Armenian Genocide 1914-1923

Background• The Ottoman Empire lost all of southeastern

Europe and North Africa in the 1800s.• In 1909 a political organization called the Young

Turks took control of the Ottoman Empire.• The role of the Young Turks was to modernize

and secularize the old Muslim empire which had fallen behind the Europeans.

• The Young Turks wanted to do business with Europe and make alliances.

• In 1914 the Ottoman Empire made its alliance with Germany and drafted all men up to 45 to support the war effort.

• In 1914 there were estimated 2 million ethnic Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire.

• The majority were Christian.

• The majority also lived in Eastern Anatolia.

• Persecution of Armenians by the Turks had risen in the late 1800s.

• Turkish leaders feared a growth of a nationalist Armenian movement inspired by Russia.

• In early 1915, Russia defeated Turkish forces in Eastern Anatolia.

• The Young Turk government blamed the Armenian population for the loss.

• Millions of Armenians were deported, massacred, or placed in concentration camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Turkish-genocide-killed-more-than-one-and-a-half-million-Armenians.jpg

• It is estimated 1.5 million Armenians perished between 1914 and 1923.

• In 1915, a million were deported from the Ottoman Empire.

• Hundreds of thousands killed outright or died of hunger and disease in camps.

• In 1918, The Young Turks advanced the army into Russian territory and led systematic massacres of Armenians.

• There were thousands more killed or deported with the new Turkish government that replaced the Ottomans. By 1923, the Armenian population no longer existed in their historical homeland in Eastern Anatolia.

Response to the genocide.

• Despite the outrage of the international community, no real punishment came to the Ottoman government leaders.

• There were no steps taken to force postwar Turkish governments to pay back restitutions to the Armenian survivors for their suffering and loss of property.

• To this day the Turkish government does not recognize the Armenian genocide.

• Genocide: the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.