in the campaign “Muhajirism: the expulsion of Chechens to the Ottoman Empire, the ban on return, and population replacement (1858-1872)”
The head of the Terek oblast, General Loris-Melikov, stressed in a special dispatch to the Main Staff of the Caucasus Army: "For the success of the affair it is necessary that the highlanders not only not know of our desire to assist the resettlement, but the local authorities must, on the contrary, as it were dissuade them from this intention"[1]; its execution was entrusted to the head of the Middle Military Division, Tumanov, and he reported on it to Loris-Melikov himself: "The first and indispensable condition for arousing in the Chechens the desire to resettle to Turkey I consider to be not revealing that this desire comes from the government... consequently, all this must remain in the deepest secrecy; on our skill it will depend to complete the great [work] without bloodshed or particular disorders…"[2]. In Chechnya "forged proclamations were circulated, purporting to come from the Turkish government, in which the migrants were promised a cordial welcome and good material provision"[1] - Loris-Melikov himself asked in writing to be sent samples of Turkish proclamations "for circulation among the population"[2]. Agents frightened the people with the future: they "spread provocative rumours that not a single Chechen would receive a scrap of land, that all the young men would be given up as soldiers, that the Muslim religion would sooner be banned and everyone would become Christians"[2].