On that August day in 1920, a solemn prayer was conducted in the Armenian Church in Paris, after which a formal audience took place in the Armenian delegation’s residence. In the words of Avetis Aharonyan, the head of the delegation, a vast number of Armenians had gathered to celebrate the great national day, on the occasion of the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres. Speeches and poems were recited and patriotic songs were sung “in honour of a Free, Independent, and United Armenia.”
The Armenian newspaper Haraj wrote, “August 10 will remain a historic date in the world, and especially for Oriental history. After long vacillations and conspiracies, Turkey was forced to sign the peace treaty. Turkey is dismembered – Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan, and the region of Izmir are removed from its rule, and Constantinople and the straits from under its influence. This document is historic also because the treaty, Turkey’s death verdict, is signed by the government of Armenia.”
From a report sent to the government of Armenia by Aharonyan: “On August 10, we reached Sèvres from Paris. Almost all the representatives of all the states were seated, when the Chairman of the Conference entered. Wearing the red fez on their heads, the three Turkish delegates entered, greeted the conference with a light movement of their heads, and took their seats above the Greeks.
The Chairman of the Conference stood up and said, ‘Gentlemen, I announce that this treaty which we will sign corresponds to that accepted by both sides.’ Then he invited the Turks to sign. Hamid Pasha, Riza Tevfik Bey, and Khalil Bey stood up and, with decisive steps, approached the table in the middle of the room and, with nervous movements, signed, one after the other. After that the representatives of Britain, France, Italy, and Japan signed and, immediately after them, they invited me.”
According to the Treaty of Sèvres, the issues of deciding the border between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire in the vilayets of Erzurum (Karin), Trabizond, Van, and Bitlis and giving Armenia an outlet to the Black Sea were to be given as an arbitral award by the US President Woodrow Wilson, whose decision would be compulsory for the states that had signed the treaty. President Wilson gave his arbitral award on the Armenian-Turkish border on November 22, according to which the four vilayets, with a total territory of 87 thousand square kilometres, were included within Armenia, not counting the more than 20 thousand square kilometers of territory of the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Surmalu, which were Armenia’s indisputable territories.
If the Treaty of Sèvres had been realised, the Republic of Armenia would have covered a territory of over 160 thousand square kilometres. However, not only did that treaty remain an unfulfilled Armenian dream but, about four months after the signing, as a result of the indifference of the Allied Powers and Kemalist-Bolshevik conspiring, the Republic of Armenia became Soviet Armenia, which, in a short period of time, lost its independence and became a part of the Soviet Union.
In the mid-1910s, it felt like the Armenian dream was very close to becoming a reality. At the end of 1918, Ottoman Turkey was defeated and battered in war, losing most of the empire’s territories. On the contrary, Armenia was considered the ally of First World War victors, the United Kingdom, France, and other states. But the tide of history turned against Armenia and the Armenian nation.
Tatul Hakobyan
Armenians and Turks: Second Revised English Edition was published
The Second Revised English Edition of 450 page book by reporter and expert Tatul Hakobyan Armenians and Turks; from War to Cold War to Diplomacy was published in Yerevan in June, 2019. This work, which covers Armenian-Turkish relations since 1918 to 2018, is the result of ten years of extensive research, analysis and travel by the author.
The Second Revised English Edition of Armenians and Turks is dedicated to Vagharshag Shahinian, a true Armenian patriot and a courageous leader of men.
Born in 1889 in the Western Armenian city of Van, Vagharshag Shahinian left for the United States in 1910. He returned to Armenia to rescue his family from the atrocities being committed by the Ottoman government against its Armenian minority. In May of 1918, at the Battle of Sardarapat, he and his brave compatriots successfully defended the remaining Armenian lands that had previously been under the control of the fallen Russian Empire and into which his family and thousands of the remaining survivors of the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire had fled. Had the Ottomans succeeded at Sardarapat, the last physical existence of Armenians in a land of their own land likely would have been lost forever. After the Ottomans were repulsed at the Battle of Sardarapat and the First Republic of Armenia was formed, he organized and commanded a detachment of 1100 militiamen to defend the homeland. After fighting ended, he returned with his family to the United States. Following his death in 1976, he was buried on the battlefield of Sardarapat under a monument dedicated to his patriotic service. He is the only commander of that battle given that honor.
The first release of Armenians and Turks was published in Western Armenian using classical orthography and was presented in Beirut in March, 2012. The Eastern Armenian version was presented in Yerevan in April, 2012.
The editor if the English version is Nareg Seferian.
According to Raffi K. Hovannisian, Armenia’s Foreign Minister (1991-1992)Hakobyan’s Armenian and Turks, “is packed with political insight, historical revelation, and even a poetic vision of a complicated relationship which unfolded, over a century, between two peoples.” Hakobyan has established himself “as an indispensable journalist, expert, and scholar of this ongoing saga. It is my hope that his ground-braking work will help achieve recognition of the historical record and a reconciliation based on the terrible truth,” wrote Hovannisian.
Alexander Arzumanyan, Armenia’s Foreign Minister in 1996-1998, wrote; “This volume is in fact a continuation of Tatul Hakobyan’s first book, Karabakh Diary: Green and Black. Written in the journalistic style using strict standards of scholarship, the author has evidently undertaken wide-ranging research. This book is of great interest not only to historians, diplomats, or experts who study issues of Armenian-Turkish relations and their impact on the future of the South Caucasus, but also for a wide range of readers.”
“Tatul Hakobyan’s work is a smooth mix of history and journalism. This extremely complex and significant period of history is presented coherently, simply, in an easy to follow narrative that links together the various periods during the tumultuous 100 years beginning in 1918. The book is especially valuable because of Hakobyan’s special focus on Armenia-Turkey relations during the Cold War years and new information he has brought to light as a result of diligent research in Armenia’s archives,” said Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s Foreign Minister in 1998–2008.
According to Ara Sanjian, Director of Armenian Research Center in University of Michigan-Dearborn, “Hakobyan’s investigative work is the first-ever attempt to shed comprehensive light from Armenia’s perspective on the trajectory of the latter’s thorny relations with its neighbor, Turkey, since the era of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and Armenia regaining its sovereignty and independence in 1991. This study is based not only on the author’s own observations during his career as a journalist, a wide range of printed sources, but also in-depth interviews with over a dozen leading Armenian policymakers, including the country’s first post-Soviet, democratically-elected president and its first four Ministers of Foreign Affairs in the period of independence.”
“In his new book Hakobyan is continuing to place current affairs in its larger historic context. After Karabakh Diary, Green and Black he has produced a new, and impressive book looking at the current state of Armenian-Turkish relations through a historic tour de force revisiting the roots of the current blockage. He is one of the leading example of a new generation of scholars in Armenia applying meticulous research and sharp observation. A much needed voice from the other side of Ararat,” said Vicken Cheterian, political analyst and author in Geneva.
“This book covers almost the whole spectrum of Armenian-Turkish relations, including the different attitudes of Diasporan circles and masses to the past, present, and future relations with the Turks. Hakobyan investigates this difficult and very complex historical and political matter – far from understanding it as a mere Republic of Armenia – Republic of Turkey bilateral problem, but as an issue of the Armenian and Turkish peoples’ mostly antagonistic relationship. A book that is very useful for Armenian diplomacy, Armenian historiography, and Turkology,” wrote historian Gevorg Yazichyan.
Tatul Hakobyan’s first book – Karabakh Diary, Green and Black, first was published in 2008 and since then has had several editions including English, Russian, Turkish, and Arabic.
You can contact with the author by e-mail-
tatarmen@yahoo.com or aniarcf@gmail.com
or dial +374 91 426435 and +374 98 655321.
