Talaat Pasha, Turkish Minister of the Interior, from the memoir 'Ambassador Morgenthau's Story' by Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916.
Talaat Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier of TurkeyIn 1914, when the war broke out, Talaat was Minister of the Interior and the most influential leader in the Committee of Union and Progress, the secret organization which controlled the Turkish Empire. A few years ago Talaat was a letter-carrier, and afterward a telegraph operator in Adrianople. His talents are those of a great political boss. He represented Turkey in the peace negotiations with Russia and his signature appears on the Brest-Litovsk treaty.
"From the documents that do exist, we know that the official government deportation decision was made on 27 May 1915 and published in Takvîm Vekâyi, the official government gazette, on 1 June 1915 as the 'temporary law on military measures against opponents of government policy in time of war.' Before this temporary law, other documents confirm the deportation decision, such as two memoranda from the General Staff to the Interior Ministry dated 2 and 26 May; and an inquiry from the Interior Ministry to the cabinet dated 26 May 1915 regarding the need for a temporary law. Again on 30 May, the cabinet passed a regulation regarding the rules of deportation that was subsequently published. These official documents give no sense of the course of events. As we have seen, the expulsions had begun long before the date on which the decrees came into force (1 June)."
The attacks by the Government of Turkey on its Armenian citizens had begun by April 15, 1915 around Lake Van, in the Armenian region of eastern Turkey, when as many as 24,000 Armenian men were murdered in three days. On April 20, Turkish troops began a siege of Van which was successfully defended by the Armenians until Russian troops arrived to lift the siege. On April 24, the government began rounding up Armenian intellectuals and political, religious, and business leaders, and began the deportation of the Armenian population to the Syrian dessert. Trying to defend the Armenians, American Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau spoke to Government leaders including War Minister Enver Pasha and Interior Minister Talaat Pasha. He found Talaat the most implacable of the leaders against the Armenians.
A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility by Taner Akçam, pp. 194, 195, copyright © 2006 by Taner Akçam, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 2006
Armenia, genocide, Armenian genocide, 1915-06-01, 1915, June
