The war between the Young Turks and the Armenians did not solve any problems, but rather just further deepened tensions between countries. It started off as a war for power because the Armenians demanded equal rights with the Turks in the government of the Ottoman Empire. However, due to the differing religions between the two groups, the Armenians were denied of their request as they were the minority. This lead the Turks to form a committee, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), to reach a compromise with the Armenians so they could all live together in peace. However, out of fear that they would take over, the Young Turks completely disregarded this plan and decided to slaughter them by the thousands because they posed a slight threat. This increased tensions between opposing races and opposing countries since their Allies, such as Germany, would also be expected to take the side of the Turks and deny the brutality of the events that took place. …show more content…
On this historic day, also known as Remembrance Day, the Armenian people lead a march up an extensive hill to the memorial of those who died in the genocide. The people sport shirts of various colors and symbols, some with slogans relating to the genocide such as, “forget-me-not.” Many stores and attractions are closed on this day to observe the holiday and there are flyers and signs put up to advertise events going on around the city in honor of the country. Contrary to most, this march was a peaceful one filled with numerous people with one common goal at hand, to honor their fellow friends and family members who died tragically during the genocide and raise awareness toward the reality of the
Between the years of 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman Empire, under the Young Turks began a deliberate program of removing and exterminating the Armenian population; a population already dismantled through previous massacres. The Armenians were a minority in both population and religion. Because most Armenians were Christians, they were made an easy scapegoat in an empire that was mostly Islamic. With the world’s eyes on the First World War, the Armenian Genocide went mostly unnoticed and there were no punishments such as ones received by Germany after the Holocaust. The United States has deliberately avoided the recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in order to maintain an ally in the Middle East and to avoid American genocidal policies,
The Armenian massacres of the 1890 's are an important marker in the history of humanitarian aid by the United States. Before this point, American humanitarian aid had been up to small committee efforts thrown together for an individual international crisis. During the 1890 's humanitarian reformers became more organized and elected officials began to look at the role the United States federal government could play in international humanitarian aid. (Wilson 27) At this time Protestant missionaries and Armenian nationals joined forces with former abolitionists, woman suffragists, and newspapermen to bring the condition of the Armenians to the attention of the citizens of the United States.
The Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against its minority Armenian population from 1915-1917 left an estimated 1.5 million dead and to date, not one individual has been tried for these egregious crimes. The mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in World War I and Jews by the Nazis in World War II shocked the conscience of the international community and led to the creation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), in order to hold the perpetrators of crimes of this magnitude accountable. In its preamble, the UN charter sets the objective to "establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained". The genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire and Nazis made it clear that an international standard must be set in order to protect the rights of individuals. The UN has attempted to establish international law with the creation of the CPPCG and other resolutions, however, these resolutions are simply words on paper unless they are properly enforced. In this essay I will be examining whether the United Nations have been successful in its enforcement international law, specifically the CPPCG.
The Armenian Genocide also referred as the Armenian Holocaust was a horrific act done by the Turkish Ottoman government to exterminate and kill many Armenians. Millions of Armenians lost their lives due to this event and Turkey refutes that any event ever happened or occurred. The start of the genocide took place in April 24 1915 where the ottoman empire took many Armenian leaders to eventually murder them. The event was carried out during and after World War 1. The genocide was implemented in two phases which where the wholesale killing of the male population, then the death marches of the children and women leading to starvation because their food and water were deprived as well as their dignity since they raped and robbed them. There were
In a letter to Cleveland Hoadley Dodge on May 11th, 1918 the 26th US President Theodore Roosevelt in less than a year before his death made a prophetic prediction: "... the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war (WWI), and failure to act against Turkey is to condone it; because the failure to deal radically with Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense". The prediction was right.
The Holocaust is one of the most well known events in history. It had a great affect on the Jewish population and the Zionist movement. The Holocaust is very similar to the Turkish massacre of the Armenians during World War I. Alike the Holocaust, it also had a large effect on the Armenian population. Both of these are horrific events in history because of the mass numbers that were killed. The Holocaust, which had a great effect on the Jewish population, is comparable on a much larger scale to the Massacre of the Armenians in Turkey during World War 1 because of the incredibly large numbers of lives lost during the specific massacres.
Since a hundred years ago, the discussion over the barbarous actions of the Ottoman Empire murdering and deporting of its Armenian community has come down to one question. Was the viscous acts of the Ottoman Empire considered Genocide or not? This is the real global issue that has been debated for so long throughout the world. While the vast American-Armenian community truly believes the word Genocide should be openly used to describe the massacre that took place a hundred years ago, the United States has not let the word out of their mouth. Many Armenians wonder why the United States choose not to express the G-Word when they know more than a million Armenians were massacred during the final days of the Ottoman Empire.
The Armenian Genocide is the name given to the events of 1915-1923 in the Ottoman Empire, which was renamed Turkey after its founding father, Mustafa Ataturk. The Muslim majority destroyed the Armenians' homes, churches, and livelihoods in a continuous murderous event that took its course over 8 years. An estimated 1 million to 1.5 million Armenians died in this Genocide, and other ethnicities died as well including Greeks and Azerbaijanis who happened to be living in Armenian neighborhoods. (University of Michigan) The victims were sometimes forced to walk on endless marches that were intended to move the entire population out of the country and east to the mountains. Any Armenians who died on the march were left on the road to rot. The Armenian Genocide was first recognized by the Russian Empire in 1915, who saw what was happening before Europe did. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire, including Ataturk, were creating a modern Turkey for Turks, at the expense of all the minorities of the Ottoman Empire, and without mercy for any who would resist.
The Armenian Genocide Ronald Reagan, once said, like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it, the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. The ethic group the Ottoman Empire was deporting and killing were Christians. They were forced from their homes and into deportation and massacres from 1915 to 1918, one of the most brutal and traumatizing genocide that we have knowledge of. The Armenian Genocide was the first genocide of the 20th century, after World War 1. It occurred when two million Armenians were living in the Ottoman Empire. For three thousand years, an
The beginning of the twentieth century was a very horrifying beginning for the Armenian race. Over 1,500,000 Armenians were enslaved, raped, and murdered by the Ottoman Empire and Young Turk government to abolish the Armenian race from their inherited lands. The Ottoman Empire and the government of Turkey committed Genocide to the Armenian race. This is called the Armenian Genocide today, which was a major stage in the human struggle for Armenians. I will discuss the history of the Armenian race, their struggles throughout history to present, and give analogies to topics discussed in class, which can be related to the Armenian Genocide.
Also, all valuables had to be turned in to the Turks. It is a bit odd how the Armenians cooperated so well withal of it. They had no idea what was going to happen. Having been told by the Turks that everything was for the war effort, they turned in all weapons and gathered for relocation without much resistance, believing they were being transported to safety for their own good (“Armenian”). Though things went like this most of the time, there was some rebellion. A well known incident of such sort is the rebellion in the city of Van in the year 1914 (Douglas 326).
I have selected to look at the Armenian genocide as the central topic for my Senior Project. The Armenian Genocide is the term given to the systematic killings of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire during the first World War. This event is important because it is argued to be the first modem genocide and was one of the events studied in the attempt to define what a genocide is. The Armenian genocide is so important for study because of it's close relation to the creation of the nation of Turkey and the national identity to Armenian diaspora found around the world. The hundred years sense the start of the killings in 1915 have been a rocky road. The Turkish government refuses to recognize the event as a genocide and this has had
Knar Yemenidjian and Aleksan Markaryan both escaped the Armenian Genocide in 1915, with Knar eventually immigrating to Canada and Aleksan to America. Both passed away in January of this year, just four days apart. With their passing, there are no longer any Armenian Genocide survivors in North America and only a handful left in the world. 102 years after the start of what would become the first genocide of the 20th century, the issues of denial and recognition persist. Knar had to wait until 2004, 37 years after she first arrived in Canada, to see her adoptive country recognize the genocide. In 29 years of living in the United States, Aleksan never got that satisfaction, a travesty every Armenian Genocide survivor to set foot in the land of
The Armenian genocide has several main causes: European meddling in Ottoman internal affairs, nationalism, economic jealousy, and Armenian involvement in the Russian war effort. Though, a lot of the causes are interrelated. For example, nationalism and European meddling go hand in hand. What exactly was the Armenian genocide? Well, the Armenian genocide was a state orchestrated machine of mass-murder and rape of the Armenian people, and several other ethnic groups, of the Ottoman Empire 1915-1923. The Armenians were one of many ethnic groups of the Ottoman Empire, and they had lived in eastern Asia Minor for around three thousand years prior to the atrocity .
After the Ottomans lost battles in WWI that were in Russian territory, the Russians started moving into Ottoman territory, which happened to be Armenian territory. The Turks needed someone to blame for their loss and a way to gather assets that were lost in the battle. Instead of accepting responsibility for their ill-conceived invasion plans and the consequential defeat of their armies, the Young Turks placed the blame on the Armenians by accusing them of collaboration with the enemy. Soldiers of the CUP soon started receiving messages to apprehend Armenians and either deport, incarcerate, and/or kill them.