The Ottoman Government Carries Out the Armenian Genocide
Up to a million and a half Armenians are killed or die of forced deportation, a history that is well-documented even though Turkey disputes the term
Quick facts
- Period
- Spring 1915 - Fall 1916
- Armenian population in 1915
- c. 1.5 million
- Documented deaths
- At least 664,000, possibly up to 1.2-1.5 million
- Disputed today
- Official Turkish state recognition of the term "genocide," not the historical killings themselves
What happened
Between the spring of 1915 and the fall of 1916, the Ottoman government, under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress's wartime leadership, carried out the systematic destruction of the empire's Armenian Christian population, then numbering around 1.5 million people. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum documents that at least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million Armenians were killed, through massacres, individual killings, and deaths from forced deportation marches, starvation, and exposure, in a policy the museum describes as aimed at strengthening Muslim Turkish elements in Anatolia at the expense of the Christian population. Tens of thousands of Armenian children were forcibly removed from their families and converted to Islam. The word genocide itself was coined decades later by the lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who drew directly on the Armenian case in developing the legal concept that became the basis of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
Why it matters
The historicity of the Armenian Genocide, that the Ottoman government systematically killed and forcibly displaced well over half a million Armenians and likely well over a million, is well-documented and accepted by the overwhelming weight of international historical scholarship. What remains disputed is not whether the killings happened but whether the modern Turkish state officially recognizes them as genocide, a political and diplomatic question separate from the historical record itself, and one that continues to shape Turkey's relations with Armenia and the Armenian diaspora a century later.
How we know
The genocide is documented in Ottoman government records, contemporary US and European diplomatic dispatches from officials stationed in the empire during the war, survivor testimony, and the subsequent historical scholarship synthesized by institutions including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Sources
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia. The Armenian Genocide (1915-16): Overview · Reputable sourceencyclopedia.ushmm.org · The domain "encyclopedia.ushmm.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. Turkey: A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies), Ch. 3 · General sourcecountrystudies.us · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match).
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Related timelines
- World War I → · The genocide was carried out by the Ottoman wartime government during World War I; see that timeline for the empire's broader wartime conduct.