On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government arrested and killed hundreds of Armenian political and religious leaders in Constantinople. Under the cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began its "final solution" to the Armenian Question-eradication of the Armenian people. Its plan was well-devised and systematic. First, all Armenian men in the Ottoman army were disarmed and placed into labor battalions where they either were worked to death or outright massacred. Second, leaders of Armenian communities from all over the Empire were arrested and,as with the  intellectuals in Constantinople, killed. Then began

the deportations. The Ottoman military rounded up all Armenians from every city, town, and village in the Empire and drove
them from their homes. If any able-bodied men remained, they usually murdered them not far from town.

The rest of the population-women, children, and the elderly-formed long caravans guarded by Turkish soldiers. Without food
or water, the Ottoman forces lead the caravans on death marches southward, toward the scorching Syrian and Mesopotamian
deserts of Der-Zor and Meskeneh. En route, those in the caravans were at the mercy of the gendarmes* and marauding bands
of criminals released from jails to prey upon the deportees, as well as local Turks and Kurds, all of whom were incited by the
government to rob, rape, kidnap, and kill the deportees.

Of the two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire, scarcely half a million survived. Practically overnight, the Turkish
government of 1915 brought an end to the Armenian people’s three thousand year existence on their homeland.

U.S. State Department and European archives clearly document the premeditated and systematic nature of the Armenian
Genocide. Immediately after the War, even the provisional Turkish government admitted to the Genocide and held military
tribunals to convict its organizers. U.S. and European newspaper headlines told of Armenian massacres, about "starving
Armenians," and about the "extermination" of the Armenian nation.

But, unlike the concerted efforts by the allies to destroy the Nazis and bring reparations to the Jewish people later in the
century, nothing was done for the Armenians. Many spoke of doing justice and creating an Armenian homeland. President
Wilson even drew a map of an Independent Armenia. But, ultimately, the allies did nothing to bring to justice the perpetrators
of the Genocide.

Every Turkish government since 1922 has denied the Armenian Genocide. As the Western powers curried Turkey’s favor as a
secular state in the Middle East and as a buffer to the Soviet Union, the Genocide became a forgotten issue. Turkey claims the
Genocide never happened and most Western powers remain silent. From this perspective, it is not surprising that Hitler
mentioned the Armenian Genocide when planning his death camps. He had seen how the world reacted and did not fear
reprisal. He knew that those who forget history are bound to repeat it.

* French word for military police