Chronology of the Armenian Genocide

[Joseph]

1939

August 22
While addressing his military commanders at Obersalzburg, a week before the invasion of Poland, and the start of World War II, Adolph Hitler speaks of his orders "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language," and concludes his remarks by saying: "WHO STILL TALKS NOWADAYS OF THE EXTERMINATION OF THE ARMENIANS?"

[Joseph]

1923

February 4
The Lausanne Conference deadlocks over the Armenian Question.

April 23
The second Lausanne Conference is convened.

July 24
Treaty of Lausanne signed by Turkey and the Allies excludes all mention of Armenia or the Armenians. The new Turkish Nationalist state is extended international recognition. The Ottoman Empire goes out of existence.

August 23
The Turkish Nationalist congress, known as the Grand National Assembly, meeting in Ankara ratifies the Lausanne Treaty. The Allies begin to evacuate the following day from all places in Turkey that had been occupied in accordance with the terms of the Armistice of October 30, 1918.

October 29
The Republic of Turkey is proclaimed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly with Mustafa Kemal as its President.

[Joseph]

1922


April 7
Jemal Azmi, the governor-general of Trebizond during the massacres, and Behaeddin Shakir are assassinated in Berlin.

July 25
Jemal Pasha, the former Minister of the Marine and the Fifth Army commander in Syria, is assassinated in Tiflis (Tbilisi).

August 26
Anarchy spreads in Smyrna as the Turks press in on the city.

September 9
The advance guard of the Turkish Army enters Smyrna and pillages Armenian and Greek homes and stores. Armenians and Greeks are killed in the thousands. Religious institutions, including the Armenian Prelacy in Smyrna, are ransacked.

September 13
The burning of Smyrna by the Turks. Within 24 hours, 50,000 houses, 24 churches, 28 schools, 5 consulates, 7 clubs, 5 banks, and an unknown number of stores and warehouses are destroyed.

November 20
The first Lausanne Conference is convened.

[Joseph]

1921

January 3, 4, and 5
An acquittal is handed down for those accused of the massacre in Adrianople (Edirne).

January 18
The Ottoman government abolishes the courts martial.

January 21
The trial on Erzerum massacres is reviewed by a new and higher court.

January
Naim Jevad, an accused war criminal, is sent by Enver as an envoy from Moscow to Constantinople.

January 20
The Turkish Nationalist Pact demands the inclusion of Armenia, Smyrna, and Thrace in Turkish territory.

February 8
Mustafa Pasha, presiding judge of the court martial which had condemned Nusret to death on August 5, 1920, was acquitted of the charge of having joined in a conspiracy against the government after six months of imprisonment and a trial. The trial signals the beginning of the reversal of the policy on bringing the Ittihadists to justice.

February 11
After a ten-months siege, Aintab capitulates to Turkish Nationalist forces.

February 17
The trial on the Keghi massacres is held.

February 18
Some of the war criminals are acquitted.

February 24
The investigation of the Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) massacres begins.

March 10
The investigation of the Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) massacres continues.

March 15
Talaat is assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian student, Soghomon Tehlirian. Talaat had been condemned to death by the Turkish court martial on July 11, 1919. (In 1943, the Turkish government removed the remains of Talaat from Nazi Germany and enshrined them with great ceremony on Liberty Hill in Constantinople.)

June 1
The German Foreign Office obstructs the former German Consul at Aleppo, Rossler, from testifying in the Berlin court trying Talaat's assassin.

June 2
Tehlirian's trial is held in Berlin.

June 3
Tehlirian is acquitted.

December 6
Said Halim is assassinated in Rome.

[Joseph]

1920

anuary 19
The Allies formally recognize the independence of Armenia.

January 19
Tried in Constantinople in absentia, Behaeddin Shakir is sentenced to death and Dr. Nazim to fifteen years hard labor.

January 21
Turkish Nationalist forces affiliated with Mustafa Kemal attack Marash.

February 5
10,000 Armenians are massacred in Marash.

April 1
The Ittihadists distribute relief funds to party members in hiding in Turkey accused of crimes and to those who had fled to foreign countries.

April 22
The United States of America officially recognizes the Independent Republic of Armenia.

April 23
The Ottoman government in Constantinople announces that it will seek a new review by higher judicial bodies of the sentences against those tried by the courts martial.

April 25
United States President Woodrow Wilson receives an invitation from the San Remo Conference to determine the borders of Armenia.

May
The French and Turkish Nationalists agree to an armistice.

July 22
Jemal Oguz, the murderer of the poet Daniel Varoujan and other Armenian intellectuals, escapes from custody with the assistance of the Military Governor of Constantinople.

July 29
Five war criminals tried for the massacres in Erzinjan, all of whom had conveniently escaped from custody, are sentenced in absentia.

August 5
The court martial condemns to death Nusret, vice-governor of Bayburt District.

August 10
The Treaty of Sèvres is signed. According to articles 226, 227, 228, 229, 230 pertaining to the massacres, the Turkish government promises to hand over all documents and any persons requested by the Allies. Articles 88 and 89 recognize Armenia as a free and independent state.

August
The Turkish Nationalist and Bolshevik forces form an alliance.

November 22
President Woodrow Wilson presents his delineation of the borders of Armenia. A week later Armenia is partitioned by Turkish Nationalist forces and Sovietized by Russian Bolsheviks.

November
Of 10,000 Armenians living in Hadjin (Hajen), only 480 survive a massacre by Turkish Nationalist forces.

December 30
The trial on the massacres in Mosul begins.

[Joseph]

1919


February
A court martial to address war crimes in convened in Constantinople.

February 6
Dr. Reshid, former governor-general of Diyarbekir Province and a major war criminal, commits suicide.

February 26
During the tenth session of the court martial on the Yozgat massacres, testimony was presented that the local gendarmery commander, Tevfik, had purchased 50,000 Turkish gold pounds-worth of Armenian-owned property.

March 5
The eleventh session of the trial on the Yozgat massacres is held.

March 8
An imperial decree is published in Constantinople calling for the court martial of the Ittihadist leaders.

March 13
The Grand Vizier, Ahmet Tevfik Pasha, attempts to justify the massacres on the basis of false accusation against the Armenians.

March 24
The twelfth session taking testimony on the massacres at Yozgat is held.

March 30
During the Yozgat trial, shots are fired in the courtroom in an attempt to disrupt the court martial.

April 5
The fifth session of the trial on the Trebizond massacres is held.

April 12
Kemal Bey, the chief culprit of the Yozgat massacres, sentenced to death by the military tribunal, is publicly hanged.

April 15
The court martial investigates the role of the Ittihad Party in the Armenian massacres.

May 4
The second session of the tribunal investigating the Ittihad Party reveals that the Ittihad cabinet ministers were simultaneously serving as executive members of the Ittihad Party.

May 5
The thirteenth session of the trial on the Trebizond massacres is held.

May 6
The third session of the tribunal on the Ittihad Party reveals that the original Convention of the Ittihad had consisted of only 300 members.

May 8
The fourth session of the Ittihad tribunal is held.

May 8
180,000 Turkish gold pounds are requisitioned from the Tejeddut Party.

May 8
The fifth session of the Ittihad tribunal and the trial of the Young Turk propagandist, Zia Gokalp, is held.

May 11
The sixteenth session of the trial on the Trebizond massacres is held.

May 15
The eighteenth session of the trial on the Trebizond massacres is held.

May 19
A mass meeting of 100,000 persons organized by Constantinople Police Department protests the May 14 landing of the Greek Army at Smyrna.

May 19
Mustafa Kemal lands at Samsun on assignment from the Ministry of War and the Grand Vizier in Constantinople as inspector-general of central Anatolia. Kemal begins organizing new Turkish armies to oppose the Allies. Former Ittihadist leaders join forces with Kemal.

May 28
On the first anniversary of independence, the Republic of Armenia declares the unification of Caucasian and Turkish Armenia.

June 10
Talaat, Enver, Jemal, and Dr. Nazim, charged with war crimes by the Turkish court martial, are condemned to death in absentia.

July
The Constantinople branch of the Ittihad Party plans to send Javid, Dr. Adnan, and his wife Halide Hanum, as their delegates to the Congress convened in Sivas by Mustafa Kemal. To escape trial for war crimes, Javid had been in hiding in Turkey for eight months following the Armistice.

August 3
The trial on the Kharput massacres begins. Halil Pasha is heard as a witness. Evidence is introduced revealing that Behaeddin Shakir used two separate ciphers, one for use with the Sublime Porte, the other for use with the War Ministry.

August 13
Halil Pasha and Kuchuk Talaat, both accused war criminals, escape from Constantinople to join Kemal's forces.

November 2
Jelal Bey (the former governor-general of Aleppo Province until May 1915, when he had resigned in protest against the order to exterminate the Armenians, whereupon he had been transported to Konia (Konya), where he had remained in office until the end of 1916) was appointed Governor-general of Aleppo Province again.

December
Francois Georges-Picot, former French High Commissioner in Syria, and Mustafa Kemal hold a secret meeting in Sivas concerning the status of Cilicia. Kemal demands that the French Army including the Armenian volunteer forces serving with it be withdrawn. Picot agrees, leaving defenseless the Armenian survivors in Cilicia, who had returned home from their ordeals in the desert.

[Joseph]

1918

January 9
The Aleppo Police Department obtains the list of all the Armenian labor battalion workers constructing the Aleppo Normal School for the selection of those to be killed.

January 28
The German General Hans Friedrich von Seeckt, at the time Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army, is instructed to prevent Turkish atrocities against the Armenians of the Caucasus, since the Russian armies had fallen apart in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the Turks were advancing almost unopposed.

February 27
The Interior Ministry requests without delay the lists of Armenian employees on the railways.

March 3
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is signed by Russia, Turkey, and Germany. The hostilities with Russia are officially ended. Talaat declares that he will grant amnesty to the Armenians.

March 12
Enver orders the killing of all civilian Armenians over five years of age and remaining Armenians in the Turkish military within 48 hours. The Germans attempt to stop the Turks from committing this massacre.

March 12
Turkish forces reoccupy Erzerum.

March 26
The governor-general of Aleppo Province sends a list of the Armenian railway employees to the Military Commissioner for Railways.

April 1
The Military Commissioner for Railways sends a reply to Osman Bedri, the governor-general of Aleppo Province relating to the destruction of the Armenian railway workers, and on the same day the list is delivered to the Aleppo Police Department, which was serving as the concentration and transit center for the deportations and massacres.

April 5
Turkish forces reoccupy Van.

April 14
The registration book of all the remaining Armenian construction workers (the labor battalions of the Turkish Army) is sent to the Aleppo Police Department.

April 15
The Turkish government announces that upon his return from the Peace Conference at Brest-Litovsk, Talaat will grant amnesty to the Armenians in Turkey. Practically, it is an empty gesture for the benefit of the Europeans, as most surviving Armenians were living outside of Turkey proper and those still left in Turkey were being systematically destroyed.

April 24
Enver returns from Batum to Constantinople and reports that he will be issuing instructions for the return of 'peaceful' Armenians.

April 13
Turkish forces occupy Kars.

April 28
Turkey formally recognize the Transcaucasian Federative Republic consisting of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. (The Federation dissolves on May 28.)

May 28
An Armenian Republic is proclaimed in Russian Transcaucasia.

June 9
Hindenberg wires Enver asking Turkish forces to evacuate all Caucasian areas except Kars, Ardahan, and Batum. The Turks ignore the demand. Local massacres are reported throughout the occupied areas.

June 28
Sultan Mehmet V Reshad, who had been a complete a rubber-stamp for the Ittihadists, dies. He is succeeded by Mehmet VI Vahideddin.

June 24
2,000 remaining Armenians are massacred in Kara-Kilise in Turkey.

June 28
The Turkish government condemns 14,000 Armenians to hard labor to destroy these remnants.

July 5
Avedis Aharonian, President of the Armenian Delegation, meets with German ambassador to Constantinople, Count Bernstorff, on behalf of the Armenian Republic.

July 29
Hinderburg sends a message to Enver urging restraint in the treatment of the Armenians in the Caucasus.

July 24
The Armenians are supposedly granted amnesty, and Ismail Janbolat, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, is given charge of the return of the Armenian deportees.

September 15 to September 17
The three-day massacre by Turkish military forces under the command of Nuri Pasha (Enver's younger brother) and Halil Pasha (Enver's uncle) results in the death of 30,000 Armenian civilians in the city of Baku.

September 19
Allied forces open a large-scale offensive on the Syrian Front, aided by an Armenian Legion recruited from Armenian colonies throughout the world.

October 1
Allied forces capture Damascus.

October 2
Bulgaria signs an armistice with the Allies. The Armenian refugees in Bulgaria are now safe as the Bulgarian government stops returning them to Turkey.

October 8
Allied forces capture the city of Beirut (Beyrut).

October 8
The Ittihad Cabinet of Enver, Jemal, and Talaat resigns. All three prepare to flee the country.

October 26
Allied forces occupy the city of Aleppo. With the arrival of the British and French armies and the Armenian Legion, 125,000 remnants of the deported Armenians are rescued from the desert

October 29
The Ittihad Central Bureau resigns and the Party decides secretly to reorganize as the Tejeddut Firkasi (Regeneration Party). Talaat, Enver, Osman Bedri, Behaeddin Shakir, and more than thirty other Ittihadist ringleaders decide to flee to Germany.

October 29
120,000 Turkish gold pounds and jewelry is transferred from the Ittihad Party to the Tejeddut Party, the newly-organized front of the Ittihadists. This money and jewelry was just a small part of the property of the Armenians misappropriated by the Ittihad Party.

October 29
Dr. Nazim takes with him to Germany 65,000 Turkish gold pounds and 600,000 Turkish gold pounds of valuation in jewelry from the so-called abandoned goods of the Armenians.

October 30
An armistice is signed at Mudroa between Turkey and the Allies. The Armistice agreement makes provisions for the release of Armenian internees and the return of the Armenian deportees to their homes.

November 1
The Ittihad Party, with 120 delegates attending, convenes under the guise of the Tejeddut Party.

November 2
Talaat, Enver, Jemal flee Turkey on a German freighter.

November 3
The second session of the Ittihad convention as the Tejeddut Party is held under the chairmanship of Ismail Janbolat Bey, Talaat's former assistant. An Executive Committee of twenty-one members is elected.

November 4
The third session of the Ittihad convention instructs its provincial branches to go underground and announces their abolishment.

November 5
All Ittihadist clubs in Anatolia are closed. The units go underground.

November 11
A general Armistice is declared between the Allies and the Central Powers.

December 11
Talaat, Enver, and Jemal are summoned by the Fifth Committee of the Turkish Parliament to appear for an inquiry within ten days.

[Joseph]

1917


January 4
Mr. Goppert of the German Embassy, visits Enver, Talaat and Foreign Minister Halil to convey that forcible Islamization had no connection with military necessity or the security of the state and must be stopped immediately.

February 4
Talaat becomes the Grand Vizier of Turkey.

February 14
Halide Hanum, the Turkish female author, and head of an orphanage established in Syria, receives 70 Armenian orphans in her orphanage in order to Turkify them.

February 15
Another group of 70 Armenian orphans are sent to an orphanage in Lebanon to be Turkified.

March 5
The government distributes by rail to various villages and towns 400 Armenian orphans from Aleppo.

March 5
350 Armenian orphans from an Armenian orphanage in Syria are given to surviving relatives, no matter how distantly related, in order to keep them from falling into the hands of the Turks.

March 11
Allied forces occupy Baghdad.

March 15
20,000 Armenians in the city of Aleppo are reported in extreme distress.

March 15
The Turkish government declines American offers of aid to the Armenian survivors.

March 20
In Aleppo District, 45,000 Armenian deportees are reported living in dire conditions. Of these, 10,000 were women, while the rest were mainly orphaned children.

March 23
The governor-general of Damascus, Huseyin Kiazim, reports that there are 60,000 Armenian deportees in Damascus District, of which only 10% were capable of doing any kind of work.

March 23
10,000 Armenian deportees are reported in the city of Damascus, and 30,000 Armenian deportees are reported in Homs and Hama.

March 26
Ernst E. Cristoffel, a German missionary in Malatia, who witnessed the massacres and deportations, estimates that 1,000,000 Armenians had been murdered.

April 1
12,000 Armenian deportees are murdered in Buseira, near Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor).

April
The Turkish government orders all surviving Armenians in Urfa District to be Turkified.

April 20
Turkey breaks relations with the United States.

June
The Turkish government orders the Turkification and Islamization of the surviving Armenian Catholics.

September
The appointment of the new German ambassador in Constantinople, Johann Heinrich Count on Bernstorff (former ambassador to Washington). Bernstorff served until October 27, 1918.

November 5
The Interior Ministry orders the deportation of all Armenian employees on the railroads.

November 27
President Woodrow Wilson urges former ambassador Henry Morgenthau to write a book based on his experiences.

December 9
Allied forces occupy Jerusalem.

[Joseph]

Click on the names of highlighted cities, towns, and other locations to view a map of the genocide.

July 1
Lord Bryce submits to Lord Grey, British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, his book on The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

July 5
The massacre of the 7,000 Armenian troops imprisoned in Sivas begins. The massacre lasts for twenty-one days with an average of 1,000 killed every three days.

July 6
The Russian Army occupies Bayburt and Erzinjan.

July 10
The U.S. Congress proposes a day of commemoration for the collection of funds for the Armenians.

July to March 1917
The Turkish Army on the Caucasian Front loses 60,000 men to starvation, disease and other causes, leaving effectively only 20,000. Marshal Liman von Sanders attributes these losses to the destruction of Turkish agricultural production because of the deportations of the Armenians.

July 19
The U.S. House of Representatives adopts the resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate establishing a day of commemoration for the Armenian victims.

July 23
In order to further the Islamization and Turkification of the Armenian remnants in the Hawran District, all the Armenian clerics found there are murdered by the Turks.

July 23
The proposal is made to the Armenian military doctors in Sivas that they become Muslims. Almost all refuse and are at once killed.

August 1
The Interior Ministry abolishes the Armenian Patriarchate and the legal rights of the Armenian community (the Millet Ermeni) on the grounds that there was no Armenian community left in Turkey.

August 7
Newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Abram E. Elkus, leaves for Constantinople.

August 8
15,000 Armenian deportees are removed from Aleppo to the desert.

August 12
The Turkish government again refuses aid to the Armenian deportees by a neutral commission.

August 13
Salih Zeki, the governor of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor), informs Talaat that he is changing the location of the deportees.

August 14
200,000 Armenian deportees are reported killed in massacres by this date in the Zor District, at a delta formed by the juncture of the Khabur and Euphrates River near Suwar (Suvar), Marrat (Marat), and Elbusayra.

September 3
A five member commission of Turks arrives in the Hawran District to convert the Armenian deportees to Islam.

September 5
The government orders all Armenian orphans to be given Turkish names.

September 7
60,000 more Armenian deportees are reported massacred in the Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) area.

September 16
Turkish authorities enter American consular offices to search for British records.

September 29
The German Cabinet, in its 86th session, discusses the Armenian massacres.

October 3
Count Wolff-Metternich leaves his post as ambassador to Turkey, recalled by the German General Staff at the request of Enver because he had protested against the Armenian massacres. Wilhelm Radowitz is interim ChargÈ d'affaires for Germany until November 16 and the arrival of the new ambassador, Richard von Kuhlmann.

October 4
Wilhelm Radowitz reports to the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethman Hollweg that of the two million Armenians in Turkey, one and half million had been deported. Of these 1,175,000 were dead; 325,000 were still living.

October 5
The Turkish government confiscates by a provisional law all the real estate of the Armenians.

October 8 and October 9
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, acting on the resolution of Congress, proclaims these two days "Armenian Relief Days."

October 11
A highly secret Ittihad convention is convened in Constantinople to review existing policy toward the Armenians and to decide on a future course of action.

November 16
The appointment of the new German ambassador in Constantinople, Richard von K¸hlmann, who serves until July 1917, when he is promoted to the office of Foreign Minister.

December 4
Omer Naji, an inspector-general of the Ittihad Committee, is reported to have announced that Ittihad is seeking to organize a purely Turkish state.

[Joseph]

1916

January 1
The Armenian deportees concentrated in Suruj District, near Urfa, are sent out toward Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) under very severe winter conditions, completely lacking food, shelter, and suitable clothing.

January 5
Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda seeks to oust Ali Suad, the Arab governor of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) District for lack of severity by applying directly to Talaat.

January 8
The immediate deportation to the desert of the Armenians working on the railroads or in railway construction is ordered.

January 11
Instructions are sent to prevent foreign officers from photographing dead Armenians.

January 13
U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau during his farewell visit with Talaat is told of the pointlessness of speaking about the Armenians.

January 15
A second circular telegram is issued by the Interior Ministry to prevent photographing of the dead.

January 17
The governor-general of Aleppo is instructed to send the Armenians deported from the northern provinces directly to their final destinations.

January 23
The governor-general of Aleppo informs Talaat that only 10% of the Armenian deportees remain alive, and that measures are being taken to dispose of them also.

January
A French translation of a spurious book prepared by Talaat's office charging the Armenians with treason and revolution is published.

January 23 to March 10
During this period of 47 days, of 486,000 Armenian deportees, 364,500 are reported to have been killed by the Turks or to have died because of the hardships of the deportations.

January 24
The War Ministry orders all Armenian soldiers remaining alive in the Turkish armies to be converted to Islam and to be circumcised.

January 24
The governor-general of Aleppo orders the vice-governor of Aintab to deport the remaining Armenian women in Aintab.

January 26
German Marshal Colmar von der Goltz is appointed Commander of the Eastern Front.

January 28
A circular telegram orders the destruction of orphans.

January 29
50,000 Armenian remnants are reported concentrated at Intille (Intili).

January 29
The Interior Ministry provisionally exempts from deportation Armenians needed for the running of the railways. Their families and children, however, are ordered to be deported to the desert.

January 29
The Interior Ministry orders the deportation of the Armenians constructing roads as soon as the construction work is finished.

January 31
The vice-governor of Aintab District informs the governor-general of Aleppo Province that the Armenian women and children have been handed over to Kurds.

January 31
In a period of two and a half days, 1,029 Armenians die of the rigors of the deportations in the town of Bab, northeast of Aleppo.

February 3
According to Lord Bryce, 486,000 Armenians deportees were still living: 100,000 were to be found between Damascus and Maan, 12,000 at Hama, 20,000 at Homs, 7,000 at Aleppo, 4,000 at Maara, 8,000 at Bab, 5,000 at Munbij (Munbuj), 20,000 at Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain), 10,000 at Rakka, and 300,000 at Zor.

February 3
A circular telegram instructs that orphans who do not remember their parents be send from Aleppo to Sivas; the rest are to be send to Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) and no expenditures are to be made for their existence.

February 4
Marshal Liman von Sanders replaces Marshal Colmar von der Goltz as Commander of the Caucasian, or Eastern, Front.

February 9
Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda, the governor-general of Aleppo Province, and the Aleppo Commissioner of Police begin to remove 10,000 Armenian deportees from the environs of Aleppo.

February 9
The commander of the labor battalions for the railroad in Cilicia is instructed to deport the wives of the workers and to tell them that their husbands will follow them.

February 10
The deportation commissioner in Aleppo requests funds from the Interior Ministry to cover to the expenses of destroying the orphans.

February 10
Erzberger, a German Reichstag representative, visits Enver and Talaat, to protest the massacres and the excesses of the deportations.

February 14
50,000 Armenians are reported murdered at Intille (Intili).

February 14
On this date 50,000 deportees are reported at Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain).

February 16
An American application to send relief to the Armenians is rejected by Turkey.

February 16
Talaat sends a circular letter to Urfa, Aintab and Kilis requesting documents to indict the Armenians.

February 16
The Russian Army occupies Erzerum. Only a handful of captive Armenian women are found alive in the entire province.

February
Marshal Liman von Sanders claims to have stopped the deportation of many Armenians from Adrianople (Edirne).

February
Tahir Jevdet, Enver's brother-in-law, the governor-general of Van Province, travels via Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain) to Adana, where shortly before he had been appointed governor-general, replacing Ismail Hakki.

February 16
U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing asks the German Ambassador Bernstorff to stop the Armenian tragedy.

February 22
Henry Morgenthau arrives in New York.

February 23
Count Wolff-Metternich, the German ambassador in Turkey, visits Talaat and Halil Bey, the newly-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the Armenian Question with them because of the representations of the United States to the German government.

February 28
A few Armenian soldiers in Turkish Army in Aleppo are forcibly converted to Islam.

March 1
The second deportation of the Armenians of Adrianople (Edirne) begins.

March 1
The Interior Ministry is informed from Aleppo that the Armenians who fled from Mardin had been killed.

March 4
A circular telegram instructs that Armenians of military age are to be put to work only outside inhabited areas.

March 10
A report is send to the Interior Ministry from Aleppo informing that 75% of the Armenians previously in the desert are now dead, and only 25% remain alive.

March 14
Kerim Refi, described as a very savage Rumelian Turk, who is appointed vice-governor of Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain) arrives from Constantinople. He speeds up the massacres of the Armenian deportees concentrated in Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain), which had gotten off to a slow start. The massacres extend over a period of five months. Kerim Refi utilizes primarily chete forces, including one extremely wild tribe of Circassians.

March 20
Talaat is informed from Aleppo that 95,000 Armenians had died from sickness and other causes in the past week: 30,000 in Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain), 35,000 in Bab and Meskene, 10,000 in Karluk (Karlik), and 20,000 in Dipsi, Abu Herir (Abuharar), and Hama.

March 20
Instructions are sent to seize the Armenian orphans with the pretext of giving them food and to kill them.

March 23
In Aleppo an attempt is made to force all Armenian soldiers in labor corps to become Muslims and to give up their Armenian names.

March 29
The Turkish government officially rejects foreign relief for the Armenian deportees.

April 6
14,000 Armenians are massacred in Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain). 24,000 deportees are reported still living in Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain).

April 14
By this date, 70,000 Armenians are reported massacred at Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain).

April 15
The Russian Army occupies Trebizond. With the exception of a few Armenian orphans and widows secretly sheltered by Greeks, no Armenians are found in the city.

April 15
A battalion of the Turkish 4th Army Engineers arrives in Ras-el-Ain (Ras ul-Ain) from Damascus to assist in massacring the Armenians.

April 15
19,000 Armenian deportees arrive near the Khabur River.

April 16
The New York Times reports that German Catholics had placed the number of massacred Armenians at 1,000,000, and that they held England at fault for this great crime.

April 19
50 to 100 Armenian deportees are reported to be dying of starvation every day in Meskene, Abu Herir (Abuharar), Sabkha (Sebka), and Hammam (Hamam).

April 28
The Turkish government again rejects foreign relief for the Armenians.

May 3
According to The New York Times, before the fall of Erzerum, 15,000 Armenians had been massacred in the nearby town of Mamakhatun, west of the city of Erzerum.

May 10
Shaikh-ul-Islam (Turkish religious chief) Khairi resigns under pressure. Musa Kiazim, a war criminal, succeeds him as Shaikh-ul-Islam and as Minister of Pious Foundations.

May 12
1,400 Armenian orphans are distributed to various places by the Ittihad Committees.

May 21
News is received concerning the fate of 19,000 deportees in one caravan, of whom 16,500 are reported killed on the banks of the Khabur River, northeast of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor), and 2,500 survivors are reported having arrived at Mosul.

May
72,000 Armenian deportees are reported in Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) District.

May 24
The New York Times reports that 80,000 Armenians had died of starvation around Damascus.

May 30
60,000 Armenian deportees are reported scattered between Hejaz District in central Arabia and Aleppo in northern Syria.

June 3
The report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions on the massacres of Erzerum is published.

June 7
All the Armenians remaining in the Aleppo area are ordered to leave for Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor).

June
The Arab governor of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) District, Ali Suad, is sent to Baghdad for refusing to carry out the extermination of the deportees. He is replaced by Salih Zeki, the former vice-governor of Everek in Kayseri Province, reputed for his cruelty.

June 20
The Armenians working in labor corps in Sivas are instructed to convert to Islam. At least 95% refuse.

June 25
7,000 Armenian soldiers stationed in Sivas are imprisoned for nine days in the old Seljuk buildings where formerly the civilian Armenian leaders and intellectuals had been imprisoned before being killed.

June 30
Ambassador von Wolff-Metternich reports to the German Chancellor that Ittihad is devouring the remaining Armenian refugees.

June 30
On the argument that those who refuse are going to be deported into the desert again, the proposal is made to the Armenian labor battalions in Damascus and to the civilian deportees that they become Muslims. Very few Armenians accept.