Crime of Numbers

The Role of Statistics in the Armenian Question (1878-1918)

Fuat Dundar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781412811002
• eBook ISBN: 9781351525039
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Statistics have played an important role in the recognition of the Armenian question on the international landscape as well as its "definitive solution" resulting in the Armenian genocide. The importance of statistics first surfaced at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, where differences in the approach toward numbers between the Armenian and the Ottoman Empire, and the role of statistics within the Ottoman state apparatus, became an issue. At that international gathering, the Armenian question was considered part of the "Eastern Question" paradigm of Western diplomacy. It would soon become a code word for the question of "civilization" itself.

Those administering the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire perceived the Armenian issue not only through ethnic and religious perspectives, but also through statistics. As Dundar shows, statistics became the vehicle through which the Ottoman state apparatus was forced to include non-Muslim populations of the Empire in the state apparatuses and local councils. This occurred long before the Armenian question surfaced. The aim of Ottoman reforms was to ensure that all communities participated in the affairs of the state and that such participation was proportionate to their numbers. Through its role in these reforms, statistics emerged as a constant matter of debate in the Armenian question.

As a result of the Armenian genocide, the statistical record has become quite sensitive. Today, accounting for the numbers of Armenians murdered in 1915 usually means calculating the number of Armenians who were massacred or died of other causes such as disease, hunger, exhaustion, and the like during deportations or immediately after. This is a work of brilliant archival history and imaginatively uses social statistics.

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Diplomacy and Statistics: The Emergence of The Armenian Question (1878–1913)

“To serve Armenia is to serve civilization.”

—William Gladstone

In this chapter, I will try to show how the Armenian Question, which appeared on the international scene in the Congress of Berlin of 1878, acquired urgency in three diplomatic waves, and the way in which statistics played a central role in debates throughout this period. I will show how the Armenian Question, which became part of the Eastern Question paradigm, was treated as a question of civilization, while the Ottoman authorities followed well developed maneuvers: The classical Ottoman policy in response to international pressures was to promise the Great Powers speedy reform to improve the condition of Ottoman Christians, and to subsequently prevaricate or do nothing, when the international pressure subsided. I will also compare the statistical data provided by the Ottoman, Armenian, and Great Power sources and highlight the more questionable aspects that at times looked like wars of statistics. Above all, I will show how statistics played a role in the internal political reorganization of the Ottoman State, even before the Armenian Question appeared. This will lead to a brief summary of the history of statistics and its role in Ottoman history.

First Period: The Congress of Berlin and The Emergence of The Armenian Question, 1878

With the Project on Ottoman Armenia, “Le Projet de Reglément Organique,” presented by former Patriarch Mkrtich Khrimian¹ in the name of the Armenian delegation to the Congress of Berlin (June 13-July 13, 1878), the Armenian Question emerged in Western diplomacy as a statistical question.² Actually, it was during the negotiations for the Treaty of San Stefano (signed on March 3, 1878) between the victorious Russian Empire and the defeated Ottoman Empire that the Russian commander granted an audience to the then Armenian Patriarch, Nerses Varjabedian (1874–1884), to hear the grievances and demands of the Ottoman Armenians. This raised hopes among the Armenians that immediate change in the provinces, even autonomy, was likely. Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano stipulated that Russia would not withdraw from the Eastern provinces unless reforms in the governance of the Christian minorities were implemented. This condition was unacceptable to the British Empire, which saw that article as a way of annexing Armenia to Russia, because, the possession of this territory “would … give Russia the command of the valleys of the Euprhates and Tigris, which would enable her to deprive England of an alternative direct route to India.”³

On June 4, 1878, three months after the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano, the British Empire signed the Cyprus Convention with the Ottoman Empire, whereby the Ottoman Sultan promised to introduce the necessary reforms for the “protection of the Christians and other subjects” of the Porte in Ottoman Asian territory, the first step in neutralizing the impact of the San Stefano Treaty. In return for London’s support for this process, the Great Britain received control of Cyprus. The British then prepared a new article on the Armenian issue in concert with Ottoman plenipotentiaries, which became Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin that replaced the Treaty of San Stefano:

The Sublime Porte [Bab-1 Ali, The Ottoman government] undertakes to carry out without further delay the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers who will superintend their application.⁴

The project of reform presented by Khrimian at the Congress of Berlin in the summer of 1878 was based on the statistical principle and accompanied by a map that showed where the Armenian population lived. When the plenipotentiaries asked what portions of the Ottoman Empire the Armenians “still bestowed the glamour of an historical name,” the Armenian delegates referred to Heinrich Kiepert’s map.⁵ This map was most probably the Asia Citerior, which was found in the Atlas Antiquus, its fifth edition dating from 1869 (for a comparison of these maps see Appendix 1). The “approximate limits of their country” was drawn in red by the Patriarchate, on a map that showed the administratives boundaries of Vilayat-1 Sitte (henceforth the Six Vilayets). According to the statistics attached to this project, the number of Armenians living in the vilayets of Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, and Harput was 1,330,000, or 64.5% of the total population. Elsewhere, the number of Armenians of Sivas and Kayseri was given as 670,000. The Patriarchate gave its estimation on the distribution of the ethnic composition of official data based on the offical Ottoman almanac (Salname) of 1876. The main purpose was to show that the Armenians and other Christian groups amounted to around two-thirds of the total population.⁶

The Armenian Patriarchate did not propose the principle of proportionality for the make up of provincial general councils or for the selection of general governors. It did, however, propose a system to subsidize schools according to the ratio of the population. The principle proposed for provincial general councils was not proportionality, but equality. According to this proposal, a Muslim and a Christian would be elected by their own communities in each county (kaza). Those elected to the kaza would be sent to the seat of the province (sancak) of which these counties were a part, where they would elect an upper commission at the provincial level. Within the scope of this proposal, the general governors in the provinces would be Armenian and would be appointed by the sultan following the approval of the Great Powers. In other words, the general governor would not be selected according to which group made up the majority of the population, or by election, but would invariably be Armenian. On the matter of “subsidization of Muslim and Christian schools,” the Patriarchate proposed the application of the principle of proportionality. What is more, this would be determined according to the “settled population” (Article II), which meant that with a single stroke, the Kurdish population, which was mostly nomadic, would be excluded.⁷

Table 1
The Armenian and other Populations according to the Armenian Patriarchate in 1878

	Erzurum, Van, and Bitlis	Diyarbekir and Harput	Sivas and Kayseri	Total
Armenians	1,150,000	180,000	670,000	2,000,000
Greeks	5,000	−
Assyrians	14,000	8,000
Turks	400,000	130,000
Yezidis	13,000	2,000
Gypsies	3,000	−
Zazas	35,000	2,300
Kurds	80,000	40,000
[Total]	1,700,000	362,300	670,000	2,732,300

The direction in which the Armenian Question would evolve was determined on August 19, 1878 when the British Ambassador Austen Henry Layard submitted a note to the Ottoman government which included a wide-ranging reform project. From then on, the greatest pressure on this question would be exercised by Britain, not by Russia. One of the reasons for this was the Convention of Defensive Alliance, signed on June 5, 1878, which stipulated that Britain would defend the Ottoman state from Russian encroachment of its lands, in exchange for the Ottomans agreeing “to introduce the necessary reforms … in these vilayets (provinces)” and “to assign the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.”⁸

While the Sublime Porte was preparing a series of reforms on the basis of the new Vilayet regulation, it appointed Imperial Commision-ers of Reforms and sent them to Anatolia in May 1879. Abidin Bey (for Diyarbekir, Sivas and Harput, later nominated governor of Sivas and rose to the rank of Pasha) and Yusuf Pasha (for Van and Erzurum) were nominated as Reform Comissioners. Their advisors were Armenians— Minas Efendi and Sarkis Efendi. Upon arrival in their provinces, these Commissioners had to constitute each a commission under its presidency whose members, approximately 30 in number, were to be “selected from the different communities (Jema’ at) in numbers proportional to the total number of people in each community.”⁹

However, the composition of the regional councils proved to be problematic, as evidenced by the work of the Imperial Commisioner appointed for Erzurum and Van. Yusuf Pasha maintained that the number of the Muslims and Christians represented on the Commission should be proportional to the total number of Muslims, including Turks and Kurds on the one hand, and the total number of Christians on the other. Sarkis Efendi, however, opposed the formula, maintaining because, “a large part of the nomad Kurds pay no tax to the State, and fail to contribute to the supply of soldiers, such members of the community have no right to representation,” and he would therefore, “exclude the nomad and rebellious Kurds (such as the Dersimlees [Dersimliler]) from the calculation.” When the Commissioners asked İstanbul for its opinion regarding this problem, they were told not to be “lost in details [minutieuse]” and to find a “method to find a solution” [“un moyen d’arranger”]. Major Henry Trotter, British Consul for Kurdistan in Erzurum, rightly articulated the problem of the local Commission:

If it would … be formed, in fact, be a kind of small local Parliament with no well-de-fined powers and no definite rules of procedure to go by. If it be looked on as a small Parliament, the Kurds doubtless would be entitled to their faire share representation, although how such representatives are to be selected it would be difficult to say; but it would be hardly fair to pack the Parliament with Turks (as distinguished from Kurds) to represent the non-forthcoming Kurds.¹⁰

Based on the official statistical data of Erzurum, consisting of 197,768 Muslim and 55,043 non-Muslim males, the Commissioners decided to form a “Consultative Council” consisting of 38 members, 28 of whom were Muslims, and ten non-Muslim. The latter group included seven Armenians, one Armenian Catholic and one Greek (sic). The Christians had been nominated by the Christian Commisioner and the Muslims by Yusuf Pasha.¹¹ This Commission completed its first Progress Report at the end of July.

On the other hand, when the Commission was in the region, the Armenian members maintained that the Armenians, “shall hold at least half of the official and judicial posts” and “the nomad Kurds have no claim whatever to representation.” They also claimed the distribution of the population of Erzurum consisted of 195,900 Christians, 185,000 Turks, 112,500 Kurds (nomads and sedentary) and 3,000 Yezidis. The Musli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Diplomacy and Statistics: The Emergence of The Armenian Question (1878–1913)
• 2 War, Massacre, and Statistics (1914–1918): The “Definitive Solution” of The Armenian Question
• 3 The Number in the Crime: Counting the Armenian Dead
• 4 Some Remarks
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index