Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
The Balkan States According to the Treaty of Bucharest; Acquisitions of New Territory shown by darker shades
"On April 15th [1915], about 500 young Armenian men of Akantz were mustered to hear an order of the Sultan; at sunset they were marched outside the town and every man shot in cold blood. This procedure was repeated in about eighty Armenian villages in the district north of Lake Van, and in three days 24,000 Armenians were murdered in this atrocious fashion."
Excerpt from the memoir of Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador at Constantinople, Turkey, from 1913 to 1916. Although the Young Turks had promised equal rights for non-Turkish citizens, and had allowed them to serve in the army, by 1915 their revolution had turned against minority groups, particularly Armenians. Much of the population of the Russian/Turkish frontier was Armenian Christians. Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha put much of the blame for his disastrous defeat in the Battle of Sarikamish on the Armenians. With the defeat of the Anglo-French naval campaign in the Dardanelles, Enver and Minister of the Interior Talaat felt secure the Allies would neither reach Constantinople nor overthrow their government. Across Turkey, they began a campaign to destroy the Armenian population.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by Henry Morgenthau, page 297, copyright © 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1918
1915-04-15, 1915, April, Armenian massacre, Armenian genocide, Armenia
