Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (also known as the Armenian Holocaust or the Armenian Massacre) is a term which refer to the forced mass evacuation and related deaths of hundreds of thousands or over a million Armenians, during the government of Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in Ottoman Empire. Several facts in connection with the genocide are a matter of ongoing dispute between parts of the international community and Turkey. Although it is generally agreed that events said to comprise the Armenian Genocide did occur, the Turkish government rejects that it was genocide, on the alleged basis that the deaths among the Armenians, were not a result of a state-sponsored plan of mass extermination, but from the result of inter-ethnic strife, disease and famine during the turmoil of World War I.

The Armenian Genocide

On April 24 1915, the Young Turk government arrested several hundred - or, according to Turkish records, over two thousand - Armenian intellectuals. It is believed that most of these were soon executed. This was quickly followed by orders for the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands - possibly over a million - Armenians from across all of Anatolia (except parts of the western coast) to Mesopotamia and what is today Syria. Many went to the Syrian town of Dayr az Zawr and the surrounding desert. It is also claimed that the government did not provide any facilities to care for the Armenians during their evacuation, nor when they arrived. Some records suggest that the Ottoman troops escorting the Armenians as a matter of course not only allowed others to rob, kill, and rape the Armenians, but often participated in this activity themselves. The forseeable consequence was a significant number of human losses.

Related Topics:
April 24 - 1915 - Mesopotamia - Syria - Dayr az Zawr

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After the recruitment of most men and the arrests of certain intellectuals, widespread massacres have been reported taking place throughout the Ottoman Empire. In Van, it is said that the governor Jevdet ordered irregulars to commit crimes and force the Armenians to rebel to justify the encircling of the town by the Ottoman army, the Venezuelan mercenary, Nogales, who served in the Ottoman army, also reports an order by Jevdet to kill every Armenian male in Van. Turkish authors on the other hand, report an Armenian revolution in Van during the same period.

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The Ottoman government ordered the evacuation or deportation of many Armenians living in Anatolia to Syria and Mesopotamia. It is believed that over a million were deported, though this figure has not been conclusively established. The word "deportation" could be considered as misleading (and some would prefer the word "relocation", as the former means banishment outside a country's borders; it is said that Japanese-Americans, for example, were not "deported" during World War II). Some historians believe that the evacuations were, in practice, a method of mass execution which led to the deaths of many of the Armenian population by forcing them to march endlessly through desert, without food or water or enough protection from local Kurdish or Turkish bandits, and that the members of the special organization were charged to escort the convoys (which meant their destruction).

Related Topics:
Japanese-American - World War II

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