The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide took place between 1915 and 1918 in Turkey where approximately two million Armenians were murdered. The Ottoman Empire controlled Armenia for hundreds of years, and when it was rapidly declining in the late 1800s, new Turkish leaders stepped into power. A group of Turkish nationalists called the 'Young Turks' staged a coup in 1913 and though it first looked hopeful to Armenians, it proved to be a horrible change. The Young Turks fueled disdain for differences between Turks and Armenians ans encouraged discrimination against Armenians. Christian Armenians were branded as infidels and sometimes massacred.
With the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire sided with the Central Powers. The Turkish goverment knew that with the world's attention in Europe for the war, fewer people would question their treatment of Armenians. The goverment stripped Armenians of all weapons, claiming that they might sympathize with Russian Christians and betray the Ottoman's alliance with the Central Powers. In 1914 all Armenians serving in the Turkish Army were disarmed and put into slave labor batallions. The Young Turks decided to exterminate the entire Armenian population and on April 24, 1915 300 Armenian leaders, educators, and citizens were jailed, tortured, and then killed. The violence spread so that soon Armenian men were executed in mass numbers. Following that, women, children, and the eldery were forced to pack and be 'relocated' but were instead taken on death marches. Dangerous routes were intnetionally taken, and when food ran out, it was never replaced. About 75% of the people in these marches perished. In May of 1918 Turkish troops attacked a large group of Armenians living within the boarders of Russia, the Armenians managed to acquire weapons and defended themselves from the invading Turks. When the war ended in 1918, the Young Turks' three prominent leaders fled to Germany an a new government was established, thus ending the majority of the violence towards Armenians.

The Armenian Genocide was, as any genocide, absolutely barbaric and inhumane. It is far beyond my understanding how anyone can kill two million people and justify it. What strikes me is that the government planned it, they knew that once the war broke out, less attention would be given to their treatment and slaughter of their Armenian people. It is absolutely horrifying in that no person was spared, and if you were not shot or hanged, you starved. The marches were unbelieveably cruel and bodies lay along roads, nameless. It is awful to know that two million innocent people lost their lives.

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/armenian_genocide.htm