The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916 : Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce (Uncensored Edition) aka "The Blue Book" (Paperback)

~ James Bryce (Author), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (Author), Ara Sarafian (Editor), Arnold Toynbee (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bryce and Toynbee's research exemplified a crucial stage in the evolution of Western attitudes towards crimes against humanity." -- London Review of Books

"Meticulous testimony and eye-witness accounts of Turkish mass-slaughter, organised rape and ethnic cleansing." -- The Independent, London

"This work emerges from Ara Sarafian's examination as documentation of a high order." -- Times Literary Supplement

Product Description

In 1916 the British Parliament published a "Blue Book" that identified the events of 1915-16 as a systematic effort to exterminate the Armenian people. The Blue Book has been one of the most solid and influential sources on the Armenian Genocide. A critical, uncensored edition, edited and with an introduction by Ara Sarafian, has now been published by the Gomidas Institute.

Viscount James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee were commissioned to prepare the Blue Book, which is formally known as "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916." Toynbee carefully compiled and verified dozens of eyewitness accounts from different parts of the Ottoman Empire. These accounts provided the basis for Bryce's brilliant thesis on the Genocide, published while the crime was still in progress.

The book includes eyewitness accounts from United States consular and missionary sources, as well as the testimony of German, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Greek, Kurdish, and Armenian witnesses.

The original publication was full of blanks: the names of many people and places were obscured in order to safeguard sources still in the Ottoman Empire. The names remain obscured in facsimile editions that have been published over the years. Now Sarafian has restored the obscured names.

In his introduction, Sarafian takes issue with the repeated assertions of Turkish nationalist authors, who claim that the Blue Book was a British propaganda fabrication. He demonstrates the intellectual pedigree of the work. He shows exactly how testimonies were collected, authenticated, and then used in the book.

Generations of official historians of Turkey, such as Enver Zia Karal (Ankara University), Salahi Sonyel (British historian and public activist), Ismail Binark (Director of Ottoman archives, Ankara), Sinasi Orel (director of a much publicized project on declassifying documents on Ottoman Armenians), Kamuran Gurun (former diplomat), Mim Kemal Oke, Justin McCarthy, and others have cited the Blue Book and have insisted that it lacks credibility.

Sarafian has located Toynbee's original manuscript, Toynbee's correspondence with his sources, and most of the original reports, which were copied and sent to London. They can still be found at the Public Record Office (Kew), Bodleian Library (Oxford), National Archives (Washington, D.C.), Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), and the Houghton Library (Cambridge, Mass.) He has established that the compilers were meticulous in their verification of sources.

According to the "Times Literary Supplement" (London), "This work emerges from Ara Sarafian's examination as documentation of a high order.... Sarafian convincingly rebuts the claims that there was any falsification, or that any of the documents was one-sided British propaganda."

Toynbee, who went on to be a major historian in his own right, was deeply moved by his research on the Genocide. In his 1967 memoir, Acquaintances, Toynbee wrote: "My study [of the Armenian Genocide]... left an impression on my mind that was not effaced by the still more cold-blooded genocide, on a far larger scale, that was committed during the Second World War by the Nazi.

"Any great crime--private or public, personal or impersonal--raises a question that transcends national limits; the question goes to the heart of human nature itself. My study of the genocide that had been committed in Turkey in 1915 brought home to me the reality of Original Sin," Toynbee concluded.

The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916 complements the Gomidas Institute's Armenian Genocide Documentation Series, which to date includes four volumes of eyewitness accounts: "Days of Tragedy in Armenia" (Rev. Henry Riggs, Harpoot); "'Turkish Atrocities'" (twenty-one reports compiled by James Barton); "Marsovan 1915" (the diary of Bertha Morley); and "'The German, the Turk and the Devil Made a Triple Alliance'" (the diary of Tacy Atkinson, Harpoot).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 699 pages
• Publisher: Taderon Pr; Uncensored edition (December 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0953519155
• ISBN-13: 978-0953519156
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,421,067 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A documented history!, October 2, 2008

By	Tigran Mkrtchyan "tigranius" (Armenia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The sad point about some of the reviews is that they just decline it saying that the Blue Book was a propaganda means.
Those who have read ANYTHING from Arnold Toynbee should not doubt the meticulous academic integrity of that historian who was one of the greatest 20th century historian in the world. And if the book was a propaganda tool what would the deniers say about Johannes Lepsius' accounts, Henry Morgenthau's history, the German and Austrian officers' accdounts of which there are THOUSANDS in the German and Austrian archives. By the way, the Germans and Austrians were allies to Turks. So where they talking propaganda too?
Every Genocide Scholar knows this sad story. Justin McCarthy is not taken seriously by most of the historians. How can it be possible that people from the deep inland of Turkey (NOT NECESSARILY THE BORDERING REGIONS WITH RUSSIA) were deported as potential danger to the Turkish defense. And how could children, women and old people be so scary to the well armed Turkish army? Why would people close to the Syrian border and away from military battlefields be deported? how would you term a deportation of hundreds of thousands, bare footed, without clothes, without food escorted by militia and army servicemen into deserts? is this a deportation or an organized crime, war used as a pretext to get rid of a whole people.
How can a reviewer here write that Eastern Turkey was the homeland of Turkey? may be, there is a need to study history better? The Armenians were indigenous people here for more than 3 thousands of years. At least read Greek, Roman and Arabic sources and histories. Read for example, Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo, Dio Cassio, Plutarch, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc. Read history. How come that there are 5-th century Armenian churches in eastern Anatolia? and why are they bombarded by the Turkish ARmy, at least until 2000 they were systematically destroyed. So who is barbarian?
Instead of reading, learning and apologizing, many people do not read, no not learn and naturally are even threatening further. Plato once said that 'malice rises from illiteracy'. I believe it is true.
So intelligent people would definitely read various sources and would learn history of Armenians from all accounts, sadly also from the Blue Book!!!

30 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance, April 12, 2001

By A Customer

I am a historian myself in Modern Middle Eastern Civilisation and I can very proudly say that this book is well written, accurate and is full of useful information. The Armenians were treated very badly by the Turks and this book explains that in black and white. Buy this book it's well worth it.

16 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest book, March 13, 2005

By	George Taylor (Denver Colorado USA) - See all my reviews

This book tells the truth about the Ottoman Turks. Don't believe the negative reviews by the turks on this site.