The beginning of World War I and the Ottoman entry into the war on November 1, 1914 on the side of Germany and Austria - Hungary against the Entente powers was considered as a great opportunity by the Armenian nationalists. Louise Nalbandian relates that "The Armenian revolutionary committees considered that the most opportune time to begin a general uprising to achieve their goals was when the Ottoman Empire was in a state of war", and thus less able to resist an internal attack.

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Nor did these Armenian atrocities affect only Turks and other Muslims. The Armenian guerillas had never been happy with the failure of the Greeks and Jews to fully support their revolutionary programs. As a result in Trabzon and vicinity they massacred thousands of Greeks, while in the area of Hakkari it was the Jews who were rounded up and massacred by the Armenian guerillas. Basically the aim of these atrocities was to leave only Armenians in the territories being claimed for the new Armenian state; all others therefore were massacred or forced to flee for their lives so as to secure the desired Armenian majority of the population in preparation for the peace settlement.

Leading the first Armenian units who crossed the Ottoman border in the company of the Russian invaders was the former Ottoman Parliamentary representative for Erzurum, Karekin Pastirmaciyan, who now assumed the revolutionary name Armen Garo. Another former Ottoman parliamentarian, Hamparsum Boyaciyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces who ravaged Turkish villages behind the lines under the nickname "Murad", specifically ordering that "Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation." Another former Member of Parliament, Papazyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces that ravaged the areas of Van, Bitlis and Mush.

In March 1915 the Russian forces began to move toward Van. Immediately, on April 11, 1915 the Armenians of Van began a general revolt, massacring all the Turks in the vicinity so as to make possible its quick and easy conquest by the Russians. Little wonder that Czar Nicholas II sent a telegram of thanks to the Armenian Revolutionary Committee of Van on April 21, 1915, "thanking it for its services to Russia." The Armenian newspaper Gochnak, published in the United States, also proudly reported on May 24, 1915 that "only, 1,500 Turks remain in Van", the rest having been slaughtered.

The Dashnak representative told the Armenian National Congress assembled at Tiflis in February 1915 that "Russia provided 242,000 rubles before the war even began to arm and prepare the Ottoman Armenians to undertake revolts", giving some idea of how the Russian-Armenian alliance had long prepared to undermine the Ottoman war effort. Under these circumstances, with the Russians advancing along a wide front in the East, with the Armenian guerillas spreading death and destruction while at the same time attacking the Ottoman armies from the rear, with the Allie's also invading the Empire along a wide front from Galicia to Iraq, the Ottoman decision to deport Armenians from the war areas was a moderate and entirely legitimate measure of self-defense.

Even after the revolt and massacres at Van, the Ottoman government made one final effort to secure general Armenian support for the war effort, summoning the Patriarch, some Armenian h4emhers of Parliament, and other delegates to a meeting where they were warned that drastic measures would be taken unless Armenians stopped slaughtering Muslims and working to undermine the war effort. When there was no evident lessening of 'the Armenian attacks, the government finally acted. On April 24, 1915 the Armenian revolutionary committees were closed and 235 of their leaders were arrested for activities against the state. It is the date of these arrests that in recent years has been annually commemorated by Armenian nationalist groups throughout the world in commemoration of the "massacre" that they claim took place at this time. No such massacre, however, took place, at this or any other time during the war. In the face of the great danger~ which the Empire faced at that time, great care was taken to make certain that the Armenians were treated carefully and compassionately as they were deported, generally to Syria and Palestine when they came from southern Anatolia, and to Iraq if they, came from the north. The Ottoman Council of Ministers thus ordered:

“When those of the Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and villages who have to be moved are transferred to their places of settlement and are on the road, their comfort must be assured and their lives and property protected; after their arrivals their food should be paid for out of Refugees Appropriations until they are definitely settled in their new homes. Property and land should be distributed to them in accordance with their previous financial situation as well as their current needs; and for those among them needing further help, the government should 6iiild houses, provide cultivators and artisans with seed, tools, and equipment.”

And it went on to specify:

“This order is entirely intended against the extension of the Armenian Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not execute it in such a manner that might cause the mutual massacre of Muslims and Armenians.”

“Make arrangements for special officials to accompany the growths of Armenians who are being relocated, and make sure they are provided with, food and other needed things, paying the cost out of the allotments set a side for emigrants.”

“The food needed by the emigrants while traveling until they reach their destinations must be provided ... for poor emigrants by credit for the installation of the emigrants. The camps provided for transported persons should be kept under regular supervision; necessary steps for their well-being should be taken, and order and security assured. Make certain that indigent emigrants are given enough food and that their health is assured by daily visits by a doctor... Sick people, poor people, women and children should be sent by rail, and others on mules, in carts or on foot according to their power of endurance. Each convoy should be accompanied by a detachment of guards, and the food supply for each convoy should be guarded until the destination is reached... In cases where the emigrants are attacked, either in the camps or during the journeys, all efforts should be taken to repel the attacks immediately...”

Out of the some 700,000 Armenians who were transported in this way until early 1917, certainly some lives were lost, as the result both of large scale military and bandit activities then going on in the areas through which they passed, as well as the general insecurity and blood feuds which some tribal forces sought to carry cut as the caravans passed through their territories. In addition, the deportations and settlement of the deported Armenians took place at a time when the Empire was suffering from severe shortages of fuel, food, medicine and other supplies as well as large-scale plague and famine. It should not be forgotten that, at the same time, an entire Ottoman army of 90,000 men was lost in the East as a result of severe short- ages, or that through the remainder of the war as many as three or four million Ottoman subjects of all religions died as a result of the same conditions that afflicted the deportees.

How tragic and unfeeling it is, therefore, for Armenian nationalists to blame the undoubted suffering of the Armenians during the war to something more than the same anarchical conditions, which afflicted all the Sultan's subjects. This is the truth behind the false claims distorting historical facts by ill devised mottoes such as the "first genocide of the twentieth century," which Armenian propagandists and terror groups try to revive to justify the same tactics of terror today which brought such horrors to the Ottoman Empire during the last century.