On Their Way to the Desert

Just what happened between the Turks and Armenians 100 years ago, and why? That area of Europe was embroiled in World War I at the time, so was it genocide or not, and why is that in dispute? Is it a matter of semantics? Armenia says 1.5 million died and that it was genocide; Turkey says it was more like 300,000 and that it wasn't. It was in 1915 that the Ottoman Turks ordered the mass deportation of ethnic Armenians from the, at that time, multi-ethnic Anatolia, in the eastern part of Turkey, to the Syrian desert and elsewhere. Their property was confiscated, and most of those who weren't killed died from starvation or disease. At more or less the same time, btw (during the war years and a little after), the Greek and Assyrian communities of that area were similarly decimated. Currently, 20 countries have formally recognized the events of those years as an Armenian genocide (Q&A): http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16352745