ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

An illustration from the book Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities,
published in the United States in 1896. Caption: "Slaughter o f
Armenians in Sasun. This is a true picture o f the slaughter o f
innocent people which was inflicted on the innocent Armenians
by the bloody Kurds and enraged soldiers. The carnage ended
in the massacre o f 50,000 people or more. Hundreds o f thousands
were left without food or shelter after the plundering and
burning".
In many handbooks o f Armenian history, one can read
the names o f the "heroes" who incited the population o f
Sasun to revolt. These names are Mihran Damadian and
Hampartsum Boyadjian. Both had previous experience
in trouble-making, having organized the revolt o f Kum
Kapu (April, 1890). Mihran Damadian had plotted anti-
Turkish demonstrations in Athens after fleeing from
Constantinople. Boyadjian had come to Sasun from the
Caucasus, disguised as a sheik and carrying lots o f
money. Purchasing arms was thus no problem for him.
Just how "unarmed" the rebels were becomes clear when
we learn that the Kurds needed twelve days o f ferocious
battle to capture a single position from the Armenians.
The Times o f November 17, 1894 published an article
from the pen o f a certain G. Hagopian, writing from Fulham,
concerning the events o f Sasun. Even Christopher
Walker, in his work Armenia - The Survival of a Nation,
speaks o f "rather imprecise details" when referring to
this letter. But what did that matter? The world press
seized upon Hagopian's account and the entire world was
outraged by the suppression o f revolts which in fact were
already taking on the characteristics o f civil war. They
were supposed to be "unarmed" revolts. It was also at
this time that the world public became accustomed to the
totally meaningless casualty figures appearing in cap­
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tions (e. g., "50,000 dead or more"). The readers accepted
these absurd figures just as uncritically as modem
readers accept the accounts o f two and a half million
Armenian dead in World War I. To ask about the Islamic
victims was already uninteresting at the time o f the publication
of Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities.
Gang leader Kavafian, one o f the troublemakers at Sasun. He is
seen here as a Russian officer, which he had been all along -
even when he was making trouble in Sasun.
The Armenian revolts in the latter part o f the nineteenth century
and in the years leading up to the First World War often made
international headlines. The ringleaders and agitators behind these
revolts were o f course professional revolutionaries. When the
First World War broke out, they promptly turned up again as the
commanders o f Armenian volunteer units or terrorist groups.
They still had the same goal in mind: the destruction o f the Turks.