The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, published in 2003, discusses the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and was written by Peter Balakian, who won the Pultizer prize for his poetry. The Burning Tigris is a crucial read, for it clearly discusses in a detailed manner a historical phenomenon which has greatly impacted Turkey and Armenia, as well as casting light on the nature of foreign relations and justice.
The Burning Tigris begins with Balakian’s description of the Armenian Genocide as “‘the forgotten genocide,’ the ‘unremembered genocide,’ ‘the hidden holocaust,’ or ‘the secret genocide’” (xiii). Contrary to the previously mentioned names, the Armenian Genocide was very well known in America when they happened, so much so that “The U.S. response to the Armenian crisis, which began in the 1890s and continued into the 1920s, was the first international human rights movement in American history and helped to define the nation’s emerging global identity. It seems that no other international human rights issue has ever preoccupied the United States for such a duration” (xiii). Consequently, the Armenian Genocide symbolized America’s wasted potential as a potential mediator in international conflicts, as even though America was moved by pity for the plight of the Armenians, little was done by Wilson. Theodore Roosevelt went so far as to say that the Armenian Genocide “‘was the great crime of the war, and failure to act against Turkey is to condone it; because the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense’” (xv). The Armenian Genocide, in hindsight, impacted history in two major ways: first, the term “crimes against humanity” was coined to describe the atrocities, and second, the term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish jurist, who was largely influenced by the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.
The first massacres against the Armenians were conducted in the 1890s by the Turkish caliph Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The Armenians were oppressed for centuries, and being the largest Christian minority in Turkey, were viewed with suspicion and anger as the Ottoman Empire slowly crumbled, hence the name “the sick man of Europe.” Sultan Abdul Hamid II implemented policies, which, by the end of 1896, claimed 200,000 Armenians - half were directly slaughtered, and the other half died due to disease and famine. When America learned of the bestial atrocities, outrage followed, with people denouncing Abdul Hamid II as a murderous tyrant. Mark Twain himself criticized the Ottoman Empire for its actions preceding the genocide after he met Abdul Aziz, the father of Abdul Hamid II. Twain wrote in Innocents Abroad that Abdul Aziz was undeserving of the power which he held due to his decadence and immorality: “a man who sits upon a throne … who holds in his hands the power of life and death over millions-yet who sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take the reins of government … is charmed from his purpose … charmed away with a new toy, like any other restless child; a man who sees his people robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to save them” (9). Abdul Hamid II, living a lavish life akin to his father’s, and paranoid for his safety, locked himself in his palace with his concubines and servants.
An Armenian poet who wrote about the atrocities was Ohannes. He was a very talented person, born in 1869 in Elizavetpol, a mountain town, growing up in poverty. Despite his predicament, he had an intense appreciation for languages, so much so that he was accepted into Harvard Divinity School after informing them that he knew Russian, French, German, Greek, English, Armenian (old and new), Hebrew, Persian, Georgian, and Slavonic. People praised him as a moral, intelligent, kind, and selfless person. He published widely acclaimed poetry describing Armenian culture, but then caught tuberculosis and died. Balakian then talks about the treatment of the Ottoman Empire towards its subjects who differed in religion. While it was generally tolerant towards them in exchange for a special tax, the jizya, it still discriminated against them significantly. It became worse preceding the 1890s when corrupt tax policies were practiced, in which the privilege to tax was sold to the highest bidder. The Armenians were also disallowed from being defended in the mainstream court system, and were not allowed to own weapons. Armenians were also subject to the devshirme, in which young boys could be taken from their families and raised as Muslims (though in the past it did give them material benefits). The Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s occurred after the Armenians finally lost their patience - some Armenian men beat an Ottoman official after he refused to listen to the possibility of reform. Consequently, the official stated that the Armenians were finally rebelling, and “the Ottoman troops attacked and burned villages and ‘wounded and killed, without regard to age or sex, all who fell into their hands’” (55). In one instance, when Armenians surrendered at a village called Semal after receiving reassurances that they would be unharmed, “the colonel gave the order to seize the priest, and they proceeded to gouge out his eyes and bayonet him to death. Then they separated the men from the women and that night raped the women. The next night they bayoneted the men to death, within hearing of the terrified women” (55). All in all, in the district of Talori alone three thousand were slaughtered.
After hearing news of the “rebellion,” the rest of Turkey erupted into spontaneous violence against Armenians. While the Armenians in some cases were able to defend themselves temporarily, they were soon overwhelmed by Turkish troops who would usually proceed to ravage the women and slaughter the men: in one area, the “Vice-Consul estimated that some twenty thousand Armenians had been killed, some 350 hamlets and villages destroyed” (61). The famed Claro Barton attempted to help the Armenians, and while she did make a substantial difference, the moment she left Armenia, the slaughters began yet again. It was noted by foreign observers that the Hamidian massacres was systematic in nature, and was unimaginably barbarous. The word “outrage” was used in accounts at the time, since it was a euphemism for “rape.” In one account, it was written that “A lot of women, variously estimated from 60 to 160 in number, were shut up in a church, and the soldiers were ‘let loose’ among them. Many were outraged to death, and the remainder dispatched with sword and bayonet. Children were placed in a row, one behind another, and a bullet fired down the line, apparently to see how many could be dispatched with one bullet. Infants and small children were piled one on the other and their heads struck off” (65). In another instance, “Men, women, and children were most barbarously slaughtered - unnamable outrages were perpetrated on all. The less terrible outrages were some of the following: bayoneting the men, and in this wounded condition either burying or burning them; outraging women and then dispatching them with bayonets or swords; ripping up pregnant women, impaling infants and children on the bayonet, or dispatching them with the sword; houses fired and the inmates driven back into the flames” (66).
America did provide help for the Armenians, as Balakian wrote that the term “starving Armenians” was probably coined by Clara Barton, and helped raise a large amount of funds for a good cause. Aside from Clara Barton, “There were dozens of others like Grace Kimball working all over the Armenian provinces of Anatolia to save lives and rehabilitate Armenian society” (92). Balakian then states that if “American philanthropic organizations like the Christian Herald, the American School in Smyrna, Outlook magazine, and the National Armenian Relief Committee not kept funds flowing into the hands of those tireless workers, the death tolls would have been even more staggering” (92). The Ottoman Bank Incident occurred during the Hamidian Massacres in August 1896, and it involved Armenians deciding to protest injustice in an unprecedented way - by holding a bank hostage. There were only a few of them, but their plan succeeded - they gained control of the bank. Their purposes were understandable and realistic - one of them mentioned that the deaths of 100,000 Armenians at that point in time gave them the ethical high ground to demand “‘freedom of worship, education, and the press,’” as well as the “‘restoration of usurped real property’” (105). After they successfully gained control of the bank, the Turkish crowds outside turned their anger on everyday Armenian civilians. The bank was successfully held for a total of 14 hours, and during that time the Ottoman Empire found itself pressured by international powers, who demanded fair treatment for the Armenians.
The Turks claimed they would treat the Armenians fairly, but when they surrendered, they were all slaughtered. International opinion further backed the Armenians upon learning that they stole no money from the bank, and had occupied it only for ideological reasons. One of the most disturbing things of the Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s was that the Turks who slaughtered Armenians viewed themselves as doing what Islam commanded. This is seen very well in how the softas (Islamic theological students) would chant for people to kill the Armenians, and their calls were almost always heard. The Burning Tigris clearly shows the dangers of fanaticism, or as Voltaire once said, “Someone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” In some incidents, the Turks would crucify children in front of their parents, telling them that that was what Jesus did for them. In other cases, they would gouge out of the eyes of Armenians before asking them where their god was (which was ironic, seeing that the Islamic god had no more empirical evidence than the Christian one). In yet another scenario, many Turks, after doing their daily prayers, would casually slaughter Armenians.
The Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s ended with the rise of the Young Turks, who overthrew Abdul Hamid II due to his despotism and inability to rule properly. Abdul Hammid II had finally reached his limit, as while he lived in utter decadence, the military was living destitute. Consequently, they didn't hesitate to overthrow him, and to ensure his own safety, he abdicated the throne. The Armenians thought that the Young Turks would be merciful towards them, but they were wrong. In the town of Adana in 1909, the Turks massacred the Armenians. The authorities indirectly killed the Armenians by allowing their direct murderers to go unpunished and unchecked as they rampaged. Despite the terrible bloodshed, a man named Doughty Wylie was given fifty soldiers and an officer, and tried to stop the slaughter. He couldn’t due to its sheer scope, but managed to save some. Ironically, when Wylie left his officer alone for a few minutes, he learned that he “‘joined in the attack on the nearest Armenian house and killed everybody in it’” (151). To depict the disappointment Armenians felt towards the Young Turks, a man named Siamanto published Bloody News from My Friend, a collection of thirteen poems which goes to great lengths to describe the slaughters of innocents: “In ‘The Dance’ Armenian women are burned to death while they are forced to circle-dance; ‘The charred bodies rolled and tumbled to their deaths.’ In ‘The Cross’ a mother is forced to watch the Turks nail her son to a cross: ‘We’ll do it to you like you did it to Christ’” (155).
When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in WW1 in an attempt to keep afloat, the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) was formed to manage the war. It was composed of Talaat Pasha (Minister of the Interior), Enver Pasha (Minister of War), and Jamaal Pasha. These three would be largely responsible for the Armenian Genocide, especially after the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. The Armenian Genocide was premeditated and carefully planned by the Ottoman Empire, as seen in how killing squads (known as “chetes”) were comprised of criminals who were offered their freedom in exchange for their help in exterminating Armenians. The highest levels of administrative power of the Ottoman Empire also set up concentration camps in the desert for Armenians, as well as coming up with a list of criteria to follow when it came to killing them. Authorities were given the privilege of “hissetmek,” or “sensing” - if they even suspect the Armenian population of disloyalty, they could have them executed immediately. Armenian men who were pressed into “military service” were in fact executed by the authorities who were nicknamed “Gendarme.” British officials who went to Turkey found a document which they nicknamed “The Ten Commandments” due to how it ordered the extermination of the Armenians. The list goes as follows: “arrest all who worked against Government … send them into the provinces such as Bagdad or Mosul, and wipe them out either on the road or there,” “Collect arms,” “Excite Moslem opinion by suitable and special means … provoke organised massacres as did the Russians did at Baku,” “Leave all executive to the people in provinces such as Erzeroum, Van, Mamuret ul Aziz, and Bitlis, and use Military disciplinary forces (i.e., Gendarmerie) ostensibly to stop massacres, while on the contrary in places as Adana, Sivas, Broussa, Ismidt and Smyrna actively help the Moslems with military force,” “Apply measures to exterminate all males under 50, priests and teachers, leave girls and children to be Islamized,” “Carry away the families of all who succeed in escaping and apply measures to cut them off from all connection with their native place,” “On the ground that Armenian officials may be spies, expel and drive them out absolutely from every Government department or post,” “Kill off in an appropriate manner all Armenians in the Army - this to be left to the military to do,” “All action to begin everywhere simultaneously, and thus leave no time for preparation of defensive measures,” and “Pay attention to the strictly confidential nature of these instructions, which may not go beyond two or three persons” (189-190).
Like the Nazis, the Turkish officials commonly sent Armenians to their deaths via cattle cars, and countless people died while being sent to concentration camps. Balakian describes that “In the end between a half and two-thirds of the more than two million Armenians living on their historic homeland in the Ottoman Empire were annihilated” by such policies (195). On April 24, 1915, the Turkish officials attempted to further weaken Armenian resistance by destroying their cultural leaders. That night, Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople and other areas were murdered, and thousands died. Those who weren’t slaughtered outright were sent to concentration camps. Before the massacre, Constantinople “had been the home to the richest and most influential Armenian community in the empire, and the center of Armenian intellectual and cultural life,” making “it the obvious target for the CUP to begin its formal eradication of Armenian cultural leaders” (212). One survivor testified that the chetes, in just one incident, “took the five Armenians to a nearby creek, undressed them, and folded up their clothing for themselves. Then ‘they began to stab them to death, slashing their arms and legs and genitals, and ripping apart their bodies.’ Only the thirty-three-year-old Daniel Varoujan tried to defend himself, and this provoked the killers further; they not only ‘tore out his entrails, but dug out the eyes of this great Armenian poet.’ The killers then divided the pillage among themselves, taking more than 450 Ottoman gold pieces that were sewn into the clothing of Dr. Chillingerian and Onnig Maghazadjian” (215).
One of the heroes of the Armenian Genocide was Ambassador Morgenthau, an American ambassador who was assigned to the Ottoman Empire. Balakian describes how he witnessed the atrocities and “worked tirelessly” from 1913-16 to save the Armenians. He reported the atrocities to Washington, but America decided not to intervene, as at the time (and even today to some extent) it followed the concept of isolationism. It should also be recognized that the heroes were also composed of nurses, humanitarians, and volunteers who tried to help the Armenians. In one incident, a man named Davis worked himself to the point of collapse to save the Armenians. A Turkish official, Reshid Bey, told him that he would be willing to stop the deportations of Armenians if he would say that the Armenians brought the genocide on themselves, but “Revolted by these tactics, Davis called his bluff and refused to budge. ‘I had to take the responsibility,’ he later wrote ‘of refusing to give him the statement he sought and I am sure the result is no worse than it would have been if I had done as he asked’” (240). Turkey’s shamelessness in its slaughter of the Armenians was also seen in Talaat Pasha, the main person responsible for planning the genocide, who asked an American public servant to give him the life insurance of Armenians who were massacred, on the grounds that they didn't need it anymore. The public servant was so enraged that he wouldn’t even answer his question.
Many areas of nature were defiled by the genocide, as Davis stated that when he went to Lake Goeljuk, he saw ten thousand corpses. He described how the bodies were everywhere, and “‘That which took place around beautiful Lake Goeljik in the summer of 1915 is almost inconceivable,’” as “‘Thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated’” by “‘the fiendish purposes of the Turks in their attempt to exterminate the Armenian population’” (247). Thousands of Armenians were sent into concentration camps in the desert, where they would be deprived of shade and water. Many died due to malnutrition and dehydration, while others were killed by the guards for sport. It was common for Turkish guards to enjoy murdering innocents, as they saw it as sport to ride on horseback and to throw people (preferably young women) onto upturned swords. If she failed to land on one, the process would be repeated until she finally died. The body would then be thrown into the Tigris River, hence the name of the book. The Turkish officials also went to great lengths to dissuade humanitarians from giving aid, though they did fail in that regard to a large extent. For instance, when Talaat Pasha asked Morgenthau why he was helping Chrstians, seeing that he was a Jew, Morgenthau responded: “‘You don’t seem to realize that I am not here as a Jew but as American Ambassador. My country contains something more than 97,000,000 Christians and something less than 3,000,000 Jews. So, at least in my ambassadorial capacity, I am 97 per cent Christian. But after all, that is not the point. I do not appeal to you in the name of any race or any religion, but merely as a human being … The way you are treating the Armenians … puts you in the class of backward, reactionary peoples’” (274). In another incident, Morgenthau tried to get Talaat Pasha to stop massacring Armenians due to them being large taxpayers, but he still refused to relent. Morgenthau then told him that he was making a terrible mistake, but Talaat Pasha responded: “‘Yes, we may make mistakes,’” but “‘we never regret’” (275). He then boasted to Morgenthau that “‘I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in thirty years!’” (275).
When it came to America’s possible armed intrusion into the Ottoman Empire to protect the Armenians, it was halted by the isolationist attitude at the time, which was encapsulated in the president, Woodrow Wilson. He forbade America from entering WW1, and didn't declare war on the Ottoman Empire due to the missionaries' worldly interests: “the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) realized early on that war with Turkey would be disastrous for its interests. Although some of ABCFM’s property in Turkey had been confiscated and destroyed during the massacres, a formal declaration of war would mean the complete seizure of missionary properties and perhaps expulsion from the Ottoman Empire” (305). Balakian elaborated on this even further, as he said that Wilson “embraced what Theodore Roosevelt called the pure hypocrisy of keeping the United States out of war with Turkey, in part, to protect the missionary interests in the Ottoman Empire, especially their vast real estate holdings, which were then worth about $123 million” (306). When films documenting the Armenian Genocide were created, such as Ravished Armenia, they sometimes received negative reviews by people who described them as being “‘cheap sensationalism,’” despite the fact that the graphic actions committed in them were actually toned-down compared to what actually happened (315). The film was “controversial enough to be banned in Pennsylvania, until the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia interceded” (316).
When WW1 ended, the Ottoman Empire was largely finished, but even when the empire was crumbling, they continued to blame and slaughter the Armenians. Interestingly, when the Russians briefly had control of northeast Turkey, “they put the Armenians in administrative positions in Van, Erzurum, Bitlis, and Trebizond,” but when the Ottoman Empire attempted to regain land, they were abandoned (320). It was also worth noting that “It was on the Transcaucasian-Turkish front during World War 1 in 1917-18 that the Turks invaded Transcaucasian Armenian areas once again, massacring Armenian civilians, including women and children, and laying waste to towns and villages,” causing Armenians who had survived genocide to assault “civilian populations in Turkish towns and villages, massacring civilians and doing as much damage as they could” (320). Consequently, the Turkish government, when questioned about the Armenian Genocide, continues to say that they deserved it, for they massacred Turkish civilians (though there really isn’t much of a comparison to be made, for the death tolls were incomparable, not to mention that the Turks started it). The Brest-Litovsk Treaty, made between the Soviet Union and the Central Powers, gave the Armenians a choice: Turkey or the Soviet Union. Although Armenia had formed their own democratic nation, they chose the Soviet Union, a major dictatorship, for they knew that the Turks wouldn’t stop slaughtering them due to their fanaticism. Woodrow Wilson helped the Armenians create their own nation, as he was a major influence when it came to dictating the boundary lines. Not long after WW1, Armenia became part of the USSR, causing it to disappear from the international stage for decades.
Like the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, the Constantinople Trials was supposed to punish war criminals, but it largely failed due to the continued fanaticism of the Turks, not to mention that they had oil, which made nations wary of enraging them. In just one case, District Governor Mehmed Kemal was sentenced to death for being responsible for cruelly slaughtering tens of thousands of people, going so far as to demonstrate to the executioners that “it would be more effective if they slashed their victims’ throats diagonally instead of horizontally” (336). Kemal still felt no remorse at his trial, defending himself on the grounds that he had improved the Ottoman Empire by following orders. The court, seeing his obvious guilt, sentenced him to death by hanging, causing “angry protests, especially among the new nationalists of Mustafa Kemal’s movement. The tribunal officials were so anxious about the Kemalist response that they scheduled the hanging for the afternoon … Kemal Bey was hanged on April 10, and the funeral that followed created mayhem as hundreds of CUP members with wreaths reading ‘to the innocent victim of the nation,’ and the softas rallied vowing to destroy the English” (337). Unfortunately, many of those who committed war crimes were released to appease Turkish anger, as seen in how “In August 21, the British released forty-three Turkish prisoners who were accused of perpetrating the Armenian massacres” (344). Furthermore, the Constantinople Trials “was a major failure,” seeing how “none of the convicted served out their prison sentences, and the majority of the perpetrators escaped punishment after the British-Turkish prisoner exchange deal” (344-5).
Balakian then states that due to the failure of the Constantinople Trials to deal with the rabid nationalism and religious fanaticism of the Ottoman Empire, survivors took it upon themselves to kill those responsible for the genocide. For instance, “In the early 1920s Armenians assassinated some of the leading CUP members. Armenian avengers killed Said Halim, the former grand vizier, in Rome in 1921 and also Behaeddin Shakir in Berlin in 1922. Jemal Pasha was killed by Armenians in Tiflis in July 1922. Enver Pasha died at Bukhara in August 1922 during a battle led by an Armenian Bolshevik officer” (345). Balakian then states that many Young Turks escaped to Germany, but that didn't stop Armenians from avenging their people. Talaat Pasha, “who had fled to Germany and was living incognito in Berlin,” was assassinated by a survivor of the genocide, Soghomon Tehlirian, twenty four years old at the time, on March 14, 1921. Tehlirian “had witnessed the rape of his sisters, the beheading of his brother, and the murder of his parents on a death march in Erzurum in 1915, had been left for dead in a pile of corpses and subsequently escaped,” and he gave Talaat what he deserved by shooting him in public after telling him “‘This is to avenge the death of my family’” (345). When he was put on trial in Berlin for the murder, he was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity in a much-celebrated case.
Turkey continues to deny the Armenian Genocide. It has largely gotten away with this terrible misdeed thanks to its large natural oil reserves. Areas like America wanted special privileges when it came to access the oil, so they agreed to Turkish demands, which included not recognizing the genocide. The Turks as a people have been reported to feel no sympathy for the Armenians, many claiming that the entire action was a fabrication (despite some witnessing and participating in it themselves - a clear instance of doublethink). The Turkish government sank so low in 1998 as to “successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress against passing a bill commemorating the seventieth and, later, the seventy-fifth anniversaries of the Armenian Genocide,” despite the fact that the bill was factual (385). During the Cold War, Turkey was viewed as an ally, which caused America to refuse to recognize the genocide. In 1989, “when Senate minority leader Bob Dole proposed a bill to commemorate the seventy-fifth annivesary of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey enlisted Senator Robert Byrd to fight on behalf of the Turkish denial. Again intellectual debate was turned into a gimmick, and the bill lost by twelve votes. No such scenario would ever unfold against a Holocaust commemorative bill” (387). Fortunately, America did improve somewhat over time, as in 2000 the House subcommittee passed a bill recognizing the Armenian Genocide by a large majority despite “intense Turkish government harassment” (388). People like Elie Wiesel wrote to Congress, asking them to pass the resolution, as denying a major historical event is both immoral and an act of folly. However, the US government caved in, as “within hours of the subcommittee vote, Ankara warned the United States that it would close its air bases to U.S. planes, including those near the Iraqi border, and cancel weapons contracts with the United States … Turkey had communicated that it could not guarantee the safety of American citizens in Turkey in light of unforeseen violence” (389). The president then ordered that the bill be canceled, and his orders were followed - “Once again the attempt to commemorate the century’s first genocide had been effectively censored by a foreign government, and in this case, a foreign government with a deeply disturbing human rights record” (389).
A glimmer of hope when it came to recognition of the genocide came with the French, for the French passed the Armenian Genocide resolution despite the fanatical attempts of the Turkish government to bully them into submission. The French, described by Balakian, “had made one thing clear: ethics and international diplomacy could coexist. The governments of the world, like individuals at the scene of a crime, are bystanders with ethical roles to play, roles that make a difference. The perpetrator should not be privileged but rather ostracized until its policy changes” (390). There were other instances of speaking truth to power, as well - in 1987, the European Parliament refused Turkey’s application to become part of the European Community, and in May 1996 the U.S. House of Representatives decreased the amount of aid to be given to Turkey because of their ridiculous behavior. Perhaps the current state of Turkey can be seen with Nazim Himket, “Turkey’s greatest modern poet,” who wrote in his poem “Evening Walk” that “The Armenian citizen has not forgiven the slaughter of his father in the Kurdish mountains. But he loves you, because you also won’t forgive those who blackened the name of the Turkish people” (391).
Personal thoughts:
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response is a fantastic, powerful, scholarly, and informative look at the 20th century’s first genocide. It was written with many specific examples and stories, which gave life to otherwise meaningless numbers. Balakian’s use of dialogue from a variety of figures in his book clearly demonstrated that humans, as a whole, are capable of many kinds of behavior, for good or for ill. The Burning Tigris also speaks of the Armenian Genocide on a very large scale, as it speaks of the tensions beforehand, the situation of Armenia, international relations, the motivations behind the genocide, how the murders was carried out, and how the genocide was dealt with. The book is very graphic, as it portrays the horrors which humans can do to each other, but it is necessary, for an understanding of Turkey, Armenia, and Europe (especially during WWII) implies an understanding of the Armenian Genocide. During WWII, when Hitler was asked for the reason as to why he wasn’t worried of being condemned internationally, he responded that no one would do anything, as “Our strength lies in our intensive attacks and our barbarity. After all, who today remembers the genocide of the Armenians?” I highly recommend The Burning Tigris to anyone interested in Turkey, Armenia, the nature of foreign relations, politics, the importance of history, WW1, and human nature.
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