The major Armenian inhabited localities were the city of Van (consisting of three sub-sections which were Havasor (Gürpınar), Timar (Gedikbulak) and Archak (Erçek)).

It was found that the original 1914 Ottoman statistics claimed to be under-representative for the children, and the corrected values for the Van province were stated as 313,000 Muslim, 130,000 Armenian (25%), and approximately 65,000 Syrian, Chaldean, Nestorian and others.

[26] The Russians collected victories along the Kara Kilise (renamed Karaköse in November 1919, present day Ağrı) – Beyazit (Doğubayazıt) line.

Beyazit was located in the north of the Province of Van, and Armenian volunteers provided aid as auxiliary forces to Russian regiments while capturing these regions.

For their role in this success, the Armenian volunteers received credit as natives of the region, well adjusted to the climate, familiar with every road and mountain path, and motivated to wage fierce and resolute combat.

[30] Armenian volunteers challenged the Ottoman operations during critical times: "the delay they caused, enabled the Russian Caucasus Army to concentrate sufficient force around Sarikamish".

[32] On 11 December 1914 Ottoman preparations for their Persian Campaign began with Enver Pasha's order to form a provisional force that would be channeled into the planned theatre using the roads in Van Province.

[33][35] The 5th Expeditionary Force was assigned to Staff Lieutenant Colonel Halil Bey, who was the uncle of Enver Pasha and would defeat the British at Kut al Amara on 29 April 1916.

[36] The 1st Expeditionary Force was structurally self-sufficient, capable of independent operations, supplemented with the 7th and 9th Infantry Regiments, a cavalry detachment, a field hospital, a transportation unit, an intelligence section, a mountain howitzer battalion with two batteries, a telegraph section, a field battery, an equipment repair battalion, a replacement depot and transportation assets.

This paramilitary formation was lightly equipped with artillery and machine guns, being primarily suited for internal security functions rather than for the invasion of a neighboring country.

[47] Researcher Thomas De Waal states that "it has been called both a rebellion and a heroic act of resistance by Armenians against a government that intended to kill them" and "it had elements of both".

[50] Tahsin wrote to Talat Pasha on 13 May 1915: There would have been no revolt at Van if we had not ourselves created [it], with our own hands, by using force, this impossible situation from which we are incapable of extricating ourselves, and also the difficult position in which we have put the army on the eastern front.

[51]During July 1914, Arshak Vramian, the deputy of the Van province, attended the negotiations with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) as a liaison for the Armenian congress at Erzurum.

[54] Erickson concluded that "before the war began, indicators of potentially violent intent accumulated, as the authorities found bombs and weapons hidden in Armenian homes".

During December 1914, Djevdet Bey issued orders to secure the west of the province of Van, as Ottoman forces moved to start the Persian Campaign.

[60] To contrast the directive, Felix Guse, commander in chief of the 3rd Army, wrote that there was no proof that the Armenians had planned or had any intentions of mounting a general uprising.

[62] Djevdet's extremism towards Armenians was more open: "a man of dangerously unpredictable moods, friendly one moment, ferociously hostile the next, capable of treacherous brutality",[53] he had been nicknamed "Nalband Bey" (Lord Blacksmith) after atrocities committed at Başkale in which he had nailed horseshoes onto his victims' feet.

[citation needed] On 25 April, the first small group of refugees from the country side arrived to the city through the road to Shushantz which was kept open by the Armenian civilian forces.

[86] Djevdet abandoned the city on the night between 16 and 17 May and retreated toward Bashkale, joining the 1st Expeditionary Force under the command of Kaymakam Halil Bey (Kut).

[44] However, this opportunity was short lived and six weeks later the Russian forces suffered reverses that would have severe consequences for the Armenian population in the city of Van.

Armen Garo, and his assistant, Khetcho asked General Abatzieff to permit the Armenian inhabitants in the Van area to move with the Russian army toward Iğdır.

[91] The commander of Armenian volunteer units later claimed: "If the Russian general had given an opportunity of seven or eight days to organize the retreat, it would have been possible to direct the people to Erivan without the loss of a single life.

The Ottoman retreat was forced following defeats suffered by their armies in other regions of the Caucasus front, and in part because of the relative isolation during the World War I era of Van from Anatolian Turkey.

[citation needed] On 19 January 1916, the Turkish defeat at the Battle of Koprukoy saw Russian forces advance once again towards Erzurum, a city laying halfway between Lake Van and the Black Sea.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk stipulated that the border be pulled back to prewar levels and the cities of Batum, Kars, and Ardahan to be transferred to Ottoman Empire.

The famous "Revolution", as this recital shows, was merely the determination of the Armenians to save their women's honour and their own lives, after the Turks, by massacring thousands of their neighbours, had shown them the fate that awaited them.

As to the adjacent districts, the authorities collected the Armenians and drove them into the interior, where they were all slaughtered, no Government official or private man, Turk or Kurd, having been killed.

[105]Ibrahim Avras, a Van deputy in the Ottoman parliament, was in the city at the time, and reported that the CUP was secretly provoking people to attack Armenians.

Rafael De Nogales, a Venezuelan officer fighting for the Turks, mentions in his memoirs that Ottoman officials had received orders to exterminate all Armenian males of twelve years of age and older.

[114] The 2002 film Ararat, directed, written, and co-produced by Atom Egoyan re-stages (with limited means) some fictionalized events of the defense of Van.