LORD AVEBURY'S FOREWORD TO TURKISH TRANSLATION OF THE TREATMENT OF ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1915-16 [UNCENSORED EDITION]

On October 12, 2005, Lord Archer of Sandwell QC, Lord Biffen and I organised a meeting in Westminster for British parliamentarians to respond to a petition sent to members of the British Houses of Parliament by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) contesting the veracity of the 1916 British Parliamentary Blue Book, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16.

According to the TGNA, the 1916 Blue Book was a wartime fabrication which harmed Turkish interests during World War I and continues to do so today. The central thesis of the Blue Book was the argument that starting in 1915 Armenians were subject to a policy of mass annihilation in the Ottoman Empire. The petition claimed that the Blue Book was the source of allegations that the massacres and deaths of Armenians during the forced deportations of 1915-16 constituted a genocide, which the petition said was untrue. The petition asserted that: (1) the 1916 report had no supporting documentation; (2) the report was contrived in essence; and (3) the main compiler and editor of the report admitted that the Blue Book was simply a propaganda tool fabricated against Ottoman Turkey and its German ally.

The petition insisted that the core of the Blue Book was a set of eyewitness accounts which were unreliable, and that the work was composed in such a way as to conceal the flawed character of these key reports. It maintained that withholding the names of some informants and locations, supposedly to safeguard sources still in the Ottoman Empire, was in reality, to conceal the weaknesses of the reports themselves.

However, we concluded from our own knowledge of the Blue Book and many contemporaneous accounts by eyewitnesses which have since been published, as well as a detailed report from the Gomidas Institute, that: 

1. the Blue Book was compiled from first-hand testimonies which were scrupulously reported by the distinguished editor, Arnold Toynbee;
2. the supporting documentation has been readily accessible, a point overlooked in the letter from the TGNA;
3. Arnold Toynbee did not say that the Blue Book was flawed as claimed by the petition;
4. the petition wrongly asserted that the War Propaganda Bureau was the sole source for all information regarding the situation in the Ottoman Empire – there were hundreds of neutral consular officials and missionaries;
5. the reports by neutrals have been reinforced and corroborated by other United States and German consular reports, now in the public domain, and by numerous accounts in the diaries and letters of survivors;
6. the sources of the 150 eyewitness accounts published in the Blue Book were not discovered recently in a War Propaganda Bureau document as claimed by the TGNA, but have been known and published for many years.

It was our appraisal that the TGNA was not properly informed about the Blue Book. Consequently, on 27 January 2006, 33 British MPs responded to the TGNA petition with a letter to the Speaker of the TGNA Bülent Arinç, inviting members of the TGNA to a face to face meeting with their British colleagues to discuss the Blue Book. Since there was no response to that letter a second email communication was sent on 1 September 2006 to all individual members of the TGNA, inviting them to a face to face meeting. Again there was no response.

Our final conclusion was that most TBMM members were not aware of the actual content of the 1916 Blue Book, nor the archival trail associated with it. In order to facilitate better understanding and reflection, I suggested that the Gomidas Institute should undertake the Turkish translation of their uncensored edition of the Blue Book, which was replete with discussion and full archival references. I am pleased that they were able to undertake such a major project with the help of the AGBU so that a whole new Turkish readership—not just members of the TGNA—can appraise the Blue Book issue in an informed and balanced manner.

Lord  Avebury
House of Lords, London
28 May 2009

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