April 24, 1915: This is the date usually given as the start of the Armenian genocide, carried out by the Ottoman Empire, in an effort to wipe out Armenian identity.
Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and in 1909. The Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses, especially in the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, against Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. This led to fear among the Empire's Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that the Armenians would seek independence.
During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, which did not actually exist. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence.
On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman authorities began the arrest and deportation of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from the national capital, Constantinople. At the orders of Mehmet Talaat, a.k.a. Talaat Pasha, Minister of Finance but essentially the man who ran the Ottoman government, an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916.
Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps -- not an early use of such facilities, but one of the earliest uses of the term. In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year.
In an additional method of wiping out Armenian identity, around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children, previously Eastern Orthodox Catholics, were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through the Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists.
Despite their victory at Gallipoli, the day after the genocide began, the Ottoman Empire was devastated by World War I. It was broken up, and Anatolia, its centerpiece, became the officially secular Republic of Turkey (in their language, "Türkiye") in 1922, and abolished the Ottoman Empire, its Sultanate, and its Caliphate.
The new nation in an old civilization -- one of many places in the world that can be described as such, including Israel, India, and the People's Republic of China -- moved the capital from Constantinople to Ankara, and changed the name of Constantinople to Istanbul in 1930.
The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide. As of 2022, 34 countries have recognized it as such. One that has not is the United States of America, due to Turkey's strategic importance, first during the Cold War, and now in the War On Terror. Having the dictatorial Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a hyper-nationalist, as President of Turkey since 2014 doesn't help.
The Republic of Armenia separated from the Ottoman Empire, declaring its independence on May 28, 1918. The Soviet Union conquered it on November 29, 1920. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the Republic of Armenia declared independence again on September 23, 1991. Today, it is a free country of about 3 million people.
About half that many people, 1.5 million, are believed to be of Armenian descent and living in America, mostly in California and Nevada. Their numbers have included singer-actress Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian), novelist William Saroyan, songwriter David Seville (real name Ross Bagdasarian, the creator of cartoon characters The Chipmunks), music producer Michael Omartian, tennis star Andre Agassi, former Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian, former Nevada-Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, sportswriter Tim Kurkjian, the real estate-developing Hovnanian family, and the Kardashian family.
In a story that may be apocryphal, when told that history might condemn him for the Jewish Holocaust he was planning, Adolf Hitler said, "Nobody remembers what happened to the Armenians."
*
April 24, 1915 was a Saturday. It was the 2nd and last season of baseball's Federal League, so there were 3 major leagues at the time. These games were played in the American League:
* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 4-0 at the Polo Grounds. Ray Caldwell pitched a 2-hit shutout, to beat Walter Johnson. Roy Hartzell went 3-for-4.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Nap Lajoie went 1-for-4 for the A's. Tris Speaker did the same for the Sox. Babe Ruth came in to pitch in relief of Dutch Leonard, going 3 1/3rd innings, allowing 1 run on a walk, but no hits.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-0 at League Park in Cleveland. Bernie Boland pitched a 5-hit shutout for the Tigers. Shoeless Joe Jackson had 2 of those hits. Bobby Veach went 4-for-4. Ty Cobb went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.
* And the Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Eddie Collins went 0-for-2 with a walk.
In the National League:
* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known when Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931 -- beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-5 at Ebbets Field. George Cutshaw went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.
* The Boston Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.
* The Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates were tied 1-1 after 8 innings at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, when the game was called due to rain. Honus Wagner went 1-for-2 with a walk and an RBI.
* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-0 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Slim Sallee pitched a 2-hit shutout.
And in the Federal League:
* The Newark Peppers beat, I suppose, their regional rivals, the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, 7-2 at Harrison Park in Harrison, Hudson County, New Jersey. It was across the Passaic River from Newark, Essex County; and on the opposite corner from where Red Bull Arena, home of Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls, was built in 2010. After the Federal League folded, the 21,000-seat Harrison Park continued to host minor-league baseball, professional soccer, and prizefights until it burned down in 1923.
* The Baltimore Terrapins beat the Buffalo Blues, 10-4 at Federal League Park in Buffalo.
* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the St. Louis Terriers, 2-0 at Handlan's Park in St. Louis. Frank Allen pitched a no-hitter for the Rebels. It was 1 of 5 no-hitters pitched in the FL. The others: Ed Lafitte of Brooklyn vs. Kansas City, September 19, 1914; Claude Hendrix of Chicago vs. Pittsburgh, May 15, 1915; Alex Main of Kansas City vs. Buffalo, August 16, 1915; and Dave Davenport of St. Louis vs. Chicago, September 7, 1915.
* And the Chicago Whales and the Kansas City Packers were rained out at Gordon and Koppel Field in Kansas City. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Whales won the opener, 10-3. The Packers won the nightcap, 4-2.
And at the Arsenal Stadium, later known as Highbury for its neighborhood in North London, Arsenal Football Club defeated Nottingham Forest Football Club, 7-0. It was the last game of the season.
England's Football Association then suspended Football League games for the duration of World War I. Since the Armistice happened on November 11, 1918, it was too late to organize and start the 1918-19 season. Therefore, Arsenal did not play another League game after this until August 30, 1919, a 1-0 home loss to Newcastle United.
And since Arsenal were promoted from the Football League's Division Two to its Division One for the 1919-20 season, and they have not been relegated since, this game, on April 24, 1915, remains the last League game they have played outside the top division, the longest such run in British soccer.
It is somewhat appropriate that it was against Forest, for it was a former Forest player, goalkeeper Peter Beardsley, who, as the club that would become Arsenal was founded in 1886, wrote to his former club and asked them to send any leftover uniforms they might have. And that's why Arsenal wear red to this day, because Forest also did (and still do).
No comments:
Post a Comment