“The more vociferous Armenian diaspora historians like to claim that 'historians' support them but this is just not true. Quite the contrary: on the whole, the people who know the subject at first-hand do not accept the thesis of 'genocide'.”
“The whole business of 1915 remains murky, but perhaps I can bullet-point some of it. I can easily supply references for these, but I think that anyone familiar with the subject - including diaspora historians - will know my sources. In general, Professor Lewy's book (University of Utah Press) will serve in this respect.
- The documents allegedly proving the genocide are forgeries, and the British law officers who were trying to find evidence over a four-year period of occupation in Constantinople refused to use them. With much regret, they said that they could not establish a case against some hundred men whom they were holding. The State Department were unable to help. This has not stopped the diaspora Armenians in France from using the most notorious of these forgeries (the 'Naim-Andonian documents') in their museum in the south of France.
- The Ottomans themselves in 1916 put on trial some 1300 men for crimes committed during the deportation of the Armenians in 1915, and executed a governor.
- The Armenians' leader, Boghos Nubar, was offered a post in the Ottoman cabinet in 1914, but turned it down on the grounds that his Turkish was not up to it.
- The figure given by Boghos Nubar to the French for Armenian losses for use in the post-war treaties was 700,000. Most died of disease or starvation, but in eastern Turkey at the time at least one quarter of the entire population, Moslem and Christian, died of such causes. It was a terrible time.
- The internal Ottoman documents talk of 'deportation', in the context of widespread Armenian nationalist risings in the early spring of 1915. The Russians and the French (on Cyprus) used Armenian regiments and legionaries.
- The Armenian populations of Istanbul, Izmir and Aleppo were not affected by the deportation order….. “
“The diaspora Armenians have never allowed this to come before a properly-constituted and competent court. Instead, they prompt parliamentary and other bodies to 'recognize the genocide'.”
“I might add incidentally that I consider myself neutral and I have never written anything to deny the possibility that a genocide (in the classic sense) was considered. However I do not think that the evidence that we have really adds up, and I quite agree with Professors Lewis,
Lewy and Veinstein. “
23 August 2007
PROFESSOR NORMAN STONE,
NOTED BRITISH HISTORIAN
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