Armenian Genocide in Turkey 1915

Armenian Genocide in Turkey 1915
Before the beginning of World War 1, about 2,5 million Armenians had been living in the Ottoman empire but in 1923, after the end of the war and final annihilation of Armenians, only a very few Armenians ( 50,000 ) were living in Istanbul, in very deplorable conditions. But where did the others go?!
Armenian Leaders Of Dashnak Party Hanged In Istanbul	When in the summer of 1914, the first shots of World War 1 were fired and the attention of Europeans was drawn to the events of war, the ruling government of Turkey found a suitable opportunity to solve the Armenian question forever. This was a job that none of the previous Ottoman Sultans and found the opportunity to do. At that time the Young Turks, as
the Committee of Union and Progress had assumed the reins of government. Three of the main leaders of that party, Muhamed Talat Pasha, the interior and main minister of Turkey at the time; Ismael Enver Pasha, the minister of war; and Ahmed Jamal Pasha, the minister of admiralty. All three of these held the racial Pan-Turkism ideology and tended to be pro-German. The extermination of the whole Armenian race was designed, programmed and performed in a very exact and secret manner by this committee and esp. the three mentioned persons. To perform this inhumane plan, all the Armenian males between the ages of 15-50 were called to the army under the pretext of sending them to the front lines. An order was also issued that everybody who had a weapon must put it in the army's charge; in addition, everything which might be needed by the army during the course of the war, such as clothes, mules, carts, food, etc., was to be seized. Interestingly enough, however, the government seized only the Armenians' properties and appliances for the army. When those commissioned to commandeer properties entered into Armenian houses, they gathered everything, whether it was useful for the army or not, such as feminine clothes, decorative and ornamental objects, etc. On the 24th April of 1915, about 300 of Armenian leaders, politicians, intellectuals, writers, religious leaders etc., were arrested. After transferring them to the slaughter house (all except one bishop named Komitas, who lost his senses and memory as a result of what he had seen), they were viciously butchered. . .it was the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. Also on the same day, over 5000 of the Armenians of Istanbul were murdered in the streets and their houses. Then the Armenian soldiers in the army were disarmed and after being transferred to forced labor in the back (services and road construction), were killed group by group. The leaders and those who had the capability to lead and guide the people, had been murdered. Males and and those who were counted as adding to the Armenians' resisting power, were slaughtered in the army. Now the Armenian nation remained defenseless, without any leaders, against the big and powerful Ottoman government. What now could possibly hinder the Ottomans in performing their inhumane plan!?
At last when the condition were according to Turkish desires, they went to the Armenian villages and cities and using the pretext that Armenians were in war zones and should be transferred to safe places, drew them out from their houses. The officials Even didn't give them a chance to take any food, clothes and necessities with them. The Armenian groups were deported to exile in the form of		Deportation Of Armenians From Their Homes And Cities
caravans, which consisted of mostly women, children and the elderly. The exile which had been appointed for Armenians was the desert of Der-El-Zor located in Syria, a region near the city of Aleppo, where they were supposed to be starved and died of thirst and hunger under the burning sun. The Turkish guards prevented Armenians from receiving any sort of food and provisions at all. In order to increase the speed of the extermination of Armenians, the government established groups of cruel and criminal Kurdish and Turkish prisoners. These felons were released from prison on the condition that they would participate in slaughtering the banished Armenians. The released criminals lay in wait along the route of the deportees' caravans and after stealing what few goods their victims possessed, savagely murdered all those they could. Every night till the morning, several people of the caravan were murdered and several girls were stolen. They separated the few men of the groups and butchered them viciously. They also separated the pretty women to take with themselves. The Turkish guards were driving the deportees under scourge and whip by the bayonet points. Some of the Armenian girls cut their hair completely and covered their heads and faces in
Map Of Armenian Deportation and Massacre Centers	order not to attract the lustful attentions of the gendarmes. The Turkish guards and local residents, in order to satisfy their perverse lust, even raped the dead bodies of Armenian women of the caravans. In most cases very few of those in a caravan of ten thousand people arrived at the exile and in frequent cases all perished or were massacred before they ever reached their exile in
the burning Syrian desert. Armenian mothers entrusted their children to Kurdish or Turkish families or families from other nations in order to keep them safe from the mass murders. Many people didn't endure and died along the way. The rivers of Euphrates and Tigris always were full of Armenian corpses. Sometimes, in a few cases, the mass execution of Armenians and the savage crimes of Turkish executioners caused the Kurdish neighbors of Armenians to take pity and help them. however, most Kurds were frightened to help the Armenians. Every Kurd or even Turk who supported Armenians, would be killed. Their crimes were so many, that some of the Turkish politicians, such as Celal, governor of Aleppo (Haleb) and Mazhar, governor of Ankara, who disagreed with the massacring of Armenians, protested and were dismissed. The executioners started a new form of massacre in Trabizon, located in the south coast of Black Sea. They put all the Armenian groups in small boats, threw them into the sea and sank them. In some other cities, such as Van, the same manner of massacre was used. Sometimes They sank the banished in the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates. The world, at that time subjected to the World War 1, was uninformed about the depth of the disaster which was going on in Turkey. The plan of genocide and extermination of Armenians, was performed as secretly and programmatically as possible. The German government, who was united with the Ottomans and saw the events of Turkey up front, not only didn't stop the rape, massacre and crimes of Turks, but rather in some cases approved the Ottoman treatments. Today, Armenians are scattered all over the world; most are children or grandchildren of genocide survivors. Although some of the survivors of those crimes are still alive. The Armenians who managed to escape went to other countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Russia, the United States, Europe, Iran, ... and started a new life. Today, the government of Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide and claims that Armenians just were resettled from eastern regions which were war zone and in the case of the murdered, it claims that they were killed in the course of the war and in tribal fights by placing the figures of those murdered at an insignificant number. The Armenian Genocide, contrary to what the present day Turkish politicians claim, was performed in all over Anatolia and the realm of the Ottoman empire. Every year on the 24th day of April, the anniversary of the 1915 genocide , Armenians all over the world gather in churches to honor and pay respect to the murdered of that huge tragedy. What happened to the Armenian nation in 1915 in Turkey resulting in the deaths of 1,5 million innocent people, is a blemish and stigma in human history. The crimes, massacres, raping of Armenian women and the savage acts of Turkish governors are so horrible that studying them shakes the body of every free man.