Turkish Armenian War of 1915. Armenian Genocide. Causes and effects. Geopolitical and Legal Aspects of the Armenian Genocide
Turkish genocide Armenians of 1915, organized on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, became one of the most terrible events of that era. Members of the ethnic minority were deported, during which hundreds of thousands or even millions of people died (depending on estimates).
This campaign to exterminate Armenians is today recognized as genocide by most countries of the entire world community. Turkey itself does not agree with this wording.
Prerequisites
The massacres and deportations in the Ottoman Empire had different backgrounds and reasons. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 was due to the unequal position of the Armenians themselves and the ethnic Turkish majority of the country. The population was discredited not only by nationality, but also by religion. The Armenians were Christians and had their own independent church. The Turks were Sunnis.
The non-Muslim population had the status of a dhimmi. People who fell under this definition were not allowed to carry weapons and to appear in court as witnesses. They had to pay high taxes. Armenians for the most part lived in poverty. They were mainly engaged agriculture in their native lands. However, among the Turkish majority, the stereotype of a successful and cunning Armenian businessman was widespread, etc. Such labels only aggravated the hatred of the townsfolk towards this ethnic minority. These complex relationships can be compared to the widespread anti-Semitism in many countries of that time.
In the Caucasian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the situation worsened also due to the fact that these lands, after the wars with Russia, were filled with Muslim refugees, who, due to their everyday disorder, constantly came into conflict with local Armenians. One way or another, but the Turkish society was in an excited state. It was ready to accept the forthcoming Armenian genocide (1915). The reasons for this tragedy were a deep split and hostility between the two peoples. All that was needed was a spark that would ignite a huge fire.
Organization of the deportation of Armenians
The disarmament of the Armenians made it possible to conduct a systematic campaign against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, which consisted in the general expulsion of Armenians into the desert, where they were doomed to death from bands of marauders or from hunger and thirst. The deportations were subjected to Armenians from almost all the main centers of the empire, and not only from the border regions affected by hostilities.
At first, the authorities gathered healthy men, declaring that the government, benevolent towards them, based on military necessity, was preparing the resettlement of Armenians in new homes. The collected men were imprisoned, and then taken out of the city to deserted places and destroyed using firearms and cold weapons. Then the old men, women and children gathered and were also informed that they were to be resettled. They were driven in columns under the escort of gendarmes. Those who could not keep going were killed; exceptions were not made even for pregnant women. The gendarmes chose as long routes as possible or forced people to walk back along the same route until the last person died of thirst or hunger.
The first phase of the deportation began with the deportation of the Armenians Zeytun and Dörtöl in early April 1915. On April 24, the Armenian elite of Istanbul was arrested and deported, and the Armenian population of Alexandretta and Adana were also deported. On May 9, the government of the Ottoman Empire decided to expel the Armenians of eastern Anatolia from their densely populated areas. Due to fears that the deported Armenians might cooperate with the Russian army, the deportation was to be carried out to the south, but in the chaos of the war, this order was not carried out. After the Van uprising, the fourth phase of deportations began, according to which all Armenians living in the border regions and Cilicia were to be deported.
On May 26, 1915, Talaat introduced the "Deportation Law", dedicated to the fight against those who opposed the government in peacetime. The law was approved by the Majlis on May 30, 1915. Although the Armenians were not mentioned there, it was clear that the law was written about them. On June 21, 1915, during the final act of deportation, Talaat ordered the deportation of "all Armenians without exception" who lived in ten provinces of the eastern region of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of those who were deemed useful to the state.
The deportation was carried out according to three principles: 1) the “principle of ten percent”, according to which Armenians should not exceed 10% of the Muslims in the region, 2) the number of houses of the deportees should not exceed fifty, 3) the deportees were forbidden to change their destinations. Armenians were forbidden to open their own schools, Armenian villages had to be at least five hours away from each other. Despite the demand to deport all Armenians without exception, a significant part of the Armenian population of Istanbul and Edirne was not expelled for fear that foreign citizens would witness this process.
The Armenian population of Izmir was saved by the governor Rahmi Bey, who believed that the expulsion of Armenians would deal a mortal blow to trade in the city. On July 5, the boundaries of the deportation were once again expanded to include the western provinces (Ankara, Eskisehir, etc.), Kirkuk, Mosul, the Euphrates Valley, etc. actually meant the elimination of the problem of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
First deportations
In mid-March 1915, British-French forces attacked the Dardanelles. Preparations have begun in Istanbul for the transfer of the capital to Eskisehir and the evacuation of the local population. Fearing that the Armenians would join the allies, the government of the Ottoman Empire intended to carry out the deportation of the entire Armenian population between Istanbul and Eskisehir. At the same time, several meetings of the Ittihat Central Committee were held, at which the head of the "Special Organization" Behaeddin Shakir presented evidence of the activities of Armenian groups in eastern Anatolia. Shakir, who argued that the "internal enemy" is no less dangerous than the "external enemy", was given expanded powers.
In late March - early April, the "Special Organization" tried to organize the massacre of Armenians in Erzurum and sent the most radical Ittihat emissaries to the provinces for anti-Armenian agitation, including Reshid Bey (tur. Reşit Bey), who used extremely cruel methods, including arrests and torture , searched for weapons in Diyarbakir, and then became one of the most fanatical killers of Armenians. Taner Akcam expressed the version that the decision on the general deportation of Armenians was made in March, but the fact that the deportation from Istanbul was never carried out may mean that at that time the fate of the Armenians still depended on the further course of the war.
Despite the assertions of the Young Turks that the deportations were a response to the disloyalty of the Armenians on the Eastern Front, the first deportations of Armenians were carried out under the leadership of Jemal not in the regions adjacent to the Eastern Front, but from the center of Anatolia to Syria. After the defeat in the Egyptian campaign, he assessed the Armenian population of Zeytun and Dyortyol as potentially dangerous and decided to change the ethnic composition of the territory under his control in case of a possible advance of the allied powers, proposing for the first time the deportation of Armenians.
The deportation of Armenians began on April 8 from the city of Zeytun, whose population enjoyed partial independence for centuries and was in confrontation with the Turkish authorities. As a basis, information was cited about an allegedly existing secret agreement between the Armenians of Zeytun and the Russian military headquarters, but the Armenians of Zeytun did not take any hostile actions.
Three thousand Turkish soldiers were brought into the city. Some of the young men of Zeytun, including several deserters who attacked the Turkish soldiers, fled to the Armenian monastery and organized a defense there, killing, according to Armenian sources, 300 soldiers (Turkish indicate a major and eight soldiers) before the monastery was captured. According to the Armenian side, the attack on the soldiers was revenge for the obscene behavior of these soldiers in the Armenian villages. The majority of the Armenian population of Zeytun did not support the rebels, the leaders of the Armenian community urged the rebels to surrender and allowed the government troops to deal with them. However, only a small number of Ottoman officials were ready to recognize the loyalty of the Armenians, most were convinced that the Armenians of Zeytun were collaborating with the enemy.
Minister of the Interior Talaat expressed gratitude for the help of the Armenian population in the capture of deserters to the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, but in later reports he portrayed these events as part of an Armenian uprising in common with foreign powers - a point of view supported by Turkish historiography. Despite the fact that the main Armenian population did not support the resistance of the Ottoman army, they were nonetheless deported to Konya and the Der Zor desert, where later the Armenians were either killed or left to die of starvation and disease. Following Zeytun, the same fate befell the inhabitants of other cities of Cilicia. It should be noted that these deportations took place before the events in Van, which the Ottoman authorities used as a justification for the anti-Armenian campaign. The actions of the Ottoman government were clearly disproportionate, but they did not yet cover the entire territory of the empire.
The deportation of the Armenians of Zeytun clarifies an important issue related to the timing of the organization of the genocide. Some of the Armenians were deported to the city of Konya, which was far from Syria and Iraq - places where later, mainly, Armenians were deported. Dzhemal claimed that he personally chose Konya, not Mesopotamia, so as not to create obstacles for the transport of ammunition. However, after April and outside the jurisdiction of Dzhemal, part of the deported Armenians were sent to Konya, which may mean the existence of a deportation plan as early as April 1915.
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Today, Armenians remember those who died during the genocide on April 24, 1915, when several hundred Armenian intellectuals and professionals were arrested and executed, this was the beginning of the genocide.
In 1985, the United States named this day "National Day of Remembrance for Human Inhumanity to Man" in honor of all victims of the genocide, especially the one and a half million people of Armenian descent who were victims of the genocide committed in Turkey.
Today, the recognition of the Armenian genocide is a hot issue as Turkey criticizes scholars for punishing mortality and blaming Turks for the deaths, which the government says was due to starvation and the brutality of the war. In fact, speaking of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, it is punishable by law. As of 2014, 21 countries in total have publicly or legally recognized this ethnic cleansing in Armenia as genocide.
In 2014, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed condolences to the Armenian people and said:
"The cases of the First World War are our common pain."
However, many believe that the proposals are useless until Turkey recognizes the loss of 1.5 million people as genocide. In response to Erdogan's proposal, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said:
“The refusal to commit a crime is a direct continuation of this very crime. Only recognition and condemnation can prevent the recurrence of such crimes in the future.”
Ultimately, the recognition of this genocide is not only important for the elimination of the affected ethnic groups, but also for the development of Turkey as a democratic state. If the past is denied, genocide is still happening. In 2010, a Resolution of the Swedish Parliament stated that "genocide denial is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, cementing the impunity of the perpetrators of genocide and clearly paving the way for future genocides."
Countries that do not recognize the Armenian Genocide
Countries that recognize the Armenian Genocide are those that officially accept the systematic massacres and forced deportations of Armenians carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.
Although historical and academic institutions for the study of the Holocaust and the genocide accept the Armenian genocide, many countries refuse to do so in order to maintain their political relations with the Republic of Turkey. Azerbaijan and Turkey are the only countries that refuse to recognize the Armenian Genocide and threaten those who do so with economic and diplomatic consequences.
The Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex was built in 1967 on Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan. The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, opened in 1995, presents facts about the horror of the massacres.
Turkey has been urged to recognize the Armenian Genocide several times, but the sad fact is that the government denies the word "genocide" as an accurate term for the massacres.
The Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915, organized on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, became one of the most terrible events of its era. Representatives were deported, during which hundreds of thousands or even millions of people died (depending on estimates). This campaign to exterminate Armenians is today recognized as genocide by most countries of the entire world community. Turkey itself does not agree with this wording.
Prerequisites
The massacres and deportations in the Ottoman Empire had different backgrounds and reasons. 1915 was due to the unequal position of the Armenians themselves and the ethnic Turkish majority of the country. The population was discredited not only by nationality, but also by religion. The Armenians were Christians and had their own independent church. The Turks were Sunnis.
The non-Muslim population had the status of a dhimmi. People who fell under this definition were not allowed to carry weapons and to appear in court as witnesses. They had to pay high taxes. Armenians, for the most part, lived in poverty. They were mainly engaged in agriculture in their native lands. However, among the Turkish majority, the stereotype of a successful and cunning Armenian businessman was widespread, etc. Such labels only aggravated the hatred of the townsfolk towards this ethnic minority. These complex relationships can be compared to the widespread anti-Semitism in many countries of that time.
In the Caucasian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the situation worsened also due to the fact that these lands, after the wars with Russia, were filled with Muslim refugees, who, due to their everyday disorder, constantly came into conflict with local Armenians. One way or another, but the Turkish society was in an excited state. It was ready to accept the forthcoming Armenian genocide (1915). The reasons for this tragedy were a deep split and hostility between the two peoples. All that was needed was a spark that would ignite a huge fire.
Start of World War I
As a result of an armed coup in 1908, the Ittihat (Unity and Progress) party came to power in the Ottoman Empire. Its members called themselves the Young Turks. The new government hastily began to look for an ideology on which to build their state. Pan-Turkism and Turkish nationalism were taken as the basis - ideas that did not presuppose anything good for Armenians and other ethnic minorities.
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of its new political course, entered into an alliance with Imperial Germany. According to the treaty, the powers agreed to provide Turkey with access to the Caucasus, where numerous Muslim peoples lived. But there were also Armenian Christians in the same region.
Assassinations of Young Turk leaders
On March 15, 1921, in Berlin, in front of many witnesses, an Armenian killed Talaat Pasha, who was hiding in Europe under an assumed name. The shooter was immediately arrested by the German police. The trial has begun. Tehlirian volunteered to defend the best lawyers in Germany. The process led to a wide public outcry. Numerous facts of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire were again voiced at the hearings. Tehlirian was sensationally acquitted. After that, he emigrated to the United States, where he died in 1960.
Another important victim of Operation Nemesis was Ahmed Jemal Pasha, who was killed in Tiflis in 1922. In the same year, another member of the triumvirate Enver died during the fighting with the Red Army in present-day Tajikistan. He fled to Central Asia, where for some time he was an active participant in the Basmachi movement.
Legal assessment
It should be noted that the term "genocide" appeared in the legal lexicon much later than the events described. The word originated in 1943 and originally meant the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi authorities of the Third Reich. A few years later, the term was officially fixed in accordance with the convention of the newly created UN. Later, the events in the Ottoman Empire were recognized as the Armenian genocide in 1915. In particular, this was done by the European Parliament and the UN.
In 1995, the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was recognized as genocide in Russian Federation. Today the majority of states of the USA, almost all countries of Europe and South America adhere to the same point of view. But there are also countries where the Armenian Genocide (1915) is denied. The reasons, in short, remain political. First of all, the list of these states includes modern Turkey and Azerbaijan.
In the history of the genocide, some historians distinguish two periods. If at the first stage (1878-1914) the task was to hold the territory of the enslaved people and organize a mass exodus, then in 1915-1922 the destruction of the ethnic and political Armenian clan, which prevented the implementation of the pan-Turkism program, was put at the forefront. Before the First World War, the destruction of the Armenian national group was carried out in the form of a system of widespread single killings, combined with periodic massacres of Armenians in certain areas where they constituted an absolute majority (the massacre in Sasun, murders throughout the empire in the autumn and winter of 1895, the massacre in Istanbul in Van area).
The original number of the people who lived in this territory is a moot point, since a significant part of the archives was destroyed. It is known that in the middle of the XIX century in the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslims made up about 56% of the population.
According to the Armenian Patriarchate, in 1878, three million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. In 1914, the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey estimated the number of Armenians in the country at 1,845,450. The Armenian population decreased by more than a million due to the massacre in 1894-1896, the flight of Armenians from Turkey and forced conversion to Islam.
The Young Turks, who came to power after the revolution of 1908, continued the policy of brutally suppressing the national liberation movement. In ideology, the old doctrine of Ottomanism was replaced by no less rigid concepts of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism. A campaign of forcible Turkification of the population was launched, and non-Turkish organizations were banned.
In April 1909, the Cilician massacre took place, the massacre of the Armenians of the vilayets of Adana and Allepo. The victims of the massacre were about 30 thousand people, among whom were not only Armenians, but also Greeks, Syrians and Chaldeans. In general, during these years, the Young Turks paved the way for a complete solution of the "Armenian issue".
In February 1915, at a special meeting of the government, the Young Turk ideologist Dr. Nazim Bey outlined a plan for the complete and widespread annihilation of the Armenian people: “It is necessary to completely exterminate the Armenian nation, leaving not a single living Armenian on our land. memory..."
On April 24, 1915, the day now celebrated as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide, mass arrests of the Armenian intellectual, religious, economic and political elite, which led to the complete destruction of a whole galaxy of prominent figures of Armenian culture. More than 800 representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia were arrested and subsequently killed, including writers Grigor Zohrab, Daniel Varuzhan, Siamanto, Ruben Sevak. Unable to bear the death of his friends, the great composer Komitas lost his mind.
In May-June 1915, a massacre and deportation of Armenians began in Western Armenia.
The general and systematic campaign against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire consisted in the expulsion of Armenians into the desert and subsequent executions, death by bands of marauders or from hunger or thirst. Deportations were subjected to Armenians from almost all the main centers of the empire.
On June 21, 1915, during the final act of the deportation, its main mastermind, Interior Minister Talaat Pasha, ordered the deportation of "all Armenians without exception" living in ten provinces of the eastern region of the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of those who were deemed useful to the state. Under this new directive, the deportation was carried out on the "ten percent principle", according to which Armenians should not exceed 10% of the Muslims in the region.
The process of expulsion and extermination of the Turkish Armenians culminated in a series of military campaigns in 1920 against the refugees who had returned to Cilicia and during the massacre in Smyrna (modern Izmir) in September 1922, when troops under the command of Mustafa Kemal slaughtered the Armenian quarter in Smyrna, and then, under pressure from the Western powers, the survivors were allowed to evacuate. With the destruction of the Armenians of Smyrna, the last surviving compact community, the Armenian population of Turkey practically ceased to exist in their historical homeland. The surviving refugees scattered around the world, forming diasporas in several dozen countries.
Modern estimates of the number of victims of the genocide vary from 200,000 (some Turkish sources) to more than 2 million Armenians. Most historians estimate the number of victims between 1 and 1.5 million people. Over 800 thousand became refugees.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of victims and survivors, since since 1915, fleeing murders and pogroms, many Armenian families have changed their religion (according to some sources - from 250 thousand to 300 thousand people).
For many years, Armenians around the world have been striving for the international community to officially and unconditionally recognize the fact of the genocide. The first special decree recognizing and condemning the terrible tragedy of 1915 was adopted by the Parliament of Uruguay (April 20, 1965). Laws, resolutions and decisions on the Armenian Genocide were subsequently adopted by the European Parliament, the State Duma of Russia, the parliaments of other countries, in particular Cyprus, Argentina, Canada, Greece, Lebanon, Belgium, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Venezuela, Lithuania, Chile, Bolivia, and the Vatican.
The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by over 40 American states, the Australian state of New South Wales, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario (including the city of Toronto), the Swiss cantons of Geneva and Vaud, Wales (Great Britain), about 40 Italian communes, dozens of international and national organizations, including including the World Council of Churches, the Human Rights League, the Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Foundation, the Union of Jewish Communities of America.
On April 14, 1995, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a statement "On the condemnation of the genocide of the Armenian people in 1915-1922."
The US government massacred 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, but refuses to call it a genocide.
The Armenian community of the United States has long adopted a resolution recognizing the fact of the genocide of the Armenian people by Congress.
Attempts to carry out this legislative initiative have been made in Congress more than once, but they have not been crowned with success.
The issue of recognition of the genocide in the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey.
Armenia and Turkey have not yet established diplomatic relations, and the Armenian-Turkish border has been closed since 1993 at the initiative of official Ankara.
Turkey traditionally rejects accusations of the Armenian genocide, arguing that the victims of the 1915 tragedy were both Armenians and Turks, and reacts extremely painfully to the process of international recognition of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
In 1965, a monument to the victims of the genocide was erected on the territory of the Catholicosate in Etchmiadzin. In 1967, the construction of a memorial complex was completed in Yerevan on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd (Swallow Fortress). In 1995, the Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide was built near the memorial complex.
The motto of Armenians around the world for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide is the words "I remember and I demand", and the symbol is a forget-me-not. This flower in all languages has a symbolic meaning - to remember, not to forget and remind. The memorial in Tsitserkaberd with its 12 pylons is graphically depicted in the cup of the flower. This symbol will be actively used throughout 2015.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
In 1915, 2 million Armenians lived in the weakened Ottoman Empire. But under the cover of World War I, the Turkish government systematically massacred 1.5 million people in an attempt to unite the entire Turkish people, creating a new empire with one language and one religion.
The ethnic cleansing of Armenians and other minorities, including Assyrians, Pontic and Anatolian Greeks, is today known as the Armenian Genocide.
Despite pressure from Armenians and activists around the world, Turkey still refuses to recognize the genocide, saying there was no intentional killing of Armenians.
History of the region
Armenians have lived in the southern Caucasus since the 7th century BC and fought for control of other groups such as the Mongol, Russian, Turkish and Persian empires. In the 4th century, the reigning king of Armenia became a Christian. He argued that the official religion of the empire was Christianity, although in the 7th century AD, all the countries surrounding Armenia were Muslim. Armenians continued to practice Christians despite being conquered many times and forced to live under harsh rule.
The roots of the genocide lie in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. At the turn of the 20th century, the once-widespread Ottoman Empire was crumbling around the edges. The Ottoman Empire lost all of its territory in Europe during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, creating instability among the nationalist ethnic groups.
First massacre
At the turn of the century, tensions grew between the Armenians and the Turkish authorities. Sultan Abdel Hamid II, known as the "Bloody Sultan", told a reporter in 1890, "I will give them a box on their ear that will make them give up their revolutionary ambitions."
In 1894, the "box on the ear" massacre was the first of the Armenian massacres. Military and civilians of the Ottoman troops attacked Armenian villages in Eastern Anatolia, resulting in the death of 8 thousand Armenians, including children. A year later, 2,500 Armenian women were burned in the Urfa Cathedral. Around the same time, a group of 5,000 people were killed after demonstrations asking for international intervention to prevent massacres in Constantinople. Historians estimate that more than 80,000 Armenians died by 1896.
Rise of young Turks
In 1909, the Ottoman sultan was overthrown by a new political group, the Young Turks, a group seeking a modern, Westernized style of government. At first, the Armenians hoped that they would have a place in the new state, but they soon realized that the new government was xenophobic and excluded the multi-ethnic Turkish society. To consolidate Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks developed a secret program to exterminate the Armenian population.
World War I
In 1914, the Turks entered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The outbreak of war will provide an excellent opportunity to resolve the “Armenian issue” once and for all.
How the Armenian Genocide began in 1915
Military leaders accused the Armenians of supporting the Allies, on the assumption that the people naturally sympathized with Christian Russia. Consequently, the Turks disarmed the entire Armenian population. Turkish suspicion of the Armenian people prompted the government to push for the "removal" of Armenians from the war zones along the Eastern Front.
The mandate to exterminate the Armenians, transmitted in coded telegrams, came directly from the Young Turks. On the evening of April 24, 1915, armed shelling began as 300 Armenian intellectuals—political leaders, educators, writers, and religious leaders in Constantinople—were forcibly removed from their homes, tortured, then hanged or shot.
The death march killed about 1.5 million Armenians, covering hundreds of miles and lasting several months. Indirect routes through the desert areas were specially chosen to extend the marches and keep the caravans in the Turkish villages.
After the disappearance of the Armenian population, the Muslim Turks quickly took over whatever was left. The Turks destroyed the remains of the Armenian cultural heritage, including masterpieces of ancient architecture, old libraries and archives. The Turks leveled entire cities, including the once prosperous Kharpert, Van, and the ancient capital at Ani, to remove all traces of a three-thousand-year-old civilization.
No allied power came to the aid of the Armenian Republic, and it collapsed. The only tiny part of historical Armenia that survived was the easternmost region because it became part of Soviet Union. The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota compiled provincial and district data showing that in 1914 there were 2,133,190 Armenians in the empire, but by 1922 only about 387,800.
Failed Call to Arms in the West
At the time, international whistleblowers and national diplomats recognized the atrocities committed as an atrocity against humanity.
Leslie Davis, US consul in Harput, noted: "These women and children were driven out of the desert in the middle of the summer, robbed and plundered with what they had ... after which all who did not die were meanwhile killed near the city."
The Swedish ambassador to Peru, Gustaf August Kosswa Ankarsvärd, wrote in a letter in 1915: “The persecution of the Armenians has reached dragging proportions, and everything indicates that the young Turks want to take advantage of this opportunity ... [put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist in the annihilation of the Armenian people.”
Even Henry Morgenthau, the US ambassador to Armenia, noted: “When the Turkish authorities ordered these deportations, they were simply giving the death sentence to an entire race.”
The New York Times also covered the issue extensively—145 articles in 1915—with the headlines "Appeal to Turkey to Stop the Massacre." The newspaper described the actions against the Armenians as "systematic, 'sanctioned' and 'organized by the government'."
The Allied Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) responded to news of the massacres by issuing a warning to Turkey: "The Allied Governments declare publicly that they will hold all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as their agents like themselves, personally responsible for such matters." The warning had no effect.
Because Ottoman law forbade photographing the Armenian deportees, photographic documentation that captures the severity of the ethnic cleansing is rare. In an act of defiance, the officers of the German military mission recorded the atrocities taking place in the concentration camps. Although many photographs were intercepted by Ottoman intelligence, lost in Germany during World War II or forgotten in dusty boxes, the Museum of the Armenian Genocide of America captured some of these photographs in an online export.
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Today, Armenians commemorate those who died during the genocide on April 24, the day in 1915 when several hundred Armenian intellectuals and professionals were arrested and executed as the beginning of the genocide.
In 1985, the United States named this day "National Day of Remembrance for Human Inhumanity to Man" in honor of all victims of the genocide, especially the one and a half million people of Armenian descent who were victims of the genocide committed in Turkey."
Today, the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a hot topic as Turkey criticizes scholars for punishing mortality and blaming the Turks for the deaths, which the government says was due to starvation and the brutality of the war. In fact, speaking of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, it is punishable by law. As of 2014, 21 countries in total have publicly or legally recognized this ethnic cleansing in Armenia as genocide.
In 2014, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed condolences to the Armenian people and said: “The cases of the First World War are our common pain.”
However, many believe that the proposals are useless until Turkey recognizes the loss of 1.5 million people as genocide. In response to Erdogan's proposal, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said: “The refusal to commit a crime is a direct continuation of this very crime. Only recognition and condemnation can prevent the repetition of such crimes in the future.”
Ultimately, the recognition of this genocide is not only important for the elimination of the affected ethnic groups, but also for the development of Turkey as a democratic state. If the past is denied, genocide is still happening. In 2010, a Resolution of the Swedish Parliament stated that "genocide denial is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, cementing the impunity of the perpetrators of genocide and clearly paving the way for future genocides."
Countries that do not recognize the Armenian Genocide
Countries that recognize the Armenian Genocide are those that officially accept the systematic massacres and forced deportations of Armenians carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.
Although historical and academic institutions for the study of the Holocaust and the genocide accept the Armenian Genocide, many countries refuse to do so in order to preserve their political relations with the Republic of Turkey. Azerbaijan and Turkey are the only countries that refuse to recognize the Armenian Genocide and threaten economic and diplomatic repercussions for those who do.
The Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex was built in 1967 on Tsitsernakaberd Hill in Yerevan. The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, opened in 1995, presents facts about the horror of the massacres.
Turkey has been urged to recognize the Armenian Genocide several times, but the sad fact is that the government denies the word "genocide" as an accurate term for the massacres.
Facts about countries recognizing the Armenian Genocide, the memorial and the criminalization of denial
On May 25, 1915, the Entente authorities issued a statement stating that the employees of the Ottoman government involved in the Armenian Genocide would be personally responsible for crimes against humanity. The parliaments of several countries began to recognize this event as genocide from the second half of the 20th century.
The left-bank and green Turkish political party, the Green Left Party, is the only one that recognizes the Armenian Genocide in the country.
Uruguay became the first country to recognize in 1965 and again in 2004.
Cyprus was the country that recognized the Armenian Genocide: first in 1975, 1982 and 1990. Moreover, she was the first to raise this issue at the UN General Assembly. Denial of the Armenian Genocide is also criminalized in Cyprus.
France also criminalized the denial of the Armenian Genocide in 2016, recognizing it in 1998 and 2001. After passing the bill, which was criminalized on 14 October 2016, it was passed by the French National Assembly in July 2017. It provides for a sentence of a year in prison or a fine of 45,000 euros.
Greece recognized the event as a genocide in 1996 and, under a 2014 act, failure to punish is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine not to exceed €30,000.
Countries that recognize the Armenian Genocide: Switzerland and memorial laws
Switzerland recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2003, when denial is a crime. Dogu Perincek, a Turkish politician, lawyer and chairman of the left-wing nationalist patriotic party, became the first person to be criminally charged with denial of the Armenian Genocide. The decision was taken by a Swiss court in 2007.
The Perince case was the result of him describing the Armenian Genocide as an international lie in Lausanne in 2005. His case was appealed to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. His decision was in his favor on grounds of freedom of speech. According to the court: "Mr. Perincek delivered a speech of a historical, legal and political nature in a controversial debate."
Although he was sentenced to life imprisonment in August 2013, he was eventually released in 2014. After his release, he joined the Justice and Development Party and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Facts about countries recognizing the Armenian Genocide and the memorial
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg announced the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in 2015 after the Chamber of Deputies unanimously passed a resolution.
Brazil's decision to recognize the massacres was approved by the Federal Senate.
As for Bolivia, the resolution recognizing the genocide was unanimously approved by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Bulgaria became another country to recognize the Armenian Genocide in 2015, but criticism followed. On April 24, 2015, the phrase "mass extermination of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire" was used in Bulgaria. They were criticized for not using the term "genocide". Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov stated that the phrase or idiom is the Bulgarian word for "genocide".
Germany announced its recognition twice: in 2005 and 2016. The first resolution was adopted in 2016. In the same year, in July, the German Bundestag gave her only one vote against the named event "genocide".
10 facts about the Armenian genocide in 1915
Today, the Turkish government still denies that the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians represented it as a "genocide." This is despite the fact that a host of scholarly articles and proclamations from respected historians testified that the events leading up to the massacres, as well as how the Armenians were killed, irrevocably make this moment in history one of the first Holocausts.
1. According to history, the Turkish people deny the genocide, saying: "Armenians were an enemy force... and their slaughter was a necessary military measure."
The "War" referred to is the First World War, and the events leading up to the Armenian genocide - which were at the forefront of the history of the Holocaust - preceded the First World War by more than 20 years.
One prominent Turkish politician, Dogu Perincek, came under fire for his denial of the Armenian Genocide while visiting Switzerland in 2008. According to The Telegraph, a Swiss court fined Perjček after he called the genocide an "international lie". He appealed the allegation in 2013 and the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss court's allegations "violated the right to freedom of expression".
Currently, Amal Clooney (yes, the new Ms. George Clooney) has joined the legal team that will represent Armenia in challenging this appeal. According to The Telegraph, Clooney will be joined by her head of chambers, Geoffrey Robertson, CC, who also authored an October 2014 book, An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Remembers Armenians Now?.
Publishers from Random House stated that the book "...is beyond doubt that the horrific events of 1915 became a crime against humanity now known as genocide."
The irony in Perynek's outrage at the charges leveled against him is obvious; Perynek is a supporter of Turkey's current laws, which condemn citizens for talking about the Armenian Genocide.
Discussion of the Armenian Genocide is illegal in Turkey
In Turkey, discussing the Armenian genocide is considered a crime punishable by imprisonment. In 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan effectively threatened to deport 100,000 Armenians in response to an Armenian Genocide Commemoration Bill presented to the House of Commons.
Foreign affairs correspondent Damien McElroy details the events in the article. Erdogan made this statement, later called "blackmail" by Armenian MP Hrayr Karapetyan, after the release of the bill:
“Currently, 170,000 Armenians live in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we tolerate the remaining 100,000… If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to return to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't need to keep them in my country.
“This statement once again proves that there is a threat of the Armenian genocide in Turkey today, so the world community should put pressure on Ankara to recognize the genocide,” Karapetyan replied to Erdogan’s subtle threats.
America was interested in marking the events as genocide
Although the American government and the media called the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians "atrocities" or "massacres," the word "genocide" rarely made its way into the American people when describing the events that took place from 1915 to 1923. That the words "Armenian Genocide" appeared in the New York Times. Petr Balakian, a professor of humanities at Colgate University, and Samantha Power, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, wrote a letter to the editor of the Times that was subsequently published.
In the letter, Balakian and Sila punish The Times and other media outlets for not labeling the atrocities that took place in 1915 as genocide.
“The extermination of Armenians is recognized as genocide thanks to the consensus of genocide and Holocaust scholars around the world. Failure to acknowledge this trivializes a human rights crime of enormous magnitude,” reads one passage of the letter. “It is ironic because in 1915 the New York Times published 145 articles on the Armenian Genocide and regularly used the words 'systematic', 'state planning' and 'extermination'.
Currently, the US recognition of the events of 1915 as the genocide of America is being considered by the US House of Representatives. The proposed resolution is summarized as "Armenian Genocide Resolution", but its official title is "H. Res 106 or Reaffirmation of the US Document on the Resolution on the Armenian Genocide."
The role of religion in the Armenian genocide
The religious origins of the Armenian Genocide date back to the 15th century when the government of Armenia was absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire were mostly Muslims. Christian Armenians were considered minorities by the Ottoman Empire, and although they were "allowed to maintain some autonomy", they were mostly treated as second-class citizens; i.e. Armenians were denied the right to vote, paid higher taxes than Muslims, and were denied a host of other legal and economic rights. Insults and prejudice prevailed in the leaders of the Ottoman Empire, since the unfair treatment of Armenians caught up in violence against Christian minorities.
In the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled and taken over by the Young Turks. Young Turks were initially formed as leaders who would guide the country and its citizens to a more democratic and constitutionally sound place. Initially, the Armenians were enthusiastic about this prospect, but later learned that the modernization of the Young Turks would include extermination as a means to "Turkify" the new state.
The rule of the Young Turks would be the catalyst for what is now known as one of the first genocides in the world.
The role of religion in this genocide was seen as Christianity was constantly seen as a justification for the Holocaust perpetrated by the militant followers of the Young Turks. Similarly, the extermination of Jewish citizens was seen as justification for Nazi Germany during World War II.
A slap from the Sultan
According to history, Turkish dictator Sultan Abdul Hamid II made this ominous threat to a reporter in 1890:
“I will soon settle these Armenians,” he said. "I will give them a slap in the face that will make them ... give up their revolutionary ambitions."
Prior to the Armenian Genocide in 1915, these threats were realized during the massacres of thousands of Armenians between 1894 and 1896. According to the United Council for Human Rights, Christian Armenians' calls for reform resulted in "...over 100,000 Armenian villagers killed in widespread pogroms carried out by the Sultan's special regiments."
The ruler of the Ottoman Empire was overthrown by a group called the Young Turks. The Armenians hoped that this new regime would lead to a fair and just society for their people. Unfortunately, the group became forwarders of the Armenian genocide during the First World War.
Young Turks
In 1908, a group of "reformers" who called themselves the "Young Turks" overthrew Sultan Hamid and gained leadership of Turkey. Initially, the goal of the Young Turks seemed to be one that would lead the country to equality and justice, and the Armenians hoped for peace among their people in light of the changes.
However, it quickly became apparent that the aim of the Young Turks was to "lure" the country and liquidate the Armenians. Young Turks were the catalysts for the Armenian Genocide that took place during World War I and were responsible for the murder of almost two million Armenians.
Many wonder why the crimes of the Young Turks are not treated as the crimes of the Nazi Party during the Holocaust.
Scholars and historians point out that the reason for this may be the lack of accountability for the crimes of the Turks. After the Ottoman Empire surrendered in 1918, the leaders of the Young Turks fled to Germany, where they were promised freedom from any persecution for their atrocities.
Since then, the Turkish government, along with several of Turkey's allies, has denied that the genocide ever took place. In 1922, the Armenian Genocide came to an end, leaving only 388,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Causes and consequences of the Armenian genocide in 1915?
The term "genocide" refers to the systematic mass murder of a specific group of people. The name "genocide" was not coined until 1944, when the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin used the term during legal proceedings to describe crimes committed by top Nazi leaders. Lemon created the word by combining the Greek word for "group" or "tribe" (geno-) and the Latin word for "kill" (cide).
In a 1949 CBS interview, Lemkin stated that his inspiration for the term came from the fact that the systematic killing of specific groups of people "had happened so many times in the past", just like the Armenians.
Similarities Between Genocide and Holocaust
There are several pieces of evidence suggesting that the Armenian Genocide was an inspiration for Adolf Hitler before he led the Nazi party in an attempt to exterminate an entire nation. This point has been the subject of much heated debate, especially with regard to Hitler's alleged quote regarding Armenians.
Many genocidal scholars have stated that a week before the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Hitler asked, "Who is talking about the extermination of Armenians today?"
According to an article published in the Midwestern Quarterly in mid-April 2013 by Hannibal Travis, it is indeed possible that, as many have argued, the Hitler quote was not actually or somehow embellished by historians. Relentlessly, Travis notes that several parallels between the Genocide and the Holocaust are transparent.
Both used the concept of ethnic "cleansing" or "cleansing". According to Travis, "While the Young Turks implemented a 'pure sweep of internal enemies - indigenous Christians'," according to the then to the German ambassador in Constantinople... Hitler himself used "cleansing" or "cleansing" as a euphemism for extermination."
Travis also notes that even if Hitler's infamous quote about Armenians never happened, the inspirations he and the Nazi Party received from various aspects of the Armenian Genocide are undeniable.
What happened during the Armenian Genocide?
The Armenian Genocide officially began on April 24, 1915. During this time, the Young Turks recruited a deadly organization of individuals who were sent to persecute the Armenians. The composition of this group included killers and former prisoners. According to the story, one of the officers instructed to name the atrocities that were to take place "... the liquidation of the Christian elements."
The genocide played out like this:
Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes and sent on "death marches" that involved trekking through the desert of Mesopotamia without food or water. The marchers were often torn naked and forced to walk until they died. Those who stopped for reprieve or respite were shot
The only Armenians who were rescued were subject to conversion and/or mistreatment. Some children of genocide victims were abducted and forced to convert to Islam; these children were to be brought up in the home of a Turkish family. Some Armenian women were raped and forced to serve as slaves in Turkish "harems".
Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide
On the 100th anniversary of the brutal holocaust that took place in 1915, international efforts were made to commemorate the victims and their families. The first official 100th anniversary event was held at Florida Atlantic University in south Florida. ARMENPRESS states that the company's mission is to "preserve Armenian culture and promote its dissemination."
On the West Coast, Los Angeles councilor Paul Kerkorian will be accepting entries for an art competition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. according to a West Side Today statement, Kerkorian stated that the contest "...is a way to honor the history of the genocide and highlight the promise of our future." He continued, “I hope that artists and students who care about human rights will get involved and help honor the memory of the Armenian people.”
Abroad, the Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Australia has officially launched its OnThisDay campaign, which will focus on honoring those affected by the Armenian Genocide. According to Asbares, ANC Australia has produced an extensive catalog of these newspaper clippings from Australian archives, including those from the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Argus and other notable publications of the day, and will be releasing them daily on Facebook. .
ANC Australia Executive Director Vache Gahramanyan noted that the information released will include many articles detailing the "horrors" of the Armenian Genocide, as well as reports on Australia's humanitarian efforts during this time.
Situation today
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "... has extended invitations to the leaders of the 102 states whose soldiers fought in the First World War, inviting them to take part in the anniversary event to be held on April 23-24", at the same time Armenians will gather to commemorate the 100- anniversary of the genocide experienced in the Ottoman Empire. The invitation was met with resentment from the citizens of Armenia, who considered it "unscrupulous", a "joke" and a "political maneuver" on the part of Erdogan.
Genocide(from the Greek genos - clan, tribe and lat. caedo - I kill), an international crime expressed in actions committed with the aim of destroying, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Actions qualified by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as acts of Genocide have been committed repeatedly in the history of mankind since ancient times, especially during wars of extermination and devastating invasions and campaigns of conquerors, internal ethnic and religious clashes, during the period of partition peace and the formation of colonial empires of European powers, in the process of a fierce struggle for the redivision of the divided world, which led to two world wars and in colonial wars after the Second World War of 1939-1945.
However, the term "genocide" was first introduced into use in the early 30s. XX century by a Polish lawyer, a Jew by origin Rafael Lemkin, and after the Second World War received international legal status as a concept that defines the gravest crime against humanity. R. Lemkin under the Genocide meant the massacre of Armenians in Turkey during the First World War (1914 - 1918), and then the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany in the period preceding the Second World War, and in the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis during the war years.
The destruction of more than 1.5 million Armenians during 1915-1923 is considered the first genocide of the 20th century. in Western Armenia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, organized and systematically carried out by the Young Turk rulers.
The Armenian Genocide should also include the massacres of the Armenian population in Eastern Armenia and in Transcaucasia as a whole, committed by the Turks, who invaded Transcaucasia in 1918, and by the Kemalists during the aggression against the Armenian Republic in September-December 1920, as well as the pogroms of Armenians organized by the Musavatists. in Baku and Shushi in 1918 and 1920 respectively. Taking into account those who died as a result of the periodic pogroms of Armenians perpetrated by the Turkish authorities, starting from late XIX c., the number of victims of the Armenian Genocide exceeds 2 million.
Armenian Genocide 1915 - 1916 - mass extermination and deportation of the Armenian population of Western Armenia, Cilicia and other provinces of the Ottoman Empire, carried out by the ruling circles of Turkey during the First World War (1914 - 1918). The policy of genocide against Armenians was conditioned by a number of factors.
Leading among them was the ideology of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism, which since the middle of the XIX century. professed by the ruling circles of the Ottoman Empire. The militant ideology of pan-Islamism was distinguished by intolerance towards non-Muslims, preached outright chauvinism, and called for the Turkification of all non-Turkish peoples. Entering the war, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire made far-reaching plans for the creation of the "Big Turan". These plans implied joining the empire of Transcaucasia, North Caucasus, Crimea, Volga region, Central Asia.
On the way to this goal, the aggressors had to put an end, first of all, to the Armenian people, who opposed the aggressive plans of the Pan-Turkists. The Young Turks began to develop plans for the extermination of the Armenian population even before the start of the World War. The decisions of the congress of the "Unity and Progress" party, held in October 1911 in Thessaloniki, contained a demand for the Turkification of the non-Turkish peoples of the empire.
At the beginning of 1914, a special order was sent to the local authorities regarding the measures to be taken against the Armenians. The fact that the order was sent before the start of the war irrefutably testifies that the extermination of the Armenians was a planned action, not at all due to a specific military situation. The leadership of the "Unity and Progress" party has repeatedly discussed the issue of mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population.
In October 1914, at a meeting chaired by Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat, a special body was formed - the Executive Committee of the Three, which was entrusted with organizing the extermination of the Armenian population; it included the leaders of the Young Turks Nazim, Behaetdin Shakir and Shukri. Plotting a monstrous crime, the leaders of the Young Turks took into account that the war provided an opportunity for its implementation. Nazim bluntly stated that such an opportunity may no longer be, "the intervention of the great powers and the protest of the newspapers will have no consequences, because they will face a fait accompli, and thus the issue will be resolved ... Our actions must be directed to annihilate the Armenians so that not a single one of them remains alive."
Undertaking the destruction of the Armenian population, the Turkish ruling circles intended to achieve several goals:
- liquidation of the Armenian Question, which would put an end to the intervention of the European powers;
- the Turks were getting rid of economic competition, all the property of the Armenian people would have passed into their hands;
- the elimination of the Armenian people will help pave the way to the capture of the Caucasus, to the achievement of the great ideal of Turanism.
The executive committee of the three received wide powers, weapons, money. The authorities organized “Teshkilati and Makhsuse” special detachments, which consisted mainly of criminals released from prisons and other criminal elements, who were supposed to take part in the mass destruction of Armenians.
From the very first days of the war, a frenzied anti-Armenian propaganda unfolded in Turkey. The Turkish people were inspired that the Armenians did not want to serve in the Turkish army, that they were ready to cooperate with the enemy. There were rumors about the mass desertion of Armenians from the Turkish army, about Armenian uprisings that threatened the rear of the Turkish troops, etc. Anti-Armenian propaganda especially intensified after the first serious defeats of the Turkish troops on the Caucasian front. In February 1915, Minister of War Enver ordered the extermination of the Armenians serving in the Turkish army (at the beginning of the war, about 60 thousand Armenians aged 18-45 were drafted into the Turkish army, i.e. the most combat-ready part of the male population). This order was carried out with unparalleled cruelty.
On the night of April 24, 1915, representatives of the police department of Constantinople broke into the homes of the most prominent Armenians in the capital and arrested them. Over the next few days, eight hundred people - writers, poets, journalists, politicians, doctors, lawyers, lawyers, scientists, teachers, priests, teachers, artists - were sent to the central prison.
Two months later, on June 15, 1915, on one of the squares of the capital, 20 intellectuals - Armenians - members of the Hnchak party, were executed, who were trumped-up charges of organizing terror against the authorities and striving to create an autonomous Armenia.
The same thing happened in all vilayets (regions): within a few days, thousands of people were arrested, including all famous cultural figures, politicians, people of mental labor. The deportation to the desert regions of the Empire was planned in advance. And this was a deliberate deception: as soon as people moved away from their native places, they were ruthlessly killed by those who were supposed to accompany them and ensure their safety. The Armenians who worked in government bodies were fired one by one; all military doctors were thrown into prisons.
The great powers were completely involved in the global confrontation, and they put their geopolitical interests above the fate of two million Armenians...
From May - June 1915, mass deportation and massacre of the Armenian population of Western Armenia (vilayets of Van, Erzrum, Bitlis, Kharberd, Sebastia, Diyarbekir), Cilicia, Western Anatolia and other areas began. The ongoing deportation of the Armenian population in fact pursued the goal of its destruction. US Ambassador to Turkey G. Morgenthau noted: "The true purpose of the deportation was robbery and destruction; this is indeed a new method of massacre. When the Turkish authorities ordered these deportations, they actually pronounced the death sentence of an entire nation."
The real purpose of the deportation was also known to Germany, an ally of Turkey. In June 1915, the German ambassador to Turkey, Wangenheim, informed his government that if at first the expulsion of the Armenian population was limited to provinces close to Caucasian Front, now the Turkish authorities extended these actions to those parts of the country that were not under the threat of enemy invasion. These actions, the ambassador concluded, the way in which the deportation is carried out, indicate that the Turkish government has as its goal the destruction of the Armenian nation in the Turkish state. The same assessment of the deportation was contained in the reports of the German consuls from the vilayets of Turkey. In July 1915, the German vice-consul in Samsun reported that the deportation carried out in the vilayets of Anatolia was aimed at either destroying or converting the entire Armenian people to Islam. The German consul in Trebizond at the same time reported on the deportation of Armenians in this vilayet and noted that the Young Turks intended to put an end to the Armenian question in this way.
The Armenians who left their places of permanent residence were reduced to caravans that went deep into the empire, to Mesopotamia and Syria, where special camps were created for them. Armenians were exterminated both in their places of residence and on their way to exile; their caravans were attacked by Turkish rabble, Kurdish robber bands, hungry for prey. As a result, a small part of the deported Armenians reached their destinations. But even those who reached the deserts of Mesopotamia were not safe; there are cases when deported Armenians were taken out of the camps and massacred by the thousands in the desert. Lack of basic sanitary conditions, famine, epidemics caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
The actions of the Turkish rioters were distinguished by unprecedented cruelty. This was demanded by the leaders of the Young Turks. Thus, Minister of the Interior Talaat, in a secret telegram sent to the Governor of Aleppo, demanded to put an end to the existence of the Armenians, not to pay any attention to age, gender, or remorse. This requirement was strictly observed. Eyewitnesses of the events, Armenians who survived the horrors of deportation and genocide, left numerous descriptions of the incredible suffering that befell the Armenian population. The correspondent of the English newspaper The Times reported in September 1915: “From Sasun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Eintab, from Marash and Erzurum, the same reports of atrocities are received: about men mercilessly shot, crucified, mutilated or taken away to labor battalions, about children abducted and forcibly converted to the Mohammedan faith, about women raped and sold into slavery in the rear, shot on the spot or sent with their children to the desert west of Mosul, where there is neither food nor water ... Many of these unfortunate victims did not reach their destination... and their corpses clearly indicated the path they followed."
In October 1916, the newspaper "Caucasian Word" published a report about the massacre of Armenians in the village of Baskan (Vardo Valley); the author cited an eyewitness account: “We saw how everything valuable was first torn off the unfortunate; then they undressed, and others were killed right there on the spot, and others were taken away from the road, into dead corners, and then finished off. We saw a group of three women who embraced in mortal fear. And it was impossible to separate them, separate them. All three were killed ... The scream and scream were unimaginable, our hair stood on end, the blood ran cold in the veins ... "The majority of the Armenian population was also subjected to barbaric extermination Cilicia.
The massacre of Armenians continued in subsequent years. Thousands of Armenians were exterminated, driven to the southern regions of the Ottoman Empire and kept in the camps of Rasul-Aina, Deir-Zora and others. The Young Turks also sought to carry out the Armenian genocide in Eastern Armenia, where, in addition to the local population, large masses of refugees from Western Armenia accumulated. Having committed aggression against Transcaucasia in 1918, Turkish troops carried out pogroms and massacres of Armenians in many areas of Eastern Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Having occupied Baku in September 1918, the Turkish invaders, together with the Azerbaijani nationalists, organized a terrible massacre of the local Armenian population, killing 30,000 people.
As a result of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Young Turks in 1915-1916, more than 1.5 million people died, about 600 thousand Armenians became refugees; they scattered over many countries of the world, replenishing the existing ones and forming new Armenian communities. An Armenian diaspora was formed (“diaspora” - Armenian).
As a result of the genocide, Western Armenia lost its original population. The leaders of the Young Turks did not hide their satisfaction with the successful implementation of the planned atrocity: German diplomats in Turkey informed their government that already in August 1915, Minister of the Interior Talaat cynically stated that "the actions against the Armenians were basically carried out and the Armenian question no longer exists."
The relative ease with which the Turkish pogromists managed to carry out the genocide of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire is partly due to the unpreparedness of the Armenian population, as well as the Armenian political parties, for the impending threat of extermination. In many respects, the actions of the pogromists were facilitated by the mobilization of the most combat-ready part of the Armenian population - men, into the Turkish army, as well as the liquidation of the Armenian intelligentsia of Constantinople. A certain role was played by the fact that in some public and clerical circles Western Armenians believed that disobedience to the Turkish authorities, who ordered the deportation, could only lead to an increase in the number of victims.
The Armenian genocide carried out in Turkey caused enormous damage to the spiritual and material culture of the Armenian people. In 1915-1916 and subsequent years, thousands of Armenian manuscripts kept in Armenian monasteries were destroyed, hundreds of historical and architectural monuments were destroyed, and the shrines of the people were desecrated. The destruction of historical and architectural monuments on the territory of Turkey, the appropriation of many cultural values of the Armenian people continues to the present. The tragedy experienced by the Armenian people was reflected in all aspects of the life and social behavior of the Armenian people, firmly settled in their historical memory.
The progressive public opinion of the world condemned the villainous crime of the Turkish rioters who tried to destroy the Armenian people. Public - politicians, scientists, cultural figures of many countries branded the genocide, qualifying it as the gravest crime against humanity, took part in the implementation of humanitarian assistance to the Armenian people, in particular to refugees who found refuge in many countries of the world.
After Turkey's defeat in the First World War, the leaders of the Young Turks were accused of dragging Turkey into a disastrous war for her and put on trial. Among the charges brought against the war criminals was the charge of organizing and carrying out the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. However, the verdict against a number of leaders of the Young Turks was passed in absentia, because. after the defeat of Turkey, they managed to flee the country. The death sentence against some of them (Talaat, Behaetdin Shakir, Jemal Pasha, Said Halim, etc.) was subsequently carried out by the Armenian people's avengers.
After the Second World War, genocide was qualified as the gravest crime against humanity. The legal documents on the genocide were based on the basic principles developed by the international military tribunal in Nuremberg, which tried the main war criminals of Nazi Germany. Subsequently, the UN adopted a number of decisions regarding genocide, the main of which are the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) and the Convention on the non-applicability of the statute of limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity, adopted in 1968.
