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The Executions of Some of the Arch-perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide by the Ittihadists and Kemalists, 1915-1926
by Prof. Vahakn N. Dadrian - Armenian News Network /
Groong - December 12, 2000.
Posted: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 at 08:15 AM CT
[Groong note: The Turkish version of this article appeared in two installments
in the November 2 and 3, 2000 issues of the radical-liberal Turkish newspaper Yeni Gündem, arousing great interest among many readers as well as among some
officials and intellectuals. Despite the abundant exposure of the crime of
genocide in this article, Turkish authorities now have been hard put to confront
the newspaper. The reason is not difficult to surmise: they are confounded by
the fact that these Ittihadist chieftains were caught in a web of conspiracy to
have Mustafa Kemal assassinated and at the same time seize power by overthrowing
the fledgling Kemalist regime. What Mustafa Kemal and his subalterns did was
nothing short of a wholesale liquidation through a series of executions by way
of public hangings. Prof. Dadrian plans to expand this piece into a full-length
journal article with additional details.]
The existing literature on the World War I Armenian Genocide has but scant
references to the acts and methods of retribution against the principal authors
of the wartime mass murder. The reasons are obvious. First of all, those who
were tried, convicted, condemned to death and eventually executed by the Turkish
Military Tribunal in the 1919-1920 period of the Armistice, were an
embarrassment to Turkey herself. The post-war Ottoman authorities only
grudgingly and with much trepidation had agreed to institute these courts
martial. Pressing national interests, such as prospects of favorable or mild
terms of a peace settlement, were considerations making these trials for Turkey
an urgent necessity at the time. After all, the Allies had let it be known in
so many ways that unless Turkey redeemed herself by severely punishing those
responsible for the massacres against the Armenians, the terms of the projected
peace were most likely to be very severe.
Furthermore, the punishment of those key actors of the genocide, who had managed
to escape and had become fugitives of justice, had required elaborate measures
of secrecy, detective work and many illegal arrangements. The Armenian
Revolutionary Federation, otherwise known as Dashnags, which masterminded these
punitive operations, did not provide many details revealing organizational
contacts, resources and methods of intelligence. What we know about the series
of executions against such architects of the Armenian Genocide as Talaat, Dr.
Benhaeddin Shakir, Trabzon governor Cemal Azmi, Grand Vizier Said Halim and some
other lesser figures, derives from the memoirs of the Armenian avengers who were
assigned by the A.R.F. to carry out the executions. These memoirs are inevitably
embellished accounts in which to the dastardly and criminal image of the victim
is counterposed the heroic saga of the individual executioner. What was common
to both categories of Young Turk Ittihadist leaders or functionaries is the
level and duration of apprehension with which they were haunted until they died
at the scaffold or by bullets.
There is, however, a third category of Turkish perpetrators, whose fatality has
thus far escaped general recognition. Among these were brigand chiefs, the
so-called çetebashis, who wrought havoc with thousands of trapped Armenian
deportees by subjecting them to kinds of barbarities unexcelled even in Turkish
history. They were most effective in their pursuit primarily because their
charges, whom they led and directed, were almost entirely felons, carefully
chosen bloodthirsty criminals who were released from the many prisons of the
Ottoman Empire mainly, if not only, for this purpose. Then there are the chief
Ittihadists who closely collaborated with Talaat and the Special Organization in
organizing and implementing the massacres. Many of these were tried, convicted
and condemned to death in 1926 by the Independence Court of the Ankara
government on charges of conspiracy to kill Mustafa Kemal and take over the
Turkish government. The brigand chiefs were killed individually by either
Ittihadists or by Kemalists, whom they had joined in the Armistice period. Other
perpetrators died as a result of heart attacks or strokes they suffered in
connection with events related to the Armenian massacres. Finally, there is the
category of suicide resulting from post-war despondency of one kind or another,
and death by fatal accidents.
I. Death by Conviction and Hanging
Nearly all of these defendants were prominent ex-Ittihadists whose trials were
divided into two judicial proceedings with venues in Izmir and Ankara. The fIrst
series started in Izmir on May 26, 1926 and ended on the day of the verdict,
i.e., on July 13, 1926, when seven conspirators were condemned to death and
hanged the same day at midnight. Of these, three were involved in the
organlization of the Armenian genocide, with two of them having played a key
role.
- Halis Turgut was a party operative and Parliamentarian. During the war he
served as commander of a Special Organization contingent operating in Sivas
province. He later operated at the Caucasus front, including the
Nachitchevan region in the 1917-18 period. To escape prosecution by the
Turkish Military Tribunal, investigating the crime of Armenian deportations
and massacres, he had escaped in Sivas to the mountains with a small
guerilla unit.
- Ahmed Shükrü was wartime Minister of Education, a fanatical Ittihadist
and arch foe of the Armenians. He was hanged twice as the rope on his neck
snapped the first time, with Shükrü collapsing on the floor half-dead and
finally expiring on the gallows while emitting death-rattle sounds. This man
who helped send tens of thousands of inoffensive Armenian peasants to their
gruesome deaths, was sufficiently terrified to cry out "Oh! alas, Oh! alas,"
(Vah! Vah!) upon seeing the gallows on his way to execution.
- Ismail Canbolat. He was the right hand man of Talaat, was in charge of
the empire's Public Security office (Emniyeti Umumiye), the Prefect of the
Ottoman Capital, and later in the war, Interior Minister.
The second series started at Ankara on August 2, 1926. It was set aside for a
group of top lttihadist leaders accused likewise of plotting to kill Mustafa
Kemal and restore the Ittihadist regime and rule. The trials ended on August 26,
1926, and four very prominent Ittihadists were executed on the gallows at 10
p.m. the same night. One of them was Economic Minister Cavid, whose role in the
scheme of the Armenian genocide, if any, was negligible. But the other three
were perhaps the most ferocious organizers of it - next to Talaat.
- Dr. Nazim. A central figure in the Supreme Directorate of the party and
in many respects the braintrust of the very conception of the wholesale
destruction of the Armenians. He operated behind the scenes and exerted
great influence in the councils of the party leadership, including Talaat.
He approached the gallows in a state of shock and trembling, protesting his
innocence with such words as "vallahi" (I swear, I swear!)
- Yenibahçeli Nail. Was Ittihad's Responsible Secretary for the province of
Trabzon, and at the same time the head of the Special Organization forces of
the province, whose Armenian population was subjected to the most severe
forms of expulsion and destruction through massacres, sparing neither
children, the infirm nor the old. But on the gallows he pleaded with his son
to take good care of his mother and siblings.
- Filibeli Hilmi. Was Ittihad's Delegate for the province of Erzurum, where
he served as Dr. Behaeddin Shakir's right hand man, and as the chief of the
Special Organization total forces of the entire region. The deportation and
extermination of that province's large Armenian population was supervised by
him. Like ex-Education Minister Shükrü, he too fell from the gallows as the
rope snapped during the execution, and he too was hanged twice.
It is significant to note that already during the Armistice Mustafa Kemal had
decried the Ittihadist leaders for their war crimes, including the Armenian
massacres. In an interview with Maurice Prat, the special correspondent of Petit
Parisien, he had exclaimed: "Qu' attendent les Alliés pour faire pendre toute
cette canaille?' (Why do the Allies delay having all these rascals hung?).
II. Ittihad Executing Some Brigand Chiefs Involved in the Genocide
Foremost among these are two party officers who devastated the border regions in
the east of Turkey with inordinate savagery and repeatedly boasted about their
lethal role in this respect.
- Çerkez Ahmed. Major in the army. He was the main assistant of Van
governor Cevdet in the campaign to liquidate the Armenian population of the
province. He later served under Diyarbekir governor Dr. Reshid and in the
process carried out the murder of Vartkes and Zohrab, the two Armenian
Deputies in the Ottoman Parliament. Charged with the crime of murder and
plunder. He was court martialled, convicted and hanged, along with his
consort, Lieutenant Halil, by Cemal Pasha in Damascus on September 17/30,
1915. When commenting on this execution, Cemal's Chief of Staff, General Ali
Fuad Erden noted, "Indebtedness to executioners and murderers is bound to be
heavy... those who are used for dirty jobs are needed in times of exigencies
[in order to shift] responsibility. It is likewise necessary, however, not
to glorify but to dispose of them like toilet paper, once they have done
their job." When ordering his court martial and sentencing, Talaat, for his
part is quoted as saying, "His liquidation in any case is necessary.
Otherwise he will prove very harmful at a later date" (on account of his
knowledge of and involvement in the massacres).
- Yakub Cemil. Major in the army. Like Çerkez Ahmed, Cemil played a major
role in the extermination of large clusters of Armenian populations in
eastern Turkey. However, he had a falling out with Enver and Talaat and
began to threaten them. He too was tried, convicted and executed on
September 11/24, 1916 as a result of the intervention of Talaat and his
crony Kara Kemal, who succeeded in railroading his conviction.
- Kurdish Brigand Chief Amero. After he carried out the mutilation and
murder of 636 Armenian notables of Diyarbekir on orders of Governor Dr.
Reshid, he was set upon by 10 Circassian brigands and killed on orders of
the same governor and Diyarbekir Deputy Feyzi, two arch organizers of the
mass murder.
- Kurd Murza Bey. Kemach Defile Brigand Chief. He boasted of having killed
70,000 Erzurum province Armenians passing through the Kemach defile. He was
shot dead following a decision by his superiors that he could prove
dangerous afterwards on account of his penchant for boasting.
- Cemal Pasha hanged a number of Kurds for participation in atrocities
against Armenians in Islahiye.
- Vehib Pasha hanged two officers of the Special Organization for
organizing the massacre of 2,000 Armenian labor battalion soldiers in
Susehir, Sivas.
III. Kemalists liquidating Brigand Chiefs
Involved here are three prominent Special Organization chieftains, whose
brutality and bloodthirstiness against their Armenian victims constitute legends
in the macabre saga of the World War I Armenian genocide.
- Yahya Kaptan. He was in charge of the massive drowning operations at
Trabzon harbor on the Black Sea littoral. Thousands and thousands of
Armenian children, women and old men would be loaded on lighters, taken to
the high sea and thrown overboard after being bayoneted by boatmen from
other boats accompanying them. Yahya Kaptan later joined the Kemalist
insurgents without completely severing, however, his ties to the
Ittihadists, especially Enver. This suspected duplicity sealed his fate; he
was ambushed and killed by unknown assassins in Trabzon in July 1922. It
should be noted, however, that Yahya Kaptan during inquiries into his
loyalties had threatened to reveal all he knew about state secrets in the
event he was to be pressed hard with such inquiries and investigations.
- Topal Osman. Milice Colonel. A veteran guerilla from the days of the
1912-1913 twin Balkan wars, Osman during the war operated in the eastern
border regions, as a Special Organization brigand (chétté). He too
repeatedly had bragged about his murder missions against the Armenians.
After the war he too joined the Kemalist insurgents and in the process
organized extensive massacres against Greek populations in the Trabzon area
as reprisal, as well as against clusters of surviving Armenians. He
eventually was awarded by Mustapha Kemal with the position of Chief of the
Personal Guard Contingent with duties to protect M. Kemal. But he incurred
the wrath of the Kemalist Deputies in the fledgling Parliament in Ankara
when he lured a deputy to his home and out of spite strangled him. He was
killed during an exchange of gunfire with military units trying to capture
him, and his corpse was subsequently hanged in front of the Parliament in
March 1923.
- (Deli) Halit. Colonel, later General in the Turkish Army. As a Special
Organization officer, he too was a participant in the killing operations in
the eastern provinces. An ardent Ittihadist, he subsequently became an
ardent Kemalist, while being sought by the post-war Turkish Court Martial as
a suspect in the crime of massacres. A cantankerous and defiant man, he got
embroiled in altercations with other Kemalist leaders and deputies and was
shot dead during one of these broils in the vestibule of the Turkish
parliament on February 9, 1925.
IV. Suicides of Top Ittihadists Involved in the Genocide
- Dr. Reshid. Governor of Diyarbekir Province. Following his arrest, escape
from Bekiraga prison, and recapture by Istanbul police, Dr. Reshid shot
himself to death in January 1919. He was one of the most ferocious
governors, who with great zeal executed Ittihad's plan of genocidal
destruction of Diyarbekir Armenians, as well as multitudes of other
Armenians who had to pass through that city, which was a hub for deported
convoys, en route to the deserts of Mesopotamia.
- Mahmud Kâmil. General. Commander of IIId Army, 1915-1916. His command
zone encompassed the 6 "Armenian provinces," plus Trabzon province, whose
extermination was entrusted to him by Ittihad and of which he was an ardent
member. He gave special orders not to spare the old, the infirm, or the
pregnant women from the perils of deportation. He also threatened to hang in
front of his house any Muslim who might dare to provide shelter to any
Armenian. On November 28, 1922 he took his life through suicide.
- Kara Kemal. A top leader of Ittihad and the alter ego of party chief
Talaat. All secret deliberations and plans of the party were under the
supervision of Kemal at Ittihad's headquarters in Nuriosmaniye. He was
indicted along with other Ittihadists by the Independence Court in 1926 on
charges of conspiracy to murder Mustafa Kemal but had managed to escape.
When caught in a chicken coop, he shot himself to death on July 29, 1926, 4
days before he was formally indicted.
V. Accidents
- Nuri Pasha Killigil. Commander of Army of Islam, Transcaucasus and Baku.
Brother of War Minister Enver, Nuri was responsible for the perpetration of
a series of massacres in Russian Armenia and Azerbaijan, especially the 1918
September Armenian massacre in Baku. After World War I, Nuri became a
businessman and by the end of World War II he had become an industrialist,
operating in Istanbul a factory for weapons and ammunition. On March 2,
1949, he perished along with others in the rubble of that factory which was
blown to pieces following a huge explosion and a holocaust engulfing the
entire complex in massive flames.
- Mehmed Memduh. Erzincan District governor, Erzurum province.
(Subsequently consecutively Governor of the provinces of Bitlis, Baghdad,
Musul). He was the chief organizer of his district's massacres, in close
cooperation with the local operatives of the Special Organization. He
accumulated great wealth he acquired through his Armenian victims but died
in a fatal auto accident while trying to establish a business in Smyrna
(Izmir) after the war.
VI. Heart Attacks and Strokes
- Hashim Beg. Deputy from Malatya in the Parliament. A fanatic Ittihadist
and foe of the Armenians, he sponsored his son Muhammed Beg's operations as
a brigand chief of the area, carrying out a series of massacres annihilating
Malatya's Armenian population. Following a quarrel with an old Kurd about a
stolen horse and an attack on him, Muhammed Beg is shot by the son of the
Kurd. Deputy Hashim, his father, thus suffered a stroke and after much agony
he died in 1917.
- Sagir Zade. Mufti of Malatya. He directed the strangulation of the
Armenian Catholic Primate of Malatya, after subjecting him to manifold
tortures and body mutilations for having refused to convert to Islam. Barely
back home, the Mufti suffered a stroke and died instantly.
© Copyright 2000, Armenian News Network/Groong and Zoryan Institute
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