Chronology of the Armenian Genocide -- 1915 (July-September)

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July 1
Two thousand Armenian soldiers in the Turkish Army used as laborers are massacred near the city of Kharput.
July 1
The first convoy of deportees leaves the seaport of Trebizond for the south.
July 1
The governor-general of Sivas announces that the first convoy of deportees from the city are to leave by July 5 in groups according to street residence. A total of 48,000 persons are deported. The governor, commissioner of police, two parliamentary deputies, the qadi (the chief religious judge), and the mufti (the religious chief) tell the Armenians that they were being resettled for the duration of the war in order to forestall any resistance.
July 2
Bands of 4,000 chetes operating out of the mountains around Erzinjan begin daily raids against the southward bound convoys of Armenian deportees.
July 2
The deportation decree is issued in the city of Mush.
July 4
For the record an official German protest is registered with the Grand Vizier. The protest is left unanswered by the Turkish government.
July 4
Neshed Pasha leaves Sivas with three regiments and artillery to subdue the Armenians resisting in Shabin-Karahisar.
July 5
In Diyarbekir 2,000 Armenian soldiers working in labor corps are killed.
July 5
The first convoy of deportees leaves the city of Sivas. Every day for 16 days an average of 400 families leave, the overwhelming majority being slain on route to the Syrian Desert. The last convoy departs from the city on July 20.
July 6
By this date up to 1,000 Armenian families had left Trebizond in convoys headed south.
July 7
The male members of 800 Armenian families in the town of Kharput are killed.
July 8
Zaven, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, appeals to the Minister of Justice, Ibrahim Bey, who replies that he cannot intervene in matters concerning the War Ministry.
July 10
Two thousand, seven hundred persons are killed in a second massacre in Mardin.
July 11
The beginning of a four-day massacre in Mush under the combined orders of parliamentary deputy Elias, vice-governor Servet, and Governor-general Mustafa Abdulhalik Renda, Talaat's brother-in-law.
July 11
The Interior Ministry instructs that the Armenian villages be settled with Muslim immigrants.
July 12
The government advises all governors-general that Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) District is saturated and that the rest of the deportees be routed to Kirkuk District in northern Iraq, to the south of Aleppo, and to the east of Syria.
July 12
Instructions are issued to distribute Armenian orphans to Turkish homes.
July 13
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins. During the whole month the greatest concentration and universalization of massacring and murdering occurs in every province of Turkey.
July 13
The last convoy, containing all the remaining Armenians in the city, leaves Kharput.
July 13
Zaven, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, is declined an audience with Talaat.
July 14
Jemal, Commander of Aleppo's Fourth Army Corps, protests to Dr. Reshid, the governor-general of Diyarbekir Province about the dumping of dead bodies in the Euphrates River and advises burial. From June 22 to July 17, a period of 25 days, a steady stream of bodies of massacred Armenians floats down the Euphrates River.
July 16
Bodies from Kharput Province and Erzerum Province float down the Euphrates to Jerablus, where they are seen and identified by German officers.
July 18
In the region of Dersim, 3,000 Armenians are killed by the Turks. Almost all of the large Kurdish population of Dersim refuses to participate in the massacres and even shelters many Armenians.
July 21
First day of the Turkish attack on Musa Dagh (Musa Ler in Armenian).
July 23
The Italian consul at Trebizond reports about the barbarities he had witnessed.
July 23
The seventh anniversary of the 1908 restoration of the liberal Constitution of 1876 is celebrated.
July 24
Talaat sends instructions to Urfa, Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor), and Diyarbekir to bury the bodies of those fallen by the roadside and not throw them in ditches, lakes, or rivers.
July 24 to August 1
The registration and classification of all prisoners from Sivas is carried out. This was done in accordance with a directive in general circulation.
July 28
The governor-general of Erzerum Province reports of widespread looting and rape.
July 28
The Interior Ministry issues a circular telegram instructing that the Muslim population be settled in the large Armenian villages.
July 28
The deportation of the Armenians of the town of Aintab begins.
July 28
The deportation of the Armenians of the town of Kilis begins.
July 28
The deportation of the Armenians of the town of Adiaman begins.
July 28
Professor Kakig Ozanian of the American College and others from Marsovan (Merzifon), together with the Armenian community leader Dikran Diranian and others from Samsun, are transported to the prisons of Sivas to be killed.
July 30
A mass arrest of Armenians in the city of Angora is carried out. Those arrested are slain the next day at a place six hours distance from the city of Angora.
July 30
The withdrawal of the Russian Army from the city of Van begins.
July 31
The mass murder of Armenian community leaders of Constantinople imprisoned in Ayash and Chankri is carried out. They are killed along with the Armenians of Angora arrested the day before.
July
Behaeddin Shakir, chief of the Special Organization in Erzerum Province, telegrams Nazim Bey Resneli via Sabit Bey, the governor-general of Kharput Province, inquiring whether the Armenians deported from there are being exterminated or just being convoyed.
July
Behaeddin Shakir instructs the governor-general of Kastamonu Province to begin the deportation of the Armenians there.
July
Talaat informs the Ittihad party organization in Malatia explaining that half of the loot captured from the Armenians is being assigned to the Central Committee of Ittihad in Constantinople, and the other half is to be distributed to chetes. (On December 12, 1918, the Turkish newspaper, Sabah, reported that each chete in the Malatia area received as a result 15,000 Turkish pounds.)
July
Governor-general Reshid Pasha reports to the Interior Ministry that the deportation of the Armenians from Kastamonu Province is completed.
July
Behaeddin Shakir sends a cipher telegram to the governor-general of Adalia Province, Sabur Sami Bey, asking him what steps he was taking at a time, when in Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Sivas, and Trebizond Provinces, not a single Armenian remains because they have all been sent in the direction of Mosul and Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor). Sabur sends a copy of the telegram to Talaat to show that he had received these indirect instructions.
July
The vice-governor of Yozgat District, in Angora Province, reports to the Interior Ministry that 68,000 Armenians had been slain in the district.
July
Sabit, the governor-general of Kharput Province, informs the Interior Ministry that all the roads are filled with the bodies of women and children and time cannot be found to bury them.
August 1
The deportation of 25,000 Armenians from Adabazar, near Constantinople, begins.
August 1
Twenty thousand deportees arrive in Aleppo.
August 1
Mass torture is inflicted on 500 Armenians in the prisons of Adabazar.
August 2
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau reports that on this day Talaat told him that the Ittihad Committee had carefully considered in all its details the matter of crushing the Armenians, and that the policy which was being pursued was that which had been officially adopted. He also told Morgenthau that the deportations were not the result of hasty decisions but of careful and prolonged deliberation. Talaat, moreover, indicated that three quarters of the Armenians had already been disposed of, and none were left in Bitlis, Van, and Erzerum.
August 2 to August 7
For six nights, Armenian prisoners, mostly intellectuals, held in Gok-Medrese in Sivas, which was a Seljuk structure in use as a temporary prison, are taken out and slain.
August 3
One hundred and fifty thousand deportees arrive in Aleppo from various unspecified places.
August 3
Four thousand, five hundred Armenian deportees from Seghert and 2,000 deportees from Mezre arrive near Aleppo.
August 3
Fifteen thousand Armenians arrive in Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor).
August 3
In response to unofficial German protests about large-scale murders, rapes, and tortures inflicted on the Armenian deportees on the highways, which was creating a bad impression on the Americans, a circular telegram is sent advising against attacking and raping Armenians on the highways.
August 3
Officials are instructed not to appropriate the 'abandoned goods' of the Armenians for personal use.
August 3
Sixty thousand Armenian deportees from unspecified places arrive near Aleppo.
August 4
Talaat sends a circular telegram to all governors and officials expecting accountability for the 'abandoned goods.'
August 6
Eighteen Armenians are publicly hanged in the town of Everek near Kayseri.
August 7
The Armenians of Mersin (Mersine) are deported.
August 7
The listing of all real estate seized from the Armenians is requested by the Interior Ministry.
August 10
All the Armenians of Chorum are deported via Boghazli and Bozanti with the Syrian Desert their purportedly ultimate destination.
August 8 to August 12
The Armenian intellectuals imprisoned in the Sifahdiye Medrese (a Muslim religious school) in Sivas are taken out from the city and slain. There were 36 extermination centers in the area of Sivas. Five thousand Armenian intellectuals imprisoned in the Gok Medrese and the Sifahdiye Medrese, both Seljuk structures in use as temporary prisons, were taken to these 36 execution centers and slain.
August 10
A circular telegram calls for the registration of all Muslim creditors of the Armenians.
August 11
Instructions are issued that Turkish settlers be sent via Angora, Sivas, and Kayseri to Kharput and others via Konia (Konya) and Adana to Diyarbekir.
August 11
Armenian women married to Turks are deprived of the right of inheritance.
August 11
The last of 84 Armenian intellectuals, who were brought to the Ayash prison and who over the course of the weeks had been taken out in small groups to be murdered at various times, are killed. The longest-held was in prison in Ayash for 105 days.
August 12
The end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is celebrated with the first day of the three-day holiday of Bairam. No massacres were carried during these three days as it was time off for rest.
August 12
Enver reports that to date 200,000 Armenians had been slain.
August 12
In Aleppo Province 200,000 Armenian deportees are reported in transit to the desert.
August 12
Boghos Nubar, a leading Armenian from Egypt, who had never been in Turkey, but who had been instrumental in Paris in pressing Turkey to introduce reforms in the Armenian provinces, was tried in absentia by a Turkish court martial and sentenced to death for treason.
August 13
The deportation of the Armenians of Izmid (Izmit), Baghchejik (Bardizag), Bursa, and Adabazar begins.
August 13
Instructions are issued to avoid deportees from coming to rest near military installations.
August 13 to August 17
From the Central Prison of the city of Sivas, where many Armenian intellectuals, political leaders, and the leading men of the villages surrounding Sivas were imprisoned, 15,000 Armenians were taken out and slain in the 36 extermination centers of the region.
August 13
Instructions are sent out to the committees liquidating the 'abandoned goods' of the Armenians and directions given about methods for depositing the moneys obtained.
August 14
Saturday, the third and last day of Bairam.
August 16
Fifty thousand deportees are observed on the road from Bozanti to Aleppo.
August 18
The New York Times reports of a plan for the destruction of the whole Armenian nation.
August 19
Two hundred and fifty Armenians are killed in the city of Urfa in a massacre by Turks inaugurating the first attempt to uproot the Armenians of Urfa. The Armenians of Urfa begin the defense of their city.
August 19
Lord Bryce reports that 500,000 Armenians had been murdered in Turkey.
August 21
The War Ministry requisitions for the military 41 kinds of articles of merchandise from the Armenians.
August 21
A general order is issued for the liquidation of the closed commercial stores of the Armenians.
August 23
A second massacre of Armenians in Urfa is organized.
August 25
The War Ministry requisitions all soap found in the homes and stores of the deported Armenians.
August 26
The War Ministry requisitions for its military supply depots all wood, coal, and copper found in the homes and stores of deported Armenians.
August 26
The Armenian poet, Daniel Varoujan, together with the poet physician Rupen Sevak, and others, are murdered by chetes while incarcerated in the Ayash prison.
August 26
Sixty thousand deported Armenians in the Aleppo area are ordered to leave for Hawran, an Arab district in northern Trans-Jordan.
August 26
The Armenian Catholics in Angora are arrested.
August 28
Instructions are issued forbidding the purchase of property from Armenian deportees.
August 28
The students of the Sanasarian Academy in the city of Sivas are murdered in the town of Gemerak some thirty miles southwest of Sivas.
August 31
Talaat tells the German ambassador, Prince Ernst Hohenlohe-Langenburg, that the Armenian Question no longer exists. Hohenlohe had assumed the German ambassadorship on July 20.
September 2
Four thousand, seven hundred, and fifty Armenians are murdered in Jezire.
September 3
Ten thousand survivors from the Armenians deported from Bursa and Izmid (Izmit) arrive in Konia (Konya).
September 3
The New York Times reports that Izmid (Izmit) had been put to the torch and the Armenians massacred.
September 3
Fifteen thousand Armenian deportees are reported at Eskishehir, 5,000 at Alayund, and 2,000 at Chai.
September 6
In Marsovan (Merzifon), of the 62 Armenian girls who had been saved by American missionaries, on this date only 21 remained. 21 others had been abducted by Turks.
September 6
The Interior Ministry orders all Armenian schools to be placed at the disposal of Turkish authorities.
September 7
Massacres of Armenians are carried out in Yozgat District.
September 7
The War Ministry instructs that the goods requisitioned from the Armenians are to be distributed to the Third, Fourth, and Iraq Armies.
September 7
The second Liquidation Commission in Kayseri is organized.
September 8
Five thousand Armenian deportees are reported at Bozanti.
September 10
On the fifty-third day of the Armenian defense in Musa Dagh, 4,058 persons are rescued by three English and one French warship, which transport the survivors to Port Said in Egypt.
September 11
Six thousand Armenian deportees in transit left Adana in the direction of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor).
September 12
A Fifth Army notice advises that the Islamization of Armenian soldiers is the responsibility of the civilian authorities.
September 13
The Turkish Red Crescent Society asks that all cotton goods, and other necessities be granted to the organization from the 'abandoned goods' of the Armenian deportees.
September 14
The New York Times reports the murder of 350,000 Armenians.
September 14
The survivors of Musa Dagh arrive in Port Said.
September 15
In a circular letter Talaat explains that the real intention of sending the Armenians to the Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor) Desert is to annihilate them.
September 16
Talaat sends instructions by circular telegram to mete out the same fate to the Armenian women and children that had been dealt to the Armenian men.
September 16
A circular dispatch is issued advising caution against the looting of the property of foreigners, with special mention of Singer Sewing Machine Company property.
September 16
Talaat sends a telegram to Ali Suad Bey, Governor of Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor), explaining his responsibilities.
September 17
A circular telegram instructs all district attorneys to sign and seal the account books cataloguing the properties seized from the Armenians.
September 18
In Aleppo, Nuri and Ali Bey consult about the future massacre of the Armenian remnants in the Syrian Desert at Der-el-Zor (Deir el-Zor).
September 21
A circular telegram authorizes the seizure of all Armenian schools and authorized their placement under the control of local education committees.
September 22
Weekly reports on the number of Armenians dead is requested.
September 22
The War Ministry requisitions for the use of the army all wood and coal in the homes and stores of Armenian deportees.
September 23
Three hundred Armenians are killed in a massacre at Urfa.
September 23
Eleven thousand Armenian deportees from 26 different villages are observed at Afiyon-Karahisar.
September 24
The vice-governor of Bolu, Mufid, wires the Interior Ministry that the Armenians of Bolu are about to be deported.
September 24
The local Ittihad Secretary informs the Interior Ministry that 61,000 Armenians had been deported up to this date from Chankri and Angora. He also reports that the Muslims of Angora Province worship the Ittihad party and government for its committed deeds and that the same can be secured in Bolu if the same measures are taken there.
September 25
The Sanitation Division of the War Ministry requisitions all the medical implements and pharmaceuticals held by Armenians.
September 25
Twenty-four Armenian schools in Kayseri alone are requisitioned in four days.
September 26
The Law on Abandoned Goods is ratified by the Ottoman Senate legalizing ex post facto the looting by the government of the properties of the Armenians.
September 27
The Interior Ministry by circular telegram orders the deportation of all Armenian women, children, and the sick.
September 28
The German ambassador in the United States, Johann Heinrich Count von Bernstorff, suggests that the stories about massacres in Turkey are fabricated
September 28
A circular telegram advises that all Armenian property now belongs to the Turkish government.
September 28
The governor-general of Diyarbekir Province, Dr. Reshid, reports to the Interior Ministry that more than 120,000 Armenians have been deported from Diyarbekir Province.
September 29
By this date, 10,000 Armenian deportees had arrived at Afiyon-Karahisar, 50,000 had arrived at Konia (Konya), 10,000 had arrived at Intille (Intili), while 150,000 were reported at Katma.
September 30
The deportees from Yalova, Angora, and Kastomuni (Kastamoni) are numbered at 250,000.
September
(General Vehib Pasha reported during the postwar court martial that in September 1915, Behaeddin Shakir assembled and used murdering cutthroats in the Third Army Zone [the six eastern or Armenian provinces of Turkey].)

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