Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Pe ...

To achieve this goal, certain Kurdish tribes who were under the influence of mullas and their aghas and chieftains were psychologically prepared for the campaign on religious grounds. In both massacres of 1843 and 1846, fanatics played a key role in agitating the invaders, and they continued to agitate the masses against the Assyrians as being infidels living among the believers. Added to this was the thirst for loot and for women slaves. When the various Kurdish groups from Turkey and Persia headed to the attack against the tribes, they had in mind these three inducements: fighting the infidel, plundering loot, and enslaving the women. As the historian Ibn Khaldun remarked, these are common motives among invading nomads.¹⁷

7. Great Britain’s Reaction to the Tekhoma Massacre

The Nature of the British Intervention

The British government’s reaction to the massacre was explained in the memorandum that Layard submitted to the ambassador, where he outlined his own views on the best method for ruling the region after Bedr Khan was removed. He held that there had been no justification for the massacres of 1843, which had led to the recent one in Tekhoma; he believed that the religious fanatics and the furious ambition of Bedr Khan lay behind this carnage.¹⁸

The response of the Foreign Office to the tragedy of Tekhoma was firmly expressed by Palmerston in his instructions to Wellesley. Referring to the dispatch that he had received from the consul at Tabreez, he expressed his concern about the fate of the Nestorians. They were oppressed and persecuted throughout the region. The plight of those who were under the rule of the government of Urmia was considerably aggravated by the continued detention of their patriarch, who was considered a prisoner at Mosul. Consequently the Foreign Office instructed Wellesley to intercede with the Porte in favour of the patriarch and to express the pleasure that the British government would feel if he were set free from his detention.¹⁹