Armenian Resistance to Genocide: An Attempt to Assess Circumstances
and Outcomes
A resistance battalion led by Gen. Dro
Armenian Resistance to Genocide: An Attempt to Assess Circumstances
and Outcomes
BY DR. RUBINA PEROOMIAN
The centuries-long Ottoman rule over Armenia has been one of
oppression and discrimination. Armenians were treated as second class
citizens and were subjected to illicit taxation, discriminatory laws,
and constant harassment and persecution. Armenian culture and
civilization suffered significant setbacks, and Armenians, the brave
mountaineers of the Armenian Plateau, with a long history of struggle
for national freedom, were turned into subservient slaves who showed
absolute compliance even when their belongings were looted, their
villages ransacked, and their women and children were kidnapped and
taken away.
This situation changed in the early 19th Century, as the liberal ideas
of Europe began to reach Armenians. National awareness was on the
rise, and the will to stand up for their basic rights was
escalating. The first act of resistance against oppression occurred in
1862 in the mountainous region of Zeitun, where Zeituntsis refused to
pay the discriminatory and illegal taxes the Kurdish chieftain
demanded and took up arms against a 12,000-strong Turkish army that
moved in to fortify the 6000 Kurdish irregulars. The unprecedented
resistance, which ended successfully with the intervention of the
French government, became an inspiration to all Armenians. The
Armenian political Renaissance was underway. And let us not forget
`Tsayn me hunchets Erzerumi Hayots Lerneren’ (A Call Sounded from the
Armenian Mountains of Erzerum), the first fedayee song, that
encapsulates the prevailing mindsets and a romantic call for action
against intolerable oppression.
Political parties were formed to fight for the betterment of the
Armenian lot. Bands of revolutionary militants, gallant and selfless
young men, the fedayees, went village to village to protect
defenseless Armenians against the Turkish and Kurdish assaults. Pleas
and supplications were sent to the Sublime Porte, the sultan, and the
intervention of European governments was sought. The Ottoman
government responded with increased persecutions. Crushing any form
of resistance and brutal reprisals against the innocent population
became a governmental policy. The widespread massacres of 1895-96
marked the culmination of it all resulting in an enormous destruction
of life and property. Exceptions were most notably Zeitun and Van,
where resistance warded off disaster.
Significantly, the incident that triggered this bloodshed was
resistance in Sasun in the summer of 1894 spurred once again by
refusal to pay the impoverishing high taxes the Kurdish chieftains and
government tax collectors demanded. With the Hnchakists (Social
Democrat Hnchakian Party) encouraging, arming, and leading them, the
Sasuntsis organized fighting bands and repelled the Kurdish irregulars
and the Turkish army. The resistance lasted about a month and was
eventually crushed; the entire region was ransacked, and the
population was massacred.
Protests, petitions, and memoranda by the European Powers to stop the
carnage bore no results. In fact, the September 30, 1895 peaceful
rally organized by the Hnchakists to march from the Kum Kapu quarter
toward Bab Ali (the Sublime Porte) in order to present a petition was
intercepted by the police and the outcome was a bloodbath in the
streets of Constantinople and a large scale massacre that continued
for days. The undelivered petition meanwhile pleaded the government to
stop the political arrests and killings, to rehabilitate Sasun, to
give Armenians the right to bear arms and serve in the police force
and gendarmerie, and to reorganize the territories of the six Armenian
vilayets according to historic, geographic, and ethnographic
features. Responding to European intervention, Sultan Abdul Hamid II
agreed to make some reforms, but the massacres were already underway
in all of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government had labeled the
Sasun incident as an uprising with an intention of sedition, therewith
justifying the ensuing massacres. Many scholars believe that these
massacres mark the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
Another example of a large scale demonstration and protest against the
ongoing massacres was organized by the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, ARF Dashnaktsutiun. That is the capture of the Ottoman
Bank in August 26, 1896 by a handful of revolutionaries led by Armen
Garo-after Babken Siuni’s fall at the outset-aiming to shock the
Europeans and secure their intervention with the Sultan. The
revolutionaries threatened to blow up the bank and the money vaults
with a huge European capital in them, if their terms or demands,
pretty much similar with those made by the Hnchakists almost a year
ago, were not met. The outcome was more promises and a continued
bloodshed.
The vengeful plot against the Sultan’s life on July 21, 1905, by the
ARF was another example of Armenian determination to resist the
Turkish policies of annihilation. The plot was conceived by Kristapor
Mikaelian, one of the founders of Dashnaktsutiun, who lost his life
while testing the bomb that was intended to blow up the carriage with
Sultan Hamid in it. His comrades did not give up and the plot was
materialized almost a year later while Sasun had become a stage for
government’s extreme measures to punish Armenians. The plot failed,
Sultan Abdul Hamid escaped death, but the incident made headlines, the
European media once again talked about the Red Sultan and the plight
of Armenians.
As a manifestation of utter resistance, the ARF joined the Turkish
opposition that aimed at toppling the government and breaking the
Sultan’s absolute power. Dashnaktsutiun supported the July 1908
constitutional revolution led by the union of opposition factions, the
Ittihad ve Terragi Party (the Young Turks). A few months later,
however, in April of 1909, incited by the Muslim religious leaders and
under the indifferent eyes of the police and the army, the Turkish mob
began to attack Armenians in Adana. The carnage of loot, rape and
murder soon spread onto the towns and villages of Cilicia. Armenians
having gained the right to bear arms after the Young Turk Revolution
put up an armed self defense in a few places including Adana, Hajin,
Sis, Zeitun, and Dort Yol. The bloodshed stopped only after the
Turkish army chose to intervene.
Although total extermination, or genocidal intent, to use modern
terminology, was not a part of the government policy yet, the path
chosen was certainly one leading to the annihilation of a nation. The
ground was being prepared for the Young Turk ultranationalists, the
triumvirate of Enver, Talaat, and Jemal, who took over the government
in a coup in January 1913, to finish up the job in 1915.
The task was not an easy one. Armenians were more or less organized,
and even had representatives in the parliament to protest the
mistreatment and injustices that were ongoing in the empire. The plan
of annihilation could not be executed without first neutralizing all
likely resistance. The global war gave the opportunity to isolate the
empire, to cut off intervention by the British, the French, and the
Russians, the enemies of the Ottoman Empire who had entered war as
Germany’s ally.
To preempt possible armed resistance, the government promulgated the
law of general conscription, and almost all Armenian men aged 20-45
then 18-52 were drafted into the army. The next stage was the
disarming of the populace, which was conducted using the cruelest
methods, incarcerating and killing those who did not have a weapon to
turn in, looting houses and desecrating churches in the pretext of
searching for hidden weapons. Collected weapons were then photographed
and sent to the capital as evidence of Armenian treason. The arrest,
exile, and execution of Armenian civic, political, and religious
leadership was the last blow aimed at beheading the Armenian
people. It is only in this context that one can fathom the scope of
resistance to massacres and deportation in 1915.
During the months of April to August 1915, Armenians from all over the
empire, and not only the battle zones as the denialists claim, were
ordered to leave their homes and belongings behind and move. In this
process, the male deportees were the first to be liquidated, executed
or shot. Very soon, the caravans consisted only of women, children and
elderly men, prey to frequent attacks of bandits, Muslim villagers,
and even the gendarmes accompanying them. Was resistance a possible
option? Not collectively! Never structured or organized a priori, but
spontaneously or on individual level.
Eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and reports speak of those who refused
to obey orders, stayed behind and defended to the last breath their
house and belongings against the Muslim refugees from Thrace or
Bulgaria sent by the government to settle in Armenian houses. These
accounts also tell us of young women who plunged to their death from
the cliffs or drowned themselves in the Euphrates River. That was
their way to resist the evil intentions of the perpetrators. Young
survivors of Genocide remember their mothers teaching them the
Armenian alphabet tracing it on the desert sand, reading them the
Bible, and encouraging them to keep their spirit up, despite hunger
and thirst, despite the misery and death around them. These children
were taught not to forget their Armenian ancestry, remember the great
Tragedy, and uphold their national identity. These survivors have
transmitted their memory to the next generation. Armenians know that
remembering is a tool to resist the Genocide. Remembrance is a form of
resistance that outlasted Genocide.
As to organized armed resistance, its possibility was crushed at the
outset. Henry Morgenthau writes, ìBefore Armenia could be
slaughtered, Armenia must be made defenseless.î Despite this
uncompromising process, armed resistance occurred in a number of
places where geographic situation, availability of some arms and
ammunitions, and the presence of able-bodied men capable of fighting
permitted. To cite a few examples, let us begin with Zeitun.
In late March 1915, the unrestrained assaults against Armenians of
Zeitun began. 25 youth protested the treatment, fought back and took
to the hills. The local army with the help of a battalion of 5000
soldiers from Aleppo attacked, captured, and killed the fighters and
drove the Armenian population of Zeitun out on a death march. The date
was April 8, marking the first in the process of deportation of the
entire Armenian population of the empire and the first futile attempt
to resist the government’s plans of extermination.
The next armed struggle occurred in Van, with the besieging army
shooting the first bullet on April 20. News of massacres in the
surrounding villages and deportations from Zeitun and other Cilician
towns and villages were reaching Van. Armenians were preparing to
defend the city. They were able to procure some arms and ammunition,
organize strongholds, and fight back. With the Hnchakist leaders
already arrested and killed and Dashnakist leaders, Ishkhan and
Vramian, perfidiously murdered, Aram Manukian of Dashnaktsutiun took
charge of the defense of Van which lasted about four weeks before the
Russian army entered the city and the Turks fled. This brave stand-up
was a feat of gallantry without a hope for outside help. In fact, the
Russian army had no intention to capture Van, and it was only by the
persuasion of the leaders of Armenian volunteer army, Dro, Hamazasp,
Keri, and Vardan, that Russians agreed to move in. As a result of this
armed resistance, some 30,000 people were saved. The city enjoyed a
few weeks of semi-independence, rebuilding and revitalization until
the sudden withdrawal of the Russian army followed by the perilous
exodus of the Armenian population toward Eastern Armenia. The Van
self-defense, to be sure, was labeled as an uprising and offered as
the cause for the government’s decision to drive all the Armenian
population out. Dr. Ussher, an American missionary stationed in Van,
among other eyewitnesses and researchers, states, however, that the
incident of Van was clearly an act of self-defense.
The resistance of Shabin Garahisar occurred in the beginning of June
1915. Armenians took refuge in the famous fortress overlooking the
town and put up a hopeless armed defense with less than 200 fighters
against the Turkish army. The resistance lasted till June 28 and was
crushed by debilitating hunger, thirst, and diseases, and diminishing
ammunition. The Turks climbed up the mountain and slaughtered all the
5000 men, women, and children. Aram Haygaz, one of very few survivors
of the massacre, writes in the preface of his book dedicated to that
heroic battle, ìThere are many glorious defeats in our history, and
that of Garahisar was one of them. Glory to the defeated!î
Mshetsi leaders rejected the government’s order of deportation and the
Armenian bishop’s assurance that the convoy will be safe guarded. They
decided to defend the city of Mush in which the survivors from the
massacres of surrounding villages going on since late May had also
taken refuge. Armed men were able to withhold until the end of
June. Actually, because of the presence of ARF leaders, Ruben, Koms,
and Koriun, the government had not been able to thoroughly implement
the disarmament of the region of Mush and Sasun. In any case, as the
supplies ran out and the army attacks were intensified, the city was
surrendered and carnage and looting ensued. Of 60,000 inhabitants of
the region very few survived. Alma Johansson, a Swedish missionary
working in the German orphanage for Armenian children in Mush
remembers how the Turks and Kurds set the orphanage on fire and shot
those children who tried to escape. Then it was the turn to subdue
Sasun with 50.000 population and only 600 fighters and not enough arms
and ammunition. The major thrust of the Turkish army began on July 19.
Sasuntsis put up a self-defense in Andok. This stronghold too fell on
August 5 and the entire population was put to sword.
To crush the resistance of Urfa Armenians in late August became
possible only with the help of an 11,000 army battalion fighting
against a handful of young Armenian men and women led by Mkrtich
Yotneghbarian and Mariam Chilingarian. Fahri Pasha, the head of the
Turkish army is quoted as saying ìWhat we would have done if in these
difficult times we had a few Urfas to deal with.î The slaughtering of
the 35,000 Armenian inhabitants began, and the few survivors were
driven out to the camps of death. Karen Jeppe, the Danish missionary
in Urfa, witnessed the massacres and tried to help rescue the
survivors. Her memoirs are testimonies of unheard of atrocities
against Armenians.
The self-defense of the Armenian population of Musa Dagh was a
successful operation which resulted in saving 4000 Armenian
lives. Musa Dagh Armenians decided not to obey the government’s decree
of deportation. On July 31, they climbed up the mountain carrying
food, arms and ammunition and fought for seven weeks before they were
rescued by a French warship that saw their signals calling for
help. There will be more discussion on Musa Dagh later in the program.
The Musa Dagh resistance is typical of all instances of Armenian
resistance to the Genocide of 1915 as it involved the participation of
not only the fighting men, but also the women carrying food and
ammunition to the fighters, caring for the wounded, and even making
bullets, as well as children who risked their lives to run from a
bunker to another to dispatch orders and bring news to the
headquarter. We all know about Franz Werfel’s world renowned novel,
The Forty Days of Musa Dagh eternalizing this great example of
resistance to injustice. We know who deep was its impact on
post-Genocide Armenian struggle for justice. Do we know that the
Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto was inspired by that novel?
Instances of resistance to the Genocide of 1915 in impossible
circumstances were daring undertakings defying the notion of ìsheep to
the slaughterhouse.î As Jelal Bey of Aleppo who objected the
deportation orders said. ìIt is the natural right of a human being to
live=85.The Armenians will defend themselves.î
Except for Van and Musa Dagh, where the intervention of the Allied
armies, the Russian and the French, played a decisive role in saving
the population, the outcome of all instances of self-defense was total
destruction and annihilation of the population. That was the award of
men, women, and children who dared to resist against this formidably
inhuman crime of man against man.
The Armenian armed resistance, this natural right of human beings to
defend themselves, gave further ammunition to Turkish maladroit
justifications for the genocide of Armenians, for their crime against
humanity. But at the same time, these valorous acts of self-defense,
from the one in Zeitun in 1862 to that in Musa Dagh in 1915 have
become sources of inspiration for generations of Armenians to be proud
of their heritage and selflessly engage in always unequal battle for
the long overdue justice to prevail.
Sources Auron, Yair. The Banality of Indifference, 2000. Dadrian,
Vahakn N. The History of the Armenian Genocide, 1995 Hovannisian,
Richard G., ed. The Armenian People, vol. II, 1997. Morgenthau,
Henry. The Murder of a Nation, 2nd ed. 1982. Nalbandian, Louise. The
Armenian Revolutionary Movement, 1963 Peroomian, Rubina. Hay Tahd 10
and 11, 2002, 1994. Peroomian, Rubina. ìArmenian Resistance,
1915-1916,î in Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 2009. Walker,
Christopher J. Armenia, The Survival of a Nation, 1980.
This paper was presented at the California State University Northridge
Conference on ìResistances to the Armenian Genocide,î on April 6,
2013, organized by the Armenian Studies Program. This presentation,
first in the program, intended to introduce the concept of resistance
to genocide and provide a brief survey of the history of resistance to
the Armenian Genocide, with some examples, thus, a backdrop for the
ensuing presentations.
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