by Benny Morris
murdered.71
Surviving villa gers also told stories about Kurds and soldiers who showed
mercy to women and children. But these incidents usually ended with the
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II
deaths of those initially reprieved.72 Soldiers who refused to butcher the
innocent were punished and chastened as infidels while their more willing
comrades dispatched the victims.73
All this murder came at the behest of the sultan himself, in an Islamist mes-
sage delivered via the vali, Tahsin Pasha, who visited Mount Andok while the
Armenians were still on the run. His secretary read the troops a firman from
Abdülhamid ordering that “the disaffected villages that were supposed to be
in rebellion were to be wiped out.” The troops and Kurds were “to spare no
one or nothing . . . for their King and Prophet.”74
After the stand at Mount Andok and the massacre at Ghelie San Ravine,
troops moved on to Talori and nearby villages, which they destroyed while
carry ing off anything valuable they could handle. Cecil Hallward, the British
vice- consul in Van, later met survivors. Some told him that while Kurds there
had taken cattle and sheep, they had generally refrained from participating in
the massacres. One local Kurdish leader, Khishman Aga, was reportedly im-
prisoned for “befriending the Armenians.” That said, Kurds reportedly also
kidnapped “a number of [Armenian] girls.” One report put the number in the
hundreds, with one Kurdish tribe, Bekiranli, taking 400 girls.75 The soldiers
raped “many others.”76 Allen, the Van missionary, reported in 1895 that one
local Kurdish chieftain, Hussein Pasha, had twenty Sason girls in his harem.
Others were apparently in the hands of a Kurdish chieftain in the Jazira area.77
In the second week of September, Zeki Pasha arrived and halted the mur-
ders.78 Altogether, some thirty Armenian villages had been “wholly blotted
out.” A missionary compared what had happened to the atrocities of 1877,
in which Abdülhamid’s government was accused of slaughtering thousands
of Bulgarian Christians.79 One estimate places the number of dead at 800 in
Geligüzan, 2,200 in and around Talori, and 2,000 on Mt. Andok.80 In all, be-
tween 3,000 and 6,000 Armenians were killed. At the time, Kurdish losses
were estimated in the thousands, but the balance of forces suggests this
was prob ably an exaggeration. The government claimed no losses among
its troops, though later estimates put the number at 150–200. Hundreds of
Kurds, Turks, and Armenians likely succumbed to cholera.81
During and immediately after Sason, the authorities tried to prevent word
of events there from leaking. The grand vizier told the British ambassador
in Constantinople that “the Armenians had attacked Moslems” and “had
The Massacres of 1894–1896
desecrated their corpses.” 82 “No atrocities ever occurred or were ever
proved,” the grand vizier told the American minister, Terrell. The terrible
stories that filled the Western press were the concoctions of “Armenian anar-
chists”; what occurred was an Armenian “revolution.” 83 For months, Amer-
ican diplomats in Turkey were taken in by the deceit. Terrell telegraphed
Washington that “reports in Armenian papers of Turkish atrocities at Talori
are sensational and exaggerated. The killing was in a conflict between armed
Armenians and Turkish soldiers” and was necessitated by Armenian “insur-
rection.” 84 He believed that the clashes were initiated by Armenian revolution-
aries. “Public opinion” in Eu rope was, he wrote, “deceived” by Armenian
propaganda.85
The Ottomans did their best to prevent Hallward from reaching the area
to see for himself, arguing that the roads were unsafe and that the area was
beset by cholera. (One missionary suggested that the outbreak was in part due
to the “stench of carnage” floating in from the nearby mountains.86) Once
Hallward reached Muş, policemen were stationed prominently outside his
lodgings and “spies” followed him wherever he went.87 He speculated that
the authorities hoped to keep him away from the affected districts until winter,
when the roads would be impassable, and that the affair would blow over by
the time he could get to the massacre sites. Fearing retribution, Armenians rou-
tinely refused to meet him or tell him what had happened. The authorities
also arrested leading Armenians, including six monks, and prevented busi-
nessmen from other provinces reaching the area.88
Ottoman officials pressed local Armenians to sign a mazbata, testimony expressing “satisfaction with [Abdülhamid’s] rule” and asserting that it was
they who had “stirred matters up.” 89 Police arrested dozens of Armenians in
Muş and Bitlis to intimidate the communities into silence, extort funds, and
coerce them to write letters approving the government’s conduct and con-
demning fellow Armenians. At least six prisoners died of torture and other ill
treatment. According to a missionary, all, “with hardly a rag on them,” had
been “put down . . . a damp filthy dungeon, half starved, often cruelly beaten.”
The missionary suggested that the prisoners had suffered the usual fare of “po-
liti cal prisoners” in Turkey: “flogging . . . the branding iron,” being made to
“stand for several hours barefoot on the snow.” He noted with astonishment,
“ There are actually those who have had tacks driven into their heads.” The
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II
Turks claimed the prisoners died of cholera.90 By late 1895 twelve other pris-
oners, from Talori, had died in Muş, and another was at death’s door. British
repre sen ta tions only resulted in additional abuse of the prisoners.91
In the winter of 1895, under pressure by the great powers, the government
set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the massacre—or at least pretend
to do so. Constantinople also ordered officials in the eastern provinces to
restrain soldiers and Kurds: the great powers would be closely monitoring
the work of the commission and, in general, goings on in the eastern prov-
inces.92 One British report said that initially the government ordered Kurds
in the Khouit district to resume anti- Armenian activities but then counter-
manded the order, enjoining them “to keep the peace till the Commission
shall get away.”93
The commission set up shop in Muş.94 Attached to it, at the great powers’
insistence, were three delegates representing Britain, France, and Rus sia. They
watched the proceedings and reported to their ambassadors. Sometimes the
delegates, individually or collectively, pressed the commission to take a cer-
tain step or summon a par tic u lar witness. But the commission was free to re-
ject such suggestions and often did.95
Assisted by local officials, the commission spent the winter and spring of
1895 framing the Armenians for their own slaughter by manipulating evi-
dence, intimidating witnesses, and denying and manipulating testimony. In
the estimation of Vice- Consul Hammond Smith Shipley, the British delegate,
the commission’s efforts were “directed towards showing t
hat the Armenians
were in a state of revolt and that they were guilty of atrocious outrages upon
the Kurds.” The commission was intent on showing that Armenians “ were in
every case the aggressors” and that “they were guilty of acts of revolting bar-
barity.”96 On rare occasions the commissioners made a show of seeking out
“pro- Armenian” witnesses.97 Meanwhile, in a largely successful effort to ex-
punge physical traces of the massacres, soldiers dug the bodies from the
trenches at Geligüzan and dispersed them in the snow.98 Though one dele-
gate described the “smell” as “overpowering,” the commission found just one
skeleton and, other wise, “fragments of human bones.”99
According to Shipley, the delegates were “closely watched” and hampered.
They were subjected to “insulting and violent conduct” by police and were
forced to contend with “systematic persecution of their servants, guides and
The Massacres of 1894–1896
other Christians” who were “brought into any communication with them.”
Authorities exercised “administrative pressure on an extensive scale” against
“all persons suspected of their capacity or intention of giving damaging evi-
dence.” The British even got hold of a letter from General Rahmi Pasha or-
dering Hamidiyes in the Malazgirt district to make sure that “no one is to be
allowed to visit Moush during the inquiry, for the purpose of laying com-
plaints before the Commission.”100
In cases where the murder of Armenians was undeniable, the authorities
and commissioners tried to exonerate Turkish officials and soldiers and lay
blame exclusively on the Kurds.101 One Armenian witness, Hebo of Shenik,
claimed he had been “threatened with death by the chief of the Gendarmerie
if he accused the regular troops and not the Kurds of massacring the Arme-
nians.” Cooperation, on the other hand, would be lucrative. In exchange for
testifying to the revolutionary commitments of those killed, and attributing
“the burning of the villages to the Kurds” rather than Turkish regulars, the
mutesarrif of Muş and the secretary of the commission promised to rebuild
Hebo’s house; provide him “five hundred sheep, ten oxen and one thousand
piasters”; and restore to him 160 liras taken from his brother Kriko, who was
killed in the massacre.102
The thirty- nine Kurdish chieftains who petitioned Queen Victoria were
wise to this betrayal. They explained in their letter that the Turks had prodded
them to attack and plunder and then blamed them for what had happened,
even though much if not most of the killing had been carried out by regular
soldiers. It was, the chieftains alleged, soldiers and gendarmes who carried
out “the massacres, robberies, burning and other disgusting works that have
taken place among the Sassoun Mountains . . . and they have laid every thing
on the Kurds.”103
In spite of the cover-up, details of what had happened gradually emerged
from the investigations of diplomats and the foreign press.104 Operating from
distant Russian- held Kars, a special correspondent for London’s Daily Tele-
graph reported that he “and his assistants” had examined “over 200 persons who saw or took part in the massacre.” Among the interviewees were Turkish
noncommissioned officers and “wild Kurds.” The Turkish witnesses, he
wrote, “are often drunk, but the Kurds speak the truth soberly and fearlessly.”
One Kurd described how “the Turkish soldiers took little children by the feet
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II
and dashed them against stones.” The Kurd said he saw soldiers torture an
Armenian priest, “squeezing his neck, gouging out his eyes, and tearing off
his flesh with pincers.” The Kurd added, “We hate that; we only stab, or bay-
onet, or cut off heads. We dislike needless pain.” He also claimed he “saw the
soldiers . . . joking around” a pregnant woman and making “bets as to the sex
of her child. She was then cut open and the money was paid to the scoundrel
who had guessed rightly.” The report concluded that “the soldiers delighted
in torture. They put some to death with scissors, cutting them and opening
veins in the neck. Others were sawed, others had the tongues cut out, eyes
gouged out, and several fin gers removed before death.”105
The commission’s determination was that Sason had been the site of an
Armenian rebellion. The Turks’ report and the delegates’ differed, Shipley
said, like “night and day.”106 Graves complained of the commission’s bias,
its failure to probe the 1893 Kurdish depredations that had led to Armenians’
“isolated acts of hostility towards the Kurds and . . . insubordination towards Government officials,” which had triggered the “terrible reprisals” of 1894.
Graves also decried the lack of Ottoman cooperation, which meant he was
unable to assess the precise share of the “regular troops in the massacre.”107
The acting British vice- consul in Diyarbekir, Thomas Boyajian, recognized
Kurdish culpability, condemning in par tic u lar the “Sheikhs of Zilan and
Dudan, Gendjo and Khalil of Sassoun, Eumer the chief of the Bekiran tribe,
another chief of the Charabi tribe and the brother of [the Sheikh of Zilan],
Molla Djami.”108 And Hallward denounced the Turkish explanations as “an
extraordinary tissue of misstatements.”109 Ottoman officials, he said, knew that
what had occurred were not “clashes” but massacres by Kurds and Turks.
None of the Western diplomats bothered to translate the commission’s brief
report for their own files.
For their part, the British ruled that there was “reason to believe that the
Bitlis Government had secretly encouraged the Kurds to pick a quarrel with
the Armenians.” The Ottoman authorities “ were apparently driven by a desire
to destroy the in de pen dence of the district” or, in an alternative phrasing, to break “the strength of the Sassoun Armenians.” Tahsin, the British concluded,
also sought to extract money from Armenians and gain personal prestige as
the suppressor of a revolt. Although there was no such revolt, he may have
really believed that he was suppressing one.110
The Massacres of 1894–1896
Western observers initially hoped that the appointment of the commission
might “modify” government and popu lar attitudes toward the Christian com-
munities but were forced to admit that the opposite had happened. “A more
than usually fanatical spirit is manifesting itself not only among the soldiers
but among the Kurds and other Moslems,” Hallward wrote. Soldiers returning
to Van from the massacres apparently told Armenian villa gers along the way
that “their turn would come next if they remained Christian.” These soldiers,
Hallward thought, seemed “to regard their proceedings at Sassoun in the light
of a religious war.” The massacre would prove to be merely an “episode” in
“the government’s general policy of suppressing the Christian ele ment in
Kurdistan.”111
The survivors were still suffering acutely a year after the massacres. One
British diplomat believed that the authorities were continuing their effort “to
&
nbsp; consummate the ruin of the Christians of Sassoun and Talori” under “the
guise of superintending” relief for the survivors, who were still living in abject poverty, without housing, food, or clothes.112 Kurdish nomads had returned
to the pasturelands, where they continued “eating up the hay,” threatening
the harvests, and demanding tribute.113 A letter from a missionary in Muş de-
scribed the situation around Talori in 1895:
At the beginning of spring oppression began at the hands of the nomad
Kurds and others, and the villa gers then deci ded that it was best to re-
turn to their former homes. There are about 860 of these house less wan-
derers now living in the woods and mountains, in caves and hollow
trees, half naked and some indeed entirely without covering for their na-
kedness. Bread they have not tasted for months, and curdled milk they
only dream of, living, as they do upon grass and the leaves of trees. There
are two va ri e ties of grass which are preferred, but these are disap-
pearing. . . . Living on such food, they have become sickly and their
skin has turned yellow, their strength is gone, their bodies are swollen
and fever is rife among them.
The Kurds would shoot these unfortunates “on sight . . . so . . . they will
gradually die out. . . . The authorities do not allow them to wander out and
beg.”114
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Survivors largely fled to unaffected villages or to Muş. But some remained
in the Sason area, eventually emerging from forests and caves. And some who
hid did not emerge. During a snowstorm in mid- March 1895, a Daily Tele-
graph correspondent in Simal visited a house where two girls, aged six and fourteen, had lived on their own since the massacre. He found them “dead,
curled up on a wisp of straw, in a corner of the room, with only a skirt apiece
for clothing. They were close together. The room was cold as an ice- cellar,
and there were no provisions whatsoever.”115
The massacre— and the failure to punish the perpetrators— persuaded
Muslims in the eastern provinces that “the Christians have been delivered
into their hands to do with as they please.” So in spring 1895, local offi-
cials allowed themselves to behave in “the most brutal manner, beating and