| |
PRESOVIET PERIOD |
| ca. 1900 |
Radical political organizations begin
to form in Azerbaijan. |
| 1908 |
Young Turks take over government
of Ottoman Empire with reform agenda, supported by Armenian population. |
| 1914 |
|
| August 3 |
The Turkish government sends sealed
envelopes containing a general mobilization order to district and
village councils, with the strict instructions that they were not
to be opened until further notice. A fortnight later, with the approval
of the Ittihad Committee, instructions are issued to open the envelopes. |
| August 22 |
The male population between the ages
of 20 and 45 is conscripted by the Turkish armed forces. |
| September 30 |
The government distributes arms to
the Muslim residents of the town of Keghi in
Erzerum Province on the excuse that the Armenians there were unreliable. |
| November 19 |
Mass executions of Armenian soldiers
in the Turkish army takes place in various public squares for the
purpose of terrorizing the Armenians, while with voluntary contributions,
Armenians were building several hospitals for the use of the Turkish
army through the Red Crescent Society. |
| November 26 |
Enver's uncle, Halil Pasha, the military
governor of Constantinople, begins organizing Special Organization
units in Constantinople by enrolling criminals released from prison. |
| December |
The beginning of a series of isolated
murders to terrorize the Armenian population. |
| 1915 |
|
| January 8 |
Turkish and Kurdish chetes (Halil
Pasha's "First Corps") attack Armenian and Assyrian villages
in northwest Persia. They remain around the city of Tavriz (Tabriz)
and the city of Urmia from January 8 until January 29, 1915. From
Urmia alone, more than 18,000 Armenians, together with many Assyrians
and even Persian Muslims, flee to the Caucasus. |
| February 2 |
Talaat advises German Ambassador
Count Hans von Wangenheim that the war is the only propitious moment
to conclude the Armenian Question. |
| February 14 |
Tahir Jevdet, the governor-general
of Van Province, is reported saying that the government must begin
finishing the Armenians in Van at once. |
| February |
The vice-governor of Mush orders
70 gendarmes to attack the village of Koms and to kill the Armenian
Dashnak leader Rupen and all persons with him. Rupen and his companions
resist and eventually escape to the Caucasus. |
| February 26 |
Vramian, an Armenian parliamentary
deputy from Van, writes Talaat advising him to remove the large number
of chetes in Van Province. |
| February 27 |
In the village of Chomaklu in Kayseri
Province and in other places, the government demands all weapons from
the Armenians. |
| March 24 |
Chetes and gendarmes attack Armenians
in the towns of Bayburt (Papert) and Terchan in Erzerum Province,
and in Bitlis. |
| April 1 |
The mass arrest of Armenian political
leaders is carried out in Sivas and other provinces. |
| April 15 |
Armenian refugees from villages surrounding
the city of Van arrive and notify the inhabitants that 80 villages
in Van Province were already obliterated and that 24,000 Armenians
had been killed in three days. |
| April 20 |
The deportation of the 25,000 Armenians
of Zeitun is completed. |
| April 24 |
250 Armenian intellectuals and community
leaders are arrested in Constantinople and sent to Chankri and Ayash,
where they are later slain. |
| May 2 |
3,000 English and French civilians
are arrested in Constantinople. |
| May 10 |
The Armenian refugees from Zeitun
found in Marash, who had previously been spared deportation, are removed
to the Syrian Desert. |
| May 21 |
Regular Russian Army forces arrive
in Van. They begin the cremation of the dead in the city and in the
villages of the province. 55,000 dead are identified as Armenians. |
| May 27 |
300 Armenians arrested on May 10
in Diyarbekir are murdered while in custody.
2,000 Armenians are deported from
Marash.
|
| June 23 |
First large-scale massacre of Armenian
men is carried out in the town of Kharput. |
| July 1 |
2,000 Armenian soldiers in the Turkish
Army used as laborers are massacred near the city of Kharput.
The governor-general of Sivas announces
that the first convoy of deportees from the city are to leave by
July 5 in groups according to street residence. A total of 48,000
persons are deported. The governor, commissioner of police, two
parliamentary deputies, the qadi (the chief religious judge), and
the mufti (the religious chief) tell the Armenians that they were
being resettled for the duration of the war in order to forestall
any resistance.
|
| July 21 |
First day of the Turkish attack on
Musa Dagh (Musa Ler in Armenian). |
| July 28 |
The deportation of the Armenians
of the towns of Kilis, Aintab and Kilis begin. |
| August 1 |
20,000 deportees arrive in Aleppo. |
| August 3 |
214,500 deportees arrive in Aleppo
from various places |
| August 8 to August 12 |
The Armenian intellectuals imprisoned
in the Sifahdiye Medrese (a Muslim religious school) in Sivas, are
taken out from the city and slain. There were 36 extermination centers
in the area of Sivas. 5,000 Armenian intellectuals imprisoned in the
Gok Medrese and the Sifahdiye Medrese, both Seljuk structures in use
as temporary prisons, were taken to these 36 execution centers and
slain. |
| September 10 |
On the fifty-third day of the Armenian
defense in Musa Dagh, 4,058 persons are rescued by three English and
one French warship, which transport the survivors to Port Said in
Egypt. |
| October 7 |
By this date the number of deported
Armenians still living is estimated at 360,000 minimum, and the number
of Armenians dead is estimated at 800,000 minimum. |
| December 15 |
A circular telegram clarifies that
the purpose of the deportations is annihilation. |
| December 25 |
Orders are issued for the deportation
of all children except those who did not remember their parents. |
| December 30 |
A circular telegram, as a follow-up
on the telegram of December 15, instructs that Armenians desiring
to convert to Islam are to be notified that their Islamization must
take place after they reach their final destination. In view of the
earlier instructions clarifying the purpose of the deportations as
annihilation, the new instructions imply that Armenians are no longer
to be allowed to escape destruction for any reason. |
| 1916 |
|
| January 13 |
U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau
during his farewell visit with Talaat is told of the pointlessness
of speaking about the Armenians. |
| January 23 |
The governor-general of Aleppo informs
Talaat that only 10% of the Armenian deportees remain alive, and that
measures are being taken to dispose of them also |
| January
23 to March 10 |
During this period of
47 days, of 486,000 Armenian deportees, 364,500 are reported to have
been killed by the Turks or to have died because of the hardships
of the deportations. |
| February 3 |
According to Lord Bryce, 486,000
Armenians deportees were still living: 100,000 were to be found between
Damascus and Maan, 12,000 at Hama, 20,000 at Homs, 7,000 at Aleppo,
4,000 at Maara, 8,000 at Bab, 5,000 at Munbij (Munbuj), 20,000 at
Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain), 10,000 at Rakka, and 300,000 at Zor.
A circular telegram instructs that
orphans who do not remember their parents be send from Aleppo to
Sivas; the rest are to be send to Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) and no
expenditures are to be made for their existence.
|
| March 23 |
In Aleppo an attempt is made to force
all Armenian soldiers in labor corps to become Muslims and to give
up their Armenian names. |
| March 29 |
The Turkish government officially
rejects foreign relief for the Armenian deportees. |
| May |
72,000 Armenian deportees are reported
in Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) District. |
| June 20 |
The Armenians working in labor corps
in Sivas are instructed to convert to Islam. At least 95% refuse. |
| July 23 |
In order to further the Islamization
and Turkification of the Armenian remnants in the Hawran District,
all the Armenian clerics found there are murdered by the Turks. |
| September 5 |
The government orders all Armenian
orphans to be given Turkish names. |
| October 4 |
Wilhelm Radowitz reports to the German
Chancellor Theobald von Bethman Hollweg that of the two million Armenians
in Turkey, one and half million had been deported. Of these 1,175,000
were dead; 325,000 were still living. |
| October 11 |
A highly secret Ittihad convention
is convened in Constantinople to review existing policy toward the
Armenians and to decide on a future course of action. |
| December 4 |
Omer Naji, an inspector-general of
the Ittihad Committee, is reported to have announced that Ittihad
is seeking to organize a purely Turkish state. |
| 1917 |
|
| |
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia
form independent Transcaucasian federation. Tsar Nicholas II abdicates
Russian throne; Bolsheviks take power in Russia. |
| February 14-15 |
Halide Hanum, the Turkish female
author, and head of an orphanage established in Syria, receives 70
Armenian orphans in her orphanage in order to Turkify them.
Another group of 70 Armenian orphans
are sent to an orphanage in Lebanon to be Turkified.
|
| March 23 |
10,000 Armenian deportees are reported
in the city of Damascus, and 30,000 Armenian deportees are reported
in Homs and Hama. |
| 1918 |
|
| April 15 |
The Turkish government announces
that upon his return from the Peace Conference at Brest-Litovsk, Talaat
will grant amnesty to the Armenians in Turkey. Practically, it is
an empty gesture for the benefit of the Europeans, as most surviving
Armenians were living outside of Turkey proper and those still left
in Turkey were being systematically destroyed. |
| April 28 |
Turkey formally recognize the Transcaucasian
Federative Republic consisting of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
(The Federation dissolves on May 28.) |
| May 28 |
Independent Armenian, Azerbaijani,
and Georgian states emerge from defeat of Ottoman Empire in World
War I in Russian Transcaucasia. |
| September 15 to September 17 |
The three-day massacre by Turkish
military forces under the command of Nuri Pasha (Enver's younger brother)
and Halil Pasha (Enver's uncle) results in the death of 30,000 Armenian
civilians in the city of Baku. |
| October 29 |
120,000 Turkish gold pounds and jewelry
is transferred from the Ittihad Party to the Tejeddut Party, the newly-organized
front of the Ittihadists. This money and jewelry was just a small
part of the property of the Armenians misappropriated by the Ittihad
Party.
Dr. Nazim takes with him to Germany 65,000 Turkish gold pounds and
600,000 Turkish gold pounds of valuation in jewelry from the so-called
abandoned goods of the Armenians. |
| 1919 |
|
| February |
A court martial to address war crimes
in convened in Constantinople |
| February 26 |
During the tenth session of the court
martial on the Yozgat massacres, testimony was presented that the
local gendarmery commander, Tevfik, had purchased 50,000 Turkish gold
pounds-worth of Armenian-owned property. |
| May 28 |
On the first anniversary of independence,
the Republic of Armenia declares the unification of Caucasian and
Turkish Armenia. |
| June 10 |
Talaat, Enver, Jemal, and Dr. Nazim,
charged with war crimes by the Turkish court martial, are condemned
to death in absentia. |
| August 13 |
Halil Pasha and Kuchuk Talaat, both
accused war criminals, escape from Constantinople to join Kemal's
forces. |
| December |
Francois Georges-Picot, former French
High Commissioner in Syria, and Mustafa Kemal hold a secret meeting
in Sivas concerning the status of Cilicia. Kemal demands that the
French Army including the Armenian volunteer forces serving with it
be withdrawn. Picot agrees, leaving defenseless the Armenian survivors
in Cilicia, who had returned home from their ordeals in the desert. |
| 1920 |
Red Army invades Azerbaijan and forces
Armenia to accept communist-dominated government. |
| January 19 |
The Allies formally recognize the
independence of Armenia.
Tried in Constantinople in absentia,
Behaeddin Shakir is sentenced to death and Dr. Nazim to fifteen
years hard labor.
|
| February 5 |
10,000 Armenians are massacred in
Marash. |
| April 25 |
United States President Woodrow Wilson
receives an invitation from the San Remo Conference to determine the
borders of Armenia. |
| August 10 |
The Treaty of SËvres is signed. According
to articles 226, 227, 228, 229, 230 pertaining to the massacres, the
Turkish government promises to hand over all documents and any persons
requested by the Allies. Articles 88 and 89 recognize Armenia as a
free and independent state. |