This article presents the results of a comparative study on media narratives of the « Armenian massacre » and « German atrocities » in the French Canadian press during the Great War. What are the specificities of these events’ narratives pertaining to the definition and qualification of crimes perpetrated against the civilian population ? The use of computerized text data tools allowed us to process 1,172 newspaper articles in order to identify and compare the terms used to inscribe the « German atrocities » committed on civilians on the Western front in 1914 and the « Armenian massacre » in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916. This comparative analysis of acts of extreme violence against civilian populations should supports our hypothesis that contemporaries understood the systematic, intentional, and radical character of crimes being committed by Ottoman authorities against the Armenian population.