by Selahi Sonyel
The publication, in 1916, of the British war-time disinformation 'report' under the title THE TREATMENT OF ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1915-1916, which came to be known as "The Blue Book", was masterminded by Arnold Toynbee, a member of the Masterman propaganda bureau in London, on the instigation of Viscount James Bryce. Lord Bryce had been inciting the Armenian militants to rebellion since the publication of his book entitled TRANSCAUCASIA AND ARARAT in 1877, in which he remarked: "Why ...do the Armenians not rise in rebellion...as their forefathers did against the Seleucids and the Persians?" (Bryce, p.344).
Following the revolt of Ottoman Armenians in 1914 - 1915, on the instigation by the Allies (mainly by Russia, France and Britain), in order to dismember the Ottoman state and the eruption of a civil war between the Armenians and the Turks, the British Intelligence and Information Services, some political and military advisers and Armenophile enthusiasts such as Lord Bryce, Arnold Toynbee, Aneurin Williams, and others, urged the British government to publicise the Turco-Armenian incidents such as "Armenian massacres." Internally, it was hoped that this would arouse, among the British public, more interest in "the little allies of the Entente" - the Armenians
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