In 1915, the Turkish government (Ittihad) began deporting and massacring the Christian Armenian population. Based on the evidence, the Turkish government committed genocide. Starting from the deportation of Armenian intellectuals, the government began to create blacklists, it began to try to justify the reasons for the deportation of civilians, other deportations to Der Zor and Ankara and the massacres of Armenian civilians and intellectuals, it began to remove the officials who did not respect what the government wanted, and some government officials made statements – mostly evasive, and some openly stated – showing how the Ottoman government was intent on destroying the Armenians. Before the government began massacring the Armenians, it deported the intellectuals and most influential people of Constantinople. According to Balakian, one of the secret measures adopted by the Turkish government to stop the fear of further dismemberment by Russia and the Armenians was: “To neutralize from the beginning any possible attempt at resistance, in one fell swoop the Turks arrested everyone the well-known Armenian intellectuals and leading activists…all those who were perceived as potential influences in a possible Armenian movement” (43). The arrest of all the famous Armenians demonstrates a very premeditated and concise plan to get rid of the Armenian population because the government had to research who it believed would cause them the most trouble and then locate the individuals. Furthermore, without these individuals, if Germany had lost the war – which they thought was a small possibility – there would have been no one to give a voice to the small surviving population. Another very calculated decision by the government was that of the blacks... paper... all the dirty work, but if one day their backs are against the wall and there is a day of reckoning, they will run away and we minor officials we will be trampled upon” (81). Asaf also shows the two a telegraph from Talaat which says: “Tele us immediately how many Armenians have already died and how many are still alive” (81). With the deportations of both intellectuals and civilians, blacklisting, justification of their crimes, the rooting out of non-compliant officials and the declaration of officials, there is evidence that the killings can be considered a genocide, rather than an unlikely coincidence of war. Government officials created a complex plan to get rid of the Armenian population. These calculated decisions by the Turkish government explain that they wanted to rid the world of Christian Armenians and that they would do anything to achieve this feat..