'' Hamidiye '' corps ( literally meaning " belonging to Hamid " , full official name '' Hamidiye Hafif Süvari Alayları '' , Hamidiye Light Cavalry Regiments ) were well-armed , irregular mainly Sunni Kurdish , but also Turkish , Circassian , Turkmen Yörük and Arab cavalry formations that operated in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire . Established by and named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1891 , they were intended to be modeled after the Cossacks and were supposedly tasked to patrol the Russo-Ottoman frontier . However , the '' Hamidiye '' were more often used by the Ottoman authorities to harass and assault Armenians living in Turkish Armenia . Even though the Ottomans intended to also include Arab and Turkmenian tribes in the cavalry , almost all the tribes that joined were Kurdish . A major role in the Armenian massacres of 1894-96 had been often ascribed to the '' Hamidiye '' regiments , particularly during the bloody suppression of the revolt of the Armenians of Sasun ( 1894 ) , but recent research contends that the '' Hamidiye '' played a less important role than previously assumed
Armenian massacres
Hamidian massacres
Hamidiye (cavalry)