Chronology of the Armenian Genocide -- 1915 (April-June)

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April 1: The mass arrest of Armenian political leaders is carried out in Sivas and other provinces.
April 2: General robbery and arrests of Armenians are reported throughout Bitlis and Erzerum Provinces.
April 2: In Sivas Province, battalions of gendarmery and 4,000 chetes begin regular attacks on Armenian villages with increasing brutality.
April 3: (Easter week) Mass arrests and a search for weapons are carried out in Marash and Hadjin (Hajen), with the seizure of all arms, including household knives. Numerous rapes during the house searches are reported.
April 5: In Marash Turks demand 5,000 jackasses from the Armenians in an excuse to loot.
April 8: Turkish emigrants from Bosnia are settled by the government in the villages of Zeitun District. 8,000 Turkish regulars are reported in Zeitun.
April 8: The famous monastery of Zeitun is burned by the Turks.
April 9: Turks declare a meeting in Marash to deport the Armenians. The Turkish government forbids civilian action on the ground that the March 16 Army command covered the situation.
April 11: Talaat tells the Armenian parliamentary deputy Bedros Halajian that there will be no massacres.
April 12: Widespread attacks on, and looting of, Armenian villages in Bitlis and Erzerum Provinces are fed by the accusation that the Armenians caused the war.
April 14: The governor-general of Van, Tahir Jevdet invites the Armenian parliamentary deputies from Van and the Dashnak leader Ishkhan to attend a conference.
April 15: Armenian refugees from villages surrounding the city of Van arrive and notify the inhabitants that 80 villages in Van Province were already obliterated and that 24,000 Armenians had been killed in three days.
April 16: The Armenian leaders Vramian and Ishkhan are slain during the night in the Kurdish village of Hirj by chetes on orders from Governor-general Tahir Jevdet.
April 17: Friendly Kurds inform the inhabitants of Van of the assassination of Vramian and Ishkhan.
April 17: The Armenians organize defense against the sudden attack by Turkish forces on the city of Van. (They hold out until advance units of the Russian Army consisting of Armenian volunteers arrive to their rescue on May 23, 1915).
April 18: Until the end of April 32,000 more Armenians are slain in the villages of Van Province, including the inhabitants of remote villages.
April 18: In Erzerum, Turkish civilians declare intentions to hold a meeting. The Army forbids it. Similar gatherings in other centers are also forbidden on the grounds that the Army is the agency responsible for handling the Armenians.
April 18: The Governor-general of Van Province demands that the Armenians of the city of Van surrender their weapons. The Armenians refuse as chete units were harassing the surrounding villages.
April 19: House searches are made in Diyarbekir and widespread persecution takes place.
April 20: The deportation of the 25,000 Armenians of Zeitun is completed.
April 20: The first large-scale arrests of Armenians are made in Diyarbekir upon the orders of Governor-general Reshid.
April 20: Twenty Armenian Social Democratic Hnchak Party members are brought to the Central Prison in Constantinople to face court martial. They are hanged publicly on June 2, 1915.
April 24: Two hundred and fifty Armenian intellectuals and community leaders are arrested in Constantinople and sent to Chankri and Ayash, where they are later slain.
April 24: The editors and staff of Azadamart, the leading Armenian newspaper of Constantinople, are arrested, and on June 15 are slain in Diyarbekir, where they had been transported and imprisoned.
April 24: The Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and Zohrab, Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, petition the Grand Vizier, Said Halim, the Minister of the Interior Talaat, and the President of the Senate, Rifat, on behalf of the arrested Armenians of Constantinople. Though approached separately, all three give identical answers; that the government is isolating the Armenian leadership and dissolving the Armenian political organizations.
April 26: Three Armenians are hanged publicly in Mush without trial.
April 27: A second meeting in Erzerum to organize a communal massacre is disbanded by the government as interference in the affairs of the Army.
April 27: Twenty-six Armenian leaders are arrested in Marsovan (Merzifon). A two-week-long search for weapons is started accompanied by acts of violence and the abuse of women.
April 29: Russian citizens of Armenian origin are arrested in Constantinople.
April 29: The disarming of the Armenians of Constantinople is carried out with many outrages.
April 30: The vice-governor of Erzinjan begins the persecution of the Armenians with the arrest of many intellectuals.
May 1: The arrest of the Armenian professors and teachers of the American Euphrates College in Kharput is started.
May 2: Halil Pasha's forces are defeated by the Russian Army in the Caucasus and in northern Iran, and retreat to Van, Bitlis, and Mush, where they participate in the massacre of the Armenians.
May 2: Three thousand English and French civilians are arrested in Constantinople.
May 3: House searches are made in Aleppo.
May 3: Macedonian Turkish immigrants are installed in Zeitun by the government.
May 3: The deportations from the villages of Erzerum Province are started.
May 4: The mass arrests of Armenian leaders in Aintab are begun.
May 4: Two hundred Armenian leaders in Erzerum are arrested.
May 5: Arrests and persecutions begin in Kharput.
May 6: Allied nationals in Beirut (Beyrut) are deported to Damascus and dispersed from there.
May 6: The New York Times reports that the Young Turks had adopted a policy to annihilate the Armenians.
May 9: Lord Grey, British Minister of Foreign Affairs, sends a message to Enver holding him personally responsible should anything happen to the 3,000 captive English and French civilians.
May 10: Nine hundred and fifty prominent Armenians are arrested in Diyarbekir on orders from Dr. Reshid, the governor-general of Diyarbekir Province.
May 10: The Armenian refugees from Zeitun found in Marash, who had previously been spared deportation, are removed to the Syrian Desert.
May 12: Vartkes, an Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, visits Talaat to protest the arrests of April 24.
May 14: English and French civilian prisoners are deported to the interior of Anatolia.
May 14: Thirty-eight Armenian community leaders are arrested in the town of Chomaklu in Kayseri Province and shortly thereafter executed.
May 15: The Armenian community leaders in the town of Bayburt are arrested and subsequently killed in Urbajioghli-Dere.
May 15: Armenians are deported from the northern villages of Erzerum Province.
May 18: Courts martial are set up in Marash to try the Armenian leaders arrested there shortly earlier.
May 19: Advance troops of the Russian Army in the Caucasus led by Armenian volunteers reach Van and lift the siege of city.
May 19: Armenians in the Khnus region of Erzerum Province are massacred.
May 21: Regular Russian Army forces arrive in Van. They begin the cremation of the dead in the city and in the villages of the province. Fifty-five thousand dead are identified as Armenians.
May 21: Armenian parliamentary deputy Vartkes visits Police Commissioner Osman Bedri to protest the arrests of the Constantinople Armenian community leaders.
May 22: Turkish refugees are settled in the emptied Armenian villages of the Tortum District of Erzerum Province.
May 24: A note is sent by the Allied Powers to the Turkish Cabinet holding it responsible for the massacres of the Armenians.
May 25: Armenian parliamentary deputies Zohrab and Vartkes are arrested in Constantinople and later murdered while in custody in Kara-Kopru.
May 27: German Marshal Otto Liman von Sanders reports that the deportations were planned by the Committee of Union and Progress, and received the approval of all the ministries, and that the execution of the plans was placed in the hands of the governors-general, their subordinates, and the police.
May 27: The promulgation of the Temporary Law of Deportation, months after the depopulation of the Armenian settlements had been initiated.
May 27: Two thousand Armenians are deported from Marash.
May 27: Three hundred Armenians arrested on May 10 in Diyarbekir are murdered while in custody.
May 29: Talaat is reported to have said that he was going to give to the Armenians a new and final residence.
May 29: Six hundred and thirty Armenians arrested on May 10 in Diyarbekir are murdered in the village of Bisheri while in custody and their bodies are thrown in the Tigris River.
May 31: Two weeks of outrages perpetrated against the Armenians of the town of Chomaklu under the guise of forcing the Armenians to give up their arms are ended.
May 31: German Ambassador Hans von Wangenheim advises against German interference in the deportations.
June 3: Ayub Bey, an arch-assassin, leaves Adana for Aleppo in connection with the organizing of massacres.
June 4: Enver issues a circular dispatch classified secret and urgent concerning the deportations.
June 7: The first convoy of Armenian deportees leave Erzinjan toward Kemakh on their way to the Syrian Desert.
June 7: The Armenian Prelate of Shabin-Karahisar, Vaghinag Vartabed, is assassinated.
June 7: The Armenians of Constantinople appeal to the German and the Austrian Embassies to prevent the deportations and associated outrages, but receive no satisfactory reply.
June 7: The Armenians arrested in Sivas on April 1 and transported to Angora Province are murdered in the woods of Meshedler-Yeri. The mass slaughter is witnessed by Greek woodcutters who report the news to the Armenians of Sivas.
June 8: The second convoy of deportees from Erzinjan leaves for the Syrian Desert.
June 9: The third convoy of Armenians departs from Erzinjan.
June 9: Three Armenian medical officers, Dr. Hairanian, Dr. Baghdasar Vartanian, and Dr. Maksud, serving in the Turkish Army are murdered in the city of Sivas.
June 10 to June 13: Over a period of four days the Armenians deported from the towns and villages of Erzerum Province are slaughtered in a major massacre at Kemakh.
June 13: The War Ministry orders the seizure of all the domestic animals of the Armenians.
June 13: The War Ministry notifies that the permits given to Armenians exempting them from the deportations and safety certificates are only provisional and temporary.
June 13: Twenty-five thousand Armenians are murdered by the fourth day of the Kemakh massacre. The 86th Cavalry Brigade with its officers and the 2nd Reserve Cavalry Division of the Turkish Army participate in the slaughter.
June 13: Instructions concerning procedures for the deportations and urging extreme strictness are sent to provincial governors.
June 14: Subhi Bey, the assistant to the Undersecretary of the Interior Ministry asks for a list of Armenians working in the shipyards, docks, and arsenals of the Ministry of the Marine.
June 14: The third convoy of Armenian deportees from the town of Bayburt departs.
June 14: Three hundred Armenian community leaders are arrested in Shabin-Karahisar.
June 15: Twenty members of Armenian Social Democratic Hnchak Party are publicly hanged in Constantinople as a signal to the provinces to intensify measures.
June 15: Twelve Armenian community leaders are publicly hanged in Sivas.
June 15: The Armenians of Shabin-Karahisar organize defense against chete forces and the regular Turkish Army.
June 16: Three thousand, five hundred Armenian men are seized in a mass arrest in Sivas Province.
June 17: Talaat is reported to have declared that he will uproot the internal enemy.
June 17: One thousand, two hundred, and thirteen Armenian men are arrested in Marsovan (Merzifon).
June 17: Eight thousand, five hundred Armenians withdraw into the ruined castle of Shabin-Karahisar to defend themselves against the Turks.
June 18: One hundred and sixty families are deported from city of Erzinjan.
June 19: A second convoy composed of 300 families leaves the city of Erzerum.
June 21: The governor-general of Aleppo, Jelal Bey, resigns in protest against the deportation order and the massacres.
June 21: Talaat sends instructions to prevent the populace from robbing the abandoned goods of the Armenians.
June 23: The Interior Ministry advises provincial governors that the Commission on Abandoned Goods will have charge of the resettlement of Turkish Muslim immigrants.
June 23: The Interior Ministry advises taking the precaution of separating the convoys of Armenian deportees by a distance of five hours.
June 23: The wholesale arrest of 1,500 men is carried out in Sivas Province.
June 23: The first large-scale massacre of Armenian men is carried out in the town of Kharput.
June 23: Wholesale arrests are made in Bitlis of the scattered remnant Armenians who had escaped the previous series of massacres.
June 23: Massacres of Armenian Christians, Maronites, Nestorians, Europeans, Catholics, and other non-Muslim people in the city of Mardin are carried out under the direct order of Dr. Reshid, the governor-general of Diyarbekir Province.
June 24: The Armenian notables of Trebizond are sent by boat toward Samsun, and on the way are thrown, tightly bound together, into the Black Sea.
June 25: The massacre of Armenians of Bitlis is carried out under the direct orders of Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda.
June 26: The remaining Armenian men in Sivas are arrested.
June 25: A government decree instructs the 30,000 Armenians in Trebizond to leave the city within 5 days.
June 26: A decree issued in Erzerum orders all Armenians to leave for Syria.
June 26: A decree issued in Samsun orders all Armenians to leave within 15 days.
June 28: The previously arrested Armenian educators and community leaders in Kharput are transported from prison to be murdered.
June 29: Vartkes and Zohrab, two Armenian deputies in the Ottoman Parliament, deported from Constantinople, arrive in custody in Aleppo.
June 30: Three thousand Armenians from the city of Erzerum are murdered while being deported.
June 30: Six thousand Armenians from Zeitun arrive in the Konia Desert and nearby malarial marshes.

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