Adana Massacre - Legacy

Legacy

The government of Turkey, as well as some Turkish writers and nationalists, dispute this version of history, contending that the events of April 1909 were in fact an Armenian "rampage of pillaging and death" targeting the Muslim majority that "ended up with about 17,000 Armenian and 1,850 Turkish deaths." Historians question the factuality of the Turkish claims of an "Armenian rampage" due to the simple fact that if the Armenians had been the aggressors, significantly higher number of Turks would have been killed. In contrast to Turkey's official position, foreign eyewitnesses clearly stated that Armenians were the victims. The Turkish government has used similar fabrications to blame the Armenians for inciting the Turks to commit the Armenian Genocide by siding with the Russian Empire.

The Sublime Porte claimed that the loss of the Muslims was greater than the loss of Armenians, 1,900 Muslims as compared to 1,500 Armenians. Another Ottoman commission was composed of Faik Bey, Mosdijian Efendi and Esad Rauf Bey, the Governor of Mersin, according to the registers they calculated the number of deaths, 4,196 non-Muslims and 1,487 Muslims including gendarmes and soldiers. However, they proposed the total figure of 15,000 with the non-registered and migrant workers, including Muslims.

Official Ottoman casualty list for the Adana Vilayet by ethno-religious groups

Official Ottoman casualty list by towns

Ottoman authorities denied responsibility in the shooting deaths of two American missionaries in the city of Adana, indicating instead that "the Armenians" killed Protestant missionaries D.M. Rogers and Henry Maurer while they "were helping to put out a fire in the house of a Turkish widow." The Ottoman account of the killings was later contradicted by an eyewitness, American priest Stephen Trowbridge of Brooklyn. Trowbridge indicated that the men were killed by "Moslems" as they attempted to extinguish a fire threatening to subsume their mission.

Firing and fighting began April 14 between Moslems and Armenians, which resulted in a number of casualties on both sides... the next morning April 15, a fresh outburst of smoke near the girls' school showed that we were threatened by fire...Mr. Maurer and I took a crowbar and an axe to the destroy the wooden porches, shutters and stairways of the houses between the fires and the girls' school...When I first climbed to the roofs near the flames armed Moslems appeared...When they understood that I was not firing on them, but had come to work against the flames, they lowered their rifles and assured me with many pledges that I might go unmolested...we repeatedly begged some Armenian young men who were lurking around the street corners shielded from the Moslem fire to put away their arms and come and save the school building... we came back to the school and asked for volunteers, Mr. Rogers came at once... We had thus worked a considerable time without being harmed by the Moslems when the Armenians on the other end of the street commenced firing on the houses where the looters were at work. Suddenly two shots rang out not more than eight yards from where we were working. Mr. Rogers...was mortally wounded...The other bullet hit Mr. Maurer...Immediately after these two shots several other bullets from the Moslems, who had fired them, whizzed past me...Both men passed peacefully away. They died as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

The missionaries found themselves pinned down in their school amidst the pogrom. According to Elizabeth S. Webb, a missionary attached to the school, "It was a terrible situation, women and girls practically alone in the building, a murderous bloodthirsty mob outside, with knife and bullet for the Armenians and the torch for their homes."

Mr. Trowbridge returned from the school to say that the only hope for safety to any Americans seemed to be to return to the school, staying there alone, separated from the Armenians. He declared that we were powerless to save the Armenians. It seems that after we left the school, Miss Wallace, Mr. Chambers, and a young Armenian preacher attempted to cross the street from Miss Wallace's to the school. Just at this time a mob rushed around the corner. The infuriated Turks recognized the preacher as an Armenian, and although Mr. Chambers threw his arms about him and did all in his power to save the man's life, they shot him dead. Not a single Armenian would they leave alive, the assassins shouted, as Mr. Chambers dragged the murdered preacher into the building.

The British Consul, Charles Hotham Montagu Doughty-Wylie, is recorded in many sources as having worked strenuously to stop the massacres, at great personal risk. He was shot in the arm during the conflagration.