The Armenians, […] [a]ccording to Talât, […] “pursued a goal that could only be realized through the disintegration of Turkey.” There was even, he claimed, an Armenian master plan: “At the outbreak of war the Ottoman and Russian Armenians held a meeting and decided that the Caucasian Armenians would fight with the Russians against Turkey. The Ottoman Armenians, on the other hand, were to wait for a Russian advance.”

This went considerably further than the other accounts we have seen: the Armenians, according to Talât, were not merely potential tools, but, as a whole, were active and organized agents. This had left the Ottomans no choice, Talât claimed. The “removal” of the Armenians from the Eastern provinces, near the Russian frontier, had become a “military necessity.”

Further, the Entente landings at Gallipoli made the removal of Armenians from Western Anatolia necessary as well. And in both areas, that necessity had been further reinforced when searches of Armenian houses had “everywhere” revealed “rifles, ammunition, and bombs.”

(Emphasis added. Source.)