gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari
gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari
gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari
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SÖYLEDİKLERİ VE YAZDIKLARI<br />
Boghos Nubar Paşa, who attended the Paris Peace Conference<br />
as the head of the Armenian National Committee, declared that 6-<br />
700,000 Armenians migrated to other countries and that 280,000<br />
Armenians were living within the Turkish borders. If one would add<br />
up these two figures and then deduct the total from the 1,3 million,<br />
one would get 220,000-320,000 as the number of Armenian<br />
deaths, again caused by a number of reasons. Howe<strong>ve</strong>r, he himself<br />
claimed that o<strong>ve</strong>r one million Armenians had been killed. For that<br />
to be true, the pre-war Armenian population should ha<strong>ve</strong> been o<strong>ve</strong>r<br />
2 million. The person in question claimed that the pre-war<br />
Armenian population had been 4,5 million. Thus, he provided the<br />
first example to the subsequent generations of the practice of<br />
“bidding higher and higher”, as if at an auction.<br />
Arnold J. Toynbee, who was, among others, responsible for war<br />
propaganda, said in his “Blue Book” that 600,000 Armenians had<br />
died. Later this figure was quoted by the Encyclopaedia Britannica.<br />
On the other hand, Toynbee said, in footnote no. 38, that the<br />
number of deportees reaching Zor, Damascus and Aleppo, as of 5<br />
April 1916, was 500,000. Along with the 200,000 who were not<br />
subjected to deportation and the 400,000 that went to the<br />
Caucasus, that brings the Armenian population up to 1.7 million,<br />
which is higher than the British figures for the Armenian<br />
population. If, on the other hand, the population figure is put at<br />
1,3 million, the number of the dead has to decline from 600,000 to<br />
200,000.<br />
The figures abo<strong>ve</strong> indicate that, depending on the various<br />
estimates about the o<strong>ve</strong>rall Armenian population, the Armenian<br />
losses vary between a couple of hundred thousand to 600,000.<br />
Obviously, all the statistics that put the losses o<strong>ve</strong>r 300,000<br />
happen to inflate grossly the pre-war Armenian population figure.<br />
One should ne<strong>ve</strong>r lose sight of the fact that, despite the deaths that<br />
occurred during the relocation, those who safely arri<strong>ve</strong>d at their<br />
destination, e<strong>ve</strong>n according to Toynbee, were around half a million.<br />
This pro<strong>ve</strong>s that the relocation was not genocide in disguise, for,<br />
had it been genocide, there would be no reason for the Ottomans<br />
to let them survi<strong>ve</strong>.<br />
Considerable number of people may ha<strong>ve</strong> died. On the other<br />
hand, it must not be forgotten that not all (not e<strong>ve</strong>n most) deaths<br />
occurred during the transfers. In the wars of the time, those fleeing<br />
from the enemy armies too were in a state of migration vulnerable<br />
Gündüz Aktan<br />
261