"Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," one of the best known personal accounts of the Armenian Genocide, has been republished by the Gomidas Institute. The new edition features an introduction by Ara Sarafian. 
"This important and oft-cited work has been out of print for some time now," Sarafian noted. "April 24, 2000, seemed an opportune moment to make it available once again to the reading public." 
Henry Morgenthau was the United States ambassador in Constantinople at the time of the Genocide. He had frequent encounters with the top government officials who organized the Genocide. At the same time, he received detailed reports from American consular officials posted throughout the Ottoman Empire. 
His memoir, first published in 1918, is thus an authoritative account of the destruction of the Armenian population in historic Armenia. It is cited in the works of such Genocide specialists as Vahakn Dadrian, Ronald Grigor Suny, and Richard Hovannisian. 
Morgenthau had been a successful lawyer and real estate developer in New York prior to his appointment as ambassador in 1913. He was a conscientious and hard-working diplomat. In 1915, he began receiving eyewitness reports about the destruction of Armenians all over the empire. Concerned, he confronted Ottoman leaders in Constantinople. 
Sarafian reports that "by mid-July 1915 Morgenthau had concluded that a campaign of race extermination was taking place. In a letter now in the National Archives, he wrote, 'Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.'" 
After the United States entered World War I and severed diplomatic relations with Ottoman Turkey-the U.S. did not declare war on the Ottoman Empire-Morgenthau was free to write his memoirs. "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" was written in a popular style and was based on the ambassador's diaries, other private papers, and diplomatic reports from 1914-16. The memoir was first serialized in "World's Work" and then published as a book in 1918. The work was a damning indictment of Ottoman leaders for their entry into World War I and the genocide of Armenians. 
Morgenthau narrates the piecemeal manner in which the Ottoman Turks slid into World War I. One of the key episodes in this development was the passage of two German cruisers, the "Breslau" and the "Goeben," into the Bosphorus in August 1914. These ships (with their crews) were technically transferred to the Ottoman navy and used in the Ottoman attack on Russia. He gives fascinating insights into the subsequent period, with the destruction of the Ottoman navy, the Allied landings at Gallipoli, and the threat to Constantinople. He relates how, at one point, the Ottoman government even prepared to abandon its capital and move to Asia Minor. However, the most disturbing chapters in "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" are those dealing with the genocide of Armenians. 
Morgenthau discloses his conversations with Ottoman leaders, such as Talaat Pasha (Minister of Interior), Enver Pasha (Minister of War), and Hans Wangenheim (German Ambassador). He relates how once Talaat Pasha even admitted in private, "No Armenian can be our friend after what we have done to them." 
On another occasion Talaat Pasha asked for a list of Armenian insurance-policy holders in American life insurance companies so that the Ottoman government could cash in their policies. Talaat reassured the American ambassador that the Armenians in question were "practically all dead" and had no heirs to collect the money. 
Sarafian notes that "such disclosures can be corroborated as a matter of record. The Ottoman government did approach foreign insurance companies and requested such lists of Armenian policy holders-and these were for communities which were destroyed the previous summer." 
Perhaps because of his own Jewish background, Henry Morgenthau was particularly sensitive to the plight of Armenians. As he related in a private letter to his son, Henry Morgenthau Jr., Ottoman Armenians were like the people of Israel in captivity, though they did not have a Moses to lead them out of their predicament. 
Morgenthau's sympathy for Armenians was very real and did not wane. "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" remains as powerful today as it was 82 years ago when it was first published.

Ambassador Morgenthau's Story

History

Morgenthau, Henry

Sarafian, Ara

Asia

Taderon Pr

Used. Very Good conditions. May have soft reading marks and name of the previous owner.

Turkish Atrocities : Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915-1917 (Armenian Genocide Documentation Series)

Religion & Spirituality

Gomidas Inst

The diary of a child in the Armenian Genocide. An unusual narrative, it descibes the fate of thousands of Armenians who were sent not to Der Zor in 1915, but to the wastelands south of Aleppo, as far as Maan and Es Salt in Jordan.

To the Desert: Pages from My Diary (Armenian Genocide Documentation)

Dadrian, Vahram

Tatrean, Vahram

Europe

This is the smoking gun linking Talaat Pasha, the Ottoman Minister of Interior and later Grand Vizier, to the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The report was prepared for Talaat Pasha and meant for his private use. In all likelihood, it would have been destroyed, were it not for the fact that Talaat was assassinated in Berlin 1921, and his widow kept and then gave the report to a Turkish historian who eventually published it. According to Talaat's figures over 1,150,000 Armenians disappeared in the Ottoman Empire between 1915-1917. This number includes well over 100,000 Armenians who fled from the Ottoman Empire during WWI, but it does not include tens of thousands of Armenian women and children who were forcefully Islamized and absorbed into Muslim families. Talaat Pasha's Report on the Armenian Genocide also includes additional materials from his private papers showing the systematic confiscation of over 40,000 Armenian properties, surely an undercount, as "abandoned" properties confiscated by the Ottoman State cir. 1917. These records add substance to the testimonies of survivors of the Armenian Genocide and onlooker, including foreign missionaries and consular representative in the interior of Ottoman Turkey, most notably United States officials in Trebizond, Harpoot (Elazig), Mersin, Aleppo and Damascus.Much of the statistical information in Talaat's papers have been turned into colour maps for the perusal of readers.

Talaat Pasha's Report on the Armenian Genocide [Expanded Edition]

Middle East

Gomidas Institute Books

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