1293) Killer Armenian Women

Let's get something straight here; even though recent popular culture has inundated us with the portrayal of women who can put up their dukes as well as any man, when it comes to committing violence, there is still a wide gap between men and women. Armenian women were mostly defenseless during the tragic events circa WWI, as women would be anywhere. However, because Armenian propaganda is fond of asking us, How come women were "deported," innocent, harmless women..? Let's bear in mind Armenian women were not always that helpless!



Armenian woman with Browning
revolver. (Source: The Great World
War: A History, edited by Frank A.
Mumby, London, 1915-1917)





Naturally, women were included for the ride as well as children during the resettlement process, because the Ottoman-Armenian community as a whole chose ? either willingly or through coercion ? to support the traitorous revolutionary network. They cooked the food, they mended the clothes, often manufactured the bullets... sometimes they were the unwilling sexual toys of the arrogant and terroristic fedayis (who would come into an Armenian village and take over).... the women were part of the support system. (Along the lines of how latter-day fedayi Monte Melkonyan "appealed to women to fight on the front lines and considered female staff in the radio room and the kitchen at headquarters to be fighters on an equal footing with uniformed soldiers on the battlefield," as his brother Mrkar wrote.) The Ottoman Empire was in for the fight of its life (a fight that resulted ultimately in its death), and the last thing any nation would have tolerated was treachery from behind the lines, while superpowers were poised at the gates, scheming to implement a death sentence upon the motherland.

This page is taking up from what was meant to be a small section of another page, but as examples of Armenian female violence keep coming up, it was time to expand this topic and devote a page in its own right. Let's pick up from the short excerpts available from the pre-existing page:

Armenian female-perpetrated violence:

"The women, armed with axes, guns, daggers, and sticks, chased the Turkish prisoners who were escaping, and killed most of them, only 56 of them were able to escape."

Diary of Aghasi [or Aghassi], leader of 1895 Zeitun rebellion, p. 289 [as cited in "The Armenian File"]


"...Zeki Pasha had come down to the station, evidently trying to escape, when some of these Armenian women recognized him and attacked him savagely. To save his life, the British soldiers locked him up..."

Rev. Ernest Partridge, "The Pensacola Party and Relief Work in Turkey," Armenian Affairs, Summer-Fall 1950, Vol. I, No. 3-4, pp. 293-297


"When the Kurds burst the village gates," said Miss Marcara, "we took rifles and mounted to the roof. I fired eighty shots. The Kurds were forced to withdraw outside the village wall. There I killed two and David two. Later we killed four more, one of whom was the Chief."

"Elizabeth Marcara, an Armenian girl," as related in an April 26, 1915 New York Times article entitled "Kurds Massacre More Armenians."
The Hero Women of Zeitun.
From The Newark Daily Advocate, April 8, 1896

The Hero Women of Zeitun.


Amateur with an ax, compared
to Armenian women.
(Lizzie Borden was acquitted.)


The character of the Turkish soldiers and the struggle in Armenia are shown in a light not to be forgotten by a telegram lately appearing in the London News. The Armenians of Zeitun were held in check by a garrison of Turkish soldiers quartered partly in a fort upon a hill, partly in the town itself. The soldiers assaulted and insulted the Armenian women. It was then the Armenians resolved to avenge themselves. They poured kerosene into the source of the only water supply for the garrison. This soon brought the garrison to terms. After three days the Turkish soldiers in the fort capitulated to the Armenians of Zeitun. While the Armenian men were attacking the fort the Armenian women were forced to defend themselves from the brutal horde in town. These amazons seized axes and rushed upon the soldiers. The men, thrown into confusion, gave up their arms. But fresh Turkish troops arrived at Zeitun. All the Armenian men and boys capable of bearing arms were yet away fighting. Inspired with a courage that seems superhuman, the Armenian women rushed with uplifted axes also upon these. The dispatch to The News says they chopped the Turkish soldiers to pieces and threw their bodies over the cliff. They were driven to this desperate deed by the outrages they suffered at the hands of the Turkish soldiers. So long as history remains to be written this bloody, yet heroic deed of the Armenian women will be told.

(Thanks to Gokalp)

Holdwater: Naturally, the part about the Turkish soldiers assaulting the Armenian women was pure baloney; this account comes 100% from an Armenian source, the kind that the newspapers loved to accept at face value. As almost always, it was the Armenians firing the first shot, but for publicity purposes, the Armenians must always come across as the poor, innocent victims. This story was probably related to the one Aghasi recorded in his diary, that may be read above.


It must be said that while Armenian women as a whole certainly did not fight in the trenches, it was not unusual for a good number to be gung-ho on the killing of Turks and others. A somewhat famous example is the story about the Armenian woman who cursed the fact that her womb was no longer able to produce fighters for the cause. (See Point "11" near bottom of this page.) Another are the visions of mother that urged Soghoman Tehlirain, Talat Pasha's killer, to go hunting. While the latter anecdote was an invention of the Armenian assassin, a more believable account is the one where the Hunchak, Yeranouhi Danielian, put the idea into the murderer's head to knock off a fellow Armenian... "her voice, choked with emotion," as an Armenian Review article put it. Not much difference between pulling the trigger, and getting others to do the job.

----------------------------------------------------
© Holdwater

The source site of this article gets revised often, as better information comes along. For the most up-to-date version, and the related photos, the reader may consider reviewing the direct link as follows:

www.tallarmeniantale.com/women.htm
-----------------------------------------------------