The Plan for the Armenian Genocide
The German Vice Consul at Erzerum, Count Max Erwin von Scheubner-
Richter, summarizes the Armenian Genocide quite succintly in a report to his
superiors:
I have conducted a series of conversations with competent and
influential Turkish personages, and these are my impressions: A
large segment of the Ittahadist [Young Turk] party maintains the
viewpoint that the Turkish empire should be based only on the
principle of Islam and Pan-Turkism. Its non-Muslim and non-Turkish
inhabitants should either be forcibly islamized, or otherwise they
ought to be destroyed. These gentlemen believe that the time is
propitious for the realization of this plan. The first item on
this agenda concerns the liquidation of the Armenians. Ittihad
will dangle before the eyes of the allies the specter of an alleged
revolution prepared by the Armenian Dashnak party. Moreover local
incidents of social unrest and acts of Armenian self-defense will
deliberately be provoked and inflated and will be used as pretexts
to effect the deportations. Once en route however, the convoys
will be attacked and exterminated by Kurdish and Turkish brigands,
and in part by gendarmes, who will be instigated for that purpose
by Ittihad.