Empires in conflict

by Manoug Somakian

"We have no friends, only interests'. Disraeli's aphorism neatly sums up the tragedy of the Armenians, a small people caught up in the conflict of great empires. Manoug Somakian's book traces the emergence of the 'Armenian Question' through an account of the Great Power interests in the region and the rise of Armenian nationalism and radical politics. He uses this historical context to explore the growing hostility towards Armenians in the First World War, and shows how they came to be regarded as a dangerous fifth column and subjected to forced population movements and one of the most brutal genocides of the twentieth century. Based on a wide range of original sources - Armenian, Russian and British, and also on the hitherto unused Vatican sources - this is a major new account of how, despite the fact of widespread sympathy for their plight, the Armenian people came to be left isolated and truncated between their two great neighbours.