Why did the Armenian Genocide take place and who were the real culprits? Neil Ferguson reveals in his book The Square and the Tower (Trailer in Armenian)
Newmag's October bestseller is Neil Ferguson's Square and Tower. It is a fundamental work that presents historical, political and financial facts from a completely new perspective. Researchers consider it the first global study of networks. In the book tr
Everyone knows the German guilt in the Armenian Genocide, but Neil Ferguson explains what the Germans were really trying to do, why their plans failed, and how the Armenians became the victims of a great political adventure.
A great war was raging, and Germany's main enemy was Britain, which had colonized vast Muslim lands. The idea that Islam could be made an ally of Germany seemed particularly attractive to German Emperor Wilhelm II. Wilhelm was inspired by the idea of inciting Muslim subjects of the British Empire to revolt through jihad. The idea was put forward by German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Hans Wangenheim. He was trying to persuade Muslims to declare jihad against the British and get rid of British rule. This made the Young Turks very happy, who saw a brilliant opportunity to get rid of the Armenians.
For the Young Turks, Islam was a factor in legitimizing the genocidal campaign against the Christians of the empire, particularly the Armenians. The only concern of the German ambassador to the Ottoman Empire was not to blame the Germans for the massacres of Armenians. The Germans started a religious war in 1914. They published a large number of Islamist fanatics in all the languages of the British Muslim nations. But they failed, and the British succeeded. The Germans were trying to promote pan-Islamism. They hoped to stir up the Muslim subjects of all three empires at war with Germany and incite them to religious revolt.
This program failed. And the goal of the British was more limited - to persuade the Arabs of the Ottoman Empire to side with them. And it happened. In “The Square and the Tower,” the author explains why pan-Islamism did not work as a network and pan-Islamism did. How the British defeated the Germans in a network war, how the Armenians became the victims of a network confrontation between European powers, losing most of their population and homeland.
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