In 1915 the Ottoman government started the extermination of its ethnic Armenian population , resulting in the death of approximately 1.5 million Armenians in the Armenian Genocide . The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases : the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor , followed by the deportation of women , children , the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert . Driven forward by military escorts , the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery , rape , and systematic massacre . Large-scale massacres were also committed against the Empire 's Greek and Assyrian minorities as part of the same campaign of ethnic cleansing
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Ottoman Empire