Armenian Massacres
The Armenian Massacres refer to a series of violent events primarily occurring between 1915 and 1918, during which the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population faced widespread extermination. This tragic episode arose from longstanding tensions due to ethnic, religious, and political grievances, particularly against the backdrop of the Ottoman Empire's decline and rising nationalist sentiments among various groups, including Armenians. Significant uprisings and social unrest, including an early wave of massacres in the 1890s, set a precedent for violence against Armenians. During World War I, the Turkish government, citing national security concerns, implemented policies that led to mass deportations and killings, resulting in the deaths of an estimated one million Armenians. Despite a wealth of historical evidence supporting claims of genocide, the Turkish government continues to dispute this characterization. The legacy of the Armenian Massacres has remained a significant point of contention in international relations and historical discourse, impacting Armenian identity and its recognition globally. The events are often viewed in relation to subsequent genocides, including the Holocaust, due to the implications of state-sponsored violence and the responsibilities of the international community in preventing such atrocities.
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Armenian Massacres
At issue: Turkish responsibility for efforts to exterminate the Armenian minority population within the Ottoman Empire
Date: 1894–1915
Location: Turkey
Combatants: Armenians and Russians vs. Turks
Result: Genocide of the Armenian people
Background
The Armenian Massacres grew out of the longstanding discontent of the mostly Christian Armenian population inside the Muslim Empire of the Ottoman Turks. Throughout the nineteenth century, anger at harsh taxation policies, the desire for religious freedom, and encouragement from Russia and missionaries from Europe and the United States had intensified the historic resentment of the Armenians against their Turkish rulers. By the 1890’s, Armenian revolutionary groups were active. For the Turks, outside interference with their religious and political system had to be endured because of the regime’s political and military weakness. Nonetheless, the activities of outsiders on behalf of the Armenians were much hated and never accepted. The government of Sultan Abdülhamid II regarded the Armenians as heretical revolutionaries who should be punished severely for their treasonous activities. Decades of ethnic hatred laid the basis for massacres and reprisals.
Action
The first wave of Armenian massacres began after an uprising in Sassoun against high taxes in 1894. The Turks responded with mass killings. When the European powers limited themselves to verbal protests, the Turkish government continued with further killings in 1895 and 1896. The Armenians resisted, and both sides suffered heavy casualties amid atrocities. The massacres persisted until October, 1896. Armenian sources and Western observers at the time put the estimated death toll among the Armenians as high as 250,000 people. Pro-Turkish historians dispute that number. A precedent for a policy of extermination had been established.
In 1908, Abdülhamid II’s government was overthrown, and a new secular regime known as the Young Turks came to power. Within what remained of the Ottoman Empire, minorities such as the Armenians once again sought independence. European rivalries focused attention on the region. Once again, the Turkish government responded with a wave of killings against Armenians in 1909. A series of Balkan Wars occurred in 1910–1912.
At the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918), Turkey entered the conflict on the side of Germany and the Central Powers against the Allies, especially Russia. The Armenians sided with the Russians, and invasion of Turkish territory occurred. The Turkish government decided that the exigencies of war justified the deportation and extermination of Armenians on the grounds of national security. Mass relocations and killings of Armenians followed for several years. The number of Armenians slaughtered between 1915 and 1918 has been estimated at one million or more, and the episode is seen as a precursor for other genocidal policies that followed in the twentieth century. Further murders on a large scale took place during wars in Russian Armenia between 1918 and 1920.
Aftermath
The existence of a policy of genocide against the Armenians during World War I in Turkey is well-established, although official Turkish sources continue to deny that such a course of action was followed. Armenians have waged a century-long battle to have their case heard in the court of world opinion, and they achieved a high degree of success in that endeavor in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The relationship of the Armenian experience to the Holocaust against the Jews by Nazi Germany in the 1940’s has been much examined because of the key role of the German military in Turkey in World War I and the subsequent participation of these men in the Nazi war effort under Adolf Hitler. By any standard, the Armenian Massacres represent a dark page in the history of the modern Near East.
Bibliography
Dadrian, Vakahn N. The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus. Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books, 1995.
McCarthy, Justin. Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821–1922. Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1995.
Melson, Robert. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Permanent People’s Tribunal. A Crime of Silence: The Armenian Genocide. London: Zed Books, 1992.
Salt, Jeremy. Imperialism, Evangelism, and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896. London: Frank Cass, 1993.