Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoganReuters

Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to Germany, in a sign of a growing crisis in ties after Berlin held an historic vote earlier in the day, recognizing the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 as a genocide.

It remains to be seen what further shape the Turkish backlash to the German recognition will take, but politicians in Ankara warned in the run-up to the vote that the recognition would seriously harm relations between the countries.

Back in April, Turkey similarly pulled its ambassador to Austria after the European nation recognized the Armenian genocide.

Turkey's fallout with Germany comes only a few months after Turkey and Russia had a massive falling out, due to Ankara shooting down a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border. Moscow responded with a wide-scale sanctions regime.

Russia also has recognized the Armenian genocide, angering NATO-member Turkey.

Over 20 nations have recognized the Armenian genocide - US President Barack Obama, however, has chosen not to recognize the genocide, despite an election promise he made during his 2008 presidential campaign to do so.

Over one-third of the Armenian population was massacred by the Turks between 1915 and 1917, in a campaign launched when Turkish authorities ordered the executions of much of the Armenian elite in Istanbul on April 24, 1915.

Men, women, and children were later murdered by various means, including through forced marches, starvation, and poison.

The Ottoman government set up some 25 concentration camps as well throughout the period, and mass graves of up to 60,000 people were found in some locations.