Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Armenian Genocide: Ottoman Annihilation and Global Reckoning
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, we've talked about Armenian fedayi, about the First Republic, about Cilicia — but there's one event that overshadows everything else in modern Armenian history. The genocide. And we need to approach it carefully, because it's not just history — it's an open wound. Luna: I've been wondering when we'd get to this. Where does the story actually start? Lucas: Conventionally, the genocide is said to have begun on April 24, 1915, when the Ottoman government arrested around 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. But the groundwork was laid much earlier, especially after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The Committee of Union and Progress — the CUP — initially promised equality for all Ottoman subjects, but within a few years, a radical wing embraced a vision of a homogenized, Turkic empire. Lucas: Key figures were the so-called Three Pashas: Talaat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior; Enver Pasha, the Minister of War; and Djemal Pasha, who controlled the navy and the Syrian region. They saw Armenians as a fifth column, especially after the disastrous Battle of Sarikamish in 1914, which we covered in episode 19. Luna: So they used the war as a cover for what they planned? Lucas: Exactly. World War I gave them the pretext. In February 1915, the government ordered the disarmament of Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army. They were reassigned to labor battalions — amele taburları — where they were worked to death or murdered outright. Then came the deportation orders. Families were uprooted from their homes in Anatolia and forced to march south toward the Syrian desert, specifically the area around Deir ez-Zor. Lucas: And along the way, the columns were attacked by Kurdish irregulars and by the Special Organization — Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa — set up by the CUP to carry out the killings. Estimates are that in all, about 1.5 million Armenians died. Luna: 1.5 million. That's more than half of the pre-war Armenian population in the empire. Lucas: Yes. And the mechanism was systematic. The same day the intellectuals were arrested, the government issued a decree — Tehcir Law — allowing the military to deport anyone deemed a security threat. But the marches themselves were designed for destruction: no food, no water, constant robbery, rape, and murder. Those who survived the march were dumped in concentration camps in the desert. Luna: Were there any places that resisted? Lucas: Absolutely. The most famous is the city of Van, in the east, where Armenians rose up in April 1915 and held out against Ottoman forces until the Russian army arrived. That became a symbol. And then there's the story of Musa Dagh — Mount Moses — where a small Armenian community on the Mediterranean coast held out for 53 days and was rescued by a French naval ship. Luna: I've heard of that. There's a novel by Werfel. Lucas: Franz Werfel, yes — 'The Forty Days of Musa Dagh'. It brought global attention. But it also made the Ottoman government furious. They saw the Van uprising as proof of a general rebellion, even though most Armenians were loyal. Lucas: Meanwhile, the outside world knew. The U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr., sent detailed reports to Washington. He was horrified. There were also missionaries and consuls on the ground, like Leslie Davis in Harput, who photographed mass graves. But the U.S. was neutral at that point, and the Allies were too focused on the war to intervene. Luna: So the genocide happened with the world watching. Lucas: In a sense, yes. After the war, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and the Three Pashas fled. Talaat, Enver, and Djemal were tried in absentia by a military tribunal in Constantinople and sentenced to death. But Talaat was in Berlin, Enver in Central Asia, Djemal in Tbilisi. And that's where the story gets another layer. Luna: The assassinations. Lucas: Right. An Armenian revolutionary named Soghomon Tehlirian shot Talaat Pasha in broad daylight on a Berlin street in 1921. At his trial, Tehlirian testified about seeing his family killed in the genocide. He was acquitted. That trial was a major moment — it forced the world to hear the testimony of survivors. And it inspired a young Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, who later coined the word 'genocide' itself. Luna: I didn't realize Lemkin was directly inspired by the Armenian case. Lucas: He was. Lemkin said that when he read about Tehlirian's trial, he asked himself why Talaat could be killed with impunity — because there was no international law to punish the crime he committed. So Lemkin spent decades pushing for a legal definition. In 1948, the UN Genocide Convention was adopted, and the Armenian genocide was the paradigm case. Lucas: And yet, Turkey still denies it. The Turkish government argues that the deaths were a result of war and civil strife, not a planned extermination. But the evidence is overwhelming: orders from the CUP, survivor testimonies, and diplomatic records. More than 30 countries and 49 U.S. states recognize it as genocide. But Turkey's denial remains a major source of tension. Luna: And for Armenians, recognition is about more than history — it's about justice, restitution, and the right to return. Lucas: Exactly. The genocide is why the Armenian diaspora is so large and so politically active. It's why communities in Los Angeles, Beirut, and Moscow keep the memory alive. Every April 24, they march. And the genocide is also the reason why Armenia's borders with Turkey are closed, and why the relationship is so fraught. Luna: So in a way, the genocide is still ongoing — not the killing, but the erasure. Lucas: That's a powerful way to put it. Denial is a kind of second genocide, as some survivors have said. But the Armenian response has been to preserve — through monuments, museums, and especially through storytelling. That's what we're doing here. Not just recounting the horror, but insisting that it happened, that it mattered, and that we remember. Luna: And that's also what the world must do.