In the end, the principle of reforms was approved by all the great powers, Germany included, on condition that the responsibility for initiating them be left to the Sublime Porte and that they be enacted under its supervision, or, if necessary, that of the great powers. As was to be expected, this new proposal, put forward by France and England, was categorically rejected by Russia, which saw it as little more than an underhanded way of refusing to seek concrete means of reestablishing security in Armenia.72 Unwilling to pursue the matter any further in the framework of the London Conference, the great powers decided, at Russia’s suggestion, to assign their respective ambassadors the task of continuing the talks. Meanwhile, backing up his words with deeds, the Czar massed troops on the Turkish border and ordered his agents to organize Kurdish provocations in Armenia in order to step up the pressure.73 Throughout the bargaining process, particularly in the months following the London Conference, Nubar tried to modify the positions of one or another of the negotiating parties, with the help of various national committees such as the British-Armenian Committee, of which Lord Bryce was a member, or the Armenian Committee of Berlin. He also brought his many personal relations into play. In his correspondence and at each of the meetings he attended, he stressed above all that it was crucial that the great powers oversee the reforms, since London and Berlin had rejected the idea of Russian supervision out of hand.74 In fact, he was not genuinely upset by this collective decision, inasmuch as he himself had only very reluctantly bowed to the idea of Russian hegemony over the Armenian provinces. For the Turkish-Armenian elite, this represented the solution of last resort, their last chance to force Istanbul to normalize the situation. Nubar, now based in Paris, did not hesitate to make several trips to London in order to meet with the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey.75 Notwithstanding support from MP’s who were also members of the British-Armenian Committee, Nubar was hard put to convince the British of the wisdom of his proposed line of action. He was the more shocked by Britain’s attitude because Grand Vizier Mahmud Shevket himself considered the demand for reforms to be reasonable and, shortly before he was assassinated, let it be known that he was prepared to accept them.76
In any event, the discussions conducted by the ambassadors of the great powers in Constantinople began promptly in June 1913.The basis for them was provided by an 1895 memorandum, ... Read all
The AGBU and the Reforms in Asiatic Turkey, 1912-1914