Johnny Turks Media Watch

To: Fairfield City Council
Administration Centre
86 Avoca Road,
WakeleyFairfield
NSW 1860

Do we need for exploiting the ethnic differences in Australia?

Dear Sir/Madam

I am a proud Turkish-Australian and I would like to express my disapproval of the Assyrian Genocide Memorial monument of the Fairfield Council’s call for community which proposed for Edensor Park on 5th of December 2009. Today’s date is 7th of December 2009. The above mentioned monument of historical event so-called incident had happened in 1915. Claimed event supposedly occurred about 94 years ago.

I would like to ask you now;
Why the council waited that long to raise this declaration? What is/are your historical evidence/s for this so-called genocide?
Is that going to help to the council responsibilities to do better for Assyrians and other locals by gaining such an official recognition of the so-called “Assyrian genocide” in NSW?

As I am holidaying in Turkey now, after hearing of your council’s movement which made many Turks extremely furious about the council decision, disappointments of Turkish people will grow over in coming days.

I am not going give a history lesson to you now; however, there was similar tragedy for all the regional people of the Ottoman Empire's last years; exactly the same for the Turks themselves, the Armenians, the Assyrians, even for the Australians. There were no differences in between Turks and Armenians, Assyrians, even Australians; they were all the fellow sufferers.

In fact, Turks were the ones who suffered the most:
" February 2nd(1915), this is a dirty place, nothing but sand
..went to Kash-el-Nil with a party to bring back prisoners.
Saw some Turkish prisoners from the Suez Canal. They were in a terrible
condition, half of them not properly clothed." Private Studley Gahan, 9th Infantary RFS

As we all must accept now, all those sufferers died for the cost of capturing the region’s oil resources by the “western global powers!“. So, if you are looking for the justice for the fallen ones; ask and claim from the “western global powers”, not from the Turks. And ask the western global powers, if there is any relation between discovering the regional oil and helping g to rise-up the Armenians, Assyrians the others against Turkiye who lived in the area for many years together with peacefully. On the other hand, there wasn’t found any evidence of any genocide for the Turks in history at all.

Lastly, I would like to ask you a few more questions;
How accurate to assess more than 90 years old history, from that far country, Australia?
What is the benefit of exploiting the ethnic differences in Australia?
What is the advantage of promoting ethnical issues ( if there any ) to Australia?
Which one is better; dividing Australia or celebrating togetherness?
Which one is the Australian of way of perception; dividing or uniting the communities in our new country (Australia).

Turks can be taken as a role model who never looks back and they don’t ask Australians why they went to Turkey and caused to killing many Turks in 1915. However, as old foes; Turkiye and Australia now became new friends despite of unfortunate war in between them. Now both countries know that how important to improving friendships and in recent years, they prefer to develop good relations.The friendship in between countries and people will continue to grow over the years, regardless of some slim minds that are insisting to learn from the reality instead.

Hoping that, this decision will be re-considered by your councillors and will be stoped will start looking forward and start thinking for more constructive issues for the locals and fr the universal peace rather than looking back.

I would like to finish with non-Turkish resources. Please make an effort to read them carefully and stop being irresponsible on such a critical accusation.

Your Sincerely,
Julia Gul Arslan
PS: The following articles taken from in the book named; ‘The fellow Sufferes- Johnny Turks and Diggers - Honourable Enemy’ written by Julia Gul Arslan the president of Australia-Gallipoli Friendship Society.


"Turks have treated our captured men and officers excellently" The diary of the Aus. Official Corres. C.E.W.Bean

“You will hear extraordinary horrible stories practiced by Turks. Well, don’t believe a word of them. They are grossly exaggerated if not wholly false. You will be surprised at the gentlemanly way the Turks has fought us." Jim Haynes (Cobbers - Stories of Gallipoli 1915 p. 178)

" I reckon the Turk respects us, as we respect the Turk, Abdul's a good, clean fighter - we've fought him, and we know" Lieutenant Oliver Hogue

"The Turks have always proved themselves perfectly willing to have armistices and have actually asked for one at Helles which was refused by our General Staff. " Ashmead-Bartlett's Diary,1915

" They (Turks) too were fighting for their country. Good and fair fighters. No. They fought very fair and honestly like us. Both sides lost their very valuable men.” [E.W.BARTLETT - was born in Australia , 1891. 11. Light Horse Regiment. One Hundred years old. He was one of last two hundred who left the Dardanelle.]

"The Turkish sniper understood that we were searching for him. He shot once and the doctor got wounded. When he realized that he was a doctor, he didn’t shoot again.” Exerted from Sydney Alexander Moseley, former war correspondent during the Gallipoli Campaign



“ After the terrible punishment inflicted upon the brave but futile assaults all bitterness faded … The Turks displayed an admirable manliness … From that morning onwards the attitude of the Anzac troops towards the individual Turks was rather that of opponents in a friendly game."
[ Charles. E Bean, the Australian official historian, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.162 ]

" The Anzacs left Gallipoli without hatred in their heart for their enemy or bitterness at the incompetence of their own high command.” A.K. Macdouggall, Australian historian
Turks are clean fighters“ During the war British high command wanted to give the soldiers on the front gas masks. The soldiers protested

"The Turks are clean fighters. They don't use gas."The Britische Orientalist, Aubrey Herbert wrote in his famous book "Mons, Anzac & Kut ANZAC, 1915" . Monday, August 16th, 1915. No. 2 Outpost. - Details -"The missing man was badly wounded and was not seen lying in the dense growth of barley when the retirement began on the 19th. He was afterwards found by the Turks and treated in one of their hospitals." Ernest W. Hammond's "History of the 11th Light Horse Regiment" - pp. 71-72 C.F. Dixon-Johnson, The Armenians, Blackburn 1916, p 61

“…We have no hesitation in repeating that these stories of wholesale massacre have been circulated with the distinct objective of influencing, detrimentally to Turkey, the future policy of the British Government when the time of settlement shall arrive. No apology, therefore, is needed for honestly endeavoring to show how a nation with whom we were closely allied for many years and which possesses the same faith as millions of our fellow-subjects, has been condemned for perpetrating horrible excesses against humanity on 'evidence' which, when absolutely false, is grossly and shamefully exaggerated…”
C.F. Dixon-Johnson, The Armenians, Blackburn 1916, p 61

" February 2nd, this is a dirty place, nothing but sand. Went to Kash-el-Nil with a party to bring back prisoners. Saw some Turkish prisoners from the Suez Canal. They were in a terrible condition, half of them not properly clothed." Private Studley Gahan, 9th Infantary RFS

"Today is Sunday, August 8th, fifteen weeks after we landed… ... I have just seen as caddish as act as I ever saw in my life. About 100 Turkish prisoners and 2 Germans were sitting in the pen built by the Australian Division opposite my dug out. There is an incinerator within a few yards. Some chap had poured out a tin of kerosene on the ground in front of it and laid a trail of kerosene ... Some chap put a light to the trail it flared along and when it reached the kerosene there was a huge flare of fire very uncomfortably close - if it not dangerously- to the Turks.The wretched prisoners rushed to the far corner of the pen like a flock of sheep rounded up by a dog, and the fellows looking on laughed. There were both Australians and British there amongst the onlookers. I wondered someone hadn't the decency to hit the man who did it straight in the face. The same thing exactly was done yesterday..."

.The treatment of these prisoners makes you blush for your own side. They are under the control of the Army Corps Police and A.P.M…. They have put Indians sentries over them, who are about as capable of keeping off the Australians who crowd around to state at them, as an old woman with a stick would be. Three Turkish officers are among the lot. So far, as we know they have treated our captured men and officers excellently.

These three officers were sent off under an Indian sentry to a vacant shell of a dug out in Australian Divisional lines. They went sent there in the morning and absolutely forgotten. No food or water was sent o them". Sydney Herald Morning Herald Gallipoli Correspondent Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean - The frontline diary of C.E.W.Bean- Selected and annotated by Kevin Fewster, P:149

Despite, at the Gallipoli battle ground there was no fresh water and no bathing and toilet facilities for Anzacs and also Turks where the Anzac soldiers-troops landed and stayed for eight months with own wishes.
"The drama of the Dardanelles campaign by reason of the beauty of its setting, the grandeur of its theme and the unhappiness of its ending, will always rank amongst the world's classic tragedies. The story is a record of lost opportunities and eventual failure..."
C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, History Of The Great War Based On Official Documents: Military Operations: Gallipoli
"The soldiers had to shelter from the gunfire in deep, muddy trenches, with rats scurrying though them. They crouched, cold and hungry in the mud, while gunfire and shells roared overhead." The Book called 'Poppy Day' by Rosemary Moore.

“… Atrocity stories have been vastly overdone; some of the more recent massacres have been wholly nonexistent. One of the local (Constantinople) members of the press and of a relief organization told some friends openly that he could only send anti-Turkish dispatches to America because that is what gets the money…”

E. Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, New York, 1925
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“… A circular was issued by the War Office inviting reports on war incidents from officers with regard to the enemy and stating that strict accuracy was not essential so long as there was inherent probability (p 20). Atrocity lies were the most popular of all, especially in this country and America; no war can be without them. Slander of the enemy is esteemed a patriotic duty…” p 22 Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, New York, 1928… “… It is impossible to describe all the types of atrocity stories. They were repeated for days in brochures, posters, letters and speeches. Renowned persons, who otherwise would be hesitant to condemn even their mortal enemies for lack of evidence, did not hesitate to accuse an entire nation of having committed every imaginable savagery and inhuman action..” p 129. Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, New York, 1928

******************* “… In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well-known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies…”
Lamsa, George M., The Secret of the Near East, Philadelphia, 1923, p 133*******************

“… I am surprised that London should possess information which no one here is aware of and is unable to document. As a result, it has been impossible until now to determine exactly that Armenians have been massacred in any area. There is much talk about it but no one was able to give me certain and exact information. In particular the Armenian losses in Marash appear to be absolutely false. Apparently, the Armenians took part in the struggle of our troops in this city and had casualties like all the fighters. A serious study of the figures shows that these Armenian casualties do not exceed 1000…”Prime Minister Millerand, Archives des Affaires Etrangeres de France,Vol 9, Folio 3******************* ”

… By the end of October, the late Miss Annie T. Allen and Miss Florence Billings, the Near East Relief's representatives in Ankara (Angora), compiled a report on the state of the Turkish villages which the Greeks had burned during their retreat and forwarded it to the Near East Relief's headquarters in Constantinople. But the Near East Relief has never published that report, just as Mr. Lloyd George never published the Bristol report on Greek misdeeds at Izmir (Smyrna)…” Clair Price, The Rebirth of Turkey, New York 1923, p 189
******************* “

… Quoting from the American High Commissioner Admiral Bristol's report: "The United States should raise its voice against the plans of the Allies and the American people should be told the facts. They (the Turks) were still human and still had rights and the other side of the coin was obscured by the flood of Greek and Armenian propaganda painting the Turks as completely inhuman and undeserving of any consideration, while suppressing all the facts in favor of the Turks…." Evans, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, 1914-1924, Baltimore 1965, p 272

******************* “… The Turkish Armenian does not know what a revolution is. He fears a revolution like death. But if there is something he is more afraid of, it is the revolutionary Armenian, the unreasoning revolutionary Armenians without a conscience who dragged him from misery to misery for several years with the thought of doing a good deed for him. The Turkish Armenian have to confess that this enemy of their own kind has been everywhere and has done its work everywhere. It also had many followers in Russia, England and Turkey. Because it is known as a social truth that divisive movements and propaganda among groups in a society influence the masses very deeply. When these witless wretches came up with the idea of establishing a large state with the Armenians in Caucasia and Turkey, the God-fearing Armenians with good conscience who were aware of where the best interests of the nation lay, were overcome with sadness: 'An independent state, which will also include within its borders some of the Turkish provinces, is that it? This would be the destruction of Armenians' they said. This was the truth. It was impossible for any Armenian with a little bit of discernment not to see it. Because these people were thinking that they could change the bed of a large river with eight or ten pieces of stone. This large river had opened its real bed by flowing for centuries on a strong surface. To change this direction was to tear Armenian interests from the tranquil flow of the river, to push them to draught-ridden lands and to strangle them there for ever. Those feeble minded persons failed to see that the foreigners who supported their revolution and evil deeds and championed their causes in their newspapers did not undertake such action for the love of Armenians. The aim, and the sole aim of these so-called protective powers was to cause the shedding of blood in regions which they earmarked for their hegemony and to take over these regions with the pretext of cleaning the blood. History is still recording what imperialism is capable of doing in places it sets its eyes on. But it was impossible to make the public-spirited revolutionaries comprehend this. The anarchists and propagandists among them who could be useful neither to themselves nor to their communities in any other way were receiving salaries. They were also receiving what they believed there was Turkish oppression, and they also made their compatriots believe in their lies. The last quarter of a century of Turkey's history is filled with some Armenian events. Although these events were supposedly aimed at some goals harmful to Turkey, in fact they were only the oppression of Armenians by Armenians. If the causes and reasons for each event are analyzed one by one and if the events are analyzed meticulously, the only conclusion that will be arrived at is the one we have stated in the previous sentence; the oppression of Armenians by Armenians…”Migirdic Agop, The Turkish Armenians, Istanbul 1922

“… The Armenian, for all his ineffaceable nationalism, his passion for plotting and his fanatical intolerance, would be a negligible thorn in the Ottoman side did he stand alone. The Porte knows very well that while Armenian Christians are Gregorian, Catholic and Protestant, each sect bitterly intolerant of the others and moreover while commerce and usury are all in Armenian hands, it can divide and rule secure; but behind the Armenian secret societies (and there are few Armenians who have not committed technical treason by becoming members of such societies at some point of their lives) it sees the Kurd, and behind the Kurd the Russian; or looking west, it espies through the ceaseless sporadic propaganda of the agitators Exeter Hall and Armenian Committees. The Turk begins to repress because we sympathize and we sympathize because he represses and so the vicious circle revolves. Does he habitually, however, do more than repress? Does he, as administrator oppress? So far we have heard one version only, one part to this suit, with its stories of outrage and echoing through them a long cry for national independence. The mouth of the accused has been shut hitherto by fatalism, by custom, by the gulf of misunderstanding which is fixed between the Christian and the Moslem. In my own experience of western Armenia, extending more or less over four years up to 1894, I have seen no signs of a Reign of Terror. Life in Christian villages has not shown itself outwardly to me as being very different from life in the villages of Islam, nor the trade and property of Armenians in towns to be less secure than those of Moslems. There was tension, there was friction, there was a condition of mutual suspicion as to which Armenians have said to me again and again "If only the patriots would leave us to trade and to till!". The Turk rules by right of five hundred years' possession, and before his day the Byzantine, the Persian, the Parthian, the Roman preceded each other as over-lords of Greater Armenia back to the misty days of the first Tigranes. The Turk claims certain rights in this matter - the right to safeguard his own existence, the right to smoke out such hornets' nests as Zeitun, which has annihilated for centuries past the trade of Eastern Taurus, the right to remain dominant by all means not outrageous …” David G. Hogarth, A Wandering Scholar in the Levant, New York, 1896, p 147******************* “…Now I can readily understand and make allowance for the public's errors and misconceptions, for it has had, after all, no means of knowing that it has been systematically deceived, but I can find no excuse for those newspapers which, clinging to a policy of vilifying the Turk, failed to rectify the anti-Turkish charges printed in their columns even when it had been proved to the satisfaction of most fair-minded persons that they were unjustified…A case in point was the burning of Smyrna in September, 1922. There was scarcely a newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version, yet, after it had been attested by American, English, and French eye-witnesses, and by a French commission of inquiry, that the city had been deliberately fired by the Greeks and Armenians in order to prevent it falling into Turkish hands, how many newspapers had the courage to admit that they had done the Turks a grave injustice?…"
E. Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, The Century Co., New York & London (1923), p 32-33

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“…The Editor is, of course, aware that these documents which he only possesses in a defective form cannot be presented as evidence in the strict sense by himself, and can plausibly be repudiated by the parties whose crimes they describe.”
Bryce, Viscount (Arnold J, Toynbee, editor) The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16, Miscellaneous No. 31(1916), British Secret War Propaganda Bureau Publication (1916) (run by Charles Masterman), p 41

*******************

“… Shortly after the news had spread to Europe of the attack on the Ottoman Bank and the subsequent massacre of Armenians, a number of artists of illustrated newspapers arrived in Constantinople, commissioned to supply the demand for atrocities of the Million-headed-Tyrant. Among these was the late Mr. Melton Prior, the renowned war correspondent. He was a man of strenuous and determined temperament, one not accustomed to be the sport of circumstances but to rise superior to them. Whether he was called upon to take part in a forced march or to face a mad Mullah, he invariable held his own and came off victorious. But in this particular case, as he confided to me, he was in an awkward predicament. The public at home had heard of nameless atrocities and was anxious to receive pictorial representations of these. The difficulty was how to supply them with what they wanted, as the dead Armenians had been buried and no women or children had suffered hurt and no Armenian church had been desecrated. As an old admirer of the Turks and as an honest man, he declined to invent what he had not witnessed. But others were not equally scrupulous. I subsequently saw an Italian illustrated newspaper containing harrowing pictures of women and children being massacred in a church…” p 29 Sydney Whitman, Turkish Memories, London 1914

… “… ‘Do you believe that any massacres would have taken place if no Armenian revolutionaries had come into the country and incited the Armenian population to rebellion?’ I asked Mr. Graves (The British Consul). ‘Certainly not’ he replied. ‘I do not believe that a single Armenian would have been killed’ …” p 70, Sydney Whitman, Turkish Memories, London 1914
Legend: AAG = The alleged Armenian genocideAFATH = Armenian Falsifiers and Turk HatersNYT = The New York Times newspaperTAFT = Turkish-Americans and friends of TurkeyTBG= The Boston Globe newspaperWWI = The First World WarEthocide = Extermination of ethics via pre-meditated and malicious mass deception for political, economic, social, and/or moral benefits

Some quotes may be gruesome depicting the real motives of the Armenians that started in late 1800's and all these facts are documented with source references. And here we are looking for a Turkish Organisation (excluding individuals readiness to fight are unquestionable) that has the apt and honor to fight these lies and fabrications,poignant but true. " All Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation"Hamparsum Boyaciyan, nicknamed "Murad," a former Ottoman parliamentarian who led Armenian guerilla forces, ravaging Turkish villages behind the lines, 1914. Cited from Mikael Varandean, "History of the Dashnaktsutiun." (Alternately known as "History of the A.R.Federation" ["H. H. Dashnaktsutyan Patmutiwn," Paris,1932 and Cairo,1950]. The author [1874-1934] has other works, including "L'Arménie et la Question Arménienne," noted in the library as "Delegation propaganda authenticated by the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919"]
"I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy stones. as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth."
A. Lalayan, Revolutsionniy Vostok (Revolutionary East) No: 2-3, Moscow, 1936. (Highly deceptive Armenian activists on the Internet are spreading rumors there is no Lalayan.The above quote has been confirmed. Lalaian was an Armenian Soviet historian and the Dashnag report above was first published in issue 2-3 of the magazine, Revolyutsionniy Vostok and then in issue 2 of Istoricheskie Zapisky, the organ of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, The above quote is from a proud Dashnag officer, in the report he wrote from the Beyazit-Vaaram region in 1920, Updated translation:

"I exterminated the Turkish population in Bashar-Gechar without making any exceptions. One sometimes feels the bullets shouldn't be wasted. So, the most effective way against these dogs is to collect the people who have survived the clashes and dump them in deep holes and crush them under heavy rocks pressed from above, not to let them inhabit this world any longer. So I did accordingly. I collected all the women, men and children and extinguished their lives in the deep holes I dumped them into, crushing them with rocks.")

"We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the Tartars (Turks), and then proceeded in the work of extermination. Our troops surrounded village after village. Little resistance was offered. Our artillery knocked the huts into heaps of stones and dust, and when the villages became untenable and the inhabitants fled from them into the fields, bullets and bayonets completed the work."Ohanus Appressian, describing incidents in 1919; Memoirs of an Armenian officer, Men are Like That, 1926.

"This three-day massacre by Armenians is recorded in history as the 'March Events' and thousands of Muslims, old people, women and children lost their lives."F. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (New York, 1951), p. 69.
(This excerpt refers not to Armenian atrocities against Ottoman Turks, but to "Tartar" (derogatory for "Tatar") Turks, when Armenia attacked Azerbaijan in 1918. Regarding this period of March 30 to April 1 1918, Vladimir Lenin said that commissar S. Shaumyan, the chief architect of the massacres throughout Azerbaijan, "turned Baku into an Armenian operated henhouse [slaughterhouse]." According to Justin McCarthy's "Death and Exile,"

"Between 8,000 and 12,000 Muslims were killed in Baku alone.…")
As the Armenians found support among the Reds (who regarded the Tartars as a counter-revolutionary elements) the fighting soon became a massacre of the Tartar population"W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields", Cambridge University Press, 1953, p. 481
"Many massacres were committed by the Armenians until our army arrived in Erzurum... (after General Odesilitze left) 2,127 Muslim bodies were buried in Erzurum's center. These are entirely men. There are ax, bayonet and bullet wounds on the dead bodies. Lungs of the bodies were removed and sharp stakes were struck in the eyes. There are other bodies around the city."

Official telegram of the Third Royal Army Command, addressed to the Supreme Command, March 19, 1918; ATASE Archive of General Staff, Archive No: 4-36-71. D. 231. G.2. K. 2820. Dos.A-69, Fih.3.
"The Armenians did exterminate the entire Muslim population of Russian Armenia as Muslims were considered inferior to the Armenians by the prominent leaders of the Dashnaks." Mikael Kaprilian, Armenian revolutionary leader, in Yerevan, 1919.
"In Soviet Armenia today there no longer exists a single Turkish soul." Sahak Melkonian, Preserving the Armenian Purity, 1920

"Since all the able Moslem men were in the army, it was easy for the Armenians to begin a horrible slaughter of the defenseless Moslem inhabitants in the area. They ... simply cleaned out the Moslem inhabitants in those areas. They performed gruesome deeds, of which I, as an eye witness honestly say that they were much worse than what Turks have been accused of as an Armenian atrocity." General Bronsart von Schellendorf , "A Witness for Talat Pasha," Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, July 24, 1921
"It is in our blood to hate the Turks. However, we hate Bulgarians and Greeks also. The Jews like Turks, but they hate Arabs. The Arabs, in their turn, are not in favour with the Turks. And the level of hatred is rising." Narek Mesropian, described as Armenia's poet laureate, in Golos Armenia, a Russian-language newspaper in Armenia, in an August 5, 1997 article reflecting the tension between the Armenian and Jewish communities. Interestingly, the Turks are not accused of hating anybody.
"... It's better that I be a dog or a cat, than a Turkish barbarian..." Edna Petrosyan, a SIX YEAR OLD Californian girl who recites hateful poems on the insistence of her mother. It is easy to see how this cycle of hate-perpetuation feeds the "Armenian Genocide" obsession for most Armenians. The Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1990

"...In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage..."

Henry Morganthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York (1918), page 301

"...When Turkey had not yet entered the war...Armenian volunteer groups began to be organized with great zeal and pomp in Trans Caucasia. In spite of the decision taken a few weeks before at the General Committee in Erzurum, the Dashnagtzoutune actively helped the organization of the aforementioned groups, and especially arming them, against Turkey. In the Fall of 1914, Armenian volunteer groups were formed and fought against the Turks..."

Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic, The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, 1923. (The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Has Nothing to Do Any More, New York, Armenian Information Service, 1955, p. 5.) "Practically all of the (volunteers were) Turkish Armenians," The New York Times reported, in 1915.

"THE TRIALS OF THE ARMENIANS Few Peoples have known as many changes of fortune as the Armenians. Situated in eastern Anatolia and extending eastwards into what is now the U.S.S.R., Armenia was in ancient times a buffer kingdom between rival empires. Armenia was frequently invaded-by Assyrians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks and Romans. Withal, the Armenians retained their identity. In the 11th century, after still more invasions of their homeland, a number of Armenians established a new kingdom on the southern coast of Anatolia. This kingdom in its turn was destroyed in the 14th century by invaders from Egypt. Under the Ottoman Empire, Armenian merchants and financiers thrived. As the borders of the empire contracted in the 19th century, however, struggles broke out between Turks and Armenians for the possession of Anatolian lands. Many Armenians died; others fled abroad."

Excerption from a book called 'Life World Library' by Desmond Stewart and The Editors of LIFE which is published in 1965. Desmond Stewart is a British writer and graduated at Oxford in 1948....

"The presence in the northeast of the country of a thriving cultured and relatively wealthy community of Armenians was a difficulty to Turks long before the First World War.
"It became a political and strategic threat when the war broke out because of the place of Armenians in the Russian Empire. However, most Armenians, two million of them living in the Turkish Empire, were no threat whatsoever.

"In many ways, it shows that the old idea that war is politics by other means is outdated in the 20th century. War is hatred by other means. And in this case, hatred means extermination. The First World War was the biggest war ever to date. The Second World War was bigger still. It's not accident on my mind that both of them were marked by genocide. This is the logic of the brutalization of total war." Jay Winter-historian

"…
Saying that the massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was the same as what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany is a downright falsehood. What happened to the Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before war broke out, and continued on a larger scale. Great numbers of Armenians, including members of the armed forces, deserted, crossed the frontier and joined the Russian forces invading Turkey. Armenian rebels actually seized the city of Van and held it for a while intending to hand it over to the invaders. There was guerilla warfare all over Anatolia. There is clear evidence of a decision by the Turkish Government, to deport the Armenian population from the sensitive areas. Which meant naturally the whole of Anatolia. Not including the Arab provinces which were then still part of the Ottoman Empire. There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempt to prevent it…" Bernard Lewis, on the American TV C-SPAN 2, 25 March, 2002

"… Armenians again flooded the czarist armies, and the czar returned to St. Petersburg confident that the day finally had come for him to reach Istanbul. Hostilities were opened by Russians, who pushed across the border on November 1, 1914, though the Ottomans stopped them and pushed them back a few days later. A subsequent Russian counter offensive in January caused the Ottoman army to scatter.and the way was prepared for a new Russian push into eastern Anatolia, to be accompanied by an open Armenian revolt against the sultan...
Armenian leaders in Russia now openly declared their support of the enemy and there seemed no other alternative. It would be impossible to determine which of the Armenians would remain loyal and which would follow the appeals of their leaders. As soon as the spring came, then, in mid-May 1915 orders were issued to evacuate the entire Armenian population from the provinces of Van, Bitlis, and Erzurum, to get them away from all areas where they might undermine the Ottoman campaigns against Russia or against the British in Egypt, with arrangements made to settle them in towns and camps in the Mosul area of Northern Iraq. In addition, Armenians residing in the countryside (but not in the cities) of the Cilician districts as well as those of north Syria were to be sent to central Syria for the same reason. Specific instructions were issued for the army to protect the Armenians against nomadic attacks and to provide them with sufficient food and other supplies to meet their needs during the march and after they were settled. Warnings were sent to the Ottoman military commanders to make certain that neither the Kurds nor any other Muslims used the situation to gain vengeance for the long years of Armenian terrorism. The Armenians were to be protected and cared for until they returned to their homes after the war…"

Stanford Shaw, Prof. Of History at UCLA, History Of The Ottoman Empire And modern Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 1977, Vol. II, p 315.

A Letter written by a friend of Turks -Harry Blackley:

Assyria was an ancient kingdom that covered the northern part of what is now modern Iraq. The Assyrians were great conquerors, a euphemistic word that is indicative of a people who massacred people in neighboring countries in order increase land under their control. The Assyrians were made up many races and by 600 BC, Assyria had ceased to exist. As the Ottoman Empire, in its death throes, entered World War 1 on the side of the Central Powers, many races saw the opportunity to carve out a homeland by supporting the Entente. The Assyrians asked to attend the Paris Peace Conference on the basis that they had fought against the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Allies. For their support, they expected a homeland for all Assyrians. It never happened. I would ask you to look at Afghanistan. Neither Russia, nor the USA, two of the greatest military powers ever known, has failed to subdue the warlords who control that country. Think back almost a hundred years to a time and place with no sanitation, typhus, cholera, dysentery and starvation. Think of a destitute Ottoman Empire unable to feed or clothe its army fighting on three fronts. Is it possible that the Ottoman Empire would have the manpower or resources to carry out a State sponsored genocide? The British army lost more men to disease in the Crimean War than to enemy bullets. At the Battle of Sarakamis, the Ottoman Army of 90,000 men lost 75,000 due to lack of winter uniforms and boots, dying from cold and lack of food. There is no doubt that the period 1914-1918 was a tragic period for many nations and ethnic groups. But no one group can claim to be more deserving than others for the awful death toll of soldiers and civilians. The number of Christians claimed to have been killed in the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918 grows year by year. With all available men fighting to save the Empire, crops were not planted and starvation was widespread and affected everyone in Ottoman lands. Australia is a country of migrants from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Millions are spent by Australia to promote peace and harmony among all these diverse ethnic and religious groups. Conflicts and tragedies that occurred in far off lands should not be honoured with monuments that will create divisions in our land. ataharry of Geelong (Reply)

Letter written by Australian Centre for Turkish Studies ( Halit Sindi)

09.12.2009 Dear Councillors, I would like to express my deepest disappointment on the up coming Assyrian Genocide Memorial monument motion to be debated on the 15 Dec 2009. First of all, I wish to say that I am outraged and disgusted by the alleged genocide memorial motion even prior to debate. There is no doubt that there are a great many honest law abiding, hard-working Australian citizens of Turkish descent that would find this motion to be highly offensive. I would like to urge you to oppose this motion on a number of grounds;- Firstly, the events occurred during World War I was a wartime tragedy which many lives, including Turks, were lost in Eastern Anatolia. It should also be remembered that there is no agreement among international scholars on the death tolls or the true nature of the tragic events that caused significant losses of life among different ethnic groups in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Secondly, the genocide is a precisely defined legal term that requires a court decision to assert. Not all suffering, temporary resettlements, killings, casualties, my-grandma-told-me stories, photographs, diplomatic reports can be slapped on with a casual genocide label. For an atrocity to be considered genocide, the plaintiff is burdened by the U.N. with the task of proving that the defendant had the "intention to commit systematic extermination. Hence the words like genocide should not be thrown around irresponsibly at the government level. Thirdly, Commonwealth of Australia and the Republic of Turkey developed a close relationship and a friendship over the years. Politicians must be very careful not to jeopardise this relation. In the lights of the above points, I would urge you to oppose the motion and convince your colleagues to oppose it as well. There is no doubt that this kind of ill-fated motions will destroy the multicultural harmony in Australia.

Sincerely,

Halit Sindi Director Australian Centre for Turkish Studies