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{{Short description|1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
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{{Infobox civilian attack {{Infobox civilian attack
| title = Armenian Genocide | title = Armenian genocide
| image = Marcharmenians.jpg | partof = ]
| image = Column of deportees walking through Harput vilayet during the Armenian genocide.jpg
| image_size = 320px
| image_size =
| caption = Armenian civilians, escorted by armed Ottoman soldiers, are marched through ], (today Elâzığ), known as Kharpert by Armenians, to a prison in the nearby Mezireh district, April 1915
| location = {{flag|Ottoman Empire}} | alt = see caption
| target = ] population
| caption = Column of Armenian deportees guarded by ]s in ]
| date = 1915–1923
| type = ], ] | location = ]
| coordinates =
| fatalities = 600,000 - 1,800,000<ref name="Auron2000">{{cite book|author=Yair Auron|title=The banality of indifference: Zionism & the Armenian genocide|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=nnUR4hSTb8gC&pg=PA44|accessdate=26 February 2012|year=2000|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-0-7658-0881-3|page=44}}</ref><ref name="Forsythe2009">{{cite book|author=David P. Forsythe|title=Encyclopedia of human rights|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=1QbX90fmCVUC&pg=PA98|accessdate=26 February 2012|date=11 August 2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-533402-9|page=98}}</ref><ref name="ChalkJonassohn1990">{{cite book|author1=Frank Robert Chalk|author2=Kurt Jonassohn|author3=Institut montréalais des études sur le génocide|title=The history and sociology of genocide: analyses and case studies|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=UgzAi1DD75wC&pg=PA270|accessdate=26 February 2012|date=10 September 1990|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-04446-1|pages=270–}}</ref>
| date = 1915–1917{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=245, 330}}{{sfn|Bozarslan et al.|2015|p=187}}
| perps = ] government
| type = ], ], ]
}}
|target = ]
{{History of Armenia|expanded=age4}}
| fatalities = ]{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=1}}

| perps = ]
The '''Armenian Genocide'''<ref>The International Association of Genocide Scholars, Affirmation, Armenian Genocide, "That this assembly of the Association of Genocide Scholars in its conference held in Montreal, June 11–3, 1997, reaffirms that the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It further condemns the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government and its official and unofficial agents and supporters".</ref> ({{lang-hy|Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն}}, {{IPA-hy|hɑˈjɔtsʰ tsʰɛʁɑspɑnuˈtʰjun|}}), also known as the '''Armenian Holocaust''', the '''Armenian Massacres''' and, traditionally among Armenians, as the '''Great Crime''' ({{lang-hy|Մեծ Եղեռն}}, {{IPA-hy|mɛts jɛˈʁɛrn|}}; English transliteration: Medz Yeghern )<ref>H. H. Chakmajian's ''A Comprehensive Dictionary English-Armenian'' (1920, Yeran Press, Boston) defines "Crime" as Եղեռն (Yeghern) on p. 350.</ref><ref>M. Kouyoumdjian's, ''A Comprehensive Dictionary Armenian-English'' (1970, Atlas Press, Beirut) defines Եղեռն (yeghern) as "crime"on p. 312</ref> was the ] government's systematic extermination of its minority ] subjects from their historic homeland in the territory constituting the present-day ]. It took place during and after ] and was implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and forced labor, and the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on ]es to the ].<ref>''Armenia: The Survival of A Nation'' by Christopher J. Walker, Croom Helm (Publisher) London 1980, pp. 200-203</ref><ref>The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce, James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, Uncensored Edition. Ara Sarafian (ed.) Princeton, New Jersey: Gomidas Institute, 2000. ISBN 0-9535191-5-5, pp. 635-649</ref> The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. The ], the ] and other minority groups were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by many historians to be part of the same genocidal policy.<ref>{{citation | publisher = International Association of Genocide Scholars | format = ] | url = http://www.genocidescholars.org/images/Resolution_on_genocides_committed_by_the_Ottoman_Empire.pdf | title = Resolution on genocides committed by the Ottoman empire}}.</ref><ref>Gaunt, David. ''''. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2006.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1080/14623520801950820 | last1 = Schaller | first1 = Dominik J | last2 = Zimmerer | first2 = Jürgen | year = 2008 | title = Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies&nbsp;– introduction | url = | journal = Journal of Genocide Research | volume = 10 | issue = 1| pages = 7–14 }}</ref>
|}}
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.
It is acknowledged to have been one of the first modern ]s,<ref name="24.04.1998"></ref><ref name = "Ferguson">{{citation | authorlink = Niall Ferguson| last = Ferguson | first = Niall | title = The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West | place = New York | publisher = Penguin Press | year = 2006 | ISBN = 1-59420-100-5}}.</ref>{{rp|p.177}}<ref name="IAGS">{{citation | publisher = Genocide Watch | url = http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/Turkey-_13Jun05ErdoganletterAmericanHistoricalAssociation.pdf | format = ] | title = A Letter from The International Association of Genocide Scholars | date = 2005-06-13}}.</ref> as scholars point to the organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians,<ref>{{cite web |url = http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:S03144 |title = Senate Resolution 106&nbsp;— Calling on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to Human Rights, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide Documented in the United States Record relating to the Armenian Genocide |publisher = Library of Congress}}</ref> and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the ].<ref name= "nazi">Rummel, RJ "The Holocaust in Comparative and Historical Perspective". ''The Journal of Social Issues''. Volume 3, no. 2. April 1, 1998. Retrieved April 30, 2007.</ref> The word ''genocide''<ref>]</ref> was coined in order to describe these events.<ref>Coined by ], 1943; {{Cite journal | last = Hyde | first = Jennifer | title= Polish Jew gave his life defining, fighting genocide |url = http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/13/sbm.lemkin.profile/ |publisher=CNN |date= 2008-12-02 |accessdate=2008-12-02| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20081203090012/http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/13/sbm.lemkin.profile/| archivedate= 3 December 2008 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref><ref>.</ref>


On 24&nbsp;April 1915, the Ottoman authorities ] hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from ]. At the orders of ], an estimated 800,000 to 1.2&nbsp;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&nbsp;I, carried out by ].
The starting date of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested some ] in ].<ref>''The Encyclopædia Britannica'', Vol. 7, Edited by Hugh Chisholm, (1911), 3; ''Constantinople, the capital of the Turkish Empire…''</ref><ref>: ''When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved to Ankara, and Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul in 1930.''</ref> 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, with ] and other ] commonplace.<ref>Hans-Lukas Kieser, Dominik J. Schaller, ''Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah: The Armenian genocide and the Shoah'', Chronos, 2002, ISBN 3-0340-0561-X, p. 114.</ref> The majority of ] communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide.


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|2025|post=,}} 34 countries have ], concurring with the academic consensus.
Turkey, the ] of the Ottoman Empire, ] the word ''genocide'' is an accurate description of the events.<ref name="BBC News">{{cite news |url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045182.stm |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20070301211630/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6045182.stm | archivedate = 2007-03-01 |title = Q&A: Armenian 'genocide' | publisher = BBC | work = News | accessdate = 2006-12-29 | date = 2006-10-12}}</ref> In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries have ], and most genocide scholars and historians accept this view.<ref name='Cohan 2005'>{{cite journal | title = A Brief History of the Armenian Genocide | journal = Social Education | date = 2005-10-01 | first = Sara | last = Cohan | volume = 69 | issue = 6 | pages = 333–337| id = | url = http://www.genocideeducation.org/files/A%20Brief%20History%20of%20the%20Armenian%20Genocide.pdf | accessdate = 2012-06-21 | quote = }}</ref><ref>Kamiya, Gary. "". '']''. October 16, 2007.</ref><ref>Jaschik, Scott. . ''History News Network''. October 10, 2007.</ref><ref>Kifner, John. "". ''The New York Times''.</ref>
{{TOC limit|3}}


== Background == == Background ==
{{Main|Armenians in the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman Armenian population}} {{further|Causes of the Armenian genocide}}


=== Life under Ottoman rule === === Armenians in the Ottoman Empire ===
{{main|Armenians in the Ottoman Empire}}
Armenia had come largely under Ottoman rule during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The vast majority of Armenians, grouped together under the name ] (community) and led by their spiritual head, the ], were concentrated in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire (commonly referred to as ] or ]), although large communities were also found in the western provinces, as well as in the capital ]. The Armenian community was made up of three religious denominations: the ] to which the overwhelming majority of Armenians belonged, and the ] and ] communities. With the exception of the empire's urban centers and the extremely wealthy, Constantinople-based ''Amira'' class, a social elite whose members included the Duzians (Directors of the Imperial Mint), the ] (Chief Imperial Architects) and the ] (Superintendent of the Gunpowder Mills and manager of industrial factories), most Armenians &mdash; approximately 70% of their population &mdash; lived in poor and dangerous conditions in the rural countryside.<ref>] (1982). "The Dual Role of the Armenian Amira Class within the Ottoman Government and the Armenian Millet (1750–1850)" in ''Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, Vol. I'', eds. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis. New York: Holmes and Meier.</ref><ref name = "Barsoumian">Barsoumian, Hagop (1997), "The Eastern Question and the Tanzimat Era", in, ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century'', ed. ]. New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 175–201. ISBN 0-312-10168-6.</ref> Ottoman census figures clash with the statistics collected by the Armenian Patriarchate. According to the latter, there were three million Armenians living in the empire in 1878 (400,000 in Constantinople and the ], 600,000 in Asia Minor and ], 670,000 in ] and the area near ], and 1,300,000 in Western Armenia itself).<ref>{{hy icon}} Hambaryan, Azat S. (1981). "Հայաստանի սոցիալ-տնտեսական և քաղաքական դրությունը 1870-1900 թթ." in ''Hay Zhoghovrdi Patmut'yun'' , ed. ] et al. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, vol. 6, p. 22.</ref>
]: ], ], ], ], ] 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}}
There, the Armenians were subject to the whims of their Turkish and Kurdish neighbors, who would regularly overtax them, subject them to ] and kidnapping, force them to convert to Islam, and otherwise exploit them without interference from central or local authorities.<ref name = "Barsoumian" /> In the Ottoman Empire, in accordance with the Muslim '']'' system, they, like all other ]s, were accorded certain limited freedoms (such as the right to worship), but were in essence treated as ]s and referred to in Turkish as '']'', a pejorative word meaning "infidel" or "unbeliever".<ref name = "Balakian">{{citation | authorlink = Peter Balakian| last = Balakian | first = Peter | title = The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response | place = New York | publisher = HarperCollins | year = 2003 | ISBN = 0-06-019840-0}}.</ref>{{rp |25, 445}} The British ethnographer, ], writing in the late 1890s after having visited the Ottoman Empire, described the conditions of the Armenians:


=== Land conflict and reforms ===
{{quote|Turkish rule...meant unutterable contempt...The Armenians (and Greeks) were dogs and pigs...to be spat upon, if their shadow darkened a Turk, to be outraged, to be the mats on which he wiped the mud from his feet. Conceive the inevitable result of centuries of slavery, of subjection to insult and scorn, centuries in which nothing belonged to the Armenian, neither his property, his house, his life, his person, nor his family, was sacred or safe from violence – capricious, unprovoked violence – to resist which by violence meant death.<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |43}}}}
]
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}}


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}}
In addition to other legal limitations, Christians were not considered equals to ]: 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 were severely circumscribed (e.g., the ringing of church bells was strictly forbidden).<ref name = "Akçam">{{citation | first = Taner | last = Akçam | authorlink = Taner Akçam | title = A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility | place = New York | publisher = Metropolitan Books | year = 2006 | ISBN = 0-8050-7932-7}}.</ref>{{rp |24}} Violation of these statutes could result in punishments ranging from the levying of exorbitant fines to execution.


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}}
=== Reform implementation, 1840s–80s ===
{{Main|Armenian Question}}
]
Beginning in the mid-19th century, the three major European powers, Great Britain, France and ] (known as the Great Powers), took issue with the Empire's treatment of its Christian minorities and increasingly pressured the Ottoman government (known as the ]) to extend equal rights to all its citizens. Starting in 1839 and ending with the declaration of a constitution in 1876, the Ottoman government implemented a series of reforms, known as the ], to improve the situation of minorities, although these were all largely abortive. The Muslims of the empire were loath to consider the Christians as their social equals. By the late 1870s, the ], along with several other Christian nations in the ], frustrated with their conditions, had, often with the help of the Powers, broken free of Ottoman rule. The Armenians remained, by and large, passive during these years, earning them the title of ''millet-i sadika'' or the "loyal millet".<ref name = "Dadrian">{{citation | authorlink = Vahakn Dadrian | last = Dadrian | first = Vahakn N | title = The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus | place = Oxford | publisher = Berghahn Books | year = 1995 | ISBN = 1-57181-666-6}}.</ref>{{rp |192}}


=== Young Turk Revolution ===
In the mid-1860s and early 1870s, things began to change as an intellectual class began to emerge among Armenian society. Educated in the European university system or in American missionary schools in the Ottoman Empire, these Armenians began to question their second-class status in society and initiated a movement that asked for better treatment from their government. In one such instance, after amassing the signatures of peasants from Western Armenia, the Armenian Communal Council petitioned to the Ottoman government to redress the issues that the peasants complained about the most: "the looting and murder in Armenian towns by ] and ], improprieties during tax collection, criminal behavior by government officials and the refusal to accept Christians as witnesses in trial". The Ottoman government considered these grievances and promised to punish those responsible, though no meaningful steps were ever taken.<ref name="Akçam" />{{rp |36}}
{{Main|Young Turk Revolution}}
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}}


] after the ]|alt=Destroyed cityscape with ruined buildings and rubble in the street]]
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 name = "Akçam" />{{rp |35ff}} Under growing pressure, the government of ] ] declared itself a constitutional monarchy with a parliament (which was almost immediately ]) and entered into negotiations with the powers. At the same time, the Armenian patriarchate of Constantinople, Nerses II, forwarded Armenian complaints of widespread "forced land seizure… forced conversion of women and children, arson, ], rape, and murder" to the Powers.<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |37}}
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&nbsp;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===
After the conclusion of the 1877–78 ], the Armenians began to look more toward the ] as the ultimate 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, stipulating that the Russian forces occupying the Armenian-populated provinces in the eastern Ottoman Empire would withdraw only with the full implementation of reforms.<ref>{{citation | title = ] | section = Article 16 | quote = 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's holding on to so much Ottoman territory and forced it to enter into new negotiations with the convening of the ] in June 1878. Armenians also entered into these negotiations and emphasized that they sought ], not independence from the Ottoman Empire.<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |38}} 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 periodically to inform the Great Powers of the progress of the reforms.
{{Main|Balkan Wars}}
] parading with loot in Phocaea (modern-day ], Turkey) on ]. In the background are Greek refugees and burning buildings.|alt=see caption]]
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}}


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}}
=== Armenian revolutionary movement ===
{{clear}}
{{Main|Armenian Revolutionary Movement}}
As it turned out, the reforms were not forthcoming. Upset with this turn of events, a number of disillusioned Armenian intellectuals living in Europe and Russia decided to form political parties and societies dedicated to the betterment of their compatriots living inside the Ottoman Empire. In the last quarter of the 19th century, this movement came to be dominated by three parties: the Ramkavar (Constitutional-Democrat; Armenakan), ], and the ] (Dashnaktsutiun). While the parties differed somewhat in ideology, they were all committed to the same goal of seeing the social status of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire improve. Parallel to their efforts, another group of Armenians, seeing the futility of asking for reforms and the unwillingness of the European powers in pressuring the Ottoman government to implement reforms, were convinced that the only possibility of improving the plight of the Armenians was through self-defense.<ref>Nalbandian, Louise. ''The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: The Development of Armenian Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.</ref><ref>{{citation | last = Libaridian | first = Gerard | contribution = What was Revolutionary about Armenian Revolutionary Parties in the Ottoman Empire? | title = A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire | editor-link = Ronald Grigor Suny | editor-first = Ronald | editor-last = Suny | editor2-last = et al | place = Oxford | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2011 | pages = 82–112}}.</ref>


==Ottoman entry into World War I==
=== Hamidian Massacres, 1894–96 ===
]
{{Main|Hamidian Massacres}}
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&nbsp;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}}
Since 1876, the Ottoman state had been led by Sultan ]. From the beginning of the reform period after the signing of the Berlin treaty, Hamid II attempted to stall its 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 they wished".<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |40}} As Ottoman officials intentionally provoked rebellions (often as a result of over-taxation) in Armenian populated towns, such as in ] in 1894 and ] in 1895–96, these regiments were increasingly used to deal with the Armenians by way of oppression and massacre. In some instances, 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 name = "Akçam" />{{rp |40–2}}


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}}
The Powers forced Hamid to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the ''Hamidiye'' in October 1895 which, like the Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On October 1, 1895, 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 name = "Balakian" />{{rp |57–8}} 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 100–300,000&nbsp;Armenians.<ref>The German Foreign Ministry operative, Ernst Jackh, 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&nbsp;Armenians and the destruction of 2,500&nbsp;villages, 645&nbsp;churches and monasteries, and the plundering of hundreds of churches, of which 328 were converted into mosques.</ref>


== Onset of genocide ==
Although Hamid was never directly implicated in ordering the massacres, it is believed that they had his tacit approval.<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |42}} Frustrated with European indifference to the massacres, Armenians from the Dashnaktsutiun party ] the European-managed ] on August 26, 1896. 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 name = "Balakian" />{{rp |35,115}} While the Great Powers vowed to take action and enforce new reforms, these never came into fruition due to conflicting political and economic interests.
{{further|Causes of the Armenian genocide#Wartime radicalization}}
]
], 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 -->]]
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&nbsp;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&nbsp;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&nbsp;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}}
==Prelude to genocide==


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&nbsp;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}}
=== The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 ===
{{clear}}
{{Main|Young Turk Revolution|Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire}}
== Systematic deportations ==
] celebrating the establishment of the ] government.]]
{{See also|Population transfer in the Ottoman Empire}}
], ''middle'', accompanied by ], ''right'', in a visit to ] in 1915, then a part of ].]]
On July 24, 1908, Armenians' hopes for equality in the empire brightened once more when a ] staged by officers in the ] based in ] removed Abdul Hamid from power and restored the country 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 name =
"Balakian" />{{rp |140–1}} In 1902, during a congress of the Young Turks held in Paris, the heads of the liberal wing, ] and ] Bey, partially persuaded the nationalists to include in their objectives to ensure some rights to all the minorities of the empire.


===Aims===
One of the numerous factions within the Young Turk movement was a secret revolutionary organization called The Committee of Union and Progress. It drew its proliferating membership from disaffected army officers based in Salonika and was behind a wave of mutinies against the central government. 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 name = "Balakian" />{{rp |143–4}}
{{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}}
=== The Adana Massacre of 1909 ===
{{Main|Adana Massacre}}
] in 1909.]]
A ] took place on April 13, 1909. 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.


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}}
While the movement initially targeted the Young Turk government, it spilled over into ]s against Armenians who were perceived as having supported the restoration of the ].<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |68–9}} 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>{{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 |date=1909-04-28 |publisher= New York Times |accessdate= 2008-03-18}}</ref> 15,000–30,000&nbsp;Armenians were killed in the course of the "]".<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |69}}<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 |date=1909-04-25 | publisher=''New York Times'' |accessdate= 2008-03-18}}</ref>


{{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}}
===The Balkan wars===
In 1912, the ] broke out and resulted in a defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the loss of 85% of its territory in Europe. Many in the empire saw their defeat as "Allah's divine punishment for a society that did not know how to pull itself together".<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |84}} The Turkish nationalist movement in the country gradually came to view Anatolia as their last refuge. That the Armenian population formed a significant minority in this region would figure prominently in the calculations of the Young Turks who would eventually carry out the Armenian Genocide.


===Administrative organization===
An important consequence of the Balkan Wars was also the mass expulsion of Muslims (known as ''muhajirs'') from the Balkans. In fact, beginning in the mid-19th century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, including ] and ], were expelled or forced to flee from the Caucasus and the Balkans (]) as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars and the conflicts in the Balkans. Muslim society in the empire was incensed by this flood of refugees and overcome by a sense of revenge. A journal published in Constantinople expressed the mood of the times: "Let this be a warning...O Muslims, don't get comfortable! Do not let your blood cool before taking revenge".<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |86}} As many as 850,000 of these refugees were settled in areas where the Armenians were resident from the period of 1878–1904. The ''muhajirs'' resented the status of their relatively well-off neighbors and, as historian ] and others have noted, the refugees would come to play a pivotal role in the killings of the Armenians and the confiscation of their properties during the genocide.<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |86–87}}
]
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}}
== World War I ==
{{See also|Middle Eastern theatre of World War I}}
On November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the ]. The ] of World War I became the scene of action. The combatants were the Ottoman Empire, with some assistance from the other ], and primarily the ] and the ] among the ]. The conflicts at the ], the ] and the ]{{citation needed|date=April 2012}} affected where the Armenian people lived in significant amounts. Before the declaration of war at the ] the ] requested the Ottoman Armenians to facilitate the conquest of ] by inciting a rebellion with the ] against the tsarist army in the event of a ].<ref name = "Akçam" />{{rp |136}}<ref>{{citation | last1 = Walker | first1 = Christopher J | authorlink = Christopher J. Walker | year = | chapter = World War I and the Armenian Genocide | url = | title = The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times | volume = II | page = 244}}</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}}
=== Battle of Sarikamish ===
{{See also|Caucasus Campaign}}
On December 24, 1914 Minister of War ] developed a plan to encircle and destroy the Russian ] at ], to regain territories lost to Russia after the ] of 1877–78. Enver Pasha's forces were routed at the ], and almost completely destroyed.


===Death marches===
In the summer of 1914, ] were established under the Russian Armed forces. As the Russian Armenian conscripts had already been sent to the European Front, this force was uniquely established from Armenians that were not Russian or who were not obligated to serve. An Ottoman representative, ] (Armen Karo), was also brought into to this force. Initially they had 20,000 men, but it was reported that their number subsequently increased. Returning to Constantinople, Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians in the region having actively sided with the Russians.<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |200}}
] 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}}
=== Labor battalions, February 25 ===
{{Further2|]}}
On February 25, 1915, 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 would ultimately be executed.<ref>Toynbee, Arnold. ''Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation''. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1915, pp. 181–2.</ref>


]
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 local Turkish gangs.<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |178}}
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}}
=== Events at Van, April 1915 ===
{{clear}}
{{Further2|]}}
===Islamization===
] in May 1915.]]
]" after the war|alt=Several women dressed in Arab clothing and posed in front of a wall]]
On April 19, 1915, ] demanded that the ] immediately furnish him 4,000&nbsp;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 official writ in nearby villages, ostensibly to search for arms, but in fact to initiate wholesale massacres.<ref name="Balakian" />{{rp |202}} The Armenians offered five hundred soldiers and exemption money for the rest in order to buy time, but Djevdet accused Armenians of "rebellion" and asserted 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".<ref name = "Morgenthau">{{citation | last = Morgenthau | first = Henry | year = 1918 | title = Ambassador Morgenthau's Story | place = Garden City, New York | publisher = Doubleday | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=ENsLAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=morgenthau%27s+story#PRA1-PA336,M1}}.</ref>{{rp |298}}
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&nbsp;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}}
On April 20, 1915, 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 Ottoman soldiers. The Armenian defenders protected 30,000&nbsp;residents and 15,000&nbsp;refugees in an area of roughly one square kilometer of the Armenian Quarter and suburb of Aigestan with 1,500&nbsp;ablebodied riflemen who were supplied with 300&nbsp;rifles and 1,000&nbsp;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 | volume = iv |pages = 1153–57}}</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}}
Similar reports reached Morgenthau from Aleppo and Van, prompting him to raise the issue in person with Talaat and Enver. As he quoted to them the testimonies of his consulate officials, they justified the deportations as necessary to the conduct of the war, suggesting that complicity of the Armenians of Van with the Russian forces that had taken the city justified the persecution of all ethnic Armenians.


===Confiscation of property===
=== Arrest and deportation of Armenian notables, April 1915 ===
{{main|Confiscation of Armenian properties in Turkey|National economy (Turkey)}}
{{Further2|]}}
], 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}}
On April 24, 1915, ] ({{lang-hy|Կարմիր Կիրակի}}), was the night on which the leaders of Armenians of the Ottoman capital, ], and later extending to other Ottoman centers were arrested and moved to two holding centers near Ankara by then minister of interior ] Bey with his ]. These Armenians were later deported with the passage of Tehcir Law on 29 May 1915. The date 24 April, ], commemorates the Armenian notables deported from the Ottoman capital in 1915, as the precursor to the ensuing events.


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}}
], who ordered the arrests.]]
In his order, ], Talaat claimed Armenian committees "have long been pursuing to gain an administrative autonomy and this desire is displayed once more, in no uncertain terms, with the inclusion of the Russian Armenians who have assumed a position against us together with the Daschnak Committee in no time in the regions of Zeytûn (], Bitlis, Sivas, and Van (]) in accordance with the decisions they have previously taken (])". 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:


== Destination ==
{{quote |In order to justify this enormous crime the requisite propaganda material was thoroughly prepared in Constantinople. "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 name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |220}}}}
{{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}}
On the night of April 24, 1915, the Ottoman government rounded up and imprisoned an estimated ].<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |211–2}} This date coincided with Allied troop landings at ] after unsuccessful Allied ] attempts to break through the Dardanelles to Constantinople in February and March 1915.


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}}
===Triple Entente's reaction===
On May 24, 1915, 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 name="H.RES.316">1915 declaration
* 106th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives
* 109th Congress, 1st Session, , June 14, 2005. 15 September 2005 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>


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}}
===Massacres===
{{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&nbsp;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&nbsp;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}}
====Mass burnings====
Eitan Belkind was a ] member, who infiltrated the Ottoman army as an official. He was assigned to the headquarters of Kamal Pasha. He claims to have witnessed the burning of 5,000 Armenians.<ref name = "Auron">{{citation | first = Yair | last = Auron | title = The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide | place = New Brunswick, New Jersey | publisher = Transaction Publishers | year = 2000}}.</ref>{{rp |181,183}}


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 $110&nbsp;million (${{Inflation|US|.11|1930|fmt=c|r=1}}&nbsp;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>
Lt. Hasan Maruf, of the Ottoman army, describes how a population of a village were taken all together, and then burned.<ref>British Foreign Office 371/2781/264888, Appendices B., p. 6.</ref> The Commander of the Third Army Vehib's 12-page affidavit, which was dated 5 December 1918, was presented in the Trabzon trial series (March 29, 1919) included in the Key Indictment,<ref>''Takvimi Vekayi'', No. 3540, May 5, 1919.</ref> reporting such a mass burning of the population of an entire village near Mush.<ref>McClure, Samuel S. ''Obstacles to Peace''. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917, pp. 400–1.</ref> that in Bitlis, Mus and ], "The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them". And also that "Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these scenes were horrified and maddened at remembering the sight. They told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh permeated the air for many days after".


====Drowning==== ==Aftermath==
===End of World War I===
Trabzon was the main city in Trabzon province; 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".<ref>April 11, 1919 report. U.S. National Archives. R.G. 59. 867. 4016/411.</ref> 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".<ref>''Toronto Globe'', August 26, 1915.</ref> The Trabzon trials reported Armenians having been drowned in the Black Sea.<ref>''Takvimi Vekdyi'', No. 3616, August 6, 1919, p. 2.</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&nbsp;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&nbsp;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}}
Hoffman Philip, the American Charge at Constantinople chargé d'affaires, writes: "Boat loads sent from Zor down the river arrived at Ana, one thirty miles away, with three fifths of passengers missing".<ref>Cipher telegram, July 12, 1916. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.48/356.</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}}
====Use of poison and drug overdoses====
The psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton writes in a parenthesis when introducing the crimes of Nazi doctors, "Perhaps Turkish doctors, in their participation in the genocide against the Armenians, come closest, as I shall later suggest".<ref>Lifton, Robert Jay. ''Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide'', New York: Basic Books, 1986, p. xii.</ref>

'''Morphine overdose:''' During the Trabzon trial series of the Martial court, from the sittings between March 26 and May 17, 1919, 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's colleagues at Trabzons Red Crescent hospital, where those atrocities were said to have been committed.<ref>Dadrian, Vahakn N. "". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'', 11(1), 1997, pp. 28–59.</ref><ref>Genocide Study Project, HF Guggenheim Foundation, in '']'', Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 1997.</ref>

'''Toxic gas:''' Dr. Ziya Fuad and Dr. Adnan, public health services director of Trabzon, submitted affidavits reporting cases in which two school buildings were used to organize children and send them to the mezzanine to kill them with toxic gas equipment.<ref>Session 3, p.m., 1 April 1919 Constantinople newspaper Renaissance, 27 April 1919.</ref><ref>Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians". '']'' 1, no. 2 (1986), pp. 169–92.</ref>

'''Typhoid inoculation:''' The Ottoman surgeon, Dr. Haydar Cemal wrote "on the order of the Chief Sanitation Office of the Third 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’".<ref>''Türkce Istanbul'', No. 45, 23 December 1918.</ref><ref>''Renaissance'', 26 December 1918.</ref> 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 ], 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".<ref>Baron, Jeremy Hugh. "Genocidal Doctors". ''Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine''. November 1999, 92, pp. 590–93.</ref>

===Deportations===
{{Further2|]}}
{{See also|Armenian casualties of deportations}}

]
].<ref>{{citation | publisher = BYU | url = http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/morgenthau/Morgen27.htm | title = Ambassador Morgenthau's Story | year = 1918 | chapter = Twenty-Seven}}.</ref>]]
], ]—destroyed the larger part of the ]s. The Turkish policy was that of ] under the guise of ]".]]

In May 1915, ] requested that the ] and ] ] legalize a measure for relocation and settlement of Armenians to other places due to what Talaat Pasha called "the Armenian riots and massacres, which had arisen in a number of places in the country". However, Talaat 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 29 May 1915, the CUP Central Committee passed the ] ("Tehjir Law"), giving the Ottoman government and military authorization to deport anyone it "sensed" as a threat to national security.<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |186–8}} The "Tehjir 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:

{{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, in Dadrian, ''History of the Armenian Genocide''.</ref>}}

On 13 September 1915, 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 name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |224}}

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 German and Austrian historical documents has since come to attest to the witnesses' horror at the killings and mass starvation of Armenians.<ref name = "Fisk">{{citation | authorlink = Robert Fisk | last = Fisk | first = Robert | title = ] | place = New York | publisher = Alfred A Knopf | year = 2005 | ISBN = 1-84115-007-X}}.</ref>{{rp |329–31}}<ref name = "Fromkin">{{citation | authorlink = David Fromkin| last = Fromkin | first = David | title = ] | place = New York | publisher = Avon Books | year = 1989 | ISBN = 0-8050-6884-8}}.</ref>{{rp |212–3}}<ref>{{citation | place = USA | url = http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/chapters/ch2_voices2.html | title = The Great War | chapter = 2 | publisher = PBS}}.</ref> In the United States, '']'' 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>Rosen, Ruth. "". ''San Francisco Chronicle''. December 15, 2003.</ref>

Historian Hans-Lukas Kieser states that, from the statements of Talat Pasha <ref name>{{cite book | first=Alpay | last=Kabacali | title= Talat Paşa'nın hatıraları | year=1994 | publisher=İletişim Yayınları }}</ref> it is clear that the officials were aware that the deportation order was genocidal.<ref name=ZurichAcademic>"Ermeni Meselesi, academic studies from Zurich (page 12)" http://www.hist.net/kieser/pu/ErmeniMeselesi.pdf</ref> Another historian ] states that the telegrams show that the overall coordination of the genocide was taken over by Talat Paşa.<ref>{{cite book | first=Taner | last=Akçam | title=From empire to republic: Turkish nationalism and the Armenian genocide |page=174 | year=2004 | publisher=Zed Books |isbn=1-84277-527-8, 9781842775271 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=SPKuXesTOC4C&dq=From+empire+to+republic:+Turkish+nationalism+and+the+Armenian+genocide&source=gbs_navlinks_s }}</ref>

====Death marches====
]
The Armenians were marched out to the ]n town of ] and the ]. 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 = |coauthors = |title = Exiled Armenians starve in the desert; Turks drive them like slaves, American committee hears ;- Treatment raises death rate | pages = |language = |publisher =New York Times |date= August 8, 1916 |url =http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00C17F73C5F13738DDDA10894D0405B868DF1D3 | accessdate = 2007-09-16| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20071026001641/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00C17F73C5F13738DDDA10894D0405B868DF1D3| archivedate= 26 October 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</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>

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.

{{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" />}}

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 name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |350}}

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 name = "Balakian" />{{rp |326}} Major General ], acting military attaché and head of the German Military ] in the Ottoman Empire, spoke to Ottoman intentions in a conference held in ] in 1918:

{{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 name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |349}}}}

====Extermination camps====
It is believed that 25&nbsp;major ]s existed, under the command of ], one of the right-hand men of Talaat Pasha. The majority of the camps were situated near Turkey's modern ]i and Syrian borders, and some were only temporary transit camps. Others, such as ], ], and ], are said to have been used only temporarily, for ]s; these sites were vacated by autumn 1915. 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">{{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>

====Relief====
] – the United States contributed a significant amount of aid to help Armenians during the Armenian Genocide.]]
{{See also|American Committee for Relief in the Near East}}
The American Committee for Relief in the Near East is a relief organization established in 1915, just after the deportations, whose primary aim was to alleviate the suffering of the Armenian people. Henry Morgenthau played a key role in rallying support for the organization. Between 1915 and 1930, distributed humanitarian relief across a wide range of geographical locations. ACRNE eventually spent over ten times the initial estimate, see ], that amount and helped an estimated close to 2,000,000 refugees.<ref>Suzanne E. Moranian. "The Armenian Genocide and American Missionary Relief Efforts", in ''America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915''. Jay Winter (ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.</ref>

In its first year, the ACRNE cared for 132,000 Armenian orphans from ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. A relief organization for refugees in the Middle East helped donate over $102 million (budget $117,000,000) to Armenians both during and after the war.<ref name = "Oren">{{cite book| last = Oren | first = Michael B | authorlink = Michael B. Oren |title = ] | publisher = WW Norton & Co|location= New York|year = 2007|isbn = 0-393-33030-3}}</ref><ref>Goldberg, Andrew. ''The Armenian Genocide''. Two Cats Productions, 2006</ref>{{rp |336}}

=== Teshkilat-i Mahsusa ===
{{Main|Teşkilat-i Mahsusa}}
The ] founded a "special organization" ({{lang-tr|Teşkilat-i Mahsusa}}) that participated in the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community.<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, and it has been compared by some scholars to the Nazi ].<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |182, 185}} 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 |first=Vahakn |last=Dadrian |authorlink = Vahakn N. Dadrian|title = The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal |volume = 23 |pages = 549–76 (''560'') |month = November |year = 1991 |issue = 4 |jstor= 163884}}</ref> According to the ] attached to the tribunal as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from ]. 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 book |url = http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NA.BK5.PDF |title = Genocide never again (book 5) | author = RJ Rummel |publisher = Llumina Press |isbn=1-59526-075-7 |format= PDF}}</ref> ], commander of the Ottoman Third Army, called those members of the special organization, the "butchers of the human species".<ref name = "Lewy 2005">{{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>


=== Trials === === Trials ===
{{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&nbsp;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''}}
==== Turkish courts-martial ====
{{Main|Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919–20}}
In 1919, Sultan ] ordered domestic courts-martial to try members of the ] (CUP) (Turkish: "''Ittihat Terakki''") for their role in taking the Ottoman Empire into World War I. The courts-martial 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:


===Turkish War of Independence===
{{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.}}
{{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}}
The term ], which include ] and ], refers to the triumvirate who had fled the Empire at the end of World War I. At the trials in Constantinople in 1919 they were sentenced to death in absentia. The courts-martial 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 ].


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}}
==== International trials ====
{{Main|Malta exiles|Malta Tribunals}}


== Legacy ==
Following the ], the preliminary ] established "The Commission on Responsibilities and Sanctions" in January 1919, which was chaired by US 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".
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 ===
Various Ottoman politicians, generals, and intellectuals were ], where they were held for some three years while searches were made of archives in Constantinople, 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.
{{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}}
==== Trial of Soghomon Tehlirian ====
{{See also|Operation Nemesis}}
On March 15, 1921, former ] ] was assassinated in the ] District of Berlin, Germany, in broad daylight and in the presence of many witnesses. Talaat's death was part of "'']''", the ]'s codename for their covert operation in the 1920s to kill the ] of the Armenian Genocide.


=== Armenia and Azerbaijan ===
The subsequent trial of the assassin, ], had an important influence on ], a ] of ]&ndash;] descent who campaigned in the ] to ban what he called "barbarity" and "vandalism". The term "]", created in 1943, was coined by Lemkin who was directly influenced by the massacres of Armenians during World War I.<ref name = "Bloxham">{{citation | last = Bloxham | first = Donald | title = The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians | place = Oxford | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2005}}.</ref>{{rp |210}}
] 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&nbsp;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}}
== Armenian population, deaths, survivors, 1914 to 1918 ==
{{Main|Ottoman Armenian population|Ottoman Armenian casualties|Armenian Genocide survivors}}
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&nbsp;Armenians died between 1914 and 1918. Estimates vary between 600,000,<ref name="Heidenrich2001">{{cite book|author=John G. Heidenrich|title=How to prevent genocide: a guide for policymakers, scholars, and the concerned citizen|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=z7SDOxidP5EC&pg=PA5|accessdate=26 February 2012|year=2001|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-275-96987-5|page=5}}</ref> to 1,500,000 (per Western scholars,<ref>{{cite news |title=French in Armenia 'genocide' row |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6043730.stm |publisher=] |date=2006-10-12 |accessdate=2008-03-29| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20080407032232/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6043730.stm| archivedate= 7 April 2008 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</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| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20080313074119/http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cd6618e1-508d-4d27-a607-18e10e743d28| archivedate= 13 March 2008 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> and other states). '']'' references the research of ], an intelligence officer of the ], who estimated that 600,000&nbsp;Armenians "died or were massacred during deportation" in the years 1915–16.<ref>{{citation | url = http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/35323/Armenian-massacres/35323suppinfo/Supplemental-Information | title = Encyclopædia Britannica | contribution = Death toll of the Armenian Massacres}}.</ref><ref name = "Bryce">{{citation | title = The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–16: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | author = Viscount Bryce | place = New York and London | publisher = GP Putnam's Sons, for His Majesty's Stationary Office | year = 1916}}.</ref>


===International recognition===
] calculated an estimate of the pre-war Armenian population, then subtracted his estimate of survivors, arriving at a figure of a little less than 600,000 for Armenian casualties for the period 1914 to 1922.<ref>Justin McCarthy, ''The End of Ottoman Anatolia'', in ''Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire'', New York Univ. Press, 1983.</ref> In a more recent essay, he projected that if the Armenian records of 1913 were accurate, 250,000 more deaths should be added, for a total of 850,000.<ref>Justin McCarthy, ''The Population of the Ottoman Armenians'', in ''The Armenians in the Late Ottoman Period'', The Turkish Historical Society For The Council Of Culture, Arts And Publications Of The Grand National Assembly Of Turkey, Ankara, 2001, pp. 65-86</ref>
{{Main|Armenian genocide recognition}}
[[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.
However, Mccarthy's numbers have been highly contested by many specialists. Some of them, like Frédéric Paulin, have severely criticized McCarthy's ] and suggested that it is flawed.<ref>Frédéric Paulin, ''Négationnisme et théorie des populations stables : le cas du génocide arménien'', in Hervé Lebras (dir.), ''L’Invention des populations. Biologie, Idéologie et politique'', Editions Odile Jacob, 2000.</ref> Hilmar Kaiser<ref>Hilmar Kaiser, a German expert on the Armenian genocide, also criticizes McCarthy's calculation techniques in an interview with Dirk van Delft published in the ''NRC Handelsblad'', p. 51, Amsterdam, Saturday, 27 May 2000</ref> another specialist has made similar claims, as have professor ]<ref>Vahakn N. Dadrian, ''Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict'', New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999. See also his essay: ''Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian Genocide'', in ''The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics'', R.G. Hovanissian, ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992 pp. 294-7</ref> and professor Levon Marashlian.<ref>Levon Marashlian, ''Politics and Demography: Armenians, Turks and Kurds in the Ottoman Empire'', Zoryan Inst for Contemporary Armenian Research & Documentation Inc. September, 1990</ref> The critics not only question McCarthy's methodology and resulting calculations, but also his primary sources, the Ottoman censuses. They point out that there was no official statistic census in 1912; rather those numbers were based on the records of 1905 which were conducted during the reign of Sultan Hamid.<ref>Kemal H. Karpat, ''Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics'', Madiscon, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. See also ''Tableau indicant le nombre des divers éléments de la population dans l'Empire Ottoman au 1er Mars 1330 (14 Mars 1914)'', Istanbul: Zellitch Brothers, 1919. Foreword by Refet. FO 371/4229/86552. May 1919.</ref> While Ottoman censuses claimed an Armenian population of 1.2 million, ] (the ] of ]) wrote that there were about 1.9 million Armenian's in the Ottoman Empire,<ref name="ma">{{cite book | author = El-Ghusein, Fà'iz | authorlink = Fâ’iz El-Ghusein | title = '']'' | year = 1917 | page = ] }}</ref> and some modern scholars estimate over 2 million. German official ] wrote that fewer than 100,000 Armenians survived the genocide, the rest having been exterminated ({{lang-de |ausgerottet}}).<ref>Fisk, Robert (2005), The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, New York: Alfred A Knopf, ISBN 1-84115-007-X.</ref>{{rp |329–30}}


===Cultural depictions===
{| class=wikitable border="1"
{{main|Armenian genocide in culture}}
|-
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>
!colspan="4"|Armenian population, deaths, survivors
|-
|<!--col1-->]
|<!--col3-->]
|<!--col2-->]
|<!--col4-->]
|-
|1893–96 Armenian population in Ottoman Empire: 1,003,571 (Ottoman Turkish statistics)
|1912 Armenian population in ] of Ottoman Empire According to Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople :1,018,00
|1914 Armenian population in Ottoman Empire: 1,219,323 (Ottoman Turkish statistics)
|1921 Armenian population in Turkey: 281,000 (US estimate)
|}


== Contemporaneous reports and reactions == === Archives and historiography ===
{{see also|Kemalist historiography}}
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 insurrection.<ref name = "Ferguson" />{{rp |177}} On May 24, 1915, 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 name="H.RES.316"/>
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 ] (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 August 6, 1919. District of Columbia, Near East Relief incorporated.</ref> The organization was championed by ], American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Morgenthau's dispatches on the mass slaughter of Armenians galvanized much support for ACRNE.<ref>"". ''New York Times'', September 13, 1915.</ref>
{{notelist}}


== References ==
=== The U.S. Mission in the Ottoman Empire ===
{{Reflist|19em}}
].]]
]'' dated 15 December 1915 states that one million Armenians had been either deported or executed by the Ottoman government.]]


===Sources===
The United States had several consulates throughout the Ottoman Empire, including locations in ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. The United States was officially a neutral party until it joined with the Allies in 1917. In addition to the consulates, there were also numerous ] ] compounds established in Armenian-populated regions, including Van and Kharput. The events were reported regularly in newspapers and literary journals around the world.<ref name = "Balakian" />{{rp |282–5}}
{{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====
On his return to the United States having served for thirty years as United States Consul and Consul General in the Near East, ] wrote his own account of "the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna".<ref name = "Horton">{{citation | last = Horton | first = George | title = The Blight of Asia, An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna | publisher = Taderon Press, Sterndale Classics | year = 2003}}.</ref>{{rp |title}} Horton's account quotes numerous contemporary communications and eyewitness reports including eyewitness accounts of the massacre of Phocea in 1914 by a Frenchman and the Armenian massacres of 1914/15 by an American citizen and a German missionary.<ref name = "Horton" />{{rp |28–9,34–7.}}
{{refbegin|indent=yes|35em}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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}}
* {{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 }}
* {{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 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====
Many Americans vocally spoke out against the genocide, including former president ], ] ], ], and ]. 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>Merrill D. Peterson, ''"Starving Armenians": America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1930 and After''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004.</ref>
{{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}}
==== Ambassador Morgenthau's Story ====
* {{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 }}
{{See also|Ambassador Morgenthau's Story }}
* {{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=<!-- --> }}
] to the ] on 16 July 1915 describes the massacres as a "campaign of race extermination".]]
* {{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 }}
As the orders for deportations and massacres were enacted, many consular officials reported to the ambassador what they were witnessing. In his memoirs which he completed writing in 1918, Morgenthau wrote, "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 name = "Morgenthau" />{{rp |309}} In memoirs and reports, their staff vividly described the brutal methods used by Ottoman forces and documented numerous instances of atrocities committed against the Christian minority.<ref>James L. Barton, ''Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917''. Gomidas Institute, 1998, ISBN 1-884630-04-9.</ref>
* {{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 }}
=== Allied forces in the Middle East ===
* {{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=<!-- --> }}
On the Middle Eastern front, the British military was engaged fighting the Ottoman forces in southern Syria and ]. British diplomat ] filed the following report after hearing the account from a captured Ottoman soldier:
* {{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=<!-- --> }}
{{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 name = "Fisk" />{{rp |327}}}}
{{refend}}

] described the massacres as an "administrative holocaust" and noted that "the clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be. There is no reasonable 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, cherishing national ambitions that could only be satisfied at the expense of Turkey, and planted geographically between Turkish and Caucasian Moslems".<ref name = "Fisk" />{{rp |329}}

==== Arnold Toynbee: The Treatment of Armenians ====
{{See also|The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire}}
] published a widely studied book ] in 1916. It was a collection of documents. Reacting to numerous eyewitness accounts, British politician ] and historian Toynbee compiled statements from survivors and eyewitnesses from other countries including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, who similarly attested to the systematized massacring of innocent Armenians by Ottoman government forces.<ref>''The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce, James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, Uncensored Edition''. Ara Safarian (ed.) Princeton, New Jersey: Gomidas Institute, 2000. ISBN 0-9535191-5-5.</ref>

The book has since been criticized as British wartime propaganda to build up sentiment against the Central Powers, but Bryce had submitted the work to scholars for verification before its publication. ] Regius Professor ] stated, "…the evidence of these letters and reports will bear any scrutiny and overpower any skepticism. Their genuineness is established beyond question".<ref name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |228}} Other professors, including ] of ] and former ] president ], came to the same conclusion.<ref name = "Dadrian" />{{rp |228–9}}

=== 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 Berlin to the Middle East, called the ]. Germany's diplomatic mission at the beginning of 1915 was led by Ambassador Baron ] (who was later succeeded by Count ] following his death in 1915). Like Morgenthau, von Wangenheim began to receive many disturbing messages from consul officials around the Ottoman Empire detailing the massacre of Armenians. 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 name = "Balakian" />{{rp |186}} In June 1915, von Wangenheim sent a cable to Berlin reporting that Talat had admitted that 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 name = "Fromkin" />{{rp |213}}

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, in Balakian, ''The Burning Tigris'', p. 186.</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 the German chancellery. His final report noted that fewer than 100,000 Armenians were left alive in the Ottoman Empire: the rest having been exterminated ({{lang-de |ausgerottet}}).<ref name = "Fisk" />{{rp |329–30}} Scheubner-Richter also detailed the methods of the Ottoman government, noting its use of the Special Organization and other bureaucratized instruments of genocide.
]
The Germans also witnessed the way Armenians were burned according to 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".<ref>B. Ye'or, ''The Dhimmi. The Jews and Christians under Islam'', Trans. from the French by D. Maisel P. Fenton and D. Liftman, Cranbury, New Jersey: Frairleigh Dickinson University, 1985. p. 95.</ref> 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 name = "Fromkin" />{{rp |212}} Other Germans openly supported the Ottoman policy against the Armenians. As ], the German naval attaché in Constantinople said to US Ambassador ]:

<blockquote>I have lived in Turkey the larger part of my life… 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 name = "Morgenthau" />{{rp |375}}</blockquote>

In a genocide conference held 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 name = "Fisk" />{{rp |331}}

Photographs exist that may also suggest the Germans participated in the mass killing and some of the German witnesses to the Armenian holocaust would go on to play a role in the Nazi regime - ], for example, was attached to the Turkish 4th Army in 1915 with instructions to monitor "operations" against the Armenians who later became Hitler's foreign minister and "Protector of Bohemia and Moravia" during Reinhard Heydrich's terror in Czechoslovakia.<ref></ref>

==== Armin T. Wegner ====
{{See also|Armin T. Wegner}}

German military medic ] enrolled as a medic at the outbreak of World War I during the winter of 1914–15. He defied censorship in taking hundreds of photographs<ref>{{citation | url = http://www.armenian-genocide.org/photo_wegner.html#photo_collection | last = Wegner | title = Photo collection | publisher = Armenian Genocide}}.</ref> of Armenians being deported and subsequently starving in northern Syrian camps<ref name = "Fisk" />{{rp |326}} and in the deserts of Der Zor. Wegner was part of a German detachment under von der Goltz stationed near the ] in ]. Wegner was eventually arrested by the Germans and recalled to Germany.

Wegner protested against the atrocities perpetrated in an open letter submitted to US President ] at the peace conference of 1919. The letter made a case for the creation of an independent Armenian state. Also in 1919, Wegner published ''The Road of No Return'' ("Der Weg ohne Heimkehr"), a collection of letters he had written during what he deemed the "martyrdom" (German: "Martyrium") of the Armenians.<ref>{{citation | language = German | place = DE | url = http://www.armin-t-wegner.de/biographie.htm | title = Wegner Biographie}}.</ref> A documentary film depicting Wegner's personal account of the Armenian Genocide through his own photographs called "Destination Nowhere: The Witness" and produced by Dr J Michael Hagopian premiered in Fresno on 25 April 2000. Prior to the release of the documentary he was honored at the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan for championing the plight of Armenians throughout his life.

=== Russian military ===
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 as they advanced.<ref></ref> In March 1916, the scenes they saw in the city of ] led the Russians to retaliate against the Ottoman III Army whom they held responsible for the massacres, destroying it in its entirety.<ref>New York Times Dispatch. . ''New York Times'', March 6, 1916.</ref>

=== Swedish Embassy and Military Attaché ===
Sweden, as a neutral state during the entire World War I, had permanent representatives in the Ottoman Empire, able to continuously report on the ongoing events in the country. The Swedish Embassy in ], represented by Ambassador Per Gustaf August Cosswa Anckarsvärd, along with Envoy M. Ahlgren, and the Swedish Military Attaché, Captain Einar af Wirsén, closely followed the development throughout the empire, reporting, among others, on the Armenian massacres. On July 7, 1915, Anckarsvärd dispatched a two-page report to ], beginning with the following information:

{{quote |The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity, since due to different reasons there are no effective external pressure to be feared, to once and for all put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination (utrotandet) of the Armenian nation.<ref name = "Avedian">{{citation | url = http://www.armenica.org/material/master_thesis_vahagn_avedian.pdf | last = Avedian | first = Vahagn | title = The Armenian Genocide 1915: From a Neutral Small State's Perspective: Sweden | format = ] | publisher = Uppsala University | year = 2008}}.</ref>{{rp |39}}}}

During the remainder of 1915 alone, Anckarsvärd dispatched six other reports entitled "The Persecutions of the Armenians". In his report on July 22, Anckarsvärd noted that the persecutions of the Armenians were being extended to encompass all Christians in the ]:

{{quote | can not be any other issue than an annihilation war against the Greek nation in Turkey and as measures hereof they have been implementing forced conversions to Islam, in obvious aim to, that if after the end of the war there again would be a question of European intervention for the protection of the Christians, there will be as few of them left as possible.<ref name = "Avedian" />{{rp |40}}}}

On August 9, 1915, Anckarsvärd dispatched yet another report, confirming his suspicions regarding the plans of the Turkish government, "It is obvious that the Turks are taking the opportunity to, now during the war, annihilate the Armenian nation so that when the peace comes no Armenian question longer exists".<ref name = "Avedian" />{{rp |41}}

When reflecting upon the situation in Turkey during the final stages of the war, Envoy Alhgren presented an analysis of the prevailing situation in Turkey and the hard times which had befallen the population. In explaining the increased living costs he identified a number of reasons: "obstacles for domestic trade, the almost total paralysing of the foreign trade and finally the strong decreasing of labour power, caused partly by the mobilisation but partly also by the extermination of the Armenian race ".<ref name = "Avedian" />{{rp |52}}

Wirsén, when writing his memoirs from his mission to the Balkans and Turkey, ''Minnen från fred och krig'' ("Memories from Peace and War"), dedicated an entire chapter to the Armenian genocide, entitled ''Mordet på en nation'' ("The Murder of a Nation"). Commenting on the interpretation that the deportations resulted from the purported collaboration of the Armenians with the Russians, Wirsen concludes that their subsequent deportations were nothing but a cover for their extermination.: "Officially, these had the goal to move the entire Armenian population to the steppe regions of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, but in reality they aimed to exterminate the Armenians, whereby the pure Turkish element in Asia Minor would achieve a dominating position".<ref name = "Avedian" />{{rp |28}}

In conclusion, Wirsén made the following note: "The annihilation of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor must revolt all human feelings… The way the Armenian problem was solved was hair-raising. I can still see in front of me Talaat's cynical expression, when he emphasized that the Armenian question was solved".<ref name = "Avedian" />{{rp |29}}

===Bodil Biørn===
{{See also|Bodil Katharine Biørn}}

In 1905 the missionary nurse Bodil Biørn (1871–1960) was sent to Armenia. First based in the town of Mezereh (now Elazig) and later in Mush, she worked for widows and orphaned children in cooperation with missionaries from the German Hülfsbund. She witnessed the massacres of 1915 in Mush and saw most of the children in her care murdered along with Armenian priests, teachers, and assistants. She barely escaped after 9 days on horseback but stayed on in the region for another 2 years under increasingly difficult working conditions. After a period at home she again went to Armenia and, until she retired in 1935, worked for Armenian refugees in Syria and Lebanon. Bodil Biørn was also an able photographer. Many of her photos are now in the WMF archive, which since the organisation was dissolved in 1982 has been preserved in the National Archives of Norway. In combination with her comments, written in her photo albums or on the back of the prints themselves, these photos bear strong witness of the atrocities that she saw.<ref name=NorwegianStateArchive>{{citation | publisher = Norwegian State Archive | url = http://www.arkivverket.no/webfelles/armenia/english.html | title = Armenia}}.</ref>

===Ottoman reactions===
According to Celal Bey, the former governor of Halep Province, a deputy of Konya, explained him the situation and said:

{{quote |Blood flowing instead of water in the river, and thousands of innocent children, blameless elderly, helpless women and strong youths were flowing towards death in this blood flow.<ref>"Halep Valisi Celal'in Anılar", ''Vakit'', December 12, 1918, Turkish text: ''Nehirde su yerine kan akıyor ve binlerce masum çocuk, kabahatsız ihtiyar, aciz kadınlar, kuvvetli gençler bu kan cereyanı içinde ademe doğru akıp gidiyorlardı.''</ref>}}

], uncle of ] wrote "The Armenian nation, whom I had tried to annihilate to the last member of it, because it tried to erase my country from history as prisoners of the enemy in the most horrible and painful days of my homeland, Armenian nation, whom I want to restore peace and luxury, because today it takes shelter under the virtue of Turkish nation. If you remain loyal to Turkish homeland, I'll do every good thing that I can . If you hook on several senseless ]s again, and try to betray Turks and Turkish homeland, I will order my forces which surround all your country and I won't leave even a single breathing Armenian all over the earth. Get your mind." in his memory.<ref>Halil Paşa (transcribed by Taylan Sorgun), ''İttihat ve Terakki'den Cumhuriyet'e Bitmeyen Savaş'', Kamer, İstanbul, 1997, pp. 240–41, Turkish text: ''Vatanımın en korkunç ve acı günlerinde vatanımı düşmana esir olarak tarihten silmeye kalktıkları için Ermeni milleti, bugün Türk milletinin âlicenaplığına sığındığı için huzura ve rahata kavuşturmak istediğim Ermeni milleti. Eğer siz Türk vatanına sâdık kalırsanız elimden gelen her iyi şeyi yapacağım. Eğer yine bir takım şuursuz komitacılara takılarak Türk'e ve Türk vatanına ihanete kalkarsanız bütün memleketinizi saran ordularıma emir vererek dünya üstünde nefes alacak tek Ermeni bırak­mayacağım, aklınızı başınıza alın.''</ref>

In 1919, Ahmet Refik wrote "the ] (Committee of Union and Progress) wanted to remove the problem of ] with annihilating Armenians" in his work entitled ''İki Komite İki Kıtal''.<ref>Ahmet Refik (transcripion: Hamide Koyukan), ''Kafkas Yolunda İki Komite İki Kıtal'', Kebikeç Yayınları, Ankara, 1994, ISBN 975-7981-00-1, p. 27.</ref>

At a secret session of the National Assembly, held on October 17, 1920, ], deputy of Bursa at the time, said:

{{quote |As you know, the issue of relocation was an event that made world to yell blue and made all of us to be considered as murderer. We knew, before we done it, the Christian world won't tolerate it and they would direct anger and hatred toward us. Why did we impute the title of murderer to our race? Why did we enter into such decisive and difficult struggle? That was done just for securing the future of our country that we know as more precious and sacred than our lives.<ref>''Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Gizli Celse Zabıtları'', Vol. I, Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, Ankara, 1985, p. 177, Turkish text: ''Tehcir meselesi, biliyorsunuz ki dünyayı velveleye veren ve hepimizi katil telâkki ettiren bir vaka idi. Bu yapılmazdan evvel âlem-i nasraniyetin bunu hazmetmeyeceği ve bunun için bütün gayz ve kinini bize tevcih edeceklerini biliyorduk. Neden katillik ünvanını nefsimize izafe ettik? Neden o kadar azim, müşkül bir dava içine girdik? Sırf canımızdan daha aziz ve daha mukaddes bildiğimiz vatanımızın istikbalini taht-ı emniyete almak için yapılmış şeylerdir.''</ref>}}

===Persia===
Due to the weak central government and Tehran's inability to protect its territorial integrity, no resistance was offered by the mostly Islamic Persian troops when, after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the extreme northwest of Persia, Islamic Turks invaded the town of Salmas in northwestern Persia and tortured and massacred the Christian Armenian inhabitants in the cruelest possible manner.<ref></ref>

== Study of the Armenian Genocide ==
The Armenian Genocide is widely corroborated by the international genocide scholars. The ] (IAGS), consisting of world's foremost experts on genocide,{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} unanimously passed a formal resolution affirming the fact of the Armenian Genocide. According to IAGS, "Every book on comparative genocide studies in the English language contains a segment on the Armenian Genocide. Leading texts in the international law of genocide such as ]'s 'Genocide in International Law' cite the Armenian Genocide as presursor to the Holocaust and as a precedent for the law on crimes against humanity. Polish Jurist Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term ] in 1944, cited the Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide. The killings of Armenians is genocide as defined by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 126 leading scholars of the holocaust including ], and ] placed a statement in the ''New York Times'' in June 2000 declaring the "inconstestable fact of the Armenian genocide" and urging western democracies to acknowledge it. "The ] (Jerusalem), and the Institute for the Study of Genocide (NYC), have affirmed the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide".<ref name=autogenerated1>IAGS open letter (page2) http://www.voelkermord.at/docs/Scholars_Denying_IAGS.pdf</ref>

British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, whose 1917 report remains a critical primary source, changed his evaluation later in life, concluding, "These…Armenian political aspirations had not been legitimate....Their aspirations did not merely threaten to break up the Turkish Empire; they could not be fulfilled without doing grave injustice to the Turkish people itself".<ref>Quoted in Gunter, ''Pursuing the Just Cause'' (1986) p. 16.</ref>

For Turkish historians, supporting the national republican myth is essential to preserving Turkish national unity. The usual Turkish argument is that the deportations were necessary because the Armenians had allied themselves with the Russian army in wartime and that around 600,000 Armenians perished during the marches, largely due to isolated massacres, disease, or malnourishment.<ref>Papazian, Dennis. .</ref> "There was no genocide committed against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire before or during World War I".<ref>Statements by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, 1982, quoted in Gunter (1986) p. 18</ref> Genocide scholars ], ], and ] wrote in ''Professional Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian Genocide'' (Holocaust and Genocide Studies): "Where scholars deny genocide in the face of decisive evidence ... they contribute to false consciousness that can have the most dire reverbrations. Their message, in effect, is ... mass murder requires no confrontation, no reflection, but should be ignored, glossed over".<ref name="Smith1995"/> Some dissident historians and scholars in Turkey, including ], have been trying to reclaim the Armenians as part of Ottoman and Turkish history and acknowledge the wrongs done to the Armenians as a condition for reconciliation with them on the basis of confidence in Turkish national unity.<ref>Lucette Valensi, "Notes on Two Discordant Histories: Armenia During World War I". ''Mediterranean Historical Review'' 2001 16(1): 49–60. Issn: 0951-8967; James Reid, "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman and Turkish Historiography". ''Armenian Review'' 1984 37(1): 22–40. Issn: 0004-2366</ref>

==Defining ''genocide''==
] scholar ] suggests of the Armenian Genocide, "This is the closest parallel to the ]".<ref name=bauer_holocaust>{{citation | first = Yehuda | last = Bauer | contribution = The Place of the Holocaust in Contemporary History | title = 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… 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 name=bauer_holocaust/>}}

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">{{citation | last = Bauer | first = Yehuda | url = http://www.armeniaforeignministry.com/conference/yahuda_bauer.pdf | format = ] | title = Can Genocides be Prevented? | publisher = Armenia Foreign Ministry}}.</ref> ] also alludes to these earlier massacres as at least as significant as World War I 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.<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 news |last =Stanley |first =Alessandra |title =A PBS Documentary Makes Its Case for the Armenian Genocide, With or Without a Debate |work =New York Times |date= 2006-04-17 |url =http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/arts/television/17stan.html |accessdate =2010-04-30}}</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 1915–16".<ref name="ictj">{{cite web |last = |first = |authorlink = |coauthors = |title =Turkey Recalls Envoys Over Armenian Genocide |work = |publisher =International Center for Transitional Justice |date= 2006-05-08 |url =http://www.ictj.org/en/news/coverage/article/935.html |doi = |accessdate =2007-06-30}}</ref> Among the organizations affirming this conclusion are the ], the ], and the United Nations' ].<ref name="ictj" /><ref name= armeniapediaictj>{{citation | url = http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=International_Center_for_Transitional_Justice | publisher = Armeniapedia | title = International Center for Transitional Justice}}.</ref> One public figure who objected to the use of the term "genocide" was Israeli Foreign Minister ], who was subsequently rebutted by Dr Israel Charny, executive director of the ] in Jerusalem.<ref>{{citation | publisher = The Independent | place = UK | url = http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/peres-stands-accused-over-denial-of-meaningless-armenian-holocaust-681774.html | title = Peres stands accused over denial of "meaningless" Armenian Holocaust}}.</ref>

In 2002, the ] (ICTJ) was asked by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission to provide a report on the applicability of the Genocide Convention to the controversy. An independent legal counsel drafted memorandum for the ICTJ stated that in the opinion of the independent legal counsel "legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe "<ref name = ICTJ-memorandum>{{citation | publisher = ICTJ | format = ] | url = http://www.ictj.org/images/content/7/5/759.pdf | title = The Applicability of the United Nations Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide to the events which occurred during the early twentieth century | note = The memorandum was drafted by independent legal counsel and not by the ICTJ. The memorandum is a legal, not a factual or historical, analysis| date = February 2002 | accessdate = June 2010 | quote = This memorandum was drafted by independent legal counsel based on a request made to the International Center for Transitional Justice ("ICTJ"), on the basis of the Memorandum of Understanding ("MoU") entered into by The Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission ("TARC") on July 12, 2002 and presentations by members of TARC on September 10, 2002. …''D. Conclusion'' Because the other three elements identified above have been definitively established, the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them | pages = 2, 18}}
</ref> and further that the Republic of Turkey was not liable for the event.{{Citation needed|date=June 2010}}

In 2005, the ] affirmed<ref>{{cite web |last = |first =International Association of Genocide Scholars |authorlink = |coauthors = |title =Letter to Prime Minister Erdogan |work = |publisher =Genocide Watch |date= 2005-06-13 |url =http://www.genocidewatch.org/TurkishPMIAGSOpenLetterreArmenia6-13-05.htm |doi = |accessdate =2007-06-30 |archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20070604053728/http://www.genocidewatch.org/TurkishPMIAGSOpenLetterreArmenia6-13-05.htm |archivedate = June 4, 2007}}</ref> that scholarly evidence revealed the "Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens&nbsp;– an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches". The IAGS also condemned Turkish attempts to deny the factual and moral reality of the Armenian Genocide. In 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity] produced a letter<ref>{{citation | publisher = Elie Wiesel Foundation | url = http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/PressReleases/TurkishArmenianReconciliation.pdf | format = ] | title = Turkish–Armenian reconciliation}}.</ref> 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 = 2007-04-10 |url =http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/4/F1CACD86-B6BF-413F-B6AD-6C423454F845.html |doi = |accessdate =2007-06-30| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20070702090353/http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/4/F1CACD86-B6BF-413F-B6AD-6C423454F845.html| archivedate= 2 July 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</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= 2007-04-09 |url =http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/PressReleases/TA_Press_Release.pdf |format=PDF |doi = |accessdate =2007-06-30 |archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20070623130427/http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/PressReleases/TA_Press_Release.pdf |archivedate = June 23, 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>Salt, Jeremy. "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. "", ''New English Review'', November 10, 2006. Retrieved 2007-4-26.</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, April 14, 2002 (PDF).</ref> were not "a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government".<ref>Getler, Michael. , ''The Ombudsman Column'', ], April 21, 2006. Retrieved October 9, 2006.</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=The Observer |date=2005-02-27 |accessdate=2007-02-24 | location=London| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20070315112641/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1426319,00.html| archivedate= 15 March 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref><ref>{{citation | publisher = BBC | section = News | place = UK | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4527318.stm | title = Author's trial set to test Turkey | date = 14 December 2005 | first=Sarah | last=Rainsford}}.</ref>

] has suggested that "the genocide of the Armenians was a ]".<ref>{{citation | date = 2007-8 | url = http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/congress_must_recognize_the_ar_1.html | publisher = American Thinker | title = Congress Must Recognize the Armenian Genocide}}.</ref> Ye'or holds jihad and what she calls "]" to be among the "principles and values" that led to the Armenian Genocide.<ref>Ye'or, Bat. ''Islam and Dhimmitude''. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002, p. 374.</ref> This perspective is challenged by Fà'iz el-Ghusein, a ] Arab witness of the Armenian persecution, whose 1918 treatise 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… t 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 name = "El-Ghusein">{{cite book |author = El-Ghusein, Fà'iz |authorlink = Fâ’iz El-Ghusein |title = ] |year = 1918 |isbn = 0-87899-003-8}}</ref>{{rp |49}} Arnold Toynbee writes that "the ] made ] and Turkish Nationalism work together for their ends, but the development of their policy shows the Islamic element receding and the Nationalist gaining ground".<ref>Toynbee, Arnold Joseph. ''Turkey: a Past and a Future''. 1917, pp. 22–3.</ref> Toynbee, and various other sources, report that many Armenians were spared death by marrying into Turkish families or converting to Islam. El-Ghusein points out that many converts were put to death, concerned that Westerners would come to regard the "extermination of the Armenians"<ref name= "El-Ghusein" />{{rp |49}} as "a black stain on the history of Islam, which ages will not efface".<ref name = "El-Ghusein" />{{rp |51}} In one instance, when an Islamic leader appealed to spare Armenian converts to Islam, El-Ghusein quotes a government functionary as responding that "politics have no religion", before sending the converts to their deaths.<ref name= "El-Ghusein" />{{rp |49}}

] 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, p. 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 name = "Akçam" />{{rp |125–8}}

On October 10, 2009 in Zurich, despite overwhelming opposition by Armenians in Armenia and in the Diaspora, the Armenian government signed the Armenia-Turkey Protocols, one of the provisions of which stipulates the establishment of a research commission "to study the two country's historical grievances".<ref name="October 2009">. ]. 11 October 2009.</ref> The agreement must still be ratified by the parliaments of both countries in order to take effect.

Just a day before, on 9 October 2009 in London, ] QC, eminent jurist, barrister and judge, published a detailed legal opinion<ref>{{citation | format = ] | url = http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/files/Armenian%20genocide1.pdf | title = Was there an Armenian Genocide? | publisher = Doughty Street | place = UK}}.</ref> which comprehensively and methodically countered the British Government's reasons for not formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

== Republic of Turkey and the Genocide ==
{{See also|Denial of the Armenian Genocide|Insulting Turkishness}}

According to Kemal Çiçek, the head of the Armenian Research Group at the ], in Turkey there is no official thesis on the Armenian issue.<ref>, ''In Turkey, There is no official thesis on the Armenian issue. If there were the official thesis, now everyone would know it'' (Ermeni meselesinde Türkiye'nin resmi bir tezi yok. Keşke resmi tez olsaydı, şu anda herkes o tezi bilirdi).'' {{Tr icon}}</ref> 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<ref>The Armenian Review&nbsp;— p. 92, He invoked the "Armenian revolt of Van". 91 He also invoked Armenian-Russian collaboration, as well as Armenian cruelties against Turks.</ref> 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>

According to the retired ambassador of Turkey to Germany and Spain; Volkan Vural, the Turkish state should apologize for what happened to the Armenians during the deportations of 1915 and what happened to the Greeks during ]<ref name=VolkanVuralinterview>"Devlet Ermenilerden özür dilemeli I-II", http://www.hyetert.com/yazi3.asp?Id=341&DilId=1</ref><ref name=aghetinterview>"Interview with Volkan Vural",http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYP2i8vF7C8&t=7m46s</ref> He also states that, "I think that, the Armenian issue can be solved by politicians and not by historians. I don't believe that historical facts about this issue is not revealed. The historical facts are already known. The most important point here is that how this facts will be interpreted and will affect the future".<ref name="VolkanVuralinterview"/>

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 cast doubt on 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:

<blockquote>"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&nbsp;— in the perpetrators, they see their fathers, whose honor they seek to defend. This tradition instills a sense of identity in Turkish nationalists&nbsp;— 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>.{{Dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref></blockquote>

In 2007, ] ] issued a circular that calls the government institutions to use "1915 Events" (in Turkish, 1915 Olayları) phrase instead of the "so-called Armenian genocide" (in Turkish, sözde Ermeni soykırımı) phrase.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2007/07/28/haber,C7B8DF9C11C040F785183D0B06FDE27C.html |accessdate=2008-09-03 |title=1915 yılı olayları |date=2007-07-27 |work=] |language=Turkish |quote=Erdoğan, eylülde ABD Kongresi'nin gündemine gelmesi beklenen soykırım iddialarına ilişkin genelgesinde, kamu kurumlarının, '1915 yılı olayları', '1915 yılı olayları ile ilgili Ermeni iddiaları veya varsayımları' ifadelerini kullanmalarını istedi.}}</ref>

Turkey has started an "Initiative to Resolve Armenian Allegations Regarding 1915", by using archives in Turkey, Armenia and other countries.<ref name="Turkish invitation">{{Cite press release |url = http://www.turkishembassy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=612&Itemid=338 |title = Turkey's Initiative to Resolve Armenian Allegations Regarding 1915 |publisher = Embassy of Turkish Republic at Washington, D.C. |accessdate = 2008-06-29 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> Armenian president ] rejected this offer by saying, "It is the responsibility of governments to develop bilateral relations and we do not have the right to delegate that responsibility to historians. That is why we have proposed and propose again that, without pre-conditions, we establish normal relations between our two countries".<ref name="Oskanian Comments">{{cite web |url = http://www.armeniaforeignministry.com/pr_06/061104_vo_gul.html |title = Minister Oskanian Comments on Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's Recent Remarks |publisher = Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs |date = November 4, 2006 |accessdate = 2007-04-23}}</ref> Additionally, Turkish foreign minister of the time, ], invited the United States and other countries to contribute to such a commission by appointing scholars to "investigate this ] and open ways for Turks and Armenians to come together".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.washington.emb.mfa.gov.tr/ShowInfoNotes.aspx?ID=221 |title=Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Vaşington Büyükelçiliği |publisher=Washington.emb.mfa.gov.tr |date= |accessdate=2010-09-04}}</ref>

The Turkish government continues to protest against 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. Prosecutors acting on their own initiative 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 (as of yet, most of these cases have been dismissed).<ref>Corley, Felix. "", '']'', February 14, 2002.</ref> These prosecutions have often been accompanied by hate campaigns and threats, as was the case for ], who was prosecuted three times for "]",<ref>{{cite web |last = |first = |authorlink = |coauthors = | title =IPI Deplores Callous Murder of Journalist in Istanbul |work = |publisher =International Press Institute |date = 2007-01-22 |url =http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1169459655335 |doi = | accessdate = 2007-09-16| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20070926235019/http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1169459655335| archivedate= 26 September 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> and murdered in 2007. Later, photographs of the assassin being honored as a hero while in police custody, posing in front of the ] with grinning policemen,<ref>, ], 2007-02-02.</ref> gave the academic community still more cause for pause with 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 |accessdate=2007-01-24| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20070303055331/http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/statements_detail.html?ctxid=CH0055&docid=CMS1169459655335| archivedate= 3 March 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> The leading lawyer behind the prosecutions, ], is accused of plotting to overthrow the government as being a member of the alleged ].

In 1973 Turkey recalled its ambassador to France to protest the Genocide monument erected in ]s "to the memory of the 1.5 million Armenian victims of the genocide ordered by the Turkish rulers in 1915".<ref name="Derogy1990">{{cite book|author=Jacques Derogy|title=Resistance and revenge: the Armenian assassination of the Turkish leaders responsible for the 1915 massacres and deportations|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gpL9QKCJ2L8C&pg=PA196|accessdate=26 February 2012|date=1 July 1990|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-0-88738-338-0|pages=196–}}</ref>

In 1982, the ]i 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>"", '']'', June 4, 1982.</ref> This charge was "categorically denied" by Turkey;<ref>Howe, Marvine. "", '']'', June 5, 1982.</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>"", '']'', June 16, 1982.</ref>

In the same year (1982), the ] in Washington, D.C. (ITS) was established by a $3 million grant from the Turkish Government. Israel Charny identifies ITS and some of its foremost deniers of the Armenian genocide, such as ], ], and ], as the Turkish government's principal agency in USA for promoting research on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, but also denial of the Armenian Genocide.<ref>Charny, Israel, ''Encyclopedia of genocide'', Vol. 1, Oxford, 2000, p. 178</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. Turkey responded by blocking ] visits to Turkey and suspending some US military training facilities on Turkish territory. The American scholar who assembled the US archive documents for publication went into hiding after a series of anonymous threats.<ref name=nyttsp>McKenna, Kate. "", '']'', December 3, 1989.</ref>

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 ], advising the ambassador on how to prevent mention of the Armenian Genocide in scholarly works.<ref>Honan, William H. "", '']'', May 22, 1996.</ref> In 1996, Lowry was named to a chair at ] that had been financed by the Turkish government, sparking a debate on ethics in scholarship.<ref name=Smith1995>{{Cite journal |author = Smith, Roger W.; Markusen, Eric; Lifton, Robert Jay |year = 1995 |title = Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide |journal = Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume = 9 |issue = 1 |pages = 1–22 |doi = 10.1093/hgs/9.1.1 |url = http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Professional_Ethics_and_the_Denial_of_Armenian_Genocide}}</ref><ref>"", '']'', June 2, 1996.</ref>

In 1993, ] a Turkish human rights activist published the Turkish translation of the book called ''History of the Genocide'' written by ]. The book was the first to be published in Turkey that openly acknowledged the event in 1915 as ]. Soon after its publication, he started to receive threats and eventually in 1994 the publishing firm of Ragıp Zorakolu was the target of a serious bomb attack.<ref name=meseledergi>"Ragıp Zarakolu: Hümanist Ekol, Benim Suç Ortağımdır"http://www.meseledergi.com/?p=192</ref>

During a February 2005 interview with '']'', novelist ] made statements implicating Turkey in massacres against Armenians and persecution of the Kurds, declaring: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it". Subjected to a ], he left Turkey, before returning in 2005 to defend his right to ]: "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past".<ref>{{citation | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4527318.stm | publisher = BBC | title = News — "Author's trial set to test Turkey" | date = 14 December 2005 | first=Sarah | last=Rainsford}}.</ref> However, when asked about his speech on CNN TURK television, Pamuk stated that "I did not estimate the number of killed Armenians, I did not use the word genocide, I did say Armenians were killed, but I did not say Armenians were killed by Turks".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.haberpan.com/gergin-bir-mulakatti-kiskirtildim-haberi/ |title = Gergin Bir Mülakatti, Kişkirtildim Haberi Gergin Bir Mülakatti, Kişkirtildim Izle Gergin Bir Mülakatti, Kişkirtildim Resimleri |publisher=Haberpan |language=Turkish|date=2005-10-16 | accessdate = 2010-09-04}}</ref> Lawyers of two Turkish ultranationalist professional associations led by Kemal Kerinçsiz then brought criminal charges against Pamuk.<ref>{{cite news|author=Nouritza Matossian |url=http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1426319,00.html |title = World view: Nouritza Matossiann &#124; World news &#124 | work=The Observer | date= March 1, 2005|accessdate= 2010-09-04 | location=London}}</ref> However, on January 23, 2006 the charges of "insulting Turkishness" were dropped (for formal reasons without finding it necessary to judge on the essence of the case), a move welcomed by the EU. That the charges had been brought at all was still a matter of contention for European politicians.

According to some newly discovered documents that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, more than 970,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916. These documents have been published in a recent book titled ''The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha'' (aka "Talat Pasha's Black Book") written by the Turkish journalist ]. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations. The documents were given to Mr. Bardakçı by Mr Talat's widow, Hayriye Talat Bafralı, in 1983. According to the documents, the number of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire before 1915 stood at 1,256,000. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later in 1917.<ref>Tavernise, Sabrina "". '']'', March 8, 2009.</ref>

After the meeting with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Turkey's PM announced that the Turkish Government might order the expulsion of all illegal Armenian immigrants from Turkey. The statement came after recent US House Committee and Swedish Parliament resolutions over the Armenian Genocide affirmation. He repeated the statement in a BBC interview immediately afterwards, declaring that there were 100,000 illegal Armenian citizens living in Turkey and that:

<blockquote>If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country.<ref>"". '']''. March 17, 2010.</ref><ref name="Telegraph-100,000">"". '']''. March 17, 2010.</ref></blockquote>

The answer to Erdoğan came from the Armenian Prime Minister; he said that this kind of threat reminded Armenians of the Armenian Genocide and neither did they improve relations between the two countries. The exact number of illegal Armenians in Turkey is unknown, but the estimation is only 12,000 – 13,000 <ref name="UNHCR-100,000">{{cite web|url=http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4bab90fb28.html |title= UNHCR – Turkey threatens to expel Armenian immigrants amid genocide row}}</ref> contrary to number used by the Turkish prime minister.

== Armenia and the Genocide ==
{{See also|Nagorno-Karabakh War|Sumgait pogrom}}
] has been involved in a protracted ethnic-territorial conflict with ], a ] state, since Azerbaijan became independent from the Soviet Union 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 portray the modern conflict as a continuation of the Armenian Genocide, in order to influence modern policy-making in the region.<ref name="Bloxham" /><ref name=ambrosio12>Ambrosio, Thomas. ''Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy''. 2002, p. 12.</ref>{{rp |232–3}} 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 />

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, pp. 85–6.</ref><ref>Kaufman, Stuart J. ''Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War''. New York: Cornell University Press, 2001, p. 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="Bloxham" />{{rp |232–3}}

The worldwide recognition of the Genocide is a core aspect of Armenia's foreign policy and overarching grand strategy.<ref>{{citation | publisher = Global Politician | url = http://www.globalpolitician.com/2661-armenia-turkey | title = Armenia–Turkey}}.</ref>

== Recognition of the Genocide ==
<div style="float:right; width:40%; background:#f0f0f0; padding:0.7em; margin-left:1em; font-size:0.9em;">
'''Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution, April 24, 1998'''

"''Today we commemorate the anniversary of what has been called the first genocide of the 20th century, and we salute the memory of the Armenian victims of this crime against humanity''".<ref name="24.04.1998"/>

</div>
<!-- ------------------------------------------------------------------ -->
{{Main|Recognition of the Armenian Genocide}}
<!-- Image with unknown copyright status removed: ].{{Deletable image-caption|date=January 2012}}]] -->
], ] .Cyprus was among the first countries to recognise the genocide]]

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. 20 countries and 42&nbsp;]s have adopted resolutions acknowledging the Armenian Genocide as a ''bona fide'' historical event. On March 4, 2010, a US congressional panel narrowly voted that the incident was indeed genocide; within minutes the Turkish government issued a statement critical of "this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed". The ] (AAA) and the single largest organisation with the AAA the ] (ANCA) have as their main lobbying agenda to press Congress and the President of the United States for an increase of economic aid for Armenia (already the second largest per capita after Israel) and the reduction economic and military assistance for Turkey. The efforts also include reaffirmation of a genocide by Ottoman Turkey in 1915.<ref>Cameron, Fraser ''United States foreign policy after the Cold War'' The Armenain-American´lobby, Routledge 2002 pp.91</ref>

Despite his previous public recognition and support of Genocide bills, as well as the election campaign promises to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide,<ref>{{cite news |title=Barack Obama on the Importance of US-Armenia Relations|url= http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/19/barack_obama_on_the_importance.php|accessdate=2010-04-26| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20100424170850/http://www.barackobama.com/2008/01/19/barack_obama_on_the_importance.php| archivedate= 24 April 2010 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> the U.S. President, Barack Obama, although repeating that his views on the issue have not changed, has thus far abstained from using the term 'genocide'.<ref>{{cite news|title=Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 511|url=http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/511/recognize-armenian-genocide|accessdate=2010-04-26| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20100506080622/http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/511/recognize-armenian-genocide| archivedate= 6 May 2010 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref> On April 24 commemoration speeches President Obama has yet referred to the Armenian Genocide only by the Armenian synonym Metz Eghern ("Mec Eġeṙn").

== Cultural loss ==
The premeditated destruction of objects of Armenian cultural, religious, historical and communal heritage was yet another key purpose of both the genocide itself and the post-genocidal campaign of denial. Armenian churches and monasteries were destroyed or changed into mosques, Armenian cemeteries flattened, and, in several cities (e.g. Van), Armenian quarters were demolished.<ref>Bevan, Robert. The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. Reaktion Books, 2007, pp. 52–60.</ref>

Aside from the deaths, Armenians lost their wealth and property without compensation.<ref name="Century of Genocide">{{cite book | last1 = Totten | first1 = Samuel | last2 = Parsons | first2 = William S. | title = A Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts | publisher = Routledge |year= 2009 | location = New York | page = 58 | isbn=0-203-89043-4}}</ref> Businesses and farms were lost, and all schools, churches, hospitals, orphanages, monasteries, and graveyards became Turkish state property.<ref name="Century of Genocide"/> In January 1916, the Ottoman Minister of Commerce and Agriculture issued a decree ordering all financial institutions operating within the empire's borders to turn over Armenian assets to the government.<ref name="Business Wire">{{cite news | title = Armenian Genocide Descendants File Class Action against Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank Announces Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP | publisher = Business Wire | date = May 6, 2010 | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_Jan_13/ai_n26726211/ | accessdate = May 24, 2010}}</ref> It is recorded that as much as 6 million Turkish gold pounds were seized along with real property, cash, bank deposits, and jewelry.<ref name="Business Wire"/> The assets were then funneled to European banks, including ] and ] banks.<ref name="Business Wire"/>

After the end of World War I, Genocide survivors tried to return and reclaim their former homes and assets, but were driven out by the ].<ref name="Century of Genocide"/>

In 1914, the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople presented a list of the Armenian holy sites under his supervision. The list contained 2,549 religious places of which 200 were monasteries while 1,600 were churches. In 1974 UNESCO stated that after 1923, out of 913 Armenian historical monuments left in Eastern Turkey, 464 have vanished completely, 252 are in ruins, and 197 are in need of repair (in stable conditions).<ref> in The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.</ref><ref>.</ref>

== Armenian Genocide reparations ==
{{Main|Armenian Genocide reparations}}

===The grounds of the International Law===
The United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law provide in part, that reparation may be claimed individually and where appropriate collectively, by the direct victims of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the immediate family, dependants or other persons or groups of persons closely connected with the direct victims.<ref name="UNHCR">"". United Nations Commission on Human Rights.</ref>
According to Henry Theriault, while current members of Turkish society cannot be blamed morally for the destruction of Armenians, present-day ], as ] to the Ottoman Empire and as beneficiary of the wealth and land expropriations brought forth through the genocide, is responsible for reparations.<ref name="Theriault">{{cite web | last = Theriault | first = Henry | title = The Global Reparations Movement and Meaningful Resolution of the Armenian Genocide | publisher = Armenian Weekly | date = May 6, 2010 | url = http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/05/06/reparations-2/ | accessdate = May 11, 2010| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20100510063921/http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/05/06/reparations-2/| archivedate= 10 May 2010 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref>

Particularly important are Principles 9 and 12 that state, that civil claims relating to reparations for gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law shall not be subject to statutes of limitations (article 9), and that restitution shall be provided to re-establish the situation that existed prior to the violations of human rights or international humanitarian law. The restitution requires, ''inter alia'' – return to one's place of residence and restoration of property.<ref name="UNHCR"/><ref>Commission on Human Rights, fifty-third session, Doc. E/CN.4/1997/104. Compare with the first report by Professor Theo van Boven C/CH.4/Sub.2/1993/8 of 2 July 1993, section IX, and the second report C/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/7 of 24 May 1996</ref>

Professor of International Law of ] (J.D. – Harvard, Dr.phil. – Göttingen), former Secretary of the ] and former Chief of Petitions at the Office of the ], Dr. Alfred de Zayas stated, that because of the continuing character of the crime of genocide in factual and legal terms, the remedy of restitution has not been foreclosed. Thus the survivors of the genocide against the Armenians, both individually and collectively, have standing to advance a claim for restitution. Whenever possible complete restitution or restoration to the previous condition should be granted. But where is not possible, relevant compensation may be substituted as a remedy.
<ref name="Alfred de Zayas">{{cite web | last = De Zayas | first = Alfred | authorlink = Alfred-Maurice de Zayas | title = The Genocide against the Armenians 1915–1923 and the relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention | publisher = Alfred de Zayas | date = December 2007 | url = http://alfreddezayas.com/Law_history/armlegopi.shtml | accessdate = May 11, 2010| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20100504223305/http://www.alfreddezayas.com/Law_history/armlegopi.shtml| archivedate= 4 May 2010 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref>

In an article published in ], Vahagn Avedian, rather leaving the limitations of the UN Genocide Convention, emphasizes the applicability of the then and now prevailing international laws, e.g. the ], more specifically the ], pertaining to the protection of civilian population, but also existing international laws on unlawful confiscation etc. Thus, the actions of the Turkish governments (the Ottoman, the insurgent nationalist movement as well as the succeeding republic), should be viewed from the perspective of Internationally Wrongful Acts. Avedian argues that: {{quote | the Republic not only failed to stop doing the wrongful acts of its predecessor, but it also continued the very internationally wrongful acts committed by the Young Turk government. Thus, the insurgent National Movement, which later became the Republic, made itself responsible for not only its own wrongful acts but also those of its predecessor, including the act of genocide committed in 1915–1916.<ref>{{cite journal | journal = European Journal of International Law | first=Vahagn | last=Avedian | format = ] | url =http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/3/797.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=4FZRuLROIocgqw8 |title = State Identity, Continuity, and Responsibility: The Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide | year = 2012 | volume = 23 | issue=3 | pages = 797–820}}</ref>}}

===Sèvres Treaty===
Although there are different opinions on the legitimacy of the Treaty of Sèvres and its relativity to reparation claims, there are specialists who {{who|date=November 2012}} claim that some of its elements retain the force of law. In particular, the fixing of the proper borders of an Armenian state was undertaken pursuant to the treaty and determined by a '''binding arbitral award''', regardless of whether the treaty was ultimately ratified. ''The committee process determining the arbitral award was agreed to by the parties'' and, according to international law, the resulting determination has legal force regardless of the ultimate fate of the treaty.<ref name="Theriault"/>

===Lawsuits===
In July 2004, after ] Legislature passed the ], descendants of Armenian Genocide victims settled a case for about 2,400 ] policies from ] written on Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire.<ref name="Reparations">{{cite book | last = Brophy | first = Alfred L. | title = Reparations: Pro & Con | publisher = Oxford University Press |year= 2006 | location = New York | pages = 119–120 | isbn=0-19-530408-X}}</ref> Around 1918, the Turkish government attempted to recover for the people it had killed with the argument that there are no identifiable heirs to the policy holders. The settlement provided $20 million, of which $11 million was for heirs of the Genocide victims.<ref name="Reparations"/>

== Commemoration ==

=== Memorials ===
{{See also|List of Armenian Genocide memorials}}

Over 135 memorials, spread across 25 countries, commemorate the Armenian Genocide.<ref>, Armenian National Institute.</ref>

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&nbsp;lost provinces in present day Turkey. At the center of the circle there is an ]. Each April 24, hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers around the eternal flame.

Another memorial, in ], France, near Paris, was bombed on May 3, 1984, by a hit-team headed by ] member ] and paid by the ].<ref name=Zaman_Ergenekon>, '']'', 19 August 2008. {{en icon}}</ref>{{dead link|date=January 2013}}

=== Representation in popular culture ===
{{main|Armenian Genocide in culture}}
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 | volume = IV: Armenian Theme in Russian Medallic Art |publisher = Hayastan | year= 1975 |location = Yerevan |page = 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 ] by the Nazis.<ref>{{citation | language = German | place = DE | url = http://www.aktion-patenschaften.de/autoren/w02.htm | publisher = Aktion Patenschaften für verbrannte Bücher | title = Autorenseite Wegners}}.</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 name = "Auron" />{{rp |302–4}}

]'s 1988 novel '']'' features the Armenian Genocide as an underlying theme. Other novels incorporating the Armenian Genocide include ]' ''Birds without Wings'', ]'s German-language '']'', 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 titled '']''. It resonated with acclaimed director ], influencing his 2002 '']''. There are also references in ]'s '']'' and ]'s '']''. At the ] of 2007 Italian directors ] presented another film about the events, based on Antonia Arslan's book, '']'' (''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.

]'s ''The Artist and His Mother'' (ca. 1926–36)]]
The paintings of Armenian-American ], a seminal figure of ], are considered to have been informed by the suffering and loss of the period.<ref>{{citation | publisher = Find Articles | url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n2_v84/ai_18004719 | title = Arshile Gorky and the Armenian genocide}}.</ref> In 1915, at age 10, Gorky fled his native ] and escaped to Russian-Armenia with his mother and three sisters, only to have his mother die of starvation in Yerevan in 1919. His two ''The Artist and His Mother'' paintings are based on a photograph with his mother taken in Van.

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| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20070928093603/http://www.azad-hye.net/article/article_view.asp?rec=84| archivedate= 28 September 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</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| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20071009170919/http://www.evangelicalnews.org/indiv_pr.php?action=display&pr_id=3554| archivedate= 9 October 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref>

The American band ], composed of four descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors, has promoted awareness of the Armenian Genocide through its lyrics, including ] and in 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, Assyrian and Greek 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 | first = Diamanda | last = Galás | publisher = The San Francisco Chronicle | accessdate = 2007-10-05| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20071011191127/http://diamandagalas.com/defixiones/| archivedate= 11 October 2007 <!--DASHBot-->| deadurl= no}}</ref>

{{clear}}

==Images from the genocide==
<gallery caption="Armenian Refugees" widths="200px" align=center>
File:Dead Armenian girl in Aleppo desert.jpg|An Armenian woman kneeling beside dead child in field "within sight of help and safety at Aleppo".
File:Genoarmenia.png|Armenian genocide survivors discovered in Salt and sent to Jerusalem in April 1918.
File:Armenian refugee women and child getting food relief.png|Food relief
File:Near East relief armenian woman with baby in syria3.png|Woman with baby
File:Armenians 1915 escaping from a railroad train.png|Transport of Armenians
File:Near East Relief Armenian orphans waiting to transport to Greece.png|Transport to Greece
File:Near East relief armenians bound for Greece .png|Transport to Greece
File:Refugearmenian.PNG|
File:Armenian refugees at Van crowding around a public oven during 1915.png|In Van
File:Near east relief bivouacking tents in Aleppo.png|Tents in Aleppo
File:017.jpg|Aleppo, Syria.
File:Armenian refugee 1WW.png|Syria
File:Near east relief the armenian refugees in syria-2.png|Near East relief a common sight among the Armenian refugees in Syria
File:Armenian refugee camp in beyrouth.png|Beirut
File:Armenian refugee camp port said.png|Port Said, Egypt.
File:Near east relief the armenian refugees in Bitlis-1916 lace.png|Bitlis
File:World War I- Near East Relief Workers - memory.loc.gov.png|Sivas
File:Greek and Armenian refugee children near Athens, 1923.jpg|Armenian refugee children near Athens, 1923, after the ]
File:Harputroads.jpg|Near East Relief 5,000 children from Karput en route on donkey back and foot
</gallery>

== See also ==
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
{{cols|2}}
===Historical overviews===
<div class="references-small">
* ]. ''A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility''. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007.
*___________. ''The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
* ]. ''The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response''. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
* Bloxham, Donald. ''The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
* ] ''The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus''. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995.
* ________________. ''Warrant for Genocide: Key Elements of Turko-Armenian Conflict''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2003.
* Kevorkian, Raymond. ''The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History''. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.
</div>

===Specific issues and comparative studies===
* Bobelian, Michael. '' Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.
* Dadrian, Vahakn N. "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal Ramifications", '']'', Volume 14, Number 2, 1989.
* _________________. ''Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide''. Toronto: Zoryan Institute, 1999.
* _________________. "Patterns of Twentieth Century Genocides: the Armenian, Jewish, and Rwandan Cases". ''Journal of Genocide Research'', 2004, 6 (4), pp.&nbsp;487–522.
* Güçlü, Yücel, "The Holocaust and the Armenian Case in Comparative Perspective", University Press of America, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, 2012. (ISBN: 978-0-7618-5782-2 / eISBN: 978-0-7618-5783-9)
* ] (ed.) ''The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
* ___________________. ''Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide''. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998.
* ___________________. ''The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2007.
* Hovannisian, Richard G. and Simon Payalsian (eds). ''Armenian Cilicia''. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2008.
* ], ''Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
* ] ''"]": America and the Age of Genocide''. New York: Harper Perennial 2003.
* {{Cite journal | doi = 10.1093/hgs/4.4.449 | last1 = Sanasarian | first1 = Eliz | year = 1989 | title = Gender Distinction in the Genocide Process: A Preliminary Study of the Armenian Case | url = | journal = Holocaust and Genocide Studies | volume = 4 | issue = 4| pages = 449–61 | pmid = 20684116 }}

===Survivors' testimonies and memory===
* Balakian, Grigoris. ''Armenian Golgotha''. Translated by Peter Balakian with Aris Sevag. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
* Bedoukian, Kerop. ''Some of Us Survived: The Story of an Armenian Boy''. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978.
* Hartunian, Abraham H. ''Neither to Laugh nor to Weep: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide''. Translated by Vartan Hartunian. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Armenian Heritage Press, 1986.
* Jacobsen, Maria. ''Diaries of a Danish missionary: Harpoot, 1907–1919''. Princeton: Gomidas Institute, 2001.
* Lang, David Marshall. ''The Armenians: A People in Exile''. London: Allen & Unwin, 1981.
* Miller, Donald E. and Lorna Touryan Miller. ''Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
* Odian, Yervant. ''Accursed Years: My Exile and Return from Der Zor, 1914–1919''. Translated by Ara Stepan Melkonyan. London: Taderon Press, 2009.
* Peroomian, Rubina. ''Literary Responses to Catastrophe: A Comparison of the Armenian and the Jewish Experience''. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993.
* Svazlyan, Verzhine. ''The Armenian Genocide and Historical Memory''. Translated by Tigran Tsulikian. Yerevan: Gitutiun Publishing House, 2004.

===Former Armenian communities===
* Hovannisian, Richard G. ''Armenian Van/Vaspurakan''. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2000.
* ___________________. ''Armenian Baghesh/Bitlis and Taron/Mush''. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2001.
* ___________________. ''Armenian Karin/Erzerum''. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2003.
* ___________________. ''Armenian Sebastia/Sivas and Lesser Armenia''. Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, 2004.

===World responses and foreign testimony===
* Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. "'Down in Turkey, far away': Human Rights, the Armenian Massacres, and Orientalism in Wilhelmine Germany", ''Journal of Modern History Volume'', 79, Number 1, March 2007, pp.&nbsp;80–111.
* Barton, James L. ''Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917''. Ann Arbor: Gomidas Institute, 1997.
* Bryce, James and ]. ''The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915–1916: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden, Uncensored ed''. Edited and with an introduction by Ara Sarafian. Princeton: Gomidas Institute, 2000.
* Dadrian, Vahakn N. ''Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in Turkish Sources''. Jerusalem: Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, 1991.
* Davis, Leslie A. ''The Slaughterhouse Province: An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917''. ew Rochelle, N.Y.: A.D. Caratzas, 1989.
* Hovannisian, Richard G. "The Allies and Armenia, 1915–18". ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 1968 3(1): 145–168. Issn: 0022-0094 Fulltext:
* Libaridian, Gerard. "The Ideology of the Young Turk Movement", pp.&nbsp;37–49. In Gerard Libaridian (Ed.) ''A Crime of Silence, The Armenian Genocide: Permanent Peoples' Tribunal.'' London: Zed Books, 1985.
*Morgenthau, Henry. (1918) ''Ambassador Morgenthau's Story''
* Nassibian, Akaby. ''Britain and the Armenian Question: 1915–1923''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984.
* Peterson, Merrill D. ''"Starving Armenians": America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1930 and After''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004.
* ] ''"]": America and the Age of Genocide''. Harper, 2003
* Severance, Gordon and Diana Severance. ''Against the Gates of Hell: The Life & Times of Henry Perry, a Christian Missionary in a Moslem World'' (2003)
* ''United States Official Documents on the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1917'', compiled by Ara Safarian. Princeton, N.J.: Gomidas Institute, 2004.
* Winter, Jay, ed. ''America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915'' (2004), 325pp

===Memory and historiography===
* Auron, Yair. ''The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide'' (2005)
* Bevan, Robert. "Cultural Cleansing: Who Remembers the Armenians?" in ''The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War'' (2006) pp 25–60
* Dyer, Gwynne. "Turkish ‘Falsifiers’ and Armenian ‘Deceivers’: Historiography and the Armenian Massacres", ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 12 (January 1976), pp.&nbsp;99–107.
* Gunter, Michael M. ''Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People: A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism'' (1986)
* Hovannisian, Richard G., ed. ''Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide.'' (1999). 316 pp.
* Melson, Robert. "A Theoretical Inquiry into the Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896", ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' (1982), 24: 481–509 DOI:10.1017/S0010417500010100
* Melson, Robert. "Revolutionary Genocide: On the causes of the Armenian genocide of 1915 and the Holocaust", ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' v.4#2 (1989) pp 161–74
* Peroomian, Rubina. ''Literary Responses to Catastrophe: A Comparison of the Armenian and the Jewish Experience'' (1993).

===Denialist literature===
*Güçlü, Yücel. ''Armenians and the Allies in Cicilia, 1914–1923''. University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 2010. ISBN 978-0-87480-956-5.
*___________. ''The Holocaust and the Armenian Case in Comparative Perspective''. , Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: University Press of America, 2012. ISBN 0-7618-5782-2.
*McCarthy, Justin A. ''The Armenian Rebellion at Van.'' University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 2006. ISBN 978-0-87480-870-4.
* McCarthy, Justin A. ''Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922''. Darwin Press, Incorporated, 1996. ISBN 0-87850-094-4.
*Özdemir, Hikmet. ''The Ottoman Army, 1914–1918: Disease and Death on the Battlefield.'' University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 2008. ISBN 978-0-87480-923-7.
*Lewy, Guenter. ''The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide''. University of Utah Press, 2005. ISBN 0-87480-849-9.

== External links ==
{{Sister project links|Armenian Genocide}}
{{Wikisource|Remarks on the Observance of the 93rd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide}}
* based in Yerevan, Armenia
* (dedicated to the study, research, and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide) based in Washington, D.C.
*
*, has videos of interviews with survivors
*
*
*
*]]
*{{Worldcat subject|lccn-n98-68823|Hayotsʻ Tsʻeghaspanutʻyan Tʻangaran-Institut}}
* collected news and coverage at '']''


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Latest revision as of 12:33, 20 January 2025

1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire

Armenian genocide
Part of World War I
alt=see caption ⚫Column of Armenian deportees guarded by gendarmes in Harput vilayet
LocationOttoman Empire
Date1915–1917
TargetOttoman Armenians
Attack typeGenocide, death march, Islamization
Deaths600,000–1.5 million
PerpetratorsCommittee 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 2025, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus.

Background

Further information: Causes of the Armenian genocide

Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

Main article: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
The Six Vilayets: Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Erzerum, Harput, Sivas and Van. Most villages populated by Armenians were in these provinces.

The 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

Column of people and domestic animals carrying bundles
"Looting of an Armenian village by the Kurds", 1898 or 1899

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 Revolution

Abdul 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.

Destroyed cityscape with ruined buildings and rubble in the street
The Armenian quarter of Adana after the 1909 massacres

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 Wars
see caption
Muslim bandits parading with loot in Phocaea (modern-day Foça, Turkey) on 13 June 1914. In the background are Greek refugees and burning buildings.

The 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

see caption
"Revenge" (Ottoman Turkish: انتقام) map highlighting territory lost during and after the Balkan Wars in black

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 radicalization
Men with guns crouching in a trench and leaning against a defensive wall
Armenian defenders in Van, 1916
Two armed men standing by a ruined wall, surrounded by skulls and other human remains
Russian soldiers pictured in the former Armenian village of Sheykhalan near Mush, 1915

Minister 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 Empire

Aims

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.

Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt, 4 May 1916

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 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

Administrative organization

Large group of people gathered in a town square, holding some possessions
Armenians gathered in a city prior to deportation. They were murdered outside the city.

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

Color photograph of a lake with gorges leading into it
On 24 September 1915, United States consul Leslie Davis visited Lake Hazar and found nearby gorges choked with corpses and hundreds of bodies floating in the lake.

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.

Photograph of the bodies of dozens of Armenians in a field
The corpses of Armenians beside a road, a common sight along deportation routes

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

Several women dressed in Arab clothing and posed in front of a wall
Islamized Armenians who were "rescued from Arabs" after the war

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)
Black and white photograph of a manor house
Çankaya Mansion, the official residence of the president of Turkey, was confiscated from Ohannes Kasabian, an Armenian businessman, in 1915.

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 camps
see caption
An Armenian woman kneeling beside a dead child in a field outside Aleppo
Thin stream of water surrounded by greenery and banks, above which is desert
Khabur near Ras al-Ayn

The 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

Modestly dressed woman carrying a child and surrounded by foodstuffs provided by relief efforts. The caption says "Lest they perish".
Fundraising poster for Near East Relief

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

Eastern Anatolia is all close to black, but western Anatolia is more varied.
Percent of prewar Armenian population unaccounted for in 1917 based on Talaat Pasha's record. Black indicates that 100 percent of Armenians have disappeared. Resettlement zone is displayed in red.

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 Tribunal

Following 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 crimes
Caravan of people traveling in a line
Children evacuated from Harput by Near East Relief in 1922 or 1923
Crowded tent camp stretching out a long distance
Refugee camp in Beirut, early 1920s

The 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 denial

In 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

Spiky monument perched on a hill above a large city
Aerial view of the Armenian Genocide memorial complex on a hill above Yerevan

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 recognition
see Commons description for full list of countries depicted
  National legislatures that have passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide   States that explicitly deny the Armenian genocide

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. 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 culture

After 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 historiography

The 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

  1. Also known by other names.
  2. ^ 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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Sources

Main article: Bibliography of the Armenian genocide

Books

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.

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