Djemal Pasha Reportedly Offers Support to the Allies
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today-in-wwi Peter Vidani
Djemal Pasha Reportedly Offers Support to the Allies “Hakob Zavriev, Armenian doctor who apparently contacted and negotiated with Djemal Pasha. ” December 12 1915, Petrograd–Djemal Pasha, one of the...
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Hakob Zavriev, Armenian doctor who apparently contacted and negotiated with Djemal Pasha.

December 12 1915, Petrograd–Djemal Pasha, one of the triumvirate of Young Turks that had come to power in 1908, did not currently enjoy the best relations with Enver, Talaat, and the rest of the government. As commander of Turkish forces in the Levant, he had a substantial power base of his own, as well as significant influence over the deportations and massacres of Armenians through and in his sphere of influence. This led Ivan (or Hakob, the sources differ) Zavriev, an Russian Armenian army doctor and aristocrat, to reach out to Djemal in an attempt to save his compatriots throughout the Ottoman Empire.

According to Zavriev, Djemal was quite receptive. He would agree to turn against the Ottoman government, with his forces, provided that after the war he would be installed as a new Sultan, ruling all of the Ottoman’s Asiatic possessions (i.e. everything but Thrace and the Straits). In the meantime, he would do everything he could to aid the Armenians he could; after the war, the Armenians would have a completely autonomous region within the new Turkey.

Zavriev apparently heard from Djemal while he was in Bucharest, and conveyed it to the Russian ambassador there, who in turn cabled Foreign Minister Sazonov on December 11 with this information. Sazonov was quite interested; Russia’s main war goal against Turkey was control of the Straits, and Djemal’s scheme did not interfere with this. Saving the Armenians, for whose cause the Russians had long advocated, would also be a great propaganda coup. On December 12, he told the Russian ambassador to France to tell the French and British about Djemal’s offer and gauge their reaction.

The French premier was, unsurprisingly, not receptive to the plan. The French had designs on Syria and many of the surrounding areas, which Djemal certainly wanted for himself. Despite additional lobbying by Armenian agents in France, this largely put a stop to these intrigues.

There are no records of such an offer in Djemal’s or any Turkish records, though it seems consistent with what we know of his actions at the time. If he did make the offer, it is also unclear whether it was sincere; historian Sean McMeekin suggests that he may have made it to see how virulently the French would reject it, in an attempt to get some insight into their designs for Syria.

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