Why did the Armenian genocide happen?

Answer

the turks and armenians didnt like each other, because the turks were muslim and the armenians christian. the turks were afriad that the russians would encourage the armenians to rebel. the armenians also supported the allies.

Answer

There's an excellent book on the history of the Armenians. It's by David Marshall Lang. The title is "The Armenians: A People in Exile" and it was published in London by Allen and Unwin in 1981. Though the book is out of print, it should be available from most major public and academic libraries.

If you search the web for information, bear in mind that the Turkish government *denies* the Armenian holocaust and there is a lot of Turkish propaganda online.

The story behind the Armenian Holocaust is complex. In all, 1.2-1.5 million Armenians were murdered in 1915-17 and 1919-22. There is a mass of evidence from external sources (American and German, for example) and also in Turkish archives, too!

Answer

There are also an equal number of historical documents that support the fact that the tragedies resulted from armed Armenian revolt. The following quote is from Dr.Justin McCarthy a Professor at the University of Louisville.

"Conflict between the Turks and the Armenians was not inevitable. The two peoples should have been friends. When World War I began, the Armenians and Turks had been living together for 800 years. The Armenians of Anatolia and Europe had been Ottoman subjects for nearly 400 years. There were problems during those centuries-problems caused especially by those who attacked and ultimately destroyed the Ottoman Empire. Everyone in the Empire suffered, but it was the Turks and other Muslims who suffered most. Judged by all economic and social standards, the Armenians did well under Ottoman rule. By the late nineteenth century, in every Ottoman province the Armenians were better educated and richer than the Muslims. Armenians worked hard, it is true, but their comparative riches were largely due to European and American influence and Ottoman tolerance. European merchants made Ottoman Christians their agents. European merchants gave them their business. European consuls intervened in their behalf. The Armenians benefited from the education given to them, and not to the Turks, by American missionaries.

While the lives of the Armenians as a group were improving, Muslims were living through some of the worst suffering experienced in modern history: In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bosnians were massacred by Serbs, Russians killed and exiled the Circassians, Abkhazians, and Laz, and Turks were killed and expelled from their homelands by Russians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs. Yet, in the midst of all this Muslim suffering, the political situation of the Ottoman Armenians constantly improved. First, equal rights for Christians and Jews were guaranteed in law. Equal rights increasingly became a reality, as well. Christians took high places in the government. They became ambassadors, treasury officials, even foreign ministers. In many ways, in fact, the rights of Christians became greater than those of the Muslims, because powerful European states intervened in their behalf. The Europeans demanded and received special treatment for Christians. Muslims had no such advantages.

That was the environment in which Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire-hundreds of years of peace, economic superiority, constantly improving political conditions. This would not seem to be a cause for revolution. Yet the nineteenth century saw the beginning of an Armenian revolution that was to culminate in disaster for both."

Note

In the US there is a strong Armenian Holocaust denial lobby.

• Where were children evacuated to in world war 20?
• Have you ever heard of Amenia?
• How did the world react to the Armenian genocide?