On 19 June 1919 T.P. O’Connor, MP, spoke at a meeting held in Central Hall, Westminster, in support of the Armenian cause. O’Connor appeared on the platform with Lord James Bryce, Lord Gladstone (son of William), G.P. Gooch (famous historian) and the Armenian General Andranik. A record of the proceedings was published in a pamphlet, Armenia and the Settlement, by the Armenian Bureau in London.
O’Connor was one of the last remaining Redmondite MPs left in the British House of Commons, after Sinn Fein had destroyed the Irish Parliamentary party in the 1918 election. The Irish had rejected O’Connor’s party after it had gone over to Imperialism and recruited Irishmen in their hundreds of thousands to die and kill in Britain’s Great War on Germany and Ottoman Turkey.O’Connor had supported the war because England had promised Irish Home Rule in return for war-recruiting by his party. But five years later there was no sign of Home Rule, Britain had rejected the vote by the Irish democracy for an independent Republic and it was governing Ireland through military repression.
T.P. O’Connor had been a long-standing supporter of the Armenians, and an anti-Turk in the Gladstonian “bag and baggage” tradition. He supported Russian “liberation” of the Armenians in the 1877/8 war. He was not only an M.P. for Liverpool in England but had a successful journalistic career in English Liberal circles.
O’Connor is also noteworthy as the inspirer of Wellington House, the secret British Department of State, set up under Charles Masterman, to conduct a massive propaganda campaign against the Germans and Turks through distinguished historians and literary figures (This information about O’Connor’s role in the foundation of Wellington House is contained in Lucy Masterman’s biography of her husband, p.272). It was Wellington House that published Arnold Toynbee’s ‘Armenian Atrocities, The Murder of a Nation’, which formed the basis of Lord Bryce’s Blue Book, the British Government record of the massacres, produced in 1916.
At the meeting Lord Bryce said that “we should have in Armenia a homogeneous Armenian population including all these territories”. But he didn’t say how. Given that the Armenians constituted a minority in “all these territories” claimed—illustrated in a map of Magna Armenia contained in the pamphlet —one presumes the author of the Blue Book was in favour of extensive ethnic cleansing or worse, to create this “homogeneous Armenia”.
T.P. O’Connor revealed in his speech that he had been fighting for the Armenians for 45 years with Gladstone, the Chairman’s father, and he was angered by newspaper reports of the terms to be given to the Turks (in what became the Treaty of Sèvres):
“Why is it that the terms of the Armistice in the demands on the Turks contrast so favourably with the terms we imposed on the Austrians and Germans?.. when I … read in an English paper of the ‘gentlemanly Turk,’ well Ladies and Gentlemen, I see red. What is the meaning of it all? Is it money? Is it international finance? Whatever the secret is, from this platform, we declare here to-night that we go back to the old policy of our Chairman’s father: ‘Out with them, Bag and Baggage!’ (Applause) I agree with all that Lord Bryce… as to what the future Armenia should be. It ought to be a big Armenia, not a small one.”
Immediately after O’Connor’s speech a resolution was read out pledging those present to supporting “The Future Government of Armenia and the Boundaries of the New State” as claimed by the Armenian delegations at Paris. The claim for the 7 Ottoman vilayets plus Cilicia and Russian Armenia was then read out. A map appears in the pamphlet showing what Magna Armenia represented. It took in about half of Turkey, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, most of Georgia and Azerbaijan, and parts of Iran as well as Erivan.
When I originally wrote about this meeting in the book The Armenian Insurrection and the Great War a thought occurred to me: What was the most effective Armenian General, Andranik, doing away from the battlefield at this time?
The war, of course, was far from over. A few months earlier Andranik had, himself, been waging it in a very thorough manner, carving out Greater Armenia through massacre and ethnic cleansing of Moslems in the Caucasus, after he had been driven out of eastern Anatolia by the Turks.
Andranik had a fearsome reputation as an irregular fighter (fedayi). The Armenian publication Andranik – Armenian Hero (Patriot Publishing) details his exploits. He became active against the Ottoman Government and the Kurdish population in the late 1880s in the Hunchak party. He then joined the Dashnaktustyun, participating in the assassination of Constantinople’s chief of police, in 1892. He took part in the Sasun Rising in 1894, which was portrayed as an Ottoman massacre of Armenians but which was actually an inter-ethnic battle between Armenians and Kurds which the Ottoman Army put an end to. It was an event manufactured by the Armenian insurrectionists to provoke foreign intervention on the model of the ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ that had enthralled the Gladstonian Liberals a couple of decades before.
In 1901 Andranik took part in the Battle of Holy Apostles monastery, another attempt to encourage Great Power intervention in the Ottoman state on the Armenian side. This exploit greatly impressed Trotsky at the time. He then took command of another attempted insurrection in Sasun in 1904 which led to the deaths of thousands of Armenians and Kurds before Andranik was forced to flee into Persia by Ottoman forces.
After these failures the ARF/Dashnaks changed tack and went into politics. When the Dashnaks decided to go into the Ottoman parliament and worked with the Young Turks Andranik dissented and went to fight in Bulgaria against the Ottomans, pursuing the “bag and baggage’ policy of driving the Moslem population out of the Balkans.
When the Great War began Andranik commanded the first Armenian volunteer battalion attached to the Tsarist invasion force. He took part in the capture of Van and the massacre of the Moslem population there, as well as the taking of Mush in February 1916.
Annoyed by the Russian decision to demobilise the Armenian battalions after their freelance ethnic cleansing operations and the successful capture of most of eastern Anatolia Andranik resigned and left the front in July 1916.
Things, however, all changed in late 1917 because of events in Russia. Andranik returned and participated in the Armenian administration of occupied eastern Anatolia, authorised by the Provisional Government in Russia. Much killing and ethnic cleansing took place with Russian authority weakened and the Dashnaks in key positions.
Andranik was appointed Major General within the new Armenian Army Corp and he led the unsuccessful defence of Erzurum in early 1918 after the Russian lines dissolved, with the Bolshevik takeover. When the Armenian National Council signed the peace Treaty of Batum with the Ottomans, giving up their demand for Western Armenia and settling for the Erivan Republic in the Caucasus, Andranik took a die-hard position, refused to recognise the Armenian State and set out with his forces to realise the original demand for Magna Armenia.
Andranik took his Special Striking Division of Dashnaks to Nakhchivan, Zangezur and then Karabakh in the Caucasus to extend the territories of the Armenian state he would not recognise. He cosied up to the Bolsheviks after accusing the Armenian Republic of betrayal and declared Nakhchivan part of Soviet Russia. With the arrival of Turkish forces he moved his forces into Zangezor in order to put an Armenian territorial barrier between Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Andranik – Armenian Hero is quite frank about the ethnic cleansing this involved:
“Andranik’s irregulars remained in Zangezur surrounded by Muslim villages that controlled the key routes connecting the different parts of Zangezur. According to David Bloxham, Andranik initiated the change of Zangezur into a solidly Armenian land by destroying Muslim villages and trying to homogenize key areas areas of the Armenian state. In late 1918 Azerbaijan accused Andranik of killing innocent Azerbaijani peasants in Zangezur and demanded that he withdraw Armenian units from the area. Antranig Chalabian wrote that, “without the presence of General Andranik and his Special Striking Division, what is now the Zangezur district of Armenia would be part of Azerbaijan today…” Andranik’s activities in Zangezur were protested by Ottoman General Halil Pasha, who threatened the Dashnak government with retaliation for Andranik’s actions. Armenia’s Prime Minister Hovhannes said he had no control over Andranik and his forces.”
Despite the Mudros Armistice at the end of October ending the war with the Ottomans Andranik decided to fight on to extend Armenian territory into Azerbaijan. He took his Special Striking Division north-east toward Karabakh and its main town, Shusha. Local Armenians, fearing the worst, attempted to stop Andranik through negotiations with their Moslem neighbours. However, after overcoming Kurdish resistance on the road to Shusha, Andranik was only stopped by British General Thomson in Baku, who informed him that a dim view would be taken of any further activities at the Peace Conference in Paris.
The British warning forced Andranik back to Zangezur. After staying the winter there with his force he was persuaded to surrender his weapons to the Armenian Catholicos in Etchmidzin and go to Europe by the British, to get him out of the way.
When the Armenian (Erivan) Republic was established on May 28, 1918 under “Turkish Protection” and a series of Peace and Amity Treaties were signed between the Ottomans and Armenians on June 4, 1918, revolutionary leaders such as Andranik, Drastamat Kanajan, and Hanazsap refused to abide by the treaties signed by Khatachaznouni. They continued their cleansing operations in Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus with their own forces. A month after the Mudros Treaty of October 1918 Armenia abolished all treaties they had previously signed with the Ottomans on June 4, 1918 and entered Kars and Ardahan with the permission of the British army in Persia.
However, geopolitical considerations determined that the British curb Antranik’s ethnic cleansing activities in Azerbaijan, where a buffer state was needed against the Bolsheviks.
We have an interesting reaction to all of this from Near East Relief, one of the main U.S. Protestant missionary organisations which promoted Armenian/Christian interests in America against the Ottomans during the period. They were one of the suppliers of anti-Moslem propaganda to the West that fuelled atrocity stories and formed the basis of War Propaganda against the Ottomans in Britain and America.
E.A. Yarrow, Assistant to the Chief of Staff, Near East Relief, in Tiflis wrote an article called The British Withdrawal and Present Conditions in early 1920. He was “bewildered” with the British evacuation from the Caucasus, which had been completed in September 1919. The British had occupied the region for a mere 7 months. Yarrow contended that Britain overall had “did badly” in their occupation in the Caucasus, although, at the same time, he gave them the credit for bringing peace, order and stability to the general area:
“They defined the territories of the different republics, put these territories under the control of constitutional authorities, and adopted the policy of maintaining the status quo.”
What seems to have annoyed Yarrow was the surprisingly impartial attitude of the British military authorities in the Caucasus. They did not favour their former allies, the Armenians, as Yarrow thought they should have. Instead, the Georgians, who had been sympathetic to the German enemy, and the Azerbaijanis, who had sided with the Turks, were given every respect, even at expense of the “Christian nation”.
Yarrow noted, the complaints of his Armenian contacts about the British:
“In the Shusha and Karabagh districts, a detachment of the Armenian army under the leadership of General Andranig was making a successful advance on the Tartars, but were stopped by the British, and Andranig was ‘persuaded’ to take a journey to Paris to take part in the peace negotiations! Nothing has been heard of his actions there.” (The Journal of International Relations Vol.10, No.3, January 1920, pp.251-55)
Yarrow complained that Karabakh had been placed under British authority and was given an Azerbaijani Governor. The Armenians had been disarmed and ammunition taken away from them. Finally Nakhchivan, like Karabakh, was not given to the Armenians, but retained as part of Azerbaijan.
Yarrow believed that the British were intending to off-load the mandate for Armenia to the United States whilst retaining influence over the Baku to Batum Railway, through Azerbaijan and Georgia. He thought such an arrangement ‘would be deadly” for the mandated Power over Armenia.
Of one thing Yarrow was correct, but not in the way he intended. He forecast that there would be trouble when the British left. The Armenians, supported by the government in Erivan, began an offensive against the Azerbaijani populations of Zangezur, Nakhjivan and Karabakh. It was reported that the Azerbaijani police force in Karabakh had been slaughtered by their Armenian colleagues. This aggression, which necessitated the diversion of the Azerbaijani army to these areas, left the northern border open to the Red Army in April 1920. Not only Azerbaijan but Armenia and Georgia, fell to the Bolsheviks as a result. Lloyd George, stumbling from one crisis to another in the expanded British Empire that had been won through the Great War, did nothing to defend the Caucasian states he had helped create and guaranteed the existence of.
It must be said that in the year following the Mudros Armistice, during 1919, Britain did some good in the Caucasus, stabilising things and bringing about orderly state formation in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Democratic government, in particular functioned effectively in Azerbaijan. Of course, this was done largely with the intention of establishing buffer states against Bolshevik Russia.
But nevertheless it was a positive development that upset those who were mindlessly agitating in the West for a Greater Armenia and the establishment of a large Christian state among a predominantly Moslem population.
T.P. O’Connor was one of these. And he found himself on a platform in Westminster with a Die-hard terrorist supporting great irredentist objectives involving substantial ethnic cleansing and massacre.
The last word about how T.P.O’Connor met with General Andranik in Westminster in June 1919 should go to British General Thomson:
“Pursuant to our requirement, the Azerbaijani Army was withdrawn from Baku and was deployed in Yelizavetpol to fight against Armenian aggressors, who committed massacres of Muslims under the command of Andranik and Avetisov.” (CAB 45/107, General W.M. Thomson, Narrative of first few days in Baku, November 17th-24th 1918)
Pat Walsh 
Very interesting article Pat. Thank you.
There is no end to this racist and unjust representation of Turks during those times of great upheavals.
But the anti-Turk propoganda still carries on and the genocide lies seem to have an unstoppable momentum.
I will share it with a few genocide defending English historians such as Mark Hastings.
LikeLike
Thank you for such a factful and amazingly written article. Touches my heart. My granddad was a fedayi from Van and fought against the Turks.
Being an Armenian born in Bulgaria I am privileged to witness how both nations (Bulgarian and Armenians) treasure and remember General Andranik’s heroism.
I’ve learned a lot from your article about O’Connor and greatly admire his actions.
(I have dedicated to my grandad: “Dream-in commemoration of my predecessors who walked through the horror of a cruel Empire”)
https://wordpress.com/post/tshahinian.home.blog/30
LikeLike
I think you miss the point of the article completely.
Wellington House and the British propaganda machine were acting as typical imperialist and spreading lies about the Ottoman Turks.
More Muslims died in that war than the Armenians and some in the hands of bandit Armenians. Nothing to be proud of!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for clarifying.
Very happy that US House says Armenian mass killing was genocide! It will be absolutely not fare to compare the purposeful,organised killing and torture of armenians by the Otomans with the Armenians you have described above.
LikeLike
Thank you for this Pat. I wrote a reply to this comment. This person misses the point of your article completely. Regards
Betula
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike
There is no evidence of purposeful and organised killing by the Ottoman Turks as you suggest.The reasons for loss of life on both sides are manifold, ranging from war, disease, cold, lack of food and massacres by various bandit groups.
US House of Representatives’ decision does not make the genocide claims stick as there has never been a legally binding decision by a recognised court and without that the claims are just claims. In recent years there has been several cases heard at the European Court of justice. All have discounted genocide.
LikeLike
Thank you, Betula Nelson/B. Nelson, for attempting to set TSHAHINIAN straight, much as doing so is (as usual) a lost cause. It’s a testament to the concept of “psychological disorder” when one such as he would take a wonderful (and RARE; thank you for yet another amazing essay, Dr. Walsh) article exposing one of the worst butchers of human history, and conclude the idea was to depict Antranik as a hero.
Those intrigued by Antranik/Andranik in the manner of how Jack the Ripper continues to fascinate (with “respect” to Antranik, Jack was a rank amateur) may consider viewing another rare exposé, “Unknown Mass Murderer: Armenian Hero ANTRANIK.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXBaRdVKFQ.)
Instead of feeling shame, one such as Tshahinian writes how the article “touches his heart.” The article has also exposed T.P. O’Connor as a repulsive character, and yet what Tshahinian got out of this new hero of his was that Tshahinian “greatly admire(s) his actions.” How can one reason with the genocide-obsessed?
The depths of irrationality exhibited by those who are sadly struck by this affliction (the mystery is, how can there be so many sufferers in the world, particularly among those not conditioned to feel hatred from childhood, that is, the non-Armenians?) were demonstrated by Tshahinian’s “comeback” line, “Very happy that US House says Armenian mass killing was genocide!”
The text of H.Res.296 is online. It is a carbon copy of virtually all other “Armenian genocide” resolutions, including those that were agreed upon by the politicians of other nations, as with France, Germany, Canada, Sweden. The absolute nonsense begins with the first paragraph, containing the line, “the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923,”
Even Lord James Bryce, mentioned in Dr. Walsh’s article, and the head of the Ottoman division of Wellington House, calculated 1.5 million for the prewar population of Ottoman-Armenians, as ridiculed by Sven Hedin in the latter’s 1918 book, also mocking Bryce’s later revision of 800,000 dead, after Bryce had first presented the far more factual 600,000. Most died in the same manner of the majority of fellow Ottomans, and the killers of many Armenians were ironically the Armenians’ allies, Britain and France, for having conducted their terrifying starvation plan against enemy civilians, through naval blockades.
These resolutions are prepared by the tirelessly obsessed pro-Armenians and are signed by “race-picking” politicians with no concern for history for the one and only reason that was nicely spelled out by B. Nelson: “There is no evidence of purposeful and organised killing by the Ottoman Turks.” The purpose of these resolutions is to provide a venue for those as Tshahinian to point to such resolutions as “evidence,” as Tshahinian has been kind to oblige, serving as the prototypical example, and also demonstrating how these sinister resolutions achieve their intended effect.
Opportunistic and/or bigoted elected representatives of the Western world in particular, the ones who enjoy presenting themselves at the forefront of “human rights,” have no idea how much they are contributing to the cause of racial hatred.
Some must have an idea; they can’t all be so intellectually deficient. Yet they don’t care, playing up their wickedness all the more, because some groups of humans are deemed to have less value.
LikeLike
Thank you Jamie for acknowledging the truth and making further compelling argument on the subject.
I agree that they can not be all intellectually deficient but somehow choose to peddle lies.
Keep up the good work.
LikeLike
A bunch of Genocide deniers. Turkey , no doubt , will throw some crumbs in all your directions. Open your eyes when you will see 19th & 20th ultra-nationalism/fascism in action in today’s Turkey. Turkey admits to forced ethnic cleansing but not Genocide which still is a crime against humanity. At the least you lot are defending a crime against humanity. Not so long ago Turkey’s position , which has changed so often , was Turkey did not do anything but Armenians deserved it – the truth will out even amongst Turks who will learn their real history not the one fed by their government which you are so keen to lap up.
LikeLike
I don’t think there is any point in responding to this meaningless comment. Best wishes for Xmas and the New Year. Betula
Sent from my iPhone
>
LikeLike
Come on take the challenge. Has the Turkish position changed about the Armenian Genocide? Yes it has and many times. Will you not get a crumb from Turkey? Yes you will. Make sure you are not left out. Does Turkey admit it was ethnic cleansing? Yes it does. Is ethnic cleansing a crime against humanity? Yes it is. The expression of ” crimes against humanity” first appeared during the Genocide. We all know the Turkish archives were sanitised so arguments of lack of evidence are laughable. Just look at the current situation where a whole nation suddenly disappeared from their homeland of 3000 years in 1915. These are facts Betula Nelson. I suggest you take your Turkish crumb and hope it is adequate to apply blinkers to yourself. Merry Christmas to you too. Masis
LikeLike
Why is the Armenian genocide still denied?
Adam Altaras
Adam Altaras
Answered Dec 11
The Turks don’t deny ‘the Armenian Genocide’. They deny the mainstream Armenian definition of the Genocide. The problem with the definition is that nobody, except for the Armenians and Turks, have read the literature that contains the Armenian narrative of these events. People talk a lot about these events, but the vast majority of people have no idea what the Turks are being pushed to acknowledge.
It’s like asking ‘why is loenfjnjb still denied?’.
My retort, of course, would be, ‘Define loenfjnjb’.
A Turk wants to know what the Armenian Genocide exactly is. The Armenians indulge them with a pretty huge collection of literature on the subject. So the Turks dive in that literature and they come to entirely different conclusions on very specific issues. They reply to the Armenian literature.
What is the Armenian/Western reaction? Genocide deniers! Liars! Propagandists! Rarely do they reply to the Turkish arguments.
And when they do, the Armenian/Western side starts playing games. So the Turks will point out that in April 1915, the Armenians rebelled and managed to take Van, a major Ottoman city. Blood was shed and then weeks later, the city was handed over to the Russians. Remember, this all happened during the Armageddon that was World War I. The Turks say that this changes the narrative, from a Holocaust to a war-time escalation. The Armenians reply by saying that the Rebellion at Van was actually a defensive act against the Genocide (Wikipedia calls this rebellion the ‘Defense of Van’). But then, the Turks reply by pointing out that the Tehcir Law that kick-started this all wasn’t enacted until June, long after the start of the rebellions. How do the Armenians reply? By pointing out that there were violent Ottoman acts against the Armenians long before the events of World War I. So they start referencing the Hamidian Massacres of Armenians, of the 1890s. So now, the Turk genocide against Armenians started earlier. The circle begins again. The Turks references Armenians insurgencies and military activity within the Ottoman Empire starting in the 1860s. So now we’re talking about the 19th century.
If the Armenians really want the Turks to acknowledge what happened, and the atrocities committed by the Ottomans, they need to do a few things:
1) they need to stop insisting that the Armenian Genocide was similar, in motives, design and methods, as the Jew Holocaust.
2) the Armenians need to acknowledge the Armenian insurgencies and military effort in support of the Russian Empire during World War I. They need to acknowledge that much of the atrocities were the result of extreme duress that befell the Turks during World War I.
This will create a basis on which the Turks and Armenians can come together and accept a common narrative.
LikeLike
Thanks Betula Nelson for your response. I do not agree with you but at least you do not come across as rabid anti Armenian like the Gauins of this world.
It is important to go back even further to the late 19th century when killing Armenians by the thousands was a proclivity of the butcher Sultan Abdelhamid. This left a huge psychological impact which partly encouraged future revolts against the Ottomans. No one denies the revolts but then to use these revolts to even ethnically cleanse the Armenians from their historical homeland , never mind massacring them , is a stretch. Armenians were further massacred in the Dersim mass slaughter. Any reasonable person , never mind the historiography , must say there was something not right that happened in 1915. Them Lemkin looked at it and called a spade a spade. Hence the word Genocide.
The lack of sincerity on the part of Turks is obvious. Why would Erdogan Change the Gallipoli commemoration in 2015 to 24 April 2015? Why does he not show a simple regret to Armenians instead of play of word? Why can I not now live and die in my ancestral home should I wish to do so What about my people’s historical heritage which is in ruin. Recently it was revealed that Turkey laid plans to invade Armenia. What about the recent treatment of Kurds in and outside Turkey. When an Armenian bishop was about to die at the hand of a Kurd in the Genocide he said we are the breakfast and you are dinner. How prophetic.
The current elite in Turkey are deeply old , anachronistic in their view of the 21st century. They are the old nationalistic guard who teach the Armenians to be evil. They perpetuate the derogatory use of the word Armenian. I shall put my hope on a newer generation.
I have avoided historical this and that. I have tried to expose the real face of a Turk as it is at present. It is not a nice face.
Masis
LikeLike
Glad I discovered this on google .
LikeLike