[Johnny Alias]

This thread is further documentation of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-23, and includes some rare photos not seen in the previous DR thread on the topic.

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The Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass murder of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and its 3 main leaders, it was accomplished primarily through mass executions, death marches leading to the Syrian Desert, and the forced Islamization of Christian Armenian women and children.

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At the turn of the 20th century, there were 2 million Christian Armenians living in the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Already, 200,000 had been killed in a series of pogroms – most of them brutally between 1894 and 1896 but also occurring in 1906-9 and other years.

In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I against the Allies and launched a disastrous military campaign against Russian forces in the Caucasus. It blamed defeat on the Armenians, claiming they had colluded with the Russians.

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A prominent Turkish writer at the time described the war as “the awaited day” when the Turks would exact “revenge, the horrors of which have not yet been recorded in history”. Through the final months of 1914, the Ottoman government put together a number of “Special Organization” units, armed gangs consisting of thousands of convicts specifically released from prison for the purpose.

These killing squads of murderers and thieves were to perpetrate the greatest crimes in the genocide. They were the first state bureaucracy to implement mass killings for the purpose of race extermination. One army commander described them at the time as the “butchers of the human species”.

On the night of April 24, 1915 – the anniversary of which is marked by Armenians around the world – the Ottoman government moved decisively, arresting 250 Armenian intellectuals. This was followed by the arrest of a further 2,000.

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Then, at the orders of Talaat Pasha, an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenian women, children, and elderly or infirm people were sent on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape, and massacre.

In the Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps. In 1916 another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of 1916. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors were carried out by the Turkish nationalist movement during the Turkish War of Independence after World War I.

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During the massacres and bloody orgies of violence, one university professor was made to watch his colleagues have their fingernails and toenails pulled out, before being blinded. He eventually lost his mind, and was let loose naked into the streets. Women and young girls were raped in front of their brothers or husbands, and children were crucified together in front of their families.

There were widespread reports of these mass crucifixions, at which the Turks would torment their victims: “Now let your Christ come and help you!”

Johannes Lepsius, a German pastor who tried to protect the Armenians, said: “The armed gangs saw their main task as raiding and looting Armenian villages. If the men escaped their grasp, they would rape the women.”

So began a carefully orchestrated campaign to eradicate the Armenians. Throughout this period, Ottoman leaders deceived the world, orchestrating the slaughter using code words in official telegrams.

At later war crimes trials, several military officers testified that the word “deportation” was used to mean “massacre” or “annihilation”.

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Between May and August 1915, the Armenian population of the eastern provinces was deported and murdered en masse.

The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, said: “Squads of 50 or 100 men would be taken, bound together in groups of four, and marched to a secluded spot.

“Suddenly the sound of rifle shots would fill the air. Those sent to bury the bodies would find them almost invariably stark naked, for, as usual, the Turks had stolen all their clothes.”

In urban areas, a town crier was used to deliver the deportation order, and the entire male population would be taken outside the city limits and killed – “slaughtered like sheep”.
Women and children would then be executed, deported to concentration camps or simply turned out into the deserts and left to starve to death.

1.5 million Armenians, Greeks and other Christians were massacred by the Muslim Turks between 1915-23, mostly during brutal massacres and death marches to the Syrian desert, where the population was starved, raped, beaten, tortured, crucified and murdered en masse.

[Johnny Alias]

More photos:

[Johnny Alias]

Gallery 2:

[Johnny Alias]

Gallery 3:

[Johnny Alias]

Gallery 4

[Vixənn]

thank you!

[Johnny Alias]

No problem, anytime.

Gallery 5:

[18Zulu]

Another outstanding thread Johnny

[Johnny Alias]

The photo below is of the Republic of Turkey’s Iğdır Genocide Memorial and Museum - in Igdir, Eastern Turkey near the border with modern Armenia - and promotes the view that Armenians committed genocide against Turks, rather than vice versa:

[Johnny Alias]

The Turkish Genocide of Armenians was one of the most successful genocides in history, with 2.3 million - or 90% of Christians - within the Ottoman Turkish empire being killed, including 1.5 million Armenians and 750,000 Greeks and Assyrians, the latter of which has been effectively wiped out as a people.

More pics below, including those of the main 3 Turkish leaders who organized the mass killings, Talaat Pasha (Interior Minister), Enver Pasha (War Minister) and Djemal Pasha (Navy):