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Mehmed Talaat
Pasha
281st Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office
4 February 1917 – 14 October 1918
MonarchsMehmed V
Mehmed VI
Preceded bySaid Halim Pasha
Succeeded byAhmed Izzet Pasha
Ottoman Minister of the Interior
In office
23 January 1913 – 4 February 1917
Prime MinisterSaid Halim Pasha (Grand Vizier)
Personal details
Born
Mehmed Talaat

(1874-09-01)September 1, 1874
Kırcaali, Adrianople Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (present-day Kardzhali, Bulgaria)
DiedMarch 21, 1921(1921-03-21) (aged 46)
Berlin, Weimar Republic
Manner of deathAssassination
Resting placeMonument of Liberty, Istanbul
NationalityOttoman
Political partyCommittee of Union and Progress (Young Turks)


Mehmed Talaat (Ottoman Turkish: محمد طلعت; Turkish: Mehmet Talât; 1 September 1874 – 15 March 1921), commonly known as Talaat Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: محمد پاشا; Turkish: Talât Paşa), was an Ottoman statesman. A Young Turk, he was one of the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas that came to power in the 1913 coup and de facto ruled the Ottoman Empire during the World War I. He is widely held responsible as the main perpetrator of the Armenian Genocide.


Early life

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Rise to power

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1908 Young Turk Revolution

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1913 coup

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Minister of Interior

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Grand Vizier

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Role in the Armenian Genocide

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Armenians being deported

According to various sources, Talaat Pasha had developed plans to eliminate the Armenians as early as 1910. Danish philologist Johannes Østrup wrote in his memoirs that in the autumn of 1910, Talaat talked openly about his plans to "exterminate" the Armenians with him.[1][2] According to Østrup, Talaat stated: "If I ever come to power in this country, I will use all my might to exterminate the Armenians."[1][2] In November of that year, a decision to carry out such a plan was made in Thessaloniki where a secret conference was held by prominent members of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The conference concluded that the Ottoman Empire, which promoted equality among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, was not ideologically compatible anymore, and that the Ottoman Empire should adopt a policy of Turkification.[3] Talaat, who attended the conference, was a leading advocate of this policy shift and stated in a speech that: "there can be no question of equality, until we have succeeded in our task of ottomanizing the Empire."[4] Such a decision ultimately required the assimilation of non-Turkish elements within the Empire and if necessary, it could be done through force.[3] British ambassador Gerard Lowther concluded after the conference that the: "committee have given up any idea of Ottomanizing all the non-Turkish elements by sympathetic and Constitutional ways has long been manifest. To them 'Ottoman' evidently means 'Turk' and their present policy of 'Ottomanization' is one of pounding the non-Turkish elements in a Turkish mortar."[4][5]

Talaat, along with Enver and Cemal, eventually represented the radical faction of the committee. In 1913, the faction ultimately seized power through a violent coup establishing the rule of the Three Pashas, which was also known as the "dictatorial triumvirate".[6] The Three Pashas then became largely responsible for the Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I. With the start of World War I, the Three Pashas found a suitable opportunity to begin their campaign of exterminating the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire.[6][7][8][9]

Original copy of instruction from Talaat on 24 April 1915 to arrest Armenian intellectuals and community leaders

On 24 April 1915, Talaat issued an order to close all Armenian political organizations operating within the Ottoman Empire and arrest Armenians connected to them, justifying the action by stating that the organizations were controlled from outside the empire, were inciting upheavals behind the Ottoman lines, and were cooperating with Russian forces. This order resulted in the arrest on the night of 24/25 April 1915 of 235 to 270 Armenian community leaders in Istanbul, including politicians, clergymen, physicians, authors, journalists, lawyers, and teachers, the majority of whom were eventually murdered.[10] Although the mass killings of Armenian civilians had begun in the Van vilayet several weeks earlier, these mass-arrests in Istanbul are considered by many commentators to be the start of the Armenian Genocide.[10][11][12]

Talaat then issued the order for the Tehcir Law of 1 June 1915 to 8 February 1916 that allowed for the mass-deportation of Armenians, a principal vehicle of the Armenian Genocide.[13] The deportees did not receive any humanitarian assistance and there is no evidence that the Ottoman government provided the extensive facilities and supplies that would have been necessary to sustain the life of hundreds of thousands of Armenian deportees during their forced march to the Syrian desert or after.[12][14] Meanwhile, the deportees were subject to periodic rape and massacre, often the result of direct orders by the CUP. Talaat, who was a telegraph operator from a young age, had installed a telegraph machine in his own home and sent "sensitive" telegrams during the course of the deportations.[7][15] This was confirmed by Talaat's wife Hayriye who stated that she often saw him using it to give direct orders to what she believed were provincial governors.[16] In a session of the Ottoman parliament, Ottoman statesman Reshid Akif Pasha testified that he had uncovered documents which demonstrated the process by which official statements made use of vague terminology when ordering deportation only to be clarified by special orders of "massacres" sent directly from CUP headquarters or often the residence of Talaat himself.[17] He testified:

While humbly occupying my last post in the Cabinet, which barely lasted 25 to 30 days, I became cognizant of some secrets. I came across something strange in this respect. It was this official order for deportation, issued by the notorious Interior Ministry and relayed to the provinces. However, following [the issuance of] this official order, the Central Committee [of Union and Progress] undertook to send an ominous circular order to all points [in the provinces], urging the expediting of the execution of the accursed mission of the brigands. Thereupon, the brigands proceeded to act and the atrocious massacres were the result.[18][n 1]

Hasan Tahsin Uzer, governor of Erzurum, similarly testified during the Mamuretulaziz trial that the Teskilat-ı Mahsusa, under the command of Behaeddin Shakir, was mobilized to kill Armenians and that this organization was in constant contact with the Ministry of Interior. He explained:

Then there was another Teskilat-ı Mahsusa, and that one had Bahaeddin Sakir's signature on it. In other words, he was sending telegrams around as the head of the Teskilat-ı Mahsusa...Bahaeddin Sakir had a code. He’d communicate with the Sublime Porte and with the Ministry of the Interior with it.[19]

Other sources also point to such telegrams directing massacre being sent from Talaat Pasha. Rafael de Nogales Méndez, a Venuzelan officer who served the Ottoman army, visited Diyarbakir on 26 June 1915 and spoke with the governor Mehmet Reşid, who was later known as the "butcher of Diyarbakir".[20][21] Nogales Méndez recounts in his memoirs that Reşid mentioned to him that he received a telegram directly from Talaat ordering him to "Burn-Destroy-Kill".[5][22] Abdulahad Nuri, an official in charge of the deportations, testified during the Turkish courts-martial of 1919–20 that he had been told by Talaat that the goal of the deportations was "extermination" and that he "personally received the orders of extermination".[23][n 2] In many instances, there had been additional instructions to "destroy" the telegrams after they had been read.[17]

Corpses of massacred Armenians, 1918

Numerous diplomats and notable figures confronted Talaat Pasha over the deportations and news of massacres. In one such conversation with German Embassy representative Dr. Mordtmann, Talaat stated his aims of annihilating the Christians of Turkey under the cover of World War I:

Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.[24][25]

In a memorandum sent to Berlin demanding the removal of German ambassador Paul Wolff Metternich because he interceded on behalf of the Armenians, Talaat reaffirmed such a commitment: "the work must be done now, after the war it will be too late."[26] By the end of the war, the subsequent German ambassador Johann von Bernstorff described his discussion with Talaat: "When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: 'What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians'".[27] A similar statement by Talaat was made to Swedish military attaché Einar af Wirsén: "The way the Armenian problem was solved was hair-raising. I can still see in front of me Talaat's cynical expression, when he emphasized that the Armenian question was solved."[28][29] Talaat is reported to have said the following to American ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. (as recorded in Ambassador Morgenthau's Story), who confronted Talaat on several occasions: "I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdulhamid II accomplished in thirty years!"[30] Morgenthau then relates an exchange he had with Talaat:

"Suppose a few Armenians did betray you," I said. "Is that a reason for destroying a whole race? Is that an excuse for making innocent women and children suffer?" "Those things are inevitable," he replied.[31]

In another exchange, Talaat demanded from Morgenthau the list of American insurance policy holders belonging to dead Armenians in an effort to appropriate the funds to the state. Morgenthau categorically refused his request describing it as: "one of the most astonishing requests I have ever heard."[32]

Notable Turkish politicians and figures also condemned the policy. Turkish feminist Halide Edip, writing in her memoirs, captured a defiant reaction from Talaat Pasha when she probed him on the deportations and extermination. He allegedly told her that he was of the conviction that as long as a nation does what is best for its own interests and succeeds, the world admires it.[33] Abdülmecid II, the last Caliph of Islam of the Ottoman Dynasty, said: "I refer to those awful massacres. They are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race. They were entirely the work of Talat and Enver."[34]

Exile and assassination

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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A00E3DE123BEE32A25754C0A9649D946896D6CF&legacy=true


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F06EFDE103CE533A2575BC1A9659C946095D6CF&legacy=true

Legacy

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compared to Adolf Hitler by Geoffrey Robertson[35]

References

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  1. ^ a b Bjørnlund, Matthias (Fall 2006). "'When the Cannons Talk, the Diplomats Must be Silent' – A Danish diplomat in Constantinople during the Armenian genocide". Genocide Studies and Prevention. 1 (2): 197–223.
  2. ^ a b Østrup, Johannes (1938). Erindringer (in Danish). H. Hirsch-sprungs forlag. p. 118.
  3. ^ a b Kiernan, Ben (2007). Blood and soil a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. pp. 404–5. ISBN 978-0300137934.
  4. ^ a b Rae, Heather (2002). State identities and the homogenisation of peoples (1. publ. ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 153–4. ISBN 052179708X.
  5. ^ a b Üngör, Ugur Ümit (March 2012). The making of modern Turkey: nation and state in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-965522-9.
  6. ^ a b Peretz, Don (1994). The Middle East today. New York, NY: Praeger. p. 74. ISBN 0275945766.
  7. ^ a b de Waal, Thomas (2015). Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199350711.
  8. ^ Jones, Adam (2010). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136937972.
  9. ^ Gettleman, Marvin; Schaar, Stuart, eds. (2012). The Middle East and Islamic World Reader: An Historical Reader for the 21st Century (revised ed.). Grove/Atlantic, Inc. ISBN 978-0802194527.
  10. ^ a b Steven L. Jacobs (2009). Confronting Genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Lexington Books. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-7391-3589-1. On 24 April 1915 the Ministry of the Interior ordered the arrest of Armenian parliamentary deputies, former ministers, and some intellectuals. Thousands were arrested, including 2,345 in the capital, most of whom were subsequently executed ...
  11. ^ Demourian, Avet (25 April 2009). "Armenians mark massacre anniversary". The Boston Globe.
  12. ^ a b Mikaberidze, Alexander (2015). "Tehcir Law". In Whitehorn, Alan (ed.). The Armenian Genocide: The Essential Reference Guide. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1610696883.
  13. ^ Josh Belzman (23 April 2006). "PBS effort to bridge controversy creates more". MSNBC. Retrieved 5 October 2006.
  14. ^ "Exiled Armenians starve in the desert; Turks drive them like slaves, American committee hears ;- Treatment raises death rate". New York Times. 8 August 1916. Archived from the original on 2 February 2012.
  15. ^ Hewitt, William L. (2004). Defining the horrific readings on genocide and Holocaust in the twentieth century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 100. ISBN 013110084X.
  16. ^ Bardakçı, Murat (2008). Talât Paşa'nın evrak-ı metrûkesi (in Turkish) (4. ed.). Cağaloğlu, İstanbul: Everest Yayınları. p. 211. ISBN 978-9752895607.
  17. ^ a b Dadrian, Vahakn N. (2004). The history of the Armenian genocide : ethnic conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (6th rev. ed.). New York: Berghahn Books. p. 384. ISBN 1-57181-666-6.
  18. ^ Akçam, Taner (2006). "The Ottoman Documents and the Genocidal Policies of the Committee for Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki) towards the Armenians in 1915". Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. 1 (2): 140. doi:10.3138/7087-4340-5H2X-7544. ISSN 1911-0359.
  19. ^ Akçam, Taner (2006). "The Ottoman Documents and the Genocidal Policies of the Committee for Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki) towards the Armenians in 1915". Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. 1 (2): 142–3. doi:10.3138/7087-4340-5H2X-7544. ISSN 1911-0359.
  20. ^ Anderson, Perry (2011). The new old world (pbk. ed.). London: Verso. p. 459. ISBN 978-1-84467-721-4. Resit Bey, the butcher of Diyarbakir
  21. ^ Olaf Farschid, ed. (2006). The first world war as remembered in the countries of the eastern mediterranean. Würzburg: Ergon-Verl. p. 52. ISBN 3899135148. Later, Reshid became infamous for organizing the extermination of the Armenians in the province of Diarbekir, receiving the nickname "kasap" (the butcher)
  22. ^ Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, resistance, protectors: muslim-christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during world war I (1st Gorgias Press ed.). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias. p. 157. ISBN 1593333013.
  23. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn N.; Akçam, Taner (2011). Judgment at Istanbul the Armenian genocide trials. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 86. ISBN 978-0857452863.
  24. ^ Wolcott, Martin Gilman; The Evil 100 (2000); Page 350; Citadel Press
  25. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn (1989). "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications". Yale Journal of International Law. 14 (2): 258. ISSN 0889-7743. OCLC 12626339.
  26. ^ Dadrian, Vahakn N. (2004). The history of the Armenian genocide: ethnic conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (6th rev. ed.). New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 1571816666.
  27. ^ A., Bernstorff (2011). Memoirs of Count Bernstorff. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-169-93525-9.
  28. ^ Travis, Hannibal (2010). Genocide in the Middle East: the Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press. p. 219. ISBN 978-1594604362.
  29. ^ Avedian, Vahagn. "The Armenian Genocide 1915 From a Neutral Small State's Perspective: Sweden" (PDF). Historiska institutionen Uppsala universitet. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  30. ^ Morgenthau, Sr., Henry (1919). Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Doubleday, Page. p. 342.
  31. ^ Morgenthau, Sr., Henry (1919). Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Doubleday, Page. p. 336.
  32. ^ Morgenthau, Sr., Henry (1919). Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Doubleday, Page. p. 339. 'I wish,' Talaat now said, 'that you would get the American life insurance companies to send us a complete list of their Armenian policy holders. They are practically all dead now and have left no heirs to collect the money. It of course all escheats to the State. The Government is the beneficiary now. Will you do so?'
    This was almost too much, and I lost my temper.
    'You will get no such list from me,' I said, and I got up and left him.
  33. ^ Memoirs of Halide Edip by Halide Edip, The Century Company, NY, 1926, p. 387, at Google Books
  34. ^ Najmuddin; Najmuddin, Dilshad; Shahzad (2006). Armenia: A Resume with Notes on Seth's Armenians in India. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 1-4669-5461-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. ^ "Robertson: Talaat Pasha, the "Turkish Hitler"". news.am. 28 January 2015. Archived from the original on 2 January 2017.


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Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Adalian, Rouben Paul. "Talaat, Mehmet". Armenian National Institute. Archived from the original on 24 December 2016.
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