Date April 1915
Type
- Blurb (Image & Text)
Chapter
- The Genocide
The CUP blamed the Armenians for the Ottoman army’s disastrous attempt to invade Russia in December 1914. The government accused the Armenians of collaborating with the Russian army to thwart the invasion. Ottoman officials used the failed invasion as a pretext for a plan to destroy the Ottoman Armenian population.
The first deportations took place in the city of Zeitun on April 8, 1915. Men were marched out of town and executed. Women and children were forced from their homes and loaded into railroad cars bound for the desert. The Zeitun deportations served as a training event for the Ottoman killing squads.
