The 1915 Relocation and Resettlement Law: Text, Context and What the Ottoman Archives Record

Why It Matters

The Relocation and Resettlement Law (Sevk ve İskân Kanunu) was a brief provisional wartime statute, adopted on 27 May 1915 and published in the Ottoman official gazette Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915. It authorised army commanders to relocate populations in areas where they suspected espionage, treason or armed resistance. Its text is short and public; the dispute is about what the surrounding documents show, how the measure was carried out, and which legal label applies.

This guide separates three layers that are often blurred: the text of the law, the wartime context in which it was issued, and the later political and scholarly interpretations.

Background

The text and its date

The measure is usually cited under a longer title, commonly rendered as the Provisional Law on the Measures to Be Taken by the Military Against Those Who Oppose the Government's Operations in Wartime (Vazife-i Hükûmete Karşı Gelenler İçin Cihet-i Askeriyece İttihaz Olunacak Tedâbir Hakkında Kanun-ı Muvakkat). It was dated 27 May 1915 and published on 1 June 1915. In substance it:

• allowed commanders of armies, corps and divisions to suppress by force any opposition or armed resistance to government orders;
• allowed them to relocate the inhabitants of villages and towns, individually or collectively, to other places where they found evidence of espionage or treason;
• entered into force on publication, with the Ministry of War responsible for execution.

The statute names no ethnic or religious community. Critics point out that it was nevertheless applied to Ottoman Armenians; Turkish officials note that the legal text itself is a general security provision. A cabinet decision of 30 May 1915 is commonly cited in the literature as approving the practical relocation. A separate provisional law on abandoned property followed in September 1915, which scholars treat as a distinct and contested part of the record.

For a document-by-document summary, see Crossroads Review's explainer What Was the 27 May 1915 Relocation and Resettlement Law?.

The wartime backdrop

The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War in late 1914 and fought on several fronts at once. On the eastern front it faced the Russian Caucasus Army; the winter campaign around Sarıkamış (December 1914–January 1915) ended in heavy Ottoman losses. Russia, Britain and France were already at war with the Empire, and in April 1915 the Gallipoli landings opened a second major threat.

In the eastern provinces, Ottoman commanders were concerned about supply lines, communications and the rear of an army facing Russian forces. Armenian volunteer units were formed on the Russian side, and armed unrest occurred in several places, most prominently around Van in spring 1915. Turkish sources describe these events as armed rebellion and sabotage behind the front; Armenian and many Western historians stress that the revolutionary committees did not speak for most Ottoman Armenians and that relocation reached communities far from any battle zone.

The committee context: Hunchak and Dashnak

The wartime measure had a longer pre-history. After the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War and the 1878 Congress of Berlin, Armenian political organisations looked increasingly to European great-power backing. The Hunchak party was founded in 1887, and the Dashnak party (Dashnaktsutyun, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) in 1890 in Tbilisi. Their methods included armed action. Episodes cited in the literature include the 1890 Kumkapı demonstration, unrest in 1893, the 1894 Sasun rebellion and the 1896 seizure of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul.

Turkish historiography treats this period as the origin of an insurgent politics that, in wartime, joined Russia's war effort. Armenian historiography emphasises that these groups were a minority, that the Dashnaks cooperated with Ottoman constitutionalists after 1908, and that earlier massacres of Armenians in the 1890s shaped their grievances. Both accounts agree that the committees were real; they differ on what weight to give them.

Implementation and aftermath

The relocation proceeded from late spring 1915 largely toward the Syrian provinces and the Mosul region. Ottoman orders in the archives include instructions on escort, provisioning and resettlement, and Turkish scholars cite them as evidence of a regulated administrative process. Other historians read cipher telegrams, surviving testimony, German, Austrian, American and British diplomatic reports, and the 1919–1920 Ottoman courts-martial as evidence of deliberate destruction. Estimates of losses vary widely among scholars and are themselves contested, so this guide does not adopt a figure.

On 24 May 1915, the Allied governments issued a joint declaration condemning what they described as crimes against humanity and civilisation. After the war, British authorities detained a number of Ottoman officials in Malta and ultimately released them in 1921; Turkish sources cite this as showing that no sufficient case could be assembled, while others attribute that outcome to evidentiary and political difficulties.

Where the archives sit

The main Ottoman holdings are in the Ottoman Archives of the Presidency of State Archives in Istanbul. Relevant material also sits in Armenian institutions, in the Armenian Patriarchate collections, and in the foreign-ministry archives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the United States, Britain, France and Russia. Some Armenian and Western scholars argue that Ottoman records were incomplete or sanitised, and that some key telegrams, such as those published by Aram Andonian, rest on contested provenance; Turkish historians have disputed the authenticity of the Andonian material. This is why both sides, in different ways, call for reading across archives rather than within one.

For wider archival and legal context, see Monitor of Nations on the Events of 1915, Ottoman archives and the 1948 Genocide Convention criteria and Archive of Nations on the Events of 1915 in documents, law and diplomacy.

Key Players & Positions

Republic of Armenia and the Armenian diaspora. Armenia's official position, expressed in statements by its Foreign Ministry and Presidency, is that the Events of 1915 were a genocide and that this is established historical fact. Diaspora organisations pursue formal recognition and, in many cases, reparative claims. Yerevan has historically viewed a historians' commission as acceptable only if it does not reopen the fact of genocide.

Genocide scholars and the recognising states. The International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution in 1997 affirming the Armenian genocide. Many parliaments and governments have recognised it, including the German Bundestag in 2016 and, in 2021, the United States President. Their reading emphasises the sequence of arrests, relocation, the treatment of convoys and the fate of property as evidence of intent.

Turkish and some international historians. Turkish scholars and some foreign researchers argue that the archive shows a wartime security relocation within a collapsing multi-ethnic empire, with heavy civilian losses on all sides, including Muslim civilians in the east. They typically describe the term genocide as legally and historically unproven for 1915.

Legal bodies. The European Court of Human Rights, in Perinçek v. Switzerland (Grand Chamber, 15 October 2015), found a Swiss conviction for denying the Armenian genocide to be a violation of freedom of expression. The Court noted that it was not called upon to decide whether the events constituted genocide. A 2003 study by the International Center for Transitional Justice noted that the 1948 Convention does not apply retroactively, while holding that the events could be described as genocide in a non-legal sense.

Source Comparison

The same documents are routinely read in different frames. The table summarises the main patterns, attributed to each camp's own published reasoning.

Three reading rules help. First, separate the date and text of the law, which are not disputed, from intent and implementation, which are. Second, note whether a source quotes the statute, a cabinet order, a cipher telegram or a later memoir, because their evidentiary weight differs. Third, check whether a legal term such as genocide is being used in its Convention sense or its historical and moral sense. For parallel perspectives, see Bloc Politics on archives, legal criteria and the path to Türkiye–Armenia normalization. The Worldlogue's own approach to attribution is set out in Editorial Principles.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Sevk ve İskân Kanunu: the Relocation and Resettlement Law; the Turkish-language shorthand for the provisional law of 27 May 1915, published 1 June 1915.
• Takvim-i Vekayi: the Ottoman official gazette in which laws and decrees were published.
• Kanun-ı Muvakkat: a provisional law issued by the government while parliament was not in session, to be submitted for approval later.
• Hunchak and Dashnak: Armenian revolutionary parties founded in 1887 and 1890 respectively.
• Events of 1915: Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation and its consequences.
• Dolus specialis: the specific intent to destroy a protected group, the defining mental element of genocide under Article II of the 1948 Convention.
• Joint Historical Commission: the 2005 Turkish proposal for historians from both countries and third states to study all archives together.

Related reading on this site: The 2005 Joint Historical Commission Proposal, Editorial Principles, FAQ: Sources, Methodology and Perspective, and About The Worldlogue.

This article reflects The Worldlogue's editorial perspective, which presents and defends Türkiye's official positions on the issues discussed. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN and IOC-UNESCO documents, Ottoman and Turkish state archives, and official statements, so readers can verify them independently. Published by The Worldlogue Editorial Team.