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 IX

THE ARMENIAN DEPORTATIONS OF 1915

ENVER AND THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH—WHERE THE ARMENIANS LIVED—AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AND THE ARMENIANS—RUSSIA AND THE ARMENIANS—GREAT BRITAIN JOINS RUSSIA IN THE 1907 TREATY—ENVER'S DEMAND FOR BRITISH ADMINISTRATORS IN THE EASTERN PROVINCES—THE WAR AND THE ARMENIAN DEPORTATIONS.

When the Enver Government entered the war, Enver Pasha himself warned the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople against any attempt to turn the war to Armenian advantage. This contact introduces us into the most intimate of Ottoman relationships and one which can not be adequately surveyed unless we divest our minds of the Capitulations and of that attitude toward the Ottoman Government to which they gave birth.

In themselves, the Capitulations dated back to pre-Ottoman days when foreigners were accustomed to being governed under their own laws and usages wherever they happened to live. In the golden days of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultans confirmed them and as Ottoman prestige declined, an increasing number of Capitulatory rights grew up outside the specific rights originally stipulated in the imperial firmans. In general, it may be said of them that