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.

 

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.

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

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.

"Djano Tutundjian, volunteers (from the USA) in the Caucasus," read this caption from an Armenian web site; look, he's in the woods!

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?

 

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.

"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."

Assassin and Ottoman traitor, Soghoman Tehlirian.

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 (other excerpts), 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.

Don't forget to note some of the offerings above, as applied to this section, such as Dr. Kuzay's estimate of 30,000 Ottoman-Armenian deserters, based on Russian and Armenian sources. If that was the number strictly from the Ottoman Army, what of the many who had refused to answer the call for conscription?

Prof. McCarthy began a nice count of Armenian troops originating from Ottoman Turkey, fighting mainly from behind the lines as a "fifth column," and some shuffling off to join the Russian enemy. We learned there were 6,000-8,000 heading to Kagizman, 6,000 to Igdir, and as many as 30,000 from Sivas.

Here is another summation from the professor:

Even before the first world war began, Armenian guerilla bands had begun to organize in the Russian Empire. These included Armenians from both Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Approximately 8,000 Ottomans went to Kagizman to train and organize. 6,000 went from Anatolia to Igdir, more to other training camps. They returned to fight the Turks and to aid the Russian war effort. Large caches of guns, ammunition, supplies, and even uniforms had been hidden in depots in Anatolia, ready for use. These were not small units of guerillas. They were not a few men committing random acts of terrorism. There were indeed innumerable such individual acts, but the main Armenian attack came from well-armed and trained rebel bands. They may have numbered as many as 100,000 men.

This Armenian source reveals 3,000 refusing to join in Van, fear of contagious diseases being one reason.

Abbreviated internal Ottoman telegrams from The Armenian File:

Sept. 13, 1914, Erzurum governor: Russians sent Aramayis to organize bands; one band went to Pasinler, instructing villagers to rebel when the Ottomans entered the war, and to desert if they were enlisted.

Oct. 8, 1914, Trabzon governor: 800 Ottoman and Russian Armenians sent to Artvin, intending to spread out to Ardanuch, increasing numbers to 7,000.

Oct. 14, 1914, Beyazit governor: On Sept. 26, 600 Armenian volunteers went to Selmas, most Ottoman citizens from Van, Mush, Bitlis, Kars, and Gumru.

Oct. 22, 1914: 30-40 brigands present in the village of Pertos.

Oct. 25, 1914: 800, mostly "Armenian deserters with Ottoman citizenship, have gathered in Kaghizma." "Armenians named Surien of Beyazit and Hachik Sirup, who have gone to Russia, have each gathered 2,000 people."

November 2: War begins for Ottoman Empire.

Feb. 21, 1915: Bitlis governor: "Armenians have revolted in many villages."

March 20, Van governor: "rebels number more than 2,000."

April 20, Van governor: 4,000 insurgent Armenians; request to "deport" Muslims westward.

May 8: Van evacuation.

In addition:

February 24: the Russian Ambassador in London went to the Foreign Office and stated: "An Armenian of Zeitun has consulted Count Vorontzov-Dachkov, the King Regent of the Caucasus, and told him that they have gathered a force of 15,000 to attack the communication lines of the Turkish Armies, but that they lacked guns and ammunition, and that it would be very convenient to provide them with their needs. The French and the British might send the provisions by way of the Antakia harbour. How would England react to this possibility?" The project was abandoned as the British refused.