Talaat Pasha - Armenian Genocide

Armenian Genocide
Background
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire Armenian Question Hamidian masscres (1894–96) Diyarbakir (1895) Zeitun (1895–96) Ottoman Bank (1896) Yıldız (1905) Adana (1909) Young Turk Revolution (1908)
The Genocide
Congress at Erzurum Red Sunday Tehcir Law Labour Battalions
Deportation
Centres: All the settlements at Western Armenia Camps: Deir ez-Zor Ra's al-'Ayn Foreign aid and relief: ACRNE NARC
Resistance
Zeitun Van Musa Dagh Urfa Shabin-Karahisar
Responsible parties
Young Turks: Committee of Union and Progress Talaat Enver Djemal Behaeddin Shakir Special Organization Reshid Djevdet Topal Osman Kurdish Irregulars
Trials
Courts-Martial Malta Tribunals Soghomon Tehlirian
Armenian population
Population Casualties
See also
Armenian militia Operation Nemesis Recognition Denial Cultural portrayal Reparations Timeline

On April 24, 1915, Talaat issued an order to close all Armenian political organizations operating within the Ottoman Empire and arrest Armenians connected to them, justifying the action by stating that the organizations were controlled from outside the empire, were inciting upheavals behind the Ottoman lines, and were cooperating with Russian forces. This order resulted in the arrest on the night of 24/25 April 1915 of 235 to 270 Armenian community leaders in Istanbul, including politicians, clergymen, physicians, authors, journalists, lawyers, and teachers. Although the mass killings of Armenian civilians had begun in the Van vilayet several weeks earlier, these mass-arrests in Istanbul are considered by many commentators to be the start of the Armenian Genocide.

Talaat also issued the order for the Tehcir Law of June 1, 1915 to February 8, 1916 that allowed for the mass-deportation of Armenians, a principal vehicle of the Armenian Genocide.

Talaat, as minister of the interior, bears much of the responsibility for the deportation of the Armenians from the empire's eastern provinces to Syria. Most historians blame him for the barbarity of the operation and the deaths of millions of people (and not only of Armenian origin). Although Talaat was the minister of the interior, many historians argue that Enver Pasha deserves equal blame for the extermination of the Armenians. He is reported to have said the following to Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. in Ambassador Morgenthau's Story

"I have accomplished more toward solving the Armenian problem in three months than Abdul Hamid accomplished in thirty years!"

Turkish feminist-nationalist Halide Edip wrote in her Memoirs:

"There are two factors which lead man to the extermination of his kind: the principles advocated by the idealists, and the material interest which the consequences of doing so afford certain classes. The idealists are the more dangerous, for one is obliged to respect them even if one cannot agree with them. Talaat was of that kind. I saw Talaat very rarely after the Armenian deportations. I remember well one day when he nearly lost his temper in discussing the question and said in a severe tone: 'Look here, Halidé Hanum. I have a heart as good as yours, and it keeps me awake at night to think of human suffering. But that is a personal thing, and I am here on this earth to think of my people and not of my sensibilities. If a Macedonian or Armenian leader gets the chance and the excuse he never neglects it. There was an equal number of Turks and Moslems massacred during the Balkan war, yet the world kept a criminal silence. I have the conviction that as long as a nation does the best for its own interests, and succeeds, the world admires it and thinks it moral. I am ready to die for what I have done, and I know I shall die for it.