Date April - May 1915
Type
- Blurb (Image & Text)
Chapter
- The Genocide
Stateless and caught between two warring empires, the Armenians were more vulnerable than ever. The tyrannical Djevdet Bey, the vali (governor) of Van , took advantage of this. In April 1915 he demanded that the vilayet offer up more than 4,000 men for forced labor in Ottoman military battalions – a thinly veiled plan to massacre the city’s able-bodied men. The Armenians refused.
Ottoman soldiers laid siege to the city on April 20, 1915. Armenian civilians defended the city with improvised weapons and barricades. Secret messengers appealed to the Russian army. Russian forces helped the Armenian civilians to drive the Ottoman troops out of the city in May 1915. The resistance at Van became a new pretext for deportation.
