INTRODUCTION

Where did the Armenians come from? One doesn’t have to look back very far into history to find the answer. The beginnings of what can be called modern - day Armenia is filled with blood – Muslim blood. In 1820, czarist Russia began the first of several attempts to expand its empire westward in an attempt to obtain an age - old dream of warm - water ports. The czars began a conquest to obtain Ottoman Empire lands all the way to the Mediterranean and open seas. Before the Russian armies began their campaigns of conquest, the czar’s agents were sent into Ottoman lands to organize Christians in an effort to undermine the Ottoman Muslims from within. The Russians reasoned that because they were Orthodox Christians, they would have much in common with other Orthodox Christians, such as the Greeks, the Slavs in the Balkans, and the Armenians.The Russians were not able to secure a warm - water port, but they did move their boundaries westward. In the years that followed 1820, the Russians promised the Armenians they would help them establish their own state. At that time, the Ottoman Empire was in a final period of decline and decay. Other foreign powers saw this as an opportunity to establish their presence in this part of the world. Both England and France sponsored missionary activities there. All too frequently throughout history, nations have used Christianity to promote the state’s best interest and the religious people sent into different parts of the world worked for both Christ and the state’s best interests. This would be the case within the Ottoman Empire.Russia, trying not to be outdone by the English and French, sought to gain Armenian support in destroying the Ottoman government. The Russians promised to create a "Greater Armenia" in eastern Anatolia. The Russian promise was substantially more lands between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean than the Armenian people had ever occupied at anytime in their history. In fact, there had never been a truly independent Armenia. There had never been a true "Greater Armenia». Perhaps three thousand years ago there was a tiny kingdom but it did not last long.This "dream" of a "Greater Armenia" that the Russians created in the minds of a few Armenians in the mid - 1800s continues to this day. The Armenians took this Russian promise [that Russians had no intention of keeping] and expanded upon it. Today, Armenians claim all this land between the Black and Mediterranean seas as their "historic homeland». Nothing could be farther from the truth.The English fanned the flame by calling the Asia Minor of the Bible Armenia. It was Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, in the early 1880s, who concocted the idea that it was in the British’s best interests to break up the Ottoman Empire. He wanted to create a number of small friendly states under England’s influence in place of the large Ottoman Empire. One such small state would be called Armenia. Gladstone asked the British press to refer to eastern Anatolia as "Armenia». British consulates were opened throughout the region, and their purpose was to make contact with the local Christian population. An Anglo - Armenian Friendship Committee was organized in London with the express purpose of influencing public opinion. Many more Christian missionaries were sent into what England had started calling "Armenia».In 1877 and 1878 there was another war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. As the war neared its end, the Christian Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, Nerses Varjabedyan, asked the Russian czar to retain the lands his troops occupied in east Anatolia. Once the war ended the patriarch asked Grand Duke Nicholas, the Russian military commander, to annex all eastern Anatolia into Russia and to help establish an autonomous Armenian state, much like what was being established for Bulgaria. Of course this didn’t happen as it was not in the Russians` best interest. In Bulgaria, there was a majority Christian population. In Ottoman Anatolia, Armenians amounted to less than a quarter of the population.The British feared such Russian influence with the Armenians. They concluded that Russia would be a greater threat than the Ottomans. They realized a Russian - dominated "Greater Armenia" would open up the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean where the British possessions in India could be threatened.Greater Armenia did not come into being as the Armenians wanted. However, the Armenian officers in the Russian army continued working to stir discontent among the Ottoman Armenians by suggesting they work by themselves to secure the same sort of independence as that secured by the Christians in the Balkans.It must be noted that in the 1800s, Armenians were scattered within and beyond a region that today marks Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and eastern Turkey. Everywhere, except in a few small pockets, Armenians were a small minority population. As the Russians acquired lands south of the Caucasus Mountains, they removed the Muslim populations that came under their control. The Muslims were replaced with Christians whom the Russians thought would be loyal to the Russian Christian government. Christian Armenians were the focal point of this policy and were given lands the Russians obtained without paying any compensation. Armenians were moved in once the Russians had removed the Muslim owners.A large number of Armenians resented being under Muslim rule and they were drawn to the Russians by the offer of free land and becoming a part of a Christian state. In the Erivan Province, which is the heart of modern - day Armenia, the majority of the population were Muslim before they were removed. The Russians replaced them with Armenians. This is how Armenia acquired what it today calls its "historic homeland," not as direct descendants from the biblical Noah, as many Armenians claim, but by Russians between the years 1827 and 1878.In each of these Ottoman wars the Armenians helped the Russians. This was the beginning of the ethnic hatred between Christian Armenians and Muslim Ottomans. This conflict was caused by the Russians and their success in pushing the hot button of human greed by giving Armenians free Muslim lands. During the Russian - forced Muslim removal, it was not uncommon for up to one - third of the Muslims who were forced off their property to die. Today, the Armenians never admit they obtained their free land on the account of widespread deaths of Muslims.The Russians forcibly removed some 1.3 million Muslims between 1827 and 1878. Russia started wars with the Ottomans in 1828, 1854, and 1877. Each time the Russians would advance, then be forced to retreat. When the Russians retreated, the Armenians, fearing Muslim retaliation for the violence they had done to the non - Christians, would flee with the Russians. Hatred grew on both sides.In the 1890s there were Armenian rebellions in eastern Anatolia. The end result was many Muslims and Christians were killed. The same thing happened again during the Russian Revolution in 1905 in Azerbaijan.A civil war broke out again between Christians and Muslims when World War I began. Armenia