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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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As before, this order was nominal only. Personal taxes were still collected under the name of fees for exemption from the military services; the local councils were composed such that all of them had a Turkish majority, even in those places where the Turks were in the minority; Christians were not elected to important offices but were given simple assignments; and finally the reforms for the taxation system, to abolish the letting of tax-collection centres, were never realised.

Furthermore, the life and property of the Christian population were still targets for government harassment. Christians were threatened and murdered by bandit gangs: in the massacre in Lebanon in 1860, which required the armed intervention of France with 1 000 soldiers to bring to an end; the disturbances in Bosnia in 1875; and the horrifying massacres in Bulgaria in 1876, after which all the European consuls in Salovnin were murdered.

In 1875, after the intervention of the major powers, Sultan Abdul Aziz declared a new reform order which reiterated the items in the orders from 1839 and 1856. Added to the new order was a new interesting item, which casts a revealing light on the prevailing mindset: "From now on the upholders of the law, in other words the police, throughout the entire empire will be selected from amongst the rightful and good-hearted people." 51

This ostentatious show of reform in 1876 was completed with the publication of a freedom-based constitution, which promised a parliamentary monarchy and freedom of expression, but as before, this reform was never put into practice.

Shortly before the war of 1877-1878 and the emergence of the Berlin Congress, it was proved that the plan for implementing reforms in the Ottoman Empire was nothing but fantasy; and therefore demand increased for improvement in some particular provinces as a solution to the problem of the different ethnical groups in the empire.

The Russian consul, the old Prince Gorchakov, summerised the dead-end which the Ottoman Empire had reached in the epigraph: "self-governance or disintegration."

The Liberation of the Peoples in the Balkans

In spite of all the efforts which were made for the maintenance of integrity of the Ottoman Empire, the 19th century bore witness to the gradual liberation of the majority of Christian people in the Balkans from Ottoman rule. This liberty was won by the courageous resistance of all these nations, but was also made possible by the assistance of some of the major powers, with Russia as their leader.

Russia and Austria, in their wars against the Ottoman Empire, began by forcing the Turks to implement some improvements for the Serbs and the Romanians.

The Serbian people were the first to gain their total independence, at the beginning of the 19th century. The Serbs who at times received help from Austria and Russia, and at other times were without aid, after repetitive and long uprisings between1804-1812 under the leadership of the legendary leader Kara-Georges, finally gained their independence. Some years later in 1821, the Greek struggle for independence began, which the French historian E. Driault calls the "First chapter in the world's heroic quest for freedom". 55