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Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916 was the first genocide of the 20th century and one of the largest in
world history. The genocide resulted in the deaths of an estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians and the
deportation of the remainder of the estimated 1.75 million to 2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire.
The failure of the World War I Allies to punish the Turkish perpetrators of the genocide is believed to have
paved the way for future genocide in the 20th century.
The genocide was the culmination of more than 20 years of persecution of the Armenian minority in the
Ottoman Empire, which included the Armenian massacres of 1894-1896 and in 1909. During this period, the
Ottoman Empire had been weakened, losing territory in Europe and northern Africa. The Balkan Wars of
1912-1913 contributed to the loss of territory, and the Young Turk government, led by the triumvirate of Jemal
Pasa, Enver Pasa, and Talat Pasa, responded by establishing the goal to abandon the multinational Ottoman
Empire and develop a homogenous Turkish state. The leaders of the Young Turk government were
xenophobic nationalists who believed that multinationalism had exploited and weakened the Ottoman Empire.
The Young Turk leadership believed in the superiority of German militarism, prompting them to ally with Germany against France and
Russia during World War I. The Ottomans allied in exchange for help in the creation of their proposed Turkish homeland that would
unite the Turkish Ottomans with the Turkic-speaking people of Russia and central Asia. The Young Turk leaders also wanted to use
the guise of war to exterminate the Armenians without foreign interference. In response to the Armenian pleas for neutrality in World
War I, Turkish officials arrested Armenian social and political leaders on April 24, 1915, deporting them to Anatolia and murdering
them.
In early May, the Young Turk leaders decided to remove Armenians living on the eastern frontier of Anatolia (present-day Turkey),
fearing that they would help the Russians in the event of an invasion. Armenian men were drafted into the military, then murdered or
assigned to a labor battalion and worked to death. Women, children, and the elderly were removed from their homes and assigned to
relocation camps in the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia. The Armenians were cooperative in the removal, believing that it was for
their protection from the imminent war with Russia in eastern Anatolia. Only after the deportation had begun was its true intention
evident.
The Armenians were marched in caravans for months over mountains and deserts, without food or water. Many starved or were
murdered by the Kurdish irregulars assigned to implement the removal. Young children were taken from their parents and given to
non-Armenian non-Christian families, while older children were forced to convert to Islam. Armenians who survived the relocation
often died from exposure in the desert, trying to escape. Some managed to escape into the Arab provinces and the Caucasus, while
others were helped by sympathetic Turks who were appalled by the massacre. In addition to the population, Armenian churches and
cultural relics were destroyed during the genocide.
The Armenian Genocide had an obvious effect on the Armenian people, but its effect on world history may be even greater. Prior to
World War I, there were understood codes of warfare that attempted to protect civilians from harm, but there were no codes or
enforceable laws that protected them from their own governments. As early as 1915, foreign visitors and missionaries reported the
genocide, and many world leaders promised help and condemned the massacre as a "crime against humanity." However, the lack of
a unified foreign interest in the domestic policy of the postwar Ottoman Empire and the lack of a single powerful nation to impose and
enforce changes caused many nations to forget their humanitarian concerns in exchange for favors from the new Ottoman
government, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Armenians were not given a protectorate nor even mentioned in the treaties that followed
the war.
The failure of the Allies to intervene in the Ottoman Empire during or after the Armenian Genocide led Adolf Hitler to believe that the
West would tolerate a holocaust of the Jews, as he reportedly stated, "Who, after all, remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Despite the development of international laws against genocide, drafted during the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of Genocide, the enforcement of international laws upon sovereign nations has been difficult. The post-Ottoman
Turkish government has never punished the perpetrators or acknowledged the genocidal intention of the Armenian massacres of
1915-1916, and only recently has the international community formally acknowledged the genocide. The "forgotten genocide" of 19151916 proved to be the first in a series of 20th-century genocides that included Jews, Cambodians, Africans, Bosnians, and most
recently Albanians.
References:
Boyajian, Dickran H., Armenia, The Case for a Forgotten Genocide, 1972; Dadrian, Vahakn N., The History of the Armenian
Genocide, 1995; Hovannisian, Richard G. ed., The Armenian Genocide, 1992; Oke, Mim Kemal, The Armenian Question 1914-1923,
1988; Toynbee, Arnold J., Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation, 1975. © 2006 ABC-CLIO. All rights reserved.