"LOSERS AND LOSERS"

This is the keynote speech by Gregory Topalian in this week's House of Commons conference organised by Armenia Solidarity, the British Armenian All Party Parliamentary Group, Nor Serount Publications and the Armenian Genocide Trust.

It was held on the anniversary of the Lausanne Treaty that was such a catastrophe for the Armenians. It details the dubious dealings of the British government then, and explains possible reasons for its present policy towards the Armenian Genocide. All who reside in the UK should be aware of this background, and why the struggle for recognition by the UK is so important. We hope that you will support this work such as contacting your MP when requested.

LOSERS AND LOSERS

British responsibility for the fate of Western Armenia

The Treaty of Lausanne 24^th July 1923 “an abject, cowardly, and infamous surrender”.

Today is the 84^th anniversary of the final nail in the coffin of any lingering hopes that the Armenians had of gaining justice for the human and territorial losses that resulted from the Armenian Genocide.

The Houses in which we currently sit had a huge role to play in the failure to honour promises made to the Armenians between 1915 and 1923, that they would gain compensation, territory and justice for the wrongs done to them during those years by the Ottoman State.

It is therefore an appropriate date to look back at the chronology of how their Western Allies in the Treaty of Lausanne, a Treaty that David Lloyd George described as “an abject, cowardly, and infamous surrender”, eventually failed the Armenians. The Treaty of Lausanne was the final outcome of the manoeuvrings of governments through the treaties of Versailles and Sevres. Ethical considerations were far from the minds of those involved with the Treaty of Lausanne, with Western governments seeking to make gains from the long drawn out process of deciding the shape of the world following World War One. David Lloyd George’s retrospective view of Britain’s role in the Armenian Genocide was expressed in 1932 in “The Truth about Peace Treaties”, he commented;

“ It was the actions of the British government that led to the massacres of 1894-96, 1909 and worst of all, the Holocaust of 1915”. Yet the British Government has failed, and still is failing in addressing their role in these wrongs."

Initial proclamations

One month into the Armenian Genocide, the Allies made their first proclamation, and the first of many promises that they would fail to keep, on the punishment that the Ottoman Empire would face if they were to continue with their abhorrent crimes. On 24^th May 1915 they warned;

“In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilisation, the allied governments announce publicly…. That they will hold personally responsible…all members of the Ottoman Government and those of their agents who are implicated in such matters”.

This declaration in itself is testament to the fact that what was occurring in Western Armenia was a new kind of crime, a crime that would later be termed ‘genocide’ by Raphael Lemkin. Indeed, Lemkin considered the events in Anatolia as well as those unfolding in Nazi Germany, as the blueprint for the creation of his new term in 1943.

As early as May 1915 then, there was also recognition that this was a State-sponsored massacre. The United Nations War Crimes Commission Report made specific reference to the allied directive as an example of one of the categories of crimes against humanity, and as a precedent for Articles 6© and 5© of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters respectively.

However, there is also a view that it was in Britain’s interests to bring the atrocities of 1915 to the public mind in order to suggest that this was not a war for imperialistic gain, but that there was a moral imperative also. By the end of the war, there was no need to carry on with this subterfuge, and so Britain’s interest in Armenia waned to some degree. The search for a moral imperative for war has been echoed recently in the efforts of the current British Government, as exposed in David Manning and Jack Straw’s memos to Tony Blair, to convince the public that there was a moral imperative for the assault on Iraq. The difference of course being, that with the Armenian Genocide there was a moral imperative.

After Turkey had signed the Armistice on October 30^th 1918, the Allies gave the impression that they might make their warning of May 1915 more than simple bluster.

Initially, the attempt was made to apply the principles of international law against the perpetrators. Nicholas Politis desired a new category of war crimes to cover the massacres against the Armenians. The Commission’s final report on 29^th March 1919 suggested that those responsible for being; “In violation of the elementary laws of humanity”, should face criminal prosecution

Asquith’s pledge in 1916 that there would be liberty for the Armenians, along with Balfour’s declaration that Armenia would be liberated, and Lloyd George’s statement that “Armenia would never be returned to the tyranny of the Turk”, all eventually proved to be hollow statements. In the face of the Russian revolution, it would appear that the British Government would find it preferable that the Armenians remained at great peril under Turkish control, than be absorbed into a Communist bloc.

Meanwhile, Point Twelve of Wilson’s famous Fourteen points at the Treaty of Versailles focused on the question of territory suggesting:

"The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities, which are now under Turkish rule, should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolute, unmolested opportunity of autonomous development."

These were similar assurances to those given to the Armenians at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, where Great Britain, France, and Russia had sponsored the arrangement and accepted responsibility for its augmentation, the first of many promises broken.

That the allies were neglectful is borne out by the eventual murder of the nation they had promised to protect.

The term from point twelve, ‘autonomous development’, is extremely vague, and promised little. It certainly did not promise an independent sovereign state and Armenians were right to be wary of it.

If one looks at the commentary on the Fourteen Points as drawn up by Frank Cobb and Walter Lippmann during the armistice and cabled to President Wilson for his approval, we find more questions than answers with regards Point Twelve:

"Anatolia should be reserved for the Turks... Armenia must be given a port on the Mediterranean and a protecting power established; France may claim it, but the Armenians would prefer Great Britain."

The Armenian desire to be protected by Great Britain can arguably be founded in the strong support given to them by former Prime Minister Gladstone during the massacres of 1894-96, and to British politicians strongly worded comments in support of the Armenians.

Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary had accused Turkey of starting the massacre of the Armenians;

“ Without excuse, and (that the war) was conducted without mercy, (and) was accompanied by massacres whose calculated atrocity equals or exceeds anything in recorded history...”

However, Lord Bryce had perhaps come to understand that these statements were not going to be backed up with action and he had already begun to fear the worst, suggesting that he could see the whole idea of a free and independent Armenia being dropped.

On March 16^th 1919, Colonel Stephen Bosnal who had the ear of all of the major signatories of the Treaty of Versailles wrote in his diary;

“I hate the whole wretched business, and from now on I shall decline to urge the Armenians to cherish hopes which I fear will never be realised”.

However, the Treaty of Sevres initially suggested that the Armenians cherished hopes might just be realised, but it also handed responsibility over to the American government to resolve these issues.

British involvement had become minimal over Armenia, and Oliver Baldwin, the Prime Minister’s son, claimed that the boldness of Ataturk’s burgeoning aspirations and confidence in fighting for independence, a month after the treaty of Sevres was proposed, was founded in Britain’s weakness in her dealings with Turkey.

Treaty of Sevres

The Treaty of Sevres contained articles that gave the Armenians a real hope that their losses might be compensated for, both in terms of justice and territory.

Articles 226 – 230 were inserted into the 1920 Peace Treaty of Sevres, which requested the surrender of those responsible for the Armenian Genocide. Therefore the Treaty provided a legal basis for the Allies’ prosecution of those responsible for the crime.

However, the first setback for justice occurred when the term “crimes against humanity” as described in the 1915 allied declaration and posited by Politis, was excluded from both the Versailles and Sevres treaties. It was replaced with a more encompassing but vague definition, that of ‘acts in violation of the laws and customs of war’.

The second setback for justice occurred when President Wilson proposed to exclude from consideration an international tribunal for the trial of enemy war criminals. Gary Bass claims that liberal states are usually only concerned with war crimes when it is their own citizens who have been the victims, and that after the First World War, Woodrow Wilson was uninterested in addressing the atrocities in Belgium, northern France, and Armenia.

Meanwhile, the British were trying to bring the perpetrators to justice. British High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe told the Turkish Foreign Minister that his Government was intent on inflicting proper punishment on “Those responsible for the Armenian massacres”.

However, on the night of 1^st November 1918, several of the top figures in the CUP had escaped from Istanbul on a German destroyer, whilst debate regarding legal evidence, penal codes and appropriate jurisdiction ensued. Eventually it was decided that the Allies would hold trials that would actually replace the Internal Ottoman Military Tribunal that was already under way. This was largely because it was felt that the Turkish authorities were too incompetent to deal with their own offenders. In fact, the Turkish Military Tribunal was far more efficient in it’s sentencing than the Allies would prove to be. The lack of support from above for people like Calthorpe, meant that any attempts at prosecution were doomed to fail.

The Turkish Military Tribunal

From a historical perspective, if not a judicial one, the Tribunal is important evidence in the face of the constant denial by the current Turkish State.

The Central Committee of the Ottoman Government was identified as the perpetrator group and the State sponsors of the genocide. In its indictment, the Tribunal accused the perpetrators of;

“The organisation and execution of the Armenian deportation, (which) was directed and ensued through oral and secret instructions and orders”.

It also accused the Government of taking advantage of the cover of total war, so that they might eradicate the Armenians. Indeed, German eyewitness testimony of the Genocide explicitly refers to the fact that the focus on the murder of Armenians was detrimental to the war effort.

The Indictment also states that the massacre of the Armenians;

“Was not due to a particular incident, nor was it limited to a particular locality. It was organised by a unanimously acting central body….”.

The Turkish Military Tribunal therefore, summarised what would now be viewed as a classic case of genocide; a systematic, far-reaching, and centrally organised attempt at mass murder.

The first successful prosecution and punishment was commented upon in the New York Times on Monday April 14^th 1919.

“Kemal Bey, Governor of Diarbekir, has been publicly hanged in Bayazid Square in Stamboul… The prosecutor declared that it was necessary to punish the authors of the massacres, which had filled the whole world with a feeling of horror”.

Meanwhile, the following sentences were passed on the triumvirate seen as the main perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Talaat, Enver and Djemal, along with Dr Nazim were sentenced to death, but given their escape in November, the sentence was passed in absentia.

The Malta Trials

The Malta Trials faced difficulty from their inception. The rise of Kemalism was the first of a number of key factors in the disintegration of the trials. Within a year of defeat by the Allies, there was a renewed confidence in Turkey, and a belligerence in the face of allied interference in what were seen as largely internal affairs. The British, for instance, were having difficulty in extracting from the Turkish authorities, key pieces of evidence. Mr. W.S. Edmonds, Under Secretary in the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, feared that some documents might be “smuggled away”.

There was also a sense that the united front that issued the warning to the perpetrators of the genocide in May 1915 was falling apart. Italy and France began to support the rise of Kemalism, and in doing so helped hinder British efforts to restore the authority of the Sultan. This gave Turkish authorities the confidence to refuse to comply with allied requests; more specifically in this case, the request for the hand-over of prominent individuals suspected of complicity in the genocide. Arnold Toynbee, the historian responsible for compiling the British Blue Book reports, was a British delegate at the Paris Peace Conference, and he described the political relations and manoeuvrings by Governments as “honour among thieves”.

Meanwhile, whilst the Turkish Military Tribunal continued, the British had carried out a surprise raid, and seized most of those suspected of involvement in the planning and execution of the Armenian Genocide. They were transferred to Malta to await international justice. The total number of prisoners held on Malta was one hundred and eighteen.

There were other obstructions to judicial proceedings, and Sir Harry Lamb, the political-legal officer of the British High Commission at Istanbul explained them thus;

“Unless there is whole hearted co-operation and will to act among the Allies, the trials will fall to the ground and the direct and indirect massacres of about one million Christians will get off unscathed. Rather than this should happen, it were better if the Allies had never made their declarations in the matter and had never followed up their declarations by the arrests and deportations that have been made”.

By late 1920, the British seemed exasperated in their efforts to collect the necessary evidence required for the prosecution. British judge Lindsey Smith suggested that it would be “idle to expect to get” the considerable amount of incriminating evidence collected by the Turkish Government.

Fearing the harm an abortive trial might have, he therefore recommended the abandonment of plans to prosecute the Malta prisoners.

Winston Churchill, the Secretary of State for War, proposed to the Cabinet on July 19^th, 1920, the release of Turkish prisoners at Malta “at the first convenient opportunity”.

Now all that was left was for the British to seek a deal with the Kemalists that despite public pressure, they had delayed. They sought a prisoner exchange with Kemal, with the latter holding out for, and getting, an ‘all-for-all’ exchange as detailed in the Treaty of Sevres.

Foreign Minister Curzon retrospectively believed he made a mistake in pushing for this exchange, suggesting that he was under pressure to do so. The collapse of the Malta trials meant that there was no full stop to the horrific sentence that was the Armenian Genocide. The lack of international affirmation that the crime took place left a gap, both judicial and historical. Meanwhile the territorial issue showed much more promise for Armenia.

Wilsonian Armenia

Wilsonian Armenia is a term used for the borders drawn by Woodrow Wilson at the Treaty of Sèvres. It incorporated Erzurum, Bitlis, and Van Provinces, which were parts of the region of Western Armenia. This region was extended to the north, up to the west of Trabzon Province to provide Armenia an outlet to the Black Sea with the port of Trabzon.

In August 1919, President Woodrow Wilson sent a fact-finding mission to the Middle East, headed by General Harbord, to investigate the feasibility of the Balfour Declaration, which supported the creation of a Jewish state in the Palestine lands taken from the Ottoman Empire during the war. The King-Crane Commission also investigated the viability of an Armenian state, and the possibility of a US mandate. The Commission came to the conclusion that there should be one. Arguments supporting the idea of an independent Armenian State sound remarkably similar to that put forward for an independent Israeli State following World War II. However, there the similarity ends, given that today Armenia is a victim of genocide with someone else occupying her lands, whilst Israel is a victim State of genocide occupying territories belonging to the Palestinians, which perhaps further exemplifies the catastrophic effect of British policy in the Middle and Near East. General Harbord was also to report on Turkish-Armenian relations in the wake of the Armenian Genocide. Harbord’s report stated that “the temptation to reprisals for past wrongs” would make it extremely difficult to maintain peace in the region.

The King-Crane Commission meanwhile noted that following the genocide, the Armenians could not trust the Ottoman Empire to respect their rights anymore. They therefore recommended that Armenian independence should be respected by the international community and insured by the Allies.

It was felt that the Armenians had a right to self-government in the region.

Woodrow Wilson’s conclusion on the various commissioned reports was to agree to transfer “Wilsonian Armenia” to the Armenians in the Treaty of Sèvres.

However, David Lloyd George could already anticipate problems. On April 29, 1920, speaking in the House of Commons, he said:

“... As for Armenia, it proved to be a problem of extreme difficulty. The difficulty – and hardly need to say it to the friends of Armenia – is connected with the circumstance that there is no Armenian population in some of the vast areas which we wanted to hand over to Armenia and for getting which Armenia has historical reasons. But if they are transferred to Armenia, who will realise our decisions?”

However, there were other reasons for the abandonment of Armenia too.

Lloyd George later confessed, “Oil outweighed the blood of Armenians.” Similarly, the aforementioned Oliver Baldwin, suggested that Armenia would not have been deserted had there been oil wells there.

The Treaty of Sèvres was rejected by the Turkish national movement under the leadership of Ataturk who had split with the monarchy creating a rival Ankara government, which eventually emerged as the legitimate representative for the Turkish nation.

During what is known as the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish nationalists successfully resisted and assured the security of what they defined as their homeland with the Treaty of Alexandropol and the Treaty of Kars reversing aspects of the Treaty of Sevres by cementing the eastern borders.

As a result of this, and with nations keen to foster ties with the emerging Turkish State, the former Allies of World War I had to return back to the negotiating table with the Turks. The result was the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which replaced the Treaty of Sèvres and recovered important amounts of land in Anatolia for the Turks.

The Treaty of Lausanne

The Treaty of Lausanne settled the Anatolian part of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sevres, and without mentioning Armenia once.

Winston Churchill who had urged the Armenian population to rebel during the Gallipoli landings remarked:

“In the Lausanne Treaty, which established a new peace between the allies and Turkey, history will search in vain for the name Armenia.”

The road to the Treaty of Lausanne and the betrayal of Armenia, had British duplicity written all over it from the very beginning.

Broken promises, greed, and realpolitik meant that Armenia lost its people and its land. Meanwhile, Britain also lost the opportunity to move into a new era of world politics with integrity and moral fortitude. It is safe to say that the manner in which the Armenians were dealt with by the British Government during that period was typical of British Foreign Policy then, and remains so now. A helping hand proffered to victims of State violence is dependent on the British Government’s strategic and economic interests, and that is the base line. The current Government promised an ethical foreign policy with Robin Cook stating that Britain had;

“ a foreign policy that stands up for democracy, human rights, accountability and openness”

And yet, within months, the Foreign Office was supporting the flooding of ancient, historical Kurdish villages in Turkey, to make way for the Ilisu Dam.

In more recent times this has been exemplified by our intervention in Iraq, whilst prevaricating over Darfur. Modern politicians have been briefed on how to respond to this issue and so we frequently get MP’s suggesting that the British Government has yet to find conclusive evidence that what took place was genocide, and then suggest that a free and open historical debate take place. The British Blue Book is evidence. There have been historical debates amongst respected academics; those who are not in the pay of the Turkish State, such as Heath Lowry, or those who feel the need to ‘play down’ the Armenian genocide in order to further promote the uniqueness of the Holocaust for Israel.