1714) Free E-Book: Germany And The Armenian Persecutions 1914-1918

by Ubrich Trumpener From "Germany and the Ottoman Empira 1914 - 1918" Princeton University Press. 1968

After the  successful struggle of the various Balkan peoples for independence during the preceding hundred years, the largest Christian national group left in the Ottoman empire in 1914 were the Armenians, most of whom lived in the eastern portions of Anatolia' After submitting for centuries to legal discrimination, harassmcnt, and misgovern-ment—which earned them the designation of the "loyal com-munity" (Millet-i Sadika) by their Turkish ovcrlords—many Ottoman Armenians had becomc increasingly restive and na-tionalistic in the course of the 19th century. Since their requcsts for efficient and fair government, evcnhanded justice, and lo-cal autonomy were repcatedly ignored by the Porte, and since the diplcmatic efforts of the European powcrs on their bchalf produced (iule more than paper rcforms, some elements of the Armenian community turned to "nonlegal" and violent meth-ods to throw off the Turkish yokc. After the 186os a number of revolutionary socictics and parties sprang up, and by the early nineties the radicalization of the Armenian revolutionary movement found outward expression in the emergence of the Hunchakian Party and the Armenian Revolutionary Federa-tion or Dashnaktsuthiun. White the "Hunchaks" aimed for the creation of an independent Armer:jan state, the "Dash-naks" advocated radical political and social reforms within the framcwork of the Ottoman empire. Both groups hoped to at-tract energetic European support for the Armenian cause, but . .




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