But for victory at Gallipoli, the Anzacs would have been the first Sergeant at Arms of a war crimes trial. By marching victorious into Constantinople, the Anzacs may have been able to prevent the purging of the Ottoman archives of evidence of complicity of specific individuals.
Today is marked by Armenians worldwide as the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. vox.com/2015/4/22/8465… http://t.co/7pqqSowW3O—
Vox Maps (@VoxMaps) April 24, 2015
On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity’. The Allied Governments announce publicly that they will hold personally responsible all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in the Armenian massacres.
Ottoman military and high-ranking politicians were transferred to the Crown Colony of Malta on board of the SS Princess Ena and the SS HMS Benbow by the British forces, starting in 1919. These war criminals were eventually returned to Constantinople in 1921 in exchange for 22 British hostages held by the government in Ankara.
Australian and New Zealand participation in the invasion of the Ottoman Empire as a by-product set the legal and moral infrastructure for the Nuremberg trials: governments would hold others to account for crimes against humanity and genocide.
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