The Real Abominables #2 The Armenian Genocide (Pt 1)

#2 of The Real Abominables series relates to The Armenian Genocide, and needs to be spread over two days' posts. Today, a bit of outline information; tomorrow, a look at natal charts of two of the leaders of the genocide.
(#1 in this series is HERE)


First, where is Armenia? The country is located in the Caucasian Mountains on the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey. Interesting sidelight: Armenia contains some of the most significant cultural examples of sacred geometry, as well as other remarkable prehistoric structures, such as the "stonehenge" at Karahundj near Sissian. This stone circle, now shown to be a prehistoric observatory, long predates Stonehenge in England. Ancient inscriptions found here may mark the birthplace of the Zodiac – and of Western Civilisation itself. (See HERE).

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of World War I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright.

 Photo from the Armenian Weekly

Nazi genocide, of Jews, had this predecessor in such atrocities. Though The Armenian Genocide is not as universally well known, we do receive reminders of it from time to time, just last month, for instance:

(CNSNews.com) – An Armenian Apostolic church constructed in memory of the victims of the 20th century Armenian genocide was “rigged and dynamited” on Sunday by forces loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), according to reports from Syria’s government news agency.

To appreciate the detailed circumstances and history leading to the Armenian Genocide, it'd take many pages of text. I'll try to put major points into as neat a nutshell as possible here, then link to some of many websites carrying more detail.

Armenia adopted Christianity in 301 A.D., before the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries it was a prosperous country, but in the 15th century the Ottoman Empire absorbed Armenia and its population. Non-Muslim Armenians were classified as “infidels”, were made to pay higher taxes, and enjoyed fewer rights than Muslims.

The Ottoman Empire was dominant in the region through the 19th, into the 20th century. In the 1890s Armenians began to demand more rights. In 1894, they met with a violent response from the Sultan. In ensuing battles, until 1896, as many as 200,000 Armenians were killed by Sultan Abdul Hamid’s troops: the Hamidian Massacre. The killing of the 200,000 Armenian Christians, though, pales as compared to the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Turkish nationalism grew, Armenians were seen as enemies of the state. In 1908, a group of so-called "Young Turks" forced the Sultan out and took control of the government. Armenians were, more and more, considered a threat to the shrinking Ottoman Empire. As Christian countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia left the Empire, Turkish loss of power fomented ever stronger feelings of nationalism.

Some extreme members of the "Young Turks" formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The CUP focused on an increase of Turkish nationalism, their chant: “Turkey for the Turks!”

Germany and Russia went to war in 1914. Turkey sided with Germany. The Turks hoped a defeat of the Russians would help in the prospect of rebuilding their empire. In December of 1914, the Ottoman Turks tried to invade Russia, but suffered a bad defeat. More than 100,000 Russian troops invaded Turkey. Some 5,000 Armenians had helped the Russians, many enlisting in the Russian Army. Turkish leaders now saw the Armenians as a definite liability. Armenian members of the military were immediately disarmed, moved into labour camps and subsequently executed. On April 24th 1915, a group of 250 Armenian intellectual leaders of the community were rounded up and shipped to a camp where they were killed. Armenian soldiers and the cultural elites were now gone. The remaining Armenian population was forced to comply with a relocation order - essentially a death sentence.

Armenians were forced marched for sixty days, many did not survive. The Turks forced those of their victims who were transported by rail to purchase tickets for the ride to their own extermination. Children and old people were marched over mountains and in circles, without food and water, until they died. Young Christian girls were raped by the Turkish soldiers. There are reports that many killed themselves afterwards. The barbaric treatment of Armenian women went even further. One woman who claimed to have witnessed the brutal crucifixion of 16 young girls.

In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem. Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being raped, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.” Related scenes were portrayed in the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian’s memoirs.

Accounts of Turkish atrocities against Armenians reveal brutalities equal to those happening during Hitler’s attempts to exterminate the Jews from Germany, and the world, more than twenty years later.

 PBS Documentary Film, 2006

The entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After only a little more than a year of calm at the end of World War I, the atrocities began again and continued, between 1920 and 1923. Remaining Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions.

The scope and brutality of the events which killed 75 percent of Armenians — a predominantly Christian group - makes it very difficult to understand why, though historians and Armenians call this a genocide, the Turkish government and the United States and its presidents, will not officially accept the word "genocide" in relation to these events.

No American president has officially called the mass killings, dating from 1915, “genocide.” President Bush went as far as publicly urging Congress to reject a resolution on the subject. In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that, as president, he would acknowledge it, saying; “Armenian genocide is a widely documented fact.” Despite that very clear language, President Obama was not followed up on his campaign promise. After he was elected, on Armenian Remembrance Day, the president issued a statement. The word that was conspicuously absent from the release: genocide. That term was also absent from every single April 24th Armenian Remembrance Day since 2009.

Here's an 11 minute video extract from TV's 60 Minutes on this topic. The segment includes a video shot on the banks of the Euphrates River where it is believed 450,000 of the victims perished. Remains of murdered Armenians are so prevalent in the area that just scratching the sand, along the river banks, is sufficient to uncover pieces of human bones that have lain there for almost 100 years.

Links to other sources:

Wikipedia's page
Genocide Museum
United Human Rights Council
The Blaze (Why still denied...)

Part 2 will follow, tomorrow.