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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Armenian Genocide

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Article promoted by Gog the Mild (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2021 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Armenian Genocide

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Nominator(s): Buidhe (talk)

Armenian Genocide (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it is an important article that I rewrote almost entirely and it was just elevated to GA status. My ultimate goal is to bring this to FAC. The article has a solid basis in recent research, but it probably needs some more polishing before it's ready, so I'm hoping to get feedback here. (t · c) buidhe 02:07, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Indy beetle

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Claiming my seat. Genocide material is tough stuff to write, and it seems like a very solid article. I'll post comments as I think of them.

  • On 29 October 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers by launching a surprise attack on Russian ports in the Black Sea. Haha, I wrote the article about that "surprise attack" ages ago! Considering all of the intrigue involving the Ottoman's entry into WWI—fears of territory loss to Russia and the Balkan countries, German interference, Enver Pasha's scheming with the Germans, a cabinet crisis—the Ottomans entering WWI doesn't seem like it was a foregone conclusion. Do you think it's perhaps worth mentioning that the entry was achieved with some political difficulties in Istanbul?
    • I agree that it's a complex issue, but I think that the complexities are too much to get into here and don't necessarily have impact on the genocide itself, given that the empire ultimately did go to war. I did add a sentence about the alliance with Germany.
  • Acknowledgment of the genocide is punishable under Article 301 of the Penal Code, which prohibits insulting the Turkish nation and state institutions. Has anyone ever been fully prosecuted for genocide recognition, and if so, do we have any statistics on that?
    • After doing some research I can tell you Yes, and No. During the Akçam vs. Turkey case before the European Court of Human Rights, "The Government further pointed out that between 2003 and 2007 the number of sets of criminal proceedings instituted under Article 301 (Article 159/1 of the former Criminal Code) was 1,894. Of those, 744 cases had resulted in convictions and 1,142 in acquittals; 193 cases were still pending following the Court of Cassation’s decisions to quash the first-instance courts’ judgments." (This would include cases not related to the Armenian Genocide). Akçam's lawyers noted that "individuals had been successfully prosecuted in the past under Article 301 and other provisions of the Turkish Criminal Code for describing the massacre of Armenians as “genocide”", but they didn't give an exact figure. In the earlier Dink vs. Turkey case, "the Court found that the Court of Cassation sanctioned any opinion criticising the official thesis on the Armenian issue. In particular, criticism of denial by State institutions of genocide claims in relation to the events of 1915 was interpreted as denigration or insulting “Turkishness” or the “Turkish nation”" Source:[1]

-Indy beetle (talk) 09:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • It seems to be a recurrent theme throughout this article that Christianity was seen as central to Armenian ethnic identity, but this is not said explicitly.
  • In the nineteenth century, a few urban Armenians became extremely wealthy through their connections to Europe as the Greek War of Independence raised doubt over the loyalty of Greek Orthodox subjects. Err, why? Because the Turkish elite began to favor the Armenians for business dealings instead of the Greeks?
    • Removed, as after double-checking the source this aspect is not emphasized so it may be WP:UNDUE.
  • the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants, as part of a systematic policy to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. Is it known why the Ottomans wanted to reduce their population in this specific area? To dilute their political cohesiveness?
    • Astorian doesn't state the reason. I checked Kevorkian and Suny books and they don't give a clear citable reason either although they imply that the sultan was trying to bring these areas under stronger central government control or just hold on to them. Will need to keep researching this point.
      • After additional research I'm not sure that any source directly ties this demographic policy to a clear motivation. I don't think there's anything that I can add here that wouldn't be synthy. (t · c) buidhe 09:38, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the goal of the Ottoman state in much of the late 1800s was to try encourage the Armenians to leave, is it known if many left and where they ended up, and how they were treated in their new lands?
    • A lot of them went across the border to Russian-controlled areas. Others emigrated, among other places to the US. Russia encouraged Armenians to settle but did not really follow a pro-Armenian policy but also repressed Armenian language and culture and many Russian bureaucrats had anti-Armenian attitudes.
  • When news of the countercoup reached Adana, armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters. It's not exactly clear whether the Muslims rioted in support or in protest of the coup attempt. Were the attacks on the Armenians due to the Dashnaktsutyun's connections to the CUP?
    • Suny appears to say that those involved in the massacres were both supporters and opponents of the coup, and that harmful rumors claimed that Armenians were trying to restore the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
  • On 8 February 1914, under heavy international pressure, the CUP agreed to the 1914 Armenian reforms, which were never implemented due to World War I. A few words on what these reforms would have achieved (de facto European trusteeship of the Ottoman Armenians, by the looks of it) would be nice.
    • Added a bit of clarification
  • Other Dashnak leaders having been killed, If the Ottomans were deliberately targeting and assassinating Dashnak leaders before this point, that would seem worthy of mention.
    • It wasn't a consistent Ottoman policy but rather Cevdet decided to have them killed.
  • Russian forces liberated Van on 18 May, finding 55,000 corpses in the province Is there a link for the Russian offensive that brought them to Van?
  • the deportation and murder of Armenians did not grant the empire any military advantage and actually undermined the Ottoman war effort. It might be worth spelling out how this undermined the war effort, such as by diverting government security resources. Or are you referring to the economic problems explained by the "Confiscation of property" section?
    • Rogan states, The bitter irony is that the annihilation of the Armenians and other Christian communities in no way improved the security of the Ottoman Empire. The Allies never mounted an attack on the Cilician coast to justify the deportation of Armenians there. The deportations actually undermined the Ottoman war effort in Mesopotamia when Armenians working on the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway were condemned to a death march. The extermination of Armenian communities in eastern Anatolia did nothing to protect the Caucasus from Russian invasion. Tsarist forces met little resistance in conquering the fortress town of Erzurum in February 1916. The Russian army swept through the Black Sea port of Trabzon and the market town of Erzincan later that year—defeats that could not be blamed on Armenian collaborators after the deportations. As far as military consequences, Suny states: In July 1915 the commander of the Ottoman Third Army, Mahmud Kamil, was forced to request reassignment of soldiers to agricultural labor since “all Muslims have been conscripted and the Armenians in their entirety [kamilen] been deported.” He accurately predicted that the region would fall into “dearth and famine” and the army would be without supplies. Now I've mentioned military supplies and lack of essential labor.
  • Although the majority of able-bodied men had been conscripted, others remained if they were too old or young, had deserted, or had paid the exemption tax. Conscripted for what?
    • Clarified that this is military conscription
  • After hearing from German politicians that they expected surviving Armenians to be allowed to return home after the war, Talat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in early 1916. So Talat feared his German allies would pressure him to return the Armenians to their homes, and so he decided to kill as many before the war was over?
    • Yes, Kieser states, Talaat.. became an obsessive anti- Armenian whose political hate included growing fear... Mixing political hate with a cultural and biological understanding of Armenians, Talaat increasingly apprehended the latter’s survival outside Anatolia as a possible starting point for a reversal of his political “achievements” for the Türk Yurdu. This went on file when Matthias Erzberger, a German deputy who was responsible for propaganda abroad and thus influential in foreign policy, visited him in February 1916. Henceforth, Talaat tangibly feared that after the war, Armenian survivors would return to their homeland and that Germany, in Erzberger’s words, would support them, as Talaat secretly wrote to Enver on 16 February. Active extermination in Northern Syria, beyond deliberate starvation, started in March 1916.
  • I'm curious if there's any information to be shared on how word got out of the killings. The international reactions section mentions witness testimony and newspaper accounts; was the Ottoman government simply unable to stop journalists from investigating and reporting the story?
    • An interesting question. It was NOT possible for foreign journalists to visit the affected area, but by the end of 1918, "American editors had by then found other sources to confirm the scenes of horror: the memoirs of victims, letters from Germans on the scene, and reports by eminent Americans who were listening to missionaries in the region."[2] The Ottoman Empire also threatened Germans who took photographs of the atrocities.
    • According to David Gaunt, the famous "crimes against humanity" declaration in May 1915 was sponsored by Russia after Russia uncovered the massacre in Haftevan. The source for the "Blue Book", the most comprehensive compilation published during the war (all of its sources were cross-referenced and verified), "Apart from that furnished by Bryce from the Armenian diaspora and his personal contacts in America, most of Toynbee's material came semi-officially via the United States. The main channel was the Reverend James Barton, Head of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who had direct access to American consular reports from the interior of the Ottoman Empire. The State Department was evidently content for many of these reports of local eyewitness accounts to be published abroad, provided the source of information was concealed. The collection of documents released in October 1915 in fact formed the basis of Toynbee's Armenian Atrocities. He also obtained the cooperation of the Swiss publishers of Quelques Documents sur le Sort des Armeniens, 1915, as well as further material from its chief compiler, the lawyer Leopold Favre."[3]
    • However, none of this is remotely emphasized in sources so I think it may be UNDUE in this article (Although it would belong in International reaction to the Armenian Genocide). (t · c) buidhe 10:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres awarded Armenia a large area in Eastern Asia Minor.[218] It should probably be noted that this treaty went unratified.
    • Added
  • Dutch historian Uğur Ümit Üngör argues that... Most of the historians in this article are not labeled by their nationality, why him?
    • Removed for consistency.
  • n late 2019, in the wake of the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, both houses of United States Congress voted to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, soon thereafter passing sanctions against Turkey. Seems like recentism bias. Why is US congressional recognition important enough to be mentioned by name when other countries are not?
    • OK, removed.
  • Academic study of the genocide began in the 1980s. I find that hard to believe. Is Lemkin's study not considered academic? Does this have more to do with the discipline of history rather than legal scholarship?
    • OK, after doing some more research I've taken it out. Although it's supported by the cited source, it's contradicted in this paper.

-Indy beetle (talk) 03:30, 3 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Tomobe03

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I'd like to have a look at the article too. I'll post comments/questions below gradually as I go through the article sections. I'm not a native speaker of English though, so please let me know if I misunderstood something in the prose. Also, I won't comment on any grammar issues unless they appear obvious omissions to me.

  • Reading [f]ollowing the Byzantine Empire's fall in 1453, two Islamic empires—the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire—contested Western Armenia; it was permanently separated from Eastern Armenia by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab, I was under impression that the Ottoman and Safavid empires both claimed Western Armenia and understood the passage to imply the Eastern Armenia remained under Armeinan control. After reading the linked Treaty of Zuhab article I got the impression the Safavid Empire controlled the Eastern Armenia and that both empires claimed all of Armenia. It seems to me this particular sentence could be clarified to eliminate the possibility of incorrect interpretations.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:45, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reworded for clarity
  • I assume that the arriving Muslim refugees and immigrants (mainly Circassians) were a result of a war (at least the refugees). Do any sources identify the cause of their displacement?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Many came following the Caucasus War but there were others from the Balkans.
  • Were the parts of eastern Asia Minor, the Balkans, and Cyprus ceded by the Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 transferred to other states before or at the Congress of Berlin?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:10, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a complexity that I don't think needs to go in the article. After the war, Russia forced the Ottoman Empire to accept a favorable deal with much territory lost to Bulgaria. In exchange for ceding Cyprus to Britain, the Ottoman Empire was able to get a better deal at the Congress of Berlin and keep parts of the Balkans that it initially had agreed to cede to Bulgaria. Russia also demanded reforms in the treatment of Armenians, which was ultimately watered down at Berlin. (t · c) buidhe 11:06, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Young Turk Revolution section, is there any way to identify the "Muslims" in [w]hen news of the countercoup reached Adana, armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire? From the context, I understand those were not the Ottoman Army. After reading Adana massacre, judging from the resentment of wealth cited as the cause there, it think that is a reference to armed civilian population of Adana, but I'm unsure if it was an otherwise existing force (a local garrison, CUP or countercoup supprter units) or not. Could you clarify?--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's complicated because supporters of the countercoup, CUP supporters, as well as soldiers sent in to restore order all participated in the massacre and committed violence and looting.
  • Do any sources identify more closely the "Muslim militias" in [a]round 150,000 Greek Orthodox from the Aegean littoral were forcibly deported in May and June 1914 by Muslim militias secretly backed by the government? Looking at the caption of the image found in the Balkan Wars section I'm wondering if they/some of them are the çetes. Similarly, in 1914 Greek deportations, (at least some) of the violence is attributed to bashi-bazouk irregulars. I understand the current wording as "undetermined Muslim (Turkish, Circasssian, European-Muslim refugee etc.) forces brought from outside of the community", so if this is the intended meaning, I'm fine with it as is, but I'd rather have the perpetrators identified as specifically as possible (within reason and remaining concise).--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, your understanding is correct. Emre Erol does highlight çetes as the initiators of violence and states, "In short, the initiators of the violence and ousting were armed bandits who were not from the county." But most sources don't specify çetes; Suny says "militia" and Kieser refers to a "secret combination of gangs, the army, the central government, diplomats, and the central and local branches of the CUP", while Kaligian blames "mobs" "well-armed bands", "regular troops sent to restore order" and the Teşkilat-i Mahsusa for causing attacks. I have changed the wording to "Muslim bandits secretly backed by the CUP and sometimes joined by the regular army". (t · c) buidhe 23:14, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the sentence starting with Russian forces liberated Van on 18 May..., I'd use "took control of" or "captured" instead of "liberated" as a more neutral term. I'd think "liberated" is fine if the city were a part of the Russian Empire before the war.--Tomobe03 (talk) 23:36, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done
  • In Death Marches section, what do you mean by "give away" in ...mothers would give away their daughters before their sons? Does this refer to Childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews would come to the camps to buy Armenian children from their parents; thousands of children were sold in this manner. (in the Destinations sections) or does this somehow refer to giving food away to them?
    • The former, reworded for clarity.
  • In Islamization section, in [m]ost of them endured exploitation, hard labor without pay, forced conversion, and physical and sexual abuse, does "forced conversion" mean forced conversion to Islam?
    • Yes, added clarification
  • In Confiscation section, in [a]ll traces of Armenian existence, including churches and monasteries, libraries, archaeological sites, khachkars, and animal and place names, were systematically erased, does the "systematic erasure" mean systematic destruction or repurposing or any combination of those? This does not apply to animal and place names as the linked articles clarify the situation.
    • A combination of both. For example, many churches were destroyed and others were converted into mosques.
  • In International reaction section, in ...condemning the Ottoman "crimes against humanity" and... the quotemarks could be interpreted as MOS:SCAREQUOTES. Unless they are meant as scarequotes (I did not get that impression), I'd recommend you to reword this as "...condemning the Ottoman actions as crimes against humanity and..." or something like that.--Tomobe03 (talk) 00:40, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reworded
  • There is a link to Requisition disambiguation page in Entry into World War I section.--Tomobe03 (talk) 08:43, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed
  • In [t]he 1920 Treaty of Sèvres awarded Armenia a large area in eastern Asia Minor, but was not ratified, "large area in eastern Asia Minor" should probably be linked to Wilsonian Armenia. Or you could even modify the one-sentence paragraph to have it say something like "...a large area in eastern Asia Minor referred to as Wilsonian Armenia..." to avoid linking to unexpected destination if you think that's necessary.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Linked.
  • Checklinks returns no errors except for Bedrosyan ref, but I accessed the source manually and everything seems fine, i.e. this looks like a checklinks tool's fault and no action is required here.
  • I'd recommend archiving the web sources and adding archive information to the refs to prevent decay. I don't think that such archives are required by relevant criteria though, so no action is required as far as I can tell.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:43, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - pass

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Spot checks not done.

  • Cites 122, 178, 180, 243: "p." → 'pp.'.
  • Armenian Genocide (2010); Dündar (2011): page ranges?
  • "Seeing like a nation-state: Young Turk social engineering in Eastern Turkey, 1913–50". Any reason why this is not in title case?

Gog the Mild (talk) 11:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HF

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Will do; I hope to get to this very soon. Hog Farm Talk 14:59, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • "On 8 February 1914, the CUP reluctantly agreed to the 1914 Armenian reforms, which stipulated the appointment of two European inspectors for the entire Ottoman east and putting the Hamidiye in reserve, were never implemented due to World War I" - Phrasing is a bit rough in my opinion, the "were never implemented due to World War I" doesn't seem to fit the phrasing of the rest of the sentence.
    • Split into two sentences to avoid run-on.
  • Are Erzerum and Erzurum the same place?
    • Yes, standardized spelling.
  • " leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of 1916" - in the lead, recommend clarifying that this is Ackam's estimate
    • I prefer to keep the lead as streamlined as possible, and I don't think attribution is necessary because the estimate is also endorsed by other reliable sources.
  • Was the Cankaya Mansion confiscated from an Armenian? It's in an image and caption, but not elsewhere discussed in the article.
    • Yes, clarified. Any other image I could use in this section would also be an individual example of the general theme.
  • "$1.7 billion adjusted for inflation" - Recommend noting what year this calculation is as of
    • I use a template that updates every year, so adding a year in the text would make it out of date if it wasn't updated.
  • "focused on Talat's responsibility for genocide and became "one of the most spectacular trials of the twentieth century"" - IMO, it's generally best to attribute direct quotations inline
    • Done
  • "In February 1920, after capturing Marash, Kemalist forces massacred thousands of" - Is there a way to link or gloss who the Kemalists were?
    • Added clarification and link
  • "in the displacement of more than half million" - recommend either "a half million" or "half a million"
    • Done
  • The lead says 30 countries have recognized the genocide, but the body says 31
    • right, that was updated in the body but not the lead, now harmonized
  • I find the "lay summary" link for Suny 2015 to be a bit odd. I've never seen something like that before, and it almost seems like an external link attached to a references, as it seems to be an general article by Suny that cites the specific book as a source, among others.
    • The article is basically a summary of the book, with some passages word-to-word identical between them. However, if you think it's confusing I will remove it.
      • It's fine since that's the case
  • Sources all appear to be high-quality

Very good work on what had to be a very difficult subject. Hog Farm Talk 22:39, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Suggest scaling up the "international recognition" map slightly
    • done
  • Suggest adding alt text
    • I'm not very good at alt text :( I did copy some from other articles that were added by other editors.
  • File:Den_armenske_leder_Papasian_ved_Der-ez-Zor_-_PA_0699_U_36_150_(restored).jpg: source link is dead, as per the tag please include details on first publication. Ditto File:Sultende_barn_på_gaten,_den_Armenske_republikk_-_PA_0699_U_34_143_(restored).jpg
  • File:Maunsell's_map,_Pre-World_War_I_British_Ethnographical_Map_of_eastern_Turkey_in_Asia,_Syria_and_western_Persia_01.jpg: the source credits this to Royal Geographic Society, which is not part of the UK government; why is Crown copyright believed to apply? Also, what is the author date of death for the life+70 tag?
    • I guess I can't confirm that Crown copyright applies, although the author was a British Army officer. Added info on the author and death year (1936), so it's PD in both UK and US considering its pre-1926 publication.
  • File:AdanaChristianQuarter.jpg: when/where was this first published? Ditto File:Armenian_deportations_in_Erzurum_by_Victor_Pietschmann_03.jpg, File:Armenians_rescued_from_Arabs_LCCN2014706724.png, File:Turkey._Ankara._Palace_of_Attaturk_(i.e.,_Ataturk)_LOC_matpc.16728_(cropped).jpg
    • For File:AdanaChristianQuarter.jpg, File:Armenians_rescued_from_Arabs_LCCN2014706724.png, and File:Turkey._Ankara._Palace_of_Attaturk_(i.e.,_Ataturk)_LOC_matpc.16728_(cropped).jpg, Library of Congress says there are no copyright restrictions.
    • The Pietschmann image was discussed at the Assassination of Talat Pasha FAC. I stated "I believe that this is considered a simple photograph as it doesn't "involve artistic interpretations". If so, it was either unpublished or else published in Pietschmann's 1940 book, so the copyright would have expired by 1996."
  • File:Lest_they_perish_LCCN2002711981_restored.jpg: what is the author's date of death?
    • 1927, added.
  • File:İkdam,_4_Kasım_1918.jpg: what is the author's date of death and what is the status of this work in the US? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:02, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks so much for your detailed review! (t · c) buidhe 13:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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