1985_04 Hye Sharzhoom Newspaper April 1985

              April, 1985
Hye Sharzhoom
Page 3
"TR UE HEROISM"
By Marc E. Agabashian
Contributing Writer
Historical research
By ftobert Vartabedian
Armenian-Americans, in order to confirm their allegiance to the United States, have traditionally attempted
to undermine their commitment to the "Old World," with
false charges or innuendoes. Feeling secure as conservative members of an established order in an aggressor
nation, Armenian-Americans are ill to compare themselves with the hapless defenders of an autonomous
minority. People who sit so well with the earth's strongest
nation shyly return to align themselves with one of the
world's weakest. For many Anglo-Armenians, the
genocide serves as the historical focal point of embarass-
ment, rather than sorrow or anger, and justifies the
clamor for Americanism rather than Armenianism — all
this in a shallow world that admires winners and
denegrates losers.
These Americans suggest that the Armenian generations
involved in the genocide were either religious zealots,
sold out to the Turks, or were outright cowards —
anything but courageous warriors defending their land.
To these Americans I say you are wrong; this simply is
not the case. As was the case with the American-Indians,
Armenians were trapped within the confines of a more
powerful nation and faced an army of astronomical
proportions. With inferior arms, numbers, and no supplies
or medical facilities, they, like the American-Indians
before them, fought long after there was no hope. The
cases are not few, but many. For the convenience of my
star-spangled friends, however, I would like to cite some
lesser known examples.
ZEITUN 1895-1896
Zeitun was a town in Cilician Armenia. The population
of the province, almost totally Armenian, was estimated
to be around 25,000 people. During the period 1894-
1896,300,000 Armenians were massacred by Turkish and
Kurdish soldiers and townspeople as a response to
grievances issued by Armenians to the Turkish government, requesting provincial reform. In realization of the
massacres taking place throughout the empire, the
Armenians of Zeitun launched an offensive of their own.
They attacked the Turkish garrison in the city, confiscated
the guns, canon and ammunition, and took 400 Turkish
soldiers as prisoners. In retribution the Armenians
attacked the surrounding Turkish villages, forming for a
short time a safe, free Armenia.
The Sultan, enraged at the audacity of the Zeituntzees,
retaliated by sending 20,000 Turkish regulars and 30,000
Bashi-Bozooks(coalition militia made up of Muslims of
low social standing) to Cilicia. The Turkish forces began
by attacking outlying areas controlled by Armenians.
The Turkish army drove the Armenians back toward
Zeitun and, in December 1895, laid siege upon the city.
The Turkish Army held seven major offensive against
Zeitun before finally agreeing to an armistice in January
1896.
The Armenians, refusing to deal with the Turks, held
the subsequent armistice mediations through the British
Ambassador Sir Philip Currie. But before the hostilities
ended, the surrounded Armenians, who had experienced
only minor casualties, left 15,000 Turkish regulars dead
in the field. N
FUNDIJAK 1915
Approximately ten miles southwest of Marash was the
small town of Fundijak of 1600 persons. When news of
the 1915 massacres and deportations reached Fundijak,
the townspeople opened their doors to refugees from
nearby villages, stored the village, and then prepared to
defend the city. Fundijak was a mountain town and as
such there was only one pass through which the city could
be entered; thus, it was easily defensible.
The Turkish government ordered Captain Omar Bey
to subdue Fundijak with a force of Gendarmes(Turkish
police) and Turkish townspeople. The fighting raged
through the city streets and market places, but finally the
Turkish force was completely liquidated.
Upon hearing of these events, the outraged district
commander in Adana, Ali Bey, ordered a force of 8000
Turkish regulars to crush Fundijak. Ali Bey, hoping to
avoid a protracted battle, tried to trick the Armenians
into surrender with offers pf peace and general amnesty.
Three Armenian clergymen from Marash were sent into
Fundijak with the Turkish government terms — all were
rejected. The rejection added to the irritation of the
Turkish officials, who immediately ordered an attack for
the next day. At the time of the attack, there were only
500 Armenians left healthy enough to fight; of these, only
half had modern weapons. Still the Armenians held the
Turkish army at bay. The Turkish commander, worried
for his troops, began shelling Fundijak into submission.
The artillery laid open the village for twenty-four hours
when the Turks finally entered the town. Seeing that St.
Mary's Church was filled with Armenian women and
children, they subsequently burnt it to the ground.
Eventually the whole of Fundijak was subdued, but not
before the Turkish army paid a tremendous price.
Many Armenians under the command of famous
freedom fighter Aram Bey Cholakian hid in the Evangelical Church, escaped under the cloak of darkness, and
resumed the resistance in the surrounding mountains. In
partial retribution for their 7000 casualties, the Turks had
the captured Armenian fighters, women, and children
taken to nearby Marash, where they were hung and shot
for the entertainment of the local Muslim population.
Aram Cholakian and his men, however, continued to
raise such havoc among the Turks that they renamed the
mountain Gaivor Dagh — Infidel Mountain. Many of
the men survived countless encounters with the enemy
and lived to tell about it at the end of the war.
LEGION D'ORIENT 1916-1922
Armenian soldiers who had fought the long valiant
struggle at Musa Dagh escaped and later grouped with
other Armenian refugees and prisoners of war at Port
Said, Egypt. The Armenian soldiers, having no other
taste for life in the camp and eager to meet the Turks
again on the battlefield, approached French representatives in Egypt seeking a military sponsor. An agreement
was reached and, in November 1916, the French government created the Legion d'Orient.
A training facility was established on Cyprus under the
French Colonel De Piepade and another fifty French
officers, all of whom were highly experienced. In July
1918, three battalions of Armenians(approximately 3000
men), along with a company of Syrians and artillery,
entered into Palestine and took position facing the 7th
Ottoman Army under the command of Mustafa Kemal
Pasha(who would later become the first president of the
Turkish Republic). After stopping the 7th Ottoman
Army, the Legion took part in the capture of the Heights
of Arara in Palestine, a strategically important victory
along the Mediterranean coast. The Turks were driven
northward by the Legion d'Orient and, by the end of
September 1918, had been rooted out of Palestine and
Syria. Renamed the Armenian Legion, the soldiers spent
the next three years fighting in the occupation of Cilicia,
Asia Minor. British theatre commander General Edmund
Allenby, following the Cilician occupation, stated:
"The Armenians have fought brilliantly
and have played a great part in the victory."
From 1919 to 1922 the Armenian contingent watched
the French forces slowly withdraw from Cilicia. Knowing
full well the consequences, the Armenians chose to
attempt to defend Cilicia. Shortly following the final
withdrawal of the French, the Armenians were engaged
by the Kemalist nationalist troops; by mid-1922 almost
all of the Armenian Legion had died brutally in battle.
SARDARABAD 1918
When the Turkish army entered the Yerevan province
of Russian Armenia in May 1918, they had as their goal
the final liquidation of the Armenians as a people.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Turks made
preparations for an offensive across the Erzingan Truce
line in Turkish Armenia. On February 1, 1918 the
Turkish army launched an all out offensive against the
Amenian front. For four months the Turks drove the
Armenians back until the Armenians took hold in the
fields of Sardarabad.
A life and death struggle was to unfold. If the Turks
were allowed to break through, they would massacre the
remaining Armenians, completing their plan of Armenian
extermination. Armenia as a nation and as a people
would be finished. To defend the Yerevan District(Central
Armenia), the Armenians had six-thousand war torn
troops hardened from years of battle. The Armenian
commander General Toumas Nazerbekian spread his
men over three fronts to face a Turkish army of over twice
that number. In the savage fighting that followed, the
Armenians were driven back to Karakitsia, where they
finally held firm.
On May 22, 1918 a Turkish army of 15,000 men
attacked the Armenians at Sardarabad. The Armenian
soldiers, under Generals M. J. Silikian and Drastamat
'Dro' Kanayan, held the Turks in the fiercest fighting of
the war and then drove them back 30 miles to the west.
The generals wanted to continue the offensive when they
received word that an armistice had been reached between
the Ottoman government and the Armenian National
Council(the provincial Armenian government). The
generals were enraged by what they thought was treachery
by their own civilian government. In fact, General
Antranig left the Yerevan District and went to Nakhichevan, where he would never again have anything to do
with the Armenian government. The general always
maintained that troop moral was high and a prolonged
offensive as far as Alexandropol or even Kars may have
succeeded. Regardless, the Armenians saved Yerevan
from the Turks so that on May 28,1918 and independent
Armenia was proclaimed.
For the Armenian-Americans who have leveled the
gavel of cowardice against their forefathers, I remind you
that these examples are not the exception but the norm.
Volumes have been and could yet be written on Armenian
armies, freedom fighters, ad hoc units, guerilla warriors,
etc., who have faced tremendous odds in the pursuit of
liberty. Those who have read Armenian history from
Tigranes I, to Murad of Sebastia, cannot help but being
impressed by their bravery.