Essay - Armenian Genocide: Its Causes and Influences I am Confident that...

Armenian Genocide: Its Causes and Influences

I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. -- Henry Morgenthau, American *****bassador to ***** Ottoman Empire, 1913-1916

Introduction

The epigraph above may seem incongruous to many modern observers in the West in general ***** the United States in particular, but ***** tragic events that it describes are a matter of historical fact and the genocide experienced by the Armenians during the early part of ***** 20th century remains a point of heated contention in ***** part ***** the world today. In what some historians have described as the first true "genocide," the Armenian people ***** experienced the loss of hundreds ***** thousands of its people and ***** dispersal ***** millions more to other countries throughout the ***** today. This study provides an analysis of the causes and motives of Armenian *****, an analysis of regional events such as World War I that may have influenced it ***** an ***** of ***** international events that might have had an effect on it. A summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

***** and Motives of Armenian Genocide. The Armenian people were not the only ones to experience the ravages ***** the 19th and 20th centuries, of course, but it would ***** that *****y have endured ***** than their fair share of violence throughout their lengthy history. In fact, U.S. government analysts concede that, "Armenia prides itself on being the ***** nati***** to formally adopt Christianity (early 4th century). Despite periods of autonomy, over the centuries Armenia came under the sway of various empires including the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Persian, ***** *****. During ***** War I in the western portion ***** Armenia, Ottoman Turkey instituted a policy of forced resettlement coupled ***** ***** harsh practices that resulted in an estimated 1 million ***** deaths" (***** 2).

Although ***** exact estimates of the Armenian deaths that resulted from these waves of genocide differ, some salient issues emerge from the ***** record that are undisputed. Accord*****g to Rosenbaum (1996), during ***** *****0th century, the world *****d four distinct waves of *****onal and ethnic conflict ***** genocide following the collapse ***** states and *****: "These ***** punctuated by the First ***** Second World Wars and by the postcolonial ***** post-Communist eras. During ***** First ***** War and its aftermath the Ottoman empire collapsed, and it comm*****ted the first total ***** of ***** twentieth century against its Armenian minority" (87). ***** "total genocide" was in fact the intended outcome ***** ***** massacres of the Armenian people. As Rae (2002) points out, in some instances of genocide in ***** early 20th century, the "state-builders sought to destroy the collective identity of the targeted minority, and caused ***** suffering in the process [but] they were not *****tent on the physical destructi***** of