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.
On the positive side, this brought about international attention to the crisis at hand. On the negative side, that attention did not amount to any actual reform in the Ottoman Empire on the behalf of the Armenian people. There is also the matter in which American activists worded the problem that has caused the Armenian people to struggle with self-identity in the United States; I will talk more about this later in this paper. To gather aid for the Armenian cause the ABCFM sat down and devised a plan on how to present the Armenian people in the United States. What came about was that the United States had a duty to intervene in order to save the Christian Armenians because of familiar religious ties. Somehow the Armenians were “unique in the world for their long-standing devotion
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,
Most of the Armenian population was forced into Syria from Armenia and Anatolia, where they would either be sent off to starve, or be massacred later on (Document 1). This document provides context to their concentration by showing that they had been moved to another state in order to bring them closer together. The German soldier and medic, Armin T. Wegner, took a photo of dead Armenians stacked together (Document 5). Wegner’s purpose was to show that the bodies had been stacked together neatly, rather than strewn about as they would have been in a war. There would have been no time to stack the bodies in this manner during a war, and, due to the large number of bodies, it can be concluded that they were concentrated together before being killed. The final step of the genocide process is the extermination of the targeted group in an effective and cost effective manner. The photo taken by Wegner in Document 5 shows the dead bodies of a large group of Armenians. The methodical stacking of the bodies in order to save space suggests that the government was trying to kill the Armenians in the most efficient way possible. In Document 3, the American Ambassador to Turkey reports what he had heard about the massacres against the Armenians. As an American, he has an unbiased point of view and opinion at this point in World War I. Morgenthau discusses the
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
Mass extermination and deportation of Western population of Armenia, Cilicia and other provinces of the Ottoman Empire carried out by the ruling circles of Turkey in 1915-1923. The policy of genocide against Armenians was due to several factors. The leading role among them was the ideology
The Armenian Genocide was a very bad thing during a very bad time. One of the main causes of the genocide was the intolerance of a tyrannical regime. During this time it caused a lot of different problems for the armenians. During this time there were about 1.5 million Armenians living in the empire in 1915 and almost 1.2 million people died during the genocide. This event caused a lot more things to go on in the future because of how bad it really was.
The actions made by the Ottoman Empire during the World War one were a contribution and establishment of a genocide. The Armenian genocide resulted in 1.5 million deaths of Armenians that were caused by starvation, exhaustion, dehydration, and mainly from being slaughtered. " The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people was made by the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire" (Full of Facts: Armenian Genocide). Since the Committee of Union and Progress came to a conclusion to organize this event, it proves that the decrease in the Armenian population was intentional.
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.
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.
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
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.
The corrupt politics behind the Armenian genocide was perpetrated by the Committee of Union and Progress in the Ottoman Empire. Three people in this movement controlled the government, Mehmet Talaat, Grand Vizier, Ismail Enver, and Ahmed Jemal. They relied on the members of the CUP in the government to assign military commands that carried out the Armenian Genocide. Around this time the Young Turks relied on a new group which they manned with convicts and irregular troops called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa.) They were used to carry out the countless mass slaughters of the helpless Armenians who were being deported. They put Behaeddin Shakir a medical doctor in charge of the Organization, he was sort of the Hitler of the Armenian
The main goal of these reforms was to move the non-Muslims from an inferior national to a full subject of the Empire. The thought was that if the Sultan gave his minority subjects more rights, per say, than they would not form a separatist movement. Or worse the subjects separatist movement lobby international support; for example, in the Greek national movement in 1821. The Greeks were assisted by France, Romanov Russia, and The United Kingdom. In this way two causes for the Armenian genocide interweave. At the same time as nationalistic centrifugal forces are pulling the Empire apart, Europe is sticking their hands in Ottoman internal affairs. The Tanzimat Reforms were really a failure, and did not promote equal citizenship among citizens. Nor
I'm not as fascinated on topics of Genocide as i am on cultures and political relations.My interest in this particular topic rose when i remember the commemoration of the Armenian genocide took place and there was a debate on the importance of it being claimed as such or let it be ignored. I was always to certain extent intrigued by how as a student i was taught about the Holocaust and Rwanda when speaking about genocide but Armenia was ignored .Last year my friend asked about a topic for her extended essay involving a genocide which wasn't the holocaust, I mentioned Armenia and at first she didn't know what i was talking about since it wasn't common knowledge; now she is writing her extended essay on this topic.I like to link the authoritative
Approximately one and a half million Armenians were killed from 1915-1923. The remaining part was either Islamized or exiled.” The Armenian Genocide was a horrific event that caused the Armenians to have a major loss in population. From this, the Armenians should have been given reparations, but were not and that still affects them to this day.