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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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The Genocide of 1915-1918

During the first months of 1915, a period which will always be remembered with horror in the history of Armenia, the Turkish government, led by Talaat, Enver and Jemal, planned the annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Renan writes of the shamelessness of some of the European cities in the East, which had fallen under the influence of the low and despicable notions of the Turks. Constantinople, where the irrevocable act was planned and directed, was the most prominent amongst these.

The implementation of the evil plan began with the mass arrest and execution of great Armenian personalities, including the composer Komitas (who, as we will see later, actually survived the genocide), the authors Daniel Varouzhan, Siamanto (Atom Yardjanian) and Grigor Zohrab. This occurred on the evening of April 24, 1915, now the official remembrance day of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. At the same time, the administration began to arrest and execute Armenian officers and soldiers who were loyally serving on the Caucasian front. Thousands had already sacrificed their lives for Turkey during the battles in Basen and Sarighamish.

The ethnic cleansing of the Armenian civilian population was well planned, involving the mass deportation of the Armenian inhabitants in long caravans towards the deserts of Mesopotamia and Syria. The caravans of refugees were subject to assaults from the army units, gendarmes and military special units who had been enlisted from amongst the most fanatic and primitive individuals in the population. These men murdered Armenians without discrimination, and women and young girls were sold to the harems of the Turkish elite or military leaders. The methods of execution were so heinous as to defy belief, especially in the context of the 20th century. The Turkish soldiers who guarded the caravans even placed wagers on the gender of the foetus in the womb of Armenian women, slicing them open and removing the foetus to discover who had won, a torture unheard of before or since. On arrival at Ter Zor, the Armenians who had survived the march through the desert were packed into caves where the soldiers set fire to them. The Turks in effect used a more primitive form of the incinerators in the Nazi concentration camps. Armenian survivors relate how they ate the parts of the charred human bodies so as not to starve to death. The Armenian Church in Syria holds annual services at the entrance to these caves in remembrance of the victims in Ter Zor.

Of the 2,000,000 Armenian inhabitants in Turkey, 1,800,000 were subject to planned genocide and more than 1,000,000 lost their lives. Only a few hundred thousands escaped to Transcaucasia or survived in Syria and Mesopotamia.

Massacre or genocide on such a large scale indicates careful and extensive planning. The implementation of the plan was directed by the Turkish government and the members of the committee of Union and Progress, the undisputed leaders of Turkey, including Talaat Pasha, the interior minister of Turkey, who later became the federal chancellor of the country.