ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

The Armenian residential and administrative areas centred
on Kum Kapi on the shore o f the Sea o f Marmara,
where even today the Gregorian Patriarchate is to be
found. The wealthy Armenians lived, as did the Greeks,
mainly in the new quarter known as Pera. The historic
city o f Constantinople was thus situated between the teeth
o f a pair o f pincers consisting o f dissident inhabitants
who in April 1915 were waiting for their hour to come.
In the early months o f 1915 the Ottoman authorities were
confronted with the problem that Constantinople was
threatened on two sides, by the French and British fleets
lying in wait before the Dardanelles on one hand, and
from the Eastern front on the other. After the collapse o f
the winter offensive under Enver Pasha and the annihilation
o f the 3rd Army, which had under his command
failed to advance towards Russia over the Caucasus,
Eastern Anatolia was left almost entirely without any
means o f defending itself against Russian attack. Only a
few regiments o f the 95,000-strong 3rd Army had survived;
almost 75,000 men had been lost. It was clear to all
concerned that the losses had been incurred not only
because the troops had been poorly armed and equipped
but also because they were massively betrayed by the
Armenian inhabitants o f the region, who put their hopes -
vainly, as it turned out - in the Russians. The letter o f
thanks which Enver sent on ahead in February to the
Gregorian Bishop o f Konya only proves that the commander
clearly recognized the importance o f the
Armenian forces.
In March 1 9 1 5 a carefully prepared uprising broke out in
Zeitun which was intended to break open the sparingly
manned Ottoman front from behind. The motivation
behind this attack was the Armenians' strategically well-
conceived plan to conquer the zone around Alexandrette
(Iskenderun) in south-eastern Anatolia, where the
Ottomans only had a limited troop presence, and thus to
cut the Empire into two parts. A few months later, in July
1915, this offensive was indeed carried out with French
support on Musa Dag, but failed as a result o f the resistance
o f the defending forces.
The picture is rounded out by uprisings in Van, which fell into
the hands o f the Armenian franc-tireurs in 1915, and in Mu§,
Sassun, Erzindjan, Erzurum, Kharput, Sivas, Diyarbekir,
Ankara, and Trapezunt, not to mention also within the bound­
aries o f Istanbul itself (Bursa, Yalova, Adapazar ...).
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The goal o f the Armenians - who were undeterred by the
fact that they were nowhere in the majority - was the
establishment o f an independent State. And the Russian
authorities in St. Petersburg - neither Tsar Nicholas nor
the "red Tsars" who followed him ever dreamt o f granting
the Armenians independence - were attracted by the
imminent possibility o f an attack on Constantinople and a
breakthrough to the "warm seas".
All this was to be made possible by the Armenian uprisings
in the east and south-east o f the Empire, and the
advance o f the united French and British forces over the
Dardanelles to Constantinople-Istanbul, the latter to be
assisted in a special way by Annenian bands in and
around the capital. The model was to have been Van.
The advance of the British-French fleet before the
Dardanelles, and their attem pt to break through to
Constantinople in conjunction with the same kind of
Armenian uprising in the capital as had been carried
out successfully in Van.
The Gallipoli campaign took actually place between April
and Decem ber 1915 in an effort to conquer the
Dardanelles from the Turkish Ottoman Empire and thus
force it out o f the war. Some 60,000 Australians and
18,000 New Zealanders were part o f a larger Bitish force.
At the end some 26,000 Australians and 7,500 New