The Armenian Genocide - Forgotten History

History has many examples of various genocides which is simply defined as "the intentional

elimination and eradication of a racial ethnic or other group by an oppressor."

Some nations have come to terms with their past regarding genocide whether that was

a direct government policy or implemented by individuals such as United States with

the Native Americans and Hungary Romania Germany and Austria with the Holocaust.

However Turkey was also a major contributor to these dark pages of history and they have

never come to terms let alone admitted that they were either actively or even

passively assisting in murdering collective groups such as Jews Christians and especially

Armenians . What was the reason for the Armenian Genocide? How long did

it last? What was the result? Hello I'm Colin Heaton military

veteran historian author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten [Music]

[Music] History. Just before World War II and prior to the beginning of the Holocaust Adolf

Hitler made a comment about the Jews they were targeting, "Who will care about the

Jews? Who remembers the Armenians?" According to historian Margaret Lavinia Anderson the Armenian

Genocide reached an "iconic status" as "the apex of horrors conceivable" before World War

I. It was described by contemporaries as "the murder of a nation", the "race extermination",

"the greatest crime of the ages", and "the blackest page in modern history". Also according

to historian Stefan Ihrig in Germany the Nazis considered the Turkey "a post genocidal paradise"

and "incorporated the Armenian Genocide its lessons tactics and benefits into their own

worldview". The Armenian people have resided in the Caucasus regions of Eurasia and Anatolia for

around 3,000 years. They had a solid society and functioning state government since the

6th Century BC which is 1,500 years before the arrival of the Seljuk Turks. For some of that

time the Kingdom of Armenia was an independent entity. In the 4th century AD Armenia became

the first nation to make Christianity its official religion establishing The Armenian

Apostolic Church even before the Roman Empire or Byzantines. The conquest of the Byzantine Empire

in 1453 by the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the Persian Safavid Empire pressed claims over

Armenian territory. The Ottoman Empire grew exponentially and within its borders was a

multi-ethnic multilingual and multi-religious collective and this established "millet system"

offered non-Muslims within the empire a safe place within society. The millet system was used to give

minority religious communities within the empire limited power to regulate their own affairs but

under Ottoman administration. While Sharia law was imposed the Turks still guaranteed non-Muslim

property rights and freedom of worship to non-Muslims for which they paid a special

tax but future events would put pressure on the Ottomans. Russia's victory over the Ottomans in

the 187- 1878 War saw the empire lose parts of Eastern Anatolia the Balkans and Cyprus.

Following the 1878 conclusion of the Congress of Berlin the Ottomans agreed to equal and a

more lenient treatment of Armenian Christians. However there was no European oversight so the

Turks continued to oppress Armenians and other non-Muslim groups. Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid

II was infuriated by The nascent Armenian demands to have basic equal legal and civil rights. Hamid

II stated that he would solve "the Armenian question once and for all". Sound familiar?