Armenian question

[2] "If a man is killed in Paris, it is a murder; the throats of fifty thousand people are cut in the East, and it is a question."

Following the French Revolution, nationalism movements globally also emerged in the Ottoman Empire from the 19th century onwards, destabilizing the region.

Initially, Greeks, followed by Albanians and Arabs, revolted with the help of the Great Powers, each aiming to establish their own nation-states.

There major European powers had been strategizing, at least since the 1870s, to exploit the spoils, including the manipulation of ethnic groups like the Ottoman Armenians.

[4] Their strategy involved inciting conflict between Muslims and Armenians to provoke European intervention and support for an independent Armenian state in Eastern Anatolia, using terror as a primary tactic to garner support and instigate rebellion, not only in the eastern provinces but also in Istanbul.

[5] In 1827–28, Tsar Nicholas I sought help from Persian Armenians in the Russo-Persian War, promising that afterward, he would help improve their lives.

After the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Armenians still living under Persian rule were encouraged to emigrate to Russian Armenia, and 30,000 followed the call.

[6] Russia gained control over a large part of Armenia, and became the champion of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Many Armenians in the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, living under the threat of unchecked violence and depredation on the part of aggressive neighboring peoples, greeted the advancing Russian army as liberators.

Though not as explicit, Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano read: As the evacuation of the Russian troops of the territory they occupy in Armenia, and which is to be restored to Turkey, might give rise to conflicts and complications detrimental to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, the Sublime Porte engaged to carry into effect, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians and to guarantee their security from Kurds and Circassians.

In the final text of the Treaty of Berlin, it was transformed into Article 61, which read: The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds.