Figure 1.--Here a child lies dieing of starvation in Yerevan during 1921-22 when the surviving Armenians attempted to establish an independent republic which the Red Army supressed and incorporated into the Soviet Union. |
|
Armenia is one of the oldest countries in the world with a recorded history streaching back an estimated 3,500 years.
The Armenian homeland is the Armenian plateau,
central and eastern Anatolia and southwestern Caucasia--the highlands which once dominate the southern lowlands of Syria and Mesopotamia. The Soviet successor state of Armenia is today a fraction of historic Armenia. Armenia was located in a crossroads of the ancient world astide the Silk Road which connected Asia and the Middle Easr and Europe in the age before the European voyages of discovery and maritime trading routes.
Trade routes crossed armenia from Russia, Eyrope, China, Persia, India, and Arabia. Trade, fertile valleys, and strtegic position over the rich Mosopotamian civilizations mean that ancient Armenia was not only crossed by merchants and traders, but by a series of conquering armies. At times Armenia was independemt and other times it was a province of great empires.
The Armenian people have experienced a diapora that has created Armenian communities in countries around the world.
Early Armenian history is associated primarily with the Hittites and the Urartians and the great civilizaions of Mesopotamia. Later Armenia history is associated with the Persian Empire. Armenia was never conquwered by Alexander, although of course Persia was. With Alexander's defeat of the Persian, Armenia, at least the upper classes were Hellenized. Armenia was briefly independent under king Tigran (Tigranes) the Great (about 90 BC). Armenia became a area of contention between the expanding Roman Empire and Persia, which divided between
them (387 AD).
The Ottoman Empire was one of the great European powers. In conqquered the Byzantines and took Constantinolple. They carved aiut a huge empire in the niddle east and eatern Mediterranean. For a time they even threatened Vienna. By the 19th century the Ottoman were called the "Sick Man of Europe". The only reason that the Empire was not elminated and partitioned in the 19th century was that the Great Powers could not agree on how to partition it. The Crimean War was one of many efforts to prevent the Russians from giing too much from its assaults on the Ottomans. Nevertheless the Russians persisted in their efforts to attack the Ottomans. The Russo-Turkish War (1877-78) was one of continuing Russian actions which succeeding in destabiling the European power balance, contributing to the eventual outbreak of World War I.
Finally the Ottomans after finally taking Constantinople (1453) turned eastward an added Armenia to their growing empire. The Islamic Ottomans were relatively tolerant to religious diversity, at least in comparison to contemporary Christian practices. The Ottomans created the Armenians as a millet, meaning a civil-religious minority governed by the Armenian Church within the overall authority of Empire. Although the Ottoman were an advanced civilization in the 15th century. The Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and for a time threatened Western Europe. Armenians and Turks for several centuries lived in relative harmony. Armenians became known as the "loyal millet". Although Armenians because they were Christians were not equal and, as a result, were subject to certain restrictions. They were generally acceptd as loyal subjects of the Empire. There was very little ethnic violence. In part because of Islam, the Ottomans never experienced the modernizing movements (Renaissance, Enligtenment, Reformation, or Industrial Revolution) which transformed European civilization. As a result, by the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire had become a backwater of Europe. As the Ottoman Empire declined, Imperial rule became increasingly oppresive. After the French Revolution, Western ideals of liberal constitutional government, individual rights, national self determination, began to influence the Armenians and other national groups within the Ottoman Empire. These groups became increasingly disturbed by autocratic, backward Ottiman rule.
Most Christian minorities within the Ottoman Empire were located in the Balkans. Befinning with the Greeks, these groups assisted by Russia and European powers gradually achieved independence. The Armenians by the 1880s were increasingly isolated as the only important Christian minority left in the Empire. The only other Christian group of imprtnce were the Greek communities in western Anatolia. Growing Armenian nationalism increasingly separated thm from Turks about future political strucures. Armenians demanded increasing autonomy, even independence. Some Turks began to envision a new Pan-Turkic empire extending from Turkey into central Asia where there were also Turkish popultion. SEparating The Turks in Anatolia from the Turks in Central Asia were the Armenians in eastern Anatolia and the Caususes. Turkish nationalist began to see the increasingly nationlistic Chfristian Armnians as an impediment to their pan-Turkish empire.
Ivan the Great liberated Russia from the Tartats and destroyed the Tartars kingdoms, extending Russian territory south toward the Black sea. Peter the Great began to extend Russian influence into the Caucasuses. They found support from the previously isolated Christians of Georgia and Caucasian Armenia. Catherine the Great extended the push southand in two Turkish wars seized control of the Black Sea and began the advance into the Ottoman controlled Balkans and Caucasia. The Russians succeeded in annexed Georgia and eastern Armenia. Sultan Agha Mohammad, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, presided over a deteriorating Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was a failed state, but unlike Poland there ws o be no partition. This was because the great powers were unable to agree on how to partition the Empire. The European powers, fearful of Russia, did not want to see Russia move further south. The Crimean War an attempt to bolser the Ottomans against Russia. . The fear of Russian
expansion into the Ottoman Empire was the root cause of the Crimean War. The Russians again pushed south against the Ottomand in the Russo-Turkish War (1887-88). The Russians succeeded in reaching the approaches to Constantinople. They forced the Ottomans to sign the Treaty of San Stefano which include a guarntee of Armenian security in eastern Turkey. The Russian gains were unacceptable to the great Powers. Bismarck managed to overt war by an intrnational congress at Berlins. The resulting Treaty of Berlin restoted lost territory to the Ottomans and eliminated Russian protection for the Armenians. Although the Treaty defused the immediate problem, many issues were left unsettled. When William II removed Bismarck, these were issues that less killed hands were unble to contain. Increasingly Armenians began to see the Russians as potential liberators. Armenians appealed to the Russians, fellow Christians, at San Stefano, for assistance. Europeans knew little about the armenians, embededed as they were in the Ottoman Empire. Through the Russians, information about the Armenians began to reach the West.
The Ottomans reacted to what they preceived as disloyalty with punative actions. Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered massacres of Armenians (1894-1896).
A coalition of mostly youthful and highly nationalistic dissidents organized in an effort to modernize Turkey. Many were college students and junior army officers. They succeeded in forcing Sultan Abdülhamid II to bring back the 1876 constitution and which mandated a legislature (1908). They deposed the Sultan (1909) and reorganized the government to begin an overall of Turkish society. Many Armenians seeing this as a progressive step initially supported the Young Turks. The progressive political reforms were never adopted. The movement was taken over by a triumvirate (Enver, Jemal and Talat) of extremits with highly nationalists views assumed dictatorial powers. Another series of pogroms occurred--the Cilician pogroms (1909). The triumvirate was the group which conceived the plan to completely eliminate the Armenian people as part of a step towards achieving a pan-Turkic state.
The Ottoman Turks for centuries had been assulted by Tsarist Russia. Seeing the early stages of the War, the Germans achieved spectacular successes against the Russians. The Young Turks saw that with German assistance they could win back substantial territory from the Russians. The Youg Turks not only viewed the Christian Armenians as a disloyal group that were willing to support the Russians, but also as impediment to their dream of an etensive pan-Turkish state streaching into centrl Asia. After entering the War, the Young Turks used World War I as the NAZIs used World War II as a cover for genocide. The Young Turk Government decided to settle their Armenian problem. [Balakian]
More than a million mostly Christian Armenians were murdered by Ottoman authorities during World War I. Clara Barton led the first Red Cross relief effort conducted outside the United States. The killings provoked wide-spread international contamination, but no country intervened to stop the killings. Another series of pogroms occurred in 1909. The Ottomans entered World war I on the side of the Central Power (Germany and Austria-Hungary) in late 1914. The wide-spread, organized genocide against the Armenians began in 1915. Accounts on the numbers of Armenians vary. The estimate of 1.0 million is often used,but some accounts are as high as 1.5 million. [Balakian] The Ottomans used World war I as the NAZIs used World War II as a cover for the killings. The Ottomans succeded in virtually eliminating the Armenian people from the Armenian plateau. The Turkish Government denied at the time and Turkish Governments even today continue to deny that the killings took place and were coordinated by Turkish authorities.
World War was a disaster for both Russia and the Ottoman Empires. Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdigate and then he and his family killed by the Bolshevicks (1918). Civil War between the Reds and Whites left Russia in turmoil. Ottoman armies were devestated by the Allies and Arab revolt. The allies pushed north from Egypt, seizing Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria as well as Iraq. Although the Armenian population within the Ottomon Empire (Anatolia) was destroyed, Armenians survived in the areas under Russian control in the Caususes. Here the Armenians organized an independent republic which survived for a brief 2 years. The Armenians hoped for food assistance from Europe and America as well as diplomatic support. After World War I and failed efforts during the Russian Civil War, however, there was little interest in involvements in the isolated Caucauses. The Armenians were attacked from the north by the Red Army and the west by the Turks. The Red army succeeded in establishing Soviet control overv most of the Armenian Republic. Turkey managed to seizec areas in the soutern regioin..
The modern Republic of Armenia was created out of the Soviet Union. Armenia has been involved in a war with Azerbejan over the desputed territory of Karabagh. The desplute resulted from the ethnic patch work quill of the Soviet Union.
At this time we have only one personal account about an Arminian.
Balakian, Peter. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and the American Response (Harper Collins: 2003), 475p.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to Main mass killing and genocide page]
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossaries]
[Satellite sites]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]