By the late 19th century, they began to understand the
concept of human rights. That is, people are people and one person should not
be treated better or worse than another because of their race, color, or
religion. It was about that time, in 1891, that Sultan Abul-Hamid created the Hamidiye.
The Hamidiye were groups of Kurds armed by the government. Their official
duty was to protect the Russian border, but they spent most of their time
plundering and looting Armenian villages instead. The Armenians created
revolutionary groups called fedayees in response to this abuse. In 1894, Armenians in Sassun refused to continue paying the extortionary tax
to the Kurdish. So Abdul-Hamid ordered Turkish along with Kurdish soldiers to
go over to Sassun and to put an end to the insubordinate uprising. The death
toll has been estimated at as low as 900 and as high as 60,000 Armenians. International missionaries stationed in Turkey at that time reported these
atrocities to the European and American media. They (the media) in turn
demanded that Abdul-Hamid stop abusing the Armenians. Abdul-Hamid agreed to
stop, but instead he encouraged the Hamidayee to loot and kill Armenians. In
one reported incident 3,000 men, women, and children came to a fiery death
while huddled inside of a church for (ironically enough) protection. Between
1894 and 1896 about 200,000 Armenians were slaughtered. The primary goal of
these massacres was not for extermination however, but rather to teach the
Armenians that they had no choice but to accept their unequal status.
Of course Armenians didn't like the cruel and unjust rule of Abdul-Hamid, but
surprisingly some of the Muslim Turks didn't like him either. In 1908 Abdul-
Hamid was overthrown by The Young Turks (A.K.A. Committee of Union and
Progress) a rising group of liberals who were dissatisfied with Abdul-Hamid's
political repression. The new government brought with it new hope for both
Turks and Armenians. It was this hope that may have led the Turks to adapt
the philosophy of a homogeneous (of one race) nation. The Idea was to create
an empire that would unite Turks from the Mediterranean coast to central Asia.
This would exclude all non-Muslim minorities including the Armenians
In 1913 the triumverant of Enver Pasha (minister of war) Jalaat (minister of
Internal Affairs) and Jemal (minister of the navy) came into power under the
homogeneous nation ideality. That same year ex-Sultan Abdul-Hamid attempted to regain power through a
short-lived counter-revolution.