Editing Armenian genocide (section)

===End of World War I===
[[File:Armenian Genocide deaths.svg|thumb|upright=1.3|Percent of prewar Armenian population unaccounted for in 1917 based on Talaat Pasha's record. Black indicates that 100 percent of Armenians have disappeared. Resettlement zone is displayed in red.|alt=Eastern Anatolia is all close to black, but western Anatolia is more varied.]]
Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued.{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=330}} Both contemporaries{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=721}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=20}} and later historians have estimated that around 1&nbsp;million Armenians [[Casualties of the Armenian genocide|died during the genocide]],{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=1}}{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=35}} with figures ranging from 600,000 to 1.5 million deaths.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}} Between 800,000 and 1.2&nbsp;million Armenians were deported,{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|pp=354–355}} and contemporaries estimated that by late 1916 only 200,000 were still alive.{{sfn|Morris|Ze'evi|2019|p=486}} As the [[British Army]] advanced in 1917 and 1918 [[Sinai and Palestine campaign|northwards through the Levant]], they liberated around 100,000 to 150,000 Armenians working for the Ottoman military under abysmal conditions, not including those held by Arab tribes.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2020|pp=151–152}}

As a result of the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] and the subsequent [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|separate peace with the Central Powers]], the Russian army withdrew and Ottoman forces advanced into eastern Anatolia.{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=148–149}} The [[First Republic of Armenia]] was proclaimed in May 1918, at which time 50 percent of its population were refugees and 60 percent of its territory was under Ottoman occupation.{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=150–151}} Ottoman troops withdrew from parts of Armenia following the October 1918 [[Armistice of Mudros]].{{sfn|Payaslian|2007|pp=152–153}} From 1918 to 1920, Armenian militants committed revenge killings of thousands of Muslims, which have been cited as a retroactive excuse for genocide.{{sfn|Kieser|2018|p=367}}{{sfn|Suny|2015|p=342}} In 1918, at least 200,000 people in Armenia, mostly refugees, died from starvation or disease, in part due to a Turkish blockade of food supplies{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=706}} and the deliberate destruction of crops in eastern Armenia by Turkish troops, both before and after the armistice.{{sfn|Shirinian|2017|p=24}}

Armenians organized a coordinated effort known as ''[[vorpahavak]]'' ({{lit|the gathering of orphans}}) that reclaimed thousands of kidnapped and Islamized Armenian women and children.{{sfn|Ekmekçioğlu|2013|pp=534–535}} Armenian leaders abandoned traditional [[patrilineality]] to classify children born to Armenian women and their Muslim captors as Armenian.{{sfn|Ekmekçioğlu|2013|pp=530, 545}} An orphanage in [[Alexandropol]] held 25,000 orphans, the largest number in the world.{{sfn|de Waal|2015|p=76}} In 1920, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople reported it was caring for 100,000 orphans, estimating that another 100,000 remained captive.{{sfn|Kévorkian|2011|p=759}}