The Thirty-Year Genocide

by Benny Morris

  hours or face battle.417

  Two days later the Turks, joined by local Kurds and Arabs, attacked the

  450–700- strong French garrison comprising mainly Algerian and Senegalese

  troops— “heroes of Verdun,” an American missionary called them.418 What

  followed was a two- month siege. The French responded by intermittently

  shelling the Turkish parts of town and provided local Armenians with some

  arms.419 But, despite Turkish sniping, the Armenians stayed neutral.420 The

  French lived on “short rations, horse meat and black bread, [and] beans.” 421

  The French “have blundered and blundered,” an American missionary

  later wrote. But no blunder was worse than that of April 8 in Urfa.422 That

  day the French commander, Major G. Hauger, agreed to withdraw. In ex-

  change the Turks guaranteed the safety of the town’s Christians and prom-

  ised to provide the French with pack animals and an escort of gendarmes to

  aid their withdrawal. It would be “a withdrawal with honor and safety,” Mute-

  sarrif Ali Rıza Bey said.423 But Ali Rıza knew what was coming. He told a

  westerner who planned to accompany the column that it was unsafe to go, as

  the route was surrounded by tribes “in a state of agitation.” 424

  The French left early on April 11, with sixty camels and thirty horses.

  They met their fate nine miles out, at Sebeke Pass.425 According to Ali

  Rıza, “tribesmen” and “some of the population of the city . . . without the

  knowledge of the government and of the commander of the Nationalist

  forces” ambushed the column. The fight lasted over two hours. Rıza claimed

  the French feigned surrender and then “treacherously” opened fire, so the

  Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924

  ambushers cut them down.426 Garnet Woodward, a British NER worker who

  accompanied the column, had witnessed something diff er ent. He reported

  that the French attempted to surrender but were shot down by Kurds and

  Turks, who proceeded to finish off the wounded. Gendarmes sent from Urfa

  eventually ended the killing and saved some of the soldiers.427 Between 50

  and 161 troopers, most of them Muslim Algerians and Tunisians, survived

  and were brought back to Urfa.428 Three hundred or more soldiers died.

  For weeks thereafter Urfa’s Turks lived in fear that the French would take

  revenge. The Turks thus behaved well toward the town’s Armenians, at least

  for a while. The Armenians were even allowed to retain arms.429 Some time

  later Sheikh Sanussi used Urfa as a base, from which he delivered sermons

  inciting against the Christians.430 The French blamed the Armenians for the

  debacle at Urfa, aggravating Franco- Armenian relations.431

  A few days before Urfa’s fall, Turkish villa gers massacred the Armenian in-

  habitants of nearby Ehneche. At first local gendarmes intervened. But they

  were soon supplanted by a new troop, which arrived with the kaymakam of

  Kheldedi. The kaymakam and his twenty men tied up the villa gers and

  marched them down the road to Kamışlı (Qamishli). According to the Arme-

  nian Patriarchate, the Turks “then cut up the small children to pieces, next

  they led the men to the banks of the Euphrates and massacred them

  there . . . crushing . . . heads under large stones, skinning, dismembering them alive and so forth. Fi nally came the women’s turn; they were placed on the

  sand by the side of the river, and burnt alive.” Two men and three women

  escaped; one hundred and sixty- four were murdered.432

  At Antep the Armenians and the French held on from the slopes outside

  the city. Armenian artisans and jewelers manufactured ammunition.433 The

  Turks periodically bombarded the Christian quarters, and the Armenians

  responded with what they had. On April 28 Kılıç Ali— signing as Sayf Ullah,

  “the sword of God”— gave the Armenians an ultimatum: they had twenty- four

  hours to turn over their arms or else “be considered rebels.” In that case the

  Turks would “resort to vio lence.” “Marash should give you an indication” of

  what might happen, Kılıç Ali said.434 But the Armenians kept fighting.

  On May 23 a strong French column under Col o nel Debieuvre reached

  Antep, reportedly killing 1,200 and capturing “thousands” of Turks along the

  way.435 The Turks also suffered severe losses inside the town: one report

  Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists

  spoke of 400 dead. But they, too, kept fighting.436 On May 27 the Turks

  ambushed a French garrison at Pozantı. Many were killed or taken prisoner.437

  According to one report, the garrison’s 450 Algerians were spared but 120

  Frenchmen were executed.438

  On May 29 Robert de Caix, secretary general of the French high commis-

  sion in Constantinople, met Kemal in Ankara and signed a limited, twenty-

  day armistice. The accord provided for French evacuation of Sis, Pozantı, and

  Antep within ten days, while the Turks were not to attack Antep’s Arme-

  nians.439 The agreement represented a partial French capitulation.440 As one

  British naval officer observed, the French position in Cilicia was, at this point,

  “extremely critical,” and they needed a breather. The garrisons were too weak

  to successfully withdraw and were “likely to be exterminated” unless consid-

  erably reinforced.441

  Missionaries called the armistice “a farce,” partly because it made no pro-

  vision for impor tant Armenian sites under siege, principally Hacin, Dörtyol,

  and Hasanbeyli.442 The French maintained that their aims in Cilicia included

  protecting the Christians, but they quietly urged Armenians to move to areas

  closer to the coast where such protection could be effectively exercised. “Sev-

  eral thousand” Armenians accordingly trekked from Antep to Kilis.443

  Emir Faisal, in Damascus, while himself at loggerheads with the French,

  regarded the armistice with misgivings. It would mark “the commencement

  of a series of defeats in Near East in which not only French but all of [our]

  Allies will be involved and will shortly menace peace of Mesopotamia, Mosul

  and other places.” The armistice, he warned, opened the way for the Turks

  to extend their “domination” southward.444

  Despite Turkish violations of the ceasefire during the first week of June,

  the French duly evacuated Sis. The town’s 6,000–8,000 Armenians, locals

  and rural refugees who had clustered in the town, were “ordered” by the

  French “to leave within 24 hours” for Adana. “The Armenians begged to

  be allowed to remain . . . rather than go out to become beggars,” but they were

  refused. “If they stayed behind, the French guns would be turned on them,” an

  American missionary reported. So they left, abandoning their property.445

  Kemal “refused to extend [the] armistice,” and hostilities resumed after

  June 20.446 The Turks shelled the French outposts at Mersin and almost sur-

  rounded the Adana plain, which was dotted with Armenian refugee camps.447

  Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924

  In August the French abandoned Hasanbeyli; its 1,500 Armenians, under

  French escort, trekked to Dörtyol. “They were 32 days on the road,” arriving

  at their destination “with only their clothes on their back.”
448

  At Antep, the French proposed that all the Armenians leave and promised

  to provide transport. But the Armenians there felt much like their compa-

  triots in Sis, responding that “instead of going out to die as tramps and beg-

  gars, they will stick to their arms and defend themselves, their families and

  property, as long as they have left a piece of bread and a single cartridge.”

  The missionaries worried that, if the Armenians stayed, “Fifteen thousand

  souls will surely perish.” 449 The French relented, withdrawing from the

  town center and urging the Armenians to negotiate with the Nationalists.450

  The resulting ceasefire had unusually good terms, from the Armenians’

  standpoint. Antep was to be policed by a thousand Turkish regulars. The

  Turks offered amnesty to the Armenian fighters and agreed to pull all the brig-

  ands out of town and allow the Armenians to retain their arms.451 But 3,500

  Armenians, “consisting of el derly people, paupers and non- combatants,” left

  in early June.452 The town calmed down during the following weeks, though

  the Turks continued nonviolent forms of persecution, boycotting Armenian

  traders and refusing to sell to Armenians. The Armenians received substantial

  missionary aid.453

  By July the Cilician countryside, ravaged by Kemal’s irregulars, had emp-

  tied of Armenian villa gers. All had fled to the towns. There were reportedly

  80,000 Armenians in Adana and its environs.454 Many, perhaps most, of

  Adana’s Turks had fled, either under Armenian duress or in fear of mas-

  sacre.455 Because Armenians were unable to cultivate their fields, there was

  widespread hunger. In Adana alone 20,000 women and children reportedly

  were begging in the streets.456 Here too, Western aid agencies helped stave off

  famine and epidemics.

  In July the French won a victory over the Arabs in Maysalun and ousted

  Faisal from Damascus, leading some Armenians to believe that the French

  would go on to reassert control in Cilicia. But nothing changed.457 Adana’s

  Christians deci ded to act. On August 4 representatives of the town’s Chris-

  tian communities, with the Armenians in the lead, issued a “declaration of

  [Cilician] autonomy,” albeit under French Mandate. Some called the new

  polity the Republic of Amanus. The next day the representatives elected an

  Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists

  Armenian prime minister and a cabinet consisting of six Armenians, a Greek,

  a Turk, an Assyrian, and an Arab. The cabinet took over the konak and ex-

  pelled the Turkish gendarmes and officials. The vali and others were placed

  under house arrest.458

  Brémond reacted swiftly. His soldiers stormed the konak “with fixed bay-

  onets” threw out the cabinet, and declared martial law. General Dufieux pro-

  claimed, “Enough masquerades, fiery speeches and comedies!” 459 A series of

  pro- Turkish steps followed. The French removed Brémond, who, despite

  crushing the short- lived “republic,” was regarded as pro- Armenian. On

  September 18 Gouraud ordered his commanders in Adana to “[re]estab-

  lish a Turkish government,” in conformity with the just- concluded provisions

  of the Treaty of Sèvres.460 The thousands of Armenian refugees camped

  around the city were ordered to leave for “Smyrna, Constantinople, Erivan,

  Marseilles or Amer i ca” or to French- governed Alexandretta and Beirut.461

  But they refused to budge.462 The French surrounded the camps and

  threatened to deport “ women, children and old men” and cut off the refu-

  gees’ rations.463 The large camp near the new railway station was eventually

  cleared, but many refugees responded by moving into empty houses in

  town.464 Some were sent to Mersin.465 The French disarmed the local Arme-

  nian militia and jailed its commander. They also disarmed a volunteer column

  that had set out to relieve the besieged town of Hacin, shut down Adana’s

  Armenian newspapers, and arrested journalists and members of the Arme-

  nian National Council. All were deported to Alexandretta.466 The Armenians

  said that the deportations came at Turkish request.467 The French invited

  Muslims who had fled Adana to return.468

  The French later described the trajectory of their actions. At first “arms

  were distributed to the Armenians for the purposes of defending their villages

  and forming auxiliary contingents [for] . . . the French forces.” But “the Ar-

  menians, profiting by the acquisition of arms, conducted a campaign of re-

  venge against the Turkish inhabitants in the form of massacres, pillage and

  incendiarism. When an appeal was made to them to rally to the relief of

  Tarsus, out of the two thousand volunteers promised, seventeen joined the

  French troops. . . . Eventually it was found necessary to disarm the Arme-

  nians.” As for the volunteers heading for Hacin, they were disarmed “upon

  Turks and Armenians, 1919–1924

  an attempt by the Armenians of Adana to proclaim an Armenian republic in

  Cilicia to the exclusion of the Turks.” 469

  Back in Antep, battle— this time strictly between the Turks and the

  French— was resumed on July 29.470 It began with a bombardment of the

  American missionary compound after the French refused to vacate the build-

  ings.471 An infantry assault failed, and the French responded by bombarding

  the town’s Turkish quarters with artillery and aircraft. Two- thirds of the

  Turkish homes were reported destroyed. The Armenians, of whom there

  were 8,000–9,000 left, remained neutral. They refused to allow the Turks to

  use their quarter to launch attacks. A joint Armenian- Turkish com pany pa-

  trolled the Armenian quarter. Nonetheless, six Armenians were reportedly

  killed in a firefight with the Turks. Turkish- Armenian relations deteriorated.472

  On August 10 a 5,000- strong French column broke through the siege,

  surrounded Antep, and delivered an ultimatum. The Turks were called to

  surrender the town.473 As far as the French were concerned, Antep was

  theirs, awarded to them that very day at Sèvres. Already in May the Allies

  had published a draft summary of the provisions. The draft augured the par-

  tition of Cilicia into French- and Turkish- ruled zones, in effect awarding

  France only a small part of the area designated in Sykes- Picot. The Arme-

  nians protested, demanding that Cilicia, together with Antep, be left intact

  as a political- administrative Armenian entity, under Western mandate.474

  The publication of the draft affected French decision- making. In May

  Gouraud argued that under the treaty, Cilicia, including Adana, Mersin,

  Tarsus, Maraş, and Hacin was to be returned to the Turks but not “Killis,

  Aintab, Biredjik and Urfa,” which were to be incorporated in French- ruled

  Syria.475 But a month later, the French told the British that Sèvres was no

  longer the guideline, and that they intended to withdraw from “Bozanti, Urfa,

  Biridjik and Marash,” as these were “dangerously exposed.” But they had “no

  intention” of evacuating “Mersina, Tarsus, Adana, Osmanie and Aintab.” 476

  Clearly, there was confusion in French ranks.

  They appeared to want to hold Antep. But the Turks refused to sur
render,

  and the French renewed their bombardment.477 Thousands of Turks fled to

  the countryside. The French hoped the blockade and shelling would elicit

  surrender, but the siege was not tight enough; supplies came in at night from

  Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists

  Malatya.478 Moreover, the French were still getting no help from the Arme-

  nians, who remained neutral despite the horrific effects the siege was having

  on them. A desperate food shortage led to Armenian riots in August.479 Only

  in September, caught between hammer and anvil, did the Armenians at last

  join the fight. They won French admiration for their bravery and skill.480

  Nonetheless, the Armenians were sure the French wanted them to leave.

  The meager rations the French provided seemed to demonstrate as much, but

  matters were not that straightforward. In Paris there was a serious policy

  strug gle that summer. Some senators called for “peace with Mustafa Kemal,”

  others for a new offensive to cow the Nationalists. For a brief moment, the latter prevailed. But all agreed that to hold the core of Syria, additional troops were

  needed. A further division was shipped to Alexandretta.481 Meanwhile, thou-

  sands of Armenians left Antep while the French bombarded the Turks. The

  casualties included the mutesarrif and his son.482

  In mid- September Gouraud reportedly told his chief aides, Brémond and

  Dufieux, that he intended “to evacuate Cilicia forthwith.” 483 He could not hold

  both Syria and Cilicia. Even so, after the arrival of the reinforcements, he

  launched a major push to clear the roads and countryside between Alexan-

  dretta, Kilis, and Antep.484 The French commanders promised that northern

  Aleppo vilayet would be “calm within eight months.” They wanted to incor-

  porate Antep, Urfa, Mardin, Rakka, and Deir Zor in their Syrian mandate

  while abandoning the core of Cilicia.485 The new push was to be the last

  French effort to achieve victory, albeit a limited one.

  Meanwhile France sought to clarify its policy vis- à- vis the Armenians. “The

  French government is committed not to evacuate Cilicia without insuring

  the protection of Christian minorities and receiving from the Turks all neces-

  sary guaranties,” an internal memorandum read. “Three quarters of French