Though often they questioned my interpretations, and the views in this essay are my own, the following colleagues were most helpful in their criticisms: V. Azarya, D. Caputo, R. Davison, A. Fisher, M. Halabian, M. Hale, J. Romberg, M. Ma'oz, R. E. Melson, E. Nordlinger, D. Ronen, M. Young, S. Zelniker, and M. Zonis. I am especially grateful to Vahakn N. Dadrian, Richard G. Hovannisian, and Jacob Landau. Earlier versions of this study were presented at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Tel-Aviv University; the Holocaust Study Group, Purdue University; the Africana Studies Center, Purdue University; and the G. E. von Grunebaum Center for Middle-Eastern Studies, U.C.L. A. I would also like to thank the Harry S. Truman Research Institute of Hebrew University and the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University for their support.

¹ The methodological basis for such theoretical case studies is lucidly presented by Lijphart, Arendt, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” American Political Science Review, 65:3 (09 1971), 682–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Comparative Cases Strategy in Comparative Research,” Comparative Political Studies, 8:2 (07 1975), 158–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 33–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² See Tilly's, Charles discussion of violence in his “Revolutions and Collective Violence,” in Macropolitical Theory, Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 513.Google Scholar In this article, Tilly argues effectively, I believe, against a recent tradition in political sociology which views violence from a heavily social-psychological, rather than a political, perspective. See also Skocpol, , States and Social Revolutions.Google Scholar

³ The literature on the Holocaust is much too extensive to list here. The interested reader should consult the works of Hannah Arendt, Yehuda Bauer, Lucy Dawidowicz, Raul Hilberg, and George Mosse, and the studies produced by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, among others. For a bibliography on the Armenian genocide of 1915, see Hovannisian, Richard G., The Deportation, Massacres, and Dispersion of the Armenian People, 1915–1923 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, Inc., 1980).Google Scholar

⁴ Given our definition, it is possible to consider massacres perpetrated against classes, such as the peasantry, the bourgeoisie, or the aristocracy. Since the Armenians are not a class, however, but a communal group, and since we are trying to narrow our universe of cases, we omit from this study massacres of strata or classes, such as the Kulaks and the urban Cambodians. But in setting aside class-based massacre we do not mean to imply that class issues are unimportant. Indeed, class and communal divisions may overlap, causing conflict and leading to massacre. For further discussion of this point, see Melson, Robert and Wolpe, Howard, “Modernization and the Politics of Communalism: A Theoretical Perspective,” American Political Science Review, 64:4 (12 1970), 1112–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ For a lucid discussion of massacre perpetrated against foreign civilians in time of war, see Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1977).Google Scholar

⁶ SeeShaw, Stanford J. and Shaw, Ezel Kural, Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975, Vol. II of History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Shaws). See also Langer, William L., The Diplomacy of Imperialism (New York and London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935)Google Scholar, and Lewis, Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961).Google Scholar Lewis mainly bypasses discussing the massacres; his brief explanation focuses on the genocide of 1915 (see his page 356). A more extensive bibliography on the massacres is contained in the Shaws's work just cited and in Hovannisian, Richard G., Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar. For more bibliographic information, as well as a critique of the Shaws's approach, see Hovannisian, Richard G., “The Critics View: Beyond Revisionism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9:3 (08 1978), 337–386.Google Scholar For a reply to the Hovannisian critique, see Shaw, Stanford J. and Shaw, Ezel Kural, “The Authors Respond,” published in the same issue, at 386–400.Google Scholar See also Dyer, Gwynne, “Turkish ‘Falsifiers’ and Armenian ‘Deceivers’: Historiography and the Armenian Massacres,” Middle Eastern Studies, 12:1 (1976), 99–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a response to the Dyer article, see Libaridian, Gerard J., “Objectivity and the Historiography of the Armenian Genocide,” The Armenian Review, 31:1–121 (Spring 1978), 79–87.Google Scholar

⁷ Britain, Great, House of Commons, Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, Sessional Papers, 1895, Vol. CIX, Pt. I, c. 7894Google Scholar, “Events at Sassoun, and Commission of Inquiry at Moush,” Inclosure 2 in No. 60, Van, 6 November 1894.

⁸ Britain, Great, Correspondence, Sessional Papers, c. 7894, Inclosure 2 in No. 60, Van, 6 November 1894Google Scholar.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Lepsius, Johannes, Armenia and Europe (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), 3;Google ScholarBritain, Great, Correspondence, Sessional Papers, c. 7894, Inclosure No. 49, Sir Philip Currie to the Earl of Kimberley, 23 November 1894.Google Scholar

¹³ Britain, Great, Correspondence, Sessional Papers, c. 7894, Inclosure No. 49, 23 November 1894.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ismail Kemal Bey suggests that the sultan may have used the occasion to precipitate massacre. See his The Memoirs of Ismail Kemal Bey (London: Constable & Cð., 1920), 264.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 77–79.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Langer, , Diplomacy of Imperialism, 324.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Hovannisian, , Armenia on the Road to Independence, 28.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See Davison, Roderic H., Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 414–15;Google Scholar and Shaws, , 205.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See Nalbandian, Louise, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Development of Armenian Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer sity of California Press, 1963), 206, n. 54.Google Scholar

²⁰ Hovannisian, , Armenia on the Road to Independence, 28.Google Scholar

²¹ Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 330–31.Google Scholar Hovannisian cites these data in Armenia on the Road to Independence, 267, n. 15. For the sake of accuracy, the Lepsius data would have been better reported to the nearest thousand or even ten thousand. This holds equally for the data reported by A. W. Terrell, the American ambassador to the Porte, who cited a figure of 37,095 as of 4 February 1896. See United States of America, National Archives, Record Group 59, Despatches from United States Ministers to Turkey, 1818–1906, Microfilm Publication M46, roll 61, enclosure 796. It should be noted that Terrell's figures do not cover the period following February 1896.

²² Shaws, , 204–5.Google Scholar

²³ Davison, Roderic H., “Nationalism as an Ottoman Problem and the Ottoman Response,” in Nationalism in a Non-National State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Haddad, William W. and Ochsenwald, William, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), 25–56.Google Scholar

²⁴ Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 76.Google Scholar Lepsius, whose work is a major source on the mas sacres, was a German historian and theologian. He took a life-long interest in Armenian affairs. He is the editor of the forty-volume German Foreign Ministry series, Die Grosse Politik der Europaischen Kabinette, and of Deutschland und Armenien, 1914–1918 (Potsdam: Tempelver- lag, 1919).Google ScholarTrumpener, Ulrich, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1918 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses his activities at the time of the massacres. René Pinon, who was then professor at the l'École des Sciences Politique, wrote the following appreci ation [my translation]: “Johannes Lepsius, Doctor of Theology, has acquired a respected reputa tion in German science as a specialist on Armenian questions. His book on the massacres of 1894–1895 established him as an authority. At the same time that he is a scholar, Lepsius is also a man of action and a missionary. He is President of the German Mission to the Orient, and of the German-Armenian society. His philological and historical studies, his long field trips into Ar menia and into other parts of the Ottoman Empire, give a particular weight to his judge ments. …” See Pinon, René, Preface, Rapport Secret sur les Massacres d'Armenie, by Johannes Lepsius (1919; rpt. Paris: Payot, 1966), 3–5.Google Scholar

²⁵ Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 79.Google Scholar

²⁶ Fitzmaurice, G. H. to Sir Philip Currie, “Massacres in Ourfa (October 28 and 29 and December 28 and 29),” extract from Blue Book, Turkey No. 5 (1896).Google Scholar This is also known as Britain, Great, House of Commons, Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey. Reports by Vice Consul Fitzmaurice, from Birejik, Ourfa, Adiman, Behesni, Sessional Papers, 1896, Vol. CVI, c. 8100.Google Scholar Also quoted in Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 157–58Google Scholar. For a similar observation, see SirPears, Edwin, The Life of Abdul Hamid (1917; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1973), 233–34.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 47Google Scholar, and Hallward's, C. M. report in Britain, Great, Correspondence, Sessional Papers, c. 7894, Inclosure 2 in No. 60, Van, 6 October 1894.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ Shaws, , 302.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Dadrian, Vahakn N., “Factors of Anger and Aggression in Genocide,” Journal of Human Relations, 19:3 (1971), 394–417Google Scholar. For an introduction to the concepts and to the literature, see Milgram, Stanley and Toch, Hans, “Collective Behavior of Crowds and Social Movements,” in The Handbook of Social Psychology, Lindsey, Gardner and Arenson, Elliot, eds. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp. 507–611.Google Scholar

³¹ On Abdul Hamid's extensive use of the spy system to keep well informed, see Emin, Ahmed, Turkey in the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), 32–33.Google Scholar

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³³ Ibid. A search through the works of Davison, Langer, Lewis, Nalbandian, Hovannisian, Lepsius, and Arnold Toynbee, as well as through the consular reports, nowhere confirmed the thesis that the Hnchakists planned an Armenia from which Muslims were to be driven or killed.

³⁴ See Nalbandian, , Armenian Revolutionary Movement.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., 119.

³⁶ Hovannisian, , Armenia on the Road to Independence, 16.Google Scholar

³⁷ Atamian, Sarkis, The Armenian Community (New York: Philosophical Library, 1955), 118–19.Google Scholar

³⁸ Davison, Roderic H., “The Armenian Crisis,” The American Historical Review, 53:10 (1948), 483.Google Scholar

³⁹ Atamian, , Armenian Community, 118–19, 138. Dadrian questions this assertion. Letter received from Vahakn N. Dadrian, 2 October 1979.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Shaws, , 202.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Lepsius, , Armenia and Europe, 35.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., 76–77.

⁴³ Though this is not the place for a discussion of theories of perception, in writing about the sultan we are guided by an insight elaborated in Gestalt psychology: “… the perception of any element will be influenced by the total field of which it is a part.” See Deutsch, Morton and Krauss, Robert M., Theories in Social Psychology (New York and London: Basic Books, 1965), 16.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ A brief methodological point is in order here: despite writers such as Edwin Pears who argue that Abdul Hamid was a sadist and insane, it is not, for our purposes, necessary to probe the ego-defensive functions of the sultan's ideology and actions. As will be seen, given the prevailing ideology concerning dhimmis and given the sultan's position and power, we can account for his attitudes and intentions without resorting to depth psychology. See Pears, Life of Abdul Hamid, and Greenstein, Fred I., Politics and Personality (New York: Norton, 1975).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ For a discussion of the millet system and of the role of dhimmis in it, see, among others, Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic Society and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965);Google ScholarLewis, B., Pellat, Ch., and Schacht, J., eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition (London: Luzak & Co., 1961), 227–31;Google ScholarLewis, Bernard and Braude, Benjamin, eds., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire (New York: Holmes and Meier, forthcoming)Google Scholar. That sacred principles were involved in Abdul Hamid's own mind becomes clear in the sultan's attempts to reinstate the caliphate and to make the Ottoman Empire the center of world Muslim culture. Shaws, , 259–60.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The conscription was a practice whereby Orthodox Christian boys (most Armenians and Jews were excluded) were recruited as slaves for the sultan's household or for the army. Though at first resented, in time it became a gateway to high position. After the sixteenth century the practice was discontinued. Gibb, and Bowen, , Islamic Society, 210.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ In the case of the Bulgarians, “so complete was their absorption in the Greek millet that in the first place there is actually no mention of them by name in Ottoman official documents … and in the second their very existence as a people was almost unknown in Europe even to students of Slavonic literature as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century.” Gibb, and Bowen, , Islamic Society, 234.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Gibb and Bowen, Ibid., 232.

⁴⁹ Hovannisian, , Armenia on the Road to Independence, 25.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Through Armenians were barred from bearing arms and defending themselves by force, in practice, as we have seen in Sassoun, some Armenian communities had recourse to weapons. These always had to be smuggled and hidden. When used, they endangered the community because of Hamidiye repression.

⁵¹ “Christians came to be regarded as the natural allies of the external enemy.” Gibb, and Bowen, , Islamic Society, 232.Google Scholar

⁵² See Davison, Roderic H., “Turkish Attitudes Concerning Christian-Muslim Equality in the Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review, 59:4 (07 1954), 844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵³ This point is of course made by many writers, most notably Bernard Lewis in his classic study, The Emergence of Modern Turkey; for a recent discussion, see the excellent essay of Davison, “Nationalism as an Ottoman Problem.”

⁵⁴ See Davison, , Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 418.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Shaws, , 213.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid., 212.

⁵⁷ Kemal, , Memoirs of Ismail Kemal Bey, 255.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See Davison, , Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 404–8.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See Hovannisian, , Armenia on the Road to Independence, 13–15.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Britain, Great, Correspondence, Sessional Papers, c. 7894, Inclosure 1 in No. 35, 4 November 1897.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Kemal, , Memoirs of Ismail Kemal Bey, 255–56.Google Scholar

⁶³ Hovannisian, Richard G., Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1.Google Scholar See, as well, Sarkiss, H. J., “The Armenian Renaissance, 1500–1863.” Journal of Modern History, 9 (12 1937), 433–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁴ According to the figures of the Armenian patriarchate, by 1901–2, there were 483 Armenian schools manned by 897 teachers educating 29,054 boys and 7,785 girls in the territory of the 6 vilayets. For the empire as a whole, there were 903 Armenian schools, 2,088 teachers, and a student population of 59,513 boys and 21,713 girls. See Britain, Great, The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916; documents presented to Viscount Grey ofFallo- don, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (London: H.M.S.O., 1916), 662–63.Google Scholar For education data on the empire as a whole, including Muslim students, see Shaws, 112, Table 2.2; and 113, Table 2.3; and 244, Table 3.15.

⁶⁵ See Nalbandian, , Armenian Revolutionary Movement, 52.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Vahakn N. Dadrian notes that “even though they represented a mere 12 percent of the total population of the Ottoman Empire … the Armenians dominated the fields of banking and money lending … moreover, by the second half of the nineteenth century, clothing manufacturing, mining, shipping, and milling were mostly controlled by Armenians.” See his “The Structural and Functional Components of Genocide: A Victimological Approach to the Armenian Case,” in Drapkin, Israel and Viano, Emilio, eds., Victimology (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Co., 1975), 127.Google Scholar In a private correspondence, however, Hovannisian has noted, “Your thesis of difficulties for minorities at times of upward mobility is, of course, logical and seems borne out of many other instances. In the Armenian case, too, the threshold of tolerance decreased while corruption and anarchy increased, creating explosive circumstances. Yet also in the Armenian experience it should be remembered that there was not just one national experience in the empire…. The Armenians of Constantinople and the coastal city, together with those in the bureaucracy, were experiencing rapid economic and cultural upward mobility. And while the same could be said on a more retarded basis for those of the interior provinces in matters of education, cultural endeavors, and national consciousness, this was not always true economically. Many regions in the eastern provinces were actually more impoverished at the end of the nineteenth century than ever before. The large migration of peasants toward the cities was in part due to that impoverishment, together with the growing physical insecurity caused by breakdown of authority and unbridled raids. This disparity does not necessarily detract from your thesis but notice should be given to it.” Letter received from Hovannisian, Richard G. 25 September 1979.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Hepworth, George Hughes, Through Armenia on Horseback (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1898), 339.Google Scholar