THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE (1915-16): IN DEPTH

The origin of the term genocide and its codification in international law have their roots in the mass murder of Armenians. Lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the coiner of the word and its later champion at the United Nations, repeatedly stated that early exposure to newspaper stories about Ottoman crimes against Armenians was key to his beliefs about the need for legal protection of groups. (In 1948, in part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin, the UN approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.)

Ottoman authorities, supported by auxiliary troops and civilians, committed most of the murders of 1915-16. The government, controlled by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP; also called the Young Turks), aimed to solidify Turkish Muslim dominance in the region of eastern Anatolia by eliminating the sizeable Armenian population there.

From 1915-16, the Ottomans killed large numbers of people in mass shootings; many others died during mass deportations due to starvation, dehydration, exposure, and disease. In addition, tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam.

Historical BackgroundClick here to copy a link to this section

Armenian Christians were one of many distinct ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. In the late 1880s, some Armenians formed political organizations seeking greater autonomy, reinforcing Ottoman doubts about the loyalty of the wider Armenian community within its borders.

On October 17, 1895, Armenian revolutionaries seized the National Bank in Constantinople, threatening to blow it up along with more than 100 hostages unless the authorities granted Armenian regional autonomy. Though French intervention allowed for a peaceful end to the incident, the Ottomans conducted a series of massacres.

In all, at least 80,000 Armenians were killed between 1894 and 1896.

The Young Turk RevolutionClick here to copy a link to this section

In July 1908, a faction that called itself the Young Turks seized power in Constantinople (the Ottoman capitol). The Young Turks was a group primarily composed of Balkan-born military officers and bureaucrats, which in 1906 had taken over a secret society known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), and reformed it into a political movement.

The Young Turks aimed to establish a liberal, secular constitutional regime that put all peoples on equal footing. They argued that non-Muslims would accept Turkish nationalism if modernization and prosperity were the result.

Initially, it seemed that the new government would accommodate some Armenian social grievances. But in spring 1909, Armenian demonstrations for autonomy boiled over into violence. Ottoman soldiers, irregular troops, and civilians murdered as many as 20,000 Armenians in and around the city of Adana; up to 2,000 Muslims were killed by Armenians during the fighting.

Between 1909 and 1913, CUP activists veered increasingly towards a strident, nationalist vision for the Empire. They envisioned a future state that was not multi-ethnic and “Ottoman,” but culturally and homogeneously Turkish. Dense areas of Armenian settlement across eastern Anatolia presented a demographic obstacle to these ambitions. Following several years of political upheaval, CUP leaders seized dictatorial power in a coup on January 23, 1913.

World War IClick here to copy a link to this section

Mass atrocities and genocide are often perpetrated within the context of war. The destruction of the Armenians was closely linked to the events of World War I in the Near East and the Russian Caucasus. The Ottoman Empire formally entered the war in November 1914 on the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), who fought against the Entente Powers (Great Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia).

In anticipation of threatened Allied landings at the strategically important Gallipoli peninsula, Ottoman authorities arrested 240 Armenian leaders in Constantinople on April 24, 1915, and deported them east. This roundup is commemorated today by Armenians as the beginning of the genocide. The Ottomans claimed that Armenian revolutionaries had established contact with the enemy and were preparing to facilitate a Franco-British landing. When challenged by the Entente Powers and the then-neutral United States, they explained the deportations as a precautionary measure.

Beginning in May 1915 the government expanded the deportations—regardless of distance from combat zones—marching civilians to holding camps in desert regions to the south [today: northern and eastern Syria, northern Saudi Arabia, and Iraq]. Many of these convoys originated in six heavily Armenian provinces in eastern Anatolia—Trabzon, Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Diyarbakir, Mamuretü'l Aziz, and the district of Maras—and, eventually, from virtually all areas of the Empire.