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The blackest page in modern history: Events in Armenia in 1915 / the facts and the responsibilities cover

The blackest page in modern history: Events in Armenia in 1915 / the facts and the responsibilities

Chapter 9: SOURCES
By Herbert Adams Gibbons
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About This Book

The author compiles contemporary reports and eyewitness testimony to document the systematic deportation and massacre of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire, arguing that these actions were carried out under state direction rather than as isolated incidents. He disputes claims that the victims constituted a security threat, highlights the social and economic role of the Armenian community, and assesses responsibilities among domestic and foreign authorities, including German political influence. The book moves from factual reconstruction to analysis of motives and consequences, concluding with an appeal to humanitarian responsibility and a list of cited sources.

SOURCES

1. Report of American Committee on Armenian Atrocities. New York, October, 1915.

The report contains thirty-five extracts from the testimony of eye-witnesses, covering the period April 27 to August 3, 1915, from all parts of Asia Minor. Twenty-five representative Americans (including Hon. Oscar S. Strauss, twice American Ambassador to Turkey, Cardinal James Gibbons, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and former President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University), signed this report, which states that each bit of testimony has been subjected to careful and extensive investigation, and that “the sources are unquestioned as to the veracity, integrity, and authority of the writers.”

2. Official report of the Parliamentary Debate in the House of Lords, on Wednesday, October 6, 1915. London, Parliamentary Debates, H. of L., volume xix., 67.

Interpellation of the Earl of Cromer, speech of Viscount Bryce, and comments of the Marquess of Crewe.

3. Lord Bryce’s revision and enlargement of the official report of his speech, as given in “Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation,” by Arnold J. Toynbee. London, November, 1915.

4. German missionaries’ letters to the Sonnenaufgang, published by Deutscher Hülfsbund für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient.

5. Narrative of Dikran Andreasian, translated by Rev. Stephen Trowbridge, and published in The Star of the East. London, November, 1915.

6. Testimony of eye-witnesses, published in the Boulogne-sur-Mer Telegramme, September 17; Paris Temps, September 15; Limoges Courrier du Centre, September 15; Tribune de Genève, September 4 and 24, October 14; Journal de Genève, October 13 and 24; Gazette de Lausanne, October 24; New York Evening Post, October 18. Résumés and editorial comments in Manchester Guardian, August 16 and October 26; London Times, October 8; Frankfurter Zeitung, October 9; Paris-Midi, October 17. All these dates, of course, are in 1915.

7. Circular letters of various dates from July 6 to October 22, 1915, sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston, Mass., which are signed by James L. Barton.

8. A number of as yet unpublished personal letters. For obvious reasons, I cannot give the names of the writers, and the places from which they were written.

9. Personal conversations with persons of unimpeachable integrity and unquestioned authority, who have returned between September 15 and November 20 from Constantinople and Asia Minor. Their names must of necessity be withheld at this moment.