Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
their associates in the Committee of Union and Progress. The point which
I am emphasizing here is that this movement presupposed a complete
transformation of Turkish mentality, especially in its attitude toward
subject peoples. No longer, under the reformed Turkish state, were
Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, and Jews to be regarded as “filthy giaours.”
All these peoples were henceforth to have equal rights and equal duties.
A general love feast now followed the establishment of the new régime,
and scenes of almost frenzied reconciliation, in which Turks and
Armenians embraced each other publicly, apparently signalized the
absolute union of the long antagonistic peoples. The Turkish leaders,
including Talaat and Enver, visited Christian churches and sent forth
prayers of thanksgiving for the new order, and went to Armenian
cemeteries to shed tears of retribution over the bones of the martyred
Armenians who lay there. Armenian priests reciprocally paid their
tributes to the Turks in Mohammedan mosques. Enver Pasha visited several
Armenian schools, telling the children that the old days of
Moslem-Christian strife had passed forever and that the two peoples were
now to live together as brothers and sisters. There were cynics who
smiled at all these demonstrations and yet one development encouraged
even them to believe that an earthly paradise had arrived. All through
the period of domination only the master Moslem had been permitted to
bear arms and serve in the Ottoman army. To be a soldier was an
occupation altogether too manly and glorious for the despised Christian.
But now the Young Turks encouraged all Christians to arm, and enrolled
them in the army on an equality with Moslems. These Christians fought,
both as officers and soldiers, in the Italian and the Balkan wars,
winning high praise from the Turkish generals for their valour and
skill. Armenian leaders had figured conspicuously in the Young Turk
movement; these men apparently believed that a constitutional Turkey was
possible. They were conscious of their own intellectual and industrial
superiority to the Turks, and knew that they could prosper in the
Ottoman Empire if left alone, whereas, under European control, they
would have greater difficulty in meeting the competition of the more
rigorous European colonists who might come in. With the deposition of
the Red Sultan, Abdul Hamid, and the establishment of a constitutional
system, the Armenians now for the first time in several centuries felt
themselves to be free men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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