The Armenian Genocide

[Storyteller.]

The Armenian Genocide
By Jenna (.:BreakingBeautifully:.)

In April of 1915 the Ottoman Empire launched a methodical attack on its Armenian population which resulted in the death of a million and a half Armenians. These persecutions would continue with varying levels of intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire came to an end and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was ruled by Turks who practiced Islam; the Armenians were Christian which made them a minority. Due to this fact the Armenians were subject to legal restrictions such as being forced to pay discriminatory taxes and not being allowed to participate in the government.

By the 19th century the Ottoman Empire was declining rapidly, causing political and economic pressures and deepening the ethnic tension. The Armenians began making demands such as asking for administrative reform and better police protection against predatory tribes among the Kurds, which are an ethnic group in the Middle East mainly inhabiting the area of Kurdistan and some neighboring areas of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The government wanted to resolve the issues without making any administrative changes and this led to a series of massacres among the Armenian people. In 1908, a new political group formed and seized power from Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who was the leader before the new political party took over, by revolution. This group was known as the Young Turks. The Young Turks went on to form the Committee of Union Progress (CUP), which was led by Ismail Enver, Minister of War; Ahmed Jemel, Ministry of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria; and Mehmet Talaat, Minister of Interior and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister). The CUP advocated the formation of an exclusively Turkish state and they wanted to move eastward.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire began to attack the Armenian population in areas of fighting. In the spring and summer of 1915, the Armenians who were concentrated outside the war zones were ordered to be deported from their homes. Thousands of men, women, and children were driven hundreds of miles into the Syrian Desert. The deportations were disguised as resettlement programs but the brutality of them made it clear they were anything but; the Armenians were basically marching to their death. The government provided little rationing for food and deliberately went out of the way to deny them food and water in hopes of quickening their death. As a tool for extermination the government commissioned the formation of gangs of butchers; they were mostly criminals who were given instructions from the government to kill the Armenians. Also, along the way orphaned children and woman were placed in bondage in Turkish homes. By the end of the walk, the surviving people were placed in concentration camps in which they were made to walk further south and onward to their death.

After World War I, about four hundred officials of the CUP were implicated in crimes such as unconstitutional seizure of power, the conduct of war aggression, and conspiring the liquidation of the Armenian population and massacre. Some of the accused were found guilty, such as Mehmet Talaat who was sentenced to death. However, many others were able to flee.

A number of the people who had been implicated in the war crimes eventually joined the new movement known as the Nationalist Turkish movement, which was led by Mustafa Kemal. The Nationalist Turkish movement would go on to complete the process of eliminating the Armenians through further massacres and deportations which would take place from 1920-1922.

In 1923, Turkey was declared a republic and received international recognition which led to the Turkish government sweeping the Armenian Genocide under the rug. Eventually the Turkish government adopted a policy that dismissed the charge of genocide and denied that the deportations were based on a deliberate plan to annihilate the Armenians. Today many Armenian people want their respective country to give a formal acknowledgement of the crimes that were committed. Some countries have acknowledged the genocide, namely France, Argentina, Greece and Russia. The Armenian Genocide may be considered "the forgotten genocide" to some, but there are many people who commemorate the genocide on April 24.