- Project Runeberg -  Armenia and the Near East /
319

(1928) [MARC] Author: Fridtjof Nansen - Tema: Russia
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ARMENIA IN MODERN TIMES 319
exterminating a people who were Turkish subjects (! !).
Enver Pasha declared, in response to the representations of
the German ambassador, that he accepted responsibility for
everything that happened in Anatolia. He and the other
leaders must bear the whole blame for håving added to the
bloodstained history of Turkey a chapter so frightful that it
puts all the rest into the shade. Abdul Hamid’s massacres
were trifles compared to the deeds of these " modem " Turks.
On June 30, 191 6, Count Metternich, the German ambassa
dor, writes to the Imperial Chancellor that " the committee
demands the destruction of the last remnant of the Armenians.
..." When nothing is left to take from them, " the
hounds are already waiting impatiently for the moment when
Greece, egged on by the Entente, will turn against the Turks
or their allies," so that they may fall upon the Greeks and
their property. "To Turkify (tiirkisieren) is to expel or
kili all that is not Turkish, to destroy and misappropriate by
violence other people’s property. In this, and the blatant
repetition of French phrases about liberty, consists at present
the famous renaissance of Turkey. . . ." Such is the verdiet
of a friendly ally. To complete the picture, it should be borne
in mind that the Armenians, whom the Young Turks exter
minated in such a revolting manner, were their old friends and
allies, whom they had made use of and co-operated with as
long as they were struggling for power. And now they even
murdered prominent Armenians who, at the risk of their own
lives, had saved the Young Turkish leaders when Abdul
Hamid regained his power in 1909 and massacred the Young
Turks. Fortunately history does not offer many examples
of such treacherous and unmitigated baseness.
But the Young Turks have done what they set out to do ;
they have wiped out the Armenian population of Anatolia,
and can say with Tala’at Pasha that the Armenian question
rfexiste plus. No European or American Government or
statesman troubles now about what has happened ; to them the
everlasting Armenian problem seems finally and definitely
obliterated in blood.
We have seen that the Western Powers of Europe and the
United States of America have given words, and nothing else,

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