While Western Armenia still remained under Ottoman rule, the Armenians were granted considerable autonomy within their own enclaves and lived in relative harmony with other groups in the empire (including the ruling Turks). However, as Christians under a strict Muslim social system, Armenians faced pervasive discrimination. When they began pushing for more rights within the Ottoman Empire, Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Hamid II, in response, organized state-sponsored massacres against the Armenians between 1894 and 1896, resulting in an estimated death toll of 80,000 to 300,000 people. The Hamidian massacres, as they came to be known, gave Hamid international infamy as the "Red Sultan" or "Bloody Sultan."
What prompted the state-sponsored slaughter of Armenians?
pushing for more rights
When they began pushing for more rights within the Ottoman Empire, Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Hamid II, in response, organized state-sponsored massacres against the Armenians between 1894 and 1896, resulting in an estimated death toll of 80,000 to 300,000 people.
When they began pushing for more rights within the Ottoman Empire, Sultan 'Abdu'l-Hamid II, in response, organized state-sponsored massacres against the Armenians between eighteen ninety-four and eighteen ninety-six, resulting in an estimated death toll of eighty thousand to three hundred thousand people.
What prompted the state-sponsored slaughter of Armenians?