THE ROLE OF THE TURKISH MILITARY IN THE DESTRUCTION OF OTTOMAN ARMENIANS - A STUDY IN HISTORICAL CONTINUITIES

Large scale exterminatory massacres by a state not only presuppose con current decision making at the highest level of the state authority bu t also are, to a large degree, contingent on a high level of competenc e in the administration of the requisite lethal violence. In examining the evolving processes through which the Armenian population of the o ttoman Empire was progressively decimated and ultimately all but destr oyed, this essay focuses on the instrumental role of the Turkish milit ary in the attainment of this goal. The manifestation of that role in a historical continuum is seen as a function of a unique relationship obtaining and persisting between the military establishment on the one hand and the successive generations of political rulers of the empire on the other. The World War I genocidal climax of this process of des truction suggests that the more pervasive this military-political rela tionship is, the higher the efficiency of the instrumentality of the m ilitary, and the more optimal the results of the destruction may be.