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97-643: Armenian resistance during Hamidian massacres Armenians in World War I Armenian resistance during the Armenian genocide Caucasus campaign First Republic of Armenia Caucasus campaign Armenian–Azerbaijani war Armeno-Georgian War Turkish–Armenian War Soviet-Armenian conflict Musa Dagh ( Turkish : Musa Dağı ; Armenian : Մուսա լեռ , romanized :  Musa leṛ ; Arabic : جبل موسى , romanized :  Jebel Musa ; meaning " Moses Mountain")

194-614: A dowry . This allows him to travel to Constantinople and attend the Imperial School of Medicine . There, Mikael befriends Emre, the son of a high-ranking Ottoman official. Through his wealthy uncle, he also meets Ana Khesarian, an Armenian woman raised in Paris, who is involved with an American reporter for the Associated Press , Chris Myers. Mikael falls in love with Ana just as international tensions begin to rise with

291-429: A "box-office disaster" that "sank like a stone ... attracting critical brickbats and going virtually unseen." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 161 reviews, with an average rating of 5.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads, " The Promise wastes an outstanding cast and powerful real-life story on a love triangle that frustratingly fails to engage." On Metacritic

388-523: A Turkish nightwatchman, Simón Andreu as an Armenian peasant, and Vic Tablian as an Armenian prisoner. The story of The Promise was based on an unproduced screenplay titled Anatolia by Robin Swicord , though Terry George completely rewrote the screenplay. Swicord says, "There’s some very fragmentary bits of my story that are in there, but he invented the Christian Bale character and changed

485-535: A few Turkish towns… I'd keel-haul every blithering mother's son of a Turk that wears hair." Americans on the mainland, such as Julia Ward Howe , David Josiah Brewer , and John D. Rockefeller , donated and raised large amounts of money and organized relief aid that was channeled to the Armenians via the newly established American Red Cross . Other humanitarian groups and the Red Cross helped by sending aid to

582-679: A great millstone fastened round the neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea" than to cause harm to a child. By the end of October 2016, before its official release and after only three pre-release screenings in September 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival to small audiences, IMDb had registered over 86,000 ratings for the film, 55,126 of which were one-star and 30,639 of which were 10-star, with very few ratings falling anywhere in between. The majority of these votes had been cast by males outside of

679-583: A lengthy letter to The Times : What I myself saw this Friday afternoon [November 1] is forever engraven on my mind as the most horrible sight a man can see. I went with one of the cavasses of the English Legation, a soldier, my interpreter, and a photographer (Armenian) to the Gregorian [i.e., Armenian Apostolic ] Cemetery ....Along the wall on the north, in a row 20 ft (6 m) wide and 150 ft (46 m) long, lay 321 dead bodies of

776-715: A local mosque and claiming the Armenians had the aim of "striking at Islam". Sultan Abdul Hamid sent the Ottoman army into the area and also armed groups of Kurdish irregulars. The violence spread and affected most of the Armenian towns in the Ottoman Empire. The Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia) forced Hamid to sign a new reform package designed to curtail the powers of the Hamidiye in October 1895 which, like

873-517: A million pillaged and plundered. A similar figure is cited by the French diplomatic historian Pierre Renouvin who claimed that 250,000 Armenians died based on authenticated documents while serving his duty. Besides Armenians, some 25,000 Assyrians also lost their lives during the Diyarbekir massacres . In addition to the death toll many Armenians converted to Islam in an attempt to escape

970-488: A nearby Red Cross facility, so he goes to seek their help for his family to escape the imminent Turkish threat. Departing the mission with a group of orphans, they head back to Siroun to retrieve Mikael's family. Along the way, however, they encounter the site of a massacre. It soon becomes clear it's all of Siroun's inhabitants, including Mikael's family except his mother and cousin Yeva, killed by Ottoman troops. Mikael's wife

1067-647: A one-word telegram: 'No'. Despite the great public sympathy that was felt for the Armenians in Europe, none of the European powers took concrete action to alleviate their plight. Frustrated with their indifference and failure to take action, Armenians from the ARF seized the European-managed Ottoman Bank on August 26, 1896 to bring the massacres to their full attention. The action resulted in

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1164-714: A policy of severity and terror against the Armenians, and in order to succeed in this respect he elected the method of dealing them an economic blow... he ordered that they absolutely avoid negotiating or discussing anything with the Armenians and that they inflict upon them a decisive strike to settle scores." The killings continued until 1897. In that last year, Sultan Hamid declared the Armenian Question closed. Many Armenian revolutionaries had either been killed or escaped to Russia. The Ottoman government closed Armenian societies and restricted Armenian political movements. Some non-Armenian groups were also attacked during

1261-567: A production budget of $ 90 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the film lost the studio $ 102.1 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. In the United States and Canada, The Promise opened alongside Unforgettable , Born in China , Free Fire and Phoenix Forgotten and was projected to gross around $ 5 million from 2,251 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up debuting to $ 4.1 million, finishing 9th at

1358-462: A righteous thing to destroy and seize the lives and property of the Armenians." The combination of Russian military success in the recent Russo-Turkish War , the clear weakening of the Ottoman Empire in various spheres including financial spheres (from 1873, the Ottoman Empire suffered greatly from the Panic of 1873 ), territorial (mentioned above), and the hope among some Armenians that one day all of

1455-429: A romance plot in order to "use old fashioned storytelling" to immerse an unfamiliar audience into the plot, hoping to avoid making the film only "a history lesson" and making a "throwback to cinema" like Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia ; in another interview he also cited Casablanca . Esrailian stated that he would have encountered less difficulty producing "a straightforward genocide story" but chose to use

1552-481: A second time... and yet it is from an official document which the future historian will read when he wishes to compile the facts concerning those massacres. Official Ottoman sources downplayed or misrepresented the death toll numbers. The attempt of deliberately misrepresenting the numbers were noted by British Ambassador Phillip Currie in a letter to Prime Minister Lord Salisbury : The Sultan lately sent to me, in common with my colleagues, an urgent message inviting

1649-456: A video by Harvard student Michael He that has received 300,000 views. At the time of its American release, the film had an IMDb rating of 5.5/10 from 129,241 votes, and as of May 24, 2019 holds an IMDb rating of 6.1/10 based on 164,475 votes. In 2017 George received the Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award in honor of his films depicting genocides, including The Promise . In addition, he received

1746-719: Is a mountain in the Hatay Province of Turkey. In 1915, it was the location of a successful Armenian resistance to the Armenian genocide , an event that inspired Franz Werfel to write the novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh . The deportation orders of the Armenian population of modern-day Turkey, issued by the Ottoman government, in July 1915 reached the six Armenian villages of the Musa Dagh region: Kabusia (Kaboussieh), Yoghunoluk, Bitias, Vakef , Kheter Bey (Khodr Bey) and Haji Habibli. As Ottoman Turkish forces converged upon

1843-509: Is divided into six districts, each commemorating one of the villages of Musa Dagh. As the French squads came to the rescue of the survivors, the chief priest is quoted as having said, "The evil only happened... to enable God to show us His goodness." This event was depicted in The Promise , a 2016 American epic historical drama film directed by Terry George and starring Oscar Isaac , Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale , set in

1940-480: Is found with their unborn child cut out from her body. Chris is captured by Ottoman soldiers and sent back to Constantinople, charged with being a spy for the Allied Powers and, while held at Selimiye Barracks , slated for execution by the authorities. With the help of Emre, and through the intercession of American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau , Chris is released and deported to Malta . Once there, he boards

2037-419: Is impossible to ascertain how many Armenians were killed, although the figures cited by historians have ranged from 80,000 to 300,000. The German pastor Johannes Lepsius meticulously collected data on the destruction and in his calculations, counted the deaths of 88,243 Armenians, the destitution of 546,000, the destruction of 2,493 villages, the residents of 646 of which were forcibly converted to Islam, and

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2134-407: The Armenian , Assyrian , and Greek diaspora . George stated that "Open Road certainly sees Armenians as its core audience to generate box office momentum." Another screening occurred at Vatican City . The production did not make plans to have a Turkish release. The Promise grossed $ 8.2 million in the United States and Canada and $ 4.2 in other territories for a total of $ 12.4 million, against

2231-850: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (the ARF or Dashnaktsutiun, founded in 1890 in Tiflis ). Clashes ensued and unrest occurred in 1892 at Merzifon and in 1893 at Tokat . In 1894 the sultan began to target the Armenian people in a precursor to the Hamidian massacres. This persecution strengthened nationalistic sentiment among Armenians. The first notable battle in the Armenian resistance took place in Sasun . Hunchak activists, such as Mihran Damadian , Hampartsoum Boyadjian , and Hrayr Dzhoghk , encouraged resistance against double taxation and Ottoman persecution. The ARF armed

2328-749: The Bialystok ghetto , they spoke of the ghetto’s “Musa Dagh” moment at the planning meeting. An eyewitness account from the Deir-az-Zur Region in Syria was provided by a Turkish officer, a Jewish Ashkenazy settler from the First Aliya , born in Rishon Letzion , Eitan Belkind. 36°15′30″N 35°54′13″E  /  36.25833°N 35.90361°E  / 36.25833; 35.90361 Hamidian massacres The massacres began in

2425-572: The Sanjak of Alexandretta came under French control, the population of the six Armenian villages returned to their homes. In 1932, a monument was erected at the top of the mountain to commemorate the event. The mountain was in Aleppo Vilayet , Ottoman Empire , until after World War I , when the French took possession and put it in Sanjak of Alexandretta , Mandate of Syria . On 29 June 1939, following an agreement between France and Turkey ,

2522-578: The 'rayah' [subject] Christian attempts, by having recourse to foreign powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed to them by their Mussulman masters, and free themselves from their bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind, the Armenians had tried to overstep these limits by appealing to foreign powers, especially England. They, therefore, considered it their religious duty and

2619-514: The 112 in the Stamboul [old city of Constantinople] prison were represented as being Muslims, and it was only discovered by accident that 109 were Christians. Some scholars, such as the Soviet historians Mkrtich G. Nersisyan, Ruben Sahakyan , John Kirakosyan , and Yehuda Bauer , and most recently Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi in their book The Thirty-Year Genocide , subscribe to the view that

2716-422: The Armenian delegation's visit to Berlin in 1878, he bitterly remarked, "Such great impudence ... Such great treachery toward religion and state ... May they be cursed upon by God." While he admitted that some of their complaints were well-founded, he likened the Armenians to "hired female mourners [ pleureuses ] who simulate a pain which they do not feel; they are an effeminate and cowardly people who hide behind

2813-435: The Armenian territory might be ruled by Russia, led to a new restiveness among Armenians who were living inside the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians sent a delegation which was led by Mkrtich Khrimian to the 1878 Congress of Berlin to lobby the European powers to include proper safeguards for their kinsmen in the eventual peace agreement. But the sultan was not prepared to relinquish any of his power. Abdul Hamid believed that

2910-648: The Armenians and to remove, "if not by political action then by resort to the knife... the fever spot of the Turkish Empire." King Leopold II of Belgium told British Prime Minister Salisbury that he was prepared to send his Congolese Force Publique to "invade and occupy" Armenia. The massacres were an important item on the agenda of the United States President Grover Cleveland , and in his presidential platform for 1896, Republican candidate William McKinley listed

3007-566: The Armenians of Anatolia, including demands for equal rights and a push for autonomy, the Ottoman leadership believed that the empire's Islamic character and even its very existence were threatened. The chief dragoman (Turkish interpreter) of the British embassy wrote that the reason the Ottomans committed these atrocities was because they were "guided in their general action by the prescriptions of Sheri [Sharia] Law. That law prescribes that if

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3104-622: The Berlin treaty, was never implemented. On October 1, 1895, two thousand Armenians assembled in Constantinople (now Istanbul ) to petition for the implementation of the reforms, but Ottoman police units converged on the rally and violently broke it up. Upon receiving the reform package, the sultan is said to have remarked, "This business will end in blood." Soon massacres of Armenians broke out in Constantinople and then engulfed

3201-592: The Christians' expense and to satisfy their men's whims." One headline in a September 1895 article by The New York Times ran "Armenian Holocaust," while the Catholic World declared, "Not all the perfume of Arabia can wash the hand of Turkey clean enough to be suffered any longer to hold the reins of power over one inch of Christian territory." The rest of the American press called for action to help

3298-466: The French cruiser Guichen , as it prepares to set sail along the Ottoman coast. Emre's role in helping to save Chris is discovered and he is executed by firing squad. Escaping pursuit, Mikael, Ana, and the orphans join a large group of refugees determined to fight off the Ottoman Army on Mount Musa Dagh . As they fend off repeated assaults, Mikael's mother succumbs to her wounds and is buried on

3395-648: The Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University , analyzed the ending of the film. Zakian stated that, since the ending does not show that Mikael had found a new lover, this suggests that he focused instead on raising Yeva, and therefore held true to the Armenian ideal of sacrificing one's own desires in favor of the well-being of children, the next generation. Furthermore, Zakian wrote that Ana's actions in saving children reflects an idea in Matthew 18:6: "It would be better to have

3492-533: The Ottoman Empire and bolstering British ties to Russia. The French ambassador described Turkey as "literally in flames," with "massacres everywhere" and all Christians being murdered "without distinction." A French vice consul declared that the Ottoman Empire was "gradually annihilating the Christian element" by "giving the Kurdish chieftains carte blanche to do whatever they please, to enrich themselves at

3589-514: The Ottoman Empire found itself in the last quarter of the 19th century. The end of Ottoman domination of the Balkans was ushered in by an era of European nationalism and an insistence on self-determination by the inhabitants of many territories which had been ruled by the Ottomans for an extremely long period of time. The Armenians of the empire, who were always considered second-class citizens, had begun to ask for civil reforms and better treatment by

3686-411: The Ottoman Empire were historically insecure; the Kurdish rebels attacked the inhabitants of towns and villages with impunity. In 1890–91, at a time when the empire was either too weak and disorganized or reluctant to halt them, Sultan Abdul Hamid gave semi-official status to the Kurdish bandits. Made up mainly of Kurdish tribes, but also of Turks, Yörüks , Arabs, Turkmens and Circassians, and armed by

3783-447: The Ottoman interior in 1894, before they became more widespread in the following years. The majority of the murders took place between 1894 and 1896. The massacres began to taper off in 1897, following international condemnation of Abdul Hamid. The harshest measures were directed against the long persecuted Armenian community as its calls for civil reform and better treatment were ignored by the government. The Ottomans made no allowances for

3880-663: The Sultan and Armenian party activists in France, Britain, Austria and elsewhere. "Under no circumstances," he wrote to Max Nordau , "are the Armenians to learn that we want to use them in order to erect a Jewish state." Herzl's courting the Sultan's favor was protested by other Zionists. Bernard Lazare published an open letter critical of Herzl and resigned from the Zionist Action Committee in 1899. The one fellow leader Herzl sought to enlist, Max Nordau, replied with

3977-538: The Sultan has any means of knowing about it. It is a most remarkable story, and the discrepancies are as thick as leaves in Valambrosa. On the face of it, it cannot be true, and before a jury it would hardly have any weight as evidence. It is extremely important, however, because it is probably a fair representation of the occurrences of the last few years. That it is a misrepresentation, so much so that it can fairly be called fabrication, becomes clear when you look at it

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4074-469: The U.S. By mid-November the total was over 91,000 votes, with over 57,000 one-star votes. Commentators assessed that these were mostly votes by people who could not possibly have seen the film, and that the one-star voting was part of an orchestrated campaign by Armenian genocide deniers to downrate the film, which had then initiated an Armenian response to rate the film highly. Grassroots attempts to fight against false ratings have gone viral, including

4171-468: The act was lauded by the European and American press, which vilified Hamid and painted him as the "great assassin" and "bloody Sultan." The Great Powers vowed to take action and enforce new reforms, although these never came to fruition due to conflicting political and economic interests. After George Hepworth , a preeminent journalist of the late 19th century, traveled through Ottoman Armenia in 1897, he wrote Through Armenia on Horseback , which discusses

4268-488: The attackers "as cowardly as they were cruel. They refused to attack where people defended themselves and instead concentrated on defenseless districts." The worst atrocity took place in Urfa , where Ottoman troops burned the Armenian cathedral, in which 3,000 Armenians had taken refuge, and shot at anyone who tried to escape. Abdul Hamid's private first secretary wrote in his memoirs about Abdul Hamid that he "decided to pursue

4365-420: The box office. Deadline Hollywood attributed the low opening to the lack of critical support and the film being released in the spring to coincide with the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, instead of in the fall during award season. Open Road's president of marketing Jonathan Helfgot said the film's goal was not purely money related, saying: "[While] we certainly hoped for a better box office result ... It

4462-458: The camp. Returning to his village, he finds that the townspeople of Turkish background have violently turned on their fellow townspeople of Armenian background. His parents, and particularly his mother, persuade him to marry Maral and seek refuge in a remote mountain cabin, where she soon becomes pregnant. A difficult pregnancy leads Mikael to bring his wife back to the care of his mother in the village. There he learns that Ana and Christopher are at

4559-575: The causes and effects of the recent massacres. In one chapter Hepworth describes the disparity between the reality of the Massacre in Bitlis and the official reports that were sent to the Porte . After retelling the Ottoman version of events, which places the blame solely on the Armenians of Bitlis, Hepworth writes: …That is the account of the affair which was sent to Yildiz, and that story contains all that

4656-587: The characters helps deepen the empathy felt by the audience". Numerous celebrities reacted positively to the movie, including Armenian-American Kim Kardashian , as well as Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian . Michael Daly of The Daily Beast contrasted the film with The Ottoman Lieutenant , a Turkish-backed film which he said expresses a distorted view of the Armenian genocide. Cara Buckley of The New York Times wrote that, due to similarities of some plot points, The Ottoman Lieutenant had "uncanny parallels" to The Promise . Christopher H. Zakian, of

4753-545: The clothes of the great powers and raise an outcry for the smallest of causes." The provisions for reform in the Armenian provinces embodied in Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin (1878) were ultimately not enforced and were followed instead by further repression. On January 2, 1881, collective notes sent by the European powers reminding the sultan of the promises of reform failed to prod him into action. The eastern provinces of

4850-413: The corpses had been rifled of all their clothes except a cotton undergarment or two....To be killed in battle by brave men is one thing; to be butchered by cowardly armed soldiers in cold blood and utterly defenseless is another thing. The French vice consul of Diyarbakır , Gustave Meyrier, recounted to Ambassador Paul Cambon stories of Armenian women and children being assaulted and killed and described

4947-518: The deaths of ten of the Armenian militants, Ottoman soldiers and the massacre of 6,000 Armenian civilians living in Constantinople by Ottomans. According to the foreign diplomats in Constantinople, Ottoman central authorities instructed the mob "to start killing Armenians, irrespective of age and gender, for the duration of 48 hours." The killings stopped only when the mob was ordered to desist from such activity by Sultan Hamid. Though their demands were rejected and new massacres broke out in Constantinople,

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5044-520: The desecration of 645 churches and monasteries, of which 328 were converted into mosques. He also estimated the additional deaths of 100,000 Armenians due to famine and disease totalling a number of approximately 200,000. In contrast the ambassador of Britain estimated 100,000 were killed up until early December 1895. However, the period of massacres spread well into 1896. German foreign ministry operative and Turkologist Ernst Jäckh claimed that 200,000 Armenians were killed and 50,000 were expelled and

5141-408: The documentary Intent to Destroy , embedded in the filming crew of The Promise to shoot his own documentary. George stated that he took two months of research in comparing photographs of Ottoman-era Turkey and prospective filming locations to make the proper selections. Security details were arranged during filming due to political sensitivities around the Armenian genocide. For the same reason,

5238-690: The dogs... Mother, I am safe and sound. Father, 20 days ago we made war on the Armenian unbelievers. Through God's grace no harm befell us... .There is a rumour afoot that our Batallion will be ordered to your part of the world—if so, we will kill all the Armenians there. Besides, 511 Armenians were wounded, one or two perish every day. If you ask after the soldiers and bashi bozouks [wild irregulars], not one of their noses has bled... May God bless you.... Another letter from December 23, 1895 says: I killed [the Armenians] like dogs... .If you ask news in this manner, we slew 2,500 Armenians and looted their goods It

5335-458: The film 3 out of 4 stars, saying: "Yes, The Promise veers into corny territory, and yes, it's derivative of better war romances — but it's a solid and sobering reminder of the atrocities of war, bolstered by strong performances from Isaac and Bale, two of the best actors of their generation". Sarafian praised the film for its historical accuracy. "The key themes were historically accurate," he said. "The producers did not take license to go beyond

5432-519: The film has a score of 49 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian gave the film three out of five stars and called it an "often soapy but well-intentioned and extravagantly mounted epic". Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave

5529-557: The film reminded him of David Lean 's works, and Esrailian responded by stating the production crew had discussed that style of filming. George chose to make the film with English as its single medium as he felt it would be too confusing for a moviegoer to manage hearing multiple languages spoken throughout the film. The final scene of a toast is given in Armenian . Filming began in Autumn 2015 in Portugal , Malta , and Spain , with

5626-516: The film stars Oscar Isaac , Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale . The plot is about a love triangle that develops between Mikael (Isaac), an Armenian medical student, Chris (Bale), an American journalist, and Ana (Le Bon), an Armenian-born woman raised in France, immediately before and during the Armenian genocide . The Promise premiered on September 11, 2016, at the Toronto International Film Festival and

5723-483: The film was inspired by the death of Alan Kurdi , who was fleeing the Middle East for Europe, to show parallels between Armenians fleeing the Armenian genocide to modern refugees like Alan Kurdi. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2016. The initial three public viewings of the film were attended altogether by viewers numbering in the thousands. George stated that

5820-429: The final theatrical version is "essentially the same film" but with minor changes and slightly shortened. In December 2016, Open Road Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, and set an April 28, 2017, release date. Esrailian stated that there were difficulties finding a U.S. distributor due to Turkey historically taking action against companies making films about the Armenian genocide. The release date

5917-465: The final years of the Ottoman Empire . These historical events later inspired Franz Werfel to write his novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1933), a fictionalized account based on his detailed research of historical sources. Werfel told reporters: "The struggle of 5,000 people on Musa Dagh had so fascinated me that I wished to aid the Armenian people by writing about it and bringing it to

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6014-422: The government in the mid-1860s and early 1870s. They pressed for an end to the usurpation of their land, "the looting and murder in Armenian towns by Kurds and Circassians , improprieties during tax collection, criminal behavior by government officials and the refusal to accept Christians as witnesses in trial." These requests went unheeded by the central government. When a nascent form of nationalism spread among

6111-411: The historical material at hand yet they managed to capture much of the enormity of the Armenian genocide". Sarafian also commended director Terry George for his "well balanced and creditworthy" sense of history. Harout Kassabian of The Armenian Weekly said the film will help the world recognize the trauma of the genocide as it has long been felt by Armenians: "The personal connection developed with

6208-608: The killings in the Armenian genocide were not a genocide; his statements were featured in Intent to Destroy . The film producers deliberately made a final film cut that would be, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system , PG-13, so the audience could include teenagers and children; the producers did this by removing scenes that would otherwise give it an "R" rating. This meant not having extensive footage of violence. A scene in

6305-402: The mass killings of 1894–1896 marked the first phase of the Armenian genocide . Most scholars, however, limit this definition strictly to the years 1915–1923. The Promise (2016 film) The Promise is a 2016 American epic historical war drama film directed by Terry George , from a screenplay he co-wrote with Robin Swicord . Set in the final years of the Ottoman Empire ,

6402-512: The massacred Armenians. Many were fearfully mangled and mutilated. I saw one with his face completely smashed in with a blow of some heavy weapon after he was killed. I saw some with their own necks almost severed by a sword cut. One I saw whose whole chest had been skinned, his fore-arms were cut off, while the upper arm was skinned of flesh. I asked if the dogs had done this. "No, the Turks did it with their knives." A dozen bodies were half burned. All

6499-522: The massacres. The French diplomatic correspondence shows that the Hamidiye carried out massacres not only of Armenians but also of Assyrians living in Diyarbakir, Hasankeyf , Sivas and other parts of Anatolia. A letter sent by an Ottoman soldier to his brother and parents in November 23, 1895 says: My brother, if you want news from here we have killed 1,200 Armenians, all of them as food for

6596-571: The mountain. The refugees hold on long enough to escape on the back side to the coast as the Guichen comes to evacuate them. But as the lifeboats return to the ship, a Turkish artillery barrage throws Ana and Yeva, the young daughter of Mikael's uncle, overboard. Mikael jumps in after them and is able to rescue Yeva, but Ana drowns. In a voice over, Mikael recounts that he adopted Yeva and together they settled in Watertown, Massachusetts while Chris

6693-627: The other characters. I had a medical student in my screenplay, but he wasn’t at all like the character in The Promise ." George stated that he added Chris and lengthened the storyline to illustrate the scope of the genocide. The original script only focused on Mikael and his family. George, who directed human rights-related films, became interested in the Armenian genocide as a filming topic after reading chapters about it in A Problem from Hell while doing research for Hotel Rwanda . George traveled to Armenia and Turkey to do further research on

6790-453: The outbreak of World War I . Mikael temporarily manages to avoid conscription into the Ottoman Army through a medical student exemption with the help of Emre. When he, with Emre's help, tries to save his uncle from imprisonment during the roundups of April 24, 1915 , he is detained and sent to a labor camp, while Emre is conscripted as a consequence for helping Mikael a second time after his father warned him not to. Mikael eventually escapes

6887-435: The people of the region. The Armenians confronted the Ottoman army and Kurdish irregulars at Sasun, finally succumbing to superior numbers and to Turkish assurances of amnesty, which never materialized. In response to the resistance at Sasun, the governor of Mush responded by inciting the local Muslims against the Armenians. Historian Lord Kinross wrote that massacres of this kind were often achieved by gathering Muslims in

6984-472: The press alike. British print and illustrated newspapers regularly covered the massacres, with the popular weekly Punch publishing dozens of cartoons depicting the carnage. Further, historian Leslie Rogne Schumacher notes that the massacres "reflected and impacted the changing world of European international relations" in the years before the First World War , weakening Britain's relationship with

7081-413: The producers did not issue publicity for the film during the filming process. Berlinger stated, in regard to safety issues, "A lot of that is overblown — I think we’ve gone from historical assassinations to digital assassinations. But we all had this nebulous fear." According to Giménez Cacho, an ambassador in the Turkish foreign service had contacted him and told him the Turkish government's position that

7178-454: The production company. Esrailian became interested in studying the Armenian genocide while a university undergraduate, and received a master's degree in public health, a degree which he said enhanced his understanding of demography. Bale and Isaac were cast in June 2015, while Le Bon, Cromwell, Reno, Aghdashloo and Giménez-Cachowere were all confirmed by September. Esrailian said that he used

7275-462: The province was given to Turkey. Afterwards Armenians from six of the villages emigrated from Hatay Province , while some of the residents of Vakıflı village chose to stay. Vakıflı is the only remaining ethnic Armenian village in Turkey, with a population of 140 Turkish-Armenians . Most who left Hatay in 1939 emigrated to Lebanon where they resettled in the town of Anjar . Today, the town of Anjar

7372-497: The remaining survivors who were dying of disease and hunger. At the height of the massacres, in 1896, Abdul Hamid tried to limit the flow of information coming out of Turkey ( Harper's Weekly was banned by Ottoman censors for its extensive coverage of the massacres) and counteract the negative press by enlisting the help of sympathetic Western activists and journalists. Theodor Herzl responded enthusiastically to Abdul Hamid's personal request to harness "Jewish power" to undermine

7469-554: The rest of the Armenian-populated vilayets of Bitlis , Diyarbekir , Erzurum , Mamuret-ul-Aziz , Sivas , Trebizond and Van . Thousands were killed at the hands of their Muslim neighbours and government soldiers, and many more died during the cold winter of 1895–96. William Sachtleben , an American journalist who happened to be in Erzurum after the massacre there in 1895, recounted the grisly scene he came across in

7566-693: The romance angle anyway. George prepared for the film by reading Armenian Golgotha , which discusses the extent of and survival of the genocide; and The Burning Tigris , which discusses journalists documenting the genocide. George said that he deliberately used a 1970s production style and that he intended to reach the average common movie-goer, using the analogy of "is 'Hotel Rwanda' going to play in Peoria ? Will it be understood? Is it main stream [ sic ] enough?" George also stated that he extensively fact-checked historical details to ensure they reflected what happened in reality. Crow stated that

7663-663: The saving of the Armenians as one of his top priorities in foreign policy. Americans in the Ottoman Empire, such as George Washburn, then-president of the Constantinople-based Robert College , pressured their government to take concrete action. In December 1900, the battleship USS Kentucky called at the port of Smyrna , where its captain, "Red Bill" Kirkland, delivered the following warning, somewhat softened by his translator, to its governor: "If these massacres continue I'll be swuzzled if I won't someday forget my order… and find some pretext to hammer

7760-836: The shooting scheduled to last until December. Filming sites in Portugal included the National Museum of Natural History and Science, Lisbon , and the Lisbon School for Hospitality and Tourism held a casting call for film extras. Filming sites in Spain included the Canary Islands . There were seventy days of production. Reshoots took place in New York in May and June 2016, ending in early June. Joe Berliger, director of

7857-453: The six Representatives to visit the military and municipal hospitals to see for themselves the number of Turkish soldiers and civilians who had been wounded during the recent disturbances. I accordingly requested Surgeon Tomlinson, of Her Majesty's ship "Imogene" , to make the round of the hospitals in company with Mr. Blech, of Her Majesty's Embassy... The hospital authorities made attempts to pass off wounded Christians as Mussulmans. Thus,

7954-671: The state, they came to be called the Hamidiye Alaylari (" Hamidian Regiments"). The Hamidiye and Kurdish brigands were given free rein to attack Armenians, confiscating stores of grain, foodstuffs, and driving off livestock, confident of escaping punishment as they were subjects of military courts only. Armenians established revolutionary organizations, namely the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (Hunchak; founded in Switzerland in 1887) and

8051-403: The studio into canceling the film, as it had done in the past with other productions. George stated that the film "would not exist" without Kerkorian, who gave approval to the script prior to his death in 2015, but did not live to see it filmed and finished. Kerkorian and co-producer Esrailian, the latter of whom had great-grandparents who lived through the genocide, organized Survival Pictures as

8148-602: The survivors just as ammunition and food provisions were running out. Five French ships, beginning with the protected cruiser Guichen , under the command of Captain Jean-Joseph Brisson , evacuated 3,004 women and children and over 1,000 men from Musa Dagh to safety in Port Said . The other French ships were the seaplane carrier Foudre , the protected cruiser D'Estrées , and the armored cruisers Amiral Charner and Dupleix . Starting in 1918, when

8245-445: The topic. He became involved with this project after reading Swicord's script, which his agent had sent to him. The entire $ 100 million budget was donated by Armenian-American Kirk Kerkorian , as Kerkorian did not have expectations of the film generating profits. As of 2017 the budget was the highest of any film about the Armenian genocide. The donation of the budget meant that the Turkish government would have been unable to pressure

8342-489: The town, the populace, aware of the impending danger, refused deportation and fell back upon Musa mountain, thwarting assaults for fifty-three days, from July to September 1915. One of the leaders of the revolt was Movses Der Kalousdian, whose Armenian first name was the same as that of the mountain. French warships of the 3rd Squadron in the Mediterranean under command of Vice Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet , sighted

8439-409: The victims on account of their age or gender, and as a result, they massacred all of the victims with brutal force. The telegraph spread news of the massacres around the world, leading to a significant amount of coverage of them in the media of Western Europe, Russian Empire and North America. The origins of the hostility towards the Armenians lay in the increasingly precarious position in which

8536-460: The violence ended – some Armenian women who were tracked down following the violence indicated that they preferred to remain with their Muslim husbands, many of whom had captured them during the raids and violence, rather than return and face shame within their communities. News of the Armenian massacres in the empire were widely reported in Europe and the United States and drew strong responses from foreign governments, humanitarian organizations, and

8633-545: The violence. While Ottoman officials claimed that these conversions were voluntary modern scholars, including Selim Deringil, have argued that the conversions were either directly forced or acts of desperation. Deringil notes that many Armenian men shifted swiftly from Christianity to Islam, seeking out circumcision and becoming prominent attendees of their local mosques, attending prayer multiple times each day. Women converted as well, and many chose to remain within Islam even after

8730-479: The widespread sympathy felt for Armenians in Europe. Herzl viewed the arrangement with the Abdul Hamid as temporary, and his services were in exchange for bringing about a more favorable Ottoman attitude toward Zionism . Through his contacts, he supported the publication of favorable impressions of the Ottoman Empire in European newspapers and magazines, while himself attempting (unsuccessfully) to mediate between

8827-537: The woes of the Ottoman Empire stemmed from "the endless persecutions and hostilities of the Christian world." He perceived that the Ottoman Armenians were an extension of foreign hostility, a means by which Europe could "get at our most vital places and tear out our very guts." Turkish historian and Abdul Hamid biographer Osman Nuri observed, "The mere mention of the word 'reform' irritated him [Abdul Hamid], inciting his criminal instincts." Upon hearing of

8924-529: The world". A movie of the same name was released in 1982. Six years after the novel was published, when Nazi Germany started conquering Europe, the copies of “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh” spread widely among young adults, some of whom found themselves in circumstances similar to those faced by Armenians. The book was popular in Warsaw ghetto and Vilna ghetto and when the Jewish resisters decided to fight back in

9021-404: Was about bringing the world's attention to this issue. And looking at the amount of conversation ... it's undeniable that there's been more focus and attention in the past two weeks than the past hundred years since the atrocity took place". The producers stated that they intended to give the profits to charitable organizations. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter characterized the film as

9118-700: Was killed reporting the Spanish Civil War in 1938. During Yeva's wedding reception in 1942, with the now grown Armenian orphans in attendance, Mikael presides over a toast, wishing good fortune to their families and future generations to come. Other actors in the film include Andrew Tarbet as Pastor Merrill, Aaron Neil as Talaat Pasha , Ozman Sirgood as Hasan Mazhar , Aharon Ipalé as Dr. Nazim, Lucía Zorrilla as Tamar, Roman Mitichyan as Van, Armin Amiri as Ali, Shnorhk Sargsyan as Komitas , Anthony Rotsa as Ahmet, Michael Stahl-David as Brad, Marco Khan as

9215-547: Was later changed to April 21, 2017. The final release date was meant to coincide on the same week with the day the Armenian genocide began, April 24. The film opened at 2,000 theaters. Zohrab Mnatsakanyan , at the time the Armenian government's representative to the United Nations, assisted with the New York City premiere. The film also aired elsewhere outside of the United States before April 21, catering to

9312-555: Was released by Open Road Films in the United States on April 21, 2017, on the 102nd anniversary of the week the genocide started. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office bomb , grossing just $ 12 million against its $ 90 million budget and losing Open Road over $ 100 million. However, the studio noted the main purpose of the film was to bring attention to the story, not make money, with George saying that "audiences learn more from films today than they do from history books." The film also features "The Promise" , which

9409-408: Was the final single released by Chris Cornell , who died less than a month after the film's U.S. release. Mikael Boghosian is an apothecary who lives in the small Armenian village of Siroun in the southeast part of Turkey , within the Ottoman Empire . In order to help pay the expenses for medical school, he promises to marry Maral, the daughter of an affluent neighbor, receiving 400 gold coins as

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