The Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid (Abdul-Hamid) II (1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). A prosperous region on the Mediterranean coast encompassing the old principality of Cilicia, once an independent Armenian state between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the province of Adana had been spared the 1890s massacres. The disturbances were most severe in the city of Adana where a reported 4437 Armenian dwellings were torched, resulting in the razing of nearly half the town and prompting some to describe the resulting inferno as a "holocaust." The outbreaks spread throughout the district and an estimated 30000 Armenians were reported killed. While attempts at resistance in Adana proved futile, and Armenians in smaller outlying villages were brutally slaughtered, two towns inhabited mostly by Armenians organized a successful defense. Hadjin (Hajen in Armenian) in the Cilician Mountains withstood a siege, while the 10000 Armenians of Dortyol (Chorkmarzban in Armenian) held off 7000 Turks who had surrounded their town and cut off its water supply.

• published: 18 May 2011
• views: 5363
• author: Garnik Hovsepyan