During World War I, the Armenian Genocide was a campaign of deportation and mass killing conducted against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government. Armenians charge that the campaign was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Armenian people and, thus, an act of genocide. The Turkish government has resisted calls to recognize it as such, contending that, although atrocities took place, there was no official policy of extermination implemented against the Armenian people as a group. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians died during this first major genocide of the 20th century.