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{{Short description|1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
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{{Armenian Genocide}} | |||
The '''Armenian Genocide''' ({{Lang-hy|Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն}}, {{Lang-tr|Ermeni Soykırımı}}), also known as the '''Armenian Holocaust''', the '''Armenian Massacres''' and, by Armenians, the '''Great Calamity''' (Մեծ Եղեռն)—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction (]) of the ] population of the ] during and just after ]. It was characterised by the use of ]s, and the use of ]s involving ] under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenian deaths generally held to have been between one and one-and-a-half million. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Empire during this period, including ] and ], and some scholars consider the events to be part of the same policy of extermination.<ref>Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008) 'Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies – introduction', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:1, 7–14</ref> | |||
{{Infobox civilian attack | |||
The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be ], ], the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some ] in ]. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now ]. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, and ] and other ] were commonplace. The Armenian Genocide is the second most-studied case of genocide.<ref name="nazi">Rummel R. J. "''The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective''". The Journal of Social Issues. Volume 3, no.2. ], ]. Retrieved ], ].</ref> | |||
| title = Armenian genocide | |||
| partof = ] | |||
| image = Column of deportees walking through Harput vilayet during the Armenian genocide.jpg | |||
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⚫ | |||
| caption = Column of Armenian deportees guarded by ]s in ] | |||
| location = ] | |||
| coordinates = | |||
| date = 1915–1917{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=245, 330}}{{sfn|Bozarslan et al.|2015|p=187}} | |||
| type = ], ], ] | |||
|target = ] | |||
| fatalities = ]{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=1}} | |||
| perps = ] | |||
|}} | |||
The '''Armenian genocide'''{{efn|Also known by ].|name=names}} was the systematic destruction of the ] in the ] during ]. Spearheaded by the ruling ] (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during ]es to the ] and the ] of others, primarily women and children. | |||
Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred ] and ]. The Ottoman Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses—especially during the 1912–1913 ]—leading to fear among CUP leaders that the Armenians would seek independence. During their invasion of ] and ] territory in 1914, ] massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of ] as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence. | |||
The ], the ] of the Ottoman Empire, does not accept the word ''genocide'' as an accurate description of the events.<ref name="BBC News">{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045182.stm |title=Q&A: Armenian 'genocide' |author=BBC News Europe |publisher=] |accessdate=2006-12-29|date=]}}</ref> In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty-two countries have ], and most scholars<ref> from the ] to ] ], ], ]</ref> and historians<ref>Kamiya, Gary. salon.com. ], ].</ref> accept this view.<ref>Jaschik, Scott. . ''History News Network''. ], ].</ref><ref>Kifner, John. . ''The New York Times''.</ref> The majority of ] communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide. | |||
On 24 April 1915, the Ottoman authorities ] hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from ]. At the orders of ], an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, ], and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into ]. In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ] of Armenian survivors continued through the ] after World War I, carried out by ]. | |||
==Prelude== | |||
{{Main|Armenians in the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
This genocide put an end to more than two thousand years of Armenian civilization in eastern ]. Together with the mass murder and expulsion of ] and ] Christians, it enabled the creation of an ] Turkish state, the ]. The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that ]. {{As of|2023|post=,}} 34 countries have ], concurring with the academic consensus. | |||
===Life under Ottoman rule=== | |||
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In the Ottoman Empire, in accordance with the Muslim '']'' system, Armenians, as ]s, were guaranteed limited freedoms (such as the right to worship), but were treated as ]s. Christians and ]s were not considered equals to ]s: testimony against Muslims by Christians and Jews was inadmissible in courts of law. They were forbidden to carry weapons or ride atop horses, their houses could not overlook those of Muslims, and their religious practices would have to defer to those of Muslims, in addition to various other legal limitations.<ref>]. ''A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility''. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006 p. 24 ISBN 0-8050-7932-7</ref> Violation of these statutes could result in punishments ranging from the levying of fines to execution. | |||
] | |||
The three major European powers, ], ] and ] (known as the Great Powers), took issue with the Empire's treatment of its Christian minorities and increasingly pressured the Ottoman government (also known as the ]) to extend equal rights to all its citizens. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government implemented the ] reforms to improve the situation of minorities, although these would prove largely ineffective. By the late 1870s, ], along with several countries of the ], frustrated with conditions, had, often with the help of the Powers, broken free of Ottoman rule. Armenians, for the most part, remained passive during these years, earning them the title of ''millet-i sadıka'' or the "loyal millet."<ref>]. ''The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus''. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995 p. 192 ISBN 1-5718-1666-6</ref> | |||
== Background == | |||
===Reform implementation, 1860s–1880s === | |||
{{ |
{{further|Causes of the Armenian genocide}} | ||
In the mid-1860s to early 1870s, Armenians began to ask for better treatment from the Ottoman government. After amassing the signatures of peasants from eastern ], the ] had petitioned to the Ottoman government to redress the issues that the peasants complained about: "the looting and murder in Armenian towns by ] and ]s, improprieties during tax collection, criminal behavior by government officials and the refusal to accept Christians as witnesses in trial."<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. p. 36</ref> The Ottoman government considered these grievances and promised to punish those responsible. | |||
=== Armenians in the Ottoman Empire === | |||
Following the violent suppression of Christians in the uprisings in ], ] and ] in 1875, the Great Powers invoked the 1856 ] by claiming that it gave them the right to intervene and protect the Ottoman Empire's Christian minorities.<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. pp. 35ff</ref> Under growing pressure, the government declared itself a constitutional monarchy (which was almost immediately dissolved) and entered into negotiations with the powers. At the same time, the Armenian patriarchate of Constantinople, ], forwarded Armenian complaints of widespread "forced land seizure ... forced conversion of women and children, arson, protection extortion, rape, and murder" to the Powers.<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. p. 37</ref> | |||
{{main|Armenians in the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
]: ], ], ], ], ] and ]. Most villages populated by Armenians were in these provinces.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=279}}]] | |||
The presence of ] in ] has been documented since the ], about 1,500 years before ] under the ].{{sfn|Ahmed|2006|p=1576}} The ] ] as its national religion in the ], establishing the ].{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=34–35}} Following the end of the ] in 1453, two Islamic empires—the ] and the Iranian ]—contested ], which was permanently separated from ] (held by the Safavids) by the 1639 ].{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=105–106}} The Ottoman Empire was multiethnic and multireligious,{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=11, 15}} and its ] offered non-Muslims a subordinate but protected place in society.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=12}} ] encoded Islamic superiority but guaranteed property rights and freedom of worship to non-Muslims ('']'') in exchange for ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=5, 7}} | |||
On the eve of ] in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15–17.5 million.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=xviii}} According to the ]'s estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in the Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the ] adjacent to the Russian border.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=279}} Armenians were a minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and ] Muslim and ] neighbors.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=xviii}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=279}} According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially ], ], and ].{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=279}} Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As ], despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable.{{sfn|Bloxham|2005|pp=8–9}} | |||
After the conclusion of the 1877–1878 ], Armenians began to look more towards ] as the guarantors of their security. Nerses approached the Russian leadership during its negotiations with the Ottomans in ] and in the ], convinced them to insert a clause, Article 16, that stipulated that Russian forces occupying the Armenian provinces would only withdraw with the full implementation of Ottoman reforms.<ref>Article 16 stated that "As the evacuation of the Russian troops of the territory they occupy in Armenia ... might give rise to conflicts and complications detrimental to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, the ] engaged to carry into effect, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians and to guarantee their security from Kurds and ]."</ref> Great Britain was troubled with Russia holding on to so much Ottoman territory and forced it to enter into new negotiations with the convening of the ] on ], ]. Armenians also entered into these negotiations and stated that they sought ], not independence from the Ottoman Empire.<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. p. 38</ref> They partially succeeded as Article 61 of the ] contained the same text as Article 16 but removed any mention that Russian forces would remain in the provinces; instead, the Ottoman government was to periodically inform the Great Powers of the progress of the reforms. | |||
=== |
=== Land conflict and reforms === | ||
] | |||
{{main|Hamidian Massacres}} | |||
Armenians in the eastern provinces lived in semi-] conditions and commonly encountered ], ], and unpunished crimes against them including robberies, murders, and sexual assaults.{{sfn|Astourian|2011|p=60}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=19}} Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government issued ] to centralize power and equalize the status of Ottoman subjects regardless of religion. The reforms to equalize the status of non-Muslims were strongly opposed by Islamic clergy and Muslims in general, and remained mostly theoretical.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=9}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=8, 40}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=26–27}} Because of the abolition of the ] in the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman government began to directly tax Armenian peasants who had previously paid taxes only to Kurdish landlords. The latter continued to exact levies illegally.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=19, 53}}{{sfn|Astourian|2011|pp=60, 63}} | |||
In 1876, the Ottoman government was led by ] ]. From the beginning of the reform period after the signing of the Berlin treaty, Hamid II attempted to stall their implementation and asserted that Armenians did not make up a majority in the provinces and that Armenian reports of abuses were largely exaggerated or false. In 1890, Hamid II created a ] outfit known as the '']'' which was made up of Kurdish irregulars who were tasked to "deal with the Armenians as he wished."<ref>]. ''The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response''. New York: Perennial, 2003. p. 40 ISBN 0-0601-9840-0</ref> As Ottoman officials intentionally provoked rebellions (often as a result of over-taxation) in Armenian populated towns, such as the ] in 1894, these regiments were increasingly used to deal with the Armenians by way of oppression and massacre. Armenians successfully fought off the regiments and brought the excesses to the attention of the Great Powers in 1895 who subsequently condemned the Porte.<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. pp. 40–42</ref> | |||
From the mid-nineteenth century, Armenians faced large-scale ] as a consequence of the ] and the arrival of ] and immigrants (mainly ]) following the ].{{sfn|Astourian|2011|pp=56, 60}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=19, 21}}{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=123}} In 1876, when Sultan ] came to power, the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants as part of a systematic policy to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. This policy lasted until World War I.{{sfn|Astourian|2011|pp=62, 65}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=55}} These conditions led to a substantial decline in the population of the Armenian highlands; 300,000 Armenians left the empire, and others moved to towns.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=271}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=54–56}} Some Armenians joined ], of which the most influential was the ] (ARF), founded in 1890. These parties primarily sought reform within the empire and found only limited support from Ottoman Armenians.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=87–88}} | |||
The Powers forced Hamid to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the ''Hamidiye'' in October 1895 but like the Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On ], ], 2,000 Armenians assembled in Constantinople to petition for the implementation of the reforms but Ottoman police units converged towards the rally and violently broke it up.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris''. pp. 57–58</ref> Soon, massacres of Armenians broke out in Constantinople and then engulfed the rest of the Armenian populated provinces of ], ], ], ], ] and ]. Estimates differ on how many Armenians were killed but European documentation of the violence, which became known as the ], placed the figures from anywhere between 100,000–300,000 Armenians.<ref>The German Foreign Ministry operative, ], estimated that 200,000 Armenians were killed and a further 50,000 expelled from the provinces during the Hamidian unrest. French diplomats placed the figures to 250,000 killed. The German pastor ] was more meticulous in his calculations, counting the deaths of 88,000 Armenians and the destruction of 2,500 villages, 645 churches and monasteries, and the plundering of hundreds of churches, of which 328 were converted into mosques.</ref> | |||
Russia's decisive victory in the ] forced the Ottoman Empire to cede parts of eastern Anatolia, the ], and ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=94–95, 105}} ] at the 1878 ], the ] agreed to carry out reforms and guarantee the physical safety of its Armenian subjects, but there was no enforcement mechanism;{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=95–96}} conditions continued to worsen.{{sfn|Astourian|2011|p=64}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=97}} The Congress of Berlin marked the emergence of the ] in international diplomacy as Armenians were for the first time used by the ] to interfere in Ottoman politics.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=96}} Although Armenians had been called the "loyal millet" in contrast to Greeks and others who had previously challenged Ottoman rule, the authorities began to perceive Armenians as a threat after 1878.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=48–49}} In 1891, Abdul Hamid created the ] from Kurdish tribes, allowing them to act with impunity against Armenians.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=75–76}}{{sfn|Astourian|2011|p=64}} From 1895 to 1896 the empire saw ]; at least 100,000 Armenians were killed{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=11, 65}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=129}} primarily by Ottoman soldiers and mobs let loose by the authorities.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=129–130}} Many Armenian villages were forcibly converted to Islam.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=271}} The Ottoman state bore ultimate responsibility for the killings,{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=130}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=11}} whose purpose was violently restoring the previous social order in which Christians would unquestioningly accept Muslim supremacy,{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=131}} and forcing Armenians to emigrate, thereby decreasing their numbers.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=266}} | |||
Although Hamid was never directly implicated for ordering the massacres, he was suspected for their tacit approval and for not acting to end them.<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. p. 42</ref> Frustrated with European indifference to the massacres, Armenians from the ] political party ] the European managed ] on ], ]. This incident brought further sympathy for Armenians in Europe and was lauded by the European and American press, which vilified Hamid and painted him as the "great assassin" and "bloody Sultan."<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris''. p. 35, 115</ref> While the Great Powers vowed to take action and enforce new reforms, these never came into fruition due to conflicting political and economical interests. | |||
=== Young Turk Revolution === | |||
==Dissolution of the Empire== | |||
{{Main|Young Turk Revolution}} | |||
{{Seealso|Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
Abdul Hamid's despotism prompted the formation of an opposition movement, the ], which sought to overthrow him and restore the 1876 ], which he had suspended in 1877.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=92–93, 99, 139–140}} One faction of the Young Turks was the secret and revolutionary ] (CUP), based in ], from which the charismatic conspirator ] (later Talaat Pasha{{efn|name=Talaatbey|Talaat previously had the title "]," and so was known as "Talaat Bey" until he gained the title "]" in 1917.{{Sfn|Kieser|2018|p=2}}}}) emerged as a leading member.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=46–47}} Although skeptical of a growing, exclusionary ] in the Young Turk movement, the ARF decided to ally with the CUP in December 1907.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=152–153}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=50}} In 1908, the CUP came to power in the ], which began with a string of CUP assassinations of leading officials in ].{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=53–54}}{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=192}} Abdul Hamid was forced to reinstate the 1876 constitution and restore the ], which was celebrated by Ottomans of all ethnicities and religions.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=54–55}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=154–156}} Security improved in parts of the eastern provinces after 1908 and the CUP took steps to reform the local ],{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=89–91}} although tensions remained high.{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=82–84}} Despite an agreement to reverse the land usurpation of the previous decades in the 1910 Salonica Accord between the ARF and the CUP, the latter made no efforts to carry this out.{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=86–92}}{{sfn|Astourian|2011|p=66}} | |||
===The Young Turk Revolution, 1908=== | |||
{{main|Young Turk Revolution}} | |||
On ], ], Armenians' hopes for equality in the empire brightened once more when a ] staged by officers in the ] based in ], removed Hamid II from power and restored the country back to a constitutional monarchy. The officers were part of the ] movement that wanted to reform administration of the decadent state of the Ottoman Empire and modernize it to European standards. The movement was an anti-Hamidian coalition made up of two distinct groups: the ] ] ] and the ]; the former was more ] and accepted Armenians into their wing whereas the latter was more intolerant in regard to Armenian-related issues and their frequent requests for European assistance.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris''. pp. 140–141</ref> In 1902, during a congress of the Young Turks held in ], the heads of the liberal wing, ] and ], partially persuaded the nationalists to include in their objectives to ensure some rights to all the minorities of the empire. | |||
] after the ]|alt=Destroyed cityscape with ruined buildings and rubble in the street]] | |||
Among the numerous factions of the Young Turks also included the political organization ] (CUP). Originally a ] made up of army officers based in Salonika, the CUP proliferated amongst military circles as more army mutinies took place throughout the empire. In 1908, elements of the Third Army and the Second Army Corps declared their opposition to the Sultan and threatened to march on the capital to depose him. Hamid, shaken by the wave of resentment, stepped down from power as Armenians, Greeks, ]s, ] and Turks alike rejoiced in his dethronement.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris''. pp. 143–144</ref> | |||
In early 1909 ] was launched by conservatives and some liberals who opposed the CUP's increasingly repressive governance.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=165–166}} When news of the countercoup reached ], armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=168–169}} Between 20,000 and 25,000 people, mostly Armenians, were ] and nearby towns.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=171}} Unlike the 1890s massacres, the events were not organized by the central government but instigated by local officials, intellectuals, and Islamic clerics, including CUP supporters in Adana.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=172}} Although the massacres went unpunished, the ARF continued to hope that reforms to improve security and restore lands were forthcoming, until late 1912, when they broke with the CUP and appealed to the European powers.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=152–153}}{{sfn|Astourian|2011|pp=66–67}}{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|p=92}} On 8 February 1914, the CUP reluctantly agreed to ] brokered by ] that provided for the appointment of two European inspectors for the entire Ottoman east and putting the Hamidiye regiments in reserve. CUP leaders feared that these reforms, which were never implemented, could lead to partition and cited them as a reason for the elimination of the Armenian population in 1915.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=163–164}}{{sfn|Akçam|2019|pp=461–462}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=203, 359}} | |||
=== |
===Balkan Wars=== | ||
{{ |
{{Main|Balkan Wars}} | ||
] parading with loot in Phocaea (modern-day ], Turkey) on ]. In the background are Greek refugees and burning buildings.|alt=see caption]] | |||
] in 1909.]] | |||
The 1912 ] resulted in the ]{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=184–185}} and the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=167}} Ottoman Muslim society was incensed by the atrocities committed against Balkan Muslims, intensifying anti-Christian sentiment and leading to a desire for revenge.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=185, 363}}{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=50}} Blame for the loss was assigned to all Christians, including the Ottoman Armenians, many of whom had fought on the Ottoman side.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|pp=169, 171}} The Balkan Wars put an end to the ] movement for pluralism and coexistence;{{sfn|Bloxham|Göçek|2008|p=363}} instead, the CUP turned to an increasingly radical Turkish nationalism to preserve the empire.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=156}} CUP leaders such as Talaat and ] came to blame non-Muslim population concentrations in strategic areas for many of the empire's problems, concluding by mid-1914 that they were internal tumors to be excised.{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=97–98}} Of these, Ottoman Armenians were considered the most dangerous, because CUP leaders feared that their homeland in Anatolia—claimed as the last refuge of the Turkish nation—would break away from the empire as the Balkans had.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=193}}{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=191}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=156}} | |||
] | |||
A ] took place on ], ]. Some Ottoman military elements, joined by ] ] students, aimed to return control of the country to the Sultan and the rule of ]. Riots and fighting broke out between the reactionary forces and CUP forces, until the CUP was able to put down the uprising and ] the opposition leaders. | |||
In January 1913, the CUP ], installed a ], and strictly repressed all real or perceived internal enemies.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=189–190}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=133–134, 136, 138, 172}} After the coup, the CUP shifted the demography of border areas by resettling Balkan Muslim refugees while coercing Christians to emigrate; immigrants were promised property that had belonged to Christians.{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=95, 97}} When parts of Eastern Thrace were reoccupied by the Ottoman Empire during the ] in mid-1913, there was a campaign of looting and intimidation against Greeks and Armenians, forcing many to emigrate.{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|pp=96–97}} Around 150,000 Greek Orthodox from the ] were ] in May and June 1914 by ], who were secretly backed by the CUP and sometimes joined by the ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=193, 211–212}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=169, 176–177}}{{sfn|Kaligian|2017|p=98}} Historian ] states that the perceived success of the Greek deportations allowed CUP leaders to envision even more radical policies "as yet another extension of a policy of ] through ]".{{sfn|Bjørnlund|2008|p=51}} | |||
While the movement initially targeted the nascent Young Turk government, it spilled over into ]s against Armenians who were perceived as having supported the restoration of the ].<ref>Akcam. ''A Shameful Act''. pp. 68–69</ref> When Ottoman Army troops were called in, many accounts record that instead of trying to quell the violence they actually took part in pillaging Armenian enclaves in ] province.<ref name=daysof> | |||
{{clear}} | |||
{{cite news |title=Days of horror described; American missionary an eyewitness of murder and rapine. |url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50612F63A5512738DDDA10A94DC405B898CF1D3 |author=unnamed |date=1909-04-28 |publisher='']'' |accessdate=2008-03-18}}</ref> 15,000–30,000 Armenians were killed in the course of the "]".<ref>Akcam. ''A shameful act''. p. 69</ref><ref name=30t> | |||
{{cite news |title=30,000 Killed in massacres; Conservative estimate of victims of Turkish fanaticism in Adana Vilayet |url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50C10F93C5A15738DDDAC0A94DC405B898CF1D3 |author=unnamed |date=1909-04-25 |publisher=''The New York Times'' |accessdate=2008-03-18 }}</ref> | |||
==Ottoman entry into World War I== | |||
== The Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917 period== | |||
] | |||
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered ] on the side of the ]. Minister of War ] developed a plan to encircle and destroy the Russian ] at ], to regain territories lost to Russia after the ] of 1877–1878. Enver Pasha's forces were routed at the ], and almost completely destroyed. Returning to Istanbul, Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians living in the region actively siding with the Russians.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris'', p. 200</ref> | |||
A few days after the outbreak of World War I, the CUP concluded ] on 2 August 1914.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=214–215}} The same month, CUP representatives went to ] demanding that, in the event of war with ], the ARF incite ] to intervene on the Ottoman side. Instead, the delegates resolved that Armenians should fight for the countries of their citizenships.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=223–224}} During its war preparations, the Ottoman government recruited thousands of prisoners to join the paramilitary ],{{sfn|Üngör|2016|pp=16–17}} which initially focused on stirring up revolts among Muslims behind Russian lines beginning before the empire officially entered the war.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=233–234}} On 29 October 1914, the empire ] on the side of the ] by launching a ] on Russian ports in the ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=218}} Many Russian Armenians were enthusiastic about the war, but Ottoman Armenians were more ambivalent, afraid that supporting Russia would bring retaliation. Organization of ] by Russian Armenians, later joined by some Ottoman Armenian deserters, further increased Ottoman suspicions against their Armenian population.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=221–222}} | |||
{{Seealso|Caucasus Campaign}} | |||
=== Labor battalions, February 25=== | |||
{{Further|]}} | |||
On ] ], The War minister ] sent an order to all military units that Armenians in the active Ottoman forces be demobilized and assigned to the unarmed ] (Turkish: ''amele taburlari''). Enver Pasha explained this decision as "out of fear that they would collaborate with the Russians". As a tradition, the Ottoman Army drafted non-Muslim males only between the ages of 20 and 45 into the regular army. The younger (15–20) and older (45–60) non-Muslim soldiers had always been used as logistical support through the labor battalions. Before February, some of the Armenian recruits were utilized as laborers (''hamals''), though they too would ultimately be executed.<ref>Toynbee, Arnold. ''Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation''. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915. pp. 181–2</ref> | |||
Wartime requisitions were often corrupt and arbitrary, and disproportionately targeted Greeks and Armenians.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=225}} Armenian leaders urged young men to accept ], but many soldiers of all ethnicities and religions deserted due to difficult conditions and concern for their families.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=226–227}} At least 10 percent of Ottoman Armenians were mobilized, leaving their communities bereft of fighting-age men and therefore largely unable to organize armed resistance to deportation in 1915.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=242}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=179}} During the Ottoman ] and ], the Special Organization massacred local Armenians and ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=243–244}}{{sfn|Üngör|2016|p=18}} Beginning in November 1914, provincial governors of Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum sent many telegrams to the central government pressing for more severe measures against the Armenians, both regionally and throughout the empire.{{sfn|Akçam|2019|p=475}} These requests were endorsed by the central government already before 1915.{{sfn|Akçam|2019|pp=478–479}} Armenian civil servants were dismissed from their posts in late 1914 and early 1915.{{sfn|Üngör|2016|p=19}} In February 1915, the CUP leaders decided to disarm Armenians serving in the army and transfer them to ]s.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=244}} The Armenian soldiers in labor battalions were systematically executed, although many skilled workers were spared until 1916.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=248–249}} | |||
Transferring Armenian conscripts from active field (armed) to passive, unarmed logistic section was an important aspect of the subsequent genocide. As reported in "]", the extermination of the Armenians in these battalions was part of a premeditated strategy on behalf of the ]. Many of these Armenian recruits were executed by Turkish squads known as '']s''.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris'', p. 178</ref> | |||
== |
== Onset of genocide == | ||
{{further|Causes of the Armenian genocide#Wartime radicalization}} | |||
{{Further|]}} | |||
] |
] | ||
], 1915|alt=Two armed men standing by a ruined wall, surrounded by skulls and other human remains<!-- alt=Photograph of two Russian soldiers in a ruined village looking at skeletal remains -->]] | |||
On ] ], ] demanded that the ] immediately furnish him 4,000 soldiers under the pretext of ]. However, it was clear to the Armenian population that his goal was to massacre the able-bodied men of Van so that there would be no defenders. Jevdet Bey had already used his officil writ in nearby villages, ostensibly to search for arms, which had turned into wholesale massacres.<ref>Morgenthau, Henry. ''Ambassador Morgenthau's Story''. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918.</ref> The Armenians offered five hundred soldiers and to pay exemption money for the rest in order to buy time, however, Djevdet accused Armenians of "rebellion," and spoke of his determination to "crush" it at any cost. "If the rebels fire a single shot," he declared, "I shall kill every Christian man, woman, and" (pointing to his knee) "every child, up to here." | |||
Minister of War Enver Pasha took over command of the Ottoman armies for the invasion of Russian territory, and tried to encircle the ] at the ], fought from December 1914 to January 1915. Unprepared for the harsh winter conditions,{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=241–242}} his forces were routed, losing more than 60,000 men.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=157}} The retreating Ottoman army destroyed dozens of Ottoman Armenian villages in Bitlis vilayet, massacring their inhabitants.{{sfn|Üngör|2016|p=19}} Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians who he claimed had actively sided with the Russians, a theory that became a consensus among CUP leaders.{{sfn|Üngör|2016|pp=18–19}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=243}} Reports of local incidents such as weapons caches, severed telegraph lines, and occasional killings confirmed preexisting beliefs about Armenian treachery and fueled paranoia among CUP leaders that a coordinated Armenian conspiracy was plotting against the empire.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=248}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=235–238}} Discounting contrary reports that most Armenians were loyal, the CUP leaders decided that the Armenians had to be eliminated to save the empire.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=248}} | |||
Massacres of Armenian men were occurring in the vicinity of ] in Van vilayet from December 1914.{{sfn|Akçam|2019|p=472}} ARF leaders attempted to keep the situation calm, warning that even justifiable self-defense could lead to escalation of killing.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=255}} The governor, ], ordered the Armenians of ] to hand over their arms on 18 April 1915, creating a dilemma: If they obeyed, the Armenians expected to be killed, but if they refused, it would provide a pretext for massacres. Armenians fortified themselves in Van and repelled ] that began on 20 April.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=257}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=319}} During the siege, Armenians in surrounding villages were massacred at Djevdet's orders. Russian forces captured Van on 18 May, finding 55,000 corpses in the province—about half its prewar Armenian population.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=259–260}} Djevdet's forces proceeded to Bitlis and attacked Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac villages; the men were killed immediately, many women and children were kidnapped by local Kurds, and others marched away to be killed later. By the end of June, there were only a dozen Armenians in the vilayet.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=287, 289}} | |||
On ] ], the armed conflict of the ] began when an Armenian woman was harassed, and the two Armenian men that came to her aid were killed by Turkish soldiers. The Armenian defenders protecting 30,000 residents and 15,000 refugees in an area of roughly one square kilometer of the Armenian Quarter and suburb of Aigestan with 1,500 able bodied riflemen who were supplied with 300 rifles and 1,000 pistols and antique weapons. The conflict lasted until ] came to rescue them.<ref>{{cite book | last = Hinterhoff | first = Eugene | title =Persia: The Stepping Stone To India. Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I, vol iv | pages = pp.1153–1157}}</ref> | |||
The first deportations of Armenians were proposed by ], the commander of the ], in February 1915 and targeted Armenians in ] (specifically ], ], Adana, ], ], and ]) who were relocated to the area around ] in central Anatolia.{{sfn|Dündar|2011|p=281}} In late March or early April, the ] decided on the large-scale removal of Armenians from areas near the front lines.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=247–248}} During the night of 23–24 April 1915 hundreds of Armenian political activists, intellectuals, and community leaders were ]. This order from Talaat, intended to eliminate the Armenian leadership and anyone capable of organizing resistance, eventually resulted in the murder of most of those arrested.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=10}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=251–252}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=271–272}} The same day, Talaat banned all Armenian political organizations{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=273}} and ordered that the Armenians who had previously been removed from Cilicia be deported again, from central Anatolia—where they would likely have survived—to the ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=274–275}}{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=188}} | |||
===Arrest and deportation of Armenian notables, April 1915 === | |||
{{clear}} | |||
{{Further|]}} | |||
== Systematic deportations == | |||
], ].]] | |||
{{See also|Population transfer in the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
By 1914, Ottoman authorities had already begun a ] drive to present Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire as a threat to the empire's security. An ] officer in the War Office described the planning: | |||
===Aims=== | |||
{{quote|In order to justify this enormous crime the requisite propaganda material was thoroughly prepared in Istanbul. "the Armenians are in league with the enemy. They will launch an uprising in Istanbul, kill off the Committee of Union and Progress leaders and will succeed in opening the straits (of the ])."<ref>Dadrian., ''History of the Armenian Genocide'', p. 220</ref>}} | |||
{{Quotebox|width=28em | |||
| quote = We have been blamed for not making a distinction between guilty and innocent Armenians. was impossible. Because of the nature of things, one who was still innocent today could be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. | source = —]{{efn|name=Talaatbey}}<!--Note that he is called "Talaat Bei" - "Talaat Bey' in German - in the article, because he did not get the title "Pasha" until 1917 --> in '']'', <!--Urls of : Full issue: https://content.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/zefys/SNP27646518-19160504-1-0-0-0.pdf , pages: https://content.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de:443/zefys/SNP27646518-19160504-1-4-0-0/full/full/0/default.jpg and https://content.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/zefys/SNP27646518-19160504-1-4-0-0.pdf -->{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pp=162–163}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=168}}}} | |||
During World War I, the CUP—whose central goal was to preserve the Ottoman Empire—came to identify Armenian civilians as an existential threat.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=337}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=245}} CUP leaders held Armenians—including women and children—collectively guilty for betraying the empire, a belief that was crucial to deciding on genocide in early 1915.{{sfn|Akçam|2019|p=457}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|pp=166–167}} At the same time, the war provided an opportunity to enact what Talaat called the "definitive solution to the Armenian Question".{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=245}}{{sfn|Dündar|2011|p=284}} The CUP wrongly believed that the Russian Empire sought to annex eastern Anatolia, and ordered the genocide in large part to prevent this eventuality.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=202}} The genocide was intended to permanently eliminate any possibility that Armenians could achieve autonomy or independence in the empire's eastern provinces.{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|p=284}} Ottoman records show the government aimed to reduce Armenians to no more than five percent of the local population in the sources of deportation and ten percent in the destination areas. This goal could not be accomplished without mass murder.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=242, 247–248}}{{sfn|Dündar|2011|p=282}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=261}} | |||
The deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims in their lands was part of a broader project intended to permanently restructure the demographics of Anatolia.{{sfn|Kaiser|2019|loc=6}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=102}}{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=254}} Armenian homes, businesses, and land were preferentially allocated to Muslims from outside the empire, nomads, and the estimated 800,000 (largely Kurdish) Ottoman subjects displaced because of the war with Russia. Resettled Muslims were spread out (typically limited to 10 percent in any area) among larger Turkish populations so that they would lose their distinctive characteristics, such as non-Turkish languages or nomadism.{{sfn|Gingeras|2016|pp=176–177}} These migrants were exposed to harsh conditions and, in some cases, violence or restriction from leaving their new villages.{{sfn|Gingeras|2016|p=178}} The ethnic cleansing of Anatolia—the Armenian genocide, ], and ] after World War I—paved the way for the formation of an ethno-national Turkish state.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=349, 364}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=311}} In September 1918, Talaat emphasized that regardless of losing the war, he had succeeded at "transforming Turkey to a nation-state in Anatolia".{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=376}}{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=227}} | |||
On the night of ], ], the Ottoman government rounded-up and imprisoned an estimated ].<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris'', pp. 211–2</ref> This date coincided with Allied troop landings at ] after unsuccessful Allied ] attempts to break through the Dardanelles to Constantinople in February and March 1915. | |||
Deportation amounted to a death sentence; the authorities planned for and intended the death of the deportees.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=384}}{{sfn|Dündar|2011|pp=276–277}}{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=54}} Deportation was only carried out behind the front lines, where no active rebellion existed, and was only possible in the absence of widespread resistance. Armenians who lived in the war zone were instead killed in massacres.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|pp=366, 383}} Although ostensibly undertaken for security reasons,{{sfn|Mouradian|2018|p=148}} the deportation and murder of Armenians did not grant the empire any military advantage and actually undermined the Ottoman war effort.{{sfn|Rogan|2015|p=184}} The empire faced a dilemma between its goal of eliminating Armenians and its practical need for their labor; those Armenians retained for their skills, in particular for manufacturing in war industries, were indispensable to the logistics of the Ottoman Army.{{sfn|Cora|2020|pp=50–51}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=317}} By late 1915, the CUP had extinguished Armenian existence from eastern Anatolia.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=240}} | |||
=== The Temporary Law of Deportation (the "Tehcir" law) === | |||
{{Further|]}} | |||
In May 1915, ] requested that the ] and ] ] legalize a measure for relocation and settlement of Armenians to other places due to what Talat Pasha called "the Armenian riots and massacres, which had arisen in a number of places in the country." However, Talat Pasha was referring specifically to events in ] and extending the implementation to the regions in which alleged "riots and massacres" would affect the security of the war zone of the ]. Later, the scope of the immigration was widened in order to include the Armenians in the other provinces. On ] ], the CUP Central Committee passed the ] ("Tehcir Law"), giving the Ottoman government and military authorization to deport anyone it "sensed" as a threat to national security.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris'', pp. 186–8</ref> The "Tehcir Law" brought some measures regarding the property of the deportees, but during September a new law was proposed. By means of the "Abandoned Properties" Law (Law Concerning Property, Dept's and Assets Left Behind Deported Persons, also referred as the "Temporary Law on Expropriation and Confiscation"), the Ottoman government took possession of all "abandoned" Armenian goods and properties. Ottoman parliamentary representative ] protested this legislation: | |||
{{Wide image|Armenian Genocide Map-en.svg|1000px|alt=Map showing locations where Armenians were killed, deportation routes, and transit centers, as well as locations of Armenian resistance|Map of the Armenian genocide in 1915}} | |||
{{quote|It is unlawful to designate the Armenian assets as “abandoned goods” for the Armenians, the proprietors, did not abandon their properties voluntarily; they were forcibly, compulsorily removed from their domiciles and exiled. Now the government through its efforts is selling their goods… If we are a constitutional regime functioning in accordance with constitutional law we can’t do this. This is atrocious. Grab my arm, eject me from my village, then sell my goods and properties, such a thing can never be permissible. Neither the conscience of the Ottomans nor the law can allow it.<ref>Y. Bayur. ''Turk Inkilabz''. vol. III, part 3 op. cit. in Dadrian. ''History of the Armenian Genocide''</ref> }} | |||
===Administrative organization=== | |||
On ] ], the Ottoman parliament passed the "Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation", stating that all property, including land, livestock, and homes belonging to Armenians, was to be confiscated by the authorities.<ref> Vahakn N. Dadrian (2003) "The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus" Berghahn Books page. 224.</ref> | |||
] | |||
On 23 May 1915, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians in Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum.{{sfn|Kaiser|2019|loc=10}}{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=53}} To grant a cover of legality to the deportation, already well underway in the eastern provinces and Cilicia, the ] approved the ], which allowed authorities to deport anyone deemed suspect.{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=53}}{{sfn|Dündar|2011|p=283}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=96}} On 21 June, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians throughout the empire, even ], {{convert|2,000|km|sp=us}} from the Russian front.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=97}} Following the elimination of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia, in August 1915, the Armenians of western Anatolia and ] were targeted for deportation. Some areas with a very low Armenian population and some cities, including Constantinople, were partially spared.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=378}}{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=399–400}} | |||
Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance cooperated with the CUP in the perpetration of genocide.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=247}} The Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants (IAMM) coordinated the deportation and the resettlement of Muslim immigrants in the vacant houses and lands. The IAMM, under the control of Talaat's ], and the Special Organization, which took orders directly from the CUP Central Committee, all closely coordinated their activities.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|pp=89–90}} A dual-track system was used to communicate orders; those for the deportation of Armenians were communicated to the provincial governors through official channels, but orders of a criminal character, such as those calling for annihilation, were sent through party channels and destroyed upon receipt.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|pp=92–93}}{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=194–195}} Deportation convoys were mostly escorted by gendarmes or local militia. The killings near the front lines were carried out by the Special Organization, and those farther away also involved local militias, bandits, gendarmes, or Kurdish tribes depending on the area.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=376}} Within the area controlled by the ], which held eastern Anatolia, the army was only involved in genocidal atrocities in the vilayets of Van, Erzerum, and Bitlis.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=94}} | |||
=== The deportation and extermination process === | |||
{{Seealso|Armenian casualties of deportations}} | |||
{{ImageStackRight|270|] of deportation]]}} | |||
{{ImageStackRight|270|]}} | |||
With the implementation of ], the confiscation of Armenian property and the slaughter of Armenians that ensued upon the law's enactment outraged much of the ]. While the Ottoman Empire's wartime allies offered little protest, a wealth of ] and ]n historical documents has since come to attest to the witnesses' horror at the killings and mass starvation of Armenians.<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', pp. 329–31</ref><ref>Fromkin. ''A Peace to End All Peace'', pp. 212–3</ref><ref></ref> In the ], '']'' reported almost daily on the mass murder of the Armenian people, describing the process as "systematic", "authorized" and "organized by the government." ] would later characterize this as "the greatest crime of the war."<ref> Ruth Rosen in ''The San Fransisco Chronicles'' ], ].</ref> | |||
Many perpetrators came from the Caucasus (] and Circassians), who identified the Armenians with their Russian oppressors. Nomadic Kurds committed many atrocities during the genocide, but settled Kurds only rarely did so.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=810}} Perpetrators had several motives, including ideology, revenge, desire for Armenian property, and ].{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=352}} To motivate perpetrators, state-appointed ]s encouraged the killing of Armenians{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=58}} and killers were entitled to a third of Armenian ] (another third went to local authorities and the last to the CUP). Embezzling beyond that was punished.{{sfn|Kaiser|2019|loc=35, 37}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|pp=98–99}} Ottoman politicians and officials who opposed the genocide were dismissed or assassinated.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=247}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=94}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=246–247}} The government decreed that any Muslim who harbored an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed.{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=61}}{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=327–328}} | |||
The Armenians were marched out to the ]n town of ] and the surrounding desert. A good deal of evidence suggests that the Ottoman government did not provide any facilities or supplies to sustain the Armenians during their deportation, nor when they arrived.<ref name="StarveNYT">{{cite news | |||
| last = | |||
| first = | |||
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| title =Exiled Armenians starve in the desert; Turks drive them like slaves, American committee hears ;- Treatment raises death rate. | |||
| work = | |||
| pages = | |||
| language = | |||
| publisher =New York Times | |||
| date= August 8, 1916 | |||
| url =http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00C17F73C5F13738DDDA10894D0405B868DF1D3 | |||
| accessdate =2007-09-16 }}</ref> By August 1915, ''The New York Times'' repeated an unattributed report that "the roads and the ] are strewn with corpses of exiles, and those who survive are doomed to certain death. It is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people."<ref name="PerishNYT">{{cite news | |||
| last = | |||
| first = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Armenians are sent to perish in desert; Turks accused of plan to exterminate whole population; people of Karahissar massacred. | |||
| work = | |||
| pages = | |||
| language = | |||
| publisher =New York Times | |||
| date= August 18, 1915 | |||
| url =http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9802E6D71E3EE033A2575BC1A96E9C946496D6CF | |||
| accessdate =2007-09-16 }}</ref> | |||
===Death marches=== | |||
Ottoman troops escorting the Armenians not only allowed others to rob, kill, and rape the Armenians, but often participated in these activities themselves.<ref name="StarveNYT" /> Deprived of their belongings and marched into the desert, hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished. | |||
] visited ] and found nearby gorges choked with corpses and hundreds of bodies floating in the lake.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=91}}|alt=Color photograph of a lake with gorges leading into it]] | |||
Although the majority of able-bodied Armenian men had been conscripted into the army, others deserted, paid the exemption tax, or fell outside the age range of conscription. Unlike the earlier massacres of Ottoman Armenians, in 1915 Armenians were not usually killed in their villages, to avoid destruction of property or unauthorized looting. Instead, the men were usually separated from the rest of the deportees during the first few days and executed. Few resisted, believing it would put their families in greater danger.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=376}} Boys above the age of twelve (sometimes fifteen) were treated as adult men.{{sfn|Maksudyan|2020|pp=121–122}} Execution sites were chosen for proximity to major roads and for rugged terrain, lakes, wells, or cisterns to facilitate the concealment or disposal of corpses.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=91}}{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=377}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=93}} The convoys would stop at a nearby transit camp, where the escorts would demand a ransom from the Armenians. Those unable to pay were murdered.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=376}} Units of the Special Organization, often wearing gendarme uniforms, were stationed at the killing sites; escorting gendarmes often did not participate in killing.{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=93}} | |||
At least 150,000 Armenians passed through ] from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby ] gorge.{{sfn|Kaiser|2019|loc=3, 22}} Thousands of Armenians were killed near ], pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=91}} More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of ], one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the ] highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=377}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=93}} Many others were held in tributary valleys of the ], ], or ] and systematically executed by the Special Organization.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=90}} Armenian men were often drowned by being tied together back-to-back before being thrown in the water, a method that was not used on women.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=92}} | |||
{{quote|Naturally, the death rate from starvation and sickness is very high and is increased by the brutal treatment of the authorities, whose bearing toward the exiles as they are being driven back and forth over the desert is not unlike that of slave drivers. With few exceptions no shelter of any kind is provided and the people coming from a cold climate are left under the scorching desert sun without food and water. Temporary relief can only be obtained by the few able to pay officials.<ref name="StarveNYT" />}} | |||
] | |||
It is believed that 25 major ]s existed, under the command of ], one of the right hand-men of Talat Pasha.<ref name="Kotek">{{fr icon}} Kotek, Joël and Pierre Rigoulot. ''Le Siècle des camps: Détention, concentration, extermination: cent ans de mal radica''. JC Lattes, 2000 ISBN 2-7096-1884-2</ref> The majority of the camps were situated near Turkey's modern ]i and Syrian borders, and some were only temporary transit camps.<ref name="Kotek" /> Others, such as ], ], and ], are said to have been used only temporarily, for ]s; these sites were vacated by autumn 1915.<ref name="Kotek" /> Some authors also maintain that the camps ], ], ], ], and ] were built specifically for those who had a life expectancy of a few days.<ref name="Kotek" /> | |||
Authorities viewed disposal of bodies through rivers as a cheap and efficient method, but it caused widespread pollution downstream. So many bodies floated down the Tigris and Euphrates that they sometimes blocked the rivers and needed to be cleared with explosives. Other rotting corpses became stuck to the riverbanks, and still others traveled as far as the ]. The rivers remained polluted long after the massacres, causing epidemics downstream.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=95}} Tens of thousands of Armenians died along the roads and their bodies were buried hastily or, more often, simply left beside the roads. The Ottoman government ordered the corpses to be cleared as soon as possible to prevent both photographic documentation and disease epidemics, but these orders were not uniformly followed.{{sfn|Akçam|2018|p=158}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=94}} | |||
Women and children, who made up the great majority of deportees, were usually not executed immediately, but subjected to hard marches through mountainous terrain without food and water. Those who could not keep up were left to die or shot.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|pp=92–93}} During 1915, some were forced to walk as far as {{convert|1,000|km|sp=us}} in the summer heat.{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=54}} Some deportees from western Anatolia were allowed to travel ].{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=378}} There was a distinction between the convoys from eastern Anatolia, which were eliminated almost in their entirety, and those from farther west, which made up most of those surviving to reach Syria.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=808}} For example, around 99 percent of Armenians deported from Erzerum did not reach their destination.{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=53}} | |||
Although nearly all the camps, including the primary sites, were open air, the remainder of the mass killing in minor camps was not limited to direct killings, but also to mass burning,<ref>Eitan Belkind was a ] member, who infiltrated the Ottoman army as an official. He was assigned to the headquarters of Camal Pasha. He claims to have witnessed the burning of 5,000 Armenians, quoted in Yair Auron, ''The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide''. New Brunswick, N.J., 2000, pp. 181, 183. Lt. Hasan Maruf, of the Ottoman army, describes how a population of a village were taken all together, and then burned. See, British Foreign Office 371/2781/264888, Appendices B., p. 6). Also, the Commander of the Third Army, Vehib's 12 pages affidavit, which was dated ], ], presented in the Trabzon trial series (], ]) included in the Key Indictment (published in ''Takvimi Vekayi'', No. 3540, ], ]), report such a mass burning of the population of an entire village near Mus. S. S. McClure write in his work, ''Obstacles to Peace,'' Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. pp. 400–1, that in Bitlis, Mus and ], ''The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in tile various camps was to burn them.'' And also that, ''Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these scenes were horrified and maddened at the remembering the sight. They told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh permeated the air for many days after.'' The Germans, Ottoman allies, also witnessed the way Armenians were burned according to the Israeli historian, Bat Ye’or, who writes: ''The Germans, allies of the Turks in the First World War, …saw how civil populations were shut up in churches and burned, or gathered en masse in camps, tortured to death, and reduced to ashes,…'' (See: B. Ye'or, ''The Dhimmi. The Jews and Christians under Islam,'' Trans. from the French by D. Maisel P. Fenton and D. Liftman, Cranbury, N.J.: Frairleigh Dickinson University, 1985. p. 95)</ref> poisoning<ref>During the Trabzon trial series, of the Martial court (from the sittings between ] and ], ]), the Trabzons Health Services Inspector Dr. Ziya Fuad wrote in a report that Dr. Saib, caused the death of children with the injection of morphine, the information was allegedly provided by two physicians (Drs. Ragib and Vehib), both Dr. Saib colleagues at Trabzons Red Crescent hospital, where those atrocities were said to have been committed. (See: Vahakn N. Dadrian, ''The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series,'' Genocide Study Project, H. F. Guggenheim Foundation, published in ''],'' Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 1997). Dr. Ziya Fuad, and Dr. Adnan, public health services director of Trabzon, submitted affidavits, reporting a cases, in which, two school buildings were used to organize children and then sent them on the mezzanine, to kill them with a toxic gas equipment. This case was presented during the Session 3, p.m., ] ], also published in the Constantinople newspaper Renaissance, ] ] (for more information, see: Vahakn N. Dadrian, ''The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians,'' in '']'' 1, no. 2 (1986): 169–192). The Ottoman surgeon, Dr. Haydar Cemal wrote in ''Türkce Istanbul,'' No. 45, ] ], also published in ''Renaissance,'' ] ], that ''on the order of the Chief Sanitation Office of the IIIrd Army in January 1916, when the spread of typhus was an acute problem, innocent Armenians slated for deportation at Erzican were inoculated with the blood of typhoid fever patients without rendering that blood ‘inactive’.'' Jeremy Hugh Baron writes : ''Individual doctors were directly involved in the massacres, having poisoned infants, killed children and issued false certificates of death from natural causes. Nazim's brother-in-law Dr. Tevfik Rushdu, Inspector-General of Health Services, organized the disposal of Armenian corpses with thousands of kilos of lime over six months; he became foreign secretary from 1925 to 1938.'' (See: Jeremy Hugh Baron, ''Genocidal Doctors,'' publish in ''Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,'' November, 1999, 92, pp. 590–3). The psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton, writes in a parenthesis when introducing the crimes of NAZI doctors in his book ''Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide,'' Basic Books, (1986) p. xii: ''(Perhaps Turkish doctors, in their participation in the genocide against the Armenians, come closest, as I shall later suggest).'' and drowning.</ref> and drowning.<ref>Oscar S. Heizer, the American consul at Trabzon, reports: ''This plan did not suit Nail Bey…. Many of the children were loaded into boats and taken out to sea and thrown overboard.'' (See: U.S. National Archives. R.G. 59. 867. 4016/411. ], ] report.) The Italian consul of Trabzon in 1915, Giacomo Gorrini, writes: ''I saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which were capsized in the Black Sea.'' (See: ''Toronto Globe'', ], ]) Hoffman Philip, the American Charge at Constantinople chargé d'affairs, writes: ''Boat loads sent from Zor down the river arrived at Ana, one thirty miles away, with three fifths of passengers missing.'' (Cipher telegram, ], ]. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.48/356.) The Trabzon trials reported Armenians having been drown in the Black Sea. (''Takvimi Vekdyi'', No. 3616, ], ], p. 2.)</ref> | |||
{{clear}} | |||
===Islamization=== | |||
]" after the war|alt=Several women dressed in Arab clothing and posed in front of a wall]] | |||
The Islamization of Armenians, carried out as a systematic state policy involving the bureaucracy, police, judiciary, and clergy, was a major structural component of the genocide.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=314, 316}}{{sfn|Kurt|2016|loc=2, 21}} An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Armenians were Islamized,{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=331}} and it is estimated that as many as two million Turkish citizens in the early 21st century ].{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|p=291}} Some Armenians were allowed to convert to Islam and evade deportation, but the regime insisted on their destruction wherever their numbers exceeded the five to ten percent threshold, or there was a risk of them being able to preserve their nationality and culture.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=290–291}} Talaat Pasha personally authorized conversion of Armenians and carefully tracked the loyalty of converted Armenians until the end of the war.{{sfn|Kurt|2016|loc=5, 13–14}} Although the first and most important step was conversion to Islam, the process also required the eradication of ]s, ], and ], and for women, ] to a Muslim.{{sfn|Kurt|2016|loc=15}} Although Islamization was the most feasible opportunity for survival, it also transgressed Armenian moral and social norms.{{sfn|Kurt|2016|loc=5}} | |||
The CUP allowed Armenian women to marry into Muslim households, as these women would lose their Armenian identity.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=377}} Young women and girls were often appropriated as house servants or ]. Some boys were abducted to work as forced laborers for Muslim individuals.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=377}}{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|pp=291–292}} Some children were forcibly seized, while others were sold or given up by their parents to save their lives.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=314}}{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|pp=284–285}} Special state-run orphanages were also set up with strict procedures intending to deprive their charges of an Armenian identity.{{sfn|Kurt|2016|loc=17}} Most Armenian children who survived the genocide endured exploitation, hard labor without pay, forced conversion to Islam, and ].{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|pp=291–292}} Armenian women captured during the journey ended up in Turkish or Kurdish households; those who were Islamized during the second phase of the genocide found themselves in an ] or ] environment.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=757–758}} | |||
=== The Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa) === | |||
{{Main|Teskilati Mahsusa|Special Organization (Ottoman Empire)}} | |||
{{ImageStackRight|270|].<ref></ref>]]}} | |||
While there was an official 'special organization' founded in December 1911 by the Ottoman government, a second organization that participated in what led to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community was founded by the ].<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/Armenian/facts/genocide.html|title = FACT SHEET: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE|publisher = Knights of Vartan Armenian Research Center, The University of Michigan-Dearborn}}</ref> This organization adopted its name in 1913 and functioned like a special forces outfit, or the later ].<ref>{{cite journal|journal = Middle East Quarterly|author = Guenter Lewy|title = Revisiting the Armenian Genocide|date = Fall 2005|url = http://www.meforum.org/article/748}}</ref> | |||
Later in 1914, the Ottoman government influenced the direction the special organization was to take by releasing criminals from central prisons to be the central elements of this newly formed special organization.<ref>{{cite journal|journal = International Journal of Middle East Studies|author = Vahakn N. Dadrian|title = The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal|volume = 23|date= November 1991|url = http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7438%28199111%2923%3A4%3C549%3ATDOTWW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2|pages = 549–76 (''560'')}}</ref> According to the ] attached to the tribunal as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from ]. Many other releases followed; in ] a few months later, 49 criminals were released from its central prison.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Little by little from the end of 1914 to the beginning of 1915, hundreds, then thousands of prisoners were freed to form the members of this organization. Later, they were charged to escort the convoys of Armenian deportees.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NA.BK5.PDF|title = Genocide never again (book 5)|author = R. J. Rummel|publisher = Llumina Press|ISBN 1-59526-075-7}}</ref> ], commander of the Ottoman Third Army, called those members of the special organization, the “butchers of the human species.”<ref>{{cite journal|journal = Middle East Quarterly|author = Guenter Lewy|title = Revisiting the Armenian Genocide|date = Fall 2005|url = http://www.meforum.org/article/748}}</ref> | |||
The ], sexual abuse, and prostitution of Armenian women were all very common.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|p=312}} Although Armenian women tried to avoid sexual violence, suicide was often the only alternative.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|pp=377–378}} Deportees were displayed naked in ] and sold as sex slaves in some areas, constituting an important source of income for accompanying gendarmes.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=312–315}} Some were sold in Arabian slave markets to Muslim ] pilgrims and ended up as far away ] ].{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=758}} | |||
== Contemporaneous reports and reactions == | |||
{{ImageStackRight|270|] ambassador , "Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, ], ]—destroyed the larger part of the ]s. The Turkish policy was that of ] under the guise of ]."]]}} | |||
Hundreds of eyewitnesses, including the neutral United States and the Ottoman Empire's own allies, Germany and ], recorded and documented numerous acts of state-sponsored massacres. Many foreign officials offered to intervene on behalf of the Armenians, including ], only to be turned away by Ottoman government officials who claimed they were "retaliating against a pro-Russian ]."<ref>Ferguson. ''War of the World'' p. 177</ref> On ], ], the ] warned the ] that "In view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the ] announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres."<ref>1915 declaration | |||
* 106th Congress,,2nd Session, House of Representatives | |||
* 109th Congress, 1st Session, , ], ]. ] ] House Committee/Subcommittee:International Relations actions. Status: Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 40–7. | |||
* "Crimes Against Humanity", 23 British Yearbook of International Law (1946) p. 181 | |||
* William A. Schabas, ''Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes'', Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 16–7 | |||
* </ref> | |||
===Confiscation of property=== | |||
The ] (ACRNE, or "Near East Relief") was a charitable organization established to relieve the suffering of the peoples of the ].<ref>Sixty-Sixth Congress. Sess. I. Ch. 32. 1919 ], ]. District of Columbia, Near East Relief incorporated.</ref> The organization was championed by ], American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Morgenthau's eyewitness accounts of the mass slaughter of Armenians galvanized much support for ACRNE.<ref>New York Times Dispatch. . The New York Times, ], ].</ref> | |||
{{main|Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey|National economy (Turkey)}} | |||
], the official residence of the ], was confiscated from Ohannes Kasabian, an Armenian businessman, in 1915.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=245–246}}|alt=Black and white photograph of a manor house]] | |||
A secondary motivation for genocide was the destruction of the Armenian bourgeoisie to make room for a Turkish and Muslim middle class{{sfn|Watenpaugh|2013|p=284}} and build a statist ] controlled by Muslim Turks.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=810}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=273}} The campaign to Turkify the economy began in June 1914 with a law that obliged many non-Muslim merchants to hire Muslims. Following the deportations, the businesses of the victims were taken over by Muslims who were often incompetent, leading to economic difficulties.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=202}} The genocide had catastrophic effects on the Ottoman economy; Muslims were disadvantaged by the deportation of skilled professionals and entire districts fell into famine following their farmers' deportation.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=316–317}} The Ottoman and Turkish governments passed a series of ] to manage and redistribute property confiscated from Armenians.{{sfn|Akçam|Kurt|2015|p=2}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=203–204}} Although the laws maintained that the state was simply administering the properties on behalf of the absent Armenians, there was no provision to return them to the owners—it was presumed that they had ceased to exist.{{sfn|Akçam|Kurt|2015|pp=11–12}} | |||
Historians ] and ] argue that "The Republic of Turkey and its legal system were built, in a sense, on the seizure of Armenian cultural, social, and economic wealth, and on the removal of the Armenian presence."{{sfn|Akçam|Kurt|2015|p=2}} The proceeds from the sale of confiscated property was often used to fund the deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims, as well as for army, militia, and other government spending.{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=256–257}} Ultimately this formed much of the basis of the industry and economy of the post-1923 republic, endowing it with ].{{sfn|Üngör|Polatel|2011|p=80}}{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=189}} The dispossession and exile of Armenian competitors enabled many lower-class Turks (i.e. peasantry, soldiers, and laborers) to rise to the middle class.{{sfn|Üngör|Polatel|2011|p=80}} Confiscation of Armenian assets continued into the second half of the twentieth century,{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=268}} and in 2006 the ] ruled that property records from 1915 must be kept closed to protect national security.{{sfn|Akçam|Kurt|2015|p=3}} Outside Istanbul, the traces of Armenian existence in Turkey, including churches and monasteries, libraries, '']s'', and ] and ], have been systematically erased, beginning during the war and continuing for decades afterward.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=64–65}}{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=411}}{{sfn|Suciyan|2015|p=59}} | |||
=== The U.S. mission in the Ottoman Empire === | |||
The United States had several consulates throughout the Ottoman Empire, including locations in ], ], ], ], ], Van, Constantinople, and another in the Syrian town of ]. The United States was officially a neutral party until it joined the Allies in 1917. As the orders for deportations and massacres were enacted, many consular officials reported back to the ambassador on what they were witnessing. One such report came in September 1915 from the American consul in ], ], who described his discovery of the bodies of nearly 10,000 Armenians dumped into several ravines near ], later referring to it as the "slaughterhouse province".<ref>Balakian. ''Burning Tigris'', pp. 244–5, 314</ref> | |||
== Destination == | |||
{{ImageStackRight|230|] to the ] on ] ] describes the massacres as a "campaign of race extermination."]]] contributed a significant amount of aid to the Armenians during the Armenian Genocide. Shown here is a poster for the ''American Committee for Relief in the Near East'' vowing that "they "shall not perish."]]] dated ] ] states that one million Armenians had been either deported or executed by the Ottoman government.]]] in ].]] | |||
{{further|Deir ez-Zor camps|Ras al-Ayn camps}} | |||
] | |||
] near ]|alt=Thin stream of water surrounded by greenery and banks, above which is desert]] | |||
The first arrivals in mid-1915 were accommodated in ]. From mid-November, the convoys were denied access to the city and redirected along the Baghdad Railway or the Euphrates towards ]. The first transit camp was established at Sibil, east of Aleppo; one convoy would arrive each day while another would depart for ] or ].{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=97}} Dozens of concentration camps were set up in Syria and ].{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=625}} By October 1915, some 870,000 deportees had reached Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Most were repeatedly transferred between camps, being held in each camp for a few weeks, until there were very few survivors.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=98}} This strategy physically weakened the Armenians and spread disease, so much that some camps were shut down in late 1915 due to the threat of disease spreading to the Ottoman military.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=21}}{{sfn| Kévorkian|2011|pp=633–635}} In late 1915, the camps around Aleppo were liquidated and the survivors were forced to march to ]; the camps around Ras al-Ayn were closed in early 1916 and the survivors sent to Deir ez-Zor.{{sfn|Mouradian|2018|p=155}} | |||
}} | |||
Similar reports began to reach Morgenthau from Aleppo and Van, prompting him to raise the issue with Talaat and Enver in person. As he quoted to them the testimonies of the consulate officials, both justified the deportations as necessary to the conduct of the war, suggesting that the complicity of the Armenians of Van with the Russian forces that had overtaken the city justified the persecution of all ethnic Armenians. In his memoirs, Morgenthau later suggested that, "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact…"<ref>In his memoirs, Morgenthau noted'' "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact…. I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915."''</ref> His son, ], would become involved in rescuing Jews from the ] a quarter-century later.<ref>Penkower, Monty Noam. "Jewish Organizations and the Creation of the U.S. War Refugee Board." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1980 (450): 122–139. ISSN 0002-7162 Fulltext in Jstor</ref> | |||
In general, Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert;{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=21}}{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=380}} many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially ], ], and ].{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=21}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=96}} Some local officials gave Armenians food; others took bribes to provide food and water.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=21}} Aid organizations were officially barred from providing food to the deportees, although some circumvented these prohibitions.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=23}} Survivors testified that some Armenians refused aid as they believed it would only prolong their suffering.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|pp=20–21}} The guards raped female prisoners and also allowed Bedouins to raid the camps at night for looting and rape; some women were forced into marriage.{{sfn|Mouradian|2018|p=152}}{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=380}} Thousands of Armenian children were sold to childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews, who would come to the camps to buy them from their parents.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=98}} In the western ], governed by the ] under Djemal Pasha, there were no concentration camps or large-scale massacres, rather Armenians were resettled and recruited to work for the war effort. They had to convert to Islam or face deportation to another area.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=673–674}} | |||
In addition to the consulates, there were also several ] ] compounds established in Armenian-populated regions, including Van and Kharput. Many missionaries vividly described the brutal methods used by Ottoman forces and documented numerous instances of atrocities committed against the Christian minority.<ref>See, for example, James L. Barton, ''Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917''. Gomidas Institute, 1998 ISBN 1-8846-3004-9</ref> | |||
The ability of the Armenians to adapt and survive was greater than the perpetrators expected.{{sfn|Kaiser|2010|p=384}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=693}} A loosely organized, Armenian-led resistance network based in Aleppo succeeded in helping many deportees, saving Armenian lives.{{sfn|Mouradian|2018|p=154}} At the beginning of 1916 some 500,000 deportees were alive in Syria and Mesopotamia.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=808}} Afraid that surviving Armenians might return home after the war, Talaat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in February 1916.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=259, 265}} Another wave of deportations targeted Armenians remaining in Anatolia.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|pp=695, 808}} More than 200,000 Armenians were killed between March and October 1916, often in remote areas near Deir ez-Zor and on parts of the ] valley, where their bodies would not create a public health hazard.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=262}}{{sfn|Kévorkian|2014|p=107}} The massacres killed most of the Armenians who had survived the camp system.{{sfn|Mouradian|2018|p=155}} | |||
The events were reported daily in newspapers and literary journals around the world.<ref>Balakian. ''The Burning Tigris'', pp. 282–5</ref> Many Americans spoke out against the Genocide, including former president ], ] ], ], and ]. The ''American Near East Relief Committee'' helped donate over $110 million to the Armenians.<ref>''''. Prod. by Goldberg, Andrew. Two Cats Productions. DVD, 2006</ref> In the United States and the United Kingdom, children were regularly reminded to clean their plates while eating and to "remember the starving Armenians".<ref>Macmillan, Margaret and Richard Holbrooke. ''Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World''. New York: Random House, 2001 p. 378 ISBN 0-3757-6052-0</ref> | |||
{{clear}} | |||
== International reaction == | |||
]|alt=Modestly dressed woman carrying a child and surrounded by foodstuffs provided by relief efforts. The caption says "Lest they perish".]] | |||
The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest.{{sfn|Leonard|2004|p=297}}{{sfn|Akçam|2018|p=157}} Nevertheless, substantiated reports of mass killings were ].{{sfn|Leonard|2004|p=300}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=2}} On 24 May 1915, the ] (Russia, Britain, and France) ] the Ottoman Empire for "] and civilization", and threatened to hold the perpetrators accountable.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=308}} Witness testimony was published in books such as '']'' (1916) and '']'' (1918), raising public awareness of the genocide.{{sfn|Tusan|2014|pp=57–58}} | |||
The ] was a military ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=298}} German diplomats approved limited removals of Armenians in early 1915, and ] against the genocide,{{sfn|Kieser|Bloxham|2014|pp=600, 606–607}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=20–21}} which has been a source of controversy.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=298}}{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|p=134}} | |||
=== Allied forces in the Middle East === | |||
On the ]ern front, the British military engaged Ottoman forces in southern Syria and ]. British diplomat ] filed the following report after hearing the account of a captured Ottoman soldier: | |||
Relief efforts were organized in dozens of countries to raise money for Armenian survivors. By 1925, people in 49 countries were organizing "Golden Rule Sundays" during which they consumed the diet of Armenian refugees, to raise money for humanitarian efforts.{{sfn|Anderson|2011|p=200}} Between 1915 and 1930, ] raised $110 million (${{Inflation|US|.11|1930|fmt=c|r=1}} billion adjusted for inflation) for refugees from the Ottoman Empire.<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=https://www.neareast.org/who-we-are/ |website=] |access-date=10 March 2021 |archive-date=3 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150603200305/https://www.neareast.org/who-we-are/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
{{quote|The battalion left Aleppo on 3 February and reached Ras al-Ain in twelve hours… some 12,000 Armenians were concentrated under the guardianship of some hundred ]… These Kurds were called gendarmes, but in reality mere butchers; bands of them were publicly ordered to take parties of Armenians, of both sexes, to various destinations, but had secret instructions to destroy the males, children and old women… One of these gendarmes confessed to killing 100 Armenian men himself… the empty desert cisterns and caves were also filled with corpses…<ref>Fisk, Robert. ''The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East''. London: Alfred Knopf, 2005. p. 327 ISBN 1-84115-007-X</ref>}} | |||
==Aftermath== | |||
Reacting to numerous eyewitness accounts, British politician ] and historian ] compiled statements from survivors and eyewitnesses from other countries including Germany, ], the ], ], and ], who similarly attested to the systematized massacring of innocent Armenians by Ottoman government forces. In 1916, they published ''The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916''. Although the book has since been criticized as British wartime propaganda to build up sentiment against the Central Powers, Bryce had submitted the work to scholars for verification before its publication. ] Regius Professor ] stated of the tome, "…the evidence of these letters and reports will bear any scrutiny and overpower any skepticism. Their genuineness is established beyond question."<ref>Dadrian. ''History of the Armenian Genocide'', p. 228</ref> Other professors, including ] | |||
===End of World War I=== | |||
of ] and former ] president ], affirmed the same conclusion.<ref>Dadrian. ''History of the Armenian Genocide'', pp. 228–9</ref> | |||
] | |||
Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=330}} Both contemporaries{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=721}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=20}} and later historians have estimated that around 1 million Armenians ],{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=1}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=35}} with figures ranging from 600,000 to 1.5 million deaths.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}} Between 800,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were deported,{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=354–355}} and contemporaries estimated that by late 1916 only 200,000 were still alive.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}} As the ] advanced in 1917 and 1918 ], they liberated around 100,000 to 150,000 Armenians working for the Ottoman military under abysmal conditions, not including those held by Arab tribes.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|pp=151–152}} | |||
As a result of the ] and the subsequent ], the Russian army withdrew and Ottoman forces advanced into eastern Anatolia.{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=148–149}} The ] was proclaimed in May 1918, at which time 50 percent of its population were refugees and 60 percent of its territory was under Ottoman occupation.{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=150–151}} Ottoman troops withdrew from parts of Armenia following the October 1918 ].{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=152–153}} From 1918 to 1920, Armenian militants committed revenge killings of thousands of Muslims, which have been cited as a retroactive excuse for genocide.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=367}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=342}} In 1918, at least 200,000 people in Armenia, mostly refugees, died from starvation or disease, in part due to a Turkish blockade of food supplies{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=706}} and the deliberate destruction of crops in eastern Armenia by Turkish troops, both before and after the armistice.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=24}} | |||
] described the massacres as an "administrative holocaust" and noted that "the ] from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act could be… There is no reason to doubt that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons. The opportunity presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race opposed to all Turkish ambitions."<ref>Churchill, Winston. ''The World Crisis, 1911–1918''. London: Free Press, 2005. p. 157</ref> | |||
Armenians organized a coordinated effort known as '']'' ({{lit|the gathering of orphans}}) that reclaimed thousands of kidnapped and Islamized Armenian women and children.{{sfn|Ekmekçioğlu|2013|pp=534–535}} Armenian leaders abandoned traditional ] to classify children born to Armenian women and their Muslim captors as Armenian.{{sfn|Ekmekçioğlu|2013|pp=530, 545}} An orphanage in ] held 25,000 orphans, the largest number in the world.{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=76}} In 1920, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople reported it was caring for 100,000 orphans, estimating that another 100,000 remained captive.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=759}} | |||
=== The joint Austrian and German mission === | |||
As allies during the war, the Imperial German mission in the Ottoman Empire included both military and civilian components. Germany had brokered a deal with the ] to commission the building of a railroad stretching from ] to the Middle East, called the ]. | |||
=== Trials === | |||
Among the most famous persons to document the massacres was German military medic ]. Wegner defied state censorship in taking hundreds of of Armenians being deported and subsequently starving in northern Syrian camps.<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', p. 326</ref> | |||
{{main|Prosecution of Ottoman war criminals after World War I|Turkish courts-martial of 1919–1920|l2=Ottoman Special Military Tribunal}} | |||
Following the armistice, Allied governments championed the prosecution of Armenian genocide perpetrators.{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|pp=23–24}} Grand Vizier ] publicly recognized that 800,000 Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin had died as a result of state policy{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|p=47}} and stated that "humanity, civilizations are shuddering, and forever will shudder, in face of this tragedy".{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|p=49}} The postwar Ottoman government held the ], by which it sought to pin the Armenian genocide onto the CUP leadership while exonerating the Ottoman Empire as a whole, therefore avoiding ].{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=207}} The court ruled that "the crime of mass murder" of Armenians was "organized and carried out by the top leaders of CUP".{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|p=120}} Eighteen perpetrators (including Talaat, Enver, and Djemal) were sentenced to death, of whom only three were ultimately executed as the remainder had fled and were tried '']''.{{sfn|Üngör|2012|p=62}}{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|pp=24, 195}} The 1920 ], which awarded Armenia ], eliminated the Ottoman government's purpose for holding the trials.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=217}} Prosecution was hampered by a widespread belief among Turkish Muslims that the actions against the Armenians were not punishable crimes.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=810}} Increasingly, the genocide was considered necessary and justified to establish a Turkish nation-state.{{sfn|Göçek|2011|pp=45–46}} | |||
On 15 March 1921, ] in Berlin as part of ] to kill the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=126–127}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=403–404, 409}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=346}} The trial of his admitted killer, ], focused on Talaat's responsibility for genocide. Tehlirian was acquitted by a German jury.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=344–346}}{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pp=226–227, 235, 262, 293, "Trial in Berlin" ''passim''}} | |||
German officers stationed in eastern Turkey disputed the government's assertion that Armenian revolts had broken out, suggesting that the areas were "quiet until the deportations began."<ref>]. '']''. New York: Owl, 1989 p. 212 ISBN 0-8050-6884-8</ref> | |||
===Turkish War of Independence=== | |||
Germany's diplomatic mission was led by Ambassador Baron ] (and later Count ]). Like Morgenthau, von Wangenheim received many disturbing messages from consul officials around the Ottoman Empire. From the province of ], Consul Eugene Buge reported that the CUP chief had sworn to kill and massacre any Armenians who survived the deportation marches.<ref>Balakian. ''Burning Tigris'', p. 186</ref> In June 1915, von Wangenheim sent a cable to Berlin reporting that Talat had admitted the deportations were not "being carried out because of 'military considerations alone.'" One month later, he came to the conclusion that there "no longer was doubt that the Porte was trying to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire."<ref>Fromkin. ''A Peace to End All Peace'', p. 213</ref> | |||
{{Further|Turkish war crimes}}] by ] in 1922 or 1923|alt=Caravan of people traveling in a line]] | |||
], early 1920s|alt=Crowded tent camp stretching out a long distance]] | |||
The CUP regrouped as the ] to fight the ],{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=338–339}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=319}}{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=242}} relying on the support of perpetrators of the genocide and those who had profited from it.{{sfn|Zürcher|2011|p=316}}{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=155}} This movement saw the return of Armenian survivors as a mortal threat to its nationalist ambitions and the interests of its supporters. The return of survivors was therefore impossible in most of Anatolia{{sfn|Bozarslan ''et al.''|2015|p=311}}{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=242}} and thousands of Armenians who tried were murdered.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|pp=229–230}} Historian ] states that the war of independence was "intended to complete the genocide by finally eradicating Armenian, Greek, and Syriac survivors".{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|p=165}} In 1920 ], a Turkish general, ] with orders "to eliminate Armenia physically and politically".{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|pp=164–165}}{{sfn|Nichanian|2015| p=238}} Nearly 100,000 Armenians were massacred in ] by the Turkish army and another 100,000 fled from ] during the ].{{sfn|Nichanian|2015| p=238}} According to Kévorkian, only the ] prevented another genocide.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|pp=164–165}} | |||
The victorious nationalists subsequently declared the ] in 1923.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=244}} CUP war criminals were granted immunity{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|p=104}} and later that year, the ] established Turkey's current borders and provided for the ]. Its protection provisions for non-Muslim minorities had no enforcement mechanism and were disregarded in practice.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=28}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=367–368}} | |||
When Wolff-Metternich succeeded von Wangenheim, he continued to dispatch similar cables: "The Committee demands the extirpation of the last remnants of the Armenians and the government must yield…. A Committee representative is assigned to each of the provincial administrations…. ] means license to expel, to kill or destroy everything that is not Turkish."<ref>''Auswärtiges Amt'', West German Foreign Office Archives, K170, no. 4674, folio 63, op. cit. in ''Burning Tigris'', p. 186</ref> | |||
Armenian survivors were left mainly in three locations. About 295,000 Armenians had fled to Russian-controlled territory during the genocide and ended up mostly in ]. An estimated 200,000 Armenian refugees settled in the Middle East, forming a new wave of the ].{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=103–104}} In the Republic of Turkey, about ] and another 200,000 lived in the provinces, largely women and children who had been forcibly converted.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=104}} Though Armenians in Constantinople faced discrimination, they were allowed to maintain their cultural identity, unlike those elsewhere in Turkey{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=104}}{{sfn|Suciyan|2015|p=27}} who continued to face forced Islamization and kidnapping of girls after 1923.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=203}}{{sfn|Suciyan|2015|p=65}} Between 1922 and 1929, the Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to ].{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|p=161}} | |||
German engineers and laborers involved in building the railway also witnessed Armenians being crammed into cattle cars and shipped along the railroad line. Franz Gunther, a representative for ] which was funding the construction of the Baghdad Railway, forwarded photographs to his directors and expressed his frustration at having to remain silent amid such "bestial cruelty".<ref>Ibid, p. 326</ref> Major General ], acting military attaché and head of the German Military Plenipotentiary in the Ottoman Empire, spoke to Ottoman intentions in a conference held in ] in 1918: | |||
== Legacy == | |||
{{quote|The Turks have embarked upon the "total extermination of the Armenians in ]… The aim of Turkish policy is, as I have reiterated, the taking of possession of Armenian districts and the extermination of the Armenians. Talaat's government wants to destroy all Armenians, not just in Turkey but also outside Turkey. On the basis of all the reports and news coming to me here in ] there hardly can be any doubt that the Turks systematically are aiming at the extermination of the few hundred thousand Armenians whom they left alive until now.<ref>Dadrian. ''History of the Armenian Genocide'', p. 349</ref>}} | |||
According to historian ], the Armenian genocide reached an "iconic status" as "the apex of horrors conceivable" before ].{{sfn|Anderson|2011|p=199}} It was described by contemporaries as "the murder of a nation", "race extermination",{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pages=9, 55}} "the greatest crime of the ages", and "the blackest page in modern history".{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=21}}{{sfn|Kieser|2018|pp=289–290}} According to historian ], in Germany, the ] viewed post-1923 Turkey as a post-genocidal paradise and, "], its 'lessons', tactics, and 'benefits', into their own worldview".{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pp=349, 354}} | |||
=== Turkey === | |||
Similarly, Major General ] noted that "The Turkish policy of causing starvation is an all too obvious proof… for the Turkish resolve to destroy the Armenians."<ref>Dadrian. History of the Armenian Genocide'', p. 350</ref> Another notable figure in the German military camp was ], who documented various massacres of Armenians. He sent fifteen reports regarding "deportations and mass killings" to Germany's chancellor in Berlin. His final report noted that fewer than 100,000 Armenians were left alive in the Ottoman Empire; the rest had been exterminated ({{lang-de|ausgerottet}}).<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', pp. 329–30</ref> Scheubner-Richter also detailed the methods of the Ottoman government, noting its use of the Special Organization and other bureaucratized instruments of genocide. | |||
{{See also|Armenian genocide denial}} | |||
In the 1920s, ] and ] replaced Armenians as the perceived ] of the Turkish state. ], weak ], lack of ], and especially the ]—thus justifying ]—are among the main legacies of the genocide in Turkey.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|pp=263–264}} In postwar Turkey, the perpetrators of the genocide were hailed as martyrs of the national cause.{{sfn|Nichanian|2015|p=242}} Turkey's official denial of the Armenian genocide continues to rely on the CUP's ] of its actions. The Turkish government maintains that the mass deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action to combat an existential threat to the empire, but that there was no intention to exterminate the Armenian people.{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=xii, 361}}{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=xi, 451}} The government's position is supported by the majority of Turkish citizens.{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=1}} Many Kurds, who themselves have suffered political repression in Turkey, ].{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=273–275}}{{sfn|Galip|2020|pp=162–163}} | |||
The Turkish state perceives open discussion of the genocide as a threat to national security because of its connection with the foundation of the republic, and for decades strictly ] it.{{sfn|Akçam|Kurt|2015|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Galip|2020|p=3}} In 2002, the ] came to power and relaxed censorship to a certain extent, and the profile of the issue was raised by the 2007 ] of ], a Turkish-Armenian journalist known for his advocacy of reconciliation.{{sfn|Galip|2020|pp=3–4}} Although the AK Party softened the state denial rhetoric, describing Armenians as part of the Ottoman Empire's war losses,{{sfn|Ben Aharon|2019|p=339}} during the 2010s political repression and censorship increased again.{{sfn|Galip|2020|pp=83–85}} Turkey's century-long effort to prevent any recognition or mention of the genocide in foreign countries has included millions of dollars in lobbying,{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=2}} as well as intimidation and threats.{{sfn|Chorbajian|2016|p=178}} | |||
Some Germans openly supported the Ottoman policy against the Armenians, as the German naval attaché in Constantinople said to U.S. Ambassador ]; | |||
=== Armenia and Azerbaijan === | |||
{{quote|"I have lived in Turkey the larger part of my life," he told me, "and I know the Armenians. I also know that both Armenians and Turks cannot live together in this country. One of these races has got to go. And I don't blame the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians. I think that they are entirely justified. The weaker nation must succumb. The Armenians desire to dismember Turkey; they are against the Turks and the Germans in this war, and they therefore have no right to exist here."<ref>, in ''Harold B Library, Brigham Young University'', Retrieved ] ]</ref>}} | |||
] on a hill above ]|alt=Spiky monument perched on a hill above a large city]] | |||
] is commemorated on 24 April each year in Armenia and abroad, the anniversary of the ].{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=110}}{{sfn|Ben Aharon|2019|p=347}} On 24 April 1965, 100,000 Armenians ], and diaspora Armenians demonstrated across the world in favor of recognition of the genocide and annexing land from Turkey.{{sfn|de Waal|2015|pp=140, 142}}{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=110}} A memorial was completed two years later, at ] above Yerevan.{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|p=110}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|pp=146–147}} | |||
], Armenians and Turkic ] have been involved in a ] over ], an Armenian enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Initially involving peaceful demonstrations by Armenians, the conflict turned violent and has featured massacres by both sides, resulting in the displacement of more than half a million people.{{sfn|Bloxham|2005|pp=232–233}}{{sfn|Cheterian|2015|pp=279–282}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|pp=196–197}} During the conflict, the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments have regularly accused each other of plotting genocide.{{sfn|Bloxham|2005|pp=232–233}} Azerbaijan has also joined the Turkish effort to deny the Armenian genocide.{{sfn|Koinova|2017|p=122}} | |||
In a genocide conference in 2001, professor Wolfgang Wipperman of the ] introduced documents evidencing that the German High Command was aware of the mass killings at the time but chose not to interfere or speak out.<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', p. 331</ref> | |||
===International recognition=== | |||
=== Russian military === | |||
{{Main|Armenian genocide recognition}} | |||
The Russian Empire's response to the bombardment of its Black Sea naval ports was primarily a land campaign through the Caucasus. Early victories against the Ottoman Empire from the winter of 1914 to the spring 1915 saw significant gains of territory, including relieving the Armenian bastion resisting in the city of Van in May 1915. The Russians also reported encountering the bodies of unarmed civilian Armenians in the areas they advanced through.<ref></ref> In March 1916, the scenes they saw in the city of ] led the Russians to retaliate against the Ottoman III<sup>rd</sup> Army whom they held responsible for the massacres, destroying it in its entirety.<ref>New York Times Dispatch. . The New York Times, ], ].</ref> | |||
[[File:States recognising the Armenian Genocide recoloured.svg|thumb|upright=1.4|{{legend|#009e73|National legislatures that have passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide}} | |||
{{legend|#d55e00|States that explicitly deny the Armenian genocide}}|alt=see Commons description for full list of countries depicted]] | |||
In response to continuing denial by the Turkish state, many Armenian diaspora activists have lobbied for international formal recognition of the Armenian genocide, an effort that has become a central concern of the Armenian diaspora.{{sfn|Koinova|2017|pp=112, 221–222}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=3}} From the 1970s onward, many countries avoided recognition to preserve good relations with Turkey.{{sfn|Ben Aharon|2019|pp=340–341}} {{As of|2023}}, 31 ] have formally recognized the genocide, along with ] and the ].{{sfn|Koinova|2017|p=117}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Countries that Recognize the Armenian Genocide |url=https://www.armenian-genocide.org/recognition_countries.html |website=] |access-date=2023-12-14 |archive-date=14 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190914185246/https://www.armenian-genocide.org/recognition_countries.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey explicitly deny the genocide. | |||
] | |||
===Cultural depictions=== | |||
== The Aftermath == | |||
{{main|Armenian genocide in culture}} | |||
===Turkish court-martials=== | |||
After meeting Armenian survivors in the Middle East, Austrian–Jewish writer ] wrote '']'', a fictionalized retelling of the successful Armenian uprising in ], as a warning of the dangers of ].{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pp=1–2}} According to Ihrig, the book, released in 1933, is among the most important works of twentieth-century literature to address genocide and "is still considered essential reading for Armenians worldwide".{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|p=364}} The genocide became a central theme in English-language ].{{sfn|Der Mugrdechian|2016|p=273}} The first film about the Armenian genocide, ''],'' was released in 1919 as a fundraiser for Near East Relief, based on ] of ], who played herself.{{sfn|Marsoobian|2016|pp=73–74}}{{sfn|Tusan|2014|pp=69–70}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|pp=77–78}} Since then more films about the genocide have been made, although it took several decades for any of them to reach a mass-market audience.{{sfn|Marsoobian|2016|p=73}} The ] paintings of ] were influenced by his experience of the genocide.{{sfn|Miller|2010|p=393}} More than ] have been erected in 32 countries to commemorate the event.<ref>{{cite web |title=Memorials to the Armenian Genocide |url=https://www.armenian-genocide.org/memorials.html |website=] |access-date=25 February 2021 |archive-date=9 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170809033251/http://www.armenian-genocide.org/memorials.html |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
{{main|Turkish Court-Martials of 1919-20}} | |||
Domestic court-martials were designed by Sultan ] to punish members of the ] (CUP) in Turkish:"''Ittihat Terakki''" for involving the Empire in World War I. The court-martials blamed the members of CUP for pursuing a war that did not fit into the notion of ]. The Armenian issue was used as a tool to punish the leaders of the CUP. Most of the documents generated in these courts were later moved to international trials. By January 1919, a report to Sultan ] accused over 130 suspects, most of whom were high officials. The military court found that it was the will of the CUP to eliminate the Armenians physically, via its ]. The 1919 pronouncement reads as follows: | |||
=== Archives and historiography === | |||
{{quote|] taking into consideration the above-named crimes declares, unanimously, the culpability as principal factors of these crimes the fugitives ], former Grand Vizir, ], former War Minister, struck off the register of the Imperial Army, Cemal Efendi, former Navy Minister, struck off too from the Imperial Army, and Dr. Nazim Efendi, former Minister of Education, members of the General ], representing the moral person of that party;… the Court Martial pronounces, in accordance with said stipulations of the Law the death penalty against Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazim.|]}} | |||
{{see also|Kemalist historiography}} | |||
The genocide is extensively documented in the archives of Germany, Austria, the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom,{{sfn|Dadrian|Akçam|2011|p=4}} as well as the ], despite ].{{sfn|Akçam|2012|pp=xxii–xxiii, 25–26}} There are also thousands of ] from Western missionaries and Armenian survivors.{{sfn|Bloxham|Göçek|2008|p=345}}{{sfn|Chorbajian|2016|p=168}}{{sfn|Akçam|2018|p=11}} Polish-Jewish lawyer ], who coined the term '']'' in 1944, became interested in war crimes after reading about the 1921 trial of Soghomon Tehlirian for the assassination of Talaat Pasha. Lemkin recognized the fate of the Armenians as one of the most significant genocides in the twentieth century.{{sfn|de Waal|2015|pp=132–133}}{{sfn|Ihrig|2016|pp=9, 370–371}} Almost all historians and scholars outside Turkey, and an increasing number of Turkish scholars, recognize the destruction of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.{{sfn|Göçek|2015|p=1}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=374–375}} | |||
== Notes == | |||
The term ], which include ] and ], refers to the triumvirate who had fled the Empire at the end of ]. At the trials in Istanbul in 1919 they were sentenced to death in absentia. The court-martials officially disbanded the CUP and confiscated its assets, and the assets of those found guilty. At least two of the three were later assassinated by ]. | |||
{{notelist}} | |||
=== International trials === | |||
{{Main|Malta exiles|Malta Tribunals}} | |||
Following the ], the preliminary ] established "The Commission on Responsibilities and Sanctions" in January 1919, which was chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Lansing. Based on the commission's work, several articles were added to the ], and the acting government of the ], Sultan ] and ], were summoned to trial. The Treaty of Sèvres (August 1920) planned a trial to determine those responsible for the "barbarous and illegitimate methods of warfare… offenses against the laws and customs of war and the principles of humanity".<ref name="nazi" /> Article 230 of the ] required the Ottoman Empire "hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the ] on August 1, 1914." | |||
Various Ottoman politicians, generals, and intellectuals were ], where they were held for some three years while searches were made of archives in Istanbul, London, Paris and Washington to investigate their actions.<ref>Türkei By Klaus-Detlev. Grothusen</ref> However, the ] demanded by the Treaty of Sèvres never solidified and the detainees were eventually returned to Turkey in exchange for British citizens held by Kemalist Turkey. | |||
=== Trial of Soghomon Tehlirian === | |||
{{Seealso|Operation Nemesis}} | |||
] ] who was assassinated by ] for his crimes]] | |||
The "]" was the trial of the assassin of former ] ] by ]. The assassination took place in the ] District of ], ] in broad daylight and in the presence of many witnesses on ], ]. Talat's death was planned as part of "'']''", the ] codename for their covert operation in the 1920s to kill the ] of the Armenian Genocide. | |||
The trial had an important influence on ], a ] of ]-] descent who campaigned in the ] to ban what he called "barbarity" and "vandalism", and, in 1943, coined the word ]. | |||
== Armenian deaths, 1914 to 1918 == | |||
{{main|Ottoman Armenian casualties}} | |||
]]] | |||
While there is no consensus as to how many Armenians lost their lives during the Armenian Genocide, there is general agreement among western scholars that over 500,000 Armenians died between 1914 and 1918. Estimates vary between 300,000 (per the modern Turkish state) to 1,500,000 (per modern Armenia,<ref>{{cite news |title=French in Armenia 'genocide' row |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6043730.stm |work=] |publisher=] |date=2006-10-12 |accessdate=2008-03-29 }}</ref> Argentina,<ref>{{cite news |first=Allan |last=Woods |title=Turkey protests Harper's marking of genocide |url=http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cd6618e1-508d-4d27-a607-18e10e743d28 |work=] |date=2006-05-06 |accessdate=2008-03-29 }}</ref> and other states). '']'' references the research of ], an intelligence officer of the ], who estimated that 600,000 Armenians "died or were massacred during deportation" in the years 1915–1916.<ref></ref> | |||
== Influence of the Armenian Genocide on Adolf Hitler == | |||
{{main|Armenian quote}} | |||
The Armenian Genocide is often speculated to have influenced ] (who led ], which was responsible for the Holocaust), owing to his various references to the Ottoman killings of Armenians.<ref>{{cite book |first = Colin | last = Sumner | title = The Blackwell Companion to Criminology | publisher = Blackwell Publishing | pages = 74 | year = 2003 | id = ISBN 0631220925}}</ref> The extent of Hitler's knowledge of the Armenian Genocide is unclear, though he did refer to their destruction several times.<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', p. 330</ref> The most notable quote attributed to Hitler on the Armenians is excerpted from an August 1939 military conference, before the ]: | |||
{{Cquote|I have issued the command—and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space ]''] which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?<ref>]''What About Germany?'' Dodd, Mead & Company, 1942 pp. 11–2.</ref>}} | |||
There are numerous accounts of Hitler speaking in regard to the Armenians, with at least two similar versions of the 1939 speech coming from the German High Command archives. In 1931, for example, two years prior to his ascension as Germany's leader, Hitler noted in an interview that "everywhere people are awaiting a new world order. We intend to introduce a great resettlement policy… remember the extermination of the Armenians."<ref>Fisk. ''Great War for Civilisation'', p. 330.</ref> In 1943, during the height of his attempts to exterminate the Jews in Europe, Hitler demanded of ] regent Admiral ] that he deport the Jews from the country: "Nations which did not get rid of the Jews perished. One of the most famous examples of this was the downfall of a people who were so proud — the ], who now lead a pitiful existence as Armenians."<ref>]. ''The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War''. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1985 p. 556 ISBN 0-8050-0348-7.</ref> | |||
== The study of the Armenian Genocide == | |||
] scholar ] suggests of the Armenian Genocide, "This is the closest parallel to the ]."<ref>Yehuda Bauer, ''The Place of the Holocaust in Contemporary History'', via ''Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications''</ref> He nonetheless distinguishes several key differences between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, particularly in regard to motivation: | |||
{{quote |he Nazis saw the Jews as ''the'' central problem of world history. Upon its solution depended the future of mankind. Unless International Jewry was defeated, human civilization would not survive. The attitude towards the Jews had in it important elements of pseudo-religion. There was no such motivation present in the Armenian case; Armenians were to be annihilated for power-political reasons, and in Turkey only…}} | |||
{{quote|The differences between the holocaust and the Armenian massacres are less important than the similarities—and even if the Armenian case is not seen as a holocaust in the extreme form which it took towards Jews, it is certainly the nearest thing to it.<ref>Yehuda Bauer, ''The Place of the Holocaust in Contemporary History'', via ''Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications''</ref>}} | |||
Bauer has also suggested that the Armenian Genocide is best understood, not as having begun in 1915, but rather as "an ongoing genocide, from 1896, through 1908/9, through World War I and right up to 1923."<ref name="ongoing">Bauer, Yehuda. ''Can Genocides be Prevented?'', </ref> ] also alludes to these earlier massacres as at least as significant as WWI era events: | |||
{{quote |In 1897, when the ] was tearing France apart, ], a French Jew active in Dreyfus's defense, addressed a group of Jewish students in Paris on the subject of anti-Semitism. "For the Christian peoples," he remarked, "an Armenian solution" to their Jew-hatred was available. He was referring to the Turkish massacres of Armenians, which in their extent and horror most closely approximated the murder of European Jews. But, Lazare went on, "their sensibilities cannot allow them to envisage that." The once unthinkable "Armenian solution" became, in our time, the achievable "Final Solution," the Nazi code name for the annihilation of the European Jews.|Lucy Dawidowicz|<ref>{{cite book |last=Dawidowicz |first=Lucy S. |authorlink=Lucy Dawidowicz |title=The Holocaust and the Historians |year=1981 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-674-40566-8}}</ref><!-- which page of which edition? the 1982/1983 ISBN 0-674-40567-6 of 204 pages or the 1981 hardcover 0-674-40566-8 of 187-200 pages? -->}} | |||
Law professor ], who coined the term "genocide" in 1943, has stated that he did so with the fate of the Armenians in mind, explaining that "it happened so many times… First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, ] took action."<ref>{{cite web | |||
| last =Stanley | |||
| first =Alessandra | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =A PBS Documentary Makes Its Case for the Armenian Genocide, With or Without a Debate | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =The New York Times | |||
| date= April 17, 2006 | |||
| url =http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/arts/television/17stan.html | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =2007-06-30 }}</ref> Several international organizations have conducted studies of the events, each in turn determining that the term "genocide" aptly describes "the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916."<ref name="ictj">{{cite web | |||
| last = | |||
| first = | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Turkey Recalls Envoys Over Armenian Genocide | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =International Center for Transitional Justice | |||
| date= May 8, 2006 | |||
| url =http://www.ictj.org/en/news/coverage/article/935.html | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =2007-06-30 | |||
}}</ref> | |||
Among the organizations affirming this conclusion are the ], the ], and the United Nations' ].<ref name=armeniapediaictj></ref><ref name="ictj" /> | |||
In 2002, the ] was asked by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission to provide a report on the applicability of the Genocide Convention to the controversy. The ruled that it was a genocide, and further that the Republic of Turkey was not liable for the event.<ref></ref> | |||
In 2005, the ], in a letter<ref>{{cite web | |||
| last = | |||
| first =International Association of Genocide Scholars | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Letter to Prime Minister Erdogan | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =Genocide Watch | |||
| date= June 13, 2005 | |||
| url =http://www.genocidewatch.org/TurkishPMIAGSOpenLetterreArmenia6-13-05.htm | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =June 30, 2007 | |||
}}</ref> addressed to the Prime Minister of Turkey, affirmed that scholarly evidence revealed the "Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches" and condemned Turkish attempts to deny its factual and moral reality. | |||
In 2007, the produced signed by 53 ]s re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.<ref>{{cite web | |||
| last =Danielyan | |||
| first =Emil | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Nobel Laureates Call For Armenian-Turkish Reconciliation | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | |||
| date= April 10, 2007 | |||
| url =http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/4/F1CACD86-B6BF-413F-B6AD-6C423454F845.html | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =June 30, 2007 | |||
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | |||
| last =Phillips | |||
| first =David L. | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Nobel Laureates Call For Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity | |||
| date= April 9, 2007 | |||
| url =http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/PressReleases/TA_Press_Release.pdf | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =June 30, 2007 }}</ref> | |||
While some consider denial to be a form of ] or politically-minded ], several western academics have expressed doubts as to the genocidal character of the events.<ref>Gilles Veinstein, "Trois questions sur un massacre", L’Histoire, no. 187 (April 1995), pp. 40–1.</ref><ref>Jeremy Salt, "The Narrative Gap in Ottoman Armenian History, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 39, No 1, January 2003 pp 19–36</ref><ref>Erickons, E.J., 2006. Armenian Massacres: New Records Undercut Old Blame. ''The Middle East Quarterly''. Summer 2006, Vol.13, No.3.</ref> The most important counterpoint may be that of British scholar ]. While he had once written of "the terrible holocaust of 1915, when a million and a half Armenians perished",<ref>Bostom, Andrew. , ], ], ]. Retrieved ], ].</ref> he later came to believe that the term "genocide" was distinctly inaccurate, because the "tremendous massacres"<ref name="ATA">, "Distinguishing Armenian Case from Holocaust", Assembly of Turkish American Associations, ], ] (PDF)</ref> were not "a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government."<ref>Getler, Michael. , ''The Ombudsman Column'', ], ], ]. Retrieved ], ].</ref> This opinion has been joined by ].<ref>Lewy, Guenter. ''The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide''</ref> | |||
Academic views within the Republic of Turkey are often at odds with international consensus: this may partly stem from the fact that to acknowledge the Armenian genocide in Turkey carries with it a risk of criminal prosecution. Many Turkish intellectuals have been prosecuted for characterizing the massacres as genocide,<ref>{{cite news|author=Nouritza Matossian|title=They say 'incident'. To me it's genocide|url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1426319,00.html|publisher=]|date=]|accessdate=2007-02-24}}</ref><ref></ref> including Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor ], who was prosecuted three times for "]" for his having criticized the Turkish state's denial of the Armenian Genocide.<ref>{{cite web | |||
| last = | |||
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| title =IPI Deplores Callous Murder of Journalist in Istanbul | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =International Press Institute | |||
| date= January 22, 2007 | |||
| url =http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1169459655335 | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =2007-09-16 | |||
}}</ref> In 2007, Dink was murdered by a Turkish nationalist.<ref>{{cite web | |||
| last = | |||
| first = | |||
| authorlink = | |||
| coauthors = | |||
| title =Turkey: Outspoken Turkish-Armenian Journalist Murdered | |||
| work = | |||
| publisher =Human Rights Watch | |||
| date= January 20, 2007 | |||
| url =http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/20/turkey15135.htm | |||
| format = | |||
| doi = | |||
| accessdate =2007-09-16 | |||
}}</ref> Later, photographs of the assassin being honored as a hero while in police custody, posing in front of the ] with grinning policemen,<ref>, ], ]</ref> gave the academic community still more pause in regard to engaging the Armenian issue.<ref name="IPI070122">{{cite web|url=http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1169459655335 |title=IPI Deplores Callous Murder of Journalist in Istanbul|publisher=] | date=2007-01-22|access-date=2007-01-24}}</ref> | |||
Egyptian-born scholar ] has suggested, "The genocide of the Armenians was a ]."<ref></ref> Ye'or contends that the ]ic concepts of '']'' and ''jihad'' were among the "principles and values" that led to the Armenian Genocide.<ref>Ye'or, Bat. ''Islam and Dhimmitude'', p. 374. </ref> This perspective is challenged by Fà'iz el-Ghusein, a ] Arab witness of the Armenian persecution, whose 1918 treatise on the events aimed "to refute beforehand inventions and slanders against the Faith of Islam and against Moslems generally ... hat the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed to the Committee of Union and Progress, who deal with the empire as they please; it has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is guiltless of their deeds."<ref>El-Ghusein, Fà'iz. ''''. 1918, page 49.</ref> | |||
] has suggested that, rather than the Armenian Genocide having been relegated to the periphery of public awareness, "more people are aware of the Armenian genocide during the First World War than are aware of the ] in 1965".<ref>Chomsky, Noam. ''Language and Politics''. 1988, page 625.</ref> ]'s ''A Shameful Act'' has contextualized the Armenian Genocide with the desperate Ottoman struggle at ], suggesting that panic of imminent destruction caused Ottoman authorities to opt for deportation and extermination.<ref>Akcam, Taner. ''A Shameful Act''. 2006, page 125-8.</ref> | |||
==The Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide== | |||
{{Main|Denial of the Armenian Genocide}} | |||
The ]'s formal stance is that the deaths of ] during the "relocation" or "]" cannot aptly be deemed "genocide," a position that has been supported with a plethora of diverging justifications: that the killings were not deliberate or were not governmentally orchestrated, that the killings were justified because Armenians posed a Russian-sympathizing threat as a cultural group, that Armenians merely starved, or any of various characterizations recalling marauding "Armenian gangs."<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref> Some suggestions seek to invalidate the genocide on semantic or anachronistic grounds (the word "]" was not coined until 1943). | |||
Turkish World War I casualty figures are often cited to mitigate the effect of the number of Armenian dead.<ref></ref> The website of the ] currently features a section entitled ''Archive Documents about the Atrocities and Genocide Inflicted upon Turks by Armenians'',<ref>, at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey</ref> suggesting that the Turks of Anatolia experienced a genocide at the hands of the Armenians. This report notes that there were many ] serving in the Russian Army against the Ottoman Army, suggesting that "Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army deserted with their arms and having joined the Russian forces they formed voluntary units or armed bands."<ref>, at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Page 17</ref> It further suggests that the Russian Empire intended "to annex Anatolia by using Armenians",<ref>ibid., page 14</ref> and characterizes several infamous massacres of Armenians in the pre-WWI era as "uprisings", "rebellions" or "incidents".<ref>ibid., page 12</ref> The text suggests that accounts of the Armenian Genocide are anti-Turkish, and argues that the Turkish and Ottoman Archives are of overriding importance and the only source of "true historical information".<ref>ibid., page 24</ref> | |||
Turkish governmental sources have asserted that the historically-demonstrated "tolerance of Turkish people"<ref name="TurkishGeneralStaff"></ref> itself renders the Armenian Genocide an impossibility. One military document leverages 11th century history to disprove the Armenian Genocide: "It was the ] who saved the Armenians that came under the ] from the ] persecution and granted them the right to live as a man should."<ref name="TurkishGeneralStaff" /> A '']'' article addressed this modern Turkish conception of history thus: | |||
{{quote |Would you admit to the crimes of your grandfathers, if these crimes didn't really happen?" asked ambassador Öymen. But the problem lies precisely in this question, says ], publisher and editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based Armenian weekly '']''. Turkey's bureaucratic elite have never really shed themselves of the Ottoman tradition — in the perpetrators, they see their fathers, whose honor they seek to defend.}} | |||
{{quote |This tradition instills a sense of identity in Turkish nationalists — both from the left and the right, and it is passed on from generation to generation through the school system. This tradition also requires an antipole against which it could define itself. Since the times of the Ottoman Empire, religious minorities have been pushed into this role.<ref></ref>}} | |||
The Turkish government continues to protest the formal recognition of the genocide by other countries, and to dispute that there ever was a genocide. | |||
===Controversies=== | |||
Efforts by the Turkish government and its agents to quash mention of the genocide have resulted in numerous scholarly, diplomatic, political and legal controversies. Public prosecutors have utilized ] of the Turkish Penal Code prohibiting "insulting Turkishness" to silence a number of prominent Turkish intellectuals who spoke of atrocities suffered by Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.<ref> by Felix Corley, '']'', ] ].</ref> These prosecutions have often been accompanied by hate campaigns and threats, as was the case for ], the Turkish-Armenian intellectual murdered in 2007. | |||
In 1982, the ] Foreign Ministry attempted to prevent an international conference on genocide, held in ], from including any mention of the Armenian Genocide. Several reports suggested that Turkey had warned that ] might face "reprisals", if the conference permitted Armenian participation.<ref>. ''The New York Times''. ], ].</ref> This charge was "categorically denied" by Turkey;<ref>Howe, Marvine. . ''The New York Times''. ], ].</ref> the Israeli Foreign Ministry supported Turkey in this protestation that there had been no threats against Jews, suggesting that its misgivings as to the genocide conference were based on considerations "vital to the Jewish nation".<ref>. ''The New York Times''. ], ].</ref> | |||
A 1989 U.S. Senate proposal to recognize the Armenian Genocide stoked the ire of Turkey. The proposal occurred in the context of the publication of internal U.S. documents which laid out a State Department official's eyewitness report that "thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered", in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.<ref name=nyttsp>McKenna, Kate. . ''The New York Times''. ], ].</ref> Turkey responded by blocking ] visits to Turkey and suspending some U.S. military training facilities on Turkish territory.<ref name=nyttsp /> The American scholar who assembled the U.S. archive documents for publication went into hiding after a series of anonymous threats.<ref name=nyttsp /> | |||
In 1990, psychologist ] received a letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, questioning his inclusion of references to the Armenian Genocide in one of his books. The ambassador inadvertently included a draft of the letter, presented by scholar Heath Lowry, advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works.<ref>Honan, William H. . ''The New York Times.'' ], ].</ref> In 1996, Lowry was named to a chair at ], which had been financed by the Turkish government, sparking a debate on ethics in scholarship.<ref></ref><ref>, ''The New York Times'', ], ]</ref> | |||
In 2008, in investigating Hrant Dink's murder, Turkish prosecutors alleged that a broad conspiracy of ultra-nationalists was complicit in the assassination.<ref>. ''Today's Zaman''. 26.01.2008</ref> Dozens of suspects, including high-ranking politicians and military figures, have since been arrested on various charges, including a plot to kill ],<ref>. ''Today's Zaman''. 27.03.2008.</ref><ref>. ''Hurriyet''. 03.2008.</ref> the Turkish Nobel laureate who was charged with "insulting Turkishness" for stating that "a million Armenians were killed in these lands".<ref>Watson, Ivan. . ''NPR''. ], ].</ref> | |||
==Armenia and the Armenian Genocide== | |||
{{see also|Nagorno-Karabakh War|Sumgait pogrom|Khojaly massacre}} | |||
] has been involved in a protracted ethnic-territorial conflict with ], a ] state, since they became independent in 1991. The conflict has featured several pogroms, massacres, and waves of ], by both sides. Some foreign policy observers and historians have suggested that Armenia and the Armenian diaspora have sought to affect policy-making in the modern ] conflict, by suggesting that the modern conflict is a continuation of the Armenian Genocide.<ref name=ambrosio12>Ambrosio, Thomas. ''Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy''. 2002, page 12.</ref><ref name=blox>Bloxham, Donald. ''The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians''. 2005, page 232-3.</ref> According to ], the Armenian Genocide furnishes "a reserve of public sympathy and moral legitimacy that translates into significant political influence... to elicit congressional support for anti-Azerbaijan policies."<ref name=ambrosio12 /> Ambrosio points out that while Armenians came to control well over 10% of the territory of Azerbaijan in the conflict, much of the rhetoric of the western world "deflected charges of ] and put the blame for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the Azerbaijanis."<ref>Ambrosio, Thomas. ''Irredentism: Ethnic Conflict and International Politics''. 2001, page 156.</ref> | |||
The rhetoric leading up to the onset of the conflict, which unfolded in the context of several pogroms of Armenians, was dominated by references to the Armenian Genocide, including fears that it would be, or was in the course of being, repeated.<ref>Atabaki, Touraj and Mehendale, Sanjyot. ''Central Asia and the Caucasus: Transnationalism and Diaspora''. 2005, page 85-6.</ref><ref>Kaufman, Stuart J. ''Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War''. 2001, page 55.</ref> During the conflict, the Azeri and Armenian governments regularly accused each other of genocidal intent, although these claims have been treated skeptically by outside observers.<ref name=blox /> | |||
== Recognition of the Armenian Genocide == | |||
{{Main|Recognition of the Armenian Genocide}} | |||
<!-- Image with unknown copyright status removed: ].{{deletable image-caption}}]] --> | |||
As a response to the continuing denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish State, many activists among ] communities have pushed for formal recognition of the Armenian genocide from various governments around the world. Twenty-two countries and 40 ]s have adopted formal resolutions acknowledging the Armenian Genocide as a ''bona fide'' historical event. | |||
== Commemoration == | |||
=== The memorial at Tsitsernakaberd === | |||
] and Archbishop ] at the Armenian Genocide monument in ].]] | |||
{{main|Tsitsernakaberd}} | |||
In 1965, the 50th anniversary of the genocide, a ] was initiated in ] demanding recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Soviet authorities. The memorial was completed two years later, at ] above the ] gorge in Yerevan. The {{convert|44|m|ft}} ] symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. Twelve slabs are positioned in a circle, representing 12 lost provinces in present day ]. At the center of the circle there is an ]. Each ], hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers around the eternal flame. | |||
=== Art === | |||
The earliest example of the Armenian genocide on art was a medal issued in ], signifying Russian sympathy for Armenian suffering. It was struck in 1915, as the massacres and deportations were still raging. Since then, dozens of medals in different countries have been commissioned to commemorate the event.<ref>{{cite book | |||
| last = Sarkisyan | |||
| first = Henry | |||
| title = Works of the State History History Museum of Armenia, Vol. IV:Armenian Theme in Russian Medallic Art. | |||
| publisher = Hayastan | |||
| date= 1975 | |||
| location = Yerevan | |||
| pages = 136 | |||
}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Several eyewitness accounts of the events were published, notably those of Swedish missionary ] and U.S. Ambassador ] German medic ] wrote several books about the events he witnessed while stationed in the Ottoman Empire. Years later, having returned to Germany, Wegner was imprisoned for opposing Nazism,<ref></ref> and his books were subjected to ].<ref></ref> Probably the best known literary work on the Armenian Genocide is ]'s 1933 '']''. It was a bestseller that became particularly popular among the youth of the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi era.<ref>Auron, Yair. ''The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide''. 2000, page 302–4.</ref> | |||
]'s 1988 novel '']'' features the Armenian Genocide as an underlying theme. Other novels incorporating the Armenian Genocide include ]' ''Birds without Wings'', Edgar Hilsenrath's German-language ''The Fairytale of the Last Thought'', and Polish ]'s 1925 '']''. A story in Edward Saint-Ivan's 2006 anthology "The Black Knight's God" includes a fictional survivor of the Armenian Genocide. | |||
The first film about the Armenian Genocide appeared in 1919, a Hollywood production entitled '']''. It resonated with acclaimed director ], influencing his 2002 '']''. There are also references in ]'s ''America, America'' or ]'s '']''. At the ] of 2007 Italian directors ] presented another film about the events, based on Antonia Arslan's book, ''La Masseria Delle Allodole'' (''The Farm of the Larks'').<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,466427,00.html|title = Armenian Genocide at the Berlin Film Festival: "The Lark Farm" Wakens Turkish Ghosts|author = Wolfgang Höbel and Alexander Smoltczyk|publisher = Spiegel Online|accessdate = 2007-09-06}}</ref> Richard Kalinoski's play, ''Beast on the Moon'', is about two Armenian Genocide survivors. | |||
The works of ], an Armenian expatriate whose mother starved to death in the genocide, were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss of the period.<ref></ref> Gorky was a seminal figure of ]. | |||
], ].]] | |||
In 1975, famous French-Armenian singer ] recorded the song "]" ("They Fell"), dedicated to the memory of Armenian Genocide victims.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.azad-hye.net/article/article_view.asp?rec=84|title = The status of Armenian communities living in the United States|author = Mari Terzian|publisher = Azad-Hye|accessdate = 2007-09-06}}</ref> | |||
American composer and singer ] has achieved critical acclaim for his collaborations with Armenian composer ]. The song "Adana", named for the province of ] of the Armenian people, tells the story of the Armenian Genocide. "Adana" has been translated into 17 languages and recorded by singers around the world.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.evangelicalnews.org/indiv_pr.php?action=display&pr_id=3554|title = Gospel Artist Given Standing Ovation By Armenian Government Officials|publisher = ANS|accessdate = 2007-09-06}}</ref> | |||
The band ], composed of four descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, has promoted awareness of the Armenian Genocide, through its lyrics and concerts.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2006/10/genocide.php|title = Talking With Turks and Armenians About the Genocide|author = Line Abrahamian|publisher = ] Canada|accessdate = 2007-04-23}}</ref> | |||
In late 2003, ] released the album ''Defixiones, Will and Testament: Orders from the Dead'', an 80-minute memorial tribute to the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian and Hellenic victims of the genocide in Turkey. "The performance is an angry meditation on genocide and the politically cooperative denial of it, in particular the Turkish and American denial of the Armenian, Assyrian, and Anatolian Greek genocides from 1914 to 1923".<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.diamandagalas.com/defixiones/|title = Defixiones: Orders from the Dead by Diamanda Galas|publisher = The San Francisco Chronicle|accessdate = 2007-10-05}}</ref> | |||
=== Documentary films === | |||
* 1975 – ''The Forgotten Genocide'' (dir. J. Michael Hagopian) | |||
* 1983 – ''Assignment Berlin'' (dir. Hrayr Toukhanian) | |||
* 1988 – ''Tillbaka till Ararat'' (''Back to Ararat'', dir. Jim Downing, Göran Gunér) | |||
* 1988 – ''An Armenian Journey'' (dir. Theodore Bogosian) | |||
* 1990 – ''] (dir. ]) | |||
* 2000 – ''I Will Not Be Sad in This World'' (dir. Karina Epperlein) | |||
* 2003 – ''Germany and the Secret Genocide'' (dir. J. Michael Hagopian) | |||
* 2003 – ''Voices From the Lake: A Film About the Secret Genocide'' (dir. J. Michael Hagopian) | |||
* 2003 – ''Desecration'' (dir. Hrair "Hawk" Khatcherian) | |||
* 2003 – ''The Armenian Genocide: A Look Through Our Eyes'' (dir. Vatche Arabian) | |||
* 2005 – '']'' (dir. ]) | |||
* 2006 – ''The Armenian Genocide'' (dir. ]) | |||
* 2006 – ''Armenian Revolt'' (dir. Marty Callaghan) | |||
* 2006 – '']'' (dir. ]) | |||
== See also == | |||
{{sisterlinks|Armenian Genocide}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* '']'', a film by ] | |||
* '']'', a novel by ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
{{ |
{{Reflist|19em}} | ||
== |
===Sources=== | ||
{{Main|Bibliography of the Armenian genocide}} | |||
====Books==== | |||
{{refbegin|indent=yes|35em}} | |||
* {{cite book| last=Akçam| first=Taner| author-link=Taner Akçam|title=The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire| date=2012| publisher=]|isbn=978-0-691-15333-9|title-link=The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner|title-link=Killing Orders|title=Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide |date=2018 |publisher=] |isbn=978-3-319-69787-1 |language=en}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner |last2=Kurt |first2=Ümit |author2-link=Ümit Kurt (historian) |title=The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide |date=2015 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-78238-624-7}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Bloxham |first1=Donald|author-link=Donald Bloxham |title=The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians|title-link=The Great Game of Genocide |date=2005 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-19-927356-0 |language=en}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Bozarslan |first1=Hamit |last2=Duclert |first2=Vincent |last3=Kévorkian |first3=Raymond H. |author1-link=:fr:Hamit Bozarslan |author2-link=:fr:Vincent Duclert |title=Comprendre le génocide des arméniens{{snd}}1915 à nos jours |date=2015 |publisher={{ill|Tallandier|fr|Éditions Tallandier}} |isbn=979-10-210-0681-2 |language=fr |trans-title=Understanding the Armenian genocide: 1915 to the present day|ref={{sfnref|Bozarslan et al.|2015}}}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Cheterian |first1=Vicken|author-link=Vicken Cheterian |title=Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide |date=2015 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-84904-458-5 |language=en}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Dadrian |first1=Vahakn N. |last2=Akçam |first2=Taner |author1-link=Vahakn Dadrian |title=Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials |date=2011 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-0-85745-286-3}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=de Waal |first1=Thomas |author1-link=Thomas de Waal |title=Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-935069-8}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Galip |first1=Özlem Belçim |title=New Social Movements and the Armenian Question in Turkey: Civil Society vs. the State |date=2020 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-59400-8}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Gingeras |first1=Ryan |author1-link=Ryan Gingeras |title=Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1908–1922 |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-967607-1 |language=en}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Göçek |first1=Fatma Müge |author1-link=Fatma Müge Göçek |title=Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789–2009 |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-933420-9 |title-link=Denial of Violence}} | |||
* {{cite book|last=Ihrig|first=Stefan|author-link=Stefan Ihrig|date=2016|title=Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler|title-link=Justifying Genocide|publisher=]|isbn=978-0-674-50479-0}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kévorkian |first1=Raymond |author1-link=Raymond Kévorkian |title=The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History|title-link=The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History |date=2011 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-85771-930-0 |language=en}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kieser |first1=Hans-Lukas |author1-link=Hans-Lukas Kieser |title=] |date=2018 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-8963-1 }} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Morris |first1=Benny|author-link=Benny Morris |last2=Ze'evi |first2=Dror|author2-link=Dror Ze'evi |title=The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924|title-link=The Thirty-Year Genocide |date=2019 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-91645-6}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Nichanian |first1=Mikaël |author1-link=:fr:Mikaël Nichanian |title=Détruire les Arméniens. Histoire d'un génocide |date=2015 |publisher=] |isbn=978-2-13-062617-6 |language=fr|trans-title=Destroying the Armenians: History of a Genocide}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Payaslian |first1=Simon|author-link=Simon Payaslian |title=The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present |date=2007 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4039-7467-9 }} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Rogan |first1=Eugene |author1-link=Eugene Rogan |title=The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East |date=2015 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-465-05669-9}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Suciyan |first1=Talin |title=The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics and History |date=2015 |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-0-85772-773-2 }} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Suny |first1=Ronald Grigor|author-link=Ronald Grigor Suny |title="They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide|title-link=They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else |date=2015 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-6558-1}} | |||
* {{cite book|last1=Üngör|first1=Uğur Ümit|last2=Polatel|first2=Mehmet|author-link1=Uğur Ümit Üngör|author-link2=|title=Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property|year=2011|publisher=]|isbn=978-1-4411-3578-0}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
====Chapters==== | |||
* ], ''From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide'', Zed Books, 2004 | |||
{{refbegin|indent=yes|35em}} | |||
* ]. ''A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility''. Metropolitan Books, 2006 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Ahmed |first1=Ali |title=Encyclopedia of the Developing World |date=2006 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-57958-388-0 |pages=1575–1578 |language=en |chapter=Turkey}} | |||
* ]. ''The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response.'' New York: Perennial, 2003 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Margaret Lavinia|author-link=Margaret L. Anderson |title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire |title-link=A Question of Genocide|date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-539374-3 |language=en |chapter=Who Still Talked about the Extermination of the Armenians?|pages=199–217}} | |||
* Bartov, Omer, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide and Modern Identity, Oxford Univ. Press, 2000 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Astourian |first1=Stephan|chapter=The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power|pages=55–81 |title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire|date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-539374-3}} | |||
* ] ''The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus'' Berghahn Books, 1995 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Bloxham |first1=Donald |last2=Göçek |first2=Fatma Müge |title=The Historiography of Genocide |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-0-230-29778-4 |pages=344–372 |language=en |chapter=The Armenian Genocide}} | |||
* Dündar, Fuat, Ittihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanlari Iskan Politikasi (1913–18), Iletisim, 2001 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Chorbajian |first1=Levon |author-link1=Levon Chorbajian |title=The Armenian Genocide Legacy |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-1-137-56163-3 |pages=167–182 |language=en |chapter='They Brought It on Themselves and It Never Happened': Denial to 1939}} | |||
* ], '']'' London: Alfred Knopf, 2005 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Cora |first1=Yaşar Tolga |title=Not All Quiet on the Ottoman Fronts: Neglected Perspectives on a Global War, 1914–1918 |date=2020 |publisher=Ergon-Verlag |isbn=978-3-95650-777-9 |pages=49–72 |chapter=Towards a Social History of the Ottoman War Economy: Manufacturing and Armenian Forced Skilled-Laborers}} | |||
* Gaunt, David. ''Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I'' Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006. ISBN 1-59333-301-3. | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Der Mugrdechian |first1=Barlow|author-link=Barlow Der Mugrdechian |title=The Armenian Genocide Legacy |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-1-137-56163-3 |pages=273–286 |language=en |chapter=The Theme of Genocide in Armenian Literature}} | |||
* ], Der Völkermord an den Armeniern, Zu Klampen, 2005 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Dündar |first1=Fuat|author-link=Fuat Dündar |title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire|date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-539374-3 |language=en |chapter=Pouring a People into the Desert: The "Definitive Solution" of the Unionists to the Armenian Question|pages=276–286}} | |||
* ]. ''Deutschland und Armenien 1914–1918, Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke''. Donat & Temmen Verlag, 1986 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Göçek |first1=Fatma Müge|chapter=Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on 1915|pages=42–52 |title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-539374-3}} | |||
* ], Revolution and Genocide. On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, The University of Chicago Press, 1996 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kaiser |first1=Hilmar |authorlink=Hilmar Kaiser |title=The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-923211-6 |language=en |chapter=Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire|date= 2010|pages=365–385}} | |||
* Power, Samantha. ''"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide''. Harper, 2003 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kaligian |first1=Dikran |title=Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913–1923 |date=2017 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78533-433-7 |language=en |chapter=Convulsions at the End of Empire: Thrace, Asia Minor, and the Aegean|pages=82–104}} | |||
* Wallimann, Isidor (ed.): Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Syracuse Univ. Press, 2000 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kévorkian |first1=Raymond |title=Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence |date=2014 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-1-84779-906-7 |pages=89–116 |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0s3n.9 |language=en |chapter=Earth, Fire, Water: or How to Make the Armenian Corpses Disappear |jstor=j.ctt1wn0s3n.9 |access-date=<!-- none --> |archive-date=16 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416013901/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0s3n.9 |url-status=dead }} | |||
* Graber, G.S. ''Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide 1915.'' New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996 | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kévorkian |first1=Raymond |title=Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State |date=2020 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78920-451-3 |pages=147–173 |language=en |chapter=The Final Phase: The Cleansing of Armenian and Greek Survivors, 1919–1922}} | |||
* {{cite web | title=The Armenian Genocide: A Bibliography | work=University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center | url=http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/gen_bib1.html | accessdate=January 27 | accessyear=2008}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Kieser |first1=Hans-Lukas |last2=Bloxham |first2=Donald |title=]: Volume 1: Global War |date=2014 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-511-67566-9 |pages=585–614 |chapter=Genocide}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Koinova |first1=Maria |title=Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation: Global and Local Perspectives |date=2017 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-319-32892-8 |pages=111–129 |language=en |chapter=Conflict and Cooperation in Armenian Diaspora Mobilisation for Genocide Recognition}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Leonard |first1=Thomas C. |title=America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-82958-8 |pages=294–308 |chapter=When news is not enough: American media and Armenian deaths}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Maksudyan |first1=Nazan |author1-link=Nazan Maksudyan |title=Gendering Global Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century: Practice, Politics and the Power of Representation |date=2020 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-44630-7 |pages=117–142 |language=en |chapter=The Orphan Nation: Gendered Humanitarianism for Armenian Survivor Children in Istanbul, 1919–1922}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Marsoobian |first1=Armen|authorlink=Armen T. Marsoobian |title=The History of Genocide in Cinema: Atrocities on Screen |date=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78673-047-3 |pages=73–86 |language=en |chapter=The Armenian Genocide in Film: Overcoming Denial and Loss}} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Mouradian |first1=Khatchig|author-link=Khatchig Mouradian |title=Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-22591-3 |pages=145–161 |language=en |chapter=Internment and destruction: Concentration camps during the Armenian genocide, 1915–16}} | |||
* {{cite book |last=Üngör |first=Uğur Ümit |title=Holocaust and Other Genocides |date=2012 |publisher=] / Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-4851-528-8 |pages=45–72 |url=https://www.niod.nl/sites/niod.nl/files/Holocaust%20and%20other%20genocides.pdf |language=en |chapter=The Armenian Genocide, 1915 |chapter-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508050001/https://www.niod.nl/sites/niod.nl/files/Armenian%20genocide.pdf |access-date=3 July 2021 |archive-date=25 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425062732/https://www.niod.nl/sites/niod.nl/files/Holocaust%20and%20other%20genocides.pdf |url-status=dead }} | |||
* {{cite book |last1=Üngör |first1=Uğur Ümit |title=The Armenian Genocide Legacy |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-1-137-56163-3 |pages=11–25 |language=en |chapter=The Armenian Genocide in the Context of 20th-Century Paramilitarism}} | |||
* {{cite book|last=Zürcher|first=Erik Jan|author-link=Erik Jan Zürcher|chapter=Renewal and Silence: Postwar Unionist and Kemalist Rhetoric on the Armenian Genocide|pages=306–316 |title=A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-539374-3}} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
====Journal articles==== | |||
* {{cite web | title=The Armenian Genocide: A Supplemental Bibliography, 1993–1996 | work=University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center | url=http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/gen_bib2.html | accessdate=January 27 | accessyear=2008}}</div> | |||
{{refbegin|indent=yes|35em}} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Akçam |first1=Taner |title=When Was the Decision to Annihilate the Armenians Taken? |journal=] |date=2019 |volume=21 |issue=4 |pages=457–480 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2019.1630893 |s2cid=<!-- --> | issn = 1462-3528}} | |||
* ] Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, Revised Second Edition. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1990. 476 pp. | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Ben Aharon |first1=Eldad |title=Recognition of the Armenian Genocide after its Centenary: A Comparative Analysis of Changing Parliamentary Positions |journal=] |date=2019 |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=339–352 |doi=10.1080/23739770.2019.1737911 |doi-access=free |hdl=1887/92270 |hdl-access=free }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Bjørnlund |first1=Matthias|authorlink=Matthias Bjørnlund|title=The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2008 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=41–58 |doi=10.1080/14623520701850286 |s2cid=<!-- --> }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1= Ekmekçioğlu |first1=Lerna|author-link= Lerna Ekmekçioğlu |title=A Climate for Abduction, a Climate for Redemption: The Politics of Inclusion during and after the Armenian Genocide |journal=] |date=2013 |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=522–553 |doi=10.1017/S0010417513000236 |jstor=23526015 |hdl=1721.1/88911 |s2cid=<!-- --> |hdl-access=free }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Kaiser |first1=Hilmar |title=Financing the Ruling Party and Its Militants in Wartime:The Armenian Genocide and the Kemah Massacres of 1915 |journal=] |date=2019 |issue=12 |pages=7–31 |doi=10.4000/eac.1942 |doi-access=free }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Kurt |first1=Ümit |title=Cultural Erasure: The Absorption and Forced Conversion of Armenian Women and Children, 1915–1916 |journal=Études arméniennes contemporaines |date=2016 |issue=7 |doi=10.4000/eac.997 |doi-access=free }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Miller |first1=Angela |title=Achilles the Bitter: Gorky and the Genocide |journal=Oxford Art Journal |date=2010 |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=392–396 |doi=10.1093/oxartj/kcq025 }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Shirinian |first1=George N. |title=Starvation and Its Political Use in the Armenian Genocide |journal=Genocide Studies International |date=2017 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=8–37 |id={{Project MUSE|680838}} |doi=10.3138/gsi.11.1.01 |s2cid=<!-- --> }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Tusan |first1=Michelle |title='Crimes against Humanity': Human Rights, the British Empire, and the Origins of the Response to the Armenian Genocide |journal=] |date=2014 |volume=119 |issue=1 |pages=47–77 |doi=10.1093/ahr/119.1.47 |doi-access=free }} | |||
* {{cite journal |last1=Watenpaugh |first1=Keith David |authorlink=Keith David Watenpaugh |title='Are There Any Children for Sale?': Genocide and the Transfer of Armenian Children (1915–1922) |journal=] |date=2013 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=283–295 |doi=10.1080/14754835.2013.812410 |s2cid=<!-- --> }} | |||
{{refend}} | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
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* on the Armeniapedia.org website () | |||
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* |
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* by ] | |||
* , at University of Minnesota | |||
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Latest revision as of 03:51, 28 November 2024
1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire
Armenian genocide | |
---|---|
Part of World War I | |
Column of Armenian deportees guarded by gendarmes in Harput vilayet | |
Location | Ottoman Empire |
Date | 1915–1917 |
Target | Ottoman Armenians |
Attack type | Genocide, death march, Islamization |
Deaths | 600,000–1.5 million |
Perpetrators | Committee of Union and Progress |
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.
Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and 1909. The Ottoman Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses—especially during the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars—leading to fear among CUP leaders that the Armenians would seek independence. During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence.
On 24 April 1915, the Ottoman authorities arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from Constantinople. At the orders of Talaat Pasha, an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape, and massacres. In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps. In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through the Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists.
This genocide put an end to more than two thousand years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia. Together with the mass murder and expulsion of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey. The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide. As of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus.
Background
Further information: Causes of the Armenian genocideArmenians in the Ottoman Empire
Main article: Armenians in the Ottoman EmpireThe presence of Armenians in Anatolia has been documented since the sixth century BCE, about 1,500 years before the arrival of Turkmens under the Seljuk dynasty. The Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in the fourth century CE, establishing the Armenian Apostolic Church. Following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, two Islamic empires—the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire—contested Western Armenia, which was permanently separated from Eastern Armenia (held by the Safavids) by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab. The Ottoman Empire was multiethnic and multireligious, and its millet system offered non-Muslims a subordinate but protected place in society. Sharia law encoded Islamic superiority but guaranteed property rights and freedom of worship to non-Muslims (dhimmis) in exchange for a special tax.
On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15–17.5 million. According to the Armenian Patriarchate's estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in the Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the Armenian highlands adjacent to the Russian border. Armenians were a minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and Kurdish Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian neighbors. According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially Constantinople, Smyrna, and Eastern Thrace. Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As middleman minorities, despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable.
Land conflict and reforms
Armenians in the eastern provinces lived in semi-feudal conditions and commonly encountered forced labor, illegal taxation, and unpunished crimes against them including robberies, murders, and sexual assaults. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government issued a series of reforms to centralize power and equalize the status of Ottoman subjects regardless of religion. The reforms to equalize the status of non-Muslims were strongly opposed by Islamic clergy and Muslims in general, and remained mostly theoretical. Because of the abolition of the Kurdish emirates in the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman government began to directly tax Armenian peasants who had previously paid taxes only to Kurdish landlords. The latter continued to exact levies illegally.
From the mid-nineteenth century, Armenians faced large-scale land usurpation as a consequence of the sedentarization of Kurdish tribes and the arrival of Muslim refugees and immigrants (mainly Circassians) following the Russo-Circassian War. In 1876, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II came to power, the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants as part of a systematic policy to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. This policy lasted until World War I. These conditions led to a substantial decline in the population of the Armenian highlands; 300,000 Armenians left the empire, and others moved to towns. Some Armenians joined revolutionary political parties, of which the most influential was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), founded in 1890. These parties primarily sought reform within the empire and found only limited support from Ottoman Armenians.
Russia's decisive victory in the 1877–1878 war forced the Ottoman Empire to cede parts of eastern Anatolia, the Balkans, and Cyprus. Under international pressure at the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the Ottoman government agreed to carry out reforms and guarantee the physical safety of its Armenian subjects, but there was no enforcement mechanism; conditions continued to worsen. The Congress of Berlin marked the emergence of the Armenian question in international diplomacy as Armenians were for the first time used by the Great Powers to interfere in Ottoman politics. Although Armenians had been called the "loyal millet" in contrast to Greeks and others who had previously challenged Ottoman rule, the authorities began to perceive Armenians as a threat after 1878. In 1891, Abdul Hamid created the Hamidiye regiments from Kurdish tribes, allowing them to act with impunity against Armenians. From 1895 to 1896 the empire saw widespread massacres; at least 100,000 Armenians were killed primarily by Ottoman soldiers and mobs let loose by the authorities. Many Armenian villages were forcibly converted to Islam. The Ottoman state bore ultimate responsibility for the killings, whose purpose was violently restoring the previous social order in which Christians would unquestioningly accept Muslim supremacy, and forcing Armenians to emigrate, thereby decreasing their numbers.
Young Turk Revolution
Main article: Young Turk RevolutionAbdul Hamid's despotism prompted the formation of an opposition movement, the Young Turks, which sought to overthrow him and restore the 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire, which he had suspended in 1877. One faction of the Young Turks was the secret and revolutionary Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), based in Salonica, from which the charismatic conspirator Mehmed Talaat (later Talaat Pasha) emerged as a leading member. Although skeptical of a growing, exclusionary Turkish nationalism in the Young Turk movement, the ARF decided to ally with the CUP in December 1907. In 1908, the CUP came to power in the Young Turk Revolution, which began with a string of CUP assassinations of leading officials in Macedonia. Abdul Hamid was forced to reinstate the 1876 constitution and restore the Ottoman parliament, which was celebrated by Ottomans of all ethnicities and religions. Security improved in parts of the eastern provinces after 1908 and the CUP took steps to reform the local gendarmerie, although tensions remained high. Despite an agreement to reverse the land usurpation of the previous decades in the 1910 Salonica Accord between the ARF and the CUP, the latter made no efforts to carry this out.
In early 1909 an unsuccessful countercoup was launched by conservatives and some liberals who opposed the CUP's increasingly repressive governance. When news of the countercoup reached Adana, armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people, mostly Armenians, were killed in Adana and nearby towns. Unlike the 1890s massacres, the events were not organized by the central government but instigated by local officials, intellectuals, and Islamic clerics, including CUP supporters in Adana. Although the massacres went unpunished, the ARF continued to hope that reforms to improve security and restore lands were forthcoming, until late 1912, when they broke with the CUP and appealed to the European powers. On 8 February 1914, the CUP reluctantly agreed to reforms brokered by Germany that provided for the appointment of two European inspectors for the entire Ottoman east and putting the Hamidiye regiments in reserve. CUP leaders feared that these reforms, which were never implemented, could lead to partition and cited them as a reason for the elimination of the Armenian population in 1915.
Balkan Wars
Main article: Balkan WarsThe 1912 First Balkan War resulted in the loss of almost all of the empire's European territory and the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans. Ottoman Muslim society was incensed by the atrocities committed against Balkan Muslims, intensifying anti-Christian sentiment and leading to a desire for revenge. Blame for the loss was assigned to all Christians, including the Ottoman Armenians, many of whom had fought on the Ottoman side. The Balkan Wars put an end to the Ottomanist movement for pluralism and coexistence; instead, the CUP turned to an increasingly radical Turkish nationalism to preserve the empire. CUP leaders such as Talaat and Enver Pasha came to blame non-Muslim population concentrations in strategic areas for many of the empire's problems, concluding by mid-1914 that they were internal tumors to be excised. Of these, Ottoman Armenians were considered the most dangerous, because CUP leaders feared that their homeland in Anatolia—claimed as the last refuge of the Turkish nation—would break away from the empire as the Balkans had.
In January 1913, the CUP launched another coup, installed a one-party state, and strictly repressed all real or perceived internal enemies. After the coup, the CUP shifted the demography of border areas by resettling Balkan Muslim refugees while coercing Christians to emigrate; immigrants were promised property that had belonged to Christians. When parts of Eastern Thrace were reoccupied by the Ottoman Empire during the Second Balkan War in mid-1913, there was a campaign of looting and intimidation against Greeks and Armenians, forcing many to emigrate. Around 150,000 Greek Orthodox from the Aegean coast were forcibly deported in May and June 1914 by Muslim bandits, who were secretly backed by the CUP and sometimes joined by the regular army. Historian Matthias Bjørnlund states that the perceived success of the Greek deportations allowed CUP leaders to envision even more radical policies "as yet another extension of a policy of social engineering through Turkification".
Ottoman entry into World War I
A few days after the outbreak of World War I, the CUP concluded an alliance with Germany on 2 August 1914. The same month, CUP representatives went to an ARF conference demanding that, in the event of war with Russia, the ARF incite Russian Armenians to intervene on the Ottoman side. Instead, the delegates resolved that Armenians should fight for the countries of their citizenships. During its war preparations, the Ottoman government recruited thousands of prisoners to join the paramilitary Special Organization, which initially focused on stirring up revolts among Muslims behind Russian lines beginning before the empire officially entered the war. On 29 October 1914, the empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers by launching a surprise attack on Russian ports in the Black Sea. Many Russian Armenians were enthusiastic about the war, but Ottoman Armenians were more ambivalent, afraid that supporting Russia would bring retaliation. Organization of Armenian volunteer units by Russian Armenians, later joined by some Ottoman Armenian deserters, further increased Ottoman suspicions against their Armenian population.
Wartime requisitions were often corrupt and arbitrary, and disproportionately targeted Greeks and Armenians. Armenian leaders urged young men to accept conscription into the army, but many soldiers of all ethnicities and religions deserted due to difficult conditions and concern for their families. At least 10 percent of Ottoman Armenians were mobilized, leaving their communities bereft of fighting-age men and therefore largely unable to organize armed resistance to deportation in 1915. During the Ottoman invasion of Russian and Persian territory, the Special Organization massacred local Armenians and Assyrian/Syriac Christians. Beginning in November 1914, provincial governors of Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum sent many telegrams to the central government pressing for more severe measures against the Armenians, both regionally and throughout the empire. These requests were endorsed by the central government already before 1915. Armenian civil servants were dismissed from their posts in late 1914 and early 1915. In February 1915, the CUP leaders decided to disarm Armenians serving in the army and transfer them to labor battalions. The Armenian soldiers in labor battalions were systematically executed, although many skilled workers were spared until 1916.
Onset of genocide
Further information: Causes of the Armenian genocide § Wartime radicalizationMinister of War Enver Pasha took over command of the Ottoman armies for the invasion of Russian territory, and tried to encircle the Russian Caucasus Army at the Battle of Sarikamish, fought from December 1914 to January 1915. Unprepared for the harsh winter conditions, his forces were routed, losing more than 60,000 men. The retreating Ottoman army destroyed dozens of Ottoman Armenian villages in Bitlis vilayet, massacring their inhabitants. Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians who he claimed had actively sided with the Russians, a theory that became a consensus among CUP leaders. Reports of local incidents such as weapons caches, severed telegraph lines, and occasional killings confirmed preexisting beliefs about Armenian treachery and fueled paranoia among CUP leaders that a coordinated Armenian conspiracy was plotting against the empire. Discounting contrary reports that most Armenians were loyal, the CUP leaders decided that the Armenians had to be eliminated to save the empire.
Massacres of Armenian men were occurring in the vicinity of Bashkale in Van vilayet from December 1914. ARF leaders attempted to keep the situation calm, warning that even justifiable self-defense could lead to escalation of killing. The governor, Djevdet Bey, ordered the Armenians of Van to hand over their arms on 18 April 1915, creating a dilemma: If they obeyed, the Armenians expected to be killed, but if they refused, it would provide a pretext for massacres. Armenians fortified themselves in Van and repelled the Ottoman attack that began on 20 April. During the siege, Armenians in surrounding villages were massacred at Djevdet's orders. Russian forces captured Van on 18 May, finding 55,000 corpses in the province—about half its prewar Armenian population. Djevdet's forces proceeded to Bitlis and attacked Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac villages; the men were killed immediately, many women and children were kidnapped by local Kurds, and others marched away to be killed later. By the end of June, there were only a dozen Armenians in the vilayet.
The first deportations of Armenians were proposed by Djemal Pasha, the commander of the Fourth Army, in February 1915 and targeted Armenians in Cilicia (specifically Alexandretta, Dörtyol, Adana, Hadjin, Zeytun, and Sis) who were relocated to the area around Konya in central Anatolia. In late March or early April, the CUP Central Committee decided on the large-scale removal of Armenians from areas near the front lines. During the night of 23–24 April 1915 hundreds of Armenian political activists, intellectuals, and community leaders were rounded up in Constantinople and across the empire. This order from Talaat, intended to eliminate the Armenian leadership and anyone capable of organizing resistance, eventually resulted in the murder of most of those arrested. The same day, Talaat banned all Armenian political organizations and ordered that the Armenians who had previously been removed from Cilicia be deported again, from central Anatolia—where they would likely have survived—to the Syrian Desert.
Systematic deportations
See also: Population transfer in the Ottoman EmpireAims
—Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt, 4 May 1916We have been blamed for not making a distinction between guilty and innocent Armenians. was impossible. Because of the nature of things, one who was still innocent today could be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns.
During World War I, the CUP—whose central goal was to preserve the Ottoman Empire—came to identify Armenian civilians as an existential threat. CUP leaders held Armenians—including women and children—collectively guilty for betraying the empire, a belief that was crucial to deciding on genocide in early 1915. At the same time, the war provided an opportunity to enact what Talaat called the "definitive solution to the Armenian Question". The CUP wrongly believed that the Russian Empire sought to annex eastern Anatolia, and ordered the genocide in large part to prevent this eventuality. The genocide was intended to permanently eliminate any possibility that Armenians could achieve autonomy or independence in the empire's eastern provinces. Ottoman records show the government aimed to reduce Armenians to no more than five percent of the local population in the sources of deportation and ten percent in the destination areas. This goal could not be accomplished without mass murder.
The deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims in their lands was part of a broader project intended to permanently restructure the demographics of Anatolia. Armenian homes, businesses, and land were preferentially allocated to Muslims from outside the empire, nomads, and the estimated 800,000 (largely Kurdish) Ottoman subjects displaced because of the war with Russia. Resettled Muslims were spread out (typically limited to 10 percent in any area) among larger Turkish populations so that they would lose their distinctive characteristics, such as non-Turkish languages or nomadism. These migrants were exposed to harsh conditions and, in some cases, violence or restriction from leaving their new villages. The ethnic cleansing of Anatolia—the Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide, and expulsion of Greeks after World War I—paved the way for the formation of an ethno-national Turkish state. In September 1918, Talaat emphasized that regardless of losing the war, he had succeeded at "transforming Turkey to a nation-state in Anatolia".
Deportation amounted to a death sentence; the authorities planned for and intended the death of the deportees. Deportation was only carried out behind the front lines, where no active rebellion existed, and was only possible in the absence of widespread resistance. Armenians who lived in the war zone were instead killed in massacres. Although ostensibly undertaken for security reasons, the deportation and murder of Armenians did not grant the empire any military advantage and actually undermined the Ottoman war effort. The empire faced a dilemma between its goal of eliminating Armenians and its practical need for their labor; those Armenians retained for their skills, in particular for manufacturing in war industries, were indispensable to the logistics of the Ottoman Army. By late 1915, the CUP had extinguished Armenian existence from eastern Anatolia.
Map of the Armenian genocide in 1915Administrative organization
On 23 May 1915, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians in Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum. To grant a cover of legality to the deportation, already well underway in the eastern provinces and Cilicia, the Council of Ministers approved the Temporary Law of Deportation, which allowed authorities to deport anyone deemed suspect. On 21 June, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians throughout the empire, even Adrianople, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) from the Russian front. Following the elimination of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia, in August 1915, the Armenians of western Anatolia and European Turkey were targeted for deportation. Some areas with a very low Armenian population and some cities, including Constantinople, were partially spared.
Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance cooperated with the CUP in the perpetration of genocide. The Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants (IAMM) coordinated the deportation and the resettlement of Muslim immigrants in the vacant houses and lands. The IAMM, under the control of Talaat's Ministry of the Interior, and the Special Organization, which took orders directly from the CUP Central Committee, all closely coordinated their activities. A dual-track system was used to communicate orders; those for the deportation of Armenians were communicated to the provincial governors through official channels, but orders of a criminal character, such as those calling for annihilation, were sent through party channels and destroyed upon receipt. Deportation convoys were mostly escorted by gendarmes or local militia. The killings near the front lines were carried out by the Special Organization, and those farther away also involved local militias, bandits, gendarmes, or Kurdish tribes depending on the area. Within the area controlled by the Third Army, which held eastern Anatolia, the army was only involved in genocidal atrocities in the vilayets of Van, Erzerum, and Bitlis.
Many perpetrators came from the Caucasus (Chechens and Circassians), who identified the Armenians with their Russian oppressors. Nomadic Kurds committed many atrocities during the genocide, but settled Kurds only rarely did so. Perpetrators had several motives, including ideology, revenge, desire for Armenian property, and careerism. To motivate perpetrators, state-appointed imams encouraged the killing of Armenians and killers were entitled to a third of Armenian movable property (another third went to local authorities and the last to the CUP). Embezzling beyond that was punished. Ottoman politicians and officials who opposed the genocide were dismissed or assassinated. The government decreed that any Muslim who harbored an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed.
Death marches
Although the majority of able-bodied Armenian men had been conscripted into the army, others deserted, paid the exemption tax, or fell outside the age range of conscription. Unlike the earlier massacres of Ottoman Armenians, in 1915 Armenians were not usually killed in their villages, to avoid destruction of property or unauthorized looting. Instead, the men were usually separated from the rest of the deportees during the first few days and executed. Few resisted, believing it would put their families in greater danger. Boys above the age of twelve (sometimes fifteen) were treated as adult men. Execution sites were chosen for proximity to major roads and for rugged terrain, lakes, wells, or cisterns to facilitate the concealment or disposal of corpses. The convoys would stop at a nearby transit camp, where the escorts would demand a ransom from the Armenians. Those unable to pay were murdered. Units of the Special Organization, often wearing gendarme uniforms, were stationed at the killing sites; escorting gendarmes often did not participate in killing.
At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where a series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge. Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar, pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs. More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya, one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach the Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys. Many others were held in tributary valleys of the Tigris, Euphrates, or Murat and systematically executed by the Special Organization. Armenian men were often drowned by being tied together back-to-back before being thrown in the water, a method that was not used on women.
Authorities viewed disposal of bodies through rivers as a cheap and efficient method, but it caused widespread pollution downstream. So many bodies floated down the Tigris and Euphrates that they sometimes blocked the rivers and needed to be cleared with explosives. Other rotting corpses became stuck to the riverbanks, and still others traveled as far as the Persian Gulf. The rivers remained polluted long after the massacres, causing epidemics downstream. Tens of thousands of Armenians died along the roads and their bodies were buried hastily or, more often, simply left beside the roads. The Ottoman government ordered the corpses to be cleared as soon as possible to prevent both photographic documentation and disease epidemics, but these orders were not uniformly followed.
Women and children, who made up the great majority of deportees, were usually not executed immediately, but subjected to hard marches through mountainous terrain without food and water. Those who could not keep up were left to die or shot. During 1915, some were forced to walk as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) in the summer heat. Some deportees from western Anatolia were allowed to travel by rail. There was a distinction between the convoys from eastern Anatolia, which were eliminated almost in their entirety, and those from farther west, which made up most of those surviving to reach Syria. For example, around 99 percent of Armenians deported from Erzerum did not reach their destination.
Islamization
The Islamization of Armenians, carried out as a systematic state policy involving the bureaucracy, police, judiciary, and clergy, was a major structural component of the genocide. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Armenians were Islamized, and it is estimated that as many as two million Turkish citizens in the early 21st century may have at least one Armenian grandparent. Some Armenians were allowed to convert to Islam and evade deportation, but the regime insisted on their destruction wherever their numbers exceeded the five to ten percent threshold, or there was a risk of them being able to preserve their nationality and culture. Talaat Pasha personally authorized conversion of Armenians and carefully tracked the loyalty of converted Armenians until the end of the war. Although the first and most important step was conversion to Islam, the process also required the eradication of Armenian names, language, and culture, and for women, immediate marriage to a Muslim. Although Islamization was the most feasible opportunity for survival, it also transgressed Armenian moral and social norms.
The CUP allowed Armenian women to marry into Muslim households, as these women would lose their Armenian identity. Young women and girls were often appropriated as house servants or sex slaves. Some boys were abducted to work as forced laborers for Muslim individuals. Some children were forcibly seized, while others were sold or given up by their parents to save their lives. Special state-run orphanages were also set up with strict procedures intending to deprive their charges of an Armenian identity. Most Armenian children who survived the genocide endured exploitation, hard labor without pay, forced conversion to Islam, and physical and sexual abuse. Armenian women captured during the journey ended up in Turkish or Kurdish households; those who were Islamized during the second phase of the genocide found themselves in an Arab or Bedouin environment.
The rape, sexual abuse, and prostitution of Armenian women were all very common. Although Armenian women tried to avoid sexual violence, suicide was often the only alternative. Deportees were displayed naked in Damascus and sold as sex slaves in some areas, constituting an important source of income for accompanying gendarmes. Some were sold in Arabian slave markets to Muslim Hajj pilgrims and ended up as far away as Tunisia or Algeria.
Confiscation of property
Main articles: Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey and National economy (Turkey)A secondary motivation for genocide was the destruction of the Armenian bourgeoisie to make room for a Turkish and Muslim middle class and build a statist national economy controlled by Muslim Turks. The campaign to Turkify the economy began in June 1914 with a law that obliged many non-Muslim merchants to hire Muslims. Following the deportations, the businesses of the victims were taken over by Muslims who were often incompetent, leading to economic difficulties. The genocide had catastrophic effects on the Ottoman economy; Muslims were disadvantaged by the deportation of skilled professionals and entire districts fell into famine following their farmers' deportation. The Ottoman and Turkish governments passed a series of Abandoned Properties Laws to manage and redistribute property confiscated from Armenians. Although the laws maintained that the state was simply administering the properties on behalf of the absent Armenians, there was no provision to return them to the owners—it was presumed that they had ceased to exist.
Historians Taner Akçam and Ümit Kurt argue that "The Republic of Turkey and its legal system were built, in a sense, on the seizure of Armenian cultural, social, and economic wealth, and on the removal of the Armenian presence." The proceeds from the sale of confiscated property was often used to fund the deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims, as well as for army, militia, and other government spending. Ultimately this formed much of the basis of the industry and economy of the post-1923 republic, endowing it with capital. The dispossession and exile of Armenian competitors enabled many lower-class Turks (i.e. peasantry, soldiers, and laborers) to rise to the middle class. Confiscation of Armenian assets continued into the second half of the twentieth century, and in 2006 the National Security Council ruled that property records from 1915 must be kept closed to protect national security. Outside Istanbul, the traces of Armenian existence in Turkey, including churches and monasteries, libraries, khachkars, and animal and place names, have been systematically erased, beginning during the war and continuing for decades afterward.
Destination
Further information: Deir ez-Zor camps and Ras al-Ayn campsThe first arrivals in mid-1915 were accommodated in Aleppo. From mid-November, the convoys were denied access to the city and redirected along the Baghdad Railway or the Euphrates towards Mosul. The first transit camp was established at Sibil, east of Aleppo; one convoy would arrive each day while another would depart for Meskene or Deir ez-Zor. Dozens of concentration camps were set up in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. By October 1915, some 870,000 deportees had reached Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Most were repeatedly transferred between camps, being held in each camp for a few weeks, until there were very few survivors. This strategy physically weakened the Armenians and spread disease, so much that some camps were shut down in late 1915 due to the threat of disease spreading to the Ottoman military. In late 1915, the camps around Aleppo were liquidated and the survivors were forced to march to Ras al-Ayn; the camps around Ras al-Ayn were closed in early 1916 and the survivors sent to Deir ez-Zor.
In general, Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert; many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially dysentery, typhus, and pneumonia. Some local officials gave Armenians food; others took bribes to provide food and water. Aid organizations were officially barred from providing food to the deportees, although some circumvented these prohibitions. Survivors testified that some Armenians refused aid as they believed it would only prolong their suffering. The guards raped female prisoners and also allowed Bedouins to raid the camps at night for looting and rape; some women were forced into marriage. Thousands of Armenian children were sold to childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews, who would come to the camps to buy them from their parents. In the western Levant, governed by the Ottoman Fourth Army under Djemal Pasha, there were no concentration camps or large-scale massacres, rather Armenians were resettled and recruited to work for the war effort. They had to convert to Islam or face deportation to another area.
The ability of the Armenians to adapt and survive was greater than the perpetrators expected. A loosely organized, Armenian-led resistance network based in Aleppo succeeded in helping many deportees, saving Armenian lives. At the beginning of 1916 some 500,000 deportees were alive in Syria and Mesopotamia. Afraid that surviving Armenians might return home after the war, Talaat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in February 1916. Another wave of deportations targeted Armenians remaining in Anatolia. More than 200,000 Armenians were killed between March and October 1916, often in remote areas near Deir ez-Zor and on parts of the Khabur valley, where their bodies would not create a public health hazard. The massacres killed most of the Armenians who had survived the camp system.
International reaction
The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest. Nevertheless, substantiated reports of mass killings were widely covered in Western newspapers. On 24 May 1915, the Triple Entente (Russia, Britain, and France) formally condemned the Ottoman Empire for "crimes against humanity and civilization", and threatened to hold the perpetrators accountable. Witness testimony was published in books such as The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (1916) and Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918), raising public awareness of the genocide.
The German Empire was a military ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. German diplomats approved limited removals of Armenians in early 1915, and took no action against the genocide, which has been a source of controversy.
Relief efforts were organized in dozens of countries to raise money for Armenian survivors. By 1925, people in 49 countries were organizing "Golden Rule Sundays" during which they consumed the diet of Armenian refugees, to raise money for humanitarian efforts. Between 1915 and 1930, Near East Relief raised $110 million ($2 billion adjusted for inflation) for refugees from the Ottoman Empire.
Aftermath
End of World War I
Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued. Both contemporaries and later historians have estimated that around 1 million Armenians died during the genocide, with figures ranging from 600,000 to 1.5 million deaths. Between 800,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were deported, and contemporaries estimated that by late 1916 only 200,000 were still alive. As the British Army advanced in 1917 and 1918 northwards through the Levant, they liberated around 100,000 to 150,000 Armenians working for the Ottoman military under abysmal conditions, not including those held by Arab tribes.
As a result of the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent separate peace with the Central Powers, the Russian army withdrew and Ottoman forces advanced into eastern Anatolia. The First Republic of Armenia was proclaimed in May 1918, at which time 50 percent of its population were refugees and 60 percent of its territory was under Ottoman occupation. Ottoman troops withdrew from parts of Armenia following the October 1918 Armistice of Mudros. From 1918 to 1920, Armenian militants committed revenge killings of thousands of Muslims, which have been cited as a retroactive excuse for genocide. In 1918, at least 200,000 people in Armenia, mostly refugees, died from starvation or disease, in part due to a Turkish blockade of food supplies and the deliberate destruction of crops in eastern Armenia by Turkish troops, both before and after the armistice.
Armenians organized a coordinated effort known as vorpahavak (lit. 'the gathering of orphans') that reclaimed thousands of kidnapped and Islamized Armenian women and children. Armenian leaders abandoned traditional patrilineality to classify children born to Armenian women and their Muslim captors as Armenian. An orphanage in Alexandropol held 25,000 orphans, the largest number in the world. In 1920, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople reported it was caring for 100,000 orphans, estimating that another 100,000 remained captive.
Trials
Main articles: Prosecution of Ottoman war criminals after World War I and Ottoman Special Military TribunalFollowing the armistice, Allied governments championed the prosecution of Armenian genocide perpetrators. Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha publicly recognized that 800,000 Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin had died as a result of state policy and stated that "humanity, civilizations are shuddering, and forever will shudder, in face of this tragedy". The postwar Ottoman government held the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal, by which it sought to pin the Armenian genocide onto the CUP leadership while exonerating the Ottoman Empire as a whole, therefore avoiding partition by the Allies. The court ruled that "the crime of mass murder" of Armenians was "organized and carried out by the top leaders of CUP". Eighteen perpetrators (including Talaat, Enver, and Djemal) were sentenced to death, of whom only three were ultimately executed as the remainder had fled and were tried in absentia. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which awarded Armenia a large area in eastern Anatolia, eliminated the Ottoman government's purpose for holding the trials. Prosecution was hampered by a widespread belief among Turkish Muslims that the actions against the Armenians were not punishable crimes. Increasingly, the genocide was considered necessary and justified to establish a Turkish nation-state.
On 15 March 1921, Talaat was assassinated in Berlin as part of a covert operation of the ARF to kill the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The trial of his admitted killer, Soghomon Tehlirian, focused on Talaat's responsibility for genocide. Tehlirian was acquitted by a German jury.
Turkish War of Independence
Further information: Turkish war crimesThe CUP regrouped as the Turkish nationalist movement to fight the Turkish War of Independence, relying on the support of perpetrators of the genocide and those who had profited from it. This movement saw the return of Armenian survivors as a mortal threat to its nationalist ambitions and the interests of its supporters. The return of survivors was therefore impossible in most of Anatolia and thousands of Armenians who tried were murdered. Historian Raymond Kévorkian states that the war of independence was "intended to complete the genocide by finally eradicating Armenian, Greek, and Syriac survivors". In 1920 Kâzım Karabekir, a Turkish general, invaded Armenia with orders "to eliminate Armenia physically and politically". Nearly 100,000 Armenians were massacred in Transcaucasia by the Turkish army and another 100,000 fled from Cilicia during the French withdrawal. According to Kévorkian, only the Soviet occupation of Armenia prevented another genocide.
The victorious nationalists subsequently declared the Republic of Turkey in 1923. CUP war criminals were granted immunity and later that year, the Treaty of Lausanne established Turkey's current borders and provided for the Greek population's expulsion. Its protection provisions for non-Muslim minorities had no enforcement mechanism and were disregarded in practice.
Armenian survivors were left mainly in three locations. About 295,000 Armenians had fled to Russian-controlled territory during the genocide and ended up mostly in Soviet Armenia. An estimated 200,000 Armenian refugees settled in the Middle East, forming a new wave of the Armenian diaspora. In the Republic of Turkey, about 100,000 Armenians lived in Constantinople and another 200,000 lived in the provinces, largely women and children who had been forcibly converted. Though Armenians in Constantinople faced discrimination, they were allowed to maintain their cultural identity, unlike those elsewhere in Turkey who continued to face forced Islamization and kidnapping of girls after 1923. Between 1922 and 1929, the Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria.
Legacy
According to historian Margaret Lavinia Anderson, the Armenian genocide reached an "iconic status" as "the apex of horrors conceivable" before World War II. It was described by contemporaries as "the murder of a nation", "race extermination", "the greatest crime of the ages", and "the blackest page in modern history". According to historian Stefan Ihrig, in Germany, the Nazis viewed post-1923 Turkey as a post-genocidal paradise and, "incorporated the Armenian genocide, its 'lessons', tactics, and 'benefits', into their own worldview".
Turkey
See also: Armenian genocide denialIn the 1920s, Kurds and Alevis replaced Armenians as the perceived internal enemy of the Turkish state. Militarism, weak rule of law, lack of minority rights, and especially the belief that Turkey is constantly under threat—thus justifying state violence—are among the main legacies of the genocide in Turkey. In postwar Turkey, the perpetrators of the genocide were hailed as martyrs of the national cause. Turkey's official denial of the Armenian genocide continues to rely on the CUP's justification of its actions. The Turkish government maintains that the mass deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action to combat an existential threat to the empire, but that there was no intention to exterminate the Armenian people. The government's position is supported by the majority of Turkish citizens. Many Kurds, who themselves have suffered political repression in Turkey, have recognized and condemned the genocide.
The Turkish state perceives open discussion of the genocide as a threat to national security because of its connection with the foundation of the republic, and for decades strictly censored it. In 2002, the AK Party came to power and relaxed censorship to a certain extent, and the profile of the issue was raised by the 2007 assassination of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist known for his advocacy of reconciliation. Although the AK Party softened the state denial rhetoric, describing Armenians as part of the Ottoman Empire's war losses, during the 2010s political repression and censorship increased again. Turkey's century-long effort to prevent any recognition or mention of the genocide in foreign countries has included millions of dollars in lobbying, as well as intimidation and threats.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is commemorated on 24 April each year in Armenia and abroad, the anniversary of the deportation of Armenian intellectuals. On 24 April 1965, 100,000 Armenians protested in Yerevan, and diaspora Armenians demonstrated across the world in favor of recognition of the genocide and annexing land from Turkey. A memorial was completed two years later, at Tsitsernakaberd above Yerevan.
Since 1988, Armenians and Turkic Azeris have been involved in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Initially involving peaceful demonstrations by Armenians, the conflict turned violent and has featured massacres by both sides, resulting in the displacement of more than half a million people. During the conflict, the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments have regularly accused each other of plotting genocide. Azerbaijan has also joined the Turkish effort to deny the Armenian genocide.
International recognition
Main article: Armenian genocide recognitionIn response to continuing denial by the Turkish state, many Armenian diaspora activists have lobbied for international formal recognition of the Armenian genocide, an effort that has become a central concern of the Armenian diaspora. From the 1970s onward, many countries avoided recognition to preserve good relations with Turkey. As of 2023, 31 UN member states have formally recognized the genocide, along with Pope Francis and the European Parliament. Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey explicitly deny the genocide.
Cultural depictions
Main article: Armenian genocide in cultureAfter meeting Armenian survivors in the Middle East, Austrian–Jewish writer Franz Werfel wrote The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, a fictionalized retelling of the successful Armenian uprising in Musa Dagh, as a warning of the dangers of Nazism. According to Ihrig, the book, released in 1933, is among the most important works of twentieth-century literature to address genocide and "is still considered essential reading for Armenians worldwide". The genocide became a central theme in English-language Armenian-American literature. The first film about the Armenian genocide, Ravished Armenia, was released in 1919 as a fundraiser for Near East Relief, based on the survival story of Aurora Mardiganian, who played herself. Since then more films about the genocide have been made, although it took several decades for any of them to reach a mass-market audience. The abstract expressionist paintings of Arshile Gorky were influenced by his experience of the genocide. More than 200 memorials have been erected in 32 countries to commemorate the event.
Archives and historiography
See also: Kemalist historiographyThe genocide is extensively documented in the archives of Germany, Austria, the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, as well as the Ottoman archives, despite systematic purges of incriminating documents by Turkey. There are also thousands of eyewitness accounts from Western missionaries and Armenian survivors. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in 1944, became interested in war crimes after reading about the 1921 trial of Soghomon Tehlirian for the assassination of Talaat Pasha. Lemkin recognized the fate of the Armenians as one of the most significant genocides in the twentieth century. Almost all historians and scholars outside Turkey, and an increasing number of Turkish scholars, recognize the destruction of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
Notes
- Also known by other names.
- ^ Talaat previously had the title "Bey," and so was known as "Talaat Bey" until he gained the title "Pasha" in 1917.
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- Üngör 2016, p. 18.
- Akçam 2019, p. 475.
- Akçam 2019, pp. 478–479.
- ^ Üngör 2016, p. 19.
- Suny 2015, p. 244.
- Suny 2015, pp. 248–249.
- Suny 2015, pp. 241–242.
- Akçam 2012, p. 157.
- Üngör 2016, pp. 18–19.
- Suny 2015, p. 243.
- ^ Suny 2015, p. 248.
- Kieser 2018, pp. 235–238.
- Akçam 2019, p. 472.
- Suny 2015, p. 255.
- Suny 2015, p. 257.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 319.
- Suny 2015, pp. 259–260.
- Suny 2015, pp. 287, 289.
- Dündar 2011, p. 281.
- Suny 2015, pp. 247–248.
- Kieser 2018, p. 10.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 251–252.
- Suny 2015, pp. 271–272.
- Suny 2015, p. 273.
- Suny 2015, pp. 274–275.
- Akçam 2012, p. 188.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 162–163.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 168.
- Akçam 2012, p. 337.
- ^ Suny 2015, p. 245.
- Akçam 2019, p. 457.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, pp. 166–167.
- Dündar 2011, p. 284.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 202.
- ^ Watenpaugh 2013, p. 284.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 242, 247–248.
- Dündar 2011, p. 282.
- Kieser 2018, p. 261.
- Kaiser 2019, 6.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 102.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 254.
- Gingeras 2016, pp. 176–177.
- Gingeras 2016, p. 178.
- Suny 2015, pp. 349, 364.
- ^ Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 311.
- Kieser 2018, p. 376.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 227.
- ^ Kaiser 2010, p. 384.
- Dündar 2011, pp. 276–277.
- ^ Üngör 2012, p. 54.
- Kaiser 2010, pp. 366, 383.
- Mouradian 2018, p. 148.
- Rogan 2015, p. 184.
- Cora 2020, pp. 50–51.
- Suny 2015, p. 317.
- Kieser 2018, p. 240.
- Kaiser 2019, 10.
- ^ Üngör 2012, p. 53.
- Dündar 2011, p. 283.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 96.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 97.
- ^ Kaiser 2010, p. 378.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 399–400.
- ^ Kieser 2018, p. 247.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, pp. 89–90.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, pp. 92–93.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 194–195.
- ^ Kaiser 2010, p. 376.
- ^ Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 94.
- ^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 810.
- Suny 2015, p. 352.
- Üngör 2012, p. 58.
- Kaiser 2019, 35, 37.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, pp. 98–99.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 246–247.
- Üngör 2012, p. 61.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 327–328.
- ^ Kévorkian 2014, p. 91.
- Maksudyan 2020, pp. 121–122.
- ^ Kaiser 2010, p. 377.
- ^ Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 93.
- Kaiser 2019, 3, 22.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 93.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 90.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 92.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 95.
- Akçam 2018, p. 158.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 94.
- Kévorkian 2014, pp. 92–93.
- ^ Kévorkian 2011, p. 808.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 314, 316.
- Kurt 2016, 2, 21.
- Akçam 2012, p. 331.
- Watenpaugh 2013, p. 291.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 290–291.
- Kurt 2016, 5, 13–14.
- Kurt 2016, 15.
- Kurt 2016, 5.
- ^ Watenpaugh 2013, pp. 291–292.
- Akçam 2012, p. 314.
- Watenpaugh 2013, pp. 284–285.
- Kurt 2016, 17.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 757–758.
- Akçam 2012, p. 312.
- Kaiser 2010, pp. 377–378.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 312–315.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 758.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 245–246.
- Kieser 2018, p. 273.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 202.
- Suny 2015, pp. 316–317.
- ^ Akçam & Kurt 2015, p. 2.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 203–204.
- Akçam & Kurt 2015, pp. 11–12.
- Akçam 2012, pp. 256–257.
- ^ Üngör & Polatel 2011, p. 80.
- Bozarslan et al. 2015, p. 189.
- Kieser 2018, p. 268.
- Akçam & Kurt 2015, p. 3.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 64–65.
- Göçek 2015, p. 411.
- Suciyan 2015, p. 59.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 97.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 625.
- ^ Kévorkian 2014, p. 98.
- ^ Shirinian 2017, p. 21.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 633–635.
- ^ Mouradian 2018, p. 155.
- ^ Kaiser 2010, p. 380.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 96.
- Shirinian 2017, p. 23.
- Shirinian 2017, pp. 20–21.
- Mouradian 2018, p. 152.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 673–674.
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- Mouradian 2018, p. 154.
- Kieser 2018, pp. 259, 265.
- Kévorkian 2011, pp. 695, 808.
- Kieser 2018, p. 262.
- Kévorkian 2014, p. 107.
- Leonard 2004, p. 297.
- Akçam 2018, p. 157.
- Leonard 2004, p. 300.
- de Waal 2015, p. 2.
- Suny 2015, p. 308.
- Tusan 2014, pp. 57–58.
- ^ Suny 2015, p. 298.
- Kieser & Bloxham 2014, pp. 600, 606–607.
- Kieser 2018, pp. 20–21.
- Ihrig 2016, p. 134.
- Anderson 2011, p. 200.
- "History". Near East Foundation. Archived from the original on 3 June 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
- Suny 2015, p. 330.
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- de Waal 2015, p. 20.
- de Waal 2015, p. 35.
- ^ Morris & Ze'evi 2019, p. 486.
- Suny 2015, pp. 354–355.
- Kévorkian 2020, pp. 151–152.
- Payaslian 2007, pp. 148–149.
- Payaslian 2007, pp. 150–151.
- Payaslian 2007, pp. 152–153.
- Kieser 2018, p. 367.
- Suny 2015, p. 342.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 706.
- Shirinian 2017, p. 24.
- Ekmekçioğlu 2013, pp. 534–535.
- Ekmekçioğlu 2013, pp. 530, 545.
- de Waal 2015, p. 76.
- Kévorkian 2011, p. 759.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, pp. 23–24.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, p. 47.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, p. 49.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 207.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, p. 120.
- Üngör 2012, p. 62.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, pp. 24, 195.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 217.
- Göçek 2011, pp. 45–46.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 126–127.
- Kieser 2018, pp. 403–404, 409.
- Suny 2015, p. 346.
- Suny 2015, pp. 344–346.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 226–227, 235, 262, 293, "Trial in Berlin" passim.
- Suny 2015, pp. 338–339.
- Kieser 2018, p. 319.
- ^ Nichanian 2015, p. 242.
- Zürcher 2011, p. 316.
- Cheterian 2015, p. 155.
- Nichanian 2015, pp. 229–230.
- Kévorkian 2020, p. 165.
- ^ Kévorkian 2020, pp. 164–165.
- ^ Nichanian 2015, p. 238.
- Nichanian 2015, p. 244.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, p. 104.
- Kieser 2018, p. 28.
- Suny 2015, pp. 367–368.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 103–104.
- ^ Cheterian 2015, p. 104.
- Suciyan 2015, p. 27.
- Cheterian 2015, p. 203.
- Suciyan 2015, p. 65.
- Kévorkian 2020, p. 161.
- Anderson 2011, p. 199.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 9, 55.
- de Waal 2015, p. 21.
- Kieser 2018, pp. 289–290.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 349, 354.
- Nichanian 2015, pp. 263–264.
- Suny 2015, pp. xii, 361.
- Akçam 2012, pp. xi, 451.
- ^ Göçek 2015, p. 1.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 273–275.
- Galip 2020, pp. 162–163.
- Akçam & Kurt 2015, pp. 3–4.
- Galip 2020, p. 3.
- Galip 2020, pp. 3–4.
- Ben Aharon 2019, p. 339.
- Galip 2020, pp. 83–85.
- Göçek 2015, p. 2.
- Chorbajian 2016, p. 178.
- ^ Cheterian 2015, p. 110.
- Ben Aharon 2019, p. 347.
- de Waal 2015, pp. 140, 142.
- de Waal 2015, pp. 146–147.
- ^ Bloxham 2005, pp. 232–233.
- Cheterian 2015, pp. 279–282.
- de Waal 2015, pp. 196–197.
- Koinova 2017, p. 122.
- Koinova 2017, pp. 112, 221–222.
- de Waal 2015, p. 3.
- Ben Aharon 2019, pp. 340–341.
- Koinova 2017, p. 117.
- "Countries that Recognize the Armenian Genocide". Armenian National Institute. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 1–2.
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- Der Mugrdechian 2016, p. 273.
- Marsoobian 2016, pp. 73–74.
- Tusan 2014, pp. 69–70.
- de Waal 2015, pp. 77–78.
- Marsoobian 2016, p. 73.
- Miller 2010, p. 393.
- "Memorials to the Armenian Genocide". Armenian National Institute. Archived from the original on 9 August 2017. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
- Dadrian & Akçam 2011, p. 4.
- Akçam 2012, pp. xxii–xxiii, 25–26.
- Bloxham & Göçek 2008, p. 345.
- Chorbajian 2016, p. 168.
- Akçam 2018, p. 11.
- de Waal 2015, pp. 132–133.
- Ihrig 2016, pp. 9, 370–371.
- Suny 2015, pp. 374–375.
Sources
Main article: Bibliography of the Armenian genocideBooks
- Akçam, Taner (2012). The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15333-9.
- Akçam, Taner (2018). Killing Orders: Talat Pasha's Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-69787-1.
- Akçam, Taner; Kurt, Ümit (2015). The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78238-624-7.
- Bloxham, Donald (2005). The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-927356-0.
- Bozarslan, Hamit ; Duclert, Vincent ; Kévorkian, Raymond H. (2015). Comprendre le génocide des arméniens – 1915 à nos jours [Understanding the Armenian genocide: 1915 to the present day] (in French). Tallandier [fr]. ISBN 979-10-210-0681-2.
- Cheterian, Vicken (2015). Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide. Hurst. ISBN 978-1-84904-458-5.
- Dadrian, Vahakn N.; Akçam, Taner (2011). Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-0-85745-286-3.
- de Waal, Thomas (2015). Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-935069-8.
- Galip, Özlem Belçim (2020). New Social Movements and the Armenian Question in Turkey: Civil Society vs. the State. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-59400-8.
- Gingeras, Ryan (2016). Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1908–1922. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967607-1.
- Göçek, Fatma Müge (2015). Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789–2009. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-933420-9.
- Ihrig, Stefan (2016). Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-50479-0.
- Kévorkian, Raymond (2011). The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85771-930-0.
- Kieser, Hans-Lukas (2018). Talaat Pasha: Father of Modern Turkey, Architect of Genocide. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-8963-1.
- Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-91645-6.
- Nichanian, Mikaël (2015). Détruire les Arméniens. Histoire d'un génocide [Destroying the Armenians: History of a Genocide] (in French). Presses Universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-062617-6.
- Payaslian, Simon (2007). The History of Armenia: From the Origins to the Present. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-7467-9.
- Rogan, Eugene (2015). The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-05669-9.
- Suciyan, Talin (2015). The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics and History. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85772-773-2.
- Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.
- Üngör, Uğur Ümit; Polatel, Mehmet (2011). Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property. Continuum. ISBN 978-1-4411-3578-0.
Chapters
- Ahmed, Ali (2006). "Turkey". Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Routledge. pp. 1575–1578. ISBN 978-1-57958-388-0.
- Anderson, Margaret Lavinia (2011). "Who Still Talked about the Extermination of the Armenians?". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 199–217. ISBN 978-0-19-539374-3.
- Astourian, Stephan (2011). "The Silence of the Land: Agrarian Relations, Ethnicity, and Power". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 55–81. ISBN 978-0-19-539374-3.
- Bloxham, Donald; Göçek, Fatma Müge (2008). "The Armenian Genocide". The Historiography of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 344–372. ISBN 978-0-230-29778-4.
- Chorbajian, Levon (2016). "'They Brought It on Themselves and It Never Happened': Denial to 1939". The Armenian Genocide Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 167–182. ISBN 978-1-137-56163-3.
- Cora, Yaşar Tolga (2020). "Towards a Social History of the Ottoman War Economy: Manufacturing and Armenian Forced Skilled-Laborers". Not All Quiet on the Ottoman Fronts: Neglected Perspectives on a Global War, 1914–1918. Ergon-Verlag. pp. 49–72. ISBN 978-3-95650-777-9.
- Der Mugrdechian, Barlow (2016). "The Theme of Genocide in Armenian Literature". The Armenian Genocide Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 273–286. ISBN 978-1-137-56163-3.
- Dündar, Fuat (2011). "Pouring a People into the Desert: The "Definitive Solution" of the Unionists to the Armenian Question". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 276–286. ISBN 978-0-19-539374-3.
- Göçek, Fatma Müge (2011). "Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on 1915". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 42–52. ISBN 978-0-19-539374-3.
- Kaiser, Hilmar (2010). "Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire". The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press. pp. 365–385. ISBN 978-0-19-923211-6.
- Kaligian, Dikran (2017). "Convulsions at the End of Empire: Thrace, Asia Minor, and the Aegean". Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913–1923. Berghahn Books. pp. 82–104. ISBN 978-1-78533-433-7.
- Kévorkian, Raymond (2014). "Earth, Fire, Water: or How to Make the Armenian Corpses Disappear". Destruction and Human Remains: Disposal and Concealment in Genocide and Mass Violence. Manchester University Press. pp. 89–116. ISBN 978-1-84779-906-7. JSTOR j.ctt1wn0s3n.9. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021.
- Kévorkian, Raymond (2020). "The Final Phase: The Cleansing of Armenian and Greek Survivors, 1919–1922". Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State. Berghahn Books. pp. 147–173. ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3.
- Kieser, Hans-Lukas; Bloxham, Donald (2014). "Genocide". The Cambridge History of the First World War: Volume 1: Global War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 585–614. ISBN 978-0-511-67566-9.
- Koinova, Maria (2017). "Conflict and Cooperation in Armenian Diaspora Mobilisation for Genocide Recognition". Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation: Global and Local Perspectives. Springer International Publishing. pp. 111–129. ISBN 978-3-319-32892-8.
- Leonard, Thomas C. (2004). "When news is not enough: American media and Armenian deaths". America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Cambridge University Press. pp. 294–308. ISBN 978-0-521-82958-8.
- Maksudyan, Nazan (2020). "The Orphan Nation: Gendered Humanitarianism for Armenian Survivor Children in Istanbul, 1919–1922". Gendering Global Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century: Practice, Politics and the Power of Representation. Springer International Publishing. pp. 117–142. ISBN 978-3-030-44630-7.
- Marsoobian, Armen (2016). "The Armenian Genocide in Film: Overcoming Denial and Loss". The History of Genocide in Cinema: Atrocities on Screen. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 73–86. ISBN 978-1-78673-047-3.
- Mouradian, Khatchig (2018). "Internment and destruction: Concentration camps during the Armenian genocide, 1915–16". Internment during the First World War: A Mass Global Phenomenon. Routledge. pp. 145–161. ISBN 978-1-315-22591-3.
- Üngör, Uğur Ümit (2012). "The Armenian Genocide, 1915" (PDF). Holocaust and Other Genocides (PDF). NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies / Amsterdam University Press. pp. 45–72. ISBN 978-90-4851-528-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
- Üngör, Uğur Ümit (2016). "The Armenian Genocide in the Context of 20th-Century Paramilitarism". The Armenian Genocide Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 11–25. ISBN 978-1-137-56163-3.
- Zürcher, Erik Jan (2011). "Renewal and Silence: Postwar Unionist and Kemalist Rhetoric on the Armenian Genocide". A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. pp. 306–316. ISBN 978-0-19-539374-3.
Journal articles
- Akçam, Taner (2019). "When Was the Decision to Annihilate the Armenians Taken?". Journal of Genocide Research. 21 (4): 457–480. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1630893. ISSN 1462-3528.
- Ben Aharon, Eldad (2019). "Recognition of the Armenian Genocide after its Centenary: A Comparative Analysis of Changing Parliamentary Positions". Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. 13 (3): 339–352. doi:10.1080/23739770.2019.1737911. hdl:1887/92270.
- Bjørnlund, Matthias (2008). "The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (1): 41–58. doi:10.1080/14623520701850286.
- Ekmekçioğlu, Lerna (2013). "A Climate for Abduction, a Climate for Redemption: The Politics of Inclusion during and after the Armenian Genocide". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 55 (3): 522–553. doi:10.1017/S0010417513000236. hdl:1721.1/88911. JSTOR 23526015.
- Kaiser, Hilmar (2019). "Financing the Ruling Party and Its Militants in Wartime:The Armenian Genocide and the Kemah Massacres of 1915". Études arméniennes contemporaines (12): 7–31. doi:10.4000/eac.1942.
- Kurt, Ümit (2016). "Cultural Erasure: The Absorption and Forced Conversion of Armenian Women and Children, 1915–1916". Études arméniennes contemporaines (7). doi:10.4000/eac.997.
- Miller, Angela (2010). "Achilles the Bitter: Gorky and the Genocide". Oxford Art Journal. 33 (3): 392–396. doi:10.1093/oxartj/kcq025.
- Shirinian, George N. (2017). "Starvation and Its Political Use in the Armenian Genocide". Genocide Studies International. 11 (1): 8–37. doi:10.3138/gsi.11.1.01. Project MUSE 680838.
- Tusan, Michelle (2014). "'Crimes against Humanity': Human Rights, the British Empire, and the Origins of the Response to the Armenian Genocide". The American Historical Review. 119 (1): 47–77. doi:10.1093/ahr/119.1.47.
- Watenpaugh, Keith David (2013). "'Are There Any Children for Sale?': Genocide and the Transfer of Armenian Children (1915–1922)". Journal of Human Rights. 12 (3): 283–295. doi:10.1080/14754835.2013.812410.
External links
- Armenian Genocide – Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia
- The Armenian Genocide Institute-Museum
- Timeline of the genocide by Raymond Kévorkian
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Related |
- Armenian genocide
- Genocide of indigenous peoples in Europe
- Genocide of indigenous peoples in Asia
- Massacres of Armenians
- Massacres in the Ottoman Empire
- Armenia–Turkey relations
- 1915 in Armenia
- 1915 in the Ottoman Empire
- Committee of Union and Progress
- Persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire
- Ethnic cleansing in Europe
- Ethnic cleansing in Asia
- Death marches
- History of West Azerbaijan province
- 20th-century massacres
- Events that led to courts-martial
- World War I crimes by the Ottoman Empire