Henry Morgenthau

Morgenthau was United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916 (U.S. House of Representatives, H. Res. 296 (2019) preamble). In the spring of 1915 he and the Italian ambassador made representations to the Ottoman government about the treatment of the Armenians, and he urged the Austrian ambassador to act (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915, Supplement, doc. 1397 (2 May 1915)). In July he told Washington that he had pleaded with the Grand Vizier and the Ministers of the Interior and of War without effect outside the capital, that he had warned the German ambassador that Germany would share the odium, and that the authorities had told him he had no right to interfere in their internal affairs (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915, Supplement, doc. 1400 (10 July 1915)).

In August he asked the State Department to consider a formal protest, an appeal to the German emperor and a demand that Americans be allowed to bring relief (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915, Supplement, doc. 1406 (11 August 1915)). In September he proposed a committee in the United States to raise funds for the survivors (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915, Supplement, doc. 1410 (3 September 1915)). See the Destruction of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians.