The Course and Conduct of World War I

The Course and Conduct of World War IHow was World War I different from previous wars?

Introduction

Here, an American soldiershares an emotional goodbyeas he heads off to fight inWorld War I.

To many Americans in 1917, the nation’s entry into World War I was thecommencement of a great adventure. Others viewed it as a heroiccause that presented the country an opportunity to demonstrate itscourage. President Woodrow Wilson’s call to safeguard the world fordemocracy appealed to Americans’ sense of idealism. Many shared thepresident’s belief that this would be “the war to end all wars.”

A young recruit named William Langer enlisted to fight in the war,eagerly emphasizing, “Here was our one great chance for excitementand risk. We could not afford to pass it up.” Henry Villard, who avidlyfollowed incidents on the European battlefields, reading newspapersand discussing events with friends, felt similarly and recalled, “Therewere posters everywhere . . .’I want you,’ . . . ‘Join the Marines,’ ‘Join theArmy.’ And there was an irresistible feeling that one should do

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something . . . I said to myself, if there’s never going to be another war,this is the only opportunity to see it.”

Villard’s chance came when a Red Cross official visited his college in1917, looking for volunteers to drive ambulances in Italy. Many ofVillard’s friends signed up, and although he knew his family wouldprotest, Villard said, “I couldn’t just stand by and let my friendsdepart.” Villard enlisted after securing his family’s reluctant consentand soon departed for combat duty.

Shortly after arriving in Italy, Villard discovered how little he knew aboutwar. “The first person that I put into my ambulance was a man who hadjust had a grenade explode in his hands.” Bomb fragments had severedboth of the soldier’s legs. As Villard sped from the front lines to thehospital, the wounded soldier repeatedly implored him to drive moreslowly. By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, the young manwas dead. “This was a kind of cold water treatment for me, to realize allof a sudden what war was like,” explained Villard. “And it changed me—I grew up very quickly . . . It was the real world.”

Over 2 million Americans served in Europe during World War I. Eagerto promote democracy around the world, many entered the warenthusiastically. However, their first taste of battle enlightenedAmerican troops to the horrors of war.


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This famous World War Irecruiting poster helpedentice tens of thousands ofyoung American men toregister for the draft in 1917.The draft, implemented bythe Select Service Act,amassed a considerable forcefor the United States’ entryinto World War I. Once menenlisted for the draft, theywould train for weeks toprepare for combat.

1. A War of Firsts for the UnitedStatesWorld War I was a war of firsts for the United States. To begin, the warmarked the first time the U.S. government committed large numbers ofAmerican soldiers to a distant war. In fact, when Congress declared war,many Americans thought the nation would provide money, food, and



equipment to the war effort—not troops. Upon learning that militaryofficials planned to expand the American army, Virginia SenatorThomas Martin cried out in surprise, “Good Lord! You’re not going tosend soldiers over there, are you?”

That was indeed Wilson’s plan. Still, with Germany preparing for areinvigorated assault, many Americans wondered whether the UnitedStates could set up military camps, train numerous troops, andtransport soldiers to Europe quickly enough to make a significantdifference.

The Nation’s First Selective Service System Prior to the UnitedStates entering World War I, the country possessed a volunteer armyapproximately 200,000 soldiers strong. These forces received low pay,lacked equipment, and had little combat experience. To meet thechallenges of war, the U.S. military would need to amass tens ofthousands more soldiers—and quickly. Congress passed the SelectiveService Act in May 1917, imposing a national draft that required everyman between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military service atlocal polling stations. This was the first time the U.S. government hadestablished a draft before entering a war.

The government concurrently launched a major propaganda campaignto encourage Americans to comply with the draft. Secretary of WarNewton Baker hoped tens of thousands would register on thedesignated day, urging mayors, governors, and other local leaders tomake the day a “festival and [a] patriotic occasion.” These efforts paidoff. Nearly 10 million young men registered. Across the nation, townsheld parades and celebrations honoring their draftees.

Within months, officers at camps around the country were trainingmore than 500,000 draftees. While the new soldiers marched anddrilled, the Allies grew more anxious. In a message to U.S. officials,British prime minister David Lloyd George stressed the Allies’ urgentneed for troops, pleading that the American troops “be poured intoFrance as soon as possible.” In his view, “the difference of even a weekin the date of arrival may be absolutely vital.”

The First Americans Reach French Soil The AmericanExpeditionary Force (AEF), commonly referred to as “thedoughboys,” were the first American troops to land in France, arriving inJune 1917. The majority of the AEF were infantry—soldiers who fighton foot—and served under the command of General John J. Pershing.Although few in number, the AEF infantry bolstered the Allies’ morale.



The Allies were not faring well when more American reinforcementsreached France. Their armies had suffered several major defeats, losingmany men. Even victories were deadly. In the battle at Passchendaelealone, which occurred in November 1917, the Allies lost 300,000soldiers. In return for the bloodshed, the Allied forces had regainedcontrol of barely 5 miles of German-held territory.

World War I was largely concentrated in two main battlefronts. Thewestern front stretched across Belgium and northern France, while theeastern front spread through much of presentday Poland. Russia’swithdrawal from the war in early 1918 dissolved the eastern front.

Meanwhile, the second wave of the Russian Revolution augmented theAllies’ woes. Until this point, Russian troops had kept the Centralpowers occupied with fighting on the eastern front. However, whenRussia’s new revolutionary leaders wrested control of the government,they immediately began planning Russia’s withdrawal.

Russian peacemakers met with German and Austrian officials early in1918 to solidify the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the terms of which were



severe for Russia. The treaty forced Russia to cede large amounts ofterritory to the Central powers, including Finland, Poland, Ukraine, andthe Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. As a result of thistreaty, the Central powers gained territory and an end to war on theeastern front, meaning Germany was free to dedicate its troops solelyto the fighting on the western front.

To counter the increase of German troops on the western front, theAllies asked General Pershing to assign American soldiers to Allied unitsthat needed to replace men killed or wounded in action. With PresidentWilson’s support, Pershing resisted this request, insisting that themajority of his soldiers remain in the AEF. Two factors largely motivatedPershing’s response. First, he disagreed with Allied military strategyand did not believe the Allies could end the stalemate by fighting adefensive war from the trenches. Instead, he advocated more offensive,aggressive tactics. Second, both Wilson and Pershing presumed that ifthe AEF succeeded as a separate army, the United States could demanda greater role in the peacemaking process after the war. Pershingultimately prevailed, and by war’s end, some 2 million Americans hadserved overseas as members of the AEF.



African American soldiers ofthe 369th Infantry Regimentoriginated from Harlem andother New York Cityneighborhoods and servedunder French commandduring the war. They becamefamous for their tenacious,aggressive fighting style.After facing them in Sechault,France, Germans namedthese persistent soldiers the“Hell Fighters.”

The First African American Officer Training Camp Over thecourse of the war, nearly 400,000 African Americans enlisted in thearmed forces. The military strictly segregated black and white troops intraining camps and forces overseas and did not initially allow blacksoldiers to become officers. However, people across the country heldmass meetings to advocate for African American officer training, and in1917, the military set up a separate camp to train black soldiers asofficers. The camp’s first class of officers graduated later that year,including 106 captains, 329 first lieutenants, and 204 secondlieutenants.

Most black soldiers served under white officers in labor or supply units,either in France or the United States. However, the all-black 369thRegiment’s assignment differed. An exception to Pershing’s ruleregarding American soldiers not fighting in Allied units, the 369thoperated under French command and participated in active combat,earning high praise. In fact, the soldiers of the 369th fought so fiercely,Germans dubbed them the “Hell Fighters.” After the war, Franceawarded the 369th the country’s highest military honors.



In 1883, American inventorHiram Maxim developed thefirst automatic machine gun,which would become widelyused by both the Allied andCentral powers. The newweapon’s heavy firepowermade mass assaults acrossopen ground suicidal. As aresult, both sides retreatedinto a vast network oftrenches, destined to fight adefensive war.

2. New Technologies Changethe Way War Is FoughtWorld War I differed from previous wars in several ways. One significantchange lay in the methods of battle, as opposing forces had conductedcombat face-to-face and hand-to-hand for centuries. During theAmerican Civil War, combatants—those physically fighting—facedtheir enemies with handguns, rifles, and cannons, firing only at targetsthey could see clearly. The development of new technology madeWorld War I a more impersonal war, as well as a far deadlier one.

Combatants Introduce More Effective Killing MachinesImproved weapons, including machine guns, flamethrowers, and giant



cannons known as howitzers, transformed how and where war wasfought. Unlike rifles and pistols, the machine gun was a rapid-firingweapon—the first truly automatic gun. A soldier using a machine gun,which released 600 bullets per minute, did not have to reload near asoften. In time, military commanders discovered that machine gunswere more effective when grouped together, and the Germans evencreated separate machine gun companies to support the infantry.

The machine gun’s invention majorly impacted military strategy, asarmies accustomed to offensive maneuvers and head-on attacks werenow disadvantaged. A group of well-placed machine gunners could haltthe advance of a much larger force, a lesson which German forceslearned quickly. The British and French were slower to realize this,however. Allied armies charged across open fields toward enemy lines,only to be mowed down by machine gun fire, resulting in thousands ofcasualties. In September 1915, British infantry units comprising about10,000 each charged a well-protected German position, and within fourhours, over 8,000 men were killed almost entirely by machine gun fire.

At first, machine guns were used mainly for defense because soldiersfound them too heavy and bulky to carry in an offensive attack. Overtime, both sides engineered ways of mounting these weapons onaircrafts and used them on warships as well.

Unlike the new machine gun, the flamethrower was an old weapon. Inthe days of the Roman Empire, soldiers threw tubes filled with burningfuel at one another. During World War I, Germany developed a small,lightweight flamethrower, which sprayed burning fuel on victims, that asingle person could carry. This weapon was effective in attacks onnearby trenches but could not be fired long distances.

Both sides employed large, heavy artillery, or “big guns,” whichgunners loaded with shells that often contained dozens of small leadballs. Big guns were also used to deliver poison gas. New loading andfiring methods, as well as a novel recoil mechanism, made these gunsvery useful. Gunners blasted through barbed wire, knocked out enemymachine gun nests, and lobbed poison gas shells at enemy trenches.

Germany’s Big Berthas, the largest mobile guns ever used on abattlefield, were the most infamous of these powerful guns. Eachweighed about 75 tons and was capable of firing a 2,100-pound shell adistance of more than 9 miles. At the beginning of the war, the Germanarmy easily swept through Belgium as they advanced west towardFrance because Belgian forts were unable to withstand the Big Berthas’assault, and consequently crumbled. Ultimately, heavy artillery inflicted



over half of the war’s battle casualties.

Despite these technological advances, the rifle remained the mostcommon battlefield weapon because it was lighter than bigger gunsand thus easier to carry when advancing toward the enemy. As the warprogressed, a new form of combat developed, known as trenchwarfare. Soldiers with accurate aim played a key role in trenchwarfare, either training to be sharpshooters, specialists at hittingprecise targets, or snipers, who fire from a concealed position.

Both Armies Seek Safety in Trenches The invention of rapid-firingmachine guns and long-range big guns made traditional ground attacksfar too dangerous. Soldiers could no longer charge each other across anopen field since they risked being killed instantly. Instead, both sidesdug trenches for protection, creating a new defensive form of combatappropriately called trench warfare.

Opponents dug multiple lines of trenches commonly in zigzag patternssince that pattern made it difficult for enemy sharpshooters to hitsoldiers. Closest to the enemy’s trenches lay the frontline trenches,where enemy soldiers hurled grenades and fired machine guns at oneanother. Behind the frontline trenches, soldiers dug a line of supplytrenches, which held ammunition, supplies, and communicationequipment. In a third line of reserve trenches, weary soldiers restedbefore returning to the frontlines. Soldiers rotated through the frontline,supply, and reserve trenches during the course of their trench duty.



Generally, frontline trenches in World War I were six to eight feet deepand were also wide enough for two people to stand side by side. Shorttrenches connected the frontline trenches to those behind them.Although trench systems had kitchens, bathrooms, and supply rooms,life in the trenches was not pleasant. Soldiers had to relax in crampedquarters when they were not fighting and often developed gangrene,referred to as “trench foot,” from extended periods wading in wet, coldmud.



The Allied and Central powersdeveloped new weapons inhopes of ending thestalemate in the trenches. InApril 1915, Germany firstreleased poison gas overAllied lines, where deadlyfumes caused vomiting andsuffocation. Both sidesinvented gas masks shortlythereafter to protect troopsfrom such attacks.

Barbed wire encircled each side’s front line, extending into the openarea between the opposing trenches known as no-man’s land. Althoughno-man’s land was only about 250 yards wide, crossing its shortdistance was usually lethal. Any moving object in the barren zone waseasily targeted by sharpshooters and machine gunners, so soldiersventuring into no-man’s land risked being shot or blown up. Water-filledcraters left by bombs and artillery shells soon speckled no-man’s landas well. Because neither side could safely advance its troops across no-man’s land, the war on the western front ground to a stalemate.

Dreadful conditions in the trenches spread disease and discontent. Themuddy trenches smelled of rotting bodies, sweat, and overflowinglatrines, and soldiers often contracted fevers or suffered from painful



foot infections. These infections, resulting from standing in the mud andcold water that pooled in the bottom of the trenches, often developedinto gangrene, or “trench foot.” In addition, lice, frogs, and ratssurrounded the men. As an Allied soldier recalled:

One got used to many things, but I never overcame myhorror of the rats. They abounded in some parts, greatloathsome beasts gorged with flesh . . . About the sametime every night the dug-out was invaded by swarms ofrats. They gnawed holes in our haversacks [backpacks] anddevoured our . . . rations.

—Harold Saunders, quoted in Everyman at War, 1930

The most frightening threats soldiers faced were chemical weapons,which utilize toxic agents such as poison gas to harm and kill numerouspeople. Although Germany was the first to use poison gas in World WarI, the British and French were not far behind. The deadliest chemicalweapon was odorless mustard gas, which caused huge, painful blisters,blindness, and critical lung damage. Even those who survived amustard gas attack often suffered lifelong injuries.

At first, soldiers released mustard gas from cylinders and relied on thewind to carry it across no-man’s land to the enemy. However, shiftingwinds often returned the gas to the sender’s trenches, so both sidesengineered methods to fill fireable shells with poison gas anddeveloped gas masks to protect their troops from these attacks.

Another newly developed weapon, the tank, would help end the trenchstalemate. Tanks were capable of driving over barbed wire, crushingthe otherwise treacherous material, and could also navigate steepembankments and deep ditches to attack enemy trenches. WhileGermany was slow to develop its own tanks, unsure of their potentialeffectiveness, the Allies were more proactive with these new weapons.During the final Allied advance in the summer of 1918, tanks rolledacross no-man’s land ahead of Allied troops, protecting them fromenemy gunfire and weakening Germany’s defenses.

The Sky Is the New Battlefield Aircraft innovations in this periodintroduced war into the sky. Previously, maximum airplane speed didnot exceed 40 miles per hour. But by 1917, powerful motors enabledairplanes to travel at speeds over three times faster. Novel aircrafttechnology not only made planes faster, but also equipped them totravel farther distances and be generally easier to fly.



Airplanes were used as weapons for the first time in World War I. Whenenemy planes met early in the war, pilots exchanged smiles andwaves. However, they were soon targeting each other with bricks,grenades, and pistols. Once guns were mounted on planes, the era ofair combat commenced.

Both sides used airplanes to scout enemy territory from the beginningof World War I, but the course of the war challenged inventors todevelop airplanes for more specialized combat purposes, includingshooting and bombing. Early in the war, pilots leaned out of the cockpitto shoot at enemy pilots with a pistol or dropped bombs by hand overthe side of the plane. Then, Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker built adevice for Germany that timed the firing of a machine gun with therotation of a plane’s propeller, allowing a pilot to safely fire a machinegun mounted on the front of his aircraft. Fokker’s inventionconsequently increased the threat of in-air combat.

The Germans also developed high-flying, gas-filled airships calledzeppelins. Although these cigar-shaped aircraft were originally intendedto scout enemy positions, German pilots flew zeppelins in bombingraids over London in 1915. While the German airships successfullyterrified British civilians and alarmed the Allies, they often missed theirtargets.

The British countered Germany’s airship threat by 1916, building fighterplanes that could fly as high as zeppelins and developing bullets sharpenough to pierce zeppelins’ outer skin and detonate them. Through



their various uses, airplanes played a critical, versatile role in WorldWar I and would prove to be even more vital in later conflicts.

Waging a Savage War at Sea When World War I started, mostnaval experts predicted that the greatest sea battles would occurbetween heavily armed and armored battleships. In 1906, Britainintroduced the world’s first modern battleship, the HMS Dreadnought,which was greater in size, arms, and armor than earlier warships.Facing this threat, major naval powers scrapped their old fleets andbegan to replace them with comparable battleships. Following thisbuildup, German and British navies fought a major naval battle withtheir improved battleships in 1916, where each side sank many ships,but neither won a clear victory.

The invention of the U-boatpermanently transformednaval warfare. U-boats inWorld War I were capable oftravelling undetected belowthe surface, taking Alliedships by deadly surprise. Tocounter U-boats, the Alliesdeveloped hydrophones, or“underwater ears,” whichhelped ships detectapproaching U-boats andtake appropriate defensiveaction.

After this battle, Germany redirected its naval warfare strategy to focuson developing and utilizing armed submarines, or U-boats. U-boatsmoved silently through the sea, remaining undetectable until their



close range made their torpedoes unavoidable. German U-boats sankover 1,000 ships carrying supplies and weapons to Allied ports in thefirst four months of 1917 alone, prompting British Admiral John Jellicoe’swarning, “It is impossible to go on with the war if losses like thiscontinue.”

The development of the convoy system, in which Allied warshipsescorted protected groups of merchant ships across the Atlantic Ocean,greatly reduced the effectiveness of U-boat attacks. Allied shippinglosses quickly decreased as a result. Between April and November1917, the amount of goods lost in U-boat attacks plummeted from morethan 850,000 tons to just over 200,000 tons. In 1918, the Allies erectedan underwater barrier of mines across the North Sea and the EnglishChannel, further mitigating the German submarine menace.



The Meuse-ArgonneOffensive led to the lastmajor battle of World War I,when more than a millionAmerican troops helped theAllies capture the railroadserving as Germany’s mainsupply line to France. Withdefeat all but certain,German civilians demandedan end to the fighting. As theGerman government agreedto negotiate a truce, KaiserWilhelm abandoned histhrone and fled to theNetherlands.

3. The War Comes to a CloseAs 1918 began, the Allies knew that Germany would launch adesperate offensive in a final bid to end the war on the western front.Germany raced to defeat the war-weary Allies before the Americansarrived, as more troops amassed on the front lines every day. “Weshould strike,” argued General Erich Ludendorff to Kaiser Wilhelm II, theGerman emperor, “before the Americans can throw strong forces intothe scale.”

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive Leads to an Armistice The



Germans launched their final push in the spring, when their troopsrapidly advanced within 50 miles of Paris. By this time, however,American forces were arriving in Europe at the rate of 300,000 soldiersper month, enough to drastically affect the war’s outcome.

Between July 15 and August 5, 1918, American forces joined Frenchand British forces at the Second Battle of the Marne. Soon after theAllied forces counterattacked, the German troops retreated. “August 8was the black day of the German army,” General Ludendorff reported tothe Kaiser, “It put the decline of our fighting power beyond all doubt . . .The war must be ended.”

The Allies launched the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in late September,so the AEF could infiltrate the German line and secure the Sedanrailroad, the German army’s main supply and communication line, innorthern France. Over 1 million U.S. troops participated in this finalassault. After six weeks of persistent fighting throughout the ArgonneForest, the Americans achieved their objective, and on November 11,1918, Germany agreed to an armistice—a truce. By then, the otherCentral powers had surrendered as well. The long war was finally over.



Counting the Costs and Casualties For all parties involved, thecosts of war were immense. More than 8 million soldiers died andanother 21 million were injured, many of whom would never fullyrecover or be able to work. An English veteran and poet namedSiegfried Sassoon wrote bitterly of their sacrifice:

Does it matter?—losing your legs? . . .For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen the others come in after huntingTo gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?—losing your sight? . . .There’s such splendid work for the blind;And people will always be kind,As you sit on the terrace rememberingAnd turning your face to the light.

—Siegfried Sassoon, “Does It Matter?”, 1918

Additionally, millions of civilians throughout Europe died fromstarvation, disease, and other war-related causes. The United Statessuffered far fewer casualties than the other powers, with about 116,000soldiers killed and twice as many wounded or declared missing.

The war severely damaged farms, forests, factories, towns, and homesthroughout Europe. An Allied soldier described the villages he saw:

They are utterly destroyed, so that there are not evenskeletons of buildings left—nothing but a churned mass ofdebris, with bricks, stones and . . . bodies pounded tonothing. And forests! There are not even tree trunks left—not a leaf or a twig. All is buried and churned up again andburied again.

—John Raws, letter to a friend, August 4, 1916

The war also destroyed roads, bridges, railroad lines, and othertransportation facilities. Countries already critically burdened by thefinancial cost of war withered under the weight of these additionallosses. Economic recovery in Europe would advance glacially in theyears to come.

Damage to the human spirit, although difficult to measure, was anothergreat cost of the war. Many men and women who had eagerlysupported the war effort were left deeply disillusioned by their



experiences, questioning long-held beliefs about the glories of Westerncivilization and the nobility of war. American poet Ezra Pound spoke forwar-weary populations in both the United States and Europe when hewrote of the “myriad,” or vast number, who had died “for a botchedcivilization.”

SummaryWorld War I was the world’s first truly modern war. Newinventions and technological advances affected how the warwas fought and how it ended. The United States providedsoldiers, equipment, and finances, which contributed to theAllied victory.

Selective Service Act The United States had to recruit and traintens of thousands of American troops before they could rendezvouswith the Allies overseas. Congress passed the Selective Service Act inorder to accomplish this, creating a national draft.

369th Regiment Hundreds of thousands of African Americansserved in segregated military units during World War I. The all-black369th Regiment, under French command, received France’s highestmilitary honors at the conclusion of the war.

American Expeditionary Force Both President Woodrow Wilson andGeneral John J. Pershing, commander of the American ExpeditionaryForce, insisted that most American troops fight in forces separate fromthe Allied army. As a result, two million Americans fought in the AEFduring the war.

The land war Newly invented weapons made land warfare deadlierthan ever before. The prevailing military strategy converted to trenchwarfare, heralding a new age of defensive war.

The air war Both sides originally used airplanes and airships forscouting purposes. However, technological improvements enabled themajor powers to invent specialized combat planes.

The sea war Although battles on the sea occurred betweenbattleships early in the war, Germans soon used U-boats to sink Alliedships. To protect merchant ships, the Allies developed a convoy systemand later laid a mine barrier across the North Sea and English Channel.

Meuse-Argonne Offensive In 1918, close to 1 million U.S. soldiers



fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Their success helped bringabout an armistice with Germany, effectively ending the war.

Aghet: The Armenian Genocide

Ceremonies were heldthroughout the world in April2015 in order to mark the100th anniversary of theArmenian Genocide. This onewas held on April 25, 2015, inthe Armenian capital ofYerevan. In 2015, theArmenian Apostolic Churchalso canonized, or grantedsainthood to, all victims ofthe Armenian Genocide.

Most historians now recognize the Armenian Genocide as the firstgenocide of the 20th century. During this span of time between spring1915 through fall 1916, the government of the Ottoman Empire set aplan in motion that purposefully and systematically resulted in thedeaths of Armenian Christians through acts of severe mistreatment,torture, starvation, and execution. Estimates differ on the number ofArmenians who were killed. They range anywhere from 1 million toapproximately 1.5 million people. Armenians call these events “MedzYeghern” (the great crime) or “Aghet” (the Armenian word forcatastrophe).

Early Trouble and Bloodshed

Muslims led the Ottoman Empire. Its leaders did allow subjects who



followed other religions to have some autonomy, but the Ottomans stillconsidered non-Muslims to be “infidels” who were inferior in status tothem. Therefore, groups like the Armenians, who followed Christianity,were forced to pay higher taxes than Muslim citizens. People fromreligious minority groups also had very few political and legal rights.

In spite of restrictions like these, the Armenians established a veryeducated and wealthy community. This led to increased levels ofresentment from Muslims. At the end of the 19th century, the OttomanEmpire was also starting to show that it was politically vulnerable.Leaders grew concerned about the loyalty and allegiance of theircitizens. They worried that the Armenians would back Christiangovernments like Russia if the Empire found itself under military orpolitical threat.

Some Armenians formed political organizations in an attempt to gainbasic civil rights. This incensed Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who sternlywarned a reporter in 1890, “I will soon settle those Armenians. I willgive them a box on the ear which will make them…relinquish theirrevolutionary ambitions.” The sultan made good on his threat. Heordered Turkish soldiers and other military officials to ransackArmenian areas. Cities and villages were destroyed, and citizens weremassacred. Even civilian Turkish men joined in on the violence. At least80,000 Armenians were killed between 1894 and 1896.

The Young Turks

Sultan Abdul Hamid II was overthrown in July 1908. He was replacedwith ethnic Balkan military officers and bureaucrats who calledthemselves the Young Turks. They had formed a political group calledthe Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Armenians welcomed thischange with great optimism. They hoped they would have an equalplace in this new state. The Young Turks pledged to establish a secularsociety where citizens would be treated equally, and the OttomanEmpire would become modern and prosperous.

The hope of Armenian equality vanished in the spring of 1909.Armenians held a demonstration in the city of Adana to protest againstsocial policies. It deteriorated into a violent clash between Armeniansand Turks. Ottoman soldiers and Turkish citizens killed as many as20,000 Armenians. The Armenians involved in the incident wereresponsible for the deaths of around 2,000 Muslims.

Between 1909 and 1913, the political tone in the Ottoman Empirebecame more and more nationalistic. Loud voices within the CUP no



longer called for a multicultural and religiously diverse state thatincluded different views and opinions. Instead, the Young Turks decidedto create one single cultural and religious Turkish society. Thedangerous influences of non-Turks, and most especially Christian non-Turks, the Young Turks said, had to be removed from all aspects ofOttoman life as soon and as quickly as possible. The Ottoman Empirebecame a full dictatorship in January 1913. Close to two years later,near the end of 1914, it entered World War I to fight alongsideGermany and Austria-Hungary.

World War I Hides Turkification

One historian has referred to World War I in the Ottoman Empire as “ascreen behind which genocide could be carried out.” As the Ottomansentered the conflict, religious authorities declared jihad, or holy war,against all Christians who were not their allies. Military leaders alsobegan to characterize the Armenians as traitors. If the Armeniansthought they could win independence with an Allied victory, supportersof this argument declared, then they would be eager to fight for theenemy. Armenians were indeed organizing volunteer battalions to helpthe Russian army fight against the Turks in the Caucasus region. Themilitary used this information, along with general Turkish mistrust ofArmenians, to justify removing the Armenian people from war zones.

Such “removals” began on April 24, 1915, when 240 Armenian leaderswere arrested in the capital city of Constantinople and deported to theeast. Experts widely agree that this deportation marks the officialbeginning of the Armenian Genocide. At the time, the Ottomansclaimed that those Armenians were revolutionaries who were helpingthe enemy to plan and carry out a troop landing on Turkish soil. Thedecision to move the men was merely a precautionary and strategicchoice. Non-Turkish accounts of history identify these men asintellectuals and state that some of them were executed. TheTurkification of the Ottoman Empire had begun.

The Ottoman regime also had international and financial reasons tostrike out against the Armenians. The Turkish government wanted tostrengthen its wartime position, and they had to find some way to payfor the process of Turkification. Officials confiscated the assets ofmurdered or deported Armenians and then redistributed thoseresources to Muslims. Thus, ordinary Turks willingly turned on theirArmenian neighbors in order to be rewarded by the government.Muslim families moved into the former homes of Armenians and seizedany available property. A misperception also drove this greedy,opportunistic behavior. Many Turks had always believed that the



Armenians were a wealthy people. In truth, many from this time periodwere quite poor.

From 1915 to 1916, large numbers of Armenians, particularly men offighting age, perished in mass shootings carried out by Ottoman forces.Many others died due to starvation, dehydration, exposure, and diseaseduring deportations to holding camps or while on forced marchesthrough the desert. Marchers were often attacked by local officials,civilians, or criminal gangs. These marauders would strip marchersnaked to take their clothes and look for hidden valuables. Women weresexually assaulted. Young Armenian children were frequently given toMuslim families who forcibly converted them to Islam.

As if these atrocities were not horrific enough, the Young Turks createda unit called the Special Organization to carry out even moreexceptionally cruel and brutal acts. These were effectively killingsquads made up of murderers and ex-convicts. They drowned people inrivers, threw them off cliffs, crucified them, and burned them alive.

U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr. and the AmericanHumanitarian Response

Although the United States had not entered World War I yet, it did havea diplomatic presence in the Ottoman Empire. U.S. diplomatic officialsstationed throughout Turkey were sending reports to U.S. AmbassadorHenry Morgenthau, Sr., who was in the Ottoman capital ofConstantinople. These communications contained accounts ofmassacres and expulsions. One report directly stated, “It has been nosecret that the plan was to destroy the Armenian race as a race, but themethods used have been more cold-blooded and barbarous, if not moreeffective, than I had at first supposed.”

Morgenthau forwarded this information to Washington, D.C. However,he was ultimately unable to stop the disastrous course of events, andthis inability to do so troubled him. He returned to the United States in1916, where he spent the rest of the war raising money to help theArmenians who had survived. Morgenthau also wrote a memoirpublished in 1918. It includes this excerpt of a statement where heshares his beliefs about the true motivations of the Ottoman Empire.

I am confident that the whole history of the human racecontains no such horrible episode as this. The greatmassacres and persecutions of the past seem almostinsignificant when compared with the sufferings of theArmenian race in 1915…. Yet all these previous



persecutions seem almost trivial when we compare themwith the sufferings of the Armenians, in which at least600,000 people were destroyed and perhaps as many as1,000,000. And these earlier massacres when we comparethem with the spirit that directed the Armenian atrocities,have one feature that we can almost describe as anexcuse: they were the product of religious fanaticism andmost of the men and women who instigated them sincerelybelieved that they were devoutly serving their Maker.Undoubtedly religious fanaticism was an impelling motivewith the Turkish and Kurdish rabble who slew Armenians asa service to Allah, but the men who really conceived thecrime had no such motive. Practically all of them wereatheists, with no more respect for Mohammedanism thanfor Christianity, and with them the one motive was cold-blooded, calculating state policy.

Morgenthau is credited with the idea that led to the creation of theAmerican Committee for Syrian and Armenian Relief, a cause that laterbecame more broadly known as Near East Relief. (This organization stillexists. Today, it is called the Near East Foundation.) Morgenthau usedhis considerable political and social influence to persuade a number ofprominent Americans, including President Woodrow Wilson himself, tobecome involved in relief efforts. This was the first national campaignto support international humanitarian work. Jackie Coogan, a famouschild star of the era, was the first celebrity to endorse the collection ofmoney and goods for such a cause. Coogan went on tour around theUnited States and Europe to ask for donations. He also accompanied ashipment of one million dollars worth of food and clothing that was sentto help orphans in Greece. Near East Relief had expanded beyondproviding for the needs of the Armenians. It is estimated that thecampaign raised the equivalent of $117 million dollars in today’smoney. From the middle of World War I to 1930, survivors and orphansfrom conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Greece, the Soviet Union, and otherparts of the region also received aid.

To promote awareness about the horrors that were happening inTurkey, The New York Times wrote nearly 150 articles in 1915 alonethat chronicled the killing of the Armenian people. The massacres didnot go unnoticed in the United States, but the American response nevermoved beyond humanitarian and philanthropic relief programs.President Woodrow Wilson did not support any U.S. military or politicalinvolvement that might have reduced or halted the genocidal violence.

The Connection to the Holocaust



History does not know for sure whether or not the Nazis specificallyused the Armenian Genocide as some sort of gruesome inspiration. Nazirecords do not directly refer to the Armenians. However, even if itcannot be explicitly confirmed that Adolf Hitler knowingly set out torepeat what had gone on in Turkey, they are other established linksbetween the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. One undisputedconnection is that Germany was a World War I ally of the OttomanEmpire. Due to the wartime alliance between the two powers, manyGerman military officers, diplomats, and relief workers witnessedfirsthand the atrocities that the Armenian people suffered. Historicalrecords, such as diplomatic documents and reports from missionaries,show that German reactions ranged from instances of horror andformal protest to hinted support of Ottoman methods. Holocaustexperts suggest that Germans who had a reaction to what they saw inTurkey likely reacted in a similar way to the Nazi treatment of the Jews.

Support for the Ottoman Empire’s policies toward the Armenians hadactually begun to develop in early 1920s Germany before the Naziseven came to power. German commentators of that time calledArmenians the “Jews of the Orient,” inferring that they were as bad as,or even worse than, European Jews. The third example of unionbetween the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust is that the Nazisseemed to regard the ethnically-cleansed land they called “NewTurkey” with a sense of awe and wonder. Nazi propaganda articlesfrom 1923 and 1924 mention learning from “Turkish lessons.”

The Politics of the Armenian Genocide Today



Mount Ararat isgeographically located insidethe current borders ofTurkey, yet it is visible fromYerevan. The location ofMount Ararat is anothersensitive issue from theWorld War I era becauseborders were redrawn afterthe war. Armenians considerthe mountain to be a symbolof their national identity. It isprominently featured inmany names and logos ofcompanies throughout theworld that are owned byArmenians or that have tiesto Armenia.

Although the word genocide was not first invoked until 1944, mostscholars agree that the mass murder of Armenians in the OttomanEmpire fits the definition of the term. The CUP and the Young Turksused a systematic government policy to strengthen the Muslim Turkishpopulation, while virtually eliminating Armenians and other Christiansfrom areas under Ottoman control. Evidence found in Ottoman,Armenian, American, British, French, German, and Austrian documentsfrom the time period supports the widely-held historical assertion thatthe Empire’s leadership intentionally and purposefully targeted theArmenian population for elimination.

To say that the Armenian Genocide continues to have implications formodern international politics is an enormous understatement. In June2016, Germany became one of the most recent nations to officially



recognize that the genocide occurred. Whether the United States hasdone so is a matter of interpretation and debate. Some sources list theUnited States as a nation that has recognized the Armenian Genocide.Forty-seven of the fifty states have issued some sort of legislation thatrecognizes it. Between 1975 and 1996, the House and the Senate alsoreleased three separate joint statements that specifically included theword genocide. So why is U.S. recognition still an issue? Some feel thatthe United States has not officially recognized the Armenian Genocidebecause no U.S. president has made a formal declaration to that effect—a fact that has everything to do with the current political relationshipbetween the United States and Turkey.

Turkish Denial

The United States has significant reasons for wanting to continue tohave a favorable diplomatic relationship with Turkey. Chief amongthem is the creation and maintenance of stability, security, and safetyin the Middle East. Turkey is home to Incirlik Air Base. This vitalstrategic military installation helps the United States conduct many ofits anti-terrorist operations against groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

In the recent past, the Turkish government has offered condolences forthe "inhumane" treatment of Armenians, but Turkish officials takehostile offense to the use of the word genocide. Turkey officially andrather vehemently denies that the Ottoman Empire committed such anact against the Armenians. In fact, the official webpage for the TurkishMinistry of Foreign Affairs refers to the issue as “The ArmenianAllegation of Genocide.”

The Turks offer a lengthy defense of this claim that includes thestatement that the events were not genocide because the Armeniansacted against their own government during a time of war. The Turkishpoint of view also contends the Armenian death tolls have beenexaggerated. Turkey questions Ambassador Morgenthau’s motivationsas well, calling them “political, not humanitarian aims.” In addition,Morgenthau is accused of being racist and nonobjective. “Morgenthauopenly professed that the Turks were an inferior race and possessed‘inferior blood.’”

Turkey still considers it illegal to talk about what happened to theArmenians during the World War I era. Challenging the official Turkishview carries serious risk. Turkish judges have declared the termgenocide to be provocative and incendiary. Article 301 of the Turkishpenal code prohibits “public denigration of Turkishness,” which meansTurkey’s reputation cannot be attacked publicly. Such behavior is



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The Course and Conduct of World War I

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