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Location

Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey

Year

1915

Item Detail

Constantinople (Istanbul), July 10, 1915: Ambassador Henry Morgenthau cabled Washington that the Ottoman government was carrying out "a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race," and pressed the Secretary of State for any step that might halt it.

Context

Henry Morgenthau (1856–1946) served as United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. On July 10, 1915, he sent this seven-page coded telegram, number 841, to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, reporting that the persecution of Armenians had reached "unprecedented proportions." He described arbitrary arrests, torture, and the deportation of whole populations "directed from Constantinople in the name of military necessity," quoted Consul Leslie Davis on the torture and deportation of Armenians at Harput (Harpout), and concluded that "there seems to be a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race." Morgenthau's reporting through the summer and autumn of 1915 moved American leaders to act. That September his appeals led to the New York meeting that founded the Committee on Armenian Atrocities, the organization that became Near East Relief.

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  • Holding Institution

    US National Archives and Records Administration

  • Attribution

    U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Turkey, 867.4016 (RG 59); National Archives Microfilm Publication M353.

  • Rights

    No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law.

  • Document Contents

    Telegram No. 841, from Constantinople, dated July 10, 1915, 9 a.m.; received in Washington July 16, 1915. Sent in the State Department's "Green Cipher" and deciphered on receipt; references Morgenthau's earlier cable No. 778 (June 18, 1915). The "strictly confidential" notation is struck through, and the classification was canceled by State Department authority on January 8, 1958. The cable quotes Consul Leslie A. Davis at Harput, compares the crisis to the 1895–1896 Hamidian massacres, and names the Committee of Union and Progress. Signed "American Ambassador, Constantinople." Source: U.S. National Archives, RG 59, Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Turkey, decimal file 867.4016 — file number 867.4016/74 (verify the exact decimal against the stamp on page 1).