2438) The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915 by Edward J. Erickson

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*About the Author

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Abstract
War in History, Vol. 15, No. 2, 141-167 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0968344507087001
© 2008 SAGE Publications
The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915
Edward J. Erickson

Mainstream western scholarship maintains that the Armenian insurrection of 1915 was never an actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state in the First World War and that the relocation of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia was unnecessary. In truth, no study of the Armenian insurrection and its effect on Ottoman military policy has ever been conducted. This article examines the Ottoman army's lines of communications . . architecture and logistics posture in eastern Anatolia in 1915. Armenian threats to the logistics and security of the Ottoman armies in Caucasia and Palestine are overlaid on this system. Evolving and escalatory Ottoman military policies are then explained in terms of threat assessments and contemporary counter-insurgency strategy. The article seeks to inform the reader why the Ottomans reacted so vigorously and violently to the events of the spring of 1915.

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1) Full Report

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2) Review Of The Document Review Of The Document by Aya

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About the Author:
Lieutenant-Colonel Edward J. Erickson
BA SUNY
MA Colgate University
MA St Lawrence University
PhD Leeds

Edward J. Erickson was born in Norwich, New York, USA. After military service as an infantry noncommissioned officer, he was commissioned in the Field Artillery in 1975. During his career, Ed Erickson served with the 509th Airborne Infantry Battalion, the 8th Mechanized Infantry Division, the 24th Infantry Division, the 528th Field Artillery Group, and the 42nd Field Artillery Brigade. During the Persian Gulf War, he served as the Operations Officer (S3) of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Field Artillery in the 3rd Armored Division at the Battle of Wadi Al Batin. In the latter phase of his career, he served in NATO assignments in Izmir, Turkey and in Naples, Italy as a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Turkey and the Middle East. In 1995 he was assigned to the NATO Headquarters in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he served as a Military Assistant to COMIFOR.

Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson retired in October 1997 to teach world history at Norwich High School, but was recalled to active duty in March 2003 for Operation Iraqi Freedom and was assigned as the Political Advisor to Major General Ray Odierno, 4th Infantry Division. After six months in Tikrit, Iraq, Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson returned to civilian life and now works as the Dean of Students at Norwich High School. During his military service Ed Erickson won many awards, including the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. He is an eminent and leading authority on the Ottoman Army during the great war, a subject on which he has written widely, including two major books, Ordered To Die, A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (2000) and Defeat in Detail, The Ottoman Army in the Balkans 1912-1913 (2003). Lieutenant-Colonel Erickson is currently working on a new study, The Sultan's Army: A History of the Ottoman Military, 1300-1923, which will be published by Praeger in 2006.

In short; this man is a hero to many Americans. And he knows what he's talking about.

He also wrote this article about the so-called genocide: http://www.meforum.org/article/991
That was back in the summer of 2006.

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