ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HISTORY AND TIMELINE

In April of 1915 tens of thousands of Armenian men were rounded up and shot. Hundreds of thousands of women, old men and children were deported south across the mountains to Cilicia and Syria. On April 15 the Armenians appealed to the German Ambassador in Constantinople for formal German protection. This was rejected by Berlin on the grounds that it would offend the Turkish Government. By April 19 more than 50,000 Armenians had been murdered in the Van province.

Within nine months, more than 600,000 Armenians were massacred. Of the deported during that same period, more than 400,000 perished of the brutalities and privations of the southward march into Mesopotamia. By September more than a million Armenians were the victims of what later became known as the Armenian Genocide! A further 200,000 were forcibly converted to Islam to give Armenia a new Turkish sense of identity and strip the Armenian people of their past as the first Christian state in the world.

1914-1920

2/21/1914	A Turkish boycott of Armenian businesses is declared by the Ittihadists. Dr. Nazim travels throughout the provinces to implement the boycott.
2/26/1914	The police spy David notifies Reshad Bey, Chief of the Political Section of the Constantinople Police Department that he is providing the names, biographies, pictures, and speeches about reform, as well as other data, of two thousand leading Armenians.
3/2/1914	Parliamentary elections held in Turkey with only candidates approved by the CUP winning seats.
3/14/1914	The Ittihadist Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda, the vice-governor of Seghert, is appointed governor-general of Bitlis Province.
7/28/1914	Negotiations are started between the Turkish and German Imperial governments.
8/1/1914	Germany declares war on Russia. Beginning of World War I.
8/2/1914	A secret treaty of alliance is signed between Turkey and Germany virtually placing the Turkish armed forces under German command.
8/3/1914	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.
8/8/1914	Censorship of all telegraphic communication is announced by the government.
8/18/1914	Looting is reported in Sivas, Diyarbekir, and other provinces, under the guise of collecting war contributions. Stores owned by Armenian and Greek merchants are vandalized.
8/18/1914	1,080 shops owned by Armenians are burned in the city of Diyarbekir.
8/22/1914	The male population between the ages of 20 and 45 is conscripted by the Turkish armed forces.
8/28/1914	Turkish troops are garrisoned in Armenian schools and churches in Sivas Province. In the city of Sivas, 56,000 soldiers of the 10th Army Corps are quartered in and around the Christian districts.
9/8/1914	The Turkish government abrogates the Capitulations (the commercial and judicial rights of the Europeans in the Ottoman Empire).
9/11/1914	The Armenian National Assembly, composed of civil and religious representatives, meets in Constantinople and advises Armenians in the provinces to remain calm in the face of provocation.
9/27/1914	The Dardanelles Straits are closed to foreign shipping.
9/27/1914	News reaches Constantinople about the demand made by the government of the Armenian population in Zeitun to turn in its weapons, including all types of knives.
9/30/1914	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.
10/1/1914	All foreign postal services in Turkey are closed on government order.
10/1/1914	Nazaret Chavush, the most notable Armenian leader in Zeitun, is murdered on the order of Haidar Pasha, governor of Marash.
10/7/1914	News reaches Constantinople of looting under the guise of war contributions in Shabin-Karahisar.
10/10/1914	News that ‘the war contribution’ looting of Armenians was continuing in Diyarbekir Province.
10/10/1914	In Zeitun, all the Armenian notables are called to a meeting. About three score attend and are immediately arrested.
10/13/1914	News of requisitions imposed on Armenian businesses as ‘war contributions’ reaches Constantinople from every province.
10/13/1914	News reaches Constantinople of starvation and the spread of disease in Sivas Province because of the desperate conditions created by the ‘war contributions’ campaign conducted against the Armenians.
10/17/1914	Bands of chetes begin looting, violating women and children, and large-scale murdering in Erzerum Province
10/17/1914	Leaders of the Armenian nationalist Dashnak party organization in Erzerum are arrested.
10/22/1914	Enver authorizes the combined German-Turkish navy to carry out a stealth attack on Russia without declaration of war.
10/29/1914	Hostilities are opened between Turkey and Russia with the shelling of the Russian Black Sea coast by Ottoman naval vessels under German command.
11/2/1914	Russia formally declares war against the Ottoman Empire.
11/9/1914	News from the interior of Turkey reaches the Armenian community of Constantinople that persecutions already exceed earlier actions against the Armenians.
11/9/1914	A Proclamation of Jihad, directed against England, France, and Russia, is issued in Constantinople legitimating the formation of the chete organizations.
11/13/1914	Unfounded accusations are launched against the Armenians that they had revolted and were preparing to join the Russian forces.
11/14/1914	The village of Otsni in Erzerum Province is attacked at night by chete forces. The local Armenian priest and many other Armenians are killed. Every house is looted. The first attacks by chete forces on the Armenian villages of Erzerum are reported.
11/18/1914	The Jihad Proclamation is read in all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
11/19/1914	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.
11/20/1914	Orders are issued from Constantinople instructing the provincial administrators to oust all Armenian functionaries in the service of the Ottoman government.
11/21/1914	In Mush, Ittihadist agents distribute arms to the Turkish population after arousing them with false stories of Armenian outrages.
11/23/1914	Previously undisturbed Armenian schools and churches in Sivas Province, together with many private residences, are requisitioned by the Turkish army for use as barracks. The carts, horses, and other travel equipment of the Armenian villagers in the provinces are confiscated.
11/26/1914	Robbery and looting on a large scale is reported in Van Province.
11/26/1914	The War Ministry distributes explosives, rifles, and other equipment to the irregular forces of the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa).
11/26/1914	Enver’s uncle, Halil Pasha, the military governor of Constantinople, begins organizing Special Organization units in Constantinople by enrolling criminals released from prison.
11/29/1914	Halil Pasha instructs the governor of Izmid (Izmit) to identify leaders for Special Organization units and to release criminals from prisons to join these bands.
11/29/1914	The vice-governor of Izmid (Izmit) arms the Special Organization with weapons supplied by the War Ministry.
11/29/1914	Chete forces consisting of intentionally released convicts are armed by the government in Van Province. In the region of Van requisitions take the form of open robbery and looting.
11/30/1914	Having completed his job organizing the Special Organization in Artvin, Behaeddin Shakir is instructed to move on to Trebizond.
11/30/1914	The central command of the Special Organization sends instruction for supplying the chete bands with money, vehicles, and others equipment.
12/1/1914	The beginning of a series of isolated murders to terrorize the Armenian population.
12/1/1914	Reports reach Constantinople that raids by irregular chete forces on the Armenian villages of Erzerum Province are continuing.
12/2/1914	Turks loot the properties of subjects of Allied nations.
12/3/1914	The Ittihad Inspector of Balikesir sends a message to Dr. Nazim of the central committee of the Special Organization via Midhat Shukri, the Central Secretary of Ittihad, that the Interior Ministry and the Ittihad Committee, in accordance with issued orders, are busy organizing the irregular chete bands.
12/5/1914	Reports continue reaching Constantinople that chete raids on the Armenian villages of Erzerum Province are continuing.
12/6/1914	Armenians are put to use as porters of army supplies in Erzerum, Trebizond, and Sivas Provinces under the worst of cold winter conditions for the purpose of letting them die of overwork and illness.
12/14/1914	The Turkish Cabinet charges Enver with command of the offensive on the Caucasian front and assigns Talaat the position of Acting Minister of War while retaining his position as Minister of the Interior.
12/22/1914	An attack by the Ottoman Third Army corps opens the Battle of Sarikamish on the Caucasian Front.
12/23/1914	Foreign missionaries abandon the interior of Turkey as crosses on missions are broken by the Turks and replaced by crescents.
12/31/1914	Sahag Odabashian, the newly appointed Prelate of Erzinjan, while traveling from Constantinople via Sivas to Erzinjan, where he was to be installed in office, is slain in the village of Kanli-Tash, near Shabin-Karahisar, by six chetes organized by Ahmed Muammer, the governor-general of Sivas Province.
1/1/1915	The Ittihad representative of Bursa reports to the Ittihad Central Committee that local criminals and bandits have been registered in the Special Organization.
1/1/1915	Nuri, the vice-governor of Gavar District in Van Province, receives orders from the military governor to kill the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish Army who were stationed in his district.
1/5/1915	The Turkish government publicly charges that Armenian bakers in the army bakeries of Sivas were poisoning the bread of the Turkish forces. The bakers are cruelly beaten, despite the fact that a group of doctors prove the charge to be false by examining the bread and even eating it. As this marks an attempt on the part of the government to incite massacre, the government does not rescind the charge.
1/8/1915	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.
1/12/1915	Ahmed Muammer, the governor-general of Sivas Province, orders the destruction of Tavra-Koy and other strategically located villages around the city of Sivas in order to make future defense impossible for the Armenians. Inside the city of Sivas strategically-located buildings were requisitioned.
1/16/1915	The last actions of the Battle of Sarikamish are reported. The Turkish army is totally defeated and almost destroyed with a loss of 70,000 men out of 85,000.
1/19/1915	Enver arrives in Sivas by automobile from Erzerum after his calamitous defeat at Sarikamish. He instructs the Army to accept only his orders and none hereafter from the German commanders and to draft at once all those deferred in the 20 to 40 age group, along with all males between the ages of 18 and 20 and 45 to 52.
1/22/1915	Enver arrives in Constantinople by automobile from Sivas. After his arrival, he makes a speech congratulating the Armenians for admirably doing their duty on the Caucasian Front and elsewhere. Enver seeks to lull the Armenians of Constantinople who had not yet experienced the general persecutions in the provinces because of the presence of a large European community in the city.
1/23/1915	Enver, now actively Minister of War again, issues a general order to shoot all persons resisting his orders.
2/2/1915	Talaat advises German Ambassador Count Hans von Wangenheim that the war is the only propitious moment to conclude the Armenian Question.
2/10/1915	S. Pasdermadjian, the Second Director of the Ottoman Bank, is murdered in the presence of German Major-General Posseldt, who reported that no investigation was carried or was any attempt made by the Turkish authorities to apprehend the guilty parties.
2/10/1915	Enver’s brother-in-law, Hafiz Hakki, dies of typhus and is replaced by Mahmud Kamil as Commander of the Third Army (Erzerum).
2/14/1915	Tahir Jevdet, the governor-general of Van Province, is reported saying that the government must begin finishing the Armenians in Van at once.
2/16/1915	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.
2/19/1915	Talaat, Osman Bedri, and other Ittihadist leaders decide in a meeting that should Allied naval ships force the Dardanelles, the Turks would burn Constantinople, blow up the Hagia Sophia, and slaughter the Christian inhabitants. Kerosene is distributed to all police stations in Constantinople for ready use in such an eventuality.
2/21/1915	An attack by chetes on the village of Purk near Shabin-Karahisar results in looting, murder, rape.
2/26/1915	Vramian, an Armenian parliamentary deputy from Van, writes Talaat advising him to remove the large number of chetes in Van Province.
2/27/1915	In Sivas Province a general attack is reported on many Armenian villages accompanied by raping, looting, and an increasingly larger number of killings.
2/27/1915	In the village of Chomaklu in Kayseri Province and in other places, the government demands all weapons from the Armenians.
3/1/1915	In Marash, the Armenians in the Turkish Army are deprived of their uniforms and arms.
3/3/1915	A dispatch from the Ittihad Central Committee is released announcing the decision to exterminate the Armenians.
3/3/1915	Armenian soldiers in the Erzerum army area are deprived of their uniforms and arms.
3/3/1915	The British decide to attack the Dardanelles.
3/5/1915	In Van Province, regular gendarmes and chetes are reported attacking many villages inhabited by Armenians and Assyrians.
3/7/1915	A search for weapons is conducted in Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and a mass arrest of Armenians carried out.
3/9/1915	Chetes and regular Army units attack Zeitun. Six Turkish gendarmes are killed by individuals resisting the attack.
3/12/1915	Massacres and robberies are carried in Alashkert District as part of a general campaign led by the chetes forces against the Armenian villages of the district.
3/12/1915	Mass arrests of Armenians are carried out in Dortyol and a public announcement is made that those arrested would be sent to work on road construction near Aleppo. They are never heard of again.
3/12/1915	Enver leaves for Berlin to see Kaiser Wilhelm II.
3/13/1915	A traveling commission of parliamentary deputies tours all the cities of Anatolia. The commission includes Dr. Fazil Berki, parliamentary deputy from Chankri, Ubedulla, parliamentary deputy from Smyrna, and Behaeddin Shakir, member of the Central Committee of the Ittihad Party. They address the Turkish population in the mosques describing the Armenians as internal enemies which must destroyed.
3/13/1915	In Sivas Province the population in all the Armenian villages is disarmed.
3/14/1915	Sahag, the Catholicos of Cilicia, advises the Armenians of Zeitun not to resist under any conditions.
3/16/1915	Russian forces advance between Urmia and Tavriz.
3/18/1915	An Allied attack on the Dardanelles begins.
3/18/1915	In Zeitun, the Turkish forces arrest many of the remaining Armenian notables and intellectuals whom they torture and finally kill.
3/19/1915	Six Armenian soldiers from the town of Gurun are publicly hanged in Sivas to frighten the Armenian population.
3/19/1915	Greek recruits are massacred near Smyrna.
3/20/1915	Omer Naji, a circulating Ittihad propagandist, travels to Aleppo, Adana and nearby towns to arouse the Muslims.
3/24/1915	Chetes and gendarmes attack Armenians in the towns of Bayburt (Papert) and Terchan in Erzerum Province, and in Bitlis.
3/26/1915	Sahag, Catholicos of Cilicia, renews his instruction to the Armenians of Zeitun not to resist.
3/26/1915	Thirty more Armenian community leaders are arrested in Zeitun.
3/28/1915	The Armenian Dashnak leader, Murad, resists arrest in Sivas and flees to the mountains, and after many daring escapes reaches the Caucasus.
3/28/1915	Hamid, the governor-general of Diyarbekir Province, is removed for opposing the order of massacre, and is replaced by Dr. Reshid.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HISTORY AND TIMELINE

1914-1920

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