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

Bedr Khan’s attack on Tekhoma in the autumn of 1846 marked the end of all the remaining disloyal centres that the Ottomans had sought to subdue except for his own emirate of Bohtan, where he had emerged as the most powerful leader of the Kurds. After Tekhoma, the Turks were very close to concluding the last chapter in the saga of subduing these centres. Meanwhile it seems that the circumstances that had prompted the Kurds to form a unified front against the independent Assyrian tribes during 1843–1846 no longer applied, because they no longer viewed the Christians as a serious threat. Thus the equilibrium of political and racial relations was changed late in 1846, and that change in turn affected the Kurds’ relations with the sultan and his government. They no longer felt bound in a common national cause but reverted to their entrenched tribal loyalties, functioning as competing centres with the stronger always seeking domination over the weaker. The power of various other Kurdish leaders had been strengthened after the massacre. Having managed to entrench their position through their loyalty to Bedr Khan, leaders such as Noor Allah Beg, Ardasheer Beg, the elder son of the spiritual leader of the Bohtan Kurds, Bedr Khan’s nephew, and others were now to be involved in his downfall.³ So just when he had reached the peak of his power and domination, Bedr Khan Beg found himself a leader with a cause but without supporters.⁴

2. The Foreign Powers’ Reaction to Bedr Khan’s Atrocity

The reaction of the foreign powers, especially Great Britain, after the massacre of Tekhoma and the successful escape of Mar Shimun from his detention in Mosul put strong pressure on the sultan and his government to make an end of such attacks on his Assyrian Christian subjects. The powers took the events at Tekhoma as an occasion to demand in strong terms that the massacres should cease. The pressure that these great powers exerted upon the Ottoman government led it to speed up its action against the Kurdish leader, which was at last officially undertaken in the summer of 1847.