During World War I , the Young Turk ( Committee of Union and Progress ) government of the Ottoman Empire planned and carried out the Armenian Genocide , the systematic extermination of the Armenians living in their ancestral lands . In the spring of 1915 Van became the only location where Armenians organized a major resistance . Aram Manukian played a key role in this resistance , widely seen as self-defence
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Aram Manukian