Dbq Armenian Massacres

Beginning in 1915, the Armenian massacre was an attempt to create a new compatible Turkish state. The prior religious and ethnic diversity within the Ottoman Empire had disappeared. The Ottoman Empire went from being diverse with multiple religious, now converted to a practically Muslim empire. The empire was now almost entirely Muslim, as well as a Turkish state. Turkish leaders soon realized that the only way to make up for the lost land and territories was to spread eastward and form a pure Turkish state. The Christian non-Turkish Armenians were an obstacle that would have to be faced in the process. In order to fulfill this was to force conversion of minorities in the country when that did not turnout, results quickly turned to massacres

and persecution. In 1915, the Ottoman government treated Armenians as second class citizens. Certain events such as the decline of the Ottoman power and deportation of the Armenian population, lead up to a brutal killings which is referred to and confirmed as the Armenian massacre.
The outbreak of massacres were a response to a mixture of things.

The tensions that the reforms had caused between the Muslim and non-Muslims, and also were used in attempt to try and control nationalism. Under the Millet system, the Ottoman Empire did not grant as many rights to the Armenians as they did to Muslims. The Armenians were unable to serve in the military, unable to testify against Muslims in court, unable to bear arms, and also had to pay much higher taxes than Muslims had to. In 1914, approximately 1,500,000 Armenians were living in the empire. In the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The Armenian population desired more civil rights during this period of time and this concerned Sultan Abdul Hamid II. This was concerning to him because he believed that the desire of civil rights may turn into an independence movement, so the Sultan encouraged the series of massacres that killed many

Armenians.
The Young Turk Revolution began in 1908, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II was overthrown. The Young Turk leaders, later known as the committee for Union and Progress (CUP), created a parliament and in the beginning promised equal rights for all minorities within the empire. The CUP controlled their party in a single-party political system who governed until the end of World War I. The Union was responsible for initiating the mass murder of the Armenian population, which was ordered in June 1915. The killings of the Ottoman Armenians beginning in 1915, has been the topic of much debate since then and still to this day. There still is no clear account of responsibility for the massacres that took place killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenian-Ottoman citizens, now regarded as genocide.
During the late nineteenth century, a growing amount of Armenians were nationalist, no longer basing their identities on religious and historical connections within the multi-ethnic empires, “but instead turning to linguistic, cultural, secular, and territorial factors.” (Fisher, Ochsenwald 374).

Nationalists claimed that Russians tsar was the protector of Armenians, while other Ottoman Armenians claimed support should be provided to the Ottoman government throughout the war. In western cities, Armenians followed war orders while in eastern Anatolia, some of the Ottoman-Armenian population assisted Russia in the act of rebelling. “In April 1915, an Armenian government was proclaimed in Van. In some districts, part of the Muslim population was killed by the Armenians” (Fisher, Ochsenwald 375). In early 1915, Ottomans central government felt that defeat was in fact possible due to Russian advances and recent attacks. The Armenian disloyalty along with wanting to control the military situation in eastern Anatolia resulted in authorities ordering the deportation of the Armenian population, soon leading into the massacres beginning in

1915.
Throughout the deportation, while in the Syrian deserts, thousands of individuals died. It is said that “exposure, illness, exhaustion, and starvation” (Fisher, Ochsenwald 375) were the planned causes of death of the Armenians while in the Syrian desert. The Ottoman government officials ordered the killing of these Armenian civilians by having them march through the desert until they reached the point of death, knowing they would not survive. “Perhaps 600,000 or more Armenians (about 40 percent of the Ottoman-Armenian population) perished, while hundreds of thousands fled elsewhere.” (Fisher, Ochsenwald 375). The once home of eastern Anatolia was left with almost no Armenians.
Although some Turks did protect the Ottoman authorities, the Armenian deportations and massacres were a terrible and heavily impacted on the Ottoman Empire. The Turks have now disarmed the Armenians that were serving in the military. Armenians were deported everywhere all across the map. Individuals were forced to walk hundreds of miles on foot in the blazing sun, which most of the time resulted in death. There were many causes of death in the Armenian massacre and the Turks went to, and still go to extensive measures in an attempt to cover up the damage they caused, and terrible acts they took part in during World War I.