• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Cilician Massacre of 1909

The first free Ottoman Parliament met on Dec. 27 1908: in April 1909 massacre of Armenian Christians broke out at Adana, in the rich Cilician plain. After the first outbreak troops of the Young Turk army were hurriedly brought from Salonika, and the affair seemed to have been stamped out by the promptitude of the Government. But after a few days it flared up again, in consequence, it is stated, of Armenians having fired on the soldiery, who thereupon took an active part in the work of killing and burning. From Adana massacre spread to various towns of the vilayet of Adana, and into northern Syria, particularly at Antioch, Kirk Khan, and Mar'ash. Though thousands perished in the towns, a greater number were slaughtered in remote villages and on lonely roads; for it was the time when Armenians from the mountains were on their way to the annual harvesting on the fertile Cilician plain.

It is believed that in all not less than 20,000 lost their lives in this unexpected and disastrous outbreak. The origins of these massacres remain obscure; that some form of official prompting lay behind them, however, cannot be doubted. Not once but often it was proved that Turkish authorities found no difficulty in preventing outbreaks of the kind if they choose; that, in fact, massacre was, at bottom, the result of official connivance more or less direct. The Cilician massacres had been charged to 'Abdul Hamid and his satellites, as an effort by him to discredit the government of the Young Turks. They had been charged to the Young Turks, as an effort by them to discredit 'Abdul Hamid, who had been deposed on April 9 - just one week before the affair at Adana. Notwithstanding the vehement disavowal of complicity by the Government, and their ostentatious endeavours to compensate sufferers and provide for orphaned Armenians; notwithstanding the Turkish Commission of Inquiry, and the impartial hanging of Moslems and Armenians, time brought the guilt home more and more definitely to Young Turk leaders.

That the Armenians of Cilicia were blameless cannot be maintained. After the first fraternal demonstrations of the revolution they had adopted a manner toward their Moslem fellow citizens provocative and unwise beyond belief. They had indulged in Armenian national processions, displaying the flag of an independent Armenia; had publicly boasted that Cilicia itself was soon to become an independent Armenia; had insulted and beaten Moslems in the streets of Adana. To the fatal influence of these follies were added the economic facts that Armenian land-owners, already in possession of the richest areas of the Cilician plain, were rapidly increasing their holdings; and that the Armenian population prospered and multiplied while the Moslem population declined. The Moslems of Cilicia, indeed, were gloomily brooding over Armenian affronts to their patriotism, and economic Armenian encroachments on their position as the dominant and ruling race. These matters combined formed a mass of highly inflammable material.