1 See Blue-book, Turkey, No. 6, 1881, p. 127. ↑
2 The clause in the Berlin Treaty relating to the Armenians is as follows:—Article 61. “La sublime Porte s’engage à réaliser sans plus de retard les améliorations et les réformes qu’exigent les besoins locaux dans les provinces habitées par les Arméniens et à garantir leur sécurité contre les Circassiens et les Kurdes. Elle donnera connaissance périodiquement des mesures prises à cet effet aux puissances qui en surveilleront l’application.”
The Armenian delegates to the Berlin Congress presented a memoir to the European Plenipotentiaries in which they set forth their cause. It is published by De la Jonquière in his Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, Paris, 1881, pp. 39–44. They also drew out a project for an Organic Regulation to be applied to the new province. It was to be administered by an Armenian Governor-General appointed by the Porte with the consent of the Powers. ↑
3 The statistics of population were supplied by the Patriarch Nerses to Mr. Goschen. They may be found in Blue-book, Turkey, No. 23, 1880, p. 274. Mr. Goschen, writing to Lord Granville on 15th July 1880, says: “My strong feeling is that the Powers cannot commit themselves to any plan until they know the real facts about the population. It would not do to build on a mistaken basis, and I feel convinced that no one has sure ground. The Patriarch’s figures are as exaggerated as those of the Porte on the other side. Again, how to deal with the nomad Kurds? All must depend on the physical force of the two different races and religions. If the Armenians should be in a minority it will be dangerous to give them the same institutions which we should give if they were in a majority, dangerous to themselves” (Blue-book, Turkey, No. 6, 1881, p. 16). And, again, in another despatch of 23rd July: “With regard to the actual project of reforms, the letter of the Patriarch is conceived in such vague phrases that but little advantage is to be derived from it in elucidating the problem to be solved” (ibid. p. 20). ↑
4 See Lord Granville’s despatch, 10th February 1881: “In consequence of the objections raised by the German Government, Mr. Goschen will not be instructed to put forward the Armenian Question immediately on his return to Constantinople.” ↑
5 The figures for the town and merkez-caza of Van are based on my own knowledge. Those for the other cazas of Van sanjak are the Turkish official figures for 1890, except in the case of Adeljivas caza, where I have substituted a private estimate. ↑
6 The figures for Bitlis vilayet are the Turkish official figures for 1893. ↑
7 The figures for Kharput sanjak are an estimate made for me by Consul Boyajean of Diarbekr, at the instance of Consul R. W. Graves. I had previously calculated that the Christians were in a majority in that sanjak. The population of the Dersim sanjak has been estimated from various sources. The estimate is little better than a guess. ↑
8 The figures for caza Palu have been furnished by Consul Boyajean. ↑
9 The Turkish official figures, as annexed to the British Consular Trade Report for 1887, have been adopted for the vilayet of Erzerum.
Except in the cases of Van town and caza, and possibly in those of vilayet Kharput and caza Palu, a large percentage might be added to the figures above given in order to provide for the imperfect registration of females. Under this head the figures for the other cazas of Van might be increased by 10 per cent; those for Bitlis vilayet by 13 per cent; and those for Erzerum vilayet by 7 per cent. ↑
10 The statistical area with which we are dealing for the Turkish provinces measures 42,814 square miles. If we were to adopt the area delimited by the Armenian delegates to the Berlin Congress, the proportion of Christians to Mohammedans would be still smaller. ↑
11 It is interesting to compare these results, which were obtained quite independently and before I had seen his estimate, with the figures given by the late Mr. Taylor, for many years British Consul for Erzerum and the surrounding country. Mr. Taylor knew the country intimately, and had travelled extensively in it. On his figures are based those which have been given by his successors in office, and which appear in the Blue-books. After making the necessary deductions for districts annexed to Russia since the date of Mr. Taylor’s reports, his estimate of the population, as adapted to the area with which we are dealing, is as follows:—Turks, 348,350; Kurds, 466,982; Christians, 352,657—total, 1,167,989. This estimate corresponds in a satisfactory manner with mine, after we have made allowance for information, either new or more complete, which has appeared with reference to certain districts since Taylor’s time. The census shows that Taylor under-estimated the Turks who inhabit the northern cazas of Erzerum vilayet. Taylor also placed the Kizilbash Kurds of the Dersim at 110,000. Relying on more recent reports, I place them at 50,000. ↑
12 Consul Taylor, in alluding to the Kurds of the tableland, has written to the following effect: “The Kurds inhabiting the Erzerum districts, with the exception of the Hakkiari, were originally immigrants from the vicinity of Diarbekr; and there is only one tribe, the Mamakanlu—said to be descended from the Armenian Mamikoneans—who are natives of the soil.” ↑
13 This tax is known in the country under the name of kishlak, or winter quarters. ↑
14 Vahan Vardapet, in an Armenian newspaper published in Constantinople, the Djeridei Sharkieh, under date the 3/15 December 1886. ↑
15 See Curzon’s Persia, vol. i. p. 548. ↑
17 2 Kings xix. 37; Moses of Khorene, i. 23. ↑
18 Saint Martin, Mémoires sur l’Arménie, i. 163. ↑
19 Faustus of Byzantium, iii. 9. ↑
20 For instance the Kurdish Beys of Zokh believe themselves to be descended from the dynasty of Sanasar. Again an Armenian convent, called Norshen, is held in reverence by both the Armenian and Kurdish inhabitants; and the name of that convent is believed to be a corruption of Nor-Shirakan or New Shirak—a name applied to the country by the earliest Armenian writers, Agathangelus (ch. cxxvi.) and Faustus (v. 9). ↑
21 John Katholikos, ch. xxviii. ↑
22 See especially Turkey, No. I. 1895, parts i. and ii. ↑
23 It may be found among the archives of the British Consulate at Erzerum. ↑
24 Chesney, Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris carried on by order of the British Government, London, 1850, 2 vols. folio with maps; Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition, London, 1868, 8vo. ↑
25 “The preservation, so far as it is still possible, of the integrity of Persia must be registered as a cardinal principle of our Imperial creed.” “I should regard the concession of a port upon the Persian Gulf to Russia by any power as a deliberate insult to Great Britain, as a wanton rupture of the status quo, and as an intentional provocation to war; and I should impeach the British Minister, who was guilty of acquiescing in such a surrender, as a traitor to his country.” “It (i.e. the aggression of Russia upon South Persia and the Persian Gulf) can only be prosecuted in the teeth of international morality, in defiance of civilised opinion, and with the ultimate certainty of a war with this country that would ring from pole to pole.”—Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, London, 1892, vol. ii. pp. 603, 605, 465. May I, as a traveller, take the present opportunity of contributing my mite of gratitude to Lord Curzon for this considerable work? ↑
26 “The Amir of Afghanistan,” Quarterly Review, January 1901, p. 167. ↑