Submarines And Armenia -nyt19160126a
SUBMARINES AND ARMENIA
A Break Between the United States and Turkey as a German Plot
JANUARY 26, 1916
To the Editor of the New York Times:
There is method in Turko-Teunic madness if Turkey admits the responsibility for the sinking of the Persia. It is a well-known fact that at the beginning of the world war Turkey did not possess any submarines worth the name. She may have later constracteristic Turkish slothfulness would render it well night impossible. Let us grant, however, that Turkey has since constructed some submarines. But where could she procure the crews to man them? It has often been asserted that it is easier to construct submarines than to train officers for them. German submarine officers might be Turkofied by wearing red fezzes of their heads, or bearing on their arms red bands with the inscription, "Mohammed is the prophet of God," yet they would not cease to be Germans.
If the United States is deceived by this latest Teutonic trick, Germany will accomplish two things: first, she will be in position to continue her barbarous submarine warfare in the Mediterranean under the Turkish flag, as she will undoubtedly advise Turkey not to accede to any American demands for reparation; and secondly, by a severance of diplomatic relations between the United states and Turkey, which may result from the Persia dispute, the despicable German plan for exterminating the Armenians will be consummated.
That the German Government has been the instigator of the worse-than-massacre deportation of the Armenians has often been intimated, even by Turkish officials and priests. And taking into consideration the German control of the Turkish Government in Constantinople, it is obvious that the Kaiser could have instantly terminated those Turkish atrocities had he so desired.
M. Victor Bernard, the eminent French publicist, whose impassioned appeal to President Wilson in behalf of the Armenians will be published in The New Armenian not only directly accuses the German Government but reveals also its motive, saying:
So long as the influence of liberal powers was paramount in Constantinople, the Turkish Government viewed in a friendly spirit the educational endeavors of the American and French missionaries, and acknowledged that their work promoted the growth of wealth throughout the entire Ottoman Empire. And the Sublime Porte wants to declare with pleasure that the Armenian pupils, were the Millet-l-Sadik, (faithful nation,) to whom the Sultan entrusted the highest and most important posts of his civil administration. But when German influence came to predominate over the Sultans and their camarilla, the Armenians were persecuted tortured, and massacred by the hundred thousands. After the massacred by the hundred thousands. After the massacres of 1896 and 1909, perpetrated by the order of Abdul Hamid, the Yong Turks undertook to extirpate systematically the Armenian nation, and the work of extirpation is being executed in those provinces where one day the Baghdad Railway is expected to transport the German colonies.
Accordingly, if the Armenians are not extirpated the prospects of German colonization in the fertile Armenian provinces will become nil. Thus far the only obstacle that has prevented the consummation of the Kaiser's plan for the total destruction of the Armenians has been the American financial assistance rendered the persecuted Armenians through the United States Ambassador Consular agents, and the American missionaries. Should America be caught in the Teutonic snare by regarding Turkey as responsible for the Persia slaughter and should the next step be the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey, the hope of saving the remnants of the noble Armenian race will vanish, and there will be assured for the Germans "a place in the sun" on the graves of a martyred nation
ARSHAG MAHDESIAN.
New York, Jan 24, 1916
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922