The Kingdom of Armeniaadopted Christianity as its national religion in the C4th, loyal to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Armenian Christians were just one of many ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. But in the late 1880s, some political organisations seeking greater autonomy for Armenians, reinforcing Ottoman doubts about the loyalty of the wider Armenian community inside its borders. By 1914, c2 mill Armenians lived in Anatolia, in a total population of 16 mill.
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The Armenian minority in Ottoman Turkey had been subject to episodic torment over the centuries. In 1894-96, these were stepped up with more violent persecutions. The massacres began in the SE and E provinces of Anatolia and the Caucasus as early as Aug 1914, several months before the Ottomans entered WW1, on the side of the Central Powers. But the worst of the Armenian catastrophe in the Ottoman Empire started in early 1915 when Ottoman authorities, supported by auxiliary troops and some civilians, perpetrated mass killing. The Ottoman government, controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress-CUP/aka Young Turks, aimed to solidify Muslim Turkish dominance in the central and eastern regions of Anatolia, by eliminating the sizeable Armenian presence.
From 1915, inspired by rabid nationalism, secret government orders and WW1 fever, the Young Turk government drove Armenians from their homes and massacred them in greater numbers. The Young Turk Regime rounded up thousands of Armenians and hanged many in the streets of Istanbul. Then they began a genocidal deportation of most of the Armenian population to the southern desert. This meant they were murdered en route to the desert or died when they reached there. Although figures on the death toll were uncertain, historians believed 800,000-1 million people were killed, often in unspeakably cruel ways. Unknown numbers of others survived by converting to Islam, lost to Armenian culture.
Called the First C20th Genocide, the Armenian genocide referred to the annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from 1915-16. There were c1.5 million Armenians living in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. c1 million died in the genocide, either in massacres, from ill treatment, exposure or starvation.
Mass atrocities were often perpetrated within the context of war, so the timing of the Armenians genocide was inevitably linked to WW1. Fearing that invading enemy troops would induce Armenians to join them, the Ottoman government began the deportation of the Armenian population from its N.E border regions in 1915. In the following months, the Ottomans expanded deportations from almost all provinces, regardless of distance from combat zones.
Victims of the Armenian genocide included people killed in local massacres that began in 1915; others who died in deportations, from starvation, dehydration, exposure and disease; and Armenians who died in the desert regions of the southern Empire [today: Nth and E Syria, Nth Saudi Arabia and Iraq]. Plus tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam.
Were there any locally written reports and photos? In 1917 John Elder, a divinity student from Pennsylvania, joined the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief Team that was aiding refugees. For 2 years, Elder did volunteer work with Armenian orphans when he photographed refugees and conditions at camps. Armin Wegner served as a nurse with the German Sanitary Corps. In 1915 and 1916, Wegner travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire and documented atrocities carried out against the Armenians, including children lying dead in the street.
And some influential foreigners spoke out against these atrocities eg British Prof of International History Arnold Toynbee. But how is it that other Christian countries didn’t intervene? Or at least take those Armenians who survived as refugees? US Ambassador to Constantinople Henry Morgenthau Sr (1856-1946) was deeply troubled by the atrocities committed against the Armenians and was one who sought to stir the U.S’s conscience in response. The plight of the Armenians triggered a generous public response, involving President Woodrow Wilson and thousands of ordinary American citizens who volunteered both at home and abroad, and raised $110+ million to assist Armenian orphans.
This genocide almost ended 2,000+ years of Armenian civilisation in eastern Anatolia. The First Republic of Armenia (1918–20) was the first modern establishment of an Armenian nation. And it enabled an ethno-nationalist Turkish state, Republic of Turkey in 1923, as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire. Note that the Turkish government always maintained that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action, and therefore was never genocide.
The word genocide wasn’t formally coined until 1944, although the origin of the term and its codification in international law had their roots in the 1915–16 Armenian massacre. Lawyer Raphael Lemkin, himself a Polish Jewish refugee, was the man behind the first UN human rights treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He repeatedly stated that early exposure to the Ottoman Armenian genocide in newspaper was key to the need for legal protection of groups, the core element in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. In any case, it has only been since the 1970s that scholars have offered close attention to this human catastrophe. ![]()
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armenie-historique
The Armenian minority in Ottoman Turkey had been subject to episodic torment over the centuries. In 1894-96, these were stepped up with more violent persecutions. The massacres began in the SE and E provinces of Anatolia and the Caucasus as early as Aug 1914, several months before the Ottomans entered WW1, on the side of the Central Powers. But the worst of the Armenian catastrophe in the Ottoman Empire started in early 1915 when Ottoman authorities, supported by auxiliary troops and some civilians, perpetrated mass killing. The Ottoman government, controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress-CUP/aka Young Turks, aimed to solidify Muslim Turkish dominance in the central and eastern regions of Anatolia, by eliminating the sizeable Armenian presence.
From 1915, inspired by rabid nationalism, secret government orders and WW1 fever, the Young Turk government drove Armenians from their homes and massacred them in greater numbers. The Young Turk Regime rounded up thousands of Armenians and hanged many in the streets of Istanbul. Then they began a genocidal deportation of most of the Armenian population to the southern desert. This meant they were murdered en route to the desert or died when they reached there. Although figures on the death toll were uncertain, historians believed 800,000-1 million people were killed, often in unspeakably cruel ways. Unknown numbers of others survived by converting to Islam, lost to Armenian culture.
Called the First C20th Genocide, the Armenian genocide referred to the annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from 1915-16. There were c1.5 million Armenians living in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. c1 million died in the genocide, either in massacres, from ill treatment, exposure or starvation.
Mass atrocities were often perpetrated within the context of war, so the timing of the Armenians genocide was inevitably linked to WW1. Fearing that invading enemy troops would induce Armenians to join them, the Ottoman government began the deportation of the Armenian population from its N.E border regions in 1915. In the following months, the Ottomans expanded deportations from almost all provinces, regardless of distance from combat zones.
Victims of the Armenian genocide included people killed in local massacres that began in 1915; others who died in deportations, from starvation, dehydration, exposure and disease; and Armenians who died in the desert regions of the southern Empire [today: Nth and E Syria, Nth Saudi Arabia and Iraq]. Plus tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam.
Were there any locally written reports and photos? In 1917 John Elder, a divinity student from Pennsylvania, joined the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief Team that was aiding refugees. For 2 years, Elder did volunteer work with Armenian orphans when he photographed refugees and conditions at camps. Armin Wegner served as a nurse with the German Sanitary Corps. In 1915 and 1916, Wegner travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire and documented atrocities carried out against the Armenians, including children lying dead in the street.
And some influential foreigners spoke out against these atrocities eg British Prof of International History Arnold Toynbee. But how is it that other Christian countries didn’t intervene? Or at least take those Armenians who survived as refugees? US Ambassador to Constantinople Henry Morgenthau Sr (1856-1946) was deeply troubled by the atrocities committed against the Armenians and was one who sought to stir the U.S’s conscience in response. The plight of the Armenians triggered a generous public response, involving President Woodrow Wilson and thousands of ordinary American citizens who volunteered both at home and abroad, and raised $110+ million to assist Armenian orphans.
This genocide almost ended 2,000+ years of Armenian civilisation in eastern Anatolia. The First Republic of Armenia (1918–20) was the first modern establishment of an Armenian nation. And it enabled an ethno-nationalist Turkish state, Republic of Turkey in 1923, as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire. Note that the Turkish government always maintained that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action, and therefore was never genocide.
The word genocide wasn’t formally coined until 1944, although the origin of the term and its codification in international law had their roots in the 1915–16 Armenian massacre. Lawyer Raphael Lemkin, himself a Polish Jewish refugee, was the man behind the first UN human rights treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He repeatedly stated that early exposure to the Ottoman Armenian genocide in newspaper was key to the need for legal protection of groups, the core element in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. In any case, it has only been since the 1970s that scholars have offered close attention to this human catastrophe.
Refugee camp
Bodies in a field, a common in Armenian provinces in 1915 .
Britannica
Ottoman military forces march Armenians to an execution site
Holocaust Encyclopaedia
Armenian-Syrian refugees Red Cross camp,
Jerusalem, 1917-19
Wall St Journal
The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Most Armenians today are Christians (97%) and are members of the Armenian Apostolic Church.