420) Armenians Fighting on the Side of the Allies

It is unfathomable that pro-genocide forces still insist today there was no Armenian rebellion, even though Armenian leaders of the period are on record attesting to their treachery... as most of these Armenians originated from the Ottoman Empire, at one time or another. Even in lands where they had established "colonies," they were still regarded as "Turkish Armenians," as the New York Times article, "The Black Company," made clear. In other words, the Armenians still keep insisting the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were all lambs led to the slaughter, when even their own historians' evidence exposes them. . . .

Here is an Armenian source, giving us further illumination of the poor, innocent Armenians serving — in Boghos Nubar's words — as "belligerents de facto." Let's now hear from Vazkene Aykouni, in beginning excerpts of his fifth chapter entitled, "A Brief Sketch of Armenian History," as appearing in Armenian Affairs Magazine, circa 1950

After the article will be a presentation of official communications from foreign diplomats outlining the Armenians' treachery.


A Brief Sketch of Armenian History
Mainly from French Studies (as translated by Edward Nadir)

By VAZKENE AYKOUNI

V. ON THE SIDE OF THE ALLIES

From the beginning of the war Armenian volunteers were organized into legions in the Caucasus, in Russian Armenia, with Andranik, the famous revolutionary partisan Armenian leader, and other generals in command. According to official statistics, thirteen per cent of the entire Armenian population participated in active warfare, on various fronts, on the side of the Allies. The total number of Armenians fighting with the Russians exceeded 250,000 men.

"There are so many students, both males and females," wrote the Gazette de La Bourse, "who run away from home to join the groups of Armenian volunteers that it is assuming the proportions of an epidemic. Recently, seven students of the senior class of a school of commerce in Alexandropol ran away to go to the front. One of them, a fifteen-year-old boy, who had been forced to return, complained with tears in his eyes that he had not been accepted, and added that he would go back regardless, and if rejected again would commit suicide. . . . In the Armenian Seminary of Echmiadzin not a single day passed without noticeable absences; as soon as war was declared, all the students of the seventh grade enlisted in Andranik’s volunteer corps . . . Armenian women also did not remain inactive. 'Linen Week,' at Kars and Alexandropol, sufficiently proves to what extent they are capable of aid. In Kars alone, a town of 20,000, two railroad cars filled with linen, tobacco and furs had been collected, and even gold jewelry, which the women generously contributed with tears in their beautiful eyes. . . . A poor old Armenian woman who, in my presence, heard of the heroic death of her only son, struck her belly and shouted ‘may it be cursed for being no longer capable of bearing children for our glorious army!' "

Armenians also fought on other fronts. When at the end of 1918 the Legion d’Orient, created in November 1916 in Cyprus by Colonel Romieu, was divided into the Armenian Legion and the Syrian Legion, the former included, said Gustave Gautherot, "four Armenian battallions [sic], a platoon of 37’s and a company of engineers in formation: that is, fifty officers and 3,660 men (of which 288 were French). There were also eight officers and seven hundred men in the Cyprus base, and, in the Twenty-first and Twenty-third Syrian Company assigned to remain in Syria, five officers and 546 men.
On 11 December 1918, a French battalion formed of 400 Armenians entered Dörtyol. . . . On December 17, 1918 a French unit led by Lieutenant Colonel Romieu landed in Mersin. In the 1,500-man unit there were only 150 French soldiers. The others were Armenian legions.

Kamuran Gurun, The Armenian File

===============

"...[I]n November, 1916, a new outlet for the revenge-hungry Armenians was provided by the French government. Negotiations of Boghos Nubar with French political and military authorities culminated in the formation of the Légion d’Orient, an auxiliary force made up of Armenians and Syrians of Ottoman origin. Ninety-five percent Armenian in composition, the Légion included refugees, former prisoners of war, and permanent residents of Egypt, America, and Europe. Under the command of General Edmund Allenby, the Légion, fighting in Palestine, Syria, and finally Cilicia, won the plaudits of Clemenceau’s government and its Entente allies."

Richard G. Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence,' 1967


Armenians from the USA arriving at Port Said, probably by the end of
1917, wearing the khaki uniform of the French Foreign Legion. One source
says 2,000 came via the USA. Perhaps 4,000 of the Musa Dagh fighters
also were transported by the French to Port Said.







Seven hundred and fifty Armenian volunteers—former prisoners of the Turks, expatriates, emaciated—arrived in Beirut on October 31, in the most miserable condition and had themselves constituted into the Tenth Company. . . . These were joined by eighty-six new volunteers recruited (December 2) in Damascus and were in the same sorry state. The surplus men of the Tenth Company were to form with the seven hundred, also untrained, of the Cyprus base, the Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Companies. Thus a new battalion would be constituted."[12] The Fourth Battalion later took over the Twenty-first Armenian Company of Castellorizo.

"Indeed, the Armenian of the Legion," continued Mr. Gautherot, "possessed outstanding qualities for a soldier. Intelligent, educated, often having had a substantial position in civilian life, he showed remarkable capacities for rapid training; fond of handling arms and of military drill, he was proud of his uniform."[13]

The October 10, 1918 communiqué published in the Temps was, moreover, full of praise for the Armenian soldiers, "who were taking an active part in the liberation of Syrian territories," and who had "shown the best military qualities and the highest courage."


Allenby with Iraq's King
Faisal in 1920

This is the telegram sent by General E. Allenby to the Armenian National Delegation, October 12, 1918: "I am proud to have an Armenian contingent under my command. They have fought brilliantly and contributed largely to our victory."

Thousands of Armenians also volunteered for service in the armies of their adopted countries—in France, in America, in England, and served the Allied cause wholeheartedly and unselfishly.

However, Armenian blood was not shed only on the battlefield. Full mobilization having been decreed over the whole Ottoman empire, it affected all the subjects without any distinction of race or creed. Had not the Sultan already signed for the "reforms," and had he not solemnly pledged to apply them without delay?

So Armenians in Turkey, in the military-age group, as their compatriots elsewhere, donned army and work battalion uniforms. But they were never armed. In Turkey, unlike elsewhere, they were doomed without a chance: "by the hundreds, by the thousands, these poor men were sent to deserted spots and shot. Those who are spared are subjected to hard labor, and one by one fall dead."[14]



12. La France en Sync et en Cilicie, pp. 138-139.
13. Ibid., p. 135.
14. René Pinon, La Suppression des Arméniens, p. 29.


Comments




As with all pro-Armenian history, one must take a fine-toothed comb and go through the sludge in order to pick the nuggets of true historical value. It's despicable what this so-called historian claims in the latter two paragraphs. Of course the Armenians were armed. Enver Pasha was counting heavily on 50,000 Ottoman-Armenians in the life-or-death struggle that was to follow for the nation's existence, where every able-bodied man was needed to ward off the mighty world powers threatening all fronts. (That is what Aykouni was getting at when he wrote full mobilization affected everyone "without any distinction of race or creed.")

...[T]he general Congress of Dashnakstsutiun, sitting in Erzerum in the autumn of 1914, had been offered autonomy by Turkish emissaries, if it would actually assist Turkey in the war.

Akaby Nassibian, “Britain and the Armenian Question, 1915-1923,� 1984, p. 107; in other words, the Turks were hoping to enlist the aid of their own Armenian citizens in the desperate battle-for-survival to follow, and were hoping to tempt them with a fuller autonomy than the one they already possessed as a separate millet, that Richard Hovannisian himself pointed to in 1967. Let's have the rare honest Armenian historian explain what happened:

When the world war broke out in Europe, the Turks began feverish preparations for joining hands with the Germans. In August 1914 the young Turks asked the Dashnag Convention, then in session in Erzurum, to carry out their old agreement of 1907 and start an uprising among the Armenians of the Caucasus against the Russian government. The Dashnagtzoutune refused to do this and gave assurance that in the event of war between Russia and Turkey, they would support Turkey as loyal citizens. On the other hand, they could not be held responsible for the Russian Armenians.. The fact remains, however, that the leaders of the Turkish-Armenian section of the Dashnagtzoutune did not carry out their promise of loyalty to the Turkish cause when the Turks entered the war. The Dashnagtzoutune in the Caucasus had the upper hand. They were swayed in their actions by the interests of the Russian government and disregarded, entirely, the political dangers that the war had created for the Armenians in Turkey. Prudence was thrown to the winds; even the decision of their own convention of Erzurum was forgotten and a call was sent for Armenian volunteers to fight the Turks on the Caucasus front. [K.S. Papazian, from Patriotism Perverted (pg. 37)]

Once the Armenians who were conscripted deserted to the enemy in droves with their weapons, and demonstrated other acts of treachery, naturally their weapons were going to be taken away from them. They were assigned to the engineering corps, serving in labor battalions... since they had to do something. Would it have been better to get sent to the front, to die?

Of course, some of these troops were mistreated, and some actually were massacred by revengeful renegades. But as is often the case with this deceitfully told genocide tale, it is only the suffering of the Armenians that are paid note to. The fact of the matter is, Turkish soldiers were in an absolutely wretched state, as even these pro-Armenian sources testify.





Now we don't know how true it is, but since this "historian" is assuring us his claims are based on "official figures," how interesting that he has gone over and above Boghos Nubar's claims regarding the totals of Armenians who served as fighters. (Nubar: 190,000-200,000. Aykouni: over 250,000.) He also tells us this number constituted 13% of what he must have meant (with "entire") as the worldwide Armenian population. Was Aykouni trying to tell us the worldwide population was around one million less (at some 2 million) than what it really was, about 3 million? That wouldn't make sense, as Armenians like to claim there were more than 3 million at the time, usually 4 million and up. But that's what it sounds like, doesn't it?

That's really quite some comment by the Armenian lady who lamented the fact that her womb could no longer incubate future Armenian warriors!

The reality is as such: most of the Armenian fighters originated from the Ottoman Empire. As one example, here is the scoop behind how Armenians from just one province (Sivas) betrayed their nation.

The Armenians declared war on their nation. They lost; so they decided to make a "genocide" out of it, in very much an "unmanly" way... instead of facing up to their responsibilities.
Documents outlining the war paint of the Armenians





The Armenians had their war paint on even before war began, in all corners of the Empire, according to other hostile foreign diplomats. Just two of many examples:



"The Armenians of Deurt-yol [Dortyol-Mersin] are now well armed with modern rifles, every male adult having one in his possession."

British Consul Ralph Fontana in Aleppo to his government, Oct. 21, 1913, FO, 371/1773, No. 52128

"One of the leaders.., Boghos Nubar Pasha, has represented to me that the Armenian population of Cilicia would be ready to enroll themselves as volunteers in support of a possible disemberkation at Alexandretta, Mersina, or Adana on the part of the allied forces...."

Mr. Chetham to Sir Edward Grey, Nov. 12, 1914, FO, 371/2146, No. 70404

"David Tehermoff, a fairly wealthy man and an Armenian friend..informed me that the Armenians in Russia and Turkey were extremely anxious that war would break out between Russia and Turkey, as in that event the Armenians both in Russia and Turkey would endeavour to avenge themselves on the Turks....He also stated that 60,000 Armenians, in the Caucasun on the frontier had already volunteered to fight the Turks in the event of war breaking out...Their great ideal is to obtain freedom of Armenian under the protection of Russia."

Mr. Kinby to the English government, Nov. 6, 1914, FO, 371/2146, No. 68443

"Monsieur Varandian, delegate of Armenian Committee...requested me to ask you to utilise services of 20,000 Armenian volunteers to operate a descent upon the coast of Cilicia in region of Alexandretta. Half of the troops are ready in America rest the Balkans. Cyprus is suggested as base. Armenian committee hope that by their cooperating in conquest of this region they will secure its being placed under British protection."

Sir H. Bax to the English government, March 3, 1915, FO/, 371/2484. no. 25167


Armenian troops in the Ottoman Army


In Armenian web sites, I've been reading how mistreated the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Empire were; they add there were 100,000 such soldiers (an invented number, says a Turkish source). As always, such writers never look at the other side of the equation.... it's only the Armenians who are victimized.

I further examined the topic in the Burning Tigris page... since Peter Balakian predictably wrote, "the Armenian men in “the army were disarmed, thrown into labor battalions and then the army began an organized plan of massacring most of the Armenian (troops).�


"According to the terms of the Constitution of 1908, the government of Enver could indeed mobilize the Armenians as well as the Turks in age to be in the armed forces. But an armed opposition started immediately, notably in Zeytoun. At the oriental border, the Armenians began to desert to pass in the Russian armies and the government of Enver, doubtful of the loyalty of those that stayed, separated them from the fighting forces to allocate them to battalions of engineers... In April, 1915, Lord Bryce and ’Friends of Armenia’, in London, began to collect money to arm these deserters. One can’t claim that the Russians remained indifferent in front of the supplement of these volunteers. Finally, at the end of April, they seized Van... And, having massacred the Turkish population, they delivered what remained of the city to the Russian army..."

Clair Price, "The rebirth of Turkey", New York, 1923

So what happened to these Armenian soldiers? There were times their weapons were taken away when it was learned their people were stabbing the nation in the back during the nation's darkest hour... and these soldiers were assigned to backbreaking labor, treated as animals. So say the Armenians. Makes me wonder how the Turkish soldiers were treated... perhaps they were given access to the pool at the Holiday Inn.


"Underfed, misused, paid but little and that rarely, ragged and dirty, these Turkish troops were as wretched in their liberty as we were in our captivity."

Harold Armstrong, British POW, “Turkey in Travail,� 1925, p. 23

"Even before the war many Turkish troops had been in the most wretched condition. In 1916 some were fighting with ‘no overcoats and no boots’..."

Akaby Nassibian, “Britain and the Armenian Question, 1915-1923,� 1984, p. 121

"...[E]ven the Moslems suffered. I felt sorry for these recruits. They were such a miserable, submissive lot, just resigned to their kismet. They never joked or laughed. Some of them were barefooted. They lived on bean soup and brown bread, but the soup was like dishwater, and lucky was the man who fished out a bean. They were starving."

Leon Surmelian, "I Ask You Ladies and Gentlemen," 1945, pp. 74-5.

“The Turkish soldier...was not protected from heat and cold, nor from sickness.�

Dr. C. D. Ussher, American ABCFM missionary and physician in Van, whose memoirs were the basis for the film, ARARAT



As a witness for the defense in the trial of Talat Pasha's Armenian assassin, General Liman Von Sanders asserted: "...The economic situation was so dismal that not only many Armenians, but thousands of Turkish soldiers as well died of the lack of food supplies, disease, and other consequences of poor organization in the Turkish government. In my division alone, after the battle of Gallipoli, thousands died of malnutrition."

Some Armenians claim these soldiers of Armenian origin were massacred. Of course. The Armenians and their sympathizers would say that.

Not to say some were not massacred; Vehib Pasha, for example, hanged a few of the criminals who killed many Armenian troops under their command. The question is... were these Armenian troops killed as a matter of policy? For example, hostile sources like this missionary and U.S. Consul Leslie Davis (See "P. 181") have reported Armenian troop movements over long distances. If the idea was to kill these Armenian soldiers, it wouldn't make sense to transport them to and fro, all the way up until the end of the war, if the idea was to liquidate them.

Interestingly, the officers, soldiers and their families were exempt from the relocations. Also exempt were the ill, the blind, Catholic and Protestant Armenians (the ones the missionaries succeeded in converting), and "merchants," along with some "workers and masters." Telegrams examined by Prof. Dr. Yusuf Halacoglu (in "Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915)," TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001) also request the ill, the blind, the disabled and the old to be settled in the city centers. As this information comes from a Turkish source, can it be trusted? Well, somebody had to go through the telegrams and interpret them... the professor cites the source for each of these (2. Coding Office, no 54-A/271; no 54-A / 272 [July 22nd 1331/ August 4th 1915] and 3. Coding Office, no 56/27; no 67/186), so he could be called on his research; it's doubtful he would be misrepresenting the facts. Whether the instructions were always faithfully carried out was another thing... but these telegrams certainly reveal what lay at the heart of the Ottoman officials. And it sure doesn't sound like genocide.


"...[T]he Armenian troops under Emperor Romanus IV had deserted the field of battle.

Professor Turkkaya Ataov, from a paper examining What Happened to the Ottoman Armenians.

How loyal were the Armenian troops to their own country?

Commandant M. Larcher, in his 1926 book ("La Guerre Turque dans la Guerre Mondiale") wrote, "the loyalty of the Armenians recruited in the Turkish troops seemed doubtful."

Rafael de Nogales, in his 1926 book ("Four Years Beneath the Crescent") wrote that Garo Pasdermadjian, the Armenian deputy in the Ottoman parliament, "passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians...burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Musulman villagers that fell into their hands."

"The altogether unjustifiable desertion of the Armenian troops, united to the outrages they committed outwards, on their return,...did not fail to alarm the Turks and rouse their fear lest the rest of the Armenian population in the frontier provinces of Van and Erzurum revolt likewise, and attack them with the sword. This indeed is precisely what happened." (See below.)

"The army consisted of Turkish subjects of all nationalities, being drafted just as ours are drafted. At the front the Armenians used blank cartridges and deserted in droves," wrote Arthur Tremaine Chester, in his The New York Times Current History article (Feb.1923), "Angora and the Turks."

"Armenian conscripts deserted the Ottoman Army with their weapons and gears to join the advancing Russian troops in Eastern borders of the Empire. This, as verified from both the Russian and the Armenian sources, is about 30,000 troops. Russians acknowledged the great service of these troops and their Armenian commanders in making occupation of the Eastern provinces much easier," wrote Dr. Tunch M. Kuzay, in a January 31, 2000 letter to the editor of The London Daily Telegraph


"Committees (Armenians) divided on internal questions came to an agreement to facilitate the advance of the Russian armies: they used to hamper the retreat of the Turkish troops, to stop supply convoys, to form franc-tireurs bands. There were desertions en masse in the eastern provinces, the Armenians formed thus several battalions supervised by Russian officers. Local revolts took place here and there; the leaders showed the example ; two Armenian representatives of the Turkish Chamber ran away to Russia. This created a whole lot of hatred literature: ’let the Turkish mothers lament... Let us try to make the Turk suffer some bitterness ...’ Armenian fault does not make any doubt."

Philippe de Zara, "Mustafa Kemal, the dictator", Paris, 1936, pages 159-160


According to Prof. Yusuf Halacoglu ("Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement [1915]," TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001), Fifty thousand (50,000) Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman Army joined the Russian forces; the letter of an Armenian called Murad Muradyan provides evidence. Thousands of others might have even traveled to America to be trained in the U.S. Army. Probably the immigration gates to America were thrown wide open to help the fellow Christians who seemed to be so persecuted. A tradesman in the United States sent a letter to the Chieftain of Security on January 19, 1915 and stated that thousands of Armenians migrated to the U.S.A., facing hunger and hardships.


What about this connection with Armenians from America? In a December 15, 1915 story from The New York Times, penned by Gregory Mason (entitled, " The Black Company"): "By the 15th of last October 26,000 Turkish Armenians had taken the field against their ancient overloads, and 15,000 more were drilling at Tiflis, these groups being entirely distinct from the 75,000 Russian Armenians that had already been welded into the Czar's army. Fully 2,800 of these Turkish Armenians had been contributed by the Armenian colony in the United States. At the time this article goes to press it is safe to state all of the above figures with a twenty-five per cent increase."

("The Armenian colony"... that's how Richard Hovannisian referred to Armenian-Americans in his The Republic of Armenia. Really, Do Greeks and Armenians Make True Americans?)

That would have made 3,550 Turkish Armenians from America... if the author estimated a 25% increase in only two months, you can bet that 3,550 figure grew even larger in the months ahead. But where did all of these Armenian-Turks come from?



AMERICAN NUMBERS

The Canadian records show that 1,244 Armenians had come from Turkey between 1912 and 1914 (Imre Ferenczi, International Migration, Vol. 1, New York, 1929, p. 891).

In the same period, 34,136 Armenians emigrated to the United States, all of them from Turkey (Robert Mirak, Armenian Emigration to the U.S. to 1915).

From Kamuran Gurun

Say, that's an awful lot of Armenians who emigrated before the big, bad "genocide" year, wasn't it? After 1914, you can bet the 34,000 number swelled up to a much higher figure, what with America's Near East Relief taking care of their beloved Armenians. And this doesn't take into account the Armenians who left for other countries, around this period, all from the Ottoman Empire. Maybe... maybe the remaining Armenians within the Ottoman Empire after the "Genocide" reached its lower figure, not because the Armenians were "exterminated," but... but... because they left the country?


Non-Armenian sources for the numbers of Armenians

Don't forget, Armenians themselves claim a million Armenians survived the "genocide." So if we have a pre-war Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire of 1.0 to 1.5 million (all based on neutral sources; see the census page), with an average median figure of 1.3 million (which just happens to be the number from the Ottoman census), figure the difference of Armenian dead. (1.3 million minus 1 million survivors.) HOWEVER, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE ARMENIANS WHO EMIGRATED BEFORE 1915? The above figures for Canada and the United States are from up until 1914; by 1915, the combined total of over 35,000 no doubt increased... now add to that the number of Armenians who emigrated to France and to other countries. Before the "genocide" began, would it be reasonable to assume at least 100,000 Armenians had slipped away? Then the calculation to figure the number of dead Armenians becomes 1.2 million minus the 1 million survivors.
Ottoman-Armenian Troops Defect to the Enemy


After hostilities had actually commenced, the Deputy to the Assembly for Erzurum, Garo Pasdermichan, passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians; to return with them soon after, burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Mussulman villagers that fell into their hands. These bloody excesses had as their necessary corollary the immediate disarmament by the Ottoman authorities of the gendarmes and other Armenian soldiers who still remained in the army (probably because they had been unable to escape) and the utilization of their labour in the construction of highways and in carrying provisions back and forth across the mountains. The altogether unjustifiable desertion of the Armenian troops, united to the outrages they committed afterwards, on their return, in the sectors of BashKaleh, Serail, and Bayacet, did not fail to alarm the Turks and rouse their fear lest the rest of the Armenian population in the frontier provinces of Van and Erzurum revolt likewise, and attack them with the sword. This indeed is precisely what happened a few weeks after my coming, when the Armenians of the vilayet of Van rose en masse against our expeditionary army in Persia; thus giving rise to bloody and terrible occurrences which, under the circumstances, might have been foreseen.

Rafael de Nogales, Venezuelan adventurer, on Armenian atrocities victimizing the Turks of Erzerum, "Four Years Beneath the Crescent" (translated from Spanish by Muna Lee from the original Spanish version: "Quatro Anos Bajo La Media Luna"), Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, London, 1926, page 45

Holdwater: Armenians like to charge the Ottoman-Armenian troops were used as "pack animals" by the brutal, discriminating Turks, simply because they were poor, defenseless Armenians. As the author above gives us a good idea as to the true picture of the reasons behind these events, let's bear in mind his book is anti-Turkish enough to be offered for sale on Armenian web sites.



Henry Wood, the correspondent of the United Press Agency (U.S.A.) reported that the Armenians not only were in open revolt but were actually in possession of Van and several other important towns. He relates that in Zeitun when the Turkish authorities tried to enlist the young Armenians for military service, the soldiers were attacked and three hundred killed.

C.F. Dixon-Johnson, British author of the 1916 book, "The Armenians."


"When war broke out the Armenians of these regions [the Eastern provinces] made secret contact with the Russian authorities in the Caucasus, and an underground network was created which enabled recruits to be gotten from these Turkish provinces for the Russian Army.�

Philips Price, A History of Turkey, 1956, p. 91

Holdwater: Some Armenians (and "Armenians" in non-Armenian clothing... like this one and these three) like to claim Armenians were innocent, and/or it wasn't the Ottoman Armenians fighting against the Turks, but the Russian Armenians.

No doubt Armenians from Russia were part of the Russian Army. (And who were these Russian-Armenians, anyway? Where did they come from, originally? A strong clue is provided by the following figure: the number of Armenians who emigrated during the First World War from Turkey to Russia was between 400,000 and 420,000.)

However, the extent of Armenian treachery was such that not only did Armenian irregulars (converted civilians) and Armenian troops (who deserted the Ottoman Army) hit the Turks from the back and sides, while the Turks were paralyzed at the front desperately facing the Russians... but regular Ottoman Armenian civilians actually joined the Russian Army. Therefore, who is to say how many of the Armenians in the Russian Army were from Russia?


What were some of these Armenian troops up to?

"Having agreed to the proposal of Vorontsov (to create volunteer corps) the National Bureau selected a special committee to supervise the operations of the volunteer corps. Functioning from Tiflis, Alexandropol, and Erivan, the committee began its activities by assigning enlistees to the four authorized units, all of which were immediately filled to capacity... The first group over 1,000 men, was led by Andranik, an experienced revolutionary who had participated in the Balkan wars as commander of an Armenian contingent in the Bulgarian army. Andranik's unit joined the Russian forces in North Persia, while the other three advanced toward the Turkish border. Dro, assisted by the former Ottoman parliament member Armen Garo, directed the second group, which, moving over Igdir in the Erivan province, poised for an offensive in Van. The third and fourth units, commanded by Hamazaps and Keri, took advance positions along the western border of the Kars oblast, from Sarikamish to Olti." (p. 39)

"What the National Bureau did not know was that representatives of the Romanov sovereign were earnestly negotiating the partition of Turkey with the other members of the Entent. Moreover, Russian designs to annex the eastern vilayets included no provisions for Armenian autonomy." (p. 57)



Richard Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, (California 1967)


The Armenians claim that the Armenian troops and/or volunteers under Russian command did not originate from the Ottoman Empire. Let's take a look at who was in this force led by Andranik, that Hovannisian reported above. (From The Armenian Review, Nov. 1960, p. 40+:)

"When the Armenian Revolutionary Federation uttered the call to self-defense and formed the immortal Volunteer Regiment... He reported for duty... the young volunteer was scarcely seventeen years old. But the lad's spirit would not be dismayed, so he was recruited, and in deference to his age, as a medical aide. No sooner had his regiment reached the front, then he maneuvered his way into the infantry under the command of General Antranig. And to his surprise here he discovered . . . his brother Missak, who had also answered the call to battle. He acquitted himself with valor through the battles of Diliman, Sorp, and Grkoud. Wifh the victorious Regiment, he entered the immortal Armenian city of Van, and then went on to Bitlis and Moush. He participated in all the campaigns under Antranig's command until the Russian defection from the war."


The Ottoman-Armenian in question? None other than Soghoman Tehlirian, the Dashnak murderer who assassinated Talat Pasha, and also assassinated the Armenian who helped compile the list of the ringleaders arrested on April 24. His murders were many, if he served under Antranik, who was notorious for putting defenseless villagers under the sword.

From the same article, Tehlirian meets a Hunchak woman in 1919, and she asks whether he knew of a "Levon Madatian, formerly of Istanbul, who had also served in the Russian campaign in the Armenian Volunteer Regiment?"

So just from this article, we have learned there were three Ottoman-Armenians who betrayed their country and actively fought on the side of the enemy. You can bet they formed the tippiest tip of the iceberg. Since Tehlirian was reported to have "entered the city of Van," he committed his betrayal before April of 1915.

As far as the A.R.F.'s "call to self-defense" that "formed the immortal Volunteer Regiment," you can read several such proclamations on the Quotes page, such as the following:

"The entire Armenian Nation will join forces — moral and material, and waving the sword of Revolution, will enter this World conflict ... as comrades in arms of the Triple Entente, and particularly Russia. They will cooperate with the Allies, making full use of all political and revolutionary means for the final victory of Armenia, Cilicia, Caucasus, Azerbayjan. ... [H]eroes who will sacrifice their lives for the great cause of Armenia.... Armenians proud to shed their blood for the cause of Armenia...."

Does that sound like self-defense? We know it cannot be, since this particular call to arms appeared in November of 1914... when war was just declared upon the ailing Ottoman nation, and the relocations were the farthest matter on desperate Ottoman minds.


THE ARMENIAN ROLE ON SARIKAMIS


The assertion that Armenian troops were affiliated with the Russian Army during the Sarikamis incident, considered as one of the most striking tragedies of history and brought about the death of ninety thousand soldiers, caused a repercussion.


Ill-fated Ottoman soldiers of Sarikamis

Professor Nursen Mazici of Marmara University, the guest of Sky TV’s 28 December 2004 dated program called "The Strategy Report," made noteworthy statements on the issue and clarified the unknown aspects of the Sarikamis tragedy.

Prof. Mazici emphasized that, aside from wrong warfare tactics, the role of Armenian troops collaborating with the Russian armies against Turks could be considered as the reasons for the annihilation of the ninety thousand Turkish soldiers in one night in 1914. The Professor also determined that the Armenian troops cut the communications of the Turkish troops with the rear-front, and the Turkish Army Corps — deprived of its communications — could not determine its modus operandi, since it did not apply the orders of the headquarters on time; this was proved by the archive documents.



Prof. Nursen Mazici, underlining that the historical comments should absolutely be supported with the archives (as otherwise these would not have any scientific value and certainty), stated that she has studied a number of documents, primarily foreign archives, to expose the inside story of the tragic incident in question. She highlighted that within this context, she has reached some documents containing dramatic evidence related to the issue in the U.S. archives. The Professor also mentioned that she would share her evidence about the Sarikamis incident and the role of the Armenian army in the near future.

N. Mazici who was asked about the content of the abovementioned document stated that one of the most striking documents that she found in the USA was the correspondences among the Armenian troops; in a telegraph sent to the headquarters by the Armenian commanders, it was clearly quoted that "the communications of the Turkish army with the rear-front was cut off as earlier planned, therefore it could be possible to annihilate at least sixty thousand Turkish soldiers," and they were extremely happy and proud of the advantages taken by that effort.

It is stated that this new document caused a repercussion and developed a passion among the academicians who make studies on the aforesaid issue abroad.

On the other hand, while the question of how the so-called genocide was discharged to "Armenians who had regular armies" causes a deep contradiction within the context of the lasting assertions, it was emphasized that the scientific antitheses are the indications of further historical arguments on the theses which are proposed by the fanatical Armenians and have not been confirmed yet.



This account by Deya Kent has been slightly modified

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