The Turkish genocide of 1915, organized on the territory of the Ottoman Empire, became one of the most terrible events of its era. Representatives of an ethnic minority were deported, during which hundreds of thousands or even millions of people died (depending on estimates). This campaign to exterminate Armenians today is recognized as genocide by most countries of the entire world community. Turkey itself does not agree with this wording.
Background
The massacres and deportations in the Ottoman Empire had different premises and causes. The 1915 Armenian genocide was caused by the unequal position of the Armenians themselves and the ethnic Turkish majority of the country. The population was discredited not only nationally, but also religiously. The Armenians were Christians and had their own independent church. Turks were Sunnis.
The non-Muslim population had Zimmi status. People who fell under this definition did not have the right to carry weapons and appear in court as witnesses. They had to pay high taxes. The Armenians, for the most part, lived poorly. They were mainly engaged in agriculture in their native lands. However, among the Turkish majority, the stereotype of a successful and cunning Armenian businessman was widespread, etc. Such labels only aggravated the hatred of the townsfolk towards this ethnic minority. These complex relationships can be compared with widespread anti-Semitism in many countries of that time.
In the Caucasian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, the situation worsened due to the fact that after the wars with Russia, Muslim refugees invaded these lands because of their everyday disorder, they constantly came into conflict with local Armenians. One way or another, but Turkish society was in an agitated state. It was ready to accept the upcoming Armenian Genocide (1915). The reasons for this tragedy were a deep split and hostility between the two peoples. All that was needed was a spark that would kindle a huge fire.
The beginning of the First World War
As a result of the armed coup in 1908, the Ittihat party (Unity and Progress) came to power in the Ottoman Empire. Its members called themselves Young Turks. The new government began hastily seeking an ideology on which to build its own state. Pan-Turkism and Turkish nationalism were taken as a basis - ideas that did not suggest anything good for Armenians and other ethnic minorities.
In 1914, the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of its new political course, entered into an alliance with Kaiser Germany. According to the agreement, the powers agreed to provide Turkey with access to the Caucasus, where numerous Muslim peoples lived. But in the same region there were Christian Christians.
With the entry of Turkey into the First World War , the first repressions against the entire non-Muslim population began, including requisition of property in favor of the state. Then the authorities declared jihad - a holy war against the infidels. Terrible clouds began to gather over the winter. Inexorably approaching the Armenian Genocide (1915), the reasons for the appearance of which we consider in our article.
First killings
When the Ottoman Empire just entered the First World War on the side of Germany, mobilization was declared throughout the country. Armenian men were also called up. Their units mainly participated in battles against Persia and Russia. But from the very beginning, the Turks began to suffer strategic defeats on all fronts. A major blow for Istanbul was the defeat in the battle of Sarykamysh in December 1914 - January 1915. The authorities immediately found the perpetrators, because of which the Russian imperial army achieved a decisive victory. Of course, they were the Armenians.
Already in February, mass disarmament of soldiers of this nationality began. About a hundred thousand people went through confiscations. Then the first cases of ethnic killings occurred. Armenian servicemen who did not want to obey orders were deprived of their lives without ceremony. Those who were objected were tortured. Rumors of disarmament distorted into Istanbul, where all the media spread news about traitors and spies. It was not yet the genocide of the Armenians of 1915, but his prelude.
Deportations
The date of April 24, 1915 became symbolic for the whole world. The Armenian genocide today is associated precisely with this day (for example, in Armenia itself it is considered to be the day of memory of the victims of the genocide). This is due to the then events in Istanbul. On April 24, 1915, the Armenian elite of the capital of the Ottoman Empire was first arrested and then deported. This event was the signal for such campaigns across the country.
Even before the Istanbul events, Armenian residents of the frontline provinces began to be deported. Authorities expelled them under the pretext of relocation to safer areas. In fact, people were sent to deserts, where they massively died from thirst, hunger and terrible conditions of existence. This was done purposefully. Mostly women, children, and the elderly — people who could not fend for themselves — were sent on such trips. Men were arrested in advance so that organized resistance did not arise.
In May, the Armenian genocide of 1915 swept the areas of compact residence of this people in Anatolia, a region far from the theater of operations. Now the authorities did not even have a plausible excuse for the resettlement of residents. However, by that time the flywheel of repression was already promoted, and the deportation campaigns took on an avalanche-like character.
On April 19, an Armenian uprising broke out in the city of Van. Residents, realizing what awaits them during the deportations, took up arms. Their battles against the Turkish army sent by the authorities lasted a whole month. The Armenians waited for the arrival of Russian troops, who saved from the imminent death of civilians. During defensive battles and the massacre preceding the uprising, about fifty-five thousand Armenians lost their lives. Throughout the genocide in the Ottoman Empire, several such major acts of disobedience occurred. The Turkish authorities used the news about them as evidence of the betrayal and hostility of the Armenians.
The apogee of the anti-Armenian campaign
On May 26, Ottoman Interior Minister Mehmed Talaat Pasha prepared a new law, according to which those who did not agree with the government’s policies were to be expelled. In June, he gave the order to deport almost all Armenians from ten eastern provinces of the country. The next campaign was conducted according to several rules. According to the regulations of the authorities, in each region the number of Armenians should have been reduced to 10% of the rest of the Muslim population. In addition, the ethnic minority was forbidden to open their own schools, and their new settlements should be located at a considerable distance from each other.
In July, expulsions swept the western provinces and thus spread throughout the Ottoman Empire. The reason for the Armenian genocide on April 24, 1915 and the following months was the pan-Turkic policy of the authorities. However, in the capital and some large cities, deportations did not take on such a massive scale. This was due to the fact that the government was afraid of the publicity of foreign journalists living in Istanbul, Izmir, etc.
The killings during the deportations were organized. In addition, many Armenians died from terrible conditions on the road or in concentration camps. Later, the Turkish tribunal presented evidence that the authorities conducted medical experiments on members of an ethnic minority. In particular, a vaccine against typhus was tested on them. Thousands of Armenians died every day from torture and bullying of the gendarmes.
The victims
Today, there are several directly opposite estimates of how many people died and suffered during the Ottoman events of those years. The history of the 1915 Armenian genocide continues to be studied at various universities around the world. Sources are revealed, evidence is analyzed.
For example, in August 1915, one of the leaders of the Young Turks Enver Pasha spoke of 300 thousand dead Armenians. The German public figure Johannes Lepsius, who conducted his own research of those events in hot pursuit, released several documentary collections. He called the figure of one million dead. Lepsius analyzed the entire history of the 1915 Armenian genocide. In particular, he stated that about 300 thousand people were forcibly converted to Islam.
Modern research offers a variety of numbers. For example, sources in Turkey say about 200 thousand dead, while Armenian publications say about 2 million. And, for example, the famous Encyclopedia Britannica generally does not give accurate estimates, adhering to a very wide range from 600 thousand to 1.5 million victims. Here he was, April 1915 ...
The Armenian Genocide and all the events of that time have long been behind us. A whole century has passed, during which the last witnesses of atrocities died. The Ottoman authorities, while conducting their deportation and murder campaigns, were diligently getting rid of any documents, written orders and other sources by which to adequately judge what had happened. All of this taken together leads to such different assessments of the tragedy.
Military Tribunal in Turkey
Despite attempts by the Ottoman authorities to conceal their crimes, news of deportations and mass illegal killings of civilians began to seep abroad. Already in May 1915, the Entente's allies (Great Britain, France and Russia) signed a joint declaration calling on Istanbul to end its repressions against its own population. Of course, these statements did not lead to anything.
Revaluation of what happened in Turkey took place only in 1918, when the country was defeated in the First World War. Istanbul was occupied by Entente forces, and the first persons of the former government fled the country in advance. These were the very Young Turks who carried out a military coup of 1908 and dragged their country into a world war on the side of Germany.
Now the Entente, as a winner, demanded that the new Ottoman authorities conduct an investigation of what the Armenian genocide led to (1915). The reasons, history, surviving documents - all this was closely studied at the tribunal, which began its work in December 1918 (before that, a government commission had been conducting its proceedings for several months). It was proved that the killings of civilians were carried out in an organized manner, which was an international war crime.
The main culprits of the tragedy were recognized: Mehmed Talaat Pasha (former Minister of the Interior and the Great Vizier), Enver Pasha (one of the leaders of the Young Turk party), and Ahmed Dzhemal Pasha (also a party functionary). These three, while in power, created an unofficial triumvirate and made all important government decisions. The tribunal sentenced them to execution in absentia, since they all fled the country on the eve of the advent of the Entente in Istanbul.
Operation Nemesis
The tragic genocide of Armenians (1915), the causes and consequences, which were still considered in court for a long time, echoed for many years around the world. In 1919, the congress “Dashnaktsutyun” was held in Yerevan, which became independent. This ruling Armenian party compiled lists of hundreds of names of people who were the main initiators and executors of repressions against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
In fact, at that congress, Dashnaktsutyun announced a retaliation campaign for the perpetrators of the national tragedy. Although the tribunal was working in Istanbul at that time, which condemned the leaders of the Young Turks, they managed to escape punishment. Legal methods of the fight against those responsible for genocide have been abandoned in Yerevan. The organization of the killing of people on the party’s death lists began. The action was called Operation Nemesis (a reference to Nemesis, the Greek goddess of vengeance).
In the period from 1918 to 1922. numerous functionaries of the Ottoman government, which initiated the Armenian Genocide (1915), were killed. The reasons for it have already been considered at the Turkish military tribunal, and the guilt of the criminals has been proven. Although Dashnaktsutyun activists acted at their own peril and risk, they always stated that they were only executing the legitimate decisions of the international court.
Young Turks Killings
On March 15, 1921, in Berlin, the Armenian Soghomon Teyliryan, in front of many witnesses, killed Talaat Pasha, who was hiding in Europe under an assumed name. The shooter was immediately arrested by German police. The trial began. Teyliryan volunteered to defend the best lawyers in Germany. The process has led to widespread public outcry. At the hearing, numerous facts of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire were voiced again. Teyliryan was sensationally acquitted. After that, he emigrated to the United States, where he died in 1960.
Another important victim of Operation Nemesis was Ahmed Jemal Pasha, who was killed in Tiflis in 1922. In the same year, another member of the triumvirate, Enver, died during battles with the Red Army in modern Tajikistan. He fled to Central Asia, where for some time he was an active participant in the Basmach movement.
Legal assessment
It should be noted that the term “genocide” appeared in the legal lexicon much later than the events described. The word arose in 1943 and originally meant the massacre of Jews by the Nazi authorities of the Third Reich. A few years later, the term was officially fixed in accordance with the convention of the newly created UN. Later events in the Ottoman Empire were recognized as genocide of Armenians in 1915. In particular, this was done by the European Parliament and the UN.
In 1995, the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was recognized as genocide in the Russian Federation. Today, the majority of US states, almost all countries of Europe and South America adhere to the same point of view. But there are also countries where the Armenian Genocide is denied (1915). The reasons, in short, remain political. First of all, in the list of these states is modern Turkey and Azerbaijan.