Armenian Fairy Tales

Armenians and Turks praying together 1914

On April 24, 2014 the biggest niggercocksucking attentionwhore aka Kim Kardashian posted something about this so called fabricated genocide to gain a little bit more fans.  Armenians are a proud people, and if you aren't Turkish and you don't deny their unproven genocide, they are also a very friendly people. Well since I'm from Kars where it all happened I want to tell a little about this fairytale myself.

How many Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire

Before the first World War 

First we need to know how many ethnic Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire before we can conclude the deaths ofcourse. These statistic come from many various sources and tell us how many Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire before 1914.

Armenian sources

Armenian sources

Armenian sources or better said the Armenian patriarch located in Constantinople of 1912 concluded there were 1,018,000 Armenians living in the Ottoman provinces/villayets: Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-Ul-Aziz, Diyarbakir and Sivas.

Ottoman sources

Since Armenians were part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, they also emigrated to other cities in the Ottoman Empire like Izmir and Istanbul. If we take a look to the whole picture we can conclude from Ottoman sources that the whole Armenian population is around the 1,200,000. Mostly still living in the East of the Empire close to the border with Russia.

French sources

French sources speak of 1,293,704 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Conclusion ? I personally would bet on 1,200,000 - 1,300,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during 1914 before the first World War broke out. It's very difficult to give it an exact number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire because of that fact that you weren't registrated on ethnicity but rather on Religion. So if you were for example Turkish who believed in the Eastern-Orthodox Armenian church you would be registrated as Armenian. Also note that the area where Kurds, Turks and Armenians lived is a very rural and harsh area to explore.

After the First World War 

The complexity of the Armenian issue lies in the complexity of the Ottoman Empire. It's very hard to decide how many people died in that harsh landscape, or if you look to those pictures ? How do you see the difference between dead Turks, Kurds or Armenians ? Take the break between the Republic of Turkey and the Ottoman Caliphate and you won't keep your head together. But whatever, I will show you the sources/statistics I found.

British sources say that they were still 546,100 Armenians alive during the partition of the Ottoman empire.

About the refugees, some sources tell us that 300,000 to 370,000 Armenians fled to the Republic of Erivan and other Caucasian nations like Georgia and Russia.

French sources speak from similar numbers, the French say that in total 390.000 Armenians sought refuge in
neighbouring regions like Persia, Syria, Causasus or Iraq.

USA archives

Now we have concluded the amount of Armenians in the begin of the First World War it is ridiculous to say that more than 1.5 million to 2 million Armenians have died. Ofcourse this is not the complete reason, Germany hadn't 6 million jews in 1938 but Germany invaded other countries that had large Jewish minorities. The Ottomans was collapsing and wasn't able to invade Russia infact it was Russia that broke through deep in Ottoman territory.

How Armenians lived during the Ottoman Period

Armenian family

Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (or Ottoman Armenians) were an ethnic people who belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, or the Armenian Protestant Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the 19th century equalized all Ottoman citizens before the law.

The Ottomans introduced and developed a number of unique traits into the traditions of Islam. Islamic culture did not enact a separation between religious and secular matters. But the Ottomans visualized an idea that two separate "establishments" shared state power. Historians often label the Ottoman sociopolitical construct the "Ottoman System", as a system characterized by militarism and State power, sharing the responsibility of both governing a nation's citizens and its religious establishments. The Ottomans left civic control to the civic institutions. It should be noted though that he term "Ottoman System," however, conveys a sense of structural rigidity that probably was nonexistent throughout the Ottoman period. At first, the Sultan was the highest power in the land and had control over almost everything. The state organization began to take a more definite shape in the first half of the sixteenth century under Suleyman I, also known as "Lawgiver."


The Armenian population's integration was partly due to the nonexistent structural rigidity throughout the initial period. Armenian people, related to the issues of their own internal affairs were administered by the civil administration. Townspeople, villagers and farmers formed a class called the reaya, including Armenian reaya. Civil and judicial administration was carried out under a separate parallel system of small municipal or rural units called kazas. The civil system was considered a check on the military system since beys, who represented executive authority on reaya, could not carry out punishment without a sentence from the religious leader of the person. Also, Sultan was beyond the mentioned control. Ecumenical Patriarchate was the leader of the Armenian People. This whole structure was named Armenian case Armenian Millet.

During the Byzantine period, the Armenian Church was not allowed to operate in Constantinople, because the Greek Orthodox Church regarded the Armenian Church as heretical. With the establishment of Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Armenians became religious leaders, and bureaucrats under the Ottoman Empire became more influential than just their own community. The idea that two separate "establishments" shared state power gave people a chance to occupy important positions, administrative, the religious-legal, and the social-economic. The Armenian patriarch is still in function todat in Istanbul.

Certain elite Armenian families in the Ottoman Empire gained the trust of the Sultans and were able to achieve important positions in the Ottoman government and the Ottoman economy. Even though their numbers were small compared to the whole Ottoman Armenian population, this caused some resentment among Ottoman nationalists.The life of the rest of the common Armenians was a very difficult existence because they were treated as second class citizens. Those elite Armenian families that did achieve great success were individuals such as Abraham Pasha who became Ottoman minister of State. Another Armenian by the name of Kapriel Noradounguian became secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Ottoman Empire. The Dadian family controlled the entire munitions industry in the Ottoman Empire.Calouste Gulbenkian became one of the main advisors of the National Bank of Turkey and the Turkish Petroleum Corporation which later became the Iraqi Oil Corporation. Historian A.Tchamkerten writes"Armenian achievements in the Empire was not only in trade, however. They were involved in almost all economic sectors and held the highest levels of responsibility. In the 19th century, various Armenian families became the Sultan's goldsmiths, Sultan's architects and took over the currency reserves and the reserves of gold and silver, including customs duty. Sixteen of the eighteen most important bankers in the Ottoman Empire were Armenian".(Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian:The man and his work. Lisbon:Gulbenkian Foundation Press.2010)

Besides the learned professions with the schools opened throughout the Ottoman Empire, the chief occupations were trade and commerce, various industries, and agriculture. The peasants, for the most part, were agriculturists. In the empire Armenians were raised to higher occupations, like Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was a businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development. The Armenian Press and literature during this period established institutions that were critical; this attitude has been invaluable in reforming abuses and introducing improvements of Armenian people in their communities. Thus their critical instinct is positive, rather than negative. Armenians organised themselves for different objects; witness their numerous societies, clubs, political parties, and other associations. Hovsep Pushman was a painter who become very famous in the Empire. During this period Armenians would establish a church, a school, a library, and a newspaper. Sargis Mubayeajian was a prolific and multifarious Armenian writer educated in Constantinople. Many of his works are still scattered in Armenian periodicals.

The provinces where Armenians had local autonomy

Many Armenians, who have emigrated to foreign countries become prosperous there, return to their native land because the love of the Mother Country is so intense in them. Alex Manoogian who become a philanthropist and active member of Armenian General Benevolent Union was from Ottoman lands (modern Izmir), Arthur Edmund Carewe born Trebizond become an Actor in the silent film era.

Armenians occupied important posts within the Ottoman Empire, Artin Dadyan Pasha served as minister of foreign affairs of Ottoman Empire from 1876 to 1901 is one of the examples that Armenian citizens served the Ottoman Empire in 19th century.

Armenian Officers/Soldiers in the ottoman empire

The Eastern Question (normally dated to 1774), in European history used in referring the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire, during the 18th century, including instability in the territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The position of educated and privileged Christians within the Ottoman Empire improved in the 17th and 18th centuries. Empire increasingly recognized the missing skills which the larger Ottoman population lacked, as the empire became more settled, and began to feel its increasing backwardness in relation to the European powers, European powers on the other side, engaged in a power struggle to safeguard their military, strategic and commercial interests in the Empire, this gave the motivation to the powers to help people in need. The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire, direct result of enlightenment of Christian millets through education, was the dominant theme.

Dr. Norman Stone a world renowned Ottoman historian on World War I, talked about what kind of a minority the Armenians were in the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Stone talked about the Armenians having ambassadors and even foreign ministers and other high ranking government officials in the Ottoman Empire. He also mentioned that the Armenians were known as the most loyal of Ottoman Christians, which made the Greek Christians envious of their loyalty and millet ranking.

Hate and seperatism

Armenian Rebels in Tozgat

Dr. William Ochsenwald of Virginia Tech and author of "The Middle East: A History", talked about how the religious freedoms and civil liberties granted by the Ottomans for centuries started to work against the Ottomans. The allowance of thousands of Christian missionaries to start schools, churches, and hospitals were dividing the people of the Ottoman Empire from each other. The side effect of this was the Armenian Nationalist Movement and the spread of an ideology for Armenians to rule their own nation, a Christian nation.

Armenians were not generally oppressed by governments, but more by regional people of power. They were in fact the second-most respected people of the Ottoman Empire, first being the Muslims (since it was an Islamic Empire). In fact, Albertus Bobovius, who was enslaved by Crimean Tatars and sold into the palace in the 17th century, reports that both Armenians and Jews were exempt from the dev?irme levy. He writes that the reason for this exemption of Armenians is religious: That Gregorian church (Armenian Church) is considered to be the closest to Christ's original (therefore Muhammed's) teachings.

Under the Millet system, the Turkish rule gave Armenians many rights that other nations would not. The Armenian National Constitution or Regulation of the Armenian Nation (Turkish:"Nizâmnâme-i Millet-i Ermeniyân") established in 1863, granted Armenians many rights that the Armenian church still uses today. The Armenian National Assembly established at this time allowed for Armenians to self-govern themselves and work out their problems in a peaceful fashion.

It was not until the 1890s, when the spread of nationalism encouraged Armenians to rebel. Although this was not the largest majority of Armenians, it was enough to instill paranoia and fear into Muslims in the area that the Armenians may secede and establish their own nation like the Christians did in the Balkans. The many Muslim refugees from the Balkans spread horror stories about Christian massacres of Muslims once the rebellion had started. Thus many Muslims in the area, mostly Kurds, felt threatened by the Armenians in the area by 1892.

Kurdish tribe leaders demanded more from the Armenians in the form of tribute. In some cases Armenians refused and rebelled against the Kurdish warlords, and sometimes the Ottoman Gendarme (National Guard) was caught in the conflicts. The result was large amounts of deaths by Armenians, Turks, and Kurds, who mutually massacred each other because of the spread of nationalism and the increased tension caused by the European Reform policies forced on to the Ottoman Sultan to protect the Armenian minority.

Dr. Guenter Lewy describes in his book that the European nations who hear the constant complaints of Armenian propagandists about Ottoman and Kurdish oppression, wanted to help the Armenians have more say in government and more protection for their Christian friends. The problem was, while European consuls continuously pressured the Ottoman Sultan for reforms to improve the Armenian peoples' condition, they did not provide the ability and method to enforce these reforms. Thus, many reforms were lightly implemented, and only caused further tension between ethnic groups in the region. This tension later grew into an all out civil war with mutual massacres by Kurds, Turks, and Armenians.

While the Armenians were occasionally oppressed by regional Muslims such as Kurds and Turks. This was not the central policy of the Ottoman government. There was no encouragement of hate or oppression against Armenians by the Ottoman government.

The constant tension and fighting of ethnic groups in Eastern Anatolia, caused large sums of death tolls for everyone in the region. Hate being a viscous cycle of revenge, sometimes provoked by Armenian rebels, and sometimes provoked by Muslim attacks, caused the deaths of many poor Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish lives.

Armenian Rebels

In June 1890, Russian Armenian students met in Tiflis, in the Russian Caucauses, in a large convention to discuss the future of Greater Armenia. They determined what would be the best way to unite all revolutionary forces under one new organization, and thus the new party the Armenian Revolutionary Federation or Dashnaktsuthiun party was born. It was founded by Christapor Mikaelian, Stepan Zorian, and Simon Zavarian.

the Hunchak founders

The Hunchak party also joined them but later withdrew and continued to work as revolutionaries in their own organization to revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Hunchak and Dashnak leaders

It contains affiliates in more than 200 countries, and represents a large majority of Armenian diaspora members as well as Armenians in Armenia.

The goals of the Dashnaks were adopted in their first general convention at Tiflis in 1892. The banners at the meeting read "It is the aim of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation to bring about by rebellion the political and economic emancipation of Turkish Armenia."

The ARF also works as an umbrella organization for the Armenian National Committee, the Armenian Relief Society, the Homenetmen Armenian General Athletic Union, the Hamazkayin Cultural Foundation, and many other organizations. It operates the Armenian Youth Federation, which encourages the youth of the diaspora to join the political cause of the ARF and the Armenian people. The ARF-affiliated Armenian National Committee of America, and its sister organizations such as the Armenian National Committee of Canada subsequently have played a significant role in the campaign for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in their countries.

In 1894, the ARF took part in the First Sasun Resistance, arming the local population to help the people of Sasun rebel against the Ottoman Empire. In June 1896, the Armenakans organized the "Defense of Van" in the province of Van, where Armenians claim Ottoman Hamidieh soldiers were to attack the city, but the reality of the matter was that the Armenians rebelled and took over the Ottoman city of Van.

In order to achieve many of their aims, "by means of revolution, to arm the people, and wreck and loot government institutions." They were to "use the weapon of the terror on corrupt government officers, spies, traitors, grafters, and all sorts of oppressors."

Louise Nalbandian noted "there was no radical difference between the Dashnak Program of 1892 and the aims and activities of the Hunchaks" which was to create terror and rebellion in the Ottoman Empire for the separation of a "free Armenia". These thoughts and ideas of course, were never hidden from the Ottoman government, who became more aware of Armenian thinking and helped in the deciding for the relocation of Armenian revolutionary villages and the eventual arrest of hundreds of Armenian Revolutionary leaders in April 24th, 1915.

Armenian guerrilla bands many of them under the leadership of the Dashnaks attacked Turkish army units, gendarmerie posts and Kurdish villages. British consuls regularly mention the killing of Ottoman officials.

In late November 1892 an Armenian villager tried to assassinate the vali (governor) of Van. He said after the interrogation which the British vice-consul reported that his priest and fellow villagers convinced him it would be for the betterment of the Armenian national movement.

Ottoman Bank Occupation

The occupation of the Ottoman Bank (Armenian: Պանք Օթօմանի Գրաւումը, Bank Otomani Cravumĕ "Ottoman Bank takeover") by members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak Party) took place in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, on 26 August 1896. In an effort to raise further awareness and action by the major European powers, 28 armed men and women led primarily by Papken Siuni and Armen Karo took over the bank which largely employed European personnel from Great Britain and France. Stirred largely due to the inaction of the European powers in regards to pogroms and massacres instigated by the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation members saw its seizure as their best attempt to bring full attention to the massacres. The Ottoman bank, at the time, served as an important financial center for both the Empire and the countries of Europe.

Armed with pistols, grenades, dynamite and hand-held bombs, the seizure of the bank lasted for 14 hours, resulting in the deaths of ten of the Armenian men and Ottoman soldiers. The Ottoman reaction to the takeover saw further massacres and pogroms of 6,000 Armenians living in Constantinople and also Hamid threatening to level the entire building itself. However, intervention on part of the European diplomats in the city managed to persuade the men to give, assigning safe passage to the survivors to France. Despite the level of violence the incident had wrought, the takeover was reported positively in the European press, praising the men for their courage and the objectives they attempted to accomplish. Nevertheless, aside from issuing a note condemning the pogroms in the city, the European powers did not act on their promises to enforce reforms in the country as future massacres of Armenians continued to take place.


Why is this important or relevant to the First Wold War ? This shows us how the attitude of the Ottomans changed from trusting Armenians to distrusting them and seeing them more as traitors unloyal to the Ottoman government (under the Sultan). You can also note the fact that the European Christian were subjectively supporting their Christian brethens instead of looking objectively to both sides, the reason for this is that they needed to get a new casus-belli for attacking to Ottoman Empire to gain more and more strategical territory.




Van Rebellion

Van, Turkey

In the Zeytun and Sasun Armenian revolts, the Ottomans had learned that they needed to control internal disorder and that they cannot simply defend the borders. The Armenian Revolutionary Federations' plan of ferocious rebellions that provoked retaliatory attacks which would then be used to convince Europe that they should help Armenians achieve independence was about to be tested. Armenian authors argue that the rebellion was part of a self-defense against Ottoman troops which resulted in the Armenian Genocide, but how was it interpreted by British consuls?

To slow down Dashnak (ARF) recruitment, the Ottomans decided they needed to stop giving reason for Armenians to join the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks), so they created roles in government for Christian officials in order to fix Armenian grievances. They created a "Christian Deputy Governor" position, and began to recruit Armenians into the Van police force and government. This began to take a toll on Dashnak recruiting, so the Dashnaks began to threaten and discourage Armenians who joined or thought of joining the Ottoman government.

One problem was the Kurdish bandits and mobile tribes in the region who consistently took advantage of Armenian and Muslim villages. Sadettin Pasha became in charge of Van’s military force; he brought in new battalions and soldiers to protect the Van province Armenians.

Money was always a significant problem in the Van province, as taxes were difficult to collect and they also hurt the villagers who already suffered because of the terrible weather and agricultural conditions of Van. Paying the soldiers, was almost impossible, and the soldiers revolted several times because they were hungry (they were not paid for months).

Since the government could not even pay the soldiers it had, how could one expect them to pay for new soldiers that were needed to secure the large Van province. The Sublime Porte (Ottoman) government could not send much money. Sometimes the soldiers even sold their weapons to Armenian rebels.

Dashnaks wrote:

There can be no reconciliation; we will not put down our arms. We have a holy war, and it will be continued with greater savageness. Therefore let the Commission of the tyrant go to hell. Let there be no yielding to it. We are revolutionists, and this is our last word.
Death or Liberty!
Long live the Armenian people!
Long live the revolution!

Nazim Pasha wrote:

Nazim Pasha sitting next to an imam

all the Armenians [in the city] are armed, and they are hiding weapons.

The 1896 Van Rebellion began on June 3rd and the rebels planned to take the city and await reinforcements to pour in from Iran and hopefully they believed the Russian army would arrive to aid their Christian brethren. On the night of June 2nd and 3rd Armenian rebels began to fire on soldiers near the Armenian Garden District.

When news spread that soldiers were shot and wounded by Armenians, Kurdish tribes asked Sadettin Pasha to join the battle which would have created the massacres that would draw European intervention; hence, Sadettin Pasha ordered them to stay away from the city. Sadettin Pasha was careful and did not want to immediately attack the rebel positions fearing a large loss of life of civilian population. Instead terms were offered to the rebels, and European consuls were requested to bear witness to the events so that rumors and false news of massacres would not be spread in Europe.

Unfortunately, the Armenians knew they could not last, especially after the Ottoman soldiers took over one outpost very easily and news from Iran that the Armenian rebel forces in Iran would not be coming to help them. Eventually, the rebels slowly fled the city and as they escaped to Iran and Russia they attacked Muslim villages in the Van province.

Sadettin Pasha and British Consul Williams reported that approximately 340 Muslims and 219 Armenians had been killed.

The objectives set by the Dashnaks which was to spark violence in the city and spread news in Europe and Russia that Armenians were being slaughtered innocently had not worked very well in this particular incident.

The Dashnaks hoped that the rebellion would create enough casualties to spark European intervention to create a free and independent Armenia. This idea of sparking violence in hopes of large civilian casualties which would bring European intervention and thus sovereignty was modeled after the events in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria, a small group of Bulgarians had slaughtered Muslims, which caused large groups of Muslims to retaliate against Christian Bulgarians, and thus Russia interfered and Bulgaria was created. This had happened shortly before the Armenian revolution and the idea did eventually work, but the cost of life may not have been desired but the revolutionaries knew that civilian casualties were a necessity for a free Armenia.

It should be noted that these articles in fact, mostly favor the Armenian Genocide. But notice the wording, the dates, and the overall facts. The fact is, these are all resistances among Armenian rebels, creating insurgencies all over the Ottoman Empire BEFORE 1915 "Armenian Genocide". This was crystal clear to everyone, that it is violence between Ottomans, Turks, Kurds, Muslims, Christians, Armenians, where many people died, but it must be understood that it wasn't the Ottoman government against Armenians alone. It wasn't simply massacres, there were massacres on all sides in all different methods. There was terrorism by Armenians, and there was brutality by Muslim AND Armenian civilians as well.

Of course, the Ottoman Empire must restore order in its own cities, and so yes, sometimes Armenians even died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, but it should be noted that these Armenians were armed and dangerous, much like police today may shoot a man with a gun pointed at the police. The overall fact though, is that there was no direct order of mass killing of Armenians, there was no mass murder weapon or weapons of mass destruction, which was used in World War II by Hitler (Gas chambers, labor camps), there was no such camps or evidence of any type of mass killing methods during World War I except by simple swords and guns. This was all out war, hence the name World War I.