The review (below) by Norman Itzkowitz of Ulrich Trumpener's Germany and the Ottoman Empire appeared in the Autumn 1968 issue of the Middle East Journal. It presents the standard revisionist characterization of the Armenian genocide ("mutual hostilities") while expressing irritation at Trumpener's treatment, which is based on German sources. The following is a typical example:
| Itzkowitz | Trumpener (p. 218) |
|---|---|
| Professor Trumpener is also given to taking the language of diplomacy at its face value when such language can be construed to place the Turks in a bad light. By italicizing words we have come to recognize as clichés in the rhetoric of recrimination (p. 218) the author exposes his bias and weakens his case as a historian. | The unsatisfactory outcome of Lepsius' conversation with Enver seems to have strengthened Hohenlohe's resolve to express his disapproval of the Armenian persecutions in another formal note to the Porte. ...the ambassador was undoubtedly taking a risk in denouncing the Porte's Armenian policy as bluntly as he did... Hohenlohe informed the Turks that "by order of ... [his] government" he had to "remonstrate once again against these acts of horror and to decline all responsibility for the consequences which might spring from them." |
A more reasonable interpretation of Trumpener's use of italics is that he was merely illustrating the "bluntness" referred to earlier. And that it's not Trumpener's bias that is being exposed here.
...The Armenian problem cannot be understood without reference to this new awareness that served to inflame already existing *mutual* hostilities. I stress the mutuality of the hostilities because the Armenians had become infected with the virus of nationalism of a strain similar to the hot-house variety being grown in the Balkans, long before the Turks succumbed to the ailment. To discuss these matters only with reference to the political sphere, as Professor Trumpener does, is to miss a vital dimension in Armenian-Turkish relations.
To this reviewer, at least, the chapter on the Armenian persecutions is most disappointing and regrettable. Into an otherwise balanced account Professor Trumpener has introduced a chapter marred by special pleading and poor historical methodology. It is undeniable that the Armenians suffered, but their suffering has to be seen against the background of their own atrocities committed against the Turks wherever Armenians had the opportunity. Armenian nationalist activities were viewed by a government at war as insurgency, and on the local level relations between the two communities had so degenerated that very little instigation was needed from Istanbul to touch off uncontrollable violence. Professor Trumpener condemns the Turks, and especially Enver Pasha, for what he believes to have been a decided attempt at genocide. On page 218 he says, "Moreover, Enver seems to have admitted that his colleagues at the Porte were out to 'make an end of the Armenians now.'" The evidence for this statement is drawn from two books by Lepsius, and a letter in the Jackh papers, Rohrbach to Jackh. Lepsius, as president of the German- Armenian Society and a known pleader for the Armenians, is hardly a source for such a crucial point. Rohrbach, one of Lepsius's supporters, is no better. Moreover, what are we to make of the word "seems" and to whom are we to attribute the quotation within the sentence? Professor Trumpener is also given to taking the language of diplomacy at its face value when such language can be construed to place the Turks in a bad light. By italicizing words we have come to recognize as cliches in the rhetoric of recrimination (p. 218) the author exposes his bias and weakens his case as a historian. The Armenians have always had a better press in this matter, and it would be well for anyone writing on this controversial subject to command the Turkish sources and Turkish literature, and not rely, as Trumpener has, upon the few pages of Bayur's work he has had translated for his own use.