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This genocide was partly officials taking orders, but it was for a moral reson and the original planners felt deeply about the religion issue.
In 1915, the Ottoman government resolved to expel all Armenians...
The Armenian Genocide: 1915
By: Brooke Ward & Stormy Kelly
Armenia has persistently called for the massacres of 1915 and after to be acknowledged as genocide. They have also asked Turkey to apologise for it. Turkey, however, has continued to deny genocide, claiming that the figures given are false: instead, 300,000 Armenians (and many thousands of Turks) were killed in the general carnage and turbulence of internal fighting during the First World War, with local massacres carried out by both sides. Both Armenia and Turkey have collected extensive documentary evidence to support their respective cases (with mutual accusations of forgery). In 2001, when the first Holocaust Day took place in the UK, the national Assembly of France formally decided to acknowledge the Armenian killings as genocide, though not mentioning Turkey by name. All the same, it provoked a substantial row with Turkey, which suspended diplomatic relations, called off trade deals, toyed with imposing sanctions, and contemplated formally accusing France of genocide during Algeria's 1955-1962 war of independence.
In 1909 the Ottoman Sultan was overthrown by a new political group: the 'Young Turks', eager for a modern, westernised style of government. When the First World War broke out, the Young Turks supported Germany, which brought the country into conflict with Russia once again. It was easy for the Young Turks to expect Turkish Armenians to conspire with pro-Christian Russians against them (though many Turkish Armenians denied any such intention). In 1915, under the cover of the war, the Ottoman government resolved to expel Turkey's Armenian population. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were driven out of their homes and either massacred or force-marched into the desert until they died.
The Armenians are an ancient people whose home has been in the southern Caucasus since the 7th century BC. Mongol, Persian, Russian and Ottoman (Turkish) empires have fought on and over this region for many centuries. In the 4th century AD one of Armenia's kings became a Christian, and Christianity has been the Armenian state religion ever since. After Islam was founded in Arabia in the 7th century AD, it became the state religion in all the countries surrounding Armenia (including Iran, which was the strongest influence on Armenian culture). But the Armenians continued to cherish their Christian church, although politically they lived under a series of foreign regimes and as a result often experienced hardship, persecution, discrimination and abuse.
The 'Young Turks' and the Ottoman government went after the Armenian people because of their Christian religion. The Turks were Muslims.
The Armenians were tortured and left in deserts without food, water or shelter to die. Many of them were forecefully marched to their fate, while others were squeezed into train cars.
The 70,000 or so Armenians who live in Turkey today have distanced themselves from the arguments, saying that the dispute should be left to historians.
Over One Million Armenians were killed between 1914-1918 in this horrible massacre.
In 1922, four years after the genocide, Armenia joined the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, where they remained for 71 years.
When the mass murder was over, the Turkish people denied the genocide, saying that it was 'just a war' and 'not a massacre'.
