Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1915 insurgency in the Ottoman Empire

1915 insurgency in the Ottoman Empire

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This article is overall a copy of info from Armenian Genocide, Armenian resistance during the Armenian Genocide, Armenian national liberation movement, Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Caucasus Campaign, probably more, etc.. The article doesn't add anything except try to portray the Armenian Genocide as a rebellion, a common narrative in Armenian Genocide denial. The article title isn't even correct because the genocide took place from 1915 to 1923.

This article is POV is because it portrays the genocide as some kind of counter-insurgency. There was no insurgency, this what Ottoman propaganda to cover up and justify the genocide, strongly explained in the articles Armenian Genocide and Armenian Genocide denial. This article expands no nothing from the 5 above mentioned articles except adding lot of WP:UNDUE content that isn't allowed on Wikipedia, primarily cited from Armenian Genocide denier Edward J. Erickson. So because the only addition is POV and UNDUE content, any kind of merger would go against Wikipedia guidelines and the only solution is to delete this article.

Delete - As nominator. --Steverci (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - This article is not a copy from any of the cited articles. The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I and Caucasus Campaign are military articles which are limited with the conflict zone. Insurgency in the Ottoman Empire is explaining the conflicts in the Ottoman controlled lands behind the Russian and Ottoman Armies. Armenian national liberation movement (1860-1922), and Armenian resistance during the Armenian Genocide is from 1915 to 1923. These are wider isses, both in years and content (as not limited with insurgency). Article has a limited scope. "1915 insurgency in the Ottoman Empire" explains a missing events related to unconventional warfare of Ottomans and Ottoman counter-insurgency warfare within specific dates. This content is academic. The article is well sourced. The content is clearly defined. Removing this content would create a gap in the history which is not explained in any other cited Wikipedia sources. --SelimAnkara1993 (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as a WP:FORK - there was no insurgency in 1915; the WWI was started in 1914 by Germany and followed by the Ottoman Empire on November the 4th, around the Black Sea, against the Russian Empire. The conflict is commonly referred to as the Caucasus Campaign. As it can be seen, it is a word for word copy of a book by E.J. Erickson. Any areas which are not covered in the main article should be covered. --92slim (talk) 18:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete POV WP:FORK. This article presents a denialist point of view as fact. This can be easily merged with the Denial of the Armenian Genocide article. Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep:This article is well written and it is quite well sourced (English books) The nominator claims that it is copied from some other articles. I compared them. The articles although related are not copies of each other. The nominator also claims that it portrays the Armenian Genocide as a rebellion. But since it is documented there is no room for portraying anything and it is not a personal interpretation. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This article is not well sourced, 56 of the 83 references come from Armenian Genocide deniers Erickson and Michael A. Reynolds.[1][2] The remaining are of unproven credibility. If you look again, I said the events are covered in other articles; the only difference here is UNDUE content that violates the guidelines. --Steverci (talk) 20:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Both of these authors are well respected and well published authors. You libel these authors. Your libel is not a position in Wikipedia. Rule state "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective.". They are required to be published. [Reynolds publications, over 200 refereed articles] The "Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918" is cited 59 times. [Erickson publications, over 200 refereed articles] the Ottomans and Armenians: A Study in Counterinsurgency (published 1913) cited 17 times in the last year and reviewed 4 times in a refereed journals These numbers not the opinion pages per your link. SelimAnkara1993 (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

However if the claims made in a published source are so outlandishly different from the consensus of scholarly opinion found in other published sources then that source and its claims can be considered to be fringe material. We can't have an article made entirely out of fringe material because it gives undue weight to opinions expressed by almost nobody. BTW, I don't know if it is due to your rewriting of material in the Erickson source, or it is the "source" itself - but there are many blatant lies expressed in this article that have Erickson as the given source. Such content actually goes far beyond the "cherry-picked incidents and weasel-words" I gave as my reason to delete. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:25, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - it seems there was an insurgency; see this book The Criminal Law of Genocide: International, Comparative and Contextual Aspects; edited by Dr Paul Behrens, Professor Ralph Henham. I don't think these guys are also genocide deniers. In briefly looking at Erickson I don't know why he is labeled a genocide denier, as he seems quite well respected. I have not really researched this though; if the same info is already in other articles, I don't see know it's needed. —Мандичка^YO 😜 21:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reply - User:Wikimandia The only event I see called an insurgency was the Defense of Van (1915), in which case this article is a complete FORK, with UNDUE content. This article tries to include some kind of Sasun and Sivas insurgency as well, yet Sasun is only mentioned once in the template and the only mentions of Sivas are 'reports' of Armenian weapons in the regions.

Interestingly, this is on the Van article:

Historian Erickson concluded that "before the war began, indicators of potentially violent intent accumulated, as the authorities found bombs and weapons hidden in Armenian homes". On the other hand, Nogales witnessed Ottoman army units photographing their own weapons, claiming they had been found in Armenian houses and churches.

So no, he is not quite respectable at all. He labels the Armenian Genocide in quotes. The Defense of Van page provides plenty of sources that plans to slaughter Armenian civilians were made well in advance and were the first actions taken. Erickson tries to paint the Armenian Genocide as a rebellion, thus his work is UNDUE. Take a look at the editorial and customer Amazon reviews, the only people who respect him are Armenian Genocide deniers.

Take a look at this, from the Armenian Genocide denial article:

Turkish sources state: "the measures adopted regarding the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were merely a replacement in another region within the Empire for security reasons".

Now look at Erickson's book:

The Armenian insurrection was a genuine security imperative requiring an immediate solution, and it was an existential threat to the survival of the empire’s armies.[3] --Steverci (talk) 22:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I scrolled through his first few Amazon reviews and they didn't seem whacko (although Amazon reviews mean nothing, since they can be faked pro or against an author). Erickson is published by a very respectable publisher, Palgrave MacMillan, which writes that he is "widely recognized as one of the foremost experts on the Ottoman Army during the First World War." Are they lying? If he's a complete loon denialist who ignores all evidence in order to push an agenda, why is he a professor at Quantico? Putting "Armenian genocide" in quotes doesn't mean much to me when he goes on in the next page to write that the book would not attempt to label it as a genocide or not a genocide. That does not make him a denier in any way. It seems to me the disagreement is over whether or not it was technically a genocide, and I'm thinking that is the point he is making; IMO you can disagree about how to define the massacre so long as you don't attempt to deny it ever took place, because there is plenty of evidence and proof it did, which Erickson clearly supports as far as I can tell.

He goes on to write that it is an enormously charged argument (as evidenced here). I'm not quite sure why it is controversial to say there was an "insurgency" by the Armenians or that they had weapons... I would certainly hope they had partisan fighters attacking/defending themselves from the Ottomans (invaders) in attempts to kick them out!! Insurgency in some cases is justified. I don't see that the quote by Erickson supports the Turkish denial claims; these are two separate things: "The Armenian insurrection was a genuine security imperative requiring an immediate solution, and it was an existential threat to the survival of the empire’s armies" - This is a neutral statement. Of course the Turks saw it this way. They didn't massacre the Armenians because they were bored or because they wanted "racial purity" like the Nazis; they did it because they were posing a very real, very imminent threat to their crumbling empire. He's not saying what they did was right, he just saying why they did it.

Anyway, to sum up, it's troubling that Erickson is being called a denialist, but I agree this appears to be a fork of the Defense of Van (1915) article, so please count my vote as Delete/redirect. It is sufficient to describe the Ottoman's retaliation/counterinsurgency in that article. —Мандичка^YO 😜 00:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think anyone (Talat Bey included), anytime (beginning 1915) denied the massacres. The conflict on Erikson is not that he is so called denier. He objectively produced around 100+ pages in detail of day to day activities on what happened in 1915 behind the lines. His summary is so good organized conceptually that produces a challenge. He states in the VOA Armenian presentation "My Iraq deployment gave me unique chance to understand inner workings of this type of warfare." This is history. It is here for us to learn. If Ericson's book was published in 2003 and was part of our experience, would the military planners in Iraq wait three years to develop their counter-insurgency plan? The insurgency creates a responsibility on people who wage insurgency. If you put people's life and well being beyond everything else (revolution (Armenian Revolutionary Party), nation or religion) there is a responsibility. The hars reaction against Erikson in these pages proves it. According to my girlfriend's criticism (new-follower); Insurgency brings sharing of the responsibility. What a "shame-full act" to share. There is no insurgency-there is no responsibility. Erikson's addition to military history is that he united the accounts spread in different sources-inquiries in to a single coherent meaningful line of thought. His arguments are backed by multiple sources, rather than separate concepts and events patched together. I just got shameful-act. I will compare these. If not deleted, I will share with other Wikipedia on this page. This story of "1915 insurgency" is academic. It is at least as meaningful as the wedding dress of Diana. It is not a POV to be deleted. By the way the insurgents in Van is around 1000-1500 from Terminissians account. Musa Dag was 1800-2500 (from the Musa Dag account) and Musa Dag preparations began 1914 August along the Bogus Nubar and scrapped Alexandria Lending. In Sivas, Murad had 800-1200 insurgents. Sasun is another article like Van. Total # of insurgency cells is more than all the fighters in Iraq-Syria in 2014. What a bad story is Iraq-Syria. My point is. In Van the Armenian national movement achieved, so we can keep that article. Ottoman's defeated them in the rest. There is no Article telling what happened in the rest of the country. That is what is in the deletion now. SelimAnkara1993 (talk) 12:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"My Iraq deployment" - ahh, now I get it. I was wondering about Erikson's agenda. From a perversion of truth comes more perversions. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 16:31, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Revision | edits: I would like to thank for every feedback. I corrected the issues in the article as much as possible. This is my summary. Hope it will help you making your final decisions.
First position was WP:UNDUE. The facts in the article by Erickson and Reynolds compared to opposing positions presented by "Akcam, Taner (2007). A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility." The "information" presented on Erickson and Reynolds were not fringe facts. These cases were also presented by Akcam. Regarding the conclusions of Erickson and Reynolds. That is their conclusion looking at the same events from their own expertise. I do not know how to defend against "genocide denier," which makes analysis irrelevant. I do not believe wikipedia should label people without judicial decision. Another position was on the insurrection. The term 'self defense' is argued. I sympathize with the idea. I looked for specific cases in Akcam that fall into this category and added to the article. You will notice that Erikson already presented them. I also carried Erikson's conclusions regarding ottoman army and civilian life. I also carried Erikson's conclusion on deportee attacks. These are major positions that Erikson clearly points to the guilty party. The concept of 'insurrection' is an active term 1,042 different articles and books used this term in analyzing this concept. It is true the document structure is from Erikson, but even before this nomination, I was using two major sources. The third one is aded. Three WP:FORK ideas presented. (1) Caucasus Campaign (2) Defense of Van (1915). I created a summary section. Summary The table clearly shows conflict regions were beyond these articles. The summary also includes why this is a separate article. In the summer of 1915 %7 combatant activities performed in under the "general counterinsurgency campaign." In 7 campaign middle eastern theater %7 is a major activity. It should have it's page. There is much more information between May-September in Erikson, but article is already had more than 70K (copy edited on 32 pages). If we moved this under (1) and (2) other editors, right fully, delete them. (1) and (2) have clear cut zones that these conflicts are not included. The third WP:FORK idea was to move under Armenian Genocide denial. This idea seems to be what wikipedia is doing on this issue. It looks like Armenian genocide article carried all the “opposing” ideas to denial article. I do not think this article is a "denial article." Crimes are not hidden. Massacres are not falsified. It was argued that military defense justifies things, but there is a limit to military defense idea. It is not a shield for everything. This article does a great job explaining one critical dimension of this period. I do not want this article “to be deleted.” The “major” information in this article is not expressed in any other article as argued. The information is factual, structure of the article fits to publicly available publications and everyone can read and compare the presented information from the publications. Thank you. SelimAnkara1993 (talk) 21:49, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Completely one-sided representation of the events. The use of the term "insurgency" is only promoted by the Turkish government and denialist pseudo-scholars.--Երևանցի ^talk 19:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article is a pov fork crafted out of cherry-picked incidents and weasely-worded non-mainstream claims. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: If the article lacks sources than we can delete it. But we are not in the position to classify the sources as being bad or good depending on our POV . That's highly unencyclopedic. The sources are OK and the "one-sided representation of the events" accusation is rootless. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 19:30, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We are in a position to classify an opinion in a source as marginal, in this case very marginal. The bulk of the article is derived from claims made in a single source, the terminology used in the article title is derived from just two sources. No other sources use "1915 insurgency in the Ottoman Empire" terminology to describe a theatre of war in WW1, and the author of the main source used, Erickson, has been described as an Armenian Genocide denier in several sources. Wikipedia articles do not exist to act as a platform for extreme marginal views that run contrary to what is widely accepted by academics. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(a) "insurgency" and "Ottoman Empire" and "1915" search in google published sources gives plenty of literature. (b) Tiptoethrutheminefield also not right on his point that the so-called genocide-denier literature is using the "Insurgency" as their term. The correct term is REBELLION. He should try "WW1" and "ARMENIAN" and "REBELLION," "Rebellion" would give what him that part of the literature. Erikson clearly points out that he does not believe in "REBELLION," except the "Van Rebellion." This article presents his postion on rebellion. (c) This article do not include a single sentence that reject any massacres, any crimes, any deportation, etc. The depiction of this article as a genocide-denier is not true. I have not seen any sentence pointed out to me that denies the genocide in this article. (d) The facts in the article also collaborated with Akcam (I guess his credibility is not also on the line) in this area (Akcam uses "gangs" for "Armenian volunteers"; Akcam uses "uprising" for what Erikson uses "Insurgency"). I already carried many of Akcam's positions on this specific period and context. Article has not two (as claimed), but three major scientific sources and couple supporting sources. The # sources can be increased to reach a better quality. There are many articles in Wikipedia that uses single source, but we keep them for other editors to improve. SelimAnkara1993 (talk) 22:49, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Armenia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:20, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Turkey-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]