Name the horror: Time to recognise for what it was, Armenian genocide

Amidst the expanding footprint of the First World War in 1915, the Ottoman Turks unleashed a gruesome genocidal campaign on their Christian Armenian subjects, one that sought to erase their civilisation in entirety and permanently alter the multicultural fabric of the Ottoman Empire.

- VANDIT SINGH

Aligned with the Central Powers during the First World War, the Ottoman Empire was faltering, grappling with territorial losses and internal strife. Dubbed as the Sick Man of Europe, it faced economic strain and relentless military pressures, particularly on its eastern front against Russia. This, coupled with the nationalist zeal of the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which sought to preserve the crumbling Empire, fuelled paranoia and aggressive policies, setting the stage for a catastrophe. Starting in April 1915, the course of the coming months saw an estimated 1.5 million Armenians perish in a meticulously orchestrated effort involving mass executions, brutal death marches through the Syrian desert, and deliberate starvation. The figure shoots even higher if we also consider the Hamidian massacres (1894-96), named after the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which saw him unleash a wave of violence against Christian Armenians, slaughtering up to 300,000 in a brutal prelude to the genocide that followed.