ISSN 1829-4618

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE ARMENIAN VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT ON THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH FRONT DURING WORLD WAR I

By: Ruben Sahakyan, Institute of History, NAS RA

During World War I a considerable number of Armenians participated in the volunteer movement with a single aim: to save their compatriots form the genocide and liberate the western part of the Homeland - Western Armenia from the Ottoman despotism. Substantial facts and evidence unmask falsification of the history of the Armenian volunteer movement by Turkish historians and political figures whose purpose is the denial of the Armenian Genocide. The self-defense of the Western Armenians in 1915 and the Armenian volunteer movement in 1914-1916 were a response against the policy of genocide committed by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish falsifications (of the history of the self-defence of Armenians and the Armenian volunteer movement) are abortive because the Armenians in Western Armenia rose up to resist Turkish armies which accomplished genocide. Armenians defended their families and Homland. Armenian volunteers, enrolled in the Russian Army, participated in the liberation battles of a considerable part of Western Armenia, where the civilian population was massacred by Turks.
The volunteers’ experience of fighting against the Turkish army became very useful in May, 1918 when Turkish troops invaded the Ararat valley aiming to occupy also Eastern Armenia by continuing genocide. But the Turks were defeated by the Armenian forces in the heroic battle of Sardarapat, which heralded the birth of the First Republic of Armenia on May 28, 1918.

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