians gave only limited aid to the Russians and perhaps only after the atrocities against them had begun.
It is certainly possible that the Turks believed that the Armenians represented a serious threat to them. They had long mistrusted Armenians. Armenian males in the army were placed in unarmed batallions – although perhaps already in preparation for genocide. The Armenian unwillingness to cooperate with Turkish designs, however unreasonable they were from an Armenian point of view, conflicted with the evolving ideology and goals of Turkish leaders and what they saw as their long-established right to rule. This occurred when the war was already being lost and the empire was near collapse. Armenian actions before the war threatened nationalistic aspirations; those during the war perhaps generated a belief that the Armenians threatened Turkey’s existence.
To sum up, the Armenians were victims of a progression of increasing destructiveness. They were devalued because of their religion and inferior status as a subject people. They were resented because of their financial, commercial, and administrative success. They provoked hostility by their attempts to protect themselves and to gain greater rights and autonomy, and in the end by acts of violence against Turks. Their religion, commercial involvements, and attempts to gain outside support linked them to foreign powers, especially Russia. Armenians were subject to many forms of discrimination, brutality, and murder on increasing scales.
The evolution of Young Turk ideology
The Young Turks began as liberals who promised equality regardless of religion or ethnic background. They favored religious tolerance and freedom of religious practice, self-government in education, and the right of all to private property. Colleges and schools were to be opened to Christians. The word rajah, or cattle, used to designate Christians, was to the removed from all public documents.36
From the start, however, there was a strong nationalistic element in the Young Turks’ movement and a nationalistic component in their ideology. Young Turks wanted to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire. They hoped to
