The Armenian Genocide

Essay by JackoTheBraveHigh School, 12th gradeA+, May 2005

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The Turks were less than 20% of the Entire population of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, this made it hard for them to rule it because they were viewed by the people as immigrants or invaders. With lack of support from the people and repeated attempts and failures to gain political and military power the Ottoman Empire began crumble, and they lost large parts of their colonies in Europe and Asia. As the Ottoman Empire fall apart it became know as " the sick man of Europe". At this point in time the only thing holding back the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was, the more powerful countries in Europe couldn't figure out how to split up the empire between them. With immanent failure on the horizon, and more ethnic minorities gaining independence every day, the Turkish Ottomans had to think of something quick. They figured the only way that they could gain the power that they needed was to eliminate the minorities that "held them back".

When World War 1 started this gave the Turks the perfect opportunity to carry out their plan. The war provided cover and an excuse to carry out their means of "reform". On April 24th, 1914 hundreds of Armenian leaders were summoned and gathered to Istanbul just to be ruthlessly slaughtered. The Armenian people were now leaderless and alone in the midst of the Ottoman governments plan, thus beginning the horrid events to eventually become know as the Armenian Genocide.

At the time of that the war had just begun one could clearly recognize the Young Turk party was ill-mannered towards its Armenian citizens. They had used the Armenians as a scapegoat for their humiliating defeat in the war. Formed during 1914 the Young Turk party had created a paramilitary organization called...