The Ottoman Empire began the annexation of up to a million Armenians from its Turkish regions––leading to the Armenian Genocide. The Armenians had suffered long and terrible persecution, and were viewed by the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire as a people of differing religious and political allegiances. The able-bodied Armenian men were subjected to conscription, hard labor and murder. The women, children and elders were driven into the Syrian Desert without food or water and left to die. The genocide prompted outrage from the Allies who decreed the annexation a crime against humanity.
