The Armenians, besides battling on the Caucasian front, where they have been fighting in their own native land, have co-operated unreservedly with the Allies on far distant fronts, as for example on the French front. At the beginning of the war the young Armenian students living in France—about 900 in number—volunteered to serve in the French army for the defence of civilization and freedom. Today, scarcely 50 of them are alive; the majority of the 850 others gave their lives in 1916 in the immortal defence of Verdun. This small episode in this universal drama will not be forgotten by either France or the Free Armenia of the future. Glory to the memory of those immortal heroes! Beyond, on another front of the war, by an extraordinary coincidence of fate, in the deadly blow which fell on the head of the criminal Ottoman Empire in the Holy Land, the sons of the sorrowful people whom it had ruthlessly slaughtered had their just share of active participation. And indeed, in General Allenby's victorious army, which saved Palestine and Syria from Turkish tyranny in September, 1918, by General Allenby's own testimony, the eight battalions of the Armenian volunteers (who took part in those battles under the French flag) were conspicuous for their bravery. In response to a congratulatory telegram from the chairman of the Armenian National Union of Egypt for the victories on the Palestine front, General Allenby said: "I thank you warmly for your congratulations, and am proud of the fact that your Armenian compatriots in the Oriental Legion took an active part in the fighting and shared in our victory."
Conclusion.
If we wish to condense all we have said in a few pages, we shall have the following picture:
In 1914 both Turkey and Russia appealed to the Armenians by various promises of a future autonomous Armenia to secure their assistance in their respective military operations. Through their long and bitter experience the Armenians knew very well that the imperialistic governments of both Turkey and of Russia were opposed to their national aspirations and therefore those promises had no value whatever. But, realizing the universal significance of the present war, and considering the fact that justice was on the side of the Entente, the Armenians, in spite of their distrust of the Russian government, from the very beginning, unreservedly bound themselves to the allied cause.
This decision of the Armenians cost them the sacrifice of more than 1,000,000 men in Turkish Armenia, and complete devastation of their native land even in the first year of the war.
In spite of this terrible blow, the Armenians did not lose their vigor, and, even though the autocratic Russian government, up to the time of the Revolution, created all sorts of obstacles to impede their activities, they still continued their assistance to the allied cause. In bringing about the failure of the three Turkish offensives in 1914 and 1915 the Armenians gave the allied cause important armed assistance, on both sides of the Turco-Russian frontier.
After the Russian Revolution, when, the Russian military forces fled from the Caucasian front and left it unprotected from January, 1918, to the middle of the following September, the Armenians were the only people who resisted and delayed the Turco-German advance toward Baku. Moreover, the Armenians accomplished all this with their own forces, all alone, surrounded on all sides by hostile elements, without any means of communication with their great Allies of the West. As an evidence of this we may mention the fact that during the last eight months and a half the Armenians have received from the Allies only 6,500,000 rubles ($3,250,000) of financial assistance, and the 2,800 British soldiers who were too few and arrived too late to save Baku.
Armenian volunteers who fought on the Palestine front in
September and October, 1918, under the command of Gen. Allenby.
Let us now look at the other side of the picture.