The Armenian Genocide: A Historical Analysis

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 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

There are more than one ways that the holocaust is very similar to the Genocide in Armenia. Like Hitler, The Turkish government had devised and set into motion a plan to exterminate more than one million of turkeys Armenians. Like the holocaust in Germany, the genocide in Armenia had a lot to do with religion and in almost a super similar situation to the holocaust, it all started to go bad when a group called the "young Turks" decided they wanted all the power and wanted any religion but theirs out of turkey. By April of 1915 hundreds were arrested and thousands were taken from their homes and put on death marches without food and water through the desert and just like in the holocaust, people were also tortured and killed in very cruel manors.

Elie Wiesel is quoted saying “Denial is the final phase of genocide, a second killing.” This can be seen when on April 24th, 1915, a group of Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes, and unknown to them, marched to their death. This would begin the period known to many as the Armenian Genocide. However, many still refuse to acknowledge the killings that took place. The mass genocide of Armenians is still a taboo subject in Turkey, almost 100 years after two million citizens lost their lives.

It is estimated that about 1.3 to 2.1 million Armenians were killed in this great massacre ( Beckett 188). The impact of the Armenian genocide was not only that the Turks mass-murdered millions of Armenians, but that they also wiped out the Armenian culture and heritage with it. This genocide is truly significant and especially at the time it occurred, since it echoed the great lengths an empire could go to ensure

The first Armenian Genocide happened back in 1894 and 1896. Armenian citizens had always been neglected and denied certain rights, such as participation in the government, and were currently protesting to try and make their voices heard. During one such protest, Turkish

In 1915, Armenia was part of the fragment Ottoman Empire of Turkey. The First World War was a groundbreaking holocaust that killed millions of lives and the Armenians genocide was closely rooted to it. This was where Turkey had joined the German and Austro-Hungarian team and the Russia on the Allies side and the Armenians threw in their lot with Russia. In early January 1915, Turkey was disastrously vanquished by Russia and more than half of the Ottoman Army soldiers lost their lives. Although the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army fought vigorously and gallantly, military leaders inculpated the Armenians as traitors for their disappointing defeat. Because Turkish government was suspicious of the Armenians, the Muslim Turkey suspected that

The Armenians were convinced that they will finally be as equal as the Turkish Muslims.Unfortunately for the Armenians, three of the Young Turks seized control of the government in 1913. Their goal was to unite all Turkic in the region, while expanding Turkey's borders eastward across The Caucasus all the way to Central Asia (“United Human Rights Council”). However, the Armenians were the only ethnic group in between them and the nationalist Turks wanted to get rid of them all (“Armenian Genocide”). When World War I broke out, the Young Turks believed it was the perfect opportunity to solve the “Armenian Question” once and for

In orders to save lives the Armenian leaders decided to make a deal with the young Turks which did not work. Exile of the Armenians began to happen. Deportation just like the holocaust with the Jewish people. The Armenian Genocide is an important turning point in history because it affected two whole ethic groups and an entire country and still has not been morned over since the Tusks have not yet taken responsibility. Turning points from this event were when the Young Turks became leaders of the Ottoman Empire; When Armenian Leaders went into exile; when the 6,000 Armenians were massacred in the capital; and when Press came into the Ottoman Empire (American). These are all turning points that should be remembered because they all show how exactly the genocide was allowed to happen inside of the Ottoman Empire and the ruthlessness of the empire. This event looks differently through multiple perspectives in the way that there is the Turkish perspective and the Armenian. They will both be very different from each other because one was commuting the crimes while one was dying. The standpoints are political which create the

Holocaust, Noun, definition: destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war. The Holocaust was one of the most Horrible and darkest parts of world history. Lead By the leader of The Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler, the holocaust was only part of his "final Solution". The Nazi Party was responsible for over 10 million deaths of innocent Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Disabled people.

The Armenians perished in the hands of the Ottoman empire. Run by Islamic Turks, the Ottoman empire made sure to make the Christian Armenians feel unwelcome. They were considered to be “infidels” and were treated unfairly. Unjust acts slipped through judicial laws; the Armenians were given discriminatory taxes, they were not allowed to participate in the government, and they certainly had no voice. The unfortunate truth was that the Armenians were a minority and the powerful Turks did not fail in treating them like one: “During the reign of the Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdulhamit) II (1876-1909), a series of massacres throughout the empire meant to frighten Armenians and so dampen their expectations, cost up to three hundred thousand lives by some

The Armenian Genocide was one of the biggest genocides of all time, even bigger than the holocaust. The Armenians were the first to say that Christianity as state religion. The Ottoman Empire had taken control of Armenia during the 15th century, and they were disrespected for years and years on due to religious differences (Christians and Muslims), and the lack of respect culminated and peaked during 1915-1918. Pierpali states, “As the empire dramatically declined in territory and population, conditions became more difficult for the remaining minority Christian population. They became scapegoats and targets of mass ethnic killings in the latter part of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries” (Pierpali 3). During World War I, the Ottoman Empire took the opportunity among a world of chaos to exterminate its Christian population, after years of hate propaganda sponsored by the government, they struck, and the Ottoman Empire’s successor denies it to this day.

In 1915, officials of the Turkish government commenced an ambition to eradicate the Armenian people residing in the Ottoman Empire. Ultimately, the genocide slaughtered approximately 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the time and displaced hundreds of thousands more upon its end. To date, the atrocities staining the Turkish deserts have still not been recognized at the international level.

This source is a magazine article from History Today that I found on the database MasterFILE Premier. One hundred years ago the Armenian genocide occurred in Turkey. In his account of the complex historical background to these events Donald Bloxham focuses on the issue of great power involvement. Approximately one million Armenian Christians were murdered in 1915-16 under the auspices of the Ottoman state, directed by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Evidence for this state-sponsored mass destruction is too strong to waste any space demonstrating why the controversial 'G' word, genocide, is entirely applicable to the case. Yet, contrary to an 'Armenian' historiography that is keen -- partly as a response to ongoing Turkish

Article Two of the UN Convention on Genocide describes genocide as carrying out acts intended "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". History's forgotten atrocity, The Armenian genocide, is still not considered a genocide. This is one of the most violent historical moments that deprived homelands from 1.5 million Armenians through forced deportations and massacres from 1915 to 1920. Many today still calls the Armenian Genocide just history’s forgotten atrocity, but it’s more than that, it’s a genocide because it was government funded, had systematic killings, and targeted a racial and religious group.