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Adana Massacre
The Adana
Massacre occurred in Adana
Province, in the Ottoman Empire, in
April 1909. A religious-ethnic clash
in the city of
Adana
amidst governmental upheaval
resulted in a series of
anti-Armenian pogroms throughout the
district. Reports estimated that the
massacres in Adana Province resulted
in 15,000 to 30,000 deaths.
Turkish and Armenian revolutionary
groups had worked together to secure
the restoration of constitutional
rule, in 1908. On 31 March (or 13
April, by the Western calendar) a
military revolt directed against the
Committee of Union and Progress
seized Istanbul. While the revolt
lasted only ten days, it
precipitated a massacre of Armenians
in the province of Adana that lasted
over a month.
The massacres were rooted in
political, economic, and religious
differences. The Armenian population
of Adana was "richest and most
prosperous", and the violence
included the destruction of
"tractors and other kinds of
mechanized equipment." The
Christian-minority Armenians had
also openly supported the coup
against Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which
had deprived the Islamic head of
state of power. The awakening of
Turkish nationalism, and the
perception of the Armenians as a
separatist, European-controlled
entity, also contributed to the
violence.
In 1908, the Young Turk government
came to power in a bloodless
revolution. Within a year, Turkey's
Armenian population, empowered by
the dismissal of Abdul Hamid II,
began organizing politically in
support of the new government, which
promised to place them on equal
legal footing with their Muslim
counterparts.
Having long endured so-called Dhimmi
status, and having suffered the
brutality and oppression of Hamidian
leadership since 1876, the Armenian
minority in Cilicia perceived the
nascent Young Turk government as a
godsend. Christians now being
granted the rights to arm themselves
and form politically significant
groups, it was not long before Abdul
Hamid loyalists, themselves
acculturated into the system that
had perpetrated the Hamidian
massacres of the 1890s, came to view
the empowerment of the Christian
minority as coming at their expense.
The Countercoup of March 1909
wrested control of the government
out of the hands of the secularist
Young Turks, and Abdul Hamid II
briefly recovered his dictatorial
powers. Appealing to the reactionary
Muslim population with populist
rhetoric calling for the
re-institution of Islamic law under
the banner of a pan-Islamic
caliphate, the Sultan mobilized
popular support against the Young
Turks by identifying himself with
the historically Islamic character
of the state.
According to one source, when news
of a mutiny in Istanbul arrived in
Adana, speculation circulated among
the Muslim population of an imminent
Armenian insurrection. By April 14
the Armenian quarter was attacked by
a mob, and many thousands of
Armenians were killed in the ensuing
weeks.
Other reports emphasize that a
"skirmish between Armenians and
Turks on April 13 set off a riot
that resulted in the pillaging of
the bazaars and attacks upon the
Armenian quarters." Two days later,
more than 2,000 Armenians had been
killed as a result. The outbreaks
spread throughout the district and
by the end of the month as many as
30,000 Armenians were reported
killed
At least one western historian has
suggested that the origins of the
Adana Massacre lie in an Armenian
revolt. Erickson has suggested that
the April 14 massacre was a product
of an Armenian "uprising", rather
than the countercoup.
In those difficult times for the
Ottoman Empire and its citizenry,
the Armenians were also believed to
be a target owing to their relative
wealth, and their quarrels with
imperial taxation.
The tension
erupted into riots on April 1, 1909,
which soon escalated into organized
violence against the Armenian
population of
Adana
and in several surrounding cities.
By April 18,
over 1,000 people were reported dead
at Adana alone, with additional
unknown casualties in Tarsus and
Alexandretta.
Thousands of refugees filled the
American embassy in Alexandretta,
and a British warship was dispatched
to its shores; three French warships
were dispatched to
Mersin,
where the situation was "desperate",
and many Western consulates were
besieged by Armenian refugees. The
Ottoman military was struggling to
subdue the violence.
Similar
violence consumed
Marash
and
Hadjin,
and the estimates of the death toll
soon grew to exceed 5,000. The
British cruiser Diana was hoped to
provide a "tranquilizing" effect at
the port of Alexandretta, where
violence still raged. Reports
surfaced that imperial "authorities
are either indifferent or conniving
in the slaughter."
Some order was restored by April 20,
as the disturbance in Mersina had
abated, and the British cruiser
Swiftsure was able to deliver
"provisions and medicines intended
for Adana". A "threatening" report
from Hadjin indicated that
well-armed Armenians were held up in
the town, "beleaguered by Moslem
tribesmen who are only awaiting
sufficient numerical strength to
rush the improvised defenses erected
by the Armenians." 8,000 refugees
filled the missions of Tarsus, where
order had been restored under
martial law, the dead numbering
approximately 50.
 An
April 22 message from an American
missionary in Hadjin indicated that
the town was taking fire
intermittently, that surrounding
Armenian properties had been burned,
and that siege was inevitable. The
entirety of the Armenian population
of Kırıkhan was reported to have
been "slaughtered"; the Armenian
village of Deurtyul was burning and
surrounded; additional bloodshed
flared up in Tarsus; massacres were
reported in Antioch, and rioting in
Birejik. At least one report praised
the "Turkish Government officials at
Mersina" for doing "everything
possible to check the trouble",
though "the result of their efforts
has been very limited". As Ottoman
authorities worked to contain
violence directed at the Christian
minorities of the Empire, the
Armenian population "look(ed) to the
Young Turks for future protection."
An American missionary at Adana
during the period, Reverend Herbert
Adams Gibbons of Hartford, described
the scene in the days leading up to
the 27th of April:
Adana is in a pitiable condition.
The town has been pillaged and
destroyed... It is impossible to
estimate the number of killed. The
corpses lie scattered through the
streets. Friday, when I went out, I
had to pick my way between the dead
to avoid stepping on them. Saturday
morning I counted a dozen cartloads
of Armenian bodies in one-half hour
being carried to the river and
thrown into the water. In the
Turkish cemeteries, graves are being
dug wholesale.
On Friday afternoon 250 so-called
Turkish reserves, without officers,
seized a train at Adana and
compelled the engineer to convey
them to Tarsus, where they took part
in the complete destruction of the
Armenian quarter of that town, which
is the best part of Tarsus. Their
work of looting was thorough and
rapid.
The Ottoman government sent in the
Army to keep peace, but it was
alleged to have either tolerated the
violence or participated in it. A
newspaper report of 3 May 1909
indicated that Ottoman soldiery had
arrived, but did not seem intent
upon effecting a peace:
 Adana
is terrorized by 4,000 soldiers, who
are looting, shooting, and burning.
No respect is paid to foreign
properties. Both French schools have
been destroyed, and it is feared
that the American school,
commercial, and missionary interests
in Adana are totally ruined.
The new Governor has not as yet
inspired confidence. There is reason
to believe that the authorities
still intend to permit the
extermination of all Christians.
Grand
Vizier
Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha
indicated that the massacre was a
"political, not a religious
question... Before the Armenian
political committees began to
organize in
Asia Minor
there was peace. I will leave you to
judge the cause of the bloodshed."
While conceding that his
predecessor,
Abdul Hamid II,
had ordered the "extermination of
the Armenians", he did articulate
his confidence that "there will
never be another massacre."
In July 1909,
the
Young Turk
government announced the trials of
various government and military
officials, for "being implicated in
the Armenian massacres". In the
ensuing courts-marshal, 124 Muslims
and seven Armenians were executed
for their involvement in the
violence.
In response to
the counterrevolution and the
Armenian massacres in Adana, the CUP
and
Dashnak
concluded an agreement in September
1909 whereby they promised to "work
together for progress, the
Constitution, and unity." Both
parties declared that rumor of
Armenian efforts toward independence
were false. The Unionists took care
to have an Armenian minister present
in the governments formed after 6
August 1909, which could also be
interpreted as an attempt to
demonstrate the CUP's distance from
the Adana events.
The government of
Turkey, as well as some Turkish
writers and nationalists, dispute
this version of history, contending
that the events of April 1909 were
in fact an Armenian "rampage of
pillaging and death" targeting the
Muslim majority that "ended up with
about 17,000 Armenian and 1,850
Turkish deaths."
Ottoman authorities
denied responsibility in the
shooting deaths of two American
missionaries in the city of Adana,
indicating instead that "the
Armenians" killed Protestant
missionaries D.M. Rogers and Henry
Maurer while they "were helping to
put out a fire in the house of a
Turkish widow." The Ottoman account
of the killings was later
contradicted by an eyewitness,
American priest Stephen Trowbridge
of Brooklyn. Trowbridge indicated
that the men were killed by
"Moslems" as they attempted to
extinguish a fire threatening to
subsume their mission.
The missionaries
found themselves pinned down in
their school amidst the pogrom.
According to Elizabeth S. Webb, a
missionary attached to the school,
"It was a terrible situation, women
and girls practically alone in the
building, a murderous bloodthirsty
mob outside, with knife and bullet
for the Armenians and the torch for
their homes."
Mr. Trowbridge
returned from the school to say that
the only hope for safety to any
Americans seemed to be to return to
the school, staying there alone,
separated from the Armenians. He
declared that we were powerless to
save the Armenians. It seems that
after we left the school, Miss
Wallace, Mr. Chambers, and a young
Armenian preacher attempted to cross
the street from Miss Wallace's to
the school. Just at this time a mob
rushed around the corner. The
infuriated Turks recognized the
preacher as an Armenian, and
although Mr. Chambers threw his arms
about him and did all in his power
to save the man's life, they shot
him dead. Not a single Armenian
would they leave alive, the
assassins shouted, as Mr. Chambers
dragged the murdered preacher into
the building.
The British Consul,
Charles Hotham Montagu
Doughty-Wylie, is recorded in many
sources as having worked strenuously
to stop the massacres, at great
personal risk. He was shot in the
arm during the conflagration.
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