Extreme Violence and Massacres during the First World War: A Comparative Study of the Armenian Genocide and German Atrocities in the Canadian Press (1914–1919)

Abstract

The First World War brought extreme violence to the battlefields of Europe and to its civilian population. Following the invasion of Belgium and northern France, during the summer and fall of 1914, German troops resorted to abuses and slaughter against Belgian and French civilians (Horne & Kramer, 2001). French, Belgian and British authorities quickly set up inquiries, and they produced reports denouncing “German atrocities.” A few months later, in the spring of 1915, news from the Ottoman Empire described systematic massacres, wide-scale deportations and the slaughtering of the Armenian civil population (Kevorkian, 2011). In May 1915, in a joint statement, the Triple Entente — France, Great Britain and Russia — accused the Turkish government of “crimes against humanity and civilization” (Racine, 2006: 3–8).