In the spring of 1917 the Foreign Office, in connection with the preparation which they were making for the work of the Peace Conference, established a special section whose duty it should be to provide the British Delegates to the Peace Conference with information in the most convenient form-geographical, economic, historical, social, religious and political-respecting the different countries, districts, islands, &c., with which they might have to deal. In addition, volumes were prepared on certain general subjects, mostly of an historical nature, concerning which it appeared that a special study would be useful.
The historical information was compiled by trained writers on historical subjects. who (in most cases) gave their services without any remuneration. For the geographical sections valuable...
Table of contents
I. Geography physical and political (1) Position and :Frontiers / 1 (2) Surface, Coast, River System and Lakes Surface / 2 Coast / 2 River System and Lakes / 2 (3) Climate / 3 (4) Sanitary Conditions / 3 (5) Race and Language / 4 (6) Population Distribution / 6 Towns / 8 Movement / 8
II. Political history Chronological Summary / 10 Historical sketch / 11 (a) Periods of Armenian History / 12 (1) Early Independence / 12 (2) Period of Subjection to Medes, Persians, and Greeks / 12 (3) Independence and Power under Tigranes and his Successors / 12 (4) Under Rome and Parthia as a Client State / 13 (5) Under the Sassanid's (revived Persian Empire) / 13 (6) Division under the Seljuks, Mongols, &c. Mediaeval Kingdoms / 14 (7) Under the Ottoman Turks / 16 (b) Factors of Armenian History / 16 (1) Dispersion / 17 (2) Religion / 19 (3) Persecution / 20 (c) Historical Now on the Kurds / 24 P.S. 696 Wt. 6325/735 1000 6/20 F.O.P. [3346] / B 2
III. Social and Political Conditions Introductory Note / 26 (1) Religious / 26 (2) Political / 28 (3) Educational / 29 General Observations (1) Popular Opinion and National Sentiment / 30 (2) Expansion and Future Development / 31
IV. Economic Conditions (A) Means of Communication (1) Internal (a) Roads, Caravan Routes, Paths, &c. /32 (b) Rivers and Waterways / 33 (c) Railways / 34 Turkish Railways / 34 Russian Railways / 35 Projected Railways / 36 (d) Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones / 37 (2) External (a) Ports Trebizond / 37 Kerasund, Samsun / 40 Other Ports / 41 (b) Cable and Vireless Communication / 41 (B) Industry (1) Labour (a) Labour Supply Emigration / 42 Immigration / 43 Seasonal Emigration / 44 (b) Labour Conditions / 44 (2) Agriculture / 45 (a) Products of Commercial Value Vegetable Products / 45 Cereals / 45 Filberts / 46 Tobacco / 47 Vegetables, Fruit, and Vines / 48 Other Vegetable Products / 48 Animal Products, Cattle and Sheep Rearing / 49 (b) Method of Cultivation / 51 Irrigation / 53 (c) Forestry / 53 Vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond and Sivas / 54 (d) Land Tenure / 55 (3) Fisheries / 55 (4) Minerals / 56 Vilayets of Diarbekr and Van / 56 Vilayets of Bitlis and Erzerum / 57 Vilayet of Trebizond / 59 Vilayets of Mamuret ul-Aziz and Sivas / 60 (5) Manufactures / 61 Textiles / 61 Metallurgy and Metal-work / 63 Other Indnstries / 63 (6) Power / 64 (C) Commerce (1) Domestic (a) Towns, Markets, &c. / 65 (b) Organizations to promote Trade and Commerce / 67 (c) :Foreign, especially British, Interests / 67 (2) Foreign (a) Exports / 68 (b) Imports / 72 (c) Persian Transit Trade / 75 (D) Finance (1) Public Finance / 76 (2) Banking / 77 (E) General Remarks / 77
Appendix Table I. Exports from the Black Sea Ports in 1912 / 80 " II. Imports at the Black Sea Ports in 1912 / 81 " III. Yield of the four chief Taxes in Armenia (excluding Trebizond) in 1913 / 82 " IV. Turkish Expenditure in Armenia (excluding Trebizond) in 1913 / 82
Authorities / 83
Maps / 84
EDITORIAL NOTE
In the spring of 1917 the Foreign Office, in connection with the preparation which they were making for the work of the Peace Conference, established a special section whose duty it should be to provide the British Delegates to the Peace Conference with information in the most convenient form-geographical, economic, historical, social, religious and political-respecting the different countries, districts, islands, &c., with which they might have to deal. In addition, volumes were prepared on certain general subjects, mostly of an historical nature, concerning which it appeared that a special study would be useful.
The historical information was compiled by trained writers on historical subjects. who (in most cases) gave their services without any remuneration. For the geographical sections valuable assistance was given by the Intelligence Division (Naval Staff) of the Admiralty; and for the economic sections, by the War Trade Intelligence Department, which had been established by the Foreign Office. Of the maps accompanying the series, some were prepared by the above-mentioned department of the Admiralty, but the bulk of them were the work of the Geographical Section of the General Staff (Military Intelligence Division) of the War Office.
Now that the Conference has nearly completed its task, the Foreign Office, in response to numerous enquiries and requests, has decided to issue the books for public use, believing that they will be useful to students of history, politics, economics and foreign affairs, to publicists generally and to business men and travellers. It is hardly necessary to say that some of the subjects dealt with in the series have not in fact come under discussion at the Peace Conference; but, as the books treating of them contain valuable information, it has been thought advisable to include them.
It must be understood that, although the series of volumes was prepared, under the authority, and is now is und with the sanction, of the Foreign Office, that Office is net; to be regarded as guaranteeing the accuracy of every statement which they contain or as identifying itself with all the opinions expressed in the several volumes; the books were not prepared in the :Foreign Office itself, ant are in the nature of information provided for the Foreign Office and the British Delegation.
The books are now published, with a few exceptions, substantially as they were issued for the use of the Delegates. No attempt has been made to bring them up to date, for, in the first place, such a process would have entailed a great loss of time and a prohibitive expense; and, in the second, the political and other conditions of a great part of Europe and of the Nearer and Middle East are still unsettled and in such a state of flux that any attempt to describe them would have been incorrect or misleading, The hooks are therefore to be taken as describing, in general, ante-bellum conditions, though in a few cases, where it seemed specially desirable, the account has been brought down to a later date.
January 1920. G. W. Prothero, General Editor and formerly Director of the Historical Section
I. Geography Physical and Political
(1) Position and Frontiers
THE terms Armenia and Kurdistan have never been strictly defined, but Armenia is now generally used to denote the six Turkish vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diarbekr, Mamuret ul-Aziz (Kharput) and Sivas. For present purposes, however, it is taken as including certain adjoining regions which contain a considerable Armenian population-viz., the vilayets of Trebizond and Adana (Cilicia), which is sometimes called "Little Armenia," and certain portions of the Transcaucasian (Russian) governments of Kars, Erivan. and Elisavetopol, which are often spoken of as "Russian Armenia."
Kurdistan is generally taken to mean that area which contains the largest Kurd population-i.e., portions of the vilayets of Van, Diarbekr and Mosul-but there are Kurds throughout the whole length of the Taurus range, from Adana to the Turco-Persian borderland west of Lake Urmia (Urumia,. Urmi).
Armenia and Kurdistan, according to this definition, form a region about 325 miles wide from north to south, and about 475 miles long from east to west. lying roughly between latitudes 36° 30' and 41° north, and longitudes 36° and 45° east, and extending from, Samsun on the Black Sea to Alexandretta (Iskanderun) on the Mediterranean. and from Kars in Transcaucasia to Urmia in north-west Persia, the total area being between 160,000 and 170,000 square miles. The region is bordered on the west bv Amıtolia. on the north by...
Foreign Office
Armenia and Kurdistan
H.M Stationery Office
Published by H.M Stationery Office Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical, Section of the Foreign Office.-no. 62 Armenia and Kurdistan Foreign Office
