Armenian militia
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Armenian militia (Armenian irregular units, or Armenian Cethes, Armenian: Ֆէտայի), better known by Armenians as Fedayee, is a term referring to Armenian guerrillas who voluntarily leave their families in order to fight for Armenians. A part of the activities of "Fedayee" which belongs to Armenian national liberation movement is summarized under Armenian rebellions.
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[edit] Origins in the Ottoman Empire
- See also: Armenian rebellions
[edit] Abdul Hamid II era
- See also: Hamidian massacres
The term Fedayee was first used in the Ottoman Empire although Fedayeen was used by Arab fighters earlier. Armenians, like other minorities such as Greeks and Assyrians were persecuted by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. They did not possess the same rights as the Turkish citizens of the empire because of their religion and the distrust Abdul Hamid II had for them. Frequently, Armenian villages were pillaged and its citizens murdered by criminals, Kurds and Hamidian guards.
These conditions, and the fact that Armenia was still under Ottoman Empire control prompted Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to form guerrilla organizations and bands. These guerrillas were called Fedayee.
Their main goal was to defend Armenian villagers from persecution and at the same time, disrupt the Ottoman Empire's activities in Armenian populated regions. However, their ultimate goal was always to gain Armenian autonomy (Armenakans) or independence (Dashnaks, Hunchaks) depending on their ideology and degree of oppression received on Armenians. This can be seen in the Dashnak slogan "Azadoutioun gam Mah", which literally translates as "Liberty or Death". These bands committed sabotage activities like cutting telegraph lines and raiding army supplies. They also committed assassinations and counter-attacks on Muslim villages. They helped Armenians defend themselves during village purges by Hamidieh guards. They were supported by Armenians and quickly gained fame, support and trust by them.
[edit] Second Constitutional Era and Iran
Their activities in the Ottoman Empire dissipated after the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire, Committee of Union and Progress came into power, and for a time granted Armenians the same rights as Turkish and Kurdish citizens of the empire. Most fedayee groups disbanded, returning to their families while others left to help Iran and it's revolution.
[edit] World War I
- See also: Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
Some fedayee groups joined the Ottoman army after the Ottoman government passed a new law to support the war effort that required all enabled adult males up to the age of forty-five to either be recruited in the Ottoman army or to pay special fees (which would be used in the war effort) in order to be excluded from service. As a result of this law, most able-bodied men were removed from their homes, leaving only the women, children, and elderly by themselves. Most of the Armenian recruits were later turned into road laborers, and many were executed prior to the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
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 [1], 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. The fedayees soon merged with the Armenian army. General Tovmas Nazarbekian took command of the Caucasus front and another fedayee, Andranik Toros Ozanian 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. Meanwhile, Drasdamat Kanayan, another well-known fedayee, led the battle in the Georgian-Armenian War.
The total number of guerrillas in these irregular bands was 40-50,000, according to Boghos Nubar, the president of the "Armenian National Delegation":
| In the Caucasus, where, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Imperial Russian Army, more than 40,000 of their volunteers contributed to the liberation of a portion of the Armenian vilayets, and where, under the command of their leaders, Antranik and Nazerbekoff, they, alone among the peoples of the Caucasus, offered resistance to the Turkish armies, from the beginning of the Bolshevist withdrawal right up to the signing of an armistice."[2] |
The fedayee bands soon disbanded or left the new Soviet Armenia as Armenia lost its independance to the USSR mostly to Europe and North America.
[edit] Fedayees elsewhere
The term fedayee was later used by Armenian insurgents around 1990 when the dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh was turning into the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.hist.net/kieser/aghet/Essays/EssayZurcher.html
- ^ letter to French Foreign Office - December 3, 1918
[edit] References
- Vartanian, H.K. The Western Armenian Liberation Struggle Yerevan, 1967
- Translated and NPOVed from the Armenian: Mihran Kurdoghlian, Badmoutioun Hayots, C. hador [Armenian History, volume III], Athens, Greece, 1996, pg. 59-62.
