Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Thesis Statement: The United States did non step up ag ainst the Ottoman Empire because the did non hold anything to derive from the Armenians.

The term Genocide is really often used in recent times. It is a Latin compound made up of two words. Gens, intending people or race, and the root significance Criminal Investigation Command significance & # 8220 ; to destruct & # 8221 ; . In 1915, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire massacred the Armenians. While these series of slaughters that started in 1894 were taking topographic point, where was the US? The US did non step up against the Ottoman Empire because they had no involvement and nil to derive from the Armenians. On the other manus, they imported agricultural merchandises from Turkey. From 1990 to 1923, there was a complete transmutation of the Ottoman State. The heterogenous imperium with a big Christian population, ruled by a Sultan, changed into a one party Turkish democracy in which the Chrisitians were merely a little minority. During this period, the Turks assassinated Abdul Hamid in 1909 and set up a absolutism four old ages subsequently, and brought Turkey into the First World War. When World War I broke out in the summer of 1914, Russia, Great Britain, and France were allied against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Turks considered Russia the traditional enemy of the Ottoman Empire. On August 2, 1914, the Ottoman curate of war, Enver Pasha, and Ministry of Interior Tallat Pasha, concluded a secret pact of confederation humor hGermany. The Ottoman Empire agreed to fall in Germany against Russia, Great Britain and France. The Turks hoped to get the better of Russia with German aid and thereby derive control of the Turkish populated parts of the Russian Empire. A triumph over the Russians would enable the Turks to set up a Turkish province widening to Central Asia, and therefore to accomplish the integrity of the Turkish speech production peoples. This creative activity of such a province would make & # 8220 ; Pan- Turkism & # 8221 ; . This confederation with Germany created large concerns. War against Russia by the Ottoman Empire meant that the Armenian tableland would go the battlefield between the two powers. Since the fatherland of the Armenians ballad on both sides of the Russo-Ottoman frontier, the Armenians would endure badly no affair who won the war. During the first six months of the war it was progressively clear that the immature Turks authorities was handling their Armenian citizens severely. In the winter of 1914 to 1915, the Ottoman ground forces had launched a major onslaught against the Russians with the purpose of opening the manner of Central Asia. The operation was ill planned and carried out, and so the Russian counter discourtesies made great triumph against the Ottoman forces. During the winter months, the Ottoman ground forces retreated from the Russian forepart. Armenian small towns carried the load of Turkish choler at licking. Turkish ground forces functionaries used the Armenians as their whipping boies for their humiliating losingss and charged the Armenians as being untrusty to the Ottoman authorities. Slaughters of Armenians in the small towns along Russo-Ottoman frontier spread. On the dark of April 23rd 1915, 100s of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were arrested and imprisoned, and shortly thenceforth the captives were deported to the inner states where about all of them were murdered by governments. Having lost their leaders, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were now wholly vulnerable and defenseless. On May 30, 1915, the curate of internal personal businesss of the Ottoman Empire ordered the exile of the Armenian population & # 8220 ; from the war zones to the resettlement centres & # 8221 ; . From May 1915 until the spring of 1916, about all the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire disappeared from the Armenian tableland. The Turkish governments said that the exile of Armenians was merely a war clip step. Families were allowed to take merely a minimal sum of luggage and the authorities reassured that all their properties and farm animal would be safeguarded until their return. The exiles began, the Armenians were organized in convoys and were made to walk from the Syrian Desert to the South. The male childs over 15 and the work forces were separated from their households, and were either changeable, hanged, beatento decease, burned, or otherwise slaughtered. The adult females, kids, and elderly were to decease a much slower decease. They were forcefully dragged from one state to another under the supervising of the constabulary. They had to traverse mountains base on ballss on pes. Most of the exiles were killed during the onslaughts of sets of the Particular Organization Units. The Particular Organization Units conducted the massacares of full Armenian small towns and metropoliss even before the exile. They harassed the exiles with the cooperation of the Ottoman constabularies. Women and kids were kidnapped during these onslaughts and sold to Turkish households as slaves. Girls and adult females were ruthlessly raped and their organic structures mutilated. During the Marches, most adult females had to walk transporting a kid in their weaponries while go toing to their living boies and girls every bit good as the aged. Armenian female parents often had to shrug off their dog-tired kids and go forth them behind. Sometimes whole households committed suicide together. Food was frequently refused to the convoys of exiles and H2O was besides rationed. Many people died of thirst, hungriness, dehydreation and exhaustrion. The exiles were organized so that approzimately 10 per centum of those who were made to go forth their places reached the exile cantonments. By July 1915, the Armenians life in six easter nprovinces of the Ottoman Empire were all deported and most of them massacred. Fom July 1915 to the winter months of 1915 through 1916, the Armenians of Cilicia were deported from their metropoliss and towns. They were piled in boxcars which were ab initio reserved for transit of goods and farm animal. They were asked to pay the menu and all travel disbursals of which ended up to be their decease journey. On August 10, 1916, the Ottoman authorities dismissed the Patriarch of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and arrested the last holder of that place. In this mode the Armenian people were efficaciously eliminated from their fatherland of three millenaries. During all these slaughters a rush of Armenians came into America from 1894 to 1896. But so the Sultan prohibit

ed any further Armenian immigration from Turkey and this continued until 1908. Emigration started again until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Immigration records stated that between the two periods until 1914, a total of 70,982 Armenians had entered the United States. When the Armenians came into the US they were not treated very well in terms of jobs oppertunities, and they were struggling to live. During the 1930?s, under President Roosevelt? “New Deal Administration”, more jobs were available and the Armenian?s lives were getting better. During the genocide, news of the deportations and massacres came to the rest of the world late because the Turks had control over communication lines. When the US found out about these things, the US ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, was already in Turkey trying to do something about it. He tried to stop Talaat Pasha who was the main leader of the deportations and massacres but he did not listen and continued the massacres. After this, America did not send military aid to the Armenians because they were preoccupied with World War I. Also because they were trying not to get involved in the war because of Woodrow Wilson believed in isolationism. The only other country that could have stopped the genocide was Germany, which was Turkey?s ally, so they didn?t get involved also. Throughout 1919 and 1920, the Western powers remained publicly committed to the establishment of a United Armenian State, combing the Russian Armenian and the Turkish Armenian provinces, with the outlet on the Black Sea. The Allied leaders hoped that the US would accept a League of Nations Mandate over the projected state. The US declined the Armenian Mandate and did not declare war with Turkey. Several conferences and Treaties were held and made to help out the Armenians such as the first meeting on January 30, 1919, which was the Paris Peace Conference. At the conference the Turkish representatives admitted that there had occured atrocities in Turkey during the genocide. Also, all the countries agreed that Armenia had to be separated from the Turkish Empire. Another conference was the Treaty of Secres, which was not a success because nobody wanted totake responsibility to protect the Armenians, so the hopes of a free Armenia were vanishing. During the Lausanne conferences in 1923, the British delegates urged the Turks to salvage something for the Armenians, by providing them with a national home. The Turkish representatives understood that no one was prepared to use anything more than words on behalf of the Armenians and therefore refused British demands. The Turkish triumph was reflected in the fact that in the final version of the Lausanne Treaties, neither the owrd Armenia nor the word Armenian was to be found. It was as though the Armenian people had never e xisted. The allies recognized the new frontier of Turkey, including the annexation in the east and a revised southern boundary. The Lausanne Treaty marked the abandonment of the Armenian question. When the US declared war with Germany on April 6, 1917, Turkey being German allies did not help the Germans in the war. Instead the US and Turkey were friendly with eachother and e verything was fine between them. The reason why, is because Turkey was an important country to the US and this was proven on October 30, 1922 when the Department of State, made a list of topics of why the US was interested in Turkey: (1) Maintenance of Capitulation; (2) Protection of American Philanthropic institutions; (3) Indemnity for damages suffered by Americans; (4) Freedom of the Straits; (5) Opportunities for archeological research; (6) Open Door; (7) Protection of Minorities. The Open Door was a trade agreement between the US and Turkey, and the Straights Policy was the right to use the Straits of Dardonelles. This proves that the US had interests with Turkey that they did not want to lose by declaring war on them. Since the genocide the Turks have been denying the fact that they tried to exterminate the Armenian race because of political and geographical reasons. Till today the yhave not admitted that they planend and e xecuted the Armenian genocide and no countries have had the interest to prove to Turkey that they can?t deny the facts any longer. There are thousands of documetns and recording of the Armenian Genocide, for example: as early ad July 16, 1915, US Ambassador Henry Morgethau acabled the Secretary of State that “it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in process under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion”. There are also many obserbers and authorities of that period that could be cited as documenting the planned and systematic nature of the massacres and their stated or obvious intent of eliminating the Armenians from the Ottoman Empire. There are also thousands of documents in US, British, French, German, Austrian and many other official archives describing the genocide process and its intent. On September 10, 1984, the US House of Representatives approved the House-Joint Resolution 247 which designated April 24 as a “National Day of Remembrance of Man?s Inhumanity to Man” in memory of “all victims of the genocide”. On June 18, 1987, the European parliament adopted an extremely detailed resolution calling on the Turkis hGovernment to acknowledge “the historically proven Armenian Genocide”. In conclusion, the Armenian Genocide di take place. The Ottoman Empire successfully managed to massacre most of the Armenians living there. They accomplished this without being threatened or stopped by military means from other countries because the Armenians were a minority, and the countries were already involved in World War I. The US practiced isolationism and didn?t want to get involved military wise. If the US had gotten involved with the genocide and declared war on Turkey , the genocide would have been stopped and acknowledged. This in turn could have prevented the Jewish Holocaust. This can be said b ecause of Hitler?s order stated on August 22, 1939:”I have given to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity: men, women and children belonging to the Polish speaking race. It is only in this manner that we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers the Extermination of the Armenians?”