In May and June 1915, the Ottoman Empire waged a genocide against the Armenian Christian minorities in Anatolia. The Vatican attempted to get Germany and Austria-Hungary involved in protesting to its Turkish ally. The Pope himself sent a personal letter to the Sultan, who was also Caliph of Islam. It had no success "as over a million Armenians died, either killed outright by the Turks or from maltreatment or starvation".