Unit name | Armenian militia |
---|---|
Caption | Group fighting under the ARF banner. The text reads: "Liberty or Death" |
Allegiance | Armenia |
Type | Militia |
Nickname | Fedayi |
Motto | Liberty or Death |
Battles | Nagorno-Karabakh War |
Their ultimate goal was always to gain Armenian autonomy (Armenakans) or independence (Dashnaks, Hunchaks) depending on their ideology and the degree of oppression visited on Armenians. This can be seen in the Dashnak slogan "Ազատութիւն կամ Մահ" (Azatutyun kam Mah), which literally translates as "Liberty or Death".
Famous Armenian fedayees in this period included Nikol Douman, Girayr, Papken Siuni
Famous Armenian fedayees in this period included Christapor Mikaelian (Yıldız assassination attempt), Kevork Chavush, Hampartsoum Boyadjian, and Murad of Sebastia.
The genocide gave way to the return of the fedayees. Apart from thousands of Armenians who were drafted or volunteered in several different armies fighting against the Ottoman empire, and apart from those who were drafted in the Ottoman army prior to World War I, the fedayees fought inside Ottoman borders.
During the first year of the new republic, Armenians were flooding from Anatolia to safe havens. Roads were clogged with refugees. Further southeast, in Van, the fedayees helped the local Armenians resist the Turkish army until April 1918, but eventually were forced to evacuate it and withdraw to Persia.
To consider emergency measures, the Western Armenian Administration sponsored a conference which adopted plans to form a twenty-thousand-man militia under Andranik in December 1917. Civilian commissioner Dr. Hakob Zavriev promoted Adrianik to Major General and he took the command of Armenia within the Ottoman Empire. They fought in numerous successful battles such as the Battle of Kara Killisse, the Battle of Bash Abaran and the Battle of Sardarapat, as fedayees merged with the Armenian army (Erivan centered) under the General Tovmas Nazarbekian.
The total number of guerrillas in these irregular bands was 40,000–50,000, according to Boghos Nubar, the president of the "Armenian National Delegation":
Boghos Nubar, as a part of the Armenian Delegation, had the intention to expand the borders of the independent Democratic Republic of Armenia. Thus, he might have elevated the number of Armenian fedayees who were able to fight in order to show that the Armenians are capable of defending an eventually large Ottoman-Armenian border. In reality, their numbers at that time were much lower, considering the fact that there were no more than a few handful of fedayees in most of the confrontations between them and Kurdish irregulars or Turkish soldiers, even according to foreign accounts. Moreover, many of the fedayees were the same and reappeared in various places and battles. One should also note that many Armenian irregular fighters died defending regions of Western Armenia during the genocide.
The fedayee bands soon disbanded or left the new Soviet Armenia as Armenia lost its independence to the USSR mostly to Europe and North America.
Category:Military history of the Ottoman Empire Category:Armenian Genocide Category:Militias in Asia Category:Militias in Europe Category:Armenian resistance
es:Unidades irregulares armenias eo:Armena milico it:Milizia armena ru:Фидаи (армянские) tr:Ermeni milisleriThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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