Bernard Lewis on the Armenian Question

Bernard Lewis, Notes on a Century. Reflections of a Middle East Historian, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012, pp. 287-288:

“My point was that while the Armenians suffered appalling losses, the comparison with the Holocaust was misleading. The one arose from an armed rebellion, from what we would nowadays call a national liberation struggle. The Armenians, seizing the opportunity presented by World War I, overlords in alliance with Britain and Russia, the two powers with which Turkey was at war. The rebellions of the Armenians in the east and in Cilicia achieved some initial successes but were eventually suppressed, and the surviving Armenians from Cilicia were ordered to be exiled. During the struggle and the subsequent deportation, great numbers of Armenians were killed.

The slaughter of the Jews, first in Germany and then in German occupied Europe, was a different matter. There was no rebellion, armed or otherwise. On the contrary, the German Jews were intensely loyal to their country. The attack on them was defined wholly and solely by their alleged racial identity and included converted Jews and people of partly Jewish descent. It was not local or regional, but was extended to all the Jews under German rule or occupation, and its purpose was to achieve their total annihilation.

When the survivors of the Armenian deportation arrived at their destinations in Ottoman-ruled Iraq and Palestine they were welcomed and helped by the local Armenian communities. The German Jews deported to Poland by the Nazis received no such help, but joined their Polish coreligionists in a common fate.

The first difference was thus that some of the Armenians were involved in an armed rebellion; the Jews were not, but were attacked solely because of their identity. A second difference was that the persecution of Armenians was mostly confined to endangered areas, while the Armenian populations in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, notably in big cities, were left more or less unharmed. I say “more or less” because there were some attacks on individual Armenians accused of anti-Ottoman acts, but the Armenian populations in general were not persecuted.”

(Source: Maxime Gauin's blog)

The Armenians rejoiced and celebrated publicly when the Turks conquered Edessa

The Armenians broke away from the Byzantine church in 451,150 years after they accepted Christianity, leading to long centuries of Armenian-Byzantine clashes which went on until the Turks settled in Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, with the Byzantines working to wipe out the Armenians and eliminate the Armenian principalities in order to maintain Greek Orthodoxy throughout their dominions. Contemporary Armenian historians report in great detail how the Byzantines deported Armenians as well as using them against enemy forces in the vanguard of the Byzantine armies. As a result of this, when the Seljuk Turks started flooding into Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, they did not encounter any Armenian principalities; the only force remaining to resist them was that of Byzantium…

Contemporary Armenian historians interpret this Turkish conquest of Anatolia to have constituted their liberation from the long centuries of Byzantine misrule and oppression. The Armenian historian Asoghik thus reports that "Because of the Armenians' enmity toward Byzantium, they welcomed the Turkish entry into Anatolia and even helped them." The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa likewise relates that the Armenians rejoiced and celebrated publicly when the Turks conquered his city, Edessa (today's Urfa).

Source: https://www.1915.gov.tr/images/uploads/documents/Ermeni_ingilizce_Soru_CevapKitapcigi.pdf