The mass exodus was due to a new Interior Ministry directive. All Armenians in their vilayet had to move on. Despite almost a year of death marches and massacres, many Armenians remained stubbornly alive. The objective now was to close the encampments near Aleppo and push the outcasts farther into largely uninhabited terrain. To prepare for this final stage, Talaat Pasha reorganized the leadership in provinces and had the Armenian orphanages cleared. This marked the beginning of, as one historian described it, the holocaust’s “Second Phase,” which followed the first wave of deportation.
