Genocide is the deliberate and systematic killing of a large group of people, usually an ethnic group or nation. Some people argue this was not genocide because it is claimed that it was not deliberate or systematic, while they are somewhat correct in the killings not being systematic rather a free for all, but the murders were most definitely deliberate. I think that it was genocidal in that there was some organisation to the killings and as we know today many people have not even heard of the Armenians so the mass killings are obvious. Therefore I wanted to research the Armenian Genocide and my focus questions are: Why did the genocide occur? What happened during the genocide? What happened afterwards and how did the world respond? Overall, I want to consider what grounds a nation will step in to defend another from the threat of …show more content…
When the First World War broke out the Committee of Union and Progress made a decision to eradicate the entire Armenian population, and have the war to cover it up. This program officially started on April 24th 1915 when armed roundups of the Armenian population began when nearly 300 Armenian political leaders, educators and dignitaries were forced out of their homes and briefly jailed then hanged or shot in the street. (United Human Rights) Any Armenians that were in the army were disarmed and worked till death digging trenches and latrines working as pack horses in what was called labour battalions (Michigan-Dearborn, 1996 ). Another initiative of CUP was to send Armenians to camps out in the Syrian Desert which the population was under the impression that they were de-militarized zones or refugee camps, unfortunately these were actually concentration camps, where the Amish were forced to walk through the desert carrying heavy equipment and were denied water and food, sometimes the caravan guards would force the prisoners to remove all of their clothes and walk through the burning desert till they dropped dead (United Human Rights). If they fell behind they were kicked and beaten and if they did not get back up and re-join the group they were killed outright. The government released violent prisoners and encouraged those to raid and loot the death marches these groups were called “butcher Battalions”. If any Turkish people were found to be …show more content…
P. (1999). Armenian Genocide. Retrieved June 17, 2014, from Armenian-Genocide.com: http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html Gavin, P. (2000, November 6). Armenians in Turkey. Retrieved from The History Place: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/armenians.htm Kifner, J. (n.d.). Armenian Genocide of 1915. Retrieved June 30, 2014, from NYTimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html Melicharova, M. (2002). Genocide Armenia. Retrieved June 30, 2014, from Peace Pledge Union: http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_armenia2.html Michigan-Dearborn, T. U. (1996 , April 3). FACT SHEET: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE. Retrieved June 17, 2014, from umd.umich.edu: https://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/facts/genocide.html United Human Rights. (n.d.). Armenian Genocide. Retrieved June 30, 2014, from United Human Rights: