History and Law Desk: The Events of 1915, the Evidence Standards and the Questions Historians and Lawyers Still Debate

Why It Matters

The Events of 1915 remain one of the most contested questions of the First World War: historians broadly agree that several hundred thousand Ottoman Armenians died during wartime relocation, but they disagree on intent, responsibility and the proper legal label. Armenia, much of the diaspora, many scholars and a number of parliaments call these events genocide; Türkiye rejects that characterization, points to wartime security conditions and to Muslim civilian losses, and calls for the question to be settled by historians with full archival access. This guide sets out the evidence base and the legal tests so that readers can evaluate each position against primary sources.

Background

The pre-war setting

For centuries Armenians lived within the Ottoman Empire as one of its recognized non-Muslim communities, often described in Ottoman usage as the millet-i sadıka (the 'loyal community'). Ottoman Armenians held prominent roles in trade, crafts, finance and administration, and Western observers such as Helmuth von Moltke, who travelled in Anatolia in 1835–1839, recorded the communal life of the period. Turkish sources add that Armenians did not form a demographic majority in any province of Eastern Anatolia, and that they accounted for well under a fifth of the population of that region. Armenian scholars dispute the demographic figures used by both sides, and population statistics remain a research question in their own right.

The nineteenth century changed this setting. After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War and the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the 'Armenian question' became an object of great-power diplomacy. Two Armenian political committees emerged:

• Hunchak (Social Democrat Hunchakian Party), founded in Geneva in 1887.
• Dashnaktsutyun (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, 'Dashnak'), founded in Tbilisi in 1890.

Armenian historians generally describe these movements as responses to insecurity, heavy taxation, land disputes and the violence of the 1890s, including the massacres of 1894–1896. Turkish sources stress that both committees adopted armed struggle and aimed to provoke European intervention, citing the 1890 Kumkapı demonstration, the 1893 unrest in Merzifon, Yozgat and Kayseri, the 1894 Sasun rebellion and the 1896 occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul. Both narratives agree that violence in the 1890s deepened mistrust on all sides.

Wartime conditions

The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War in late 1914 and faced the Russian army on its eastern front. Ottoman and Turkish sources emphasize that Armenian volunteer units fought alongside the Russian army, that armed resistance occurred in Van in April 1915, and that Muslim villagers suffered massacres in the Van, Erzurum and Bitlis areas. Armenian and many international historians respond that the Ottoman government's measures were disproportionate, that they hit entire communities including those far from the front, and that most deportees were women, children and the elderly. On 24 May 1915, Britain, France and Russia issued a joint declaration condemning what they called 'crimes against humanity and civilization' and warning that Ottoman officials would be held personally responsible. Turkish authors often read this declaration as wartime political messaging by belligerents.

The 1915 law and the relocation

The central legal text is the Provisional Law on measures to be taken by military authorities against those who oppose the government in wartime, usually called the Relocation and Resettlement Law (Sevk ve İskân Kanunu or Tehcir Kanunu). It was adopted on 27 May 1915 and published in the official gazette Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915. It authorized the army to relocate populations deemed a security risk. Subsequent regulations dealt with protecting the property and safety of those relocated, and a law on abandoned property followed in September 1915.

The interpretive dispute is about implementation. Turkish official sources describe the law as a temporary measure of internal security, citing correspondence between the War Ministry under Enver Pasha and the Interior Ministry under Talat Pasha, as well as orders to protect convoys and punish abuses; Ottoman courts-martial did try some officials for crimes against deportees. Armenian and international scholars argue that the same orders were applied in ways that led to mass death through massacres, hunger, disease and exposure, and they cite testimony from survivors, diplomats and missionaries. Both views rely on the same underlying fact: a large population was moved under state authority during wartime, and very many did not survive.

Casualty figures

Estimates differ widely. Armenian sources and many international historians cite figures around one million to one and a half million deaths. Turkish sources have cited figures of about 300,000 for Armenian wartime losses and argue that wartime and postwar propaganda inflated the numbers while the large losses suffered by Muslim civilians in Anatolia and the Caucasus, from famine, disease, displacement and violence, are overlooked. There is no census-based consensus, and the 1914–1918 population data are themselves a subject of scholarly work.

The archives

A sound assessment needs all three groups of archives:

Archive group	Examples	What it offers	Common cautions
Ottoman and Turkish	Ottoman State Archives in Istanbul (Presidency's State Archives); Turkish military archives	Orders, cipher telegrams, cabinet and ministry correspondence, the text of the 1915 law, court records	Many documents are in Ottoman script; some collections are catalogued but not fully accessible; selective citation is possible
Armenian	National Archives of Armenia; Matenadaran; Armenian Patriarchate collections, including in Jerusalem; diaspora collections	Survivor testimony, church records, community registers, party papers	Memoirs written long after events; party sources present a partisan viewpoint
Third-country	German Foreign Office archive; Austrian state archives; US National Archives (consular reports and Ambassador Morgenthau's papers); British and Russian records; the 1916 British Blue Book	Contemporaneous reports by allies and neutrals, consular observations	Allied wartime documents have propaganda aims; German and Austrian records come from Ottoman allies who were sometimes uninformed about details

Turkey states that Ottoman archives are open to researchers and that millions of documents have been catalogued; Armenian and international scholars note that access conditions and the selection of material have varied over time. Disputed individual documents include the telegrams published by Aram Andonian in 1920, which Turkish historians consider forged and some other scholars consider partly authentic or unverified. Documentary authenticity is a legitimate area of debate and should be examined text by text rather than assumed.

After the war

In 1919–1920 Ottoman courts-martial in Istanbul tried former officials for offences connected with the deportations, and some were sentenced in absentia or executed. British authorities detained a number of Ottoman figures in Malta, but those detainees were released in 1921 in exchange for British prisoners, without trial. The unratified Treaty of Sèvres (1920) contained provisions on Armenia, but it was superseded when the Republic of Türkiye emerged. Turkish sources regard the Istanbul courts as operating under occupation pressure; Armenian and other scholars regard their records as valuable evidence. Later, the Treaties of Alexandropol (December 1920), Moscow (March 1921), Kars (October 1921) and Lausanne (24 July 1923) established the present eastern borders and non-Muslim minority guarantees. They are treaties about borders and status rather than rulings on the characterization of 1915.

The legal framework

The legal question has four components:

1. Definition. Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as specified acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such.
2. Specific intent (dolus specialis). The International Court of Justice, in Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (2007) and Croatia v. Serbia (2015), held that intent to destroy the group must be established and, where inferred from conduct, must be the only reasonable inference. Armenian and many international scholars say that the pattern of events, the targeting of whole communities and surviving documents satisfy this test. Turkish sources say the relocation law, the existence of protective orders and the wartime security context do not.
3. Competent tribunal. Article VI refers to trial by a competent tribunal of the State in whose territory the act was committed or by an international penal tribunal, and Article IX allows disputes between parties to be brought before the ICJ. No such body has ruled on 1915. Turkey emphasizes this gap. Others reply that a crime can be characterized by scholars, parliaments and governments without a court ruling, and that the absence of a trial is partly explained by the circumstances of the postwar period.
4. Non-retroactivity. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951, and the general rule on treaty non-retroactivity is reflected in Article 28 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A 2003 legal analysis commissioned by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) at the request of an Armenian-Turkish reconciliation commission concluded that the Convention could not be applied retroactively to give rise to legal liability, while also concluding that the events included acts that the Convention would define as genocide. Each side cites different parts of that analysis.

In Perinçek v. Switzerland (Grand Chamber, 15 October 2015), the European Court of Human Rights found that Switzerland had violated freedom of expression by convicting a Turkish politician for denying that the 1915 events were genocide. The Court did not rule on whether genocide occurred and stated that it was not for it to do so. Both sides cite the judgment: Türkiye as support for open historical debate, and Armenian and other commentators as a reminder that the Court stressed the particular position of the contested events.

For a fuller treatment, see the sibling guide Does the 1948 Genocide Convention Apply to 1915? Specific Intent, Non-Retroactivity and the Competent Tribunal Question and the sister-publication analysis The Global Anatomy: The 1948 Genocide Convention and the Events of 1915: What the Legal Criteria Require.

Timeline

Date	Event
1878	Congress of Berlin internationalizes the 'Armenian question'
1887 / 1890	Hunchak (Geneva) and Dashnak (Tbilisi) committees founded
1894–1896	Sasun rebellion, massacres, and the Ottoman Bank occupation
April 1915	Armed resistance in Van; arrests of Armenian community leaders in Istanbul
24 May 1915	Allied declaration on 'crimes against humanity and civilization'
27 May / 1 June 1915	Relocation and Resettlement Law adopted and published
1919–1921	Istanbul courts-martial; Malta detainees released without trial
1920–1923	Treaties of Alexandropol, Moscow, Kars and Lausanne
9 Dec 1948 / 12 Jan 1951	Genocide Convention adopted / enters into force
1973–1984	ASALA and JCAG-ARA attacks, many against Turkish diplomats
2005	Türkiye proposes a Joint Historical Commission
14 Jan 2022	Kılıç–Rubinyan normalization talks begin

Key Players & Positions

Armenia and the diaspora

The Republic of Armenia officially characterizes the events as genocide, commemorates the victims on 24 April and seeks international recognition. Armenian diaspora organizations, in the United States, France and elsewhere, have been central to recognition campaigns and to documenting survivor testimony. Armenia has at various times also stated its willingness to normalize relations with Türkiye without preconditions. Armenian official and community sources generally add that recognition is a matter of historical justice and of preventing denial, and not merely of legal liability.

Some violent groups, notably ASALA and JCAG-ARA, carried out attacks between 1973 and 1984 that killed Turkish diplomats and others, including the 1982 Esenboğa Airport and 1983 Orly Airport attacks. Mainstream Armenian institutions have distanced themselves from such violence; Turkish sources point to this period as part of the political context in which the issue has been framed.

Parliaments and governments that adopted resolutions

A number of legislatures and governments have recognized the events as genocide, including France, Germany (Bundestag resolution of 2016), Russia (State Duma, 1995), and the United States, where the President formally recognized the term on 24 April 2021. The Pope used the phrase 'first genocide of the twentieth century' in 2015. Their stated reasoning generally rests on historical scholarship and on the moral weight of the evidence. Türkiye responds that such resolutions are political acts by bodies that are not courts and that they close off, rather than open, historical inquiry. Some governments have chosen to express condolences without using the legal term.

Historians and scholars

A large body of international scholarship uses the term genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution to that effect in 1997. Prominent Armenian and non-Armenian historians, including Turkish scholars working in Türkiye and abroad, have published detailed studies that rely on Ottoman, German, Austrian and American records. Other historians, including a number in Türkiye and some in the West, argue that wartime relocation, famine, disease and intercommunal violence produced massive death without a centrally planned extermination, and that the term genocide is therefore not established. The weight of publication is on the first side, but the dispute over intent and over interpretation of the Ottoman record has not disappeared.

Third countries and international bodies

States differ widely. Some recognize genocide, some use other language such as 'mass atrocities', and others avoid formal characterization. The United Nations has not adjudicated the question, and no international court has ruled on it.

What historians and lawyers still debate

• Intent. Was there a central policy to destroy the Armenian community, or a security policy that was implemented destructively?
• Authenticity and interpretation of key documents, including cipher telegrams and postwar trial records.
• Casualty numbers and Muslim civilian losses, and how they should be compared or contextualized.
• Legal characterization without a tribunal, and whether non-retroactivity bars a legal ruling but not historical or political characterization.
• Access to archives, including cataloguing, translation and selective citation.

🇹🇷 Official Policy · Primary Sources

Türkiye's Position

Türkiye uses the term 'Events of 1915' and frames its approach under the heading of 'Fair Memory' (Adil Hafıza). According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (mfa.gov.tr, 'The Events of 1915' pages) and statements from the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, the main points are as follows.

• Shared pain, rejection of the genocide label. In a statement of 23 April 2014, then–Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians who lost their lives in the early twentieth century under the conditions of the First World War, describing the suffering as shared. Türkiye's official line, as set out by the MFA, is that this suffering does not amount to the legal crime of genocide.
• Wartime security necessity. Ankara argues that the 27 May 1915 Relocation and Resettlement Law, published on 1 June 1915 in the Takvim-i Vekayi, was a temporary security measure adopted against the background of armed Armenian committee activity (Hunchak 1887, Dashnak 1890), cooperation with the invading Russian army, and threats to supply lines. The MFA points to Ottoman orders to protect convoys and property and to trials of officials who abused deportees.
• Muslim civilian losses. Turkish official sources emphasize that the war caused massive civilian losses among Muslims in Anatolia and the Caucasus and argue that a fair account of the period must include them. The MFA also cites a much lower Armenian casualty estimate than that given in Armenian sources.
• Legal criteria. Ankara states that genocide is a strictly defined legal category under the 1948 Convention, requiring proven dolus specialis and a determination by a competent tribunal, and that the Convention does not operate retroactively. It points to the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Perinçek v. Switzerland in support of the principle that historical questions should remain open to debate.
• Historians, not parliaments. In 2005, Prime Minister Erdoğan proposed in a letter to the Armenian president the establishment of a Joint Historical Commission of Turkish, Armenian and international historians, with access to Ottoman, Armenian and third-country archives. Türkiye rejects parliamentary resolutions on the subject as political impositions. It also holds that the borders and minority arrangements settled by the Treaties of Alexandropol, Moscow, Kars and Lausanne (24 July 1923) are final, and that the unratified Treaty of Sèvres has no legal force. Since 14 January 2022, Special Representative Ambassador Serdar Kılıç has held direct talks with Armenian Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan on normalization without preconditions, in a regional environment shaped by the aftermath of the Karabakh war.

Armenia and the diaspora respond that the 2005 commission proposal presupposed that the facts were still in doubt, and that scholarly consensus makes a commission unnecessary; they also stress that the Treaties and the question of characterization are separate. The commission proposal has not been implemented.

Source Comparison

The table below compares how different source groups typically frame the main issues. It is a summary of patterns, not a verdict, and individual authors vary.

Issue	Armenian and most international scholarship	Turkish official sources (MFA, Presidency)
Name of the events	Armenian Genocide / Meds Yeghern	Events of 1915
Pre-war context	Rising insecurity, massacres of 1894–1896, reform failures	Committees (Hunchak, Dashnak) adopted armed methods and foreign patronage
1915 law	Cover for deportation with destructive effect	Temporary wartime security measure
Intent	Inferred from patterns, scale and documentation	Not established; protective orders and trials cited
Casualties	Roughly one million to 1.5 million	Much lower Armenian figure; large Muslim losses highlighted
Legal test	Customary and moral standards; ICTJ analysis; no need for court ruling for scholarly use	Dolus specialis, competent tribunal, non-retroactivity
Way forward	Recognition and acknowledgment	Joint Historical Commission and archive access; normalization without preconditions

Readers can compare these framings with the sister-publication analyses Archive of Nations: Ottoman & 1915 Archives: The Events of 1915 in Documents, Law and Diplomacy and The Political Axis: The Events of 1915: Archives, Law and the Path to Normalization, and with Bloc Politics: The Events of 1915: Archives, Legal Criteria and the Path to Türkiye–Armenia Normalization. The best test of any account is whether it cites primary documents, names its sources and addresses evidence that cuts against its own conclusion. The desk's own approach is set out in Editorial Principles: How the Desk Sources, Separates Fact from Position and Corrects Errors.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation and its consequences; Armenian sources and many others use 'Armenian Genocide' or Meds Yeghern ('Great Calamity').
• Relocation and Resettlement Law (Tehcir Kanunu): The law of 27 May 1915, published on 1 June 1915.
• Hunchak and Dashnak: Armenian political committees founded in 1887 and 1890.
• Dolus specialis: Specific intent to destroy a protected group as such, the key element of genocide under Article II of the 1948 Convention.
• Competent tribunal: The national or international court envisaged by Article VI of the Convention; none has ruled on 1915.
• Non-retroactivity: The principle that treaties do not bind parties regarding facts that occurred before they came into force, subject to debate over customary law.
• Fair Memory (Adil Hafıza): Türkiye's framing that historical questions should be examined by historians with open archives.
• ASALA / JCAG-ARA: Armenian militant groups responsible for attacks on Turkish diplomats and others from 1973 to 1984.

Related guides: the International Affairs Desk home page, the FAQ on sources, methodology and perspective, the About page on mission and editorial team, and the sister-publication guide The Global Anatomy on the Genocide Convention criteria.

This article reflects International Affairs Desk's editorial perspective, which presents Türkiye's official positions and legal arguments alongside the context needed to evaluate them. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, archival records and official statements, and readers are encouraged to consult them directly. — International Affairs Desk Editorial Team