Susan Paul Pattie

The Armenian Legionnaires (eBook, ePUB)

Sacrifice and Betrayal in World War I

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Following the devastation resulting from the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1915, the survivors of the massacres were dispersed across the Middle East, Europe and North and South America. Not content with watching World War I silently from the sidelines, a large number of Armenian volunteers joined the Legion d'Orient. They were trained in Cyprus and fought courageously in Palestine and Cilicia alongside Allied commander General Allenby, eventually playing a crucial role in defeating German and Ottoman forces in Palestine at the Battle of Arara in September 1918.
The Armenian Legionnaires signed up on the understanding that they would be fighting in Syria and Turkey, and, should the Allies be successful, they would be part of an occupying army in their old homelands, laying the foundation for a self-governing Armenian state.
Susan Paul Pattie describes the motivations and dreams of the Armenian Legionnaires and their ultimate betrayal as the French and the British shifted priorities, leaving their ancestral Armenian homelands to the emerging Republic of Turkey. Complete with eyewitness accounts, letters and photographs, this book provides an insight into relations between the Great Powers through the lens of a small, vulnerable people caught in a war that was not their own, but which had already destroyed their known world.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. August 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781838609290
• Artikelnr.: 56548780

Autorenporträt

Susan Pattie is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London, and former Director of the Armenian Institute in London, UK.

Inhaltsangabe

TABLE OF CONTENTSDedicationAcknowledgementsNote on the Content of The Armenian LegionnairesTimelineChapter One: Armenians in a World at WarIntroduction and ContextChapter Two: The Armenian Legion at the Crossroads of Imperial PoliticsBy Varak KetsemanianChapter Three: Recruitment and the VoyageChapter Four: Training in CyprusChapter Five: Palestine and Preparation for BattleChapter Six: The Battle of AraraChapter Seven: The Next Stages: BeirutChapter Eight: To Cilicia, "The Promised Land"Chapter Nine: Repatriation and Increasing UncertaintiesChapter Ten: The Transfer of Power in MarashChapter Eleven: The Battles of Marash or "The Marash Affair"Chapter Twelve: The AftermathEpilogueAppendixShort Biographies Dickran Boyajian by Mark MamigonianVahan Portukalian by Gagik Stepan-SarkissianHagop ArevianOvsia Saghdejian by Vahe ApelianB.Letters and DeclarationsOfficial Declaration to the Armenian PeopleStatement by General Henri GouraudLetters of Commendation (excerpts) compiled by BoyajianC."The French Record in Cilicia" from the Christian Science Monitor, 1921. An interview with legionnaire Lieutenant John Shishmanian.Bibliography and Further Reading

Rezensionen

Celebratory and heroic. It is written in the style of retrieving noble lost causes, gestures of bravery and fortitude that deserve preservation ... The photographs and first-person accounts of military service in the Middle East are intriguing. Slavonic and East European Review