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‘Genocide in the 20th Century’
THE CONCEPT OF WAR AND GENOCIDAL IMPULSES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1821–1918
Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA
The article analyses the various military factors which contributed to the Armenian genocide of 1915–1918. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the course of the 19th century engendered a variety of military factors. First, jihâd, or the concept of Holy War, came to be exploited for a variety of unscrupulous designs, and, for the sake of destroying often innocent non-Muslims, was used improperly to attack and annihilate villagers. Second, extensive raiding activity by Kurds, Circassians and Turkmen had destroyed Christian and other non-Muslim villages for decades before the genocide of 1915–1918. These raids continued to afflict the non-Muslim populations of north-east Anatolia as part of the genocidal plan in 1915–1918. Finally, the concept of total war, developed by the Ottoman army under German (and other European) military influences proved to be a deciding factor in the annihilation of the Armenian population of Ottoman Anatolia. The article also demonstrates that the Ottoman army used similar oppressive measures against the other subject populations of the Ottoman Empire.