As a Turk with very little interest to History, would like to share my guesses about viewpoints of these characters have.
First of all I am very impressed about how modern the ambassador is for 192X. He is Liberal exactly like someone from USA would be today.
Now! Liberalism is not a idea that is easily accessible back then. Let alone find a any group of people that will backup you in this way. Even in current Turkey's politics: only 2-3 parties are viable in election and they are all about deciding whether country should go Muslim-National (Auth-Right but Muslim Traders Only) or National-National (Auth-Left)
Considering that Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural gaint and considering that literacy of people of Ottoman Empire were about low as %10. People from same culture/race/religion lived near together and even tho there have been problems here and there, they were probably doing fine like humanity of today.
But when once-in-a-life-time event occurs and you find yourself survived a war but your old government is colepsed; and the New authority (politicly) doesn't look anything different from a group of revolters/rioters from at your standpoint. Who can you trust in the middle of all this chaos other than people of your race/culture/religion.
Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans.
At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression.
Calling it 'Ptsd of an authority' would sum it maybe.
Still the whole event is presumably a overkill/genocide when we take a look at from the current perspective.
First of all I am very impressed about how modern the ambassador is for 192X. He is Liberal exactly like someone from USA would be today.
Now! Liberalism is not a idea that is easily accessible back then. Let alone find a any group of people that will backup you in this way. Even in current Turkey's politics: only 2-3 parties are viable in election and they are all about deciding whether country should go Muslim-National (Auth-Right but Muslim Traders Only) or National-National (Auth-Left)
Considering that Ottoman Empire was multi-cultural gaint and considering that literacy of people of Ottoman Empire were about low as %10. People from same culture/race/religion lived near together and even tho there have been problems here and there, they were probably doing fine like humanity of today.
But when once-in-a-life-time event occurs and you find yourself survived a war but your old government is colepsed; and the New authority (politicly) doesn't look anything different from a group of revolters/rioters from at your standpoint. Who can you trust in the middle of all this chaos other than people of your race/culture/religion.
Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Muslims Cults/Sheiks, Old Ottoman Government's supporters, all rioted and tried to overthrown the new authority of TBMM (team Ataturk/Republic) within very near time spans.
At that point it must have been normal to react to these 'issues' with this much aggression.
Calling it 'Ptsd of an authority' would sum it maybe.
Still the whole event is presumably a overkill/genocide when we take a look at from the current perspective.