During the Caucasus Campaign , Ottoman Armenia was depopulated of much of the entire Christian Armenian population as part of the Armenian Genocide . The Armenian population was either forced on long death marches to camps in the middle of the Syrian desert to die of disease , abuse by guards , massacres , Kurdish raids along the way , and starvation or , if they refused , be indiscriminately massacred . Both scenarios accomplished the goal of the Ottoman Turks , removal of Armenians from their homelands to continue their occupation of Western Armenia . The ethnic cleansings and massacres resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians , with other estimates being between 800,000 and 1,800,000 , the destruction of thousands of years of Armenian heritage in the form of monasteries , churches , cemeteries , houses , schools , and other buildings , a massive expansion of the Armenian diaspora in countries like France and the United States , and the continuous 100-year long contention between the modern day states of Turkey and Armenia
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Caucasus campaign