Mavroyeni Bey to Mr. Olney.
Washington, December 21, 1895.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have read with much attention your report of the 19th instant transmitted to the Senate on that day by a message of the President of the United States.
As that report treats solely of matters which concern Turkey in its relations with the American Government and American citizens, I think proper herein to set forth certain considerations which its attentive perusal has suggested to me. In so doing I am actuated simply by a desire to throw all the light possible on the points in dispute.
In the first place, I am happy to state that, notwithstanding the Armenian revolt, which was organized by committees whose centers were not only in Turkey, but also in England and America, and notwithstanding the widespread disturbances which that revolt has necessarily caused, cases in which the interests of American citizens were injured have not been numerous. This result has evidently been due to the peremptory orders of the Sublime Porte and to the vigilance of the Imperial provincial authorities. Yet, notwithstanding these orders and this vigilance, your excellency rightly refers to the destruction of some American property both at Marash and at Harpoot, which destruction took place at the most critical moment of the disturbances provoked by the Armenians. The Imperial Government, after a careful investigation of the incidents in question, will doubtless act just as any other government would act under similar circumstances.
In this connection I think proper to call your attention to an expression used by Mr. Terrell in reference to the alleged attitude of the kaimakam of Hadjin. Mr. Terrell is reported to have declared to the Sublime Porte that if the populace, in time of revolt, did the slightest injury to the American school in the place he, in the name of the United States, would demand “the head of the kaimakam.” This expression was used metaphorically, I suppose, by Mr. Terrell. I refer to it, not [Page 1414] because it appears to me to be wholly unusual in diplomatic language, but because, as it has been reproduced and unfavorably commented upon by the press of the United States, I consider that it has injured us in the public opinion of the American people. As the representative of the Imperial Government I am concerned as regards the effect of certain expressions.
Your excellency also cites the case of Lenz, who disappeared in a remote locality of the Empire; that of Stupe, who was killed by a lunatic; that of George Webber, who died in prison; and the attack made upon Mr. Christie. The Sublime Porte naturally deplores any violation of law, and it desires to settle every incident in accordance with the precepts of justice. Acts of the kind in question, however, even those connected with the most horrible murders, are committed in every country in the world. Your excellency is certainly not ignorant of the murder of Galeb Abdullah, an Ottoman subject, which was committed near Susanville, Lassen county, Cal. This murder was not committed recently, but about the 15th of June, 1891, and, notwithstanding the efforts of the American authorities, the murderer is still at large, and probably happy to have escaped with his life, unless he has since died a natural death.
I observe that Mr. Terrell speaks of “appalling massacres,” and that he places the number of the killed up to the beginning of the current month at upward of 30,000, which figure you yourself declare to be exaggerated. Mr. E. Bérárd, deputy from Lyons in the Chamber of Deputies at Paris, recently wrote to the Évènement as follows:
We are told of massacres, of atrocious crimes, of rivers of blood that have been shed. By whom? By the Turks or the Armenians? Every day dispatches are received which, while they refer to the outrages, the acts of plunder, and murder of those in revolt, tell us of the moderation and the conciliatory and peaceful wishes of the Porte. It can not be objected that these dispatches emanate from Constantinople. I deny this. Private information and confidential letters fully corroborate what skeptics are willing to consider merely as a defensive maneuver of the Porte.
Such are the facts. In proof of these facts I ask anyone to tell me whether there would have been any disturbances in Turkey had it not been for the Armenian revolutionary committees. If the repression is severe this is because the insubordination is organized in a cruel manner. The proof that it is organized in a cruel manner is to be found in the letter, a copy of which I deem it necessary herewith to inclose. This letter is from Rev. Cyrus Hamlin himself. What this reverend gentleman says concerning the savage manner of revolt adopted by the Armenian insurgents has been asserted by the Imperial Government ever since the beginning of the trouble at Sassoun. Without meaning to do so, perhaps, Mr. Hamlin describes exactly, in advance, the cause of the occurrences at Sassoun and of those following. The subsequent disturbances would, however, not have been prolonged until this time if the Armenian revolutionists had not found at least a moral support in foreign countries among persons and religious bodies who are opposed to the Turkish Empire, owing to religious and race prejudices. My numerous notes on this subject have, I think, superabundantly proved the correctness of the assertion which I have just made. I can here merely refer to those notes, which were written with a view to fixing the responsibility during the Armenian revolt.
Your excellency likewise refers in the aforesaid report to Article IV of the treaty of 1830. That article has given rise to a controversy which the Sublime Porte is very desirous to settle. Mr. Blaine has thus far been the only Secretary of State who has proposed a method of settlement. [Page 1415] By his notes of February 25 and March 15,1890, he conceded to the Sublime Porte the right to try offenders, provided that the Sublime Porte would concede the right to punish them to the American authorities. Mr. Blaine made this concession to us, as he wrote, “rather as an act of deference to a friendly Government than because I was convinced of the correctness of its contentions.” The contention of the Sublime Porte is set forth at length in my two notes to Mr. Bayard of January 10, 1889. Mr. Bayard did not reply to those notes until the 28th of February of that year—that is to say, a few days before he was succeeded by Mr. Blaine as Secretary of State. The two notes of March 25, 1889, which I wrote to Mr. Blaine in reply to Mr. Bayard’s note of February 28, 1889, have not yet been answered. Still, as I have already remarked, Mr. Blaine made the concession referred to, rather as an act of deference to a friendly Government, as he said, and, as I add, of justice also. The Sublime Porte then reasoned and still reasons as follows: The United States did not secure, and did not even think of securing, more than other Franks in 1830. Now, the only text that is binding upon the two Governments is, according to their solemn admission, the Turkish text of the treaty of 1830. In that text no mention is made of the right to try offenders. Consequently, this right to try belongs to Turkey, for it is a sovereign right which no independent government can abandon otherwise than by an express and formal declaration, such as does not exist in Article IY of the treaty in question. As, according to the text of the treaty, Turkey has the right to try offenders, she must likewise necessarily have the right to punish them, since one involves the other.
The last phrase of the Turkish text of Article IY does, it is true, contain certain words which, taken by themselves, seem to be at variance with this assertion. These words are, however, themselves in flagrant opposition to the following words of the article: “Following, in this respect, the usage observed toward other Franks.” The necessary consequence is that there is an error, as regards the right to punish, in the wording of the final portion of Article IY of the treaty of 1830. There is an error because there is a contradiction of terms, and it is this very error that we ask the United States Government to acknowledge. The Sublime Porte is true to its engagements, which consist of granting to you, in connection with this question of jurisdiction, everything that it now grants and that it granted in 1830 to “other Franks.” There is thus, I still hope, a possibility of a full understanding between the two friendly Governments in relation to a controversy which, stripped of its cumbersome and useless accessories, seems to me, after all, to be free from any insurmountable difficulty.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,