ABSTRACT
From a comparative perspective, a remarkable feature of the Turkish genocide of Armenians was its immediate documentation by the accounts of eyewitnesses and of contemporary analysts. The major preliminary step was the disarming of Armenians, first the soldiers serving in the Turkish army, and then the civilian population. The Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army were reduced to a new status. The Armenians were divided between Russian and Turkish territory, and Russian Armenians served in the Russian army as Turkish Armenians served in the Turkish. There were volunteer Armenian units assisting the Russians, the British, and the French, and there would seem to be no doubt of the sympathies of the Turkish Armenians for the European powers to whom they had turned in the past for protection against Turkish rule. The most extreme form of genocide in its merciless commitment to total extermination is represented by the Holocaust. But even then, the Turkish massacres are often coupled with the Holocaust.
