The Armenian Genocide, a series of systemic killings, and organised extermination of the minority population of Christians during the Ottoman Muslim rule in the region of Armenia is one of the most horrific state-sponsored genocidal events of the 20th century.
Usually, the Armenian Genocide refers to a series of massacres of the Armenian Christian population carried out by officials of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards. The genocide began in 1915 and lasted until 1923, killing an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians, among other minority Christian groups.
However, years before 1915, a tragic event in Adana in April 1909 displays how the Ottoman Empire was prejudiced against the Christians under their rule and how an entire population was branded the enemy of the state, and subjected to tragic, horrific murder on an enormous scale.
The population of Armenian Christians under Ottoman rule in Western Asia has been subjected to multiple events of atrocities and massacres over centuries. In 1895, Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II ordered the killing of the Armenian population after Armenian groups demanded equal rights for minority Christians under the Islamic Ottoman regime.
Beginning in the fall of 1895, Hamid II’s officials and irregular militia started attacking Armenian villages and settlements and killing the general population with impunity. By the spring of 1896, an estimated 300,000 Armenians were killed. Rapes and forced conversions were rampant too. This was the initial stage in what was to be decades of violence and massacres for the Armenian people living under the Ottoman caliphate.
The large-scale violence against the Armenian population was a turning point, marking the beginning of a pattern of violence and persecution that would continue for decades, culminating in the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
The region of Adana (Adana Eyalet) was located in the region of southeastern Anatolia, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Around 1909, a rumour started reading that the Armenians living in the region are planning a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Unlike the Hamiddian massacre, this event was carried forward by local Ottoman officials and Islamic groups, with motives of the social and economic devastation of Armenian and other minority groups.
Adana region in Ottoman Empire, Modern Turkey
The violence began on April 14, 1909, when Muslim mobs began attacking Armenian neighbourhoods in Adana and its surrounding areas, burning homes and businesses, and killing Armenian civilians. The violence quickly spread to other Christian communities, including the Greeks and Assyrians. The Ottoman authorities were either unable or unwilling to stop the violence, and in some cases, even encouraged it.
Over 1300 Assyrians and hundreds of Greeks and Syrian Christians were also killed. Beginning on April 14, Muslim mobs instigated and aided by Islamic clerics and Ottoman officials, started raiding villages and killing anyone and everyone from the minority communities.
Images of devastation and torture in the Adana massacre in 1909, via @ResearchWing and @HistoryfyToday
An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Armenians and hundreds of Greeks and Assyrians were rounded up, tortured, raped and killed. People were carved with knives and shops and homes were gutted in the fire.
The massacre was fuelled by a combination of factors. Religious intolerance against minority Christians, economic competition, and Ottoman government policies all played a role. The Ottoman Empire was in a state of decline, and the rise of fanaticism mixed with ‘nationalist’ sentiments towards the Empire was fuelling hatred against Christians who were perceived as being sympathetic towards the Russian State.
Socio-economic differences between the Muslim Turks and Armenians were also one of the reasons. Though the general Armenian population was not particularly rich, some Armenian Christians had found success. This was used as a trigger to incite the Muslim mobs against the population, branding the Armenians as traitors of the Ottoman Empire because of their religion.
In the months prior to the massacre, rumours began to circulate that Armenians were plotting to take over the Ottoman Empire with the support of European powers. These rumours were spread by Ottoman officials and Muslim leaders, who used them to stoke fears and fuel anti-Armenian sentiment. Even after the April 14 massacres, Ottoman officials and soldiers kept spreading the claims that it was the Armenians who had attacked Muslims.
The Committee of Union and Progress, or CUP, was a political party that emerged in the late 19th century in the Ottoman Empire, on the promise of a centralized and modernized Ottoman state. In the years before 1909, the CUP had gained significant influence in the Ottoman government, with many of its members holding key positions in the Empire. Anti-Armenian sentiment often formed a key rhetoric of the CUP.
It is said that many CUP members were actively and directly involved in the Armenian massacre, some members even helping to fuel the rumours that the Armenians are plotting to overthrow the Ottomans.
The Ottoman Empire, whose officials and soldiers were active and willing perpetrators of large-scale violence against minority Christian groups, never acknowledged their roles. Despite reports of widespread atrocities against Armenian civilians, Ottoman officials never took any decisive action to stop the massacre. As the violence continued unabated and got widely reported, the Ottoman government finally sent troops to stop the violence, but that proved to be futile too. Because they were mostly Ottoman Muslim troops who often participated in the violence against minorities.
A book by Rouben Paul Adalian mentions that a total of 24 churches, 16 schools, 232 houses, 30 hotels, 2 plants, 1429 cottages, 253 farms, 523 shops, 23 mills and many other public buildings were burnt in Adana alone.
Even an investigation carried out by the Ottoman government after the massacre was found to be horribly biased against the Armenians. No meaningful steps were taken to prevent similar incidents in the future and the perpetrators were never brought to justice. Most of the officials involved went unpunished. Hence, the massacre only paved the way for future atrocities at a grander scale against the Armenians, eventually leading to the 1915 genocide that killed millions of them.
The remnants of the hatred and legacy of violence between the two ethnic groups continue even today, in the form of the ongoing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Turkey’s open support to Azerbaijan against the Armenians.