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Published: 27 July 2008

Written by Lt.Col. Tverdohlebov

Apparently, the Ottomans were not very successful in "ethnically cleansing" the Armenians. "unarmed and innocent" Armenians' actions continued even after they were all massacred by the Ottoman army! The Russian Commander of the 2nd Armenian-Russian Fortress Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Tverdohlebov is one of the first hand witnesses of the Armenian atrocities of 1917-1918. He writes:

"...More than 800 unarmed innocent Turks were massacred. Only an Armenian was killed while the massacred were trying to defend themselves. They slaughtered the people as if they were sheep. They had the people whom they sentenced to death dig large ditches. They took the people to edges of those ditches in groups and after having butchered them like beasts they dumped them into those ditches. One of the Armenians was counting the corpses thrown into ditches and upon his saying, "Is there only 80 people? It can take 10 more! Slaughter another 10!" disdainfully ten more people were slaughtered, thrown into the ditch and the corpses were covered with earth. This Armenian contractor is said to have ordered the taking out innocent Turks from a building one by one. And he, just for fun, chopped the heads of some 80 people one by one as they were coming out of the door." (pp. 51-52)

"A contractor working at the Alaca Logistics Support Command, told us about a despicable event that took place in Alaca on February 27. The Armenians nailed a Turkish woman upon a wall alive; took her heart out and placed it on her head." (p 53)

"... We were unable of anything to stop the Armenian massacres. We never did want the atrocities committed by the Armenians veiled by our names." (p 63)

"Now I am most grateful to God for not letting me leave the city with the Armenians - about whom the ancient Roman historian Petroni declared "The Armenians are certainly human, but at home they go all on fours;" and again about whom the Russian poet Lermontov justly said "Thou art a slave, thou art a coward, and thou art an Armenian!" - after witnessing what they did in Erzurum before their leave, and learning the number of the unarmed elderly people, women, and children whom they massacred" (p 89)

The Office of the General Staff translated Lt. Col. Tverdohlebov's personal notes from Russian to Turkish (go), English (go) and French (go). You can also download the merged document by clicking here (6.56 mb). For the Russian version (images scanned from the originals) click here.
All documents are taken from www.tsk.mil.tr.