The Young Turk Period, 1908-1918 - PSI424

316 The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975
was 2.5 million. According to the Ottoman census in 1914, however, it was at the most
1.3 million. Half of these people resided in the areas affected by the deportations, but
with the city dwellers allowed to remain, it appears that about 400,000 people actually
were transported in 1915-16. In addition, some 700,000 Armenians fled to the Caucasus,
western Europe, and the United States. As 100,000 remained in Turkey after
the war, one can conclude that about 300,000 died if one accepts the Ottoman census
reports, or 1.3 million if the Armenian figures are utilized. 160
The Armenians also feel that the deaths resulted from a planned policy of genocide
by the Ottoman government. This accusation was repeated by several European commissions
during and after the war. The Ottoman cabinet records, however, do not confirm
this, but, rather, manifest numerous efforts to investigate and correct a situation
in which some 6 million people - Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Armenians, Jews, and others -
were being killed by a combination of revolts, bandit attacks, massacres and counter
massacres, and famine and disease, compounded by destructive and brutal foreign invasions
in which all the people of the empire, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, had their
victims and criminals. 161 Considerable further study is needed to determine the exact
degree of blame and responsibility that can be assigned to each of the parties involved.
In April 1915, even before the deportation orders were issued, Dashnaks from
Russian Armenia organized a revolt in the city of Van, whose 33,789 Armenians
comprised 42.3 percent of the population, closest to an Armenian majority of any
city in the empire. While the local Armenian leaders tried to restrain their followers,
knowing they would suffer in any prolonged communal conflict with the
Muslim majority, they were overwhelmed by the agitators from the north, who
promised Russian military assistance if only they showed their loyalty to the czar
by helping to drive the Muslims out. The Russian army of the Caucasus also began
an offensive toward Van with the help of a large force of Armenian volunteers
recruited from among refugees from Anatolia as well as local Caucasian
residents. Leaving Erivan on April 28, 1915, only a day after the deportation orders
had been issued in Istanbul and long before news of them could have reached
the east, they reached Van on May 14 and organized and carried out a general
slaughter of the local Muslim population during the next two days while the small
Ottoman garrison had to retreat to the southern side of the lake. An Armenian
state was organized at Van under Russian protection, and it appeared that with
the Muslim natives dead or driven away, it might be able to maintain itself at one
of the oldest centers of ancient Armenian civilization. An Armenian legion was
organized "to expell the Turks from the entire southern shore of the lake in
preparation for a concerted Russian drive into the Bitlis vilayet." 162 Thousands
of Armenians from Mu§ and other major centers in the east began to flood into
the new Armenian state, including many who broke away from the deportation
columns as they passed the vicinity on their way to Mosul. By mid-July there were
as many as 250,000 Armenians crowded into the Van area, which before the crisis
had housed and fed no more than 50,000 people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. 163
Early in July, however, Ottoman reinforcements pushed the Russo-Armenian army
back. It was accompanied by thousands of Armenians who feared punishment for
the killings that had made possible the short-lived state. "The panic was indescribable.
After the month-long resistance to Cevdet Bey, after the city's liberation,
after the establishment of an Armenian governorship, all was blighted. Fleeing behind
the retreating Russian forces, nearly two hundred thousand refugees, losing
most of their possessions in repeated Kurdish ambushes, swarmed into Transcaucasia,"
164 with as many as 40,000 Armenians perishing during the flight. The