22 Akçam also discusses the relocation of Catholic and Protestant Armenians.
According to the author, the govement deported them using a two-track communication system whereby the official orders, ostensibly sparing Catholics and Protestants from deportation, were followed by subsequent coded telegraphic instructions ordering their deportations and sending special inspectors to the regions to enforce them. On the basis of a report by the German Adana consul, Akçam argues that Talat Pasha sent Ali Münif Bey as a special inspector to Adana in order to enforce the relocation of Catholics and Protestants. Indeed, Akçam asserts, “in his memoirs Ali Münif confesses that he himself prepared the list of the Armenians to be deported from Adana” (pp.
However, Ali Münif makes no such confession. There is also no indication in his memoirs that he had been sent to the region as an inspector to enforce any mission. Ali Münif says that on his way to take up a new post in Lebanon, he stayed for a few days at his hometown, Adana, where he also came into contact with the three local CUP members (İsmail Safa, Muhtar Fikri and Both you’re attempting to find continue or examine dissertation service write my dissertation for me wanting a specialised low priced publication review writing services Kibarzade), who “bitterly” complained about the Armenian activities and “even prepared and gave” him a list of alleged ringleaders who should be deported.
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Upon “seeing the critical situation” in the region that might have “resulted in bloodshed at any moment,” Ali Münif goes on to say, “I have sent a telegram to the interior minister, Talat, requesting the immediate inclusion of Adana into the relocation zone and telling him that if this is not done, I will not set foot on mount Lebanon. In addition, I have sent a list [to Talat]. ” 23 Apparently, Ali Münif identified the list he sent as “prepared” and “given” to him by the three locals.
This becomes even more apparent in subsequent sections of the memoirs, especially since the list in question is described as being in the handwriting of Muhtar Fikri, one of the three who prepared and gave him the list. 24 Akçam further believes that the Ottoman documents corroborate his thesis on the Catholic and Protestant Armenians and that the telegrams sent from various regions in September 1915 state that all Armenians, including Catholics and Protestants, were deported and that none had remained in the conceed provinces (p. However, of the four telegrams cited by Akçam, two actually contradict his statements. The telegram sent from the sanjak of Niğde, for example, actually states that “an Armenian population of 221 persons, consisting of Catholics and Protestants,” remained within the sanjak, 25 while the telegram sent from the sanjak of Eskişehir states that “the number of Armenians required to be removed [from the sanjak] amounted to 7,000″ and that all of these were dispatched.
While Eskişehir’s Armenian population was over 7,000, 27 the anti-Unionist author Ahmet Refik (Altınay), who at the time was in Eskişehir, also wrote that the Catholic Armenians as well as the families of the Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman Army remained in Eskişehir. ” 29 Curiously enough, this telegram, quoted earlier in the book by Akçam (p. At times, Akçam brings unrelated events together and leaves his readers with a rather misleading impression regarding the context of certain statements.
For instance, he quotes from a report that mentions an official named Hüseyin Kazım Bey, who expresses his dissatisfaction with the authorities’ conduct toward the Armenians (p. Immediately after quoting this report, Akcam writes, “Later. Hüseyin Kazım wrote in his memoirs that in Lebanon alone, the number of the poor who fell victim to the evil designs of the govement was 200,000″ (p.