"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.
