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summary
The young A. J. Toynbee was a special missioner of the British Foreign Office in the Near East when he met the Armenian genocide. His first publications relates him closely to the Armenian question of the Ottoman Empire. This phenomenon was probably the main cause of his turning point toward history, despite of his first interest in antique philology.
The Armenian question was present in his later works too: in his 'Study of history' Toynbee points out that Armenians and Turks both tried to set up an own model of modernisation's process, in the light of the western nationalism. The Armenians on the one hand were tempted by a French-, or Latin-type of westernization, the Turks on the other hand followed a German way of modernization. Thus, in the area of a muslim-dominated region where there was no enlightenment, tribal reasonings won aginst the minoritary Armenian "latinization".
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