This thesis analyses the return of the relocated Armenians and resettlement of them in former their hometowns between the years 1918 and 1920, with special reference to the relative archival materials. Upon the permission given for their return on the last days of the World War I, most of the relocated Armenians did return either with the help of the Ottoman government or by their own means. The first chapter of the thesis is devoted to the preliminary developments which were influential in taking of the return decision by the Ottoman government. The following chapter elaborates the return of the Armenians from the relocation residences to their former hometowns. In the third chapter, the resettlement process and the government&rsquo / s attempts for care of the returnees are examined. Because it was completed in the most disastrous years of the Ottoman Empire, the return of the Armenians properly reflects the postwar Ottoman panorama with its administrative, financial and social aspects. The postwar Allied interference with and pressures on the Empire are also observable through the return and resettlement processes.

ABSTRACT SYRIAN ARMENIANS DURING THE LAST DECADES OF THE NINETEETNH AND THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURIES MemiS, Serife (Eroglu) MS, Department of Middle East Studies Supervisor: Prof. Dr. &Ouml / mer Turan December 2007, 161 pages This thesis analyses the situation of the Syrian Armenians during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries. The central position of the Provinces of Aleppo and Damascus, parts of today&rsquo / s Syria, for both the Armenian communities of Aleppo and Damascus and the Ottoman Empire are the main incentives that determine the focus of this study as Syrian Armenians. Apart from the representation of the social, economic, political, religious, cultural and educational life of the Armenian communities in the Provinces of Aleppo and Damascus, the thesis also includes information about the situation of them during the relocation process. Within this context, the thesis also includes information representing the issue of Armenian Question in a different aspect since untouched fields of research, the cases of Aleppine and Damascene Armenians, provide some similarities and differences with the Armenian community&rsquo / s situation in the Ottoman Empire before World War I and during the relocation process.