The current Syrian conflict started in 2014. By 2015 the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) began to stand up a democratic, secular Syria, made up of Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Arabs and Turkmen. Serious—and dangerous—events in northern Syria culminated on October 9 when Turkey, with Syrian rebels, attacked the SDF in order to set up a “safe zone” as the US pulled out from the area. The Kurds have had serious issues with the Turks for centuries, but the Armenian Christians have had a much worse fate. I was reminded of that when, on October 29, the House passed Resolution 296, followed by approved in the Senate yesterday, December 12, officially commemorating the Armenian Christian genocide that occurred almost exactly 100 years ago.

Actually the Ottomans had led “smaller” Armenian pogroms in 1895-96 (200,000-400,000 killed) and 1909 (20,000-30,000 killed). At the beginning of World War I, both the Allies (Great Britain, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) wooed the Ottoman Empire. For various reasons the Ottomans joined the Central Powers. Most Armenians immediately offered prayers for the country, pledged their loyalty and many joined the army.

While the Ottomans pummeled the Allies at Gallipoli, it was a different story in the Caucuses campaign. There the Russians destroyed the Ottomans at the Battle of Sarikamish. The lost of 45,000 of their soldiers horrified everyday Ottomans and members of the government, who looked desperately for a scapegoat. Who better to blame than the Armenians? Rumors spread that the Armenians, most of whom lived in Eastern Anatolian, were in league with the Russians. The government decided that at the very least they would forcibly relocated the Armenians from Eastern Anatolia. What actually happened was infinitely worse!!

The first step was to disarm all Armenian soldiers, and put them into Labor Battalions. Then they moved many of them away from the rest of the Ottoman troops and into isolated areas, shot them, and buried them in shallow, unmarked graves. At the same time, the government required all Armenians to turn in their weapons. This was a double-edge sword. While they wanted to show the state that they were loyal citizens and did what was asked of them, the Armenians remembered what had happened in the earlier pogroms—they turned in the guns as required, only to be slaughtered (🧐—sounds like the Nazi demands of the Jews twenty-five years later!) Ultimately the Armenian leaders decided it would be best to show their loyalty and turned in their weapons—and indeed, the same thing happened❗️

Once all the weapons were in government hands, they began to deport or simply kill hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Eastern Anatolia, beginning in the area of Van (take a look at the map—it’s on the border with Iran.) In February 1915, 800 people in Van were killed. By April the Turks and their auxiliaries (some of whom were Kurds) had slaughtered 10,000 people in Van, despite the fact that many Armenians did resist. The following month, after the Ottoman Parliament passed a number of laws requiring the deportation of the Armenians, the government ordered the methodical killing of the remaining Armenians in Van.

Between July and September 1915 all Armenians in the northeastern territory were deported. Sometimes they had a few days to get their things in order. Sometimes they were simply driven along with nothing but what they were wearing. The Turks forced them to walk all the way to the Syrian desert. More often than not they died along the road from thirst or starvation…or were killed for any conceivable reason. Often they were killed for no reason at all. In Trebizond, a city on the coast of the Black Sea, Turkish soldiers told the Armenia that they were taking them to Istanbul by ship. Instead, once they were out at sea, the soldiers threw everyone overboard.

Those who managed to march did so with no food, no medicine, no shelter. What they did have were marauding bands who stole whatever little the Armenians had—and then killed many of them anyway. Thousands of the women and children were stolen and given to families who converted them to Islam and raised them as their own. Many others were sold into slavery. By the end of 1915 roughly 1.2 million Armenians were dead. Sadly the killings continued, thought a slower rate, until 1923. We will never have an accurate account. Many of those who did survive made it to Aleppo, Syria. Others were forced to work on roads or trains in the desert. A few eked out a living along the Euphrates, while others were able to walk to Lebanon.

Diplomats, most notably Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, along with missionaries and journalists were horrified with what they saw. Morgenthau and a group of concerned Americans set up the Committee on Armenian Atrocities (later the Near Eastern Relief) that raised $100 million (today close to $1 billion) to aid the Armenians, 90% of whom, by 1918, no longer lived in what is now known as Turkey.

Interestingly, shortly after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the government began sporadically attacking the Kurds. The two largest pogroms occurred in 1930 and 1938 when a total of 29,000 Kurds were killed. After World War II, Turks and Kurds maintained an uneasy truce. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the ethnic Kurds demanded greater self-governance in Turkey. By the 1990s Turkey and the Kurds were basically at war with each other. Fast forward to today. A large number of Kurds had tried to atone for their role in the 1915 Armenian genocide. Currently, Kurds and Armenians have been working together as part of the SDF to rid the region of ISIS and bring some hope to Syria. Below is an serious article by Samuel Sweeney which you may find interesting. http://The Kurds Gave Syria Hope: Measuring the Cost of the U.S. Withdrawal https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/united-states-withdrawal-syria-measuring-cost/