The Issues of the Number of Western Armenians and Ethnic Composition of the Population of Western Armenia at Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)

Abstract

References to the issues of the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians to other ethnic groups in Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide occupy a special place in the context of processes related to drafting a peace agreement with the Ottoman Empire and Armenia’s delineation after WWI. These issues were tackled by diverse Armenian official and non-official organizations struggling for the formation of an integral Armenian state, as well as Turkish authorities manipulating, inter alia, also demographic arguments against the Armenian claim for Western Armenia and the Entente Powers (particularly the United States of America and Great Britain) needing statistical data for deciding the fate of the Ottoman Empire. In the post-war processes the long-distance controversy of the Armenian and Turkish sides over the issues in question can be figuratively characterized as one of the stages – “battles” of the “statistical war” that emerged after 1878, i.e. following the entry of the Armenian Question into the international diplomatic agenda. This article aims to present and analyse the statistics on the number of Western Armenians and the ratio of Armenians in Western Armenia to other ethnic groups on the eve of the Armenian Genocide presented by Armenian and Turkish delegations at Paris Peace Conference, as well as data circulated by the US and British diplomacy. It will try to explain the connection between the delineation of Armenia and the number of Western Armenians, the demographic composition of Western Armenia on the eve of the Armenian Genocide. The calculations of the number of Western Armenians have had a certain effect on deliberations around demarcation of the border between the Republic of Armenia and the Ottoman Empire in the context of post-war world regulation.