British Response to Armenian Massacres of 1914-23
Part 1: Official Response
Katia Minas Peltekian, Beirut, 18 November 2014
While most contemporary scholars focus on the American, political and
public, response to the massacre of the Armenians at the hands of the
Turks in the early 20th century, the British reaction has not been
given due attention. This five-part series demonstrates Britain’s
official and public interest in Armenia and the Armenians during WWI
as well as the following few years until thesigning of the Lausanne
Treaty.
Britain’s response to the ongoing massacres of the early 20th century
has not got much attention and needs to be studied in more detail.
Britain was present in the region and actually interested in the
Ottoman Empire long before the United States. Britain was more
politically involved in the region because of the conflict with the
Russian Empire; and Britain was more interested in the Levant because
of the silk route trade to India and the Far East. Official United
States had shown not much interest in that region, even after the
Great War. In fact, one of the reasons the US Senate rejected the
mandate for Armenia was that America was simply not interested in
foreign lands.
This article will cover a portion of the official and un-official
British response to the on-going massacres as well as the “Armenian
Question” between 1914 and 1923. The first 4 parts will demonstrate
the interest that a number of Lords and Members of Parliament showed
during those years in and out of the House of Lords and House of
Commons. Part 5 will cover the interest the British public showed to
help the Armenian refugees and orphans. In this article, no effort
will be made to analyze these events and facts; the purpose of this
report is to exhibit to the reader what was recorded in Britain during
the period Armenians were being massacred at the hands of the Turks.
In a nutshell, the Parliament in both the House of Lords and the House
of Commons discussed or debated the Armenian issue – massacres,
refugees, repatriation, question and homeland – over 70 times during
1914-1923. It is to be noted that prior to this period, the British
Parliament had some 180 debates and discussions on Armenia during the
35 years before the Great War.
By reading the un-official proceedings of the Parliament printed in
the British newspapers of the time, one will discover that there seems
to have been an Armenian lobby in both Houses, and these members of
the Parliament, despite the heavy toll of the Great War on Britain and
the British Empire, did actually put the Armenian issue up for
discussion or questioned the British Government on information or
action it would take.
Before the Great War began, i.e. before the time we term as the
“genocide” years, the British parliament was working on implementing
the Armenian Reforms which the Young Turk Government had agreed upon
with Europe. During one such debate in July 1914, right before the
Great War broke out, Mr. Aneurin Williams, a Welsh Liberal MP, spoke
of the position in Armenia during one discussion on the Reforms that
had not yet been implemented in the Armenian provinces. He said:
“The Balkan War arose because there was a large area of European
Turkey which was misgoverned, and Turkey had not the wisdom or the
power to introduce reforms. There is a similar area and a similar
problem calling out to be dealt with in Asiatic Turkey. There is no
security for life or property in Armenia, and massacres in recent
years had been deliberately organised from Constantinople.”
By August of that year, the War broke out and in November Britain
declared war on the Ottoman Empire. And although the British Empire
was heavily engaged in the War on several fronts, the Parliament still
made time to discuss the situation of the Armenian population in
Turkey. In April, 1915, before the infamous date of April 24, just a
few months after the war had broken out, MP Aneurin Williams again
raised the issue of Armenia in the House of Commons.
He asked whether the Government would endeavour, at the end of the
war, to secure for the Armenian people in Asiatic Turkey some measure
of autonomy similar to that which the Russian Government had promised
to Poland.
Mr. Neil Primrose (Minister) replied that the hon. member might rest
assured that his Majesty’s Government would consider the interests of
the Armenian people in Asiatic Turkey; but it was not possible at this
juncture to determine what the future arrangement would be.
When the terrible news about the massacres and deportation of the
Armenians began to arrive to London and were confirmed by official
sources, the British Government, in common with the governments of
France and Russia made the following public declaration on May 24,
1915 :
For about the last month the Kurds and the Turkish population of
Armenia have been engaged in massacring Armenians, with the connivance
and often the help of the Ottoman authorities. Such massacres took
place about the middle of April at Erzeroum, Dertchan, Egin, Bitlis,
Sassoun, Moush, Zeitun, and in all Cilicia. The inhabitants of about
100 villages near Van were all assassinated, and in the town itself
the Armenian quarter is besieged by Kurds. At the same time the
Ottoman Government at Constantinople is raging against the inoffensive
Armenian population.
In the face of these fresh crimes, committed by Turkey, the Allied
Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold
all the members of the Ottoman Government, as well as such of their
agents as are implicated, personally responsible for such massacres.
In July 1915, it was the turn of the House of Lords to discuss the
massacres during a long session; the following is an excerpt of the
discussion:
Viscount Bryce asked the Lord President of the Council whether his
Majesty’s Government had any information regarding the massacres of
the Christian inhabitants which were reported to have been committed
by the Turks in the districts of Zeitun, Mush, Diarbekir, Bitlis, and
elsewhere in the region inhabited by the Armenians; and regarding a
reported wholesale deportation of the inhabitants of some districts
into Central Asia Minor and the desert parts of Mesopotamia; and
whether, if these reports were well-founded, there was in the opinion
of the Government any step that could be taken to save what remained
of the Christian population of Armenia.
The Earl of Cromer said there was, unfortunately, no doubt of the
truth of the reports…
The Marquess of Crewe [Lord President of the council] said he was
grieved to say that the information in the possession of the Foreign
Office… was in accord with what the noble lord had given…. Since [the
warning by the Governments of Britain, France & Russia] the crimes had
increased in number, and, if possible, in atrocity. Wholesale massacre
and deportation had been carried out under the guise of necessity for
evacuation of certain districts… He finally asserted that Those who
were found to be responsible, either directly for the commission of
crimes or for crimes due to their inspiration … should receive
punishment accordingly. (Hear, hear.)
During these months, the headlines in the British Press would describe
the ongoing massacres in detail, with sources being both British &
foreign consuls as well as correspondents from the war front or in the
region where refugees were able to escape. Some of the recurring
headlines in 1915 were
Destroying a Nation: The Armenian Massacres
Wholesale Murder in Armenia: Exterminating a Race
Wiping out the Armenians
The Armenian Massacres: Exterminating a Race
And as these reports were printed in the British Press, the same line
of discussion came up again in the House of Lords in October 1915:
The Earl of Cromer rose to ask (1) Whether his Majesty’s Government
had received any information confirmatory of the statements made in
the Press to the effect that renewed massacres of Armenians had taken
place on a larger scale; (2) whether the statements made that German
Consular officials had been privy to these massacres rested on any
substantial evidence; and (3) whether any further communications had
recently been addressed to the Porte in connexion with this subject…
Lord Crewe replied that the Foreign Office had received further
details from His Majesty’s Consul at Batum … who described the
appalling horrors which had taken place at Sassoun, where the
population were absolutely exterminated, only a few being able to
escape. The whole country was completely ravaged. According to the
Consul, certain number of well-known inhabitants succeeded in escaping
to the mountains, but the slaughter of those who could not escape was
universal… The Consul stated that about 160,000 of these had passed
through Igdir and Etchmiadzin. He also gave a most horrible
description of their condition, ravaged by disease, many of them
starving. They have been dying at the rate of at least 100 a day.
Nothing could be said in too high praise of the efforts which have
been made locally to cope with this hideous condition of things, but
very much larger supplies of medical comforts and of foodstuffs are
needed if the condition of the refugees is to be materially relieved…
VISCOUNT BRYCE also gave further details – Such information as has
reached me from many quarters goes to show that that which the noble
earl thought incredible, that 800,000 people had been destroyed since
May last, is unfortunately quite a possible number. Bryce confirmed
that The massacres were the result of a policy which, so far as can be
ascertained, had been absolutely premeditated for a considerable time
by the gang who were in possession of the Government of the Turkish
Empire. They hesitated to put it into practice until the moment came,
and the favourable moment seems to have come about the month of May…
Bryce then proceeded with the description of the systematic process
that the Turks followed to “clear out whole populations of towns. The
procedure was exceedingly systematic. The whole population of a town
was cleared out. Men were thrown into prison, the rest of the men, and
the women and children were marched out of the town. When they had got
some little distance, they were separated, the men being taken to
places where the soldiers dispatched them by shooting or bayoneting.
The women and children and older men were sent off under convoy of the
lower kind of soldiers to their distant destinations, which was
sometimes one of the unhealthy districts, but more frequently the
large district which extends to the east of Aleppo, in the direction
of the Euphrates. They were driven by the soldiers day after day; many
fell by the way and many died of hunger…
During those same months of horror, Lord Arthur Balfour made this declaration
In the midst of all the horrors of this war nothing, I think, is more
horrible than the treatment meted out to the wretched Armenians by the
Turkish Government who claim to represent Progress and Reform. It is a
crime which surpasses the worst deeds of their predecessors.
As the year 1915 drew to a close, and as the war raged further taking
the lives of many British soldiers, officers and citizens, a couple of
Members of Parliament still insisted on discussing the Armenian case
in November 1915:
Mr. Aneurin Williams called attention to the massacres of Armenians
and Mr. T. P. O’CONNOR (an Irish Nationalist) appealed to the
Government to do all they could to bring the agony in Armenia to an
end and to alleviate the sufferings of the survivors.
LORD ROBERT CECIL (Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs) said
the story of the Armenian massacres was a terrible one… this was not a
religious movement. It was a deliberate policy to wipe out of
existence the Armenians in Turkey… He asserted that the British would
use every resource of the Army and Navy and the Consular service to
save the Armenians, because, after all, the greatest possible
protection to the Armenians was victory in this war (hear, hear)…
———-
Note: All citations are taken from “The Times of the Armenian
Genocide: Reports in the British Press,” edited by Katia Minas
Peltekian. The book in two volumes compiles over one thousand articles
from the British Press during 1914-1923.
http://www.keghart.com/Peltekian-British-Response1