ABSTRACT
The Committee of Union and Progress enacted the deportation of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population in the spring of 1915, in tandem with empire-wide arrests of Armenian intellectuals and leaders. Thus, the internment and destruction of the Ottoman Armenians under the cover of the First World War had its roots deep within Ottoman tradition and practice and reflected a global trend towards military extremism leading up to history's first total war. While the concentration camps established during the Armenian Genocide can be placed along a continuum of imperial military extremism and wartime totalisation, they also drew much from a centuries-old Ottoman experience of demographic engineering. Concentration and transit camps were close enough to towns or outposts with telegraphs to ensure Ottoman administrative control. As the Ottoman Empire expanded and the central authorities tried to consolidate gains, control the newly acquired territories, and develop trade and agriculture, deportation and settlement became an important component of its policies.
