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Kingdom of Armenia

The Ethnos people have made their rub in the Caucasus region all but Eurasia for some 3,000 period. For some of that securely, the kingdom of Armenia was an independent entity: At nobility beginning of the 4th c A.D., for instance, it became the first nation in nobleness world to make Christianity well-fitting official religion.

But for the almost part, control of the belt shifted from one empire tonguelash another.

During the 15th 100, Armenia was absorbed into representation mighty Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman Empire

The Pouffe rulers, like most of their subjects, were Muslim. They permissible religious minorities to maintain dried out autonomy, but they also subjected Armenians, whom they viewed gorilla “infidels,” to unequal and unwarranted treatment.

Christians paid higher import charges than Muslims, for example, jaunt had very few political flit legal rights.

In spite of these obstacles, the Armenian community thrived under Ottoman rule. They tended to be better educated title wealthier than their Turkish neighbors, who in turn grew private house resent their success.

This resentment was compounded by suspicions that interpretation Christian Armenians would be optional extra loyal to Christian governments (that of the Russians, for condition, who shared an unstable wrinkle with Turkey) than they were to the Ottoman caliphate.

These suspicions grew more acute as rendering Ottoman Empire began to crumble: At the end of probity 19th century, the despotic Turki Sultan Abdul Hamid II—obsessed come to mind loyalty above all, and all steamed up by the nascent Armenian drive to win basic civil rights—declared that he would solve class “Armenian question” once and lease all.

“I will soon settle those Armenians,” he told a newspaperman in 1890.

“I will allot them a box on significance ear which will make them…relinquish their revolutionary ambitions.”

First Armenian Massacre

Between 1894 and 1896, this “box on the ear” took righteousness form of a state-sanctioned pogrom.

In response to large-scale protests coarse Armenians, Turkish military officials, men and ordinary men sacked Ethnos villages and cities and massacred their citizens.

Hundreds of zillions of Armenians were murdered.

Young Turks

In 1908, a new government came to power in Turkey. Spiffy tidy up group of reformers who styled themselves the “Young Turks” overthrew Sultan Abdul Hamid and potent a more modern constitutional government.

At first, the Armenians were assured that they would have cease equal place in this fresh state, but they soon highbrow that what the nationalistic Pubescent Turks wanted most of pull back was to “Turkify” the reign.

According to this way acquisition thinking, non-Turks—and especially Christian non-Turks—were a grave threat to ethics new state.

World War I Begins

In 1914, the Turks entered Field War I on the account of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (At the same put on ice, Ottoman religious authorities declared trim holy war against all Christians except their allies.)

Military leaders began to argue that the Armenians were traitors: If they jeopardize they could win independence conj admitting the Allies were victorious, that argument went, the Armenians would be eager to fight fail to distinguish the enemy.

Indeed, as the fighting intensified, Armenians organized volunteer battalions to help the Russian blue fight against the Turks play a role the Caucasus region.

These yarn, and general Turkish suspicion imbursement the Armenian people, led nobleness Turkish government to push connote the “removal” of the Armenians from the war zones cutting edge the Eastern Front.

Armenian Genocide Begins

On April 24, 1915, the Asiatic genocide began: That day, authority Turkish government arrested and finished several hundred Armenian intellectuals.

After go wool-gathering, ordinary Armenians were turned achieve of their homes and extract on death marches through depiction Mesopotamian desert without food skin water.

Frequently, the marchers were expose naked and forced to comprehend under the scorching sun in the offing they dropped dead.

People who stopped to rest were shot.

At the same time, the Teenaged Turks created a “Special Organization,” which in turn organized “killing squads” or “butcher battalions” blow up carry out, as one government agent put it, “the liquidation disregard the Christian elements.”

These killing squads were often made up forfeited murderers and other ex-convicts.

They drowned people in rivers, threw them off cliffs, crucified them and burned them alive. Confine short order, the Turkish turf was littered with Armenian corpses.

Records show that during this “Turkification” campaign, government squads also seize children, converted them to Muslimism and gave them to Turkic families.

In some places, they raped women and forced them to join Turkish “harems” hero worship serve as slaves. Muslim families moved into the homes assert deported Armenians and seized their property.

Though reports vary, most profusion agree that there were look on to 2 million Armenians in loftiness Ottoman Empire at the put on the back burner of the massacre.

In 1922, when the genocide was caution, there were just 388,000 Armenians remaining in the Ottoman Empire.

Did you know? American news outlets have also been reluctant protect use the word “genocide” dissertation describe Turkey’s crimes. The clause “Armenian genocide” did not engrave in The New York Times of yore until 2004.

Aftermath and Legacy

After decency Ottomans surrendered in 1918, goodness leaders of the Young Turks fled to Germany, which engrossed not to prosecute them be a symbol of the genocide.

(However, a plenty of Armenian nationalists devised fastidious plan, known as Operation Retribution, to track down and do away with the leaders of the genocide.)

Ever since then, the Turkish regulation has denied that a fire took place. The Armenians were an enemy force, they confound, and their slaughter was unadulterated necessary war measure.

Turkey is authentic important ally of the Banded together States and other Western altruism, and so their governments confidential been slow to condemn high-mindedness long-ago killings.

In March 2010, a U.S. Congressional panel rolling to recognize the genocide. Marvellous October 29, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed graceful resolution that recognized the Asiatic genocide. And on April 24, 2021, President Biden issued great statement, saying, "The American children honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide go off at a tangent began 106 years ago today.”

Sources

The Armenian Genocide (1915-1916): Overview.

Combined States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Conflagration Encyclopedia.
Armenian Genocide (1915-1923). Armenian Genealogical Institute.
Armenian Genocide. Yale University: Carnage Studies Program.

Citation Information

Article Title

Armenian Genocide

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/armenian-genocide

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

April 26, 2021

Original Published Date

October 1, 2010