ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

An Equally Tragic Sequel on the
Southern Front
The murderous Armenian uprisings o f Mush and Van in
1915 had amounted to the opening o f another front
against the Ottomans within the borders o f the Empire.
Under these circumstances, the Ottoman government had
seen it necessary to protect the threatened part o f Anatolia
by moving the Armenians elsewhere. Several hundred
thousand Armenians ended up in Syria. Almost as soon as
the Armistice o f Mudros was concluded, these people
started streaming back to their original homes. Their
intention now was to found a new Cilician-Armenian
state, but in the region where they wanted to have this
state they were just as much a minority now, after the war,
as they had been before it. Since it is not possible to go
into the events o f this secondary theater o f war in more
detail, a description o f a single episode will have to suffice.
This episode illustrates the dimensions o f a campaign
that was supposed to "recall the tradition o f the
Crusades" (and unfortunately did so): After the French-
Armenian invaders had been thrown back by the Turks,
Marsin and Taurus were once again in the hands o f their
inhabitants, who were not about to have French-
Armenian rule forced upon them. A gang o f Armenian
fanatics, however, decided to declare the region between
the Sehun and Jehun rivers "selfgovem-ing".
The ringleader o f this ridiculous operation was Mihran
Damadjian, a terrorist who had grown old disgracefully.
He had won his first bloody laurels inciting rebellions in
Sasun.
When the French tried to put him in his place, he declared
an "independent Armenian state o f Cilicia" on August 5,
1920. With a handful o f blindly loyal followers, he occupied
the 'Palais des Gouvemeurs' o f Adana in terrorist
fashion.
As representative o f the "Armenian National Delegation"
(whatever that might have been in Cilicia), he declared
him self "Armenian governor under French protectorate".
This unfortunate farce ended an hour later, when the
French commanding officer asked him and his "government"
in no uncertain fashion to end "cette comedie ridicule"
as soon as possible.
The French ended their Cilician adventure shortly thereafter.
On December 11,1918, a French battalion made up o f
four hundred Armenians had occupied Dortyol, the notorious
region o f Armenian rebellion surrounding Musa
Dagh and Zeitun.
On January 20, 1920, the French began pulling out o f
Ma-rash. (On February 6 the patriarch in Istanbul sent a
telegram to Paris saying that two thousand Armenians
had been "massacred" by the Turks; on February 25,
Reuters sent a telegram around the world saying that the
Turks had slaughtered 70,000 [seventy thousand!]
116
Armenians in Marash . . .) It is true that the fighting on
Turkey's southern flank was taking on a genuine warlike
character, even if the situation did not resemble the
rumors that Reuters was peddling, apparently still in the
tradition o f wartime slander.
The fighting was in fact taking place between the best-
equipped Armenian units and recently resurrected Turkish
troops led by their efficient government in Ankara.
They made up for their lack o f equipment and means of
transport with love for their country. On October 20,
1921, an agreement was signed between the Turkish government
and M. Franklin-Bouillon, representing France.
It called for the unconditional withdrawal o f French
troops.
The overwhelming majority o f the Armenian population,
which had just moved back to Cilicia in 1918, joined the
French in their withdrawal. This happened in spite o f the
fact that the Armenians in the South o f Turkey were a
valuable part o f the Turkish community and would have
been just as welcome as the Armenians were everywhere
else in Anatolia.
All the facts indicate that the emigration en masse o f the
Armenians from Cilicia was planned and programmed
with a single goal in mind. Someone wanted to prove to
the "dumb, incompetent Turks" that things "simply would
not work" without the Armenian element. Trade -especially
international trade - would surely fall apart permanently.
But what happened was just the opposite. The tremendously
capable Armenians settled by the hundreds of
thousands in all the nations that were founded out o f the
old Ottoman Empire. (They had not been moved out in
1915; they had just been moved around]) None o f these
other nations, however, could possibly stand comparison
with the progress made in Turkey. Only Turkey has managed
to build the road to a safe, peaceful present, with a
virtually certain option on an even better, peaceful future.
The other states, Syria and Lebanon in particular, have
meanwhile sunk into a sea o f blood and terror (o f which
no small part is contributed by Armenian terrorists).
Speaking o f Lebanon:
The French supreme commander in Cilicia, General
Dufieux, was a notorious Turk-hater. Right up to the last
moment, he avoided making contact with even a single
Turk. He left Adana on November 24,1921. Just before
his departure, he visited the French war cemetary, and as
he laid down the obligatory wreath he said sadly: "To the
French soldiers who sacrificed their blood in vain."
He could almost have been saying those words vicariously
for all the French people who wish to remember the
victims o f terror in Lebanon and the victims o f the
Lebanese disaster. The incomprehensible waves o f terrorism
from Lebanon have in the meantime reached France
and Paris, claiming countless innocent victims. They are
in fact all exclusively victims o f a French policy that held
that France could win power and influence in the