ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

were forgeries. Andonian made so many mistakes in
preparing the papers, however, that it is possible to prove
with absolute certainty that they were forgeries, even
witouth the originals.
ARAM ANDONIAN
DOCUMENTS OFFICIELS
concernant les
MASSACRES ARMENIENS
Reproduction photographique d un grand nomkre
de Documenti.
TRADUIT DO MANUSCSIT ARM/.NIKN, AVEC I.'AUTORISATION
DE l/AUTEUR, IAR
M . S . D A V ID R E G
227 . BOOLh RASTAIZ.
Wrong dates:
The simplest, absolutely irrefutable proof o f the forgery
involves Andonian's incorrect use o f calendar information.
To give just one example, Andonian has the governor
o f Aleppo signing documents at a time when he had
not yet been named to the post and was still living in
Istanbul.
Naturally, for his forgeries Andonian used the Rumi calendar,
which was in use in the Ottoman Empire at the
time. The Rumi (Roman) calendar o f the Ottomans was a
special variation on the common Islamic calendar, which
takes the Hegira (Mohammed's flight from M ecca to M edina
in 622 A. D.) as a starting point. Because it used
lunar years, it was only necessary to subtract 584 years to
convert from the Gregorian to the Rumi year. 1987 A. D.,
for example, would be 1403 on the Rumi calendar. There
100
is another trick, however. In addition to the 584 years, one
also has to figure in a difference o f thirteen days. More­
over, the Rumi calendar began on March 1. That meant
that the last two months o f the Rumi calendar (January
and February) were already the first months o f the Christ­
ian calendar.
The correct date - according to the Christian calendar -
for these last two months o f the Rumi calendar is
obtained by adding 584 plus one year. An example:
January 5 o f the year 1331 (Rumi) corresponds to January
18, 1916 (1331+584+1 and 13 days).
That, however, is still not all the tricks. As mentioned
above, the Ottoman year always began on March 1. In
February 1917, the difference o f thirteen days between
the Rumi and Gregorian calendars was eliminated in
order to facilitate conversion. The difference o f 584 years
remained unchanged, however. Thus, February 16, 1332
(February 1917) suddenly became March 1, 1333 (March
1, 1917 A. D.). At the same time, the year 1333 (1917)
was made into a year with only ten months, running from
March 1 to December 31.
January 1, 1334 thus became January 1, 1918 A. D.
(Note: the Turkish Republic adopted the Gregorian calen­
dar in 1925, so that the Rumi year 1341 became 1925 A.
D.) These calendar technicalities may seem very compli­
cated and uninteresting. They are, however, o f tremen­
dous importance in connection with The Forty Days o f
Musa Dagh and the forgeries o f Aram Andonian, which
at first fooled Franz Werfel.
In considering the dating (and the sequential numbering)
o f the "Andonian papers" and the authentic documents,
one must also keep in mind that the numbering o f the
incoming and outgoing documents always began with
March 1 (1333 Rumi = 1917 A. D.) and continued sequen­
tially through February 28 (the last day o f the Rumi year).
It was then "New Year's" once again on March 1.
In forging the most important o f his "documents", which
he called Number 1, Aram Andonian already committed
a serious error. Here is the text o f the most important part
o f this "document":