It's for reasons like this that the continuing denial of the Armenian genocide by intervening Turkish governments is inexcusable. Official denial leads to it being seen as an acceptable position.
WI: The Ottoman Empire joined the allies in WW1?
- Thread starter Marklin
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Agree... still trying to parse this one out though... I rather liked Osman and thought he was an asset to the site...
I think what he was trying to get at, having read his final posts, was that he wasn't trying to deny that the Ottomans killed many Christians/Armenians - just that that is recognized as genocide while the massacre/ethnic cleansing of millions of Muslims in the Caucasus and the Balkans frequently isn't - yes, it's "whataboutism", but he'd probably had 20 years of propagandization, enough to blur the lines in most people's heads...
I have a feeling that eventually the Turkish government will come to terms with the actions of its predecessor... but I'm not expecting it anytime soon.
He got as close to openly denying as humanly possible. Saying that because there were surviving Armenians elsewhere in the Empire there couldn't have been a genocide. It's like saying because some Tasmanians or Jews survived the British and Germans it wasn't a genocide.
I thought he could be a good contributor too, but Genocide Denial is despicable. But this is derailing the thread so I'll desist.
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The most important influence of entente or neutral ottomans is that trade between Russia and the west can pass through the southern route.
Its important to note that the biggest driver of Russian unrest was probably food shortages in cities caused by a lack of transport. All trains were needed to support the logistics on the front.
If the Ottomans are Entente than Bulgaria will be neutral. The Ottomans can sit back and barely fight while still be an Entente member.
Russian armies and especially British armies from India will be freed up for other fronts.
Its important to note that the biggest driver of Russian unrest was probably food shortages in cities caused by a lack of transport. All trains were needed to support the logistics on the front.
If the Ottomans are Entente than Bulgaria will be neutral. The Ottomans can sit back and barely fight while still be an Entente member.
Russian armies and especially British armies from India will be freed up for other fronts.
I actually went out of the way to allow him to say exactly this, or some similar variant regarding "it was done by the national government" rather than just sort of "ya, not changing a word"
Even if the Ottomans joined the Allies and were on the winning side of the war, there's still a good chance that the Ottoman Empire may collapse into civil war like Russia did. Though without stuff like the Sykes-Picot, Sevres, or Lausanne treaties, then there might be a relatively more peaceful (or at least stable) long-term future for the post-war Middle East.
Not really relevant to the topic, but I was actually unaware that some Tasmanians actually survived the British Empire's genocide against them. My sources must be out of date.
I know that the genocide denier has been banned, but it is important to note that the genocidaires were very open about their goal to eliminate the Armenian people. The war minister Enver Pasha proclaimed, "The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation". When, in 1918, the Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha was asked about the Armenian Question, he stated, "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. What on earth do you want? The question is settled. There are no more Armenians". To deny the Armenian Genocide requires ignoring the explicit words of the leadership of the Ottoman state of the era.
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While I would certainly not seek to absolve the Ottoman authorities of their attempt to prevent the Armenian population from being capable of rebellion via mass murder: which they certainly did, if the Ottomans are fighting alongside the Russians there's basically no chance of this being a major concern. I suppose if Russia still collapses, which is far from certain, that Armenians could be seen as a threat to Ottoman territorial integrity during a civil war in the Caucasus, but the historical massacres are highly unlikely in this scenario.
kham_coc
Banned
I don't know, but maybe his point was that it wasn't genocide like the holocaust, and more ethnic cleansing? I.E, the point wasn't to end the armenian people (as a people), but just make sure none of them lived in 'Turkish' land (i.e end them as a minority).
(Obvi, ethnic cleansing is a form of genocide in general, and when you kill that many people, it definitely is genocide).
i think it would be easier to make that point to the turks if the west also started recognising the comparable, concurrent genocide of the muslims in the balkans.
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I think you’re quite right that it won’t be in the same way. Nevertheless, the Armenian Genocide was not at all an unprecedented event in Ottoman history, and even before 1914 there were horrific massacres of ethnic minorities. In 1913, there were massacres of tens of thousands of Pontic Greeks, as well as tens of thousands of Thracian Bulgarians, while the Assyrian genocide saw its beginnings. This was in no small part due to the CUP military coup. The Armenians suffered horrifically - beyond the rightfully infamous Hamidian massacres of 1894-98, in which the absolute monarch Abdulhamid II organized paramilitaries that killed hundreds of thousands of Armenians, there was also the killing of tens of thousands of Armenians in Adana in 1909. To an extent, massacres were the Ottoman modus operandi, and that in 1913 Turkish nationalists with the aim of establishing a homogeneous nation took over the empire made this worse. There would also be fears of an Armenian nationalist revolt even with a Russian-Ottoman alliance.
There are quite likely to be pogroms against Armenians in any case, and with the world distracted with war many will think they can get away with larger massacres than otherwise. Any war is quite likely to worsen the state of ethnic relations in the Ottoman Empire even further. Then, after the war, if the Ottomans win, the military junta will be flush with prestige and intent on achieving their goals - one of which was the homogenization of the nation.