Armanians of Diyarbakır province and Armenian events: 1878-1920

Armenians had been a society under Ottoman State rule since 15th century. Armenians, called for ?loyal rulers? by Ottoman State, had rebelled against Ottoman State because of missionary activities, current nationalism affected by French Revolution and the policy of the Great States in the following periods. Due to the so called Armenian?s rebellion, many events had been occured in many parts of Anatolia, especially Eastern Anatolia and İstanbul.During this period, one of the city in which Armanian rebelled in order to create an independance Armanian State by sperating from Ottoman State was Diyarbakır. Thus, Armanian attached to the mosques and caused to death of many Muslims in holly Friday on the first day of November in 1895. The Armanian attack simultaneously occured in the other village, small and big towns of Diyarbakır Province. The Armanian rebellion events, started in the centre of Diyarbakır Province and continued very extensively had been controlled within three days. The Armanian rebellion events in Mardin and Ergani County, belonging to Diyarbakır Province, had been taken in the control after a week.The events of Armenian occasionally caused some conflicts between two Peoples/Populations. As a result of this, a lot of Muslims. And Christians (including Armanians) incured losses, got wounded and lost their lives.878 shops, offices and workshops were burned on the fire owing to the event occured in the centre of the province of Diyarbakır on November 1, 1895 when Armanian rebellion event started. Ottoman State and the governor of Diyarbakır Province tried to set up peace among people by taking necassary precautions.However, when the First World War began and Ottoman State participated in this war, Armanian saw this condition as a wonderful opportunity for them. So the Armanian?s Committees began preparing the war plans for revolutions. It was Mehmet Resit Pasha(being assigned to the governor of Diyarbakır Province) who hampered/obstructed the plan prepared by the Armanian?s Committees into action by taking very serious and effective precautions in this period. While the Ottoman State was in many front-lines in the First World War, the threating to the area behind the front lines, ambushing the military convoys, massacres of Muslims by the armanian Committees forced to adopt measures against the Armanians in the Ottoman State left to do. Law was issued as a result of this relocation. According to this law, a large part of the Armenians were deported to Syria and Mosul. The Governor Reshid Bey, who witnessed the activities of deportion of the Armenian Committees in the province of Diyarbakır and therefore believed in the rightfullness of relocation, tried to implement deportation of an uncompromising manner.Reshid Bey, believing that the rightfulness of the relocations are reasonable, struggled to make the most out of the relocation. However, someof the abuses occured in the county during this period because of inadequacy/insufficiency of the number of regullar troops and the imperceptiveness of some administrative people. This case had Reshid Bey led to question and being interrogated in the court martial. Armenians not subjected to relocation and returned to the county made a number of attempts for the sake of French invasion of Diyarbakır Province during the War of Independance and the Armistice Period. But this was prevented due to the precautions which were taken necessarily.Key Words: Diyarbakır, Armenian, relocation Enis Pasha, Mehmet Reshid Shahingiray