The Ottoman Revolution of July 1908 was a major turning point in the history of modern Turkey. According to the promises made to the Christians, which had supported the revolution of the Young Turks, the new regime was supposed to redress their social status and bring up Turkey to the standard of civilized nations, where all citizens would enjoy similar fundamental rights.
However, soon, the Adana massacres of April 1909 inaugurated a pattern of extermination that shattered all hopes of reform.
Hagop Babiguian, an Armenian member of the Ottoman Parliament for the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad), was one of the MPs commissioned by the Parliament to report about the massacres. On his return, and on the eve of the presentation of his report, he died in mysterious circumstances. The report was never presented or read and allegedly disappeared. A French translation was confidentially published and reprinted in 1913, from which an Armenian translation was made and published in 1919. This English version of this important document about the Adana massacres has been translated by Dr. A. B. Gureghian.
