Page 412 - Mastermind: The Truth of the British Deep State Revealed

Hovhannes Katchaznouni, the First Prime Minister of the First

Republic of Armenia, and the Leader of the Dashnak Party

… We had embraced Russia whole-heartedly without any compunction.

Without any positive basis of fact we believed that the Tzarist government
would grant us a more-or-less broad self-government in the Caucasus and in
the Armenian vilayets liberated from Turkey as a reward for our loyalty, our

efforts and assistance. We had created a dense atmosphere of illusion in our
minds. We had implanted our own desires into the minds of others; we had
lost our sense of reality and were carried away with our dreams. …

However, it is important that we couldn't find suitable measures to improve
our situation from inside and outside before and after the War we partici-
pated with the promises given to us (World War I.)… We couldn't take the

administrative measures to establish order in the regions we occupied, and
obliged to take up arms. We sent armies, set on fire and demolished, and

massacred… 242

H. A. Arslanian

Demonstrably, British pledges regarding Armenia, like those given to Arabs
regarding Syria, Mesopotamia and Palestine, were primarily a device to en-

courage the Armenian war efforts, favorably impress the neutral countries and
ensure that the enemy, the Ottoman Empire, fell from within by appealing to

the national aspirations of ethnic minorities living under its control. 243

The Statement by American Scholars and Historians Addressed to the

US House of Representatives (May 19, 1985)

The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in the direct of serious inter

communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces),
complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres in Anatolia and ad-
joining areas during the First World War. Indeed, throughout the years in

question, the region has been the scene of more or less continuous warfare,
not unlike the tragedy which has gone on in Lebanon for the past decade. The
resulting number of deaths among both Muslim and Christian communities

of the region is immense. 244

Mastermind: The Truth of the British Deep State Revealed