Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
The Pan-Germanists are on record in the matter of Armenia. I shall
content myself with quoting the words of the author of “Mittel-Europa,”
Friedrich Naumann, perhaps the ablest propagator of Pan-German ideas. In
his work on Asia, Naumann, who started life as a Christian clergyman,
deals in considerable detail with the Armenian massacres of 1895-96. I
need only quote a few passages to show the attitude of German state
policy on such infamies: “If we should take into consideration merely
the violent massacre of from 80,000 to 100,000 Armenians,” writes
Naumann, “we can come to but one opinion--we must absolutely condemn
with all anger and vehemence both the assassins and their instigators.
They have perpetrated the most abominable massacres upon masses of
people, more numerous and worse than those inflicted by Charlemagne on
the Saxons. The tortures which Lepsius has described surpass anything we
have ever known. What then prohibits us from falling upon the Turk and
saying to him: ‘Get thee gone, wretch!’? Only one thing prohibits us,
for the Turk answers: ‘I, too, I fight for my existence!’--and indeed,
we believe him. We believe, despite the indignation which the bloody
Mohammedan barbarism arouses in us, that the Turks are defending
themselves legitimately, and before anything else we see in the Armenian
question and Armenian massacres a matter of internal Turkish policy,
merely an episode of the agony through which a great empire is passing,
which does not propose to let itself die without making a last attempt
to save itself by bloodshed. All the great powers, excepting Germany,
have adopted a policy which aims to upset the actual state of affairs in
Turkey. In accordance with this, they demand for the subject peoples of
Turkey the rights of man, or of humanity, or of civilization, or of
political liberty--in a word, something that will make them the equals
of the Turks. But just as little as the ancient Roman despotic state
could tolerate the Nazarene’s religion, just as little can the Turkish
Empire, which is really the political successor of the eastern Roman
Empire,
[Illustration: VIEW OF URFA
One of the largest towns in Asia Minor.]
[Illustration: A RELIC OF THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AT ERZINGAN
Such mementos are found all over Armenia.]
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF BARON VON WANGENHEIM
The German Ambassador to Turkey. Mr. Morgenthau (in evening dress) is
walking with Enver Pasha. Immediately in front of them is Talaat
Pasha.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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