Armenian Massacres (1894­-1897)

Toward the end of the 19th century, the Armenians lived as subjects of the Ottoman Empire. As a Christian minority of some 2.5 million in the midst of an Islamic state, they were routinely persecuted by their Ottoman overlords. In the 1880s a revolutionary socialist party, the Hunchak (“The Bell”), rose up among the Armenians, followed by an even more radical nationalist faction, the Dashnaktsutium (“Armenian Revolutionary Federation”). Fearing that he was losing his grip on the Armenians, Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842­1918) launched a series of pogroms against the Armenians of the empire beginning in 1894.

The first action took place in Sasun, where Armenian protesters had assembled to demonstrate against oppressive taxation. Acting in concert with Kurdish tribesmen,

Turkish police waded into the protestors and commenced a slaughter. This triggered a protest in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, which resulted in a 10-day siege of terror against the Armenian quarter of the city. Hundreds were clubbed to death, and the violence soon spread throughout eastern Turkey. Trebizond and 13 other cities were swept with a wave of unprecedented violence in which more than 14,000 Armenians perished at the hands of the Turkish army acting with Islamic extremists.

In December 1895 at Urfa, the Turkish army held the Armenian quarter under siege for two months. When Armenians sought succor in a cathedral, the army stormed the sanctuary and killed 3,000. A total of 8,000 Armenians were killed in the siege of Urfa and its aftermath. Shortly after this in Zeitun (province of Cilicia), Armenian residents rose up against the Turks, taking some 400 prisoners. It was, however, the only significant resistance to the reign of terror.

The culmination of this first period of slaughter came in August 1896 in Istanbul. During two days an Islamic mob swept through the Armenian quarter, killing 6,000.

At last, the Western European powers were sufficiently horrified to threaten intervention. This brought a halt to the rampage, although anti-Armenian violence continued sporadically through 1897. Estimates of the totals killed during the 1894­97 period vary from 50,000 to twice that number.

See also ARMENIAN MASSACRES (1909); ARMENIAN MASSACRES (1915).

Further reading: Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (New York: Berghahn Books,1995)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Ottoman government vs.

Armenian minority 

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Armenia 

DECLARATION: None MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: Attempt to crush an Armenian nationalist movement.

OUTCOME: Tens of thousands were killed, and the nationalist movement was temporarily suppressed.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:

Unknown CASUALTIES: 50,000­100,000 Armenians TREATIES: None