"The Van uprising certainly was an act of desperation. The local Armenians realized that general massacres against the Armenians had already started and they would be the next target. In the course of the summer 1915 the Turkish government with inexorable consequence brought its bloody task of extermination of an entire nation to an end...The gruesome destruction of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor by the Ittihadist government was an act which was barbaric and which to the highest degree outrages all human senses."