Prelude to Genocide:
In 1912 the first Balkan war broke out and the Ottoman Empire lost 85% of their European land. Many of the Turks in the Balkans returned to the Empire due to the hostile environment of the newly independent lands. These refugees moved back into Anatolia where many Armenians prominent (in terms of percentage of citizens).
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria Hungry, and Bulgaria). Between 1915 and 1916, the Ottomans fought off the British and French in the Gallipoli Campaign (in the western Empire) utilizing a diverse Army including Christians and Muslims. The fight ended in a historically stalemate as casualties were very high on both sides and although the Ottomans held their ground, they used a lot of resources they could have put toward their fight with the Russians on their eastern front. The British moved their fight to Egypt and with the Arabs succeeding in breaking the Ottomans grip on the Middle East (think Lawrence of Arabia).
On the eastern front, the Ottomans fought against the Russians. In 1914, after a defeat, one of the three leaders of the empire (Three Pashas) blamed the loss on the Armenians publicly. He sent out an order that all Armenians would be demobilized and assigned to labor divisions because he was afraid they would fight with the Russians.
In April 1915, in a large predominantly Armenian city of Van in the Eastern Empire, the governor demanded the Armenians give him 4,000 soldiers to fight the Russians. It was obvious to the Armenians that he was planning on killing all the able bodied men as he had something similar in smaller villages nearby.
Some quote from Armenian leaders in Van: “Keep clean; do not drink; tell the truth; do not curse the religion of the enemy" (Turks)
“Better that some villages be burned and destroyed unavenged than give the slightest pretext to the Moslems for a general massacre." (This was very prophetic)
The Armenians gave 500 men and exemption money for the other 3,500 in order to buy time. The governor accused them of rebellion and claimed, “If the rebels fire a single shot, I shall kill every Christian man, woman, and" (pointing to his knee) "every child, up to here". The next day, an Armenian woman was being harassed by soldiers and two men who came to her rescue were shot. The battle began and the Armenians defended themselves. 1,500 Armenians with 300 rifles and 1000 pistols held one square kilometer populated by 45,000 residents and refugees for a month until the Russian offensive reached Van and drove off the Turks.
The Genocide:
The Events at Van in 1915 pushed the leaders of the Empire over the edge. Here is a quote from the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire: “I have told this story of the ‘Revolution’ in Van not only because it marked the first stage in this organized attempt to wipe out a whole nation, but because these events are always brought forward by the Turks as a justification of their subsequent crimes. As I shall relate, [the Ottoman leaders], when I appealed to them in behalf of the Armenians, invariably instanced the ‘revolutionists’ of Van as a sample of Armenian treachery. The famous ‘Revolution’, as this recital shows, was merely the determination of the Armenians to save their women's honour and their own lives, after the Turks, by massacring thousands of their neighbours, had shown them the fate that awaited them.”
On April 24, 1915 (Genocide Remembrance Day, the Ottoman government imprisoned 250 Armenian Intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople (Opposite side of the Empire to Van). All of these people (with a few exceptions) were moved to Ankara and then deported and assassinated. In May, the Pashas requested that the cabinet of the Empire legalize deportation of the Armenians due to "the Armenian riots and massacres, which had arisen in a number of places in the country" (Only Van). The cabinet granted the ability to deport anyone it sensed to be a threat to national security.
The following actions were practiced by the Ottoman Army, Kurdish gendarmes, and citizens of the Ottoman Empire.
Around the Empire, Armenian men were rounded up and shot while Armenian women and children were taken from their homes and marched across the Empire without food, water, or shelter and into Syria. There they were abandoned in the desert or put in 1 of 25 extermination camps. In some places Armenians were crammed into cattle cars and shipped by railroad. In other places Armenians were burned en masse. Some women and children were taken onto boats and thrown overboard in the Black Sea. Experimentation and use of chemicals were also utilized. Armenians were injected with lethal doses of Morphine, were killed with toxic gas, and purposely inoculated with blood containing typhus. Women were raped, forced into marriage, forced into prostitution, sold, and subjected to sexual mutilation. These were the general ways in which the Genocide was acted out. I will post more specific accounts in coming days.
In all, between 500,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1914 and 1918.
Nothing was done to stop it although much money was raised for the survivors (a lot coming from America).
Wilson and the Allies wished to make provisions for Armenians after World War I but it seemed they did not want responsibility for following through with them as they were more concerned with what was to be done with Germany. In 1918, the portion of historical Armenia that was in Russia declared independence from the Russians as they were distracted by the Bolshevik revolution. At this time the Ottoman Empire became the Republic of Turkey. The Allies, in the treaty of Sevres, ceded Turkish land to Armenia, but the Turks, showing they would not accept such a decree, invaded Armenia. Turkey continued their massacres during this invasion and it is estimated that 60,000 to 98,000 more civilians were killed.
In 1922 Armenians in Turkey had been either converted, killed, or lived in the shadows. Before World War I, there was 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. By 1922, there were fewer than 400,000.
The new Soviet Union took over Armenia in 1922 (It was a country for less than 4 years). Armenia would not be a country again until 1991 when the U.S.S.R collapsed.