The Events of 1915: Archives, International Law and the Fair Memory Approach

Why It Matters

The Events of 1915 are the wartime deportation of Ottoman Armenians and the mass deaths that followed. They remain one of the most contested questions in international history and law. The dispute is easier to follow when split into three questions: what happened (a matter for archives and historians), how it is characterized legally (a matter for the 1948 Genocide Convention and competent courts), and who has standing to decide (scholars, tribunals, or national parliaments).

Ankara's answer is that the first question belongs to open archives and joint scholarship, the second to a competent tribunal, and the third not to legislatures. Armenia, diaspora institutions and many genocide scholars answer differently. This guide sets out both positions with attribution and keeps documented fact separate from official position, in line with our Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards.

Background

Centuries of coexistence and the millet system

Armenian communities lived within the Great Seljuk state, the Anatolian principalities and, from the 14th century onward, the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople was established under Mehmed II in 1461 within the Ottoman millet system, which gave recognized religious communities self-administration in religious, educational and communal affairs. Armenians held prominent positions in finance, architecture, trade and the imperial administration, and Ottoman sources came to call the community millet-i sadıka, the loyal community. Western observers of the 1830s, such as the Prussian officer Helmuth von Moltke, described Anatolian life of the period in similar terms.

The Tanzimat reforms (from 1839), the 1856 Reform Edict and the 1863 Armenian National Constitution widened communal rights on paper. Demography is disputed. Ottoman statistics and many Western estimates show Armenians as a minority in every eastern province, and Ankara cites a share below 20 percent of the regional population. Armenian Patriarchate figures were higher, and the underlying numbers remain contested.

Great Power diplomacy and revolutionary committees

The 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War changed the political setting. Article 61 of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin obliged the Ottoman government to carry out reforms in Armenian-inhabited provinces, with the Great Powers watching over implementation. Armenian leaders, among them Patriarch Nerses Varzhapetian and Mkrtich Khrimian, sought European backing. Two political organizations emerged: the Hunchak party (founded 1887) and the Dashnaktsutyun / ARF (founded 1890 in Tbilisi). Both pursued armed organization in addition to political work.

The years that followed included:

• the 1890 Kumkapı demonstration in Istanbul
• unrest in Merzifon, Yozgat and Kayseri in 1893
• the 1894 Sasun rebellion
• the 26 August 1896 seizure of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul, organized by Karekin Pastırmacıyan

The Armenian narrative adds the Hamidian massacres of 1894–1896, in which Armenian civilians were killed in large numbers across the empire. Estimates range from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand. The 1909 Adana massacres also killed many Armenians. The two accounts therefore differ on causation and responsibility, although both describe a spiral of violence before 1914.

World War I and the 1915 law

The Ottoman Empire entered the war in late 1914. Armenians were divided in their conduct. Many Ottoman Armenians served loyally in the army, while Armenian volunteer units formed in the Russian Caucasus. Commanders such as Antranik, Dro and Hamazasp led some of these units, which fought alongside the Russian army. Armenian accounts present events such as the April 1915 defense of Van as self-defense against attacks. Ottoman and Turkish accounts present them as insurrection behind a fighting front. Turkish historians also cite the 1923 report of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, first prime minister of the Republic of Armenia, which criticized the ARF's wartime course. Armenian scholars contest how this text is read.

On 24 April 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian community figures in Istanbul, a date Armenians commemorate each year. On 24 May 1915 Britain, France and Russia issued a joint declaration condemning 'crimes against humanity and civilization' and holding Ottoman officials personally responsible. On 27 May 1915 the Ottoman government adopted the provisional law (commonly called the Relocation and Resettlement Law, or Tehcir) on measures the military could take against those who opposed government actions in wartime. It was published in the official gazette Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915. Deportations of Armenian populations toward Syria followed. Large numbers died from violence, hunger, exposure and disease. The Ottoman Empire also suffered very heavy civilian losses overall in the war years, including among Muslims in Eastern Anatolia.

Chronology at a glance

Treaties and borders after 1918

The Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) contemplated an Armenian state, but the Ottoman government's successors never ratified it, and it never entered into force. The settlement that took effect consists of the Treaty of Alexandropol (1920), the Treaty of Moscow (1921), the Treaty of Kars (1921, concluded with the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian Soviet republics) and the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923), whose Articles 37–45 guarantee the rights of non-Muslim minorities as equal citizens. Ankara regards these treaties as the binding legal basis of its eastern frontier. Armenia, which was not an independent party to Lausanne, has said in recent years that it makes no territorial claims. Turkish officials continue to point to the reference to 'Western Armenia' in Armenia's 1990 Declaration of Independence as an unresolved question.

The terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s

From 1973, and especially from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, Armenian militant groups carried out attacks on Turkish diplomats and facilities. The best known were ASALA (the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG), later ARA. Dozens of Turkish diplomats, family members and bystanders were killed in the following decades. The attacks included the August 1982 bombing at Ankara's Esenboğa Airport and the July 1983 bombing at Paris-Orly Airport. Turkish authorities state that 31 of the 32 JCAG-ARA attacks targeted Turkish representatives. Mainstream Armenian institutions condemned these acts. Ankara argues that they form part of the context in which later political campaigns arose.

Key Players & Positions

Armenia and the diaspora

The Republic of Armenia, the Armenian Apostolic Church and major diaspora organizations characterize the events as the Armenian Genocide. They commemorate it on 24 April each year. They argue that the deportations were centrally directed by the Committee of Union and Progress government, that the high death toll resulted from deliberate policy, and that recognition and remembrance are matters of justice. Armenian estimates of the dead generally range from one million to 1.5 million. In recent years Armenian officials have also said that normalization with Türkiye should proceed without preconditions.

Scholars

A substantial body of scholarship, including work by Vahakn Dadrian, Taner Akçam and Ronald Suny, concludes that the events were genocide. In 1997 the International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution to that effect. Other historians, including Justin McCarthy and Guenter Lewy, dispute that central documents prove an extermination plan, and stress wartime conditions, intercommunal violence and mortality among Muslims. Authenticity debates also surround particular documents, such as the Andonian telegrams published in 1920. Readers should note that this is a live scholarly debate, and that Turkish and Armenian archives, and those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the United States and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, all feature in it.

Third-country parliaments and executives

A number of states and legislatures have adopted recognition resolutions or laws, among them France (2001), the German Bundestag (2016), and both chambers of the US Congress (2019). President Biden used the term in his 24 April 2021 statement. Other governments, including the United Kingdom, have avoided formal legal characterization, with officials usually stating that the matter is for historians and courts.

Courts and international law

The Genocide Convention (adopted 9 December 1948) defines genocide in Article II as specified acts 'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'. Article VI provides for trial by a competent tribunal of the territorial state or an international penal tribunal. In Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (2007), the ICJ confirmed that the required intent must be established as the only reasonable inference from conduct. The ICJ also held in Croatia v. Serbia (2015) that the Convention does not apply retroactively to acts before it bound the parties. Armenian and other scholars add that the crime existed under customary law and that the 1915 Allied declaration anticipated it. They also note that the Convention's author, Raphael Lemkin, cited the Armenian case. A 2003 legal analysis commissioned by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission from the International Center for Transitional Justice concluded that the Convention does not apply retroactively and gives rise to no legal liability, but that the events included the elements of genocide as the Convention defines it. Turkish officials have rejected the latter conclusion.

In Perinçek v. Switzerland (Grand Chamber, 15 October 2015), the European Court of Human Rights held that Switzerland's criminal conviction of a Turkish politician for denying that the events were genocide breached the right to freedom of expression under Article 10. The Court emphasized that it was not deciding whether the events amounted to genocide. Ankara reads the case as confirming that the question is open to debate. Critics note that the judgment did not endorse denial and was a ruling on speech.

Source Comparison

When reading media coverage, check whether a piece separates the three questions (facts, legal label, authority to decide), names the archive behind each claim, and gives the figures with a source. The Fact Check Hub applies the same method to specific claims. The terrorism context is covered in more depth in Counter-Terrorism at Source.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians and associated deaths.
• Tehcir / Sevk ve İskân Kanunu: The 27 May 1915 Ottoman relocation and resettlement law, published in Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915.
• Millet-i sadıka: Ottoman designation for the Armenian community as the 'loyal community'.
• Hunchak and Dashnaktsutyun (ARF): Armenian political organizations founded in 1887 and 1890.
• Dolus specialis: Specific intent to destroy a protected group, required by Article II of the Genocide Convention.
• Competent tribunal: The court of the territorial state or an international penal tribunal under Article VI.
• ASALA and JCAG-ARA: Armenian militant groups that attacked Turkish diplomats and facilities in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Fair Memory (Adil Hafıza): Ankara's term for an approach based on open archives and joint historical inquiry.

Related guides: Türkiye–Armenia Normalization and the Joint Historical Commission Proposal, Fact Check Hub, Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards, Reader FAQ: Sources, Methodology and Perspective, and the Hard Power Review home page.

Perspective Note

Hard Power Review presents Türkiye's official strategic perspective alongside its legal and historical reasoning, and we say so openly so that readers can weigh our analysis accordingly. Claims are attributed to primary sources wherever possible, including treaties, UN documents, official statements, Ottoman and other state archives, and open-source defense data. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources. — Hard Power Review Editorial Team

Cross-Publication Dossiers & Sister Desk Perspectives

For complementary primary-source analysis across our specialist editorial network, consult:

• Borders & Blocs: The Events of 1915: Archives, Legal Framework and the Fair Memory Proposal — A dossier on the Events of 1915: Ottoman archives, the 1948 Genocide Convention, Kars and Lausanne treaties, ASALA, and Türkiye's Fair Memory proposal.
• PolitiLine: The Events of 1915: Archives, International Law and the Fair Memory Approach — A calm, source-based guide to the Events of 1915: Ottoman archives, the 1948 Genocide Convention, Türkiye's position, Armenian views and normalization talks.
• The State Papers: The Events of 1915: Archives, International Law and the Path to Türkiye–Armenia Normalization — A fact-based dossier on the Events of 1915: archives, the 1948 Genocide Convention, treaties, Armenian and scholarly views, and Türkiye–Armenia normalization.