The Armenian Holocaust (1894 - 1915)

The Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th Century, occurred when two million Armenians living in Turkey were eliminated from their historic homeland through forced deportations and massacres.

The Armenians and Turks lived in relative harmony in the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Under Ottoman rule, the Armenians were granted considerable autonomy within their own enclaves and lived in relative harmony with other groups in the empire (including the Kurds). However, as Christians under a strict Muslim social system, Armenians faced pervasive discrimination. During these times, although Armenians were not equal and had to put up with certain special hardships, taxes and second class citizenship, they were well accepted and there was relatively little violent conflict.

In the mid-1860s to early 1880s, Armenians began to ask for better treatment from the Ottoman government. They sought autonomy, not independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1876, the Ottoman government was led by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Hamid II attempted to stall their petition and asserted that Armenians did not make up a majority in the provinces. Sultan Hamid II was responsible for murdering over 200,000 Christian Armenians between 1894 and 1896 (The Hamidian Massacre).

Armenians' hopes for equality in the empire brightened once more when a coup d'état staged by officers in the Turkish Third Army based in Salonika on July 24, 1908. This action removed Hamid II from power and restored the country back to a constitutional monarchy. The officers were part of the Young Turk movement that wanted to reform administration of the decadent state of the Ottoman Empire and modernize it to European standards. Turkish and Armenian revolutionary groups had worked together to secure the restoration of constitutional rule, in 1908.

But In April, 1909 The Adana massacre occurred in Adana Province. A religious-ethnic clash in the city of Adana amidst governmental upheaval resulted in a series of anti-Armenian pogroms throughout the district. Reports estimated that the massacres in Adana Province resulted in 15,000 to 30,000 deaths. The massacres were rooted in political, economic, and religious differences. Some Ottoman military element, along with Islamic Theological Student, aimed to control the country under the rule of Islamic Law.

On April 24th 1915, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being summoned and gathered. The now leaderless Armenian people were to follow. Across the Ottoman Empire, the same events transpired from village to village, from province to province at East Turkey. The remarkable thing about the following events is the virtually complete cooperation of the Armenians. For a number of reasons they did not know what was planned for them and went along with "their" government's plan to "relocate them for their own good." One and a half million Armenians were killed, out of a total of two and a half million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

First, the Armenians were asked to turn in hunting weapons for the war effort. Communities were often given quotas and would have to buy additional weapons from Turks to meet their quota. Later, the government would claim these weapons were proof that Armenians were about to rebel. The able bodied men were then "drafted" to help in the wartime effort. These men were either immediately killed or were worked to death. Now the villages and towns, with only women, children, and elderly left were systematically emptied. The remaining residents would be told to gather for a temporary relocation and to only bring what they could carry. The Armenians again obediently followed instructions and were "escorted" by Turkish Gendarmes in death marches. On the march, often they would be denied food and water, and many were brutalized and killed by their "guards".

The death marches led across Anatolia, and the purpose was clear. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and kidnapped along the way. The Turkish Gendarmes either led these atrocities or turned a blind eye. Their eventual destination for resettlement was just as telling in revealing the Turkish governments goal: the Syrian Desert, Der Zor. Those who miraculously survived the march would arrive to this bleak desert only to be killed upon arrival or to somehow survive until a way to escape the empire was found. Usually those that survived and escaped received assistance from those who have come to be known as "good Turks," from foreign missionaries who recorded much of these events and from Arabs.

Sadly, for more than 90 years Armenian Genocide issue was ignored, put aside or denied by the great powers of the world.