When Sir Horace Rumbold, the British Minister in Switzerland, succeeded Admiral Sir John de Robeck, on 17 November 1920, as High Commissioner in Istanbul, the Ottoman Empire, a member of the Central Powers, was already defeated by the Entente Powers (the Allies) in the disastrous Great War, and was forced to sign the Armistice of Mondros (Mudros) on 30 October 1918.

In this paper I intend to trace cursorily the background of the incidents that took place in the Ottoman Empire, mainly in 1915, that caused a great tragedy to the people of Anatolia, especially to the Turks, other Muslims, and Armenians. I also intınd to examine that tragedy, its instigators, causes, effects, and how it was exploited by Britain's wartime propagandists, in the light of new documents that have come to my notice during recent studies. I hope that my conclusions may contribute to a better understanding of the Turco-Armenian relations, and of how those amicable relations were disrupted and exploited by external and extremist forces immediately before and during the fateful years of the First World War.

It would be proper and much enlightening to look for the reasons why and how the Ottoman Empire could perpetuate a brillant existence on three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa, in the Akhi Order or Fraternity. In other words, Akhi faith and principles should be counted amongst a myriads of factors that contributed into six centuries of Ottoman domination on these three continents.

Significant socio-political and economic events in the lives of nations and groups occur within the framework of historical and geographical determinants at work, together with the systemic and subsystemic factors that impinge upon them. Often, the domestic linkage of foreign policy and the impact of foreign policy on domestic politics are too closely intertwined and, therefore, can not be sharply and clearly delineated. The geographic locations and the historical experiences of nations mold into forms, norms, and traditions, producing national cultures. Expansion of a culture or its collaboration with other cultures produce similar or synthetic patterns of life, frame of mind, and a general in the formation of events.

During the first part of the fifteenth century Jews were subjected to systematic persecution in Bohemia, Austria, and Poland; but it was their oppression in Portugal and Spain, where some of them had submitted, under pain of death, to enforced Christianization, culminating, in 1492, in their expulsion, that gave the greatest impetus to their mass exodus. The Catholic kings, at the end of their reconquista of Spain, had not only cracked down radically on the Moriscoes (Moors), and on all the other Muslims of the Iberian peninsula, they had also envisaged a final solution for their Jewish subjects.

Although the term Ottoman Archives should in fact include any archive that once fell within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire, it only reminds us of the Başbakanlık (Primeministerial) Archives and that of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. Furthermore the Ottoman archival material whether found in the National Archive of Cairo or in Ragusa Archive of Yoguslavia are of no lesser importance than those found in Başbakanlık Archive although not as abundant. The scholars of the Balkan states such as Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Hungary have not only taken interest in the Ottoman archives in their own countries, but also in the Primeministerial Archive of Istanbul, and have studied and published many documents -especially the ones pertaining to their own countries- from these archives. Unfortunately the Turks and the Arabs have only recently started taking interest in these archives and particularly the Arab scholars in this field are very scant. There is no doubt that these archives are not only important for the Muslim countries but also for the world history. The report prepared by Unesco in 1982 makes this point very clear.

Following the establishment of regular diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and foreign states in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans began to face what came to be known as the protégé system, which later proved to be the most dangerous threat to the very existence of their empire. This was the notion of foreign protection for the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

The sancak of Amid (today known as Diyarbakır) has been ruled by the Byzantines, Arabs, Selçukids, Artukids, Ayyubids, Akkoyunlus and Ottomans. Therefore the sancak has been exposed to the cultures of these states. Thus the province had undergone a great cultural impact which can clearly be traced in the personal and place names used in the sancak. The place and personal names recorded in the 1518 Ottoman cadastral survey of the sancak of Amid are the basis of some pointers made in this article.

Tenacious and systematic attempts are being made by a number of Armenian 'scholars' to sway, especially Jewish public opinion, that there is a link between the experiences of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which they label as 'the first genocide of the twentieth century', and those of the European Jewry during World War II. By their persistent attempts, skilful manipulation of the feelings of some Jewish and other sympathisers, and masterful use of distorted, tendencious, and even forged 'documents', they have succeeded in winning over some of those who are the real victims of the Holocaust, and a number of younger generation Jewish writers, such as Yehuda Bauer, Leo Kuper, and a few others. Is there such a parallel? Let us examine the arguments for and against before we answer this question.

As a result of the tension now existing between Israel and the Muslim world, it long has been assumed that the anti Semitism to which Jews of the Ottoman Empire were subjected over the centuries was the result of Muslim antipathy for Judaism and Jews, and that it was carried out largely by Muslims. This idea was spread by Christian nationalist groups within and outside the Ottoman Empire for the purpose of gaining the support of world Jewry for their causes. At times, moreover, these groups even stimulated Muslim attacks on their own people to gain the support of the Christian nations of Europe.