World view :

Two British ‘Blue Books’ of 1916

by Prof. Dr. Türkkaya ATAÖV

In the hitherto unparalleled heat of the First World War, officially endorsed British propaganda circles brought out hundreds of pieces of published material aimed at their enemies. Two of these publications, portraying the Germans and the Turks as mere criminals, were outstanding in influence. They are generally referred to as the ‘British Blue Books’ - or ‘Bryce Reports’, after Lord Bryce, who had served as ambassador (1907-13) in Washington D.C. and earned a good name for himself as an intellectual and author.

With due respect to some of other books that bear Bryce’s name, these two compilations were no more than propaganda pieces in connection with which his name was used. They contained sensational stories, especially some concerning “atrocities” which were widely exploited by journalists. The principal aim of both books was to incite the interest of the United States Government and people and bring them into war as Britain’s ally, thereby guaranteeing victory.

The stories ostensibly involved the reasons for war, the characters of the enemy leaders and the behaviour of the opponents. Germany was, of course, the prime enemy. The 360-page book on Germany encompassed some 500 so-called “testimonies.” The one on the Turks was 684 pages long with 150 appalling entries. None stood up to any test, but Lord Bryce, in his very short prefaces, presented them as “facts...beyond question.”

Shifting the spotlight

The United States eventually entered the war (6 April 1917), after a stream of British propaganda material had reached its people. The cable ship ‘Talconia’ had cut the German trans-Atlantic cables, and no enemy images were able to reach the American papers. The British also did their best to attract attention away from the Russian pogroms that victimized many Jews. Instead, they concentrated on the Ottoman Armenians.

This switch in the spotlight was very important for the British Government, which hammered home the idea that their side represented justice, morality and freedom. The propaganda books served the triple purpose of blackening the Germans and the Turks, presenting Britain’s friends as protectors of small nations and downplaying the events in allied Russia. The American propagandists were ready then to pick up the fiction from the British and disseminate it in their country.

But the truth was that the British Government had misled its own people with respect to the outbreak of the war and the guarantees already made to France. The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke being engineered by Serbian intelligence, the administration in Vienna was justified in its ultimatum, a fact withheld from the British public. Apart from British assurance of support in war, France, if not Germany, was contemplating the violation of Belgian neutrality. This fact was also withheld from the public. Therefore, Article 231 of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which accused Germany of “sole responsibility” for the outbreak of the war, is inadmissible.

Invented sins

Likewise, the German Emperor, previously described as a “splendid noble”, became the “leading criminal” who deserved the guillotine. And 144 outstanding Turks, right from the Ottoman Prime Minister downwards, were taken to the Crown Colony of Malta to await archival material with which to accuse them. In the British propaganda books, it was always the enemies who attacked civilians, raped women, crucified soldiers, bayoneted children, chopped off the hands of little girls, mistreated prisoners of war, suffocated miners, established corpse factories, robbed the dead, and even resorted to bacteriological warfare.   

But the Germans had not cut off the hands of a Belgian baby. Even the mayor of the town had said that no such thing had ever occurred. Nevertheless, a statue of a little girl with her hands severed at the wrist was erected on Belgian soil. Unidentified witnesses even “saw” German soldiers eating those very hands. The story of the British nurse (Grace Hume), whose breasts were allegedly cut off, was fabricated by her sister (Kate Hume) to smear the enemy. No one was ever crucified. Nowhere did the Germans shut up the pit mouths in mines. Factories boiled the bodies of dead horses, not of men. The German soldier was not robbing a fallen Russian recruit, but attending to a wounded comrade. Three German cavalrymen had not stolen gold and silver, but had won the trophies on display on an earlier occasion in Germany.

The French “Yellow Book” was also full of falsifications. The basement of its five-storied building on rue François was assigned to produce photos showing crushed skulls, gouged-out eyes, cut-off hands, torn-out tongues, bombarded churches, and attacked cemeteries. The professional scene-painters from the Paris Grand Opera were the centre’s hired hands. Collectively, they manufactured the harshest slanders against the enemy. The American contribution was principally a book signed by Henry Morgenthau, its Ambassador in the Ottoman capital until 1916, who relied on two Armenian aides (H. S. Andonian and A.K. Shmavonian) as his translators, advisors and editors.

Undisclosed sources

Propaganda depicted the Turks as the ferocious foes and the Armenians as angelic allies. The British and their allies were fighting the Turks in the Dardanelles, the Sinai, Palestine, Basra, Eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. As the Russian generals on the Caucasus front and the French officers in the Adana region reported, Armenian bands were killing Muslims and looting extensively. As a number of Armenian sources later admitted, at least 150,000 - and perhaps even more than 200,000 - armed Armenians were fighting as independent units or in the Russian, British and French ranks. Official Armenian representatives boasted at the Versailles Peace Conference that the Armenians had been belligerents since the beginning of the war. Their commanding officers published books even asserting that the Entente owed its victory to the active support of the Armenians.

However, deception was another weapon of the war. The British were interested in collecting, publishing and circulating only those declarations which were critical of the enemy. The fact that human testimony should be treated with caution even in uneventful situations did not impress them to exercise more care when the passion and prejudice of selected anti-Turkish groups were dynamic and effective. Wellington House created the image that the Turks, and only the Turks were responsible for all inhumanity. This belief was implemented in the minds of the Western peoples. The British versions of events were censored, written over, mis-stated, or simply made-up. The circulated stories hid the names of the sources. Propaganda assumed more significance when hopes for early victory evaporated.

Collective hysteria

The so-called ‘documents’ in the Blue Book on the Armenians were straight from printed Armenian newspapers, from individual Armenians, Christian missionaries, and the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. A few were from “trustworthy neutral witnesses.” While these were described as neutral “gentlemen,” the Turks were presented as “heartless, callous and pitiless Muslim rabble.”

Very few in the war years could challenge such collective hysteria. C.F. Dixon-Johnson was an exception. The Germans have been readmitted to the fold of “civilized nations.” The Turks are still waiting to be heard.

( DIPLOMAT  -  March 2006  -  Ankara )