Turkish General Staff
ANKARA

PRESENTATION

Click for Turkish

One of the methods used in learning and enlightening of the historical truths with all their due aspects is the studying of the testimonies of the witnesses. At this point he testimonies of the first hand eye-witnesses become extremely important.The sources of reference used in studying the events that took place on the Eastern Front, during the First World War, are the archive documents. The importance of the testimonies of the eye-witnesses in revealing the true aspects of the Armenian atrocities can never be denied.

The document publication series “Armenian Activities in the Archive Documents 1914-1918,” published by the Turkish General Staff Directorate of Military History and Strategic Studies, also includes documents revealing the observations of the first hand witnesses.

One of the first-hand witnesses of the events that took place at the Eastern Front happens to be Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov, the Russian Commander of the 2nd Armenian-Russian Fortress Artillery Regiment. Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov’s personal documents presented in this book reveal the Armenian terror activities he himself witnessed and lived through. The documents embracing Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov’s first hand experiences of Armenian atrocities realized in and around Erzurum and Erzincan, between the last months of 1917 and the first months of 1918, serve as a witness to world history.

While Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov’s original handwritings, found at the Archives of the Turkish General Staff Directorate of Military History and Strategic Studies, are being submitted to the attention of the world public opinion and to the use of the academia, in Turkish, English, and French languages, together with the originals in Russian, in a single volume, the extend the Armenian terror reached is revealed with all its nakedness.

The extend the Armenian atrocities reached was more than enough for a Russian officer to bear, who in fact was fighting against the Turks together with the Armenians. Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov wrote, in his diary, his words of deep grief for not having been able to stop the Armenian violence despite all the power he had. We now would like to inquire: Those of you who talk about the Armenian genocide, what say you to these documents?
With all our due respect.

Click for these documents

Eyüp KAPTAN
Lieutenant General Chief of ATASE