The Committee of Union and Progress took the reins of the Ottoman government through a coup d'état in 1913.[2] At the height of World War I and during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, when the ethnic cleansing policies of non-Muslim Greek, Armenian, and Assyrian minorities were underway, Minister of War Enver Pasha issued an edict (ferman) on October 6, 1916, declaring:[3][4][5][6][7]