Hamidian massacres

For the 20th-century genocide, see Armenian genocide.
Hamidian massacres
Part of the persecution of Armenians and the late Ottoman genocides
A photograph taken in November 1895 by William Sachtleben of Armenians killed in Erzurum[1]
LocationOttoman Empire
Date1894–1897
TargetArmenians, Assyrians
Attack type
Mass murder, looting, forced conversion, ethnic cleansing, pogrom
Deaths80,000–300,000
AssailantsOttoman Army; Kurdish mounted cavalry and irregulars
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The Hamidian massacres[2] also called the Armenian massacres, were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s. Estimated casualties ranged from 100,000[3] to 300,000,[4] resulting in 50,000 orphaned children.[5] The massacres are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who, in his efforts to maintain the imperial domain of the declining Ottoman Empire, reasserted pan-Islamism as a state ideology.[6] Although the massacres were aimed mainly at the Armenians, in some cases they turned into indiscriminate anti-Christian pogroms, including the Diyarbekir massacres, where, at least according to one contemporary source, up to 25,000 Assyrians were also killed.[7]

The massacres began in the Ottoman interior in 1894, before they became more widespread in the following years. The majority of the murders took place between 1894 and 1896. The massacres began to taper off in 1897, following international condemnation of Abdul Hamid. The harshest measures were directed against the long persecuted Armenian community as its calls for civil reform and better treatment were ignored by the government. The Ottomans made no allowances for the victims on account of their age or gender, and as a result, they massacred all of the victims with brutal force.[8]

The telegraph spread news of the massacres around the world, leading to a significant amount of coverage of them in the media of Western Europe, Russian Empire and North America.[9]

  1. ^ "The Graphic". December 7, 1895. p. 35. Retrieved 2018-02-05 – via The British Newspaper Archive.
  2. ^ Armenian: Համիդյան ջարդեր, Turkish: Hamidiye Katliamı, French: Massacres hamidiens)
  3. ^ Dictionary of Genocide, By Paul R. Bartrop, Samuel Totten, 2007, p. 23
  4. ^ Akçam, Taner (2006) A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility p. 42, Metropolitan Books, New York ISBN 978-0-8050-7932-6
  5. ^ "Fifty Thousand Orphans made So by the Turkish Massacres of Armenians", The New York Times, December 18, 1896, The number of Armenian children under twelve years of age made orphans by the massacres of 1895 is estimated by the missionaries at 50.000.
  6. ^ Akçam 2006, p. 44.
  7. ^ Angold, Michael (2006), O'Mahony, Anthony (ed.), Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 5. Eastern Christianity, Cambridge University Press, p. 512, ISBN 978-0-521-81113-2.
  8. ^ Cleveland, William L. (2000). A History of the Modern Middle East (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview. p. 119. ISBN 0-8133-3489-6.
  9. ^ Deringil, Selim; Adjemian, Boris; Nichanian, Mikaël (2018). "Mass Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Discussion: An Interview with Selim Deringil". Études arméniennes contemporaines (11): 95–104. doi:10.4000/eac.1803.