The Memoirs of Naim Bey
Encyclopedia
The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians, also known as the "Talat Pasha telegrams", is a book written by Aram Andonian
and published in London
by Hodder & Stoughton in 1920, originally in English, and later in a French version. The book lists several documents, the telegrams, which are purported to constitute evidence that the Armenian Genocide
was formally implemented as Ottoman Empire
policy.
The first publication had an introduction by Viscount Gladstone.
", working in the Rehabilitation Office in Aleppo, and handed by him to Andonian. Each note bears the signature of Mehmed Talat Pasha
, the Ministry of the Interior and later Grand Vizier
of the Ottoman Empire
. The contents of these telegrams "clearly states his intention to exterminate all Armenians, outlines the extermination plan, offers a guarantee of immunity for officials, calls for tighter censorship and draws special attention to the children in Armenian orphanages."
These telegrams remain in coded form and are written in Ottoman Turkish
.
The overall picture emerging from these narrations points to a network of the extermination of most the deportees. Although it overwhelmingly confirms the fact of what Toynbee
called "this gigantic crime that devastated the Near East".
Despite Vahakn Dadrian's claim that the validity of documents from the book is "supported by the official and mostly secret reports of German and Austrian diplomats", "representatives of the Turkish state, her political elite, and her relevant institutions[...] declare these documents either at best as 'Armenian fiction' [...] or at worst as 'forgeries'".
Turkish authors Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca have released their work The Talaât Pasha "telegrams" : Historical fact or Armenian fiction? in 1983. The conclusion of the problems with these documents is given by Orel/Yuca with the following results:
Furthermore, Orel/Yuca could not find the name of Naim Bey neither in various official registers nor any reference to such a person. They conclude "it seems impossible to make a definite judgement on the question of whether or not Naim Bey was an actual person. If not a fictitious person created by Andonian, he clearly must have been a very low-ranking official, who could not have been in a position to have access to documents of a secret and sensitive nature.
This opinion is shared by Dutch professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Zürcher does however point to many other corroborating documents supporting the Andonian Telegrams assertion of core involvement and premeditation of the killing by the central CUP
members. The opinion about the spuriousness of the Andonian documents is also shared by Paul Dumont, professor of Turkish studies at Strasbourg
University and director of French Institute of Anatolian Studies from 1999 to 2003, who says that "the authenticity of the alleged telegrams of Ottoman government, ordering the destruction of Armenians is today seriously contested"; by Michael M. Gunter
who calls the documents "notorious forgeries"; by Bernard Lewis
, who classifies the "Talat Pasha telegrams" among the "celebrated historical fabrications", on the same level than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
; by Andrew Mango
who speaks of "telegrams dubiously attributed to the Ottoman wartime Minister of the Interior, Talat Pasha".; by Jeremy Salt, who describes the documents as "the most notorious" of "forgeries [...] produced with the intention of proving what could not otherwise be proved"; by Norman Stone
, who calls the Naim-Andonian book "a forgery"; and by Gilles Veinstein, professor of Ottoman and Turkish history at Collège de France
, who considers the documents as "nothing but fakes".
Other scholars have at least raised questions about the documents. Christopher J. Walker
has argued in 1997 that "doubts must remain until and unless the documents or similar ones themselves resurface and are published in a critical edition". Austrian scholar Wolfdieter Bihl has called them "controversial". Guenter Lewy
writes that "the demonization of Talat Pasha in Andonian's work, it should be noted, represents an important change from the way in which many Armenians regarded Talat Pasha character before 1915", and that "the controversy over the authenticity of the Naim-Andonian documents will only be resolved through the discovery and publication of relevant Ottoman documents, and this may never come to pass". Lewy argues that "until then Orel and Yuca's painstaking analysis of these documents has raised enough questions about their genuineness as to make any use of them in a serious scholarly work unacceptable". According to David B. MacDonald, Lewy is content to rely on the work of "Turkish deniers Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca": "Lewy's conception of shaky pillars echoes the work of Holocaust deniers, who also see Holocaust history resting on pillars... This is a dangerous proposition, because it assumes from the start that genocide scholarship rests on lies which can easily be disproved once a deeper examination of the historical 'truth' is undertaken".
Armenian sociologist Vahakn N. Dadrian has argued in 1986 that the points brought forth by Turkish historians are misleading and has countered the discrepancies they have raised. Others (Niall Ferguson
, Richard Albrecht, etc.) who support Dadrian's thesis also point to the fact that the court did not question the authenticity of the telegrams in 1921–which, however, were not introduced as evidence in court–and that the British had also intercepted numerous telegrams which directly "incriminated exchanges between Talaat and other Turkish officials", and that "one of the leading scientific experts, the US-scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian, in 1986, verified the documents as authentic telegrams send out by [...] Talat Pasha". V. Dadrian's analysis was criticized as misleading by Michael M. Gunter and Guenter Lewy. Guenter Lewy added later:
"the alleged thirty-one telegrams of Talât Pasha contained in the Naim-Andonian volume, some of which order the killing of all Armenians, are rejected as crude forgeries not only by Turkish historians but also by almost all Western students of Ottoman history. Hilmar Kaiser, cited by Dadrian and the one exception to this rule, did say documents from the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior 'confirm to some degree' two telegrams, but he concluded that "further research on the ‘Naim-Andonian' documents is necessary. [...] Hilmar Kaiser, on whom Dadrian relies for his defense, has drawn attention to "misleading quotations" and the 'selective use of sources' in Dadrian's work, and he has concluded that 'serious scholars should be cautioned against accepting all of Dadrian's statements at face value.'"
Norman Stone argued:
"However, the chief Turkish ally of the Armenian diaspora historians, Taner Akçam, remarks that “there are important grounds for considering these documents fake” (see his Turkish National Identity and the Armenian Question, note 8, p 119, Istanbul, 1992). There are, too: the paper, the dating, the calligraphy, the signature of the governor, the absence of any back-up copies in the archives, and the refusal of British and German lawyers to use them. Dadrian had a wonderful time trying to salvage the documents, and I vastly admired the prestidigitation involved – for instance, if the paper was of the type used in French schools, and not the type used in government offices, this can be explained by the paper shortage, he says. But if he cannot convince his major ally, who knows the Ottoman documents, well, there we are."
Michael M. Gunter wrote:
"Although Dadrian had the audacity to argue incongruously that “the presence and easy detection of such defects in the material under review militate against that charge [of forgery]” (p. 176), common sense would seem to argue the opposite. The manifest inconsistencies in the Naim-Andonian documents indicate that they are likely forgeries. Indeed, in all fairness to the Armenian position in the hoary controversy over whether the Ottomans intended to commit genocide against them, one would think that the Armenians and their supporters could come up with a better smoking pistol."
The French surgeon Yves Ternon
who convened at the 1984 Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
contends that these telegrams however, "were authenticated by experts…[but] they were sent back to Andonian in London and lost." The French philologist Jean-Louis Mattei, on the other hand criticized Yves Ternon's analysis as wrong.
The alleged documents were subject of debate during the trial of Orly airport attack
in 1985. The defense used the telegrams as argument, the plaintiffs, represented by lawyer Jean Loyrette (actually principal of Gide Loyrette Nouel
firm law), rejected the authenticity. The verdict makes no mention of the debate and refuses the attenuating circunstances to the main perpetrator, V. Garbidjian, sentenced to life.
Aram Andonian
Aram Andonian was an Armenian journalist, historian and writer.In Istanbul Andonian edited "Luys" and "Dzaghik" Armenian journals and "Surhandak" newspaper. He was arrested by order of interior minister Talat Pasha of the Ottoman Empire on the eve of April 24, 1915 and joined Armenian notables...
and published in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by Hodder & Stoughton in 1920, originally in English, and later in a French version. The book lists several documents, the telegrams, which are purported to constitute evidence that the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
was formally implemented as Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
policy.
The first publication had an introduction by Viscount Gladstone.
Content
The documents were allegedly collected by an Ottoman official called "Naim BeyNaim Bey
Naim Bey was allegedly an Ottoman official, chief secretary of the Deportation Committee in Aleppo. "The Committee was charged by the Central Government of Turkey with the official responsibly of deporting via Aleppo the uprooted Armenians with the ultimate aim of exterminating them." It is not...
", working in the Rehabilitation Office in Aleppo, and handed by him to Andonian. Each note bears the signature of Mehmed Talat Pasha
Mehmed Talat Pasha
Talaat Pasha Talaat Pasha Talaat Pasha (also transliterated as Tala'at Pasha or Talat Pasha was one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress that controlled the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.He was born in Edirne Vilayet. He was of Pomak descent...
, the Ministry of the Interior and later Grand Vizier
Grand Vizier
Grand Vizier, in Turkish Vezir-i Azam or Sadr-ı Azam , deriving from the Arabic word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...
of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. The contents of these telegrams "clearly states his intention to exterminate all Armenians, outlines the extermination plan, offers a guarantee of immunity for officials, calls for tighter censorship and draws special attention to the children in Armenian orphanages."
These telegrams remain in coded form and are written in Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
.
The overall picture emerging from these narrations points to a network of the extermination of most the deportees. Although it overwhelmingly confirms the fact of what Toynbee
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global...
called "this gigantic crime that devastated the Near East".
- One day the following order came from the Minister of the Interior:
Authenticity
Aram Andonian himself acknowledged some validity to the critiques of his book. In a letter sent on July 26, 1937, mentioning the criticism of former German consul in Aleppo Walter Rössler, who wrote "I believe that the author is not capable of being objective; be is carried away by his passion", Andonian said that "my book was not a historical one, but rather aiming at propaganda. Naturally, my books could not have been spared the errors characteristic of publication of this nature [...] I would also like to point out that the Armenian Bureau in London, and the National Armenian Delegation in Paris, behaved somewhat cavalierly with my manuscript, for the needs of the cause they were defending."Despite Vahakn Dadrian's claim that the validity of documents from the book is "supported by the official and mostly secret reports of German and Austrian diplomats", "representatives of the Turkish state, her political elite, and her relevant institutions[...] declare these documents either at best as 'Armenian fiction' [...] or at worst as 'forgeries'".
Turkish authors Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca have released their work The Talaât Pasha "telegrams" : Historical fact or Armenian fiction? in 1983. The conclusion of the problems with these documents is given by Orel/Yuca with the following results:
- The signature of Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey (the governor of Aleppo) does not jibe with actual specimens of the governor's signature.
- There are date mistakes as result of lack of knowledge of the differences between the Ottoman and European calendar. These errors destroy the system of dates and reference numbers that were used by the draftsman of the documents for his documents.
- The dates and reference numbers that are found in the Ottoman ministry of the interior's registers of outgoing ciphered telegrams reveals that the reference numbers used on Andonian's documents bear no relationship to the actual reference numbers used on ciphered telegrams sent from Constantinople to Aleppo in the period in question.
- All but two documents are written on plain paper with none of the signs found on the official paper used by the Ottoman government during World War I.
- There are mistakes in grammar and languages that only a non-Turkish writer would make.
- Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca devote an entire chapter to 70 other documents, reproduced from Ottoman archives and translated, to show the absence of genocidal intention.
Furthermore, Orel/Yuca could not find the name of Naim Bey neither in various official registers nor any reference to such a person. They conclude "it seems impossible to make a definite judgement on the question of whether or not Naim Bey was an actual person. If not a fictitious person created by Andonian, he clearly must have been a very low-ranking official, who could not have been in a position to have access to documents of a secret and sensitive nature.
This opinion is shared by Dutch professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Zürcher does however point to many other corroborating documents supporting the Andonian Telegrams assertion of core involvement and premeditation of the killing by the central CUP
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress began as a secret society established as the "Committee of Ottoman Union" in 1889 by the medical students İbrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti and Ali Hüseyinzade...
members. The opinion about the spuriousness of the Andonian documents is also shared by Paul Dumont, professor of Turkish studies at Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
University and director of French Institute of Anatolian Studies from 1999 to 2003, who says that "the authenticity of the alleged telegrams of Ottoman government, ordering the destruction of Armenians is today seriously contested"; by Michael M. Gunter
Michael M. Gunter
Michael M. Gunter is an authority on Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and has written seven books on the Kurdish struggle. He is frequently consulted by media members for analysis and comment on breaking news in the Middle East. Gunter has written more than 75 articles in scholarly journals and books...
who calls the documents "notorious forgeries"; by Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
, who classifies the "Talat Pasha telegrams" among the "celebrated historical fabrications", on the same level than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
; by Andrew Mango
Andrew Mango
Andrew James Alexander Mango Andrew James Alexander Mango Andrew James Alexander Mango (born 1926 in Istanbul (Constantinople) is a British author who was born in Turkey as one of three sons of a prosperous Anglo-Russian family. He is the brother of the distinguished Oxford historian and...
who speaks of "telegrams dubiously attributed to the Ottoman wartime Minister of the Interior, Talat Pasha".; by Jeremy Salt, who describes the documents as "the most notorious" of "forgeries [...] produced with the intention of proving what could not otherwise be proved"; by Norman Stone
Norman Stone
Norman Stone is a British academic, historian, author and is currently a Professor in the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara...
, who calls the Naim-Andonian book "a forgery"; and by Gilles Veinstein, professor of Ottoman and Turkish history at Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, who considers the documents as "nothing but fakes".
Other scholars have at least raised questions about the documents. Christopher J. Walker
Christopher J. Walker
Christopher J. Walker is a British historian and author.He worked in Sotheby's department of historical and literary manuscripts. After the winning of Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship he wrote a book on Armenian history which was reissued in 1990. In 1975 with the support of "Minority...
has argued in 1997 that "doubts must remain until and unless the documents or similar ones themselves resurface and are published in a critical edition". Austrian scholar Wolfdieter Bihl has called them "controversial". Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy
Guenter Lewy is an author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the...
writes that "the demonization of Talat Pasha in Andonian's work, it should be noted, represents an important change from the way in which many Armenians regarded Talat Pasha character before 1915", and that "the controversy over the authenticity of the Naim-Andonian documents will only be resolved through the discovery and publication of relevant Ottoman documents, and this may never come to pass". Lewy argues that "until then Orel and Yuca's painstaking analysis of these documents has raised enough questions about their genuineness as to make any use of them in a serious scholarly work unacceptable". According to David B. MacDonald, Lewy is content to rely on the work of "Turkish deniers Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca": "Lewy's conception of shaky pillars echoes the work of Holocaust deniers, who also see Holocaust history resting on pillars... This is a dangerous proposition, because it assumes from the start that genocide scholarship rests on lies which can easily be disproved once a deeper examination of the historical 'truth' is undertaken".
Armenian sociologist Vahakn N. Dadrian has argued in 1986 that the points brought forth by Turkish historians are misleading and has countered the discrepancies they have raised. Others (Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
, Richard Albrecht, etc.) who support Dadrian's thesis also point to the fact that the court did not question the authenticity of the telegrams in 1921–which, however, were not introduced as evidence in court–and that the British had also intercepted numerous telegrams which directly "incriminated exchanges between Talaat and other Turkish officials", and that "one of the leading scientific experts, the US-scholar Vahakn N. Dadrian, in 1986, verified the documents as authentic telegrams send out by [...] Talat Pasha". V. Dadrian's analysis was criticized as misleading by Michael M. Gunter and Guenter Lewy. Guenter Lewy added later:
"the alleged thirty-one telegrams of Talât Pasha contained in the Naim-Andonian volume, some of which order the killing of all Armenians, are rejected as crude forgeries not only by Turkish historians but also by almost all Western students of Ottoman history. Hilmar Kaiser, cited by Dadrian and the one exception to this rule, did say documents from the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior 'confirm to some degree' two telegrams, but he concluded that "further research on the ‘Naim-Andonian' documents is necessary. [...] Hilmar Kaiser, on whom Dadrian relies for his defense, has drawn attention to "misleading quotations" and the 'selective use of sources' in Dadrian's work, and he has concluded that 'serious scholars should be cautioned against accepting all of Dadrian's statements at face value.'"
Norman Stone argued:
"However, the chief Turkish ally of the Armenian diaspora historians, Taner Akçam, remarks that “there are important grounds for considering these documents fake” (see his Turkish National Identity and the Armenian Question, note 8, p 119, Istanbul, 1992). There are, too: the paper, the dating, the calligraphy, the signature of the governor, the absence of any back-up copies in the archives, and the refusal of British and German lawyers to use them. Dadrian had a wonderful time trying to salvage the documents, and I vastly admired the prestidigitation involved – for instance, if the paper was of the type used in French schools, and not the type used in government offices, this can be explained by the paper shortage, he says. But if he cannot convince his major ally, who knows the Ottoman documents, well, there we are."
Michael M. Gunter wrote:
"Although Dadrian had the audacity to argue incongruously that “the presence and easy detection of such defects in the material under review militate against that charge [of forgery]” (p. 176), common sense would seem to argue the opposite. The manifest inconsistencies in the Naim-Andonian documents indicate that they are likely forgeries. Indeed, in all fairness to the Armenian position in the hoary controversy over whether the Ottomans intended to commit genocide against them, one would think that the Armenians and their supporters could come up with a better smoking pistol."
The French surgeon Yves Ternon
Yves Ternon
Yves Ternon is a French physician, author of historical books about the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. Doctor of medicine's history of University Paris IV Sorbonne...
who convened at the 1984 Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal is international opinion tribunal that was founded in Bologna June 24, 1979 at the initiative of Senator Lelio Basso. - International opinion tribunal :...
contends that these telegrams however, "were authenticated by experts…[but] they were sent back to Andonian in London and lost." The French philologist Jean-Louis Mattei, on the other hand criticized Yves Ternon's analysis as wrong.
The alleged documents were subject of debate during the trial of Orly airport attack
Orly airport attack
The Orly Airport attack was the 15 July 1983 bombing of a Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport in Paris, France, by the Armenian militant organization ASALA as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide...
in 1985. The defense used the telegrams as argument, the plaintiffs, represented by lawyer Jean Loyrette (actually principal of Gide Loyrette Nouel
Gide Loyrette Nouel
Gide Loyrette Nouel is an independent French law firm based in Paris. Though Pierre Gide's legal practice began as early as 1920, the firm was itself founded in 1957 by Gide, Jean Loyrette and Philippe Nouel after the Barreau de Paris amended its rules allowing lawyers to form associations and...
firm law), rejected the authenticity. The verdict makes no mention of the debate and refuses the attenuating circunstances to the main perpetrator, V. Garbidjian, sentenced to life.
Editions
- Documents sur les massacres arméniens, Paris 1920
- The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians, compiled by Aram Andonian, Hodder and Stoughton, London ca. 1920
- Մեծ Ոճիրը [The Great Crime; Armenian original of The memoirs of Naim Bey], Hayrenik, Boston 1921
Literature
- Türkkaya Ataöv, The Andonian "Documents" Attributed to Talat Pasha are Forgeries!, Ankara, 1984.
- Id., Documents on the Armenian Question: Forged and Authentic, Ankara, 1985.
- Id., Armenian Falsifications, New York: Okey, 2008.
- "The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: The Anatomy of a Genocide". By Dr. Vahakn N. Dadrian. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press. Vol. 18. August 1986. No.3. (50 pp.)
- Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005.
- Yves Ternon: Enquête sur la négation d'un génocide, éditions parenthèses, Marseille 1989 ISBN 2-86364-052-6 [analysis by Yves Ternon stating the telegrams are probably authentic]
- The Talat Pasha Telegrams (analysis by Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca stating the telegrams are forgeries), Nicosia, K. Rustemn & Brothers, 1986.