ABSTRACT

In 1915, the Ottoman government deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians from their ancestral homelands to areas predominantly in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. The majority of the deportees, however, did not survive death marches or massacres; those sent by rail from western provinces to Aleppo were luckier. The Ottoman government claimed that it would settle the deportees in so-called destination areas in new villages or alongside the resident Muslim population. In Northern Syria, leading Ottoman officials and military personnel, notably the Fourth Army commander, Ahmed Djemal Pasha, offered resistance to central government schemes and followed a somewhat independent policy. The Interior Ministry responded to this challenge and tried to reassert its authority. In order to maintain control, Talat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, dispatched a number of officials to the region. Among these were Ismail Djanbolad Bey, director of the Interior Ministry’s “Directorate for Public Security” [Emniyet-i Umumiye Müdüriyeti; EUM], and Shukru Bey, who headed the “Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants” [İskan-ı Aşair ve Muhacirin Müdüriyeti; IAMM]. Both departments were instrumental in persecuting Armenians and in the organization of deportations. 1