In 1814 the population of Bitlis town was said to be 12,000 people - one half Muslim, the other half was constituted by Christian Armenians. By 1838 its population was said to be between 15,000 and 18,000 - two thirds Muslim, one third Armenian, and a small minority of Assyrians. In 1898 Lynch considered the population to be close to 30,000, comprising 10,000 Armenians, 300 syrians, and the rest Muslim Kurds (both Alevis and Sunnis included). The Armenians had five schools for boys and three for girls. One third of the population of Bitlis was ethnic Armenian prior to World War I (1914, whereas the majority of the population was Kurdish Muslim (Alevi as well as Sunni Muslims). In 1915, during the Armenian Genocide, Turks and Kurds, led by Jevdet Bey Pasha, massacred some 15,000 Armenians in Bitlis.