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The fact that Turkish leaders and members of military in the past admit that there was plans to EXTERMINATE all Armenians, is reliable evidence of intention.

Also Asp and especially Anka, the Armenians were killed even before the genocide.


The Hamidian massacres also known as Armenian Massacres in 1894-1896 refers to the massacring of Armenians by the Ottomans, an estimated 100,000 to 300,000. [1] [2]

One of the most serious incidents occurred in Armenian populated parts of Anatolia. Although the Ottomans had prevented other revolts in the past, the harshest measures were directed against the Armenian community. They observed no distinction between the nationalist dissidents and the Armenian population at large, and massacred them with brutal force.[3]



Background
In the period of 1894-96, when the Ottoman Empire was ruled by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were massacred. [4]

The origin of Armenian unrest can be traced, in large part, to the success of Imperial Russia in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78. At the end of the war, based on the Treaty of San Stefano the Ottoman government had to give away a large part of territory (including the cities of Kars and Batumi) to the Russians. The Russian government claimed they were the supporters of the beleaguered Christian communities within the Ottoman Empire and clearly, the Russians could now beat the Ottomans. The Treaty of Berlin - which reduced the magnitude of Russia's gains on the other side of the Black Sea - stated that the Ottoman government had to give legal protection to the Christian Armenians, but in the real world, the treaty's protections were not implemented.






Sasun Resistance
See also: Sasun Resistance (1894)
In 1894, Sultan Abdul Hamid II began to target the Armenian people in a precursor of the Hamidian massacres. This persecution strengthened nationalistic sentiment among Armenians. The first notable battle in the Armenian resistance movement took place in Sassoun, where nationalist ideals were proliferated by Hunchak activists, such as Mihran Damadian, Hampartsoum Boyadjian, and Hrayr. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation also played a significant role in arming the people of the region. The Armenians of Sassoun confronted the Ottoman army and Kurdish irregulars at Sassoun, succumbing to superior numbers.[8]

In response to the resistance in Sasun Resistance (1894), the governor of Muş responded by inciting the local Muslims against the Armenians.[9] The historian Lord Kinross claims that this was often achieved by gathering Muslims in a local mosque and claiming that the Armenians had the aim of "striking at Islam."[10] The Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, sent the Ottoman army into the area and also armed groups of Kurdish insurrectionists. The violence spread and affected most of the Armenian towns in the Ottoman empire. The worst atrocity occurred when the cathedral of Urfa, in which three thousand Armenians had taken refuge, was burned.[11] As Turkish historian Osman Nuri observed, "The mere mention of the word 'reform' irritated him [Abdul Hamit], inciting his criminal instincts. [12]


[edit] Massacres
In response, tens of thousands of Armenians were massacred, both in Istanbul and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid's Private First Secretary wrote in his memoirs about Abdul Hamid that he 'decided to pursue a policy of severity and terror against the Armenians, and in order to succeed in this respect he elected the method of dealing them an economic blow ... he ordered they absolutely avoid negotiating or discussing anything with the Armenians and to inflict upon them a decisive strike to settle scores.' The French ambassador described Turkey as "literally in flames," with "massacres everywhere" and all Christians being murdered "without distinction."[13] [14] A French vice-consul declared that the Ottoman Empire was "gradually annihilating the Christian element" by "giving the Kurdish chieftains carte blanche to do whatever they please, to enrich themselves at the Christians' expense and to satisfy their men's whims."[15] The French diplomatic correspondence shows that the Hamidye conducted massacres not only of Armenians but also of Assyrians.[16] [17]

The killings occurred from 1895 until 1897. In that last year, Sultan Hamid declared that the Armenian question was closed. All the Armenian revolutionaries had either been killed, or had escaped to Russia. The Ottoman government closed Armenian societies and restricted Armenian political movements.

These events are recalled by the Armenians as the "Great Massacres". The Armenians believed the Hamidian measures proved the capacity of the Turkish state to carry out a systematic policy of murder and plunder against a minority population. The formation of Armenian revolutionary groups began roughly around the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 and intensified with the first introduction of Article 166 of the Ottoman Penal code 166, and the raid of Erzerum Cathedral. Article 166 was meant to control the possession of arms, but it was used to target Armenians by restricting them to possess arms. Local Kurdish tribes were armed to attack the defenseless Armenian population. Some diplomats believed that the aim of these groups was to commit massacres so as to incite counter-measures, and to invite "foreign powers to intervene," as Istanbul's British Ambassador Sir Philip Currie observed in March 1894. Even some Turkish authors admit the existence of those revolutionaries was just a pretext for the massacres.

These mass killings clearly were a first step towards the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1917.


The Armenian people from ancient to modern times - Page 390 by Richard G Hovannisian
^ The Black Sea: A History - Page 210 by Charles King
^ Cleveland, William L. (2000). A History of the Modern Middle East. Westview Press, p. 119. ISBN 0813334896.
^ A Theoretical Inquiry into the Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896, by Robert Melson p. 481
^ United Human Rights Council
^ "A Peace to End All Peace", by David Fromkin, p211.
^ Hovannisian, p.17
^ (Armenian) Kurdoghlian, Mihran (1996). Hayots Badmoutioun, Volume III. Athens, Greece: Hradaragoutioun Azkayin Ousoumnagan Khorhourti, p. 42-44.
^ Constitutional Rights Foundation
^ HyeEtch
^ Armeniangenocide.org: Hamidian Massacres
^ The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus - Page 163 by Vahakn N. Dadrian
^ Paul Cambon, Tome Premier (1870-1908): L'etablissement de al Republique - Le Protectorat Tunisien - La regence en Espagne - La Turquie d'Abd Ul Hamid, vol. 1 of Correspondance, 1870-1924 (Paris: Grasset, 1940), p. 395
^ Sebastien de Courtois, The Forgotten Genocide: The Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004), pp. 106-110
^ Diplomatic Dispatch #2, Vice-Consul of Diyarbekir to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador to Constantinople, 9 January 1901, quoted in de Courtois, Forgotten Genocide, p. 138
^ Diplomatic Dispatch #17, Vice-Consul of Diyarbekir to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador to Constantinople, 13 August 1902, quoted in de Courtois, Forgotten Genocide, p. 144; Diplomatic Dispatch #10, Vice-Consul of Diyarbekir to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador to Constantinople, 2 June 1904, quoted in de Courtois, Forgotten Genocide, p. 137; Diplomatic Dispatch #12, Vice-Consul of Diyarbekir to Mr. Constans, French Ambassador to Constantinople, 27 July 1904, quoted in de Courtois, Forgotten Genocide, p. 145.
^ Hannibal Travis, "Native Christians Massacred": The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, vol. 1.3 (2006)


TURKEY has blood on its hands and they should repent like Germany.