page_title: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
section_title: World War I, 1914–18
hierarchical_section_title: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire / Western Armenia, 1829–1918 / Dissolution, 1908–18 / World War I, 1914–18
caption_attribution_description: English: Armenia, divided between the Russian and Ottoman empires.
context_page_description: Armenians in the Ottoman Empire mostly belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century equalized all Ottoman citizens before the law.
context_section_description: With onslaught of World War I, the Ottoman Empire and Russian Empire engaged during the Caucasus and Persian Campaigns, and the CUP began to look on the Armenians with distrust and suspicion. This was due to the fact that the Russian army contained a contingent of Armenian volunteers. On 24 April 1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested by Ottoman authorities and, with the Tehcir Law (29 May 1915), eventually a large proportion of Armenians living in Western Armenia perished in what has become known as the Armenian Genocide. There was local Armenian resistance in the region, developed against the activities of the Ottoman Empire. The events of 1915 to 1917 are regarded by Armenians, Western historians, and even some Turkish writers and historians like Taner Akçam and Orhan Pamuk, to have been state-sponsored and planned mass killings, or genocide.
caption: Six Armenian provinces of Western Armenia and boundaries between countries before World War I
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