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 Hamit and the Ensuing Series of Armenian Massacres (1894-1896)

The Turkish-Armenian conflict was but an integral part of a larger, evolving conflict between the Turkish-Muslim rulers of the empire on the one hand, and the empire's various Christian nationalities on the other. The Ottoman Empire's theocratic tenets, reinforced by the militant and imperial attitudes of these rulers, served to produce a regime unable to govern these subject nationalities. The resulting maladministration, marked by blight and ineptness, steadily aggravated the latter's plight. The interventionist response of the European powers, especially Russia, England, and France, not only further exacerbated the problem, but also in the process enabled these subject nationalities to jar themselves loose from the Ottoman yoke. Their ultimate success in emancipating themselves proved, however, contagious for the thus far docile Armenians, who, unlike these Balkan national groups, were not seeking independence, but rather local autonomy through administrative reforms. Their main concern was protection from the unabating depredations described above, within a broad scheme of reforms guaranteeing their overall security. The specific stipulation of Article 61 of the 1878 Berlin Peace Treaty, which followed the Russian military victory in the Turkish-Russian War of 1877 and 1878, had provided for such reforms; so did the 1895 Armenian Reform scheme that the European powers had negotiated with Hamit, who grudgingly signed it.

Determined to scuttle any program of Armenian Reforms, Hamit already in the years following the signing of the Berlin Treaty had begun to initiate a series of measures to this end. He solemnly swore to the German ambassador, Prince von Radolin, that he "would rather die than yield to unjust Armenian pressures and allow the introduction of large-scale Autonomy Reforms" (Lepsius et al., 1927, Document no. 2184). In two separate memoranda he composed as guidelines for his deputies, who were entrusted with handling the Armenian reforms issue, Hamit vented his wariness as he suspected ulterior motivations relative to the pursuit of these reforms. In one of these memoranda, he characterized such reforms as a device to strengthen the Armenians, who then would likely seek independence, and thereby cause the partition of the Ottoman realm. In the other, he expressed his anxiety that these reforms would eventually lead to the Armenians dominating the Muslims and establishing in eastern Turkey an Armenian principality. Hamit then instructed his underling to emulate his standard policy, namely, "to put off [the Europeans] by advancing trumped-up excuses [oyalamak]" (Hocaoglu, 1989, pp. 170, 237). Namely, the Ottoman government would officially issue oral and written instructions on the Armenian reforms that, being contrary to the wishes of the monarch, were expected to be evaded by setting forth credible excuses.

In the meantime Hamit embarked on a multi-pronged campaign to nip the reforms advocated by the Great Powers in the bud. Having earlier prorogued the Ottoman Parliament, he then completely transferred the residual executive power to the palace, his seat and domain of power. Thus, the limited restraints attached to his constitutional monarchy largely dissolved themselves, paving the way for the onset of a more or less unfettered autocracy that soon degenerated into a regime of despotism (istibdad). Instead of normally functioning cabinet ministers taking charge of government, a despotic monarch, surrounded by a reckless palace camarilla (cabal), began to devise and implement a new Armenian policy that involved a new phase of anti-Armenian persecution through officially sanctioned terror.

In anticipation of the escalation of the conflict surrounding the projected Armenian reforms, in 1891 Hamit set up a new system of Kurdish tribal regiments of territorial cavalry (Hamidiye). By 1899 their numbers had grown from thirty-three to sixty-three. These quasi-official regiments received ranks, uniforms, regimental badges, and Martin rifles, and with them, the license to intensify the level of persecution of the unarmed and highly vulnerable Armenian population of the provinces. During the ensuing massacres of 1894 and 1896 these regiments would play a key role as instruments of widespread death and destruction.

Parallel to this undertaking, Hamit launched a comprehensive program of redistricting or "gerrymandering" to use colloquial parlance. By drastically altering the proportion of Armenian inhabitants of several provinces in eastern Turkey, whereby an Armenian majority was transformed into an Armenian minority, especially in the Van-Mus-Bitlis triangle, the heart of historic Armenia, the rationale for Armenian reforms was rendered untenable, thereby preempting the need for the entire scheme of Armenian reforms.

Meanwhile, the plight of the provincial Armenian population continued to deteriorate steadily. The gravity of this plight and the deliberate intent of Ottoman authorities to pursue such aggravation were cogently depicted by the veteran French ambassador to Turkey, Paul Cambon. On the eve of the 1894 to 1896 massacres "a high ranking Turkish official told me," reported Cambon to Paris "that the Armenian Question does not exist, but we shall create it." Cambon went on to explain:

Up until 1881, the idea of Armenian independence was non-existent. The masses simply yearned for reforms, dreaming only of a normal administration under Ottoman rule. . . . The reforms have not been carried out. The exaction of the officials remained scandalous. . . . [From] one end of the Empire to the other, there is rampant corruption of officials, denial of justice and insecurity of life. . . . [As] if it were not enough to provoke Armenian discontent, the Turks were glad to amplify it. . . . [The] maintenance in Armenia of a veritable regime of terror, arrests, murders, rapes, all this shows that Turkey is taking pleasure in precipitating the events [imperiling] an inoffensive population (Documents Di-plomatiques Frangais, 1947, pp. 71-74).

It is against this backdrop that the Armenian reform movement lost its momentum and was replaced by the confrontational thrust of Armenian revolutionaries, who thus entered the arena of conflict with Ottoman provincial as well as central authorities. Unlike in the case of the Balkan nationalities, these revolutionaries, contrary to their fervent hopes, did not receive any support at all from any of the six European powers, thereby compounding the vulnerability endemic in the position of Ottoman Armenians. Alive to the advantages of this condition, Hamit, in total disregard, if not defiance, of the pro forma warnings and admonitions of these powers, set out to punish the Armenians on a massive and indiscriminate scale, by resorting to empire-wide massacres that lasted from August 1894 to September 1896 and claimed some 250,000 to 300,000 direct and indirect victims. And, as if to underscore his disdain for these powers, two in the series of these massacres were perpetrated in Constantinople, then the Ottoman capital, in broad daylight, and before the very eyes of the official representatives of the Great Powers.

These massacres are significant in several respects. First, they were perpetrated mostly with special cudgels or sticks that were fitted with a piece of iron that helped bludgeon their victims to death. According to a well-informed Turkish source, Hamit, in the aftermath of the massacres, gloatingly gave European diplomats a tour of the depots in which those cudgels were stored. Another method of massacre was immolation in houses, but especially churches. In the large cathedral of Urfa, for example, three thousand Armenians, mostly women and children, were burned alive in December 1895. There was massive popular participation in these atrocities incited by the haranguing of Mullahs at special religious services in the mosques on Fridays. Additionally, in some cities and towns convicts were released from prison for massacre duty.

The material desolation was no less significant. According to German investigator Johannes Lepsius, who immediately inspected the sites following the massacres, 2,500 towns and villages were ruined, 645 churches and monasteries were destroyed, and 328 churches were converted into mosques. Moreover, 508 churches and monasteries were completely plundered. Furthermore, the survivors of 559 villages and hundreds of families were forcibly converted to Islam; included in this toll were 15,000 Armenians from the provinces of Harput and Erzurum. Perhaps the most consequential feature of this era of massacres is the fact that the perpetrators almost in toto were deliberately spared from prosecution and punishment. This paramount aspect of impunity associated with the large-scale mass murder at issue here may well be regarded as the integral nexus, the inevitable connecting link, to the subsequent 1909 Adana massacre and, ultimately, the Armenian Genocide during World War I.