The ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is widely considered a genocide , resulting in an estimated 1.5 million victims . The first wave of persecution was in the years 1894 to 1896 , the second one culminating in the events of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and 1916 . With World War I in progress , the Ottoman Empire accused the ( Christian ) Armenians as liable to ally with Imperial Russia , and used it as a pretext to deal with the entire Armenian population as an enemy within their empire
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Armenians