Note 2 — INTRODUCTION.

The whole German press—as stated by the author of the Memorandum—reproduced an interview with Dr. Rifaat, a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, originally published in a Danish paper, in the course of which the interviewed politician spoke of “a conspiracy embracing the whole Armenian population residing in Turkey, threatening the very existence of the country and intended to play Constantinople into the hands of the Allies.” He further stated that the plot was discovered before it had ripened, that many of the conspirators, including the Arabian Chief Abd-ul-Kerim, had been arrested and punished, and that 21 of the adherents of the latter were hanged. The author of the Memorandum makes the following comment on this statement: “If Dr. Rifaat knows anything of an Arabian conspiracy, it is impossible for us to verify this finding. In any case an ‘Arabian’ conspiracy is not an ‘Armenian’ conspiracy. But the number of the 21 conspirators hanged and the other contents of the ‘interview’ lead inevitably to the conclusion that Dr. Rifaat did intentionally mislead public opinion, by representing the plot of the Turkish opposition which had already been discovered before the war,2 and which aimed at the fall of the present government and the murder of Talaat Bey and other Young Turk leaders, as ‘a conspiracy embracing the whole Armenian population residing in Turkey.’”