ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

Armenia and the one from the Armenian diaspora were
outbidding each other in the same way. As mentioned
above, their "common memorandum" claimed not only
the "six vilayets" o f Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Karput, Sivas,
and Erzurum (in which the Armenians had never in history
had a majority), it also laid claim to Trabzon, Kara-bagh
(where virtually no Armenians had ever lived), San-segur,
and large parts o f Georgia, as well as Cilicia.
At the same time, the reputation o f the Armenians as a
nation o f peace-loving victims who had been defense-
lessly and helplessly murdered (or rather exterminated)
by the bloodthirsty Ottomans was shaken. The reason:
The young, autonomous Armenian Republic could not
think o f anything better to do than start a whole series o f
wars o f conquest.
The routes between Anatolia and central Asia (the cradle o f the
Turkic people) are 15,000 years old. I f any nation can claim
"squatter’s rights" to Eastern Anatolia, then it is the Turks.
108
The president o f the "Armenian National Delegation"
sums up, in a letter to French Foreign Minister Stephen
Pichon, why the Ottomans, who were fighting on five
fronts at the same time and were also confronted with
internal Armenian rebellions, had to defend themselves
by moving the Armenian population out o f the endangered
areas:
Monsieur le Ministre,
I have the honor, in the name o f the Armenian National
Delegation, o f submitting to Your Excellency the
following declaration, at the same time reminding him:
That the Armenians have been, since the beginning o f
the war, de facto belligerents, as you yourself have
acknowledged, since they have fought alongside the
Allies on all fronts, enduring heavy sacrifices and great
suffering for the sake o f their unshakeable attachment to
the cause o f the Entente:
In France, through their volunteers, who started joining
the Foreign Legion in the first days and covered themselves
with glory under the French flag; In Palestine and
Syria, where the Armenian volunteers, recruited by the
National Delegation at the request o f the government of
the Republic itself, made up more than half o f the
French contingent and played a large role in the victory
o f General Allenby, as he him self and his French chiefs
have officially declared;
In the Caucasus, where, without mentioning the 150,000
Armenians in the Imperial Russian Army, more than
40,000 o f their volunteers contributed to the liberation
o f a portion o f the Armenian vilayets, and where, under
the command o f their leaders, Antranik and
Nazerbekoff, they, alone among the peoples o f the
Caucasus, offered resistance to the Turkish armies, from
the beginning o f the Bolshevist withdrawal right up to
the signing o f an armistice."
(The letter bears the date on which it was received in the
French Foreign Office - December 3, 1918). In this manner,
Boghos Nubar explained that the Armenians had
waged constant war with the Ottoman Empire from
November 1, 1914 right up to the signing o f the Armistice
o f Mudros on October 30, 1918 and had thus been, in his
eyes, "de facto belligerents".
Reproduction o f the letter from Boghos Nubar to the French
foreign minister. (The first page is shown in its entirety; from
the second page, only the salutation and Boghos Nubar's signature
are shown.)
Eastern Anatolian landscape above Lake Van (Yedikilisse-
Warak-wank).