//Ed. note: Eyüb Sabri Bey's arrest is detailed
and he mentions Ali Cenani Bey, who was said
to be a key figure in the 'evacuations' of
Armenians from Antep in 1915-1916.//
Fronts during the Turkish War of Independence, 1920
Enver Paşa Railed Against Missionaries click here
for a related TNT report.
Taşcızâde Abdullah Efendi was one who could not bear
the situation.
He discussed the state of
affairs with notables like Kethüdâzâde
Hüseyin Cemil Bey, Hâfız Şahin Efendi,
currently (1922) a member
of the assembly, Kürd hacı Osman Ağa, Mamat Ağazâde
Ali Efendi
and others. The idea of
ridding Antep of the enemy was considered
and a meeting to rally the populace
was held in the home of Ağazâde
Ali Ağa. Unfortunately, this came to nothing. The English officials
became more aggressive
and our governor more helpless and
accommodating.
23 January 1919, Thursday
In the morning, I left my house at nine o’clock and
went to the
government building, unaware of anything. The governor was in earlier
than usual so I
stopped by his office and the accountant Besim Bey joined
us. Just then, the sound of an automobile in
front of the building could be
heard. We
looked out the window and saw two automobiles, in one of
which was the English
detachment commander Major Milis and the
American College Principal
Merrill. They came into the governor’s
office
and I and Besim Bey went to our own offices.
About ten minutes later, the governor’s office boy
Ahmet came to me
and said “the governor wants to see you.” I was startled but had no
choice but to
go. The foreigners were there and police
chief Fevzi
Efendi had come, as well. The governor told me that I and Besim Bey
would be going to the American College because the General wanted
us there,
along with foundations official Hakkı Efendi, Taşcızâde
Abdullah Efendi and
Hüseyin Cemil Bey. The latter three had
not been
picked up yet but the governor ordered Fevzi Efendi to bring them.
Hüseyin Cemil Bey was the son of Antep notable
Kethüdâzâde İbrahim
Efendi and a very bright, well-educated young man. He had become ill
prior to the ‘Mütareke’and
had come to Antep for a change of climate
and recuperation. After the English came to Antep, Hüseyin
Cemil Bey
became concerned about the local situation and the Armenian
mischief-
making so he began publishing the newspaper “Antep Haberleri”. As
for Taşcızâde Abdullah Efendi, he was a
preacher in a mosque in Antep,
55-years-old and known for his wisdom and
patriotism.
Foundations official Hakkı Efendi was a native of
Antep and a graduate
of the law school.
Two months before the ‘Mütareke’, he was appointed
to the foundations
job. The reason I am mentioning their
names now is
to make a record of the
fact that none of them had any involvement in
the Armenian problem, as
attributed by the English.
In any event, at that moment Abdullah Efendi* joined
us and without
waiting for the other two, we all followed the governor down the
stairs
to the automobiles. Governor
Celâl Bey and Major Milis and American
College Principal Merrill got into one
of the automobiles and I, together
with Besim Bey and Abdullah Efendi, got into
the other one, with an
English soldier.
*Abdullah Efendi, died as the result of
the continuous and unbearable
oppression and torture of captivity. May he rest in peace.
Quite a crowd had gathered in front of the
government building to see
what was happening.
The people were bewildered at the sight of the
English taking us away,
but also because the Ottoman governor was in
league with them.
We went directly to the English headquarters and the
governor was
invited to meet with the General, while we waited next to a
bayonet-
wielding English soldier. Besim
Bey was anxious about what was
happening, but Abdullah Efendi calmly walked
about with his arms
behind his back, mumbling.
After half an hour, Major Milis came out
in a rush and called for Besim
Bey with a hand gesture. Five minutes
after meeting with the General, a white-faced Besim Bey returned to us.
I asked him what had happened and he replied
“Supposedly I destroyed
Armenian homes, was involved in many crimes related to
their
transport and became rich with the
Armenians’ money. I’m a murderer,
they
say. That is what the General is saying.”
I tried to soothe his nerves. He had no involvement in such things,
being one who always kept to himself. But
whomever the Armenians
fingered, the English arrested. I was summoned next. General
McAndrew, in his official uniform, gestured
with his hand for me to sit
down next to the governor. The elderly General had a piece of paper
in
his hand and looked back and forth at it and me in a very unpleasant
manner. He spoke in English to the
Principal Merrill, who had a black
notebook in his hand. After they spoke for a while, an individual
wearing a captain’s uniform on the General’s left, with a mustache and
about
35-years-old, said to me “You were here during the Armenian
migration and you
sent them away. These poor souls’ lives and
possessions were attacked along the
way. You are to blame and yet
you are
here still causing trouble. For them you are a murderer. Until
there is a peace agreement, you will
stay in a place far away.”
I, of course, rejected these words but even though I
said that there were
no attacks on either the Armenians lives or belongings
when they left
Antep to go elsewhere, and that these were lies and slander, my
words
were wasted, serving only to enrage an enemy of the Turks. The
General said something in English again
and the interpreter said to me
“The Müşir (Field Marshal) has proof about you
in this regard. There
are both Christian
and Moslem witnesses. He doesn’t want to hear any
more from you.”
Of course, I left.
I was surprised and sad that they said there were
Moslems who had spoken
against me, but I didn’t believe it. The
governor was in the room and heard everything, but said nothing,
never even
lifting his head. He gave me a glance
out of the corner of
his eye when he left the building, as if to express his
sadness for me,
but I knew that wasn’t true because I was sure he was the one
who
told the General that there were Moslem witnesses who had spoken
against
me.
Shortly after the English came to Antep, I went to
see the governor
about a matter. At the
time, Antep Mayor Şeyh Mustafa Efendi was
with the governor and among the
things the governor ordered him to do
was to bring him all the documents
regarding communications given to
the commission by the former governor, Ahmet (Faik
Erner) Bey, about
the Armenians’ forced migration in Ahmet’s time. Despite the Mayor
saying that there were no
such documents from Ahmet’s time and that
their existence was made-up, the
governor insisted that there were such
documents and that they must be brought
to him.
In addition, based on information we received while
Hüseyin Cemil Bey
was under arrest in Aleppo, the governor knew that the
English would be
coming to Antep beforehand so he looked into the documents
from his
predecessors’ times. Knowing
that the English would take a few people
into custody, one of whom would be
Hüseyin Cemil Bey, twenty days
before the incident he told Cemil Bey’s uncle
Seyyafzâde Abdi Efendi
about it and even summoned Hüseyin Cemil Bey and
personally told
him to leave Antep. From
the start, Governor Celâl Bey knew what the
English would do and what kind of
calamaties would ensue, yet, to
maintain
his ties with the English, he decided to sacrifice a few of us.
After me, foundations official Hakkı Bey and Hüseyin
Cemil Bey were
brought in to see the General, who questioned them intensely
about
parliamentarian Ali Cenani Bey. At
the time, Ali Cenani Bey was
supposedly in Istanbul but the thinking was that
he was secretly in Antep
and he was being sought both while we were in Antep
and during our
transport to Aleppo. We
were asked about a militia organization
established in Antep in the aftermath
of the ‘Mütareke’ and we
understood that the Armenians in Antep and the
American College
officials were incensed about this militia and Ali Cenani
Bey. In fact,
Ali Cenani Bey was in
Antep at that time and if he had been captured
there was no doubt that we would
all suffer even more degradation and
torture.
Ali Cenani Bey
NOTE:
“Ali Cenani Bey, born into an
aristocratic Istanbul family,
settled in Antep in 1891 and was elected into the
Ottoman Parliament
in 1908, representing Aleppo. The same year he was elected as head
of the
Antep CUP and Taşçızâde Abdullah Efendi became his deputy.
As the leader of the CUP in Antep, he was
involved in the deportations
of the Armenian population during World War
I. Even though Cenani
played a leading
role in the deportations of Armenians, he was tolerant
of requests for exemptions of deportations of
some wealthy Armenians,
which prompted complaints from Ahmet Faik Erner, the
district chief of
Antep at the time. In
1915, Cenani focused on the deportations of the
elite of the protestant
Armenians, eventually taking many of their
possessions. Cenani and Ahmet Faik Erner were accused of
being
involved in the deportation of 25,000 Armenians from Antep. During
the Turkish War of Independence,
Cenani organized the resistance
around Antep in 1919” (Wikipedia-Ümit Kurt,
November 2018.)
With
regard to Ahmet Faik Erner, “as subdivision governor he was put
in charge of
the deportations of the Christian Orthodox Armenian
population in Antep. On the orders of Talaat Paşa, he facilitated
their
deportation and also expanded the deportations to Catholics and
Protestant Armenians. Between 1915 and
1916, he deployed labor
battalion to Rajo in Syira for rail construction. While he was Antep
governor, the deportations were changed to Deyr-i Zor in eastern Syria,
vice
Hawran, south of Damascus. He was one of
the main and also the
strictest organizers of the deportations, an adherent to
the idea of a
complete removal of the Armenian population from Antep. This caused
him to file a report against CUP
Antep chief Ali Cenani Bey, who despite
also being in favor of the
deportations, at times made exceptions for
Armenian notables. (Wikipedia-Ümit
Kurt, November 2018.)
//END of PART TWO//
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