The Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder and expulsion of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians carried out in Turkey and adjoining regions by the Ottoman government between 1914 and 1923. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople to the region of Angora (Ankara), 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered.
Mehmed Talaat, commonly known as Talaat Pasha, was one of the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas that de facto ruled the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. He was one of the leaders of the Young Turks and ruled the empire during the Armenian Genocide, which he initiated as Minister of Interior Affairs in 1915.
Soghomon Tehlirian was an Armenian revolutionary who assassinated Talaat Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, in Berlin on March 15, 1921. The assassination was a part of Operation Nemesis, revenge plan for the Armenian Genocide orchestrated by the Ottoman Imperial Government during World War I. Talaat Pasha had been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in the Turkish courts-martial of 1919–20, and was viewed as the main orchestrator of the genocide. After a two-day trial Tehlirian was found not guilty by the German court, and freed. Tehlirian is considered a national hero by Armenians.
The Greek genocide, including the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population carried out in Anatolia during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. It was instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish national movement against the indigenous Greek population of the Empire and included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, summary expulsions, arbitrary execution, and the destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Most of the refugees and survivors fled to Greece. Some, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire.
The deportation of Armenian intellectuals, sometimes known as Red Sunday, was the first major event of the Armenian Genocide. Leaders of the Armenian community in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and later other locations, were arrested and moved to two holding centers near Angora. The order to do so was given by Minister of the Interior Talaat Pasha on 24 April 1915. On that night, the first wave of 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals of Constantinople were arrested. With the adoption of the Tehcir Law on 29 May 1915, these detainees were later relocated within the Ottoman Empire; most of them were ultimately killed. More than 80 such as Vrtanes Papazian and Komitas survived.
The Special Organization was an Ottoman imperial government special forces unit under the War Department and was allegedly used to suppress Arab separatism and Western imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. Many members of this organization also played leading roles in the First World War. The members of the organization also participated in the resistance against Italians in Libya. It was the progenitor of the National Security Service of the Republic of Turkey, which was itself the predecessor of the modern National Intelligence Organization.
Said Halim Pasha was an Ottoman statesman of Tosk Albanian origin who served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917. He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, and was later assassinated by Arshavir Shirakian as part of Operation Nemesis, a retribution campaign to kill perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.
The Tehcir Law, or, officially by the Republic of Turkey, the "Sevk ve İskân Kanunu" was a law passed by the Ottoman Council of Ministers on May 27, 1915 authorizing the deportation of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population. The resettlement campaign resulted in the deaths of anywhere between 800,000 and over 1,500,000 civilians in what is commonly referred to as the Armenian Genocide. The bill was officially enacted on June 1, 1915 and expired on February 8, 1916.
Operation Nemesis was a covert operation and an assassination campaign by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) carried out between 1920 and 1922, during which a number of former Ottoman political and military figures were assassinated for their role in the Armenian Genocide, as well as Azerbaijani figures for the 1918 massacre of Armenians in Baku. Shahan Natalie and Armen Garo are considered its masterminds. It was named after the Greek goddess of divine retribution, Nemesis.
The Battle of Ardahan was fought between 25 December 1914 and 18 January 1915 and was an Ottoman military operation commanded by German Lt. Col. Stange to capture the city of Ardahan and cut the Russian link to Sarikamish–Kars line, supporting the Battle of Sarikamish.
Altuğ Taner Akçam is a Turkish-German historian and sociologist. He is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide, and is recognized as a "leading international authority" on the subject.
Dr. Nâzım Bey was an Ottoman-born Turkish physician, politician, and theorist, who was known for his anti-Armenianism. He played a significant role in the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks in Western Anatolia. He was convicted of the attempted assassination of Atatürk in İzmir and hanged in Ankara on 26 August 1926. He also served as the chairman of the Turkish sports club Fenerbahçe S.K. between 1916-18.
Süleyman Askerî Bey, also known as Suleyman Askeri, Sulayman Askari, Sulaiman al-Askari and unofficially known as Suleyman Askeri Pasha was a military officer who served in the Ottoman Army. Askerî was of Circassian descent and co founder of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, a group involved in guerilla warfare.
The confiscation of Armenian properties by the Ottoman and Turkish governments involved seizure of the assets, properties and land of the country's Armenian community. Starting with the Hamidian massacres in the mid-1890s and peaking during the Armenian Genocide, the confiscation of the Armenian property lasted continuously until the Istanbul pogrom of 1955 and with renewed efforts in 1974. Much of the confiscations during the Armenian Genocide were made after the Armenians were deported into the Syrian Desert with the government declaring their goods and assets left behind as "abandoned". Virtually all properties owned by Armenians living in their ancestral homeland in Western Armenia were confiscated and later distributed among the local Muslim population. Renewed efforts were introduced in 1974 where the property acquired by the Armenian community after the property declaration of 1936 was confiscated.
Cemal Azmi, also spelled Jemal Azmi, was an Ottoman politician and governor of the Trebizond Vilayet (province) during World War I and the final years of the Ottoman Empire. He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide and was mainly responsible for the liquidation of Armenians in Trebizond Vilayet. He was known as the "butcher of Trebizond".
Aram Yerganian was an Armenian revolutionary who was noted for his assassination of Behaeddin Sakir and Fatali Khan Khoyski as an act of vengeance for their roles in the Armenian Genocide and the massacre of Armenians in Baku respectively. He is considered an Armenian national hero.
Arshavir Shirakian was an Armenian writer who was noted for his assassination of Said Halim Pasha and Cemal Azmi as an act of vengeance for their roles in the Armenian Genocide. He is also noted for writing his memoirs The Will of the Martyrs which provide an accurate description of his life during the Armenian Genocide and the Operation Nemesis.
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), later the Party of Union and Progress, began as a secret society established as the Committee of the Ottoman Union in Constantinople on 6 February 1889 by medical students Ibrahim Temo, Mehmed Reshid, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti, Ali Hüseyinzade, Kerim Sebatî, Mekkeli Sabri Bey, Nazım Bey, Şerafettin Mağmumi, Cevdet Osman and Giritli Şefik. It was transformed into a political organisation by Behaeddin Shakir, aligning itself with the Young Turks in 1906 during the period of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. In the West, members of the CUP were usually called Young Turks while in the Ottoman Empire its members were known as Unionists.
Hasan Tahsin (Uzer) was an Ottoman-born Turkish bureaucrat of ethnic Albanian descent. Throughout his career as a politician, Tahsin served as a governor to several Ottoman cities including Aydın, Erzurum, Van and the province of Syria. Thereafter, he served as deputy to the cities of Ardahan, Erzurum, and Konya. He is also noted for providing important testimony in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide.
Mehmet Celal Bey was an Ottoman-born Turkish statesman and a key witness to the Armenian Genocide. During his career as a politician, Celal Bey served as governor of the Ottoman provinces associated with the cities Erzurum, Aleppo, Aydın, Edirne, Konya, and Adana. He also served as minister of the interior and minister of agriculture as well as mayor of Istanbul. Celal Bey is known for having saved many lives during the Armenian Genocide by defying deportation orders, which were preludes to starvation and massacres. As a result, he was removed from his post as governor in Aleppo and transferred to Konya, where he was again dismissed upon continuing to obstruct deportations. Today, he is often called the Turkish Oskar Schindler.
