The Armenian Genocide
World War I and The Young Turks’ Final Solution to the Armenian Question
In the summer of 1914 Europe was engulfed in the greatest conflict up to that time – World War I. The Young Turks Party leaders
The Armenian Genocide
World War I and The Young Turks’ Final Solution to the Armenian Question
In the summer of 1914 Europe was engulfed in the greatest conflict up to that time – World War I. The Young Turks Party leaders were now the real rulers of the Ottoman Empire. They had come to power as reformers in a Turkish Spring movement. Enver Pasha was Minister of War, controlling the armed forces. Jamal Pasha was Military Governor of Constantinople. Later he held other key posts. Talaat Pasha became Minister of the Interior. This triumvirate, especially Talaat, perceived the world war as an opportunity to settle some major national problems – especially the Armenian question: How should they deal with the presence of some two million Armenian Christians within the Ottoman Empire? Despite frequent protestations of friendship, they had never been at ease with such a large unassimilated minority. Interference by great powers had prevented Turkish authorities from dealing with Armenians as they saw fit. Germany promised Turkey freedom from foreign involvement in its affairs. In August 1914 the Turkish government made an alliance with Germany.
Early developments involving Turkish forces in World War I gave Turkey’s leaders a purported excuse for what they perceived as their Armenian problem. They devised plans for a final solution which was nothing less than the first (and precedent setting) genocide of the Twentieth Century.
In the winter of 1914 Turkey launched a massive invasion of Russia in the Caucuses. This became a military disaster for Turkey. Between 75,000 to 90,000 Ottoman troops were lost, either killed or died in the harsh conditions of the region. As Russian armies poured toward heavily Armenian populated territory, Turkish leaders blamed the disaster on Armenians rather than their own military incompetence. They said that the local Armenians represented a security risk as they may assist Russian invaders. That hazard could be eliminated by eliminating the Armenian population in the war zone.
However, there was danger of allied intervention to protect Armenians. Another wartime development seemed to remove that potentiality.
During 1915 the British attempted to conquer Gallipoli from which they could be able to take the imperial capital of Istanbul. This turned into a military disaster for the United Kingdom. Its forces withdrew, thus freeing Turkey from fear of imminent western attacks on its center of power. The two war developments worked in tandem. British historian Lord Kinross wrote:
“The British failure at Gallipoli gave a breathing space to the Young Turk triumvirate, leaving it free to pursue, without external interference, a premeditated internal policy for the final elimination of the Armenian race. Their proximity to the Russians on the Caucasus front furnished a convenient pretext for their persecution, on a scale far exceeding the atrocities of Abdul Hamid, through the deportation and massacre of one million Armenians, more than half of whom perished.”
Taner Akçam, a Turkish historian, has documented that the Young Turk leadership made a clear cut plan for genocide against the Armenians.” “We have many indications that the decision for genocide was made by the CUP [Committee of Union and Progress] Central Committee deliberately and after long consideration.”2/ Others have presented more undeniable evidence, including a document from a secret Young Turk leadership meeting in December 1914 or January 1915. Talaat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, presided. The plan agreed upon at the conference was published by Peter Balakian. It is nothing less than a blueprint for genocide. Its main points included a proposal to excite Moslem hatred of Armenians in several regions to provoke massacres and “apply measures to exterminate all [Armenian] males under 50, priests and teachers, leave girls and children to be Islamisized”…”kill off in an appropriate manner all Armenians in the army…”
The young Turks also set up a plan for mass deportations of most Armenians from their homes in Anatolia and elsewhere. A special organization was established to carry out these plans.
They were quickly implemented.
Armenian men in the military were among the first major targets by the end of February 1915. They were disarmed and placed in so called labor battalions. There they were massacred by the tens of thousands eliminating them as possible protectors of their people. U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau wrote of the mass executions of Armenian soldiers after they were disarmed:
“In almost all cases the procedure was the same. Here and there squads of 50 or 100 men would be taken