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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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Deliverance and Evacuation of Van

As the caravans of deportees trudged toward the Syrian desert and Jevdet Bey attempted to crush the rising at Van, the Eastern Armenians wavered between optimism and pessimism. They were yet not fully aware of what had befallen the Western Armenians, but, believing the latter imperilled, clamoured for Russian occupation of the entire Plateau. When news of the fighting at Van reached Transcaucasia, the demand for immediate action burgeoned, and the IV Corps of the Russian Caucasian Army launched an offensive toward Van and Manizkert. 78 Participating in the operation were the second, third, and fifth volunteer battalions combined under the command of Vartan into the Legion of Ararat. Departing from Yerevan on April 28, 1915, the Legion joined General Nikolaev's regular divisions, which passed over the pre-war boundary on May 4. 79 Two weeks later the Armenian units, followed by the Russian troops, were greeted joyously by the insurgents at Van, while Jevdet Pasha retreated along the southern shore of the lake toward Vostan. 80 The Armenian volunteers were showered with praise by IV Corps Commander General Oganovsky, who, through the person of Catholicos, informed the Armenian people of the valour of their Legion. 81 Russian military authorities appointed Aram Manoukian, who had coordinated the Armenian defence of Van, governor of the occupied region. Armenian political consciousness was again stimulated, for the promised reward, an autonomous Armenia under Russian protection, was within sight. 82 Already native administration, militia, and police were established in the cradle around Lake Van, where the Armenian nation had been moulded more than two thousand years before. 83

At the end of June, the Armenian Legion, now attached to the special forces of General Trukhin, was entrusted with the task of expelling the Turks from the entire southern shore of the lake in preparation for the concentrated Russian drive into the Bitlis vilayet, where nearly a hundred thousand beleaguered Armenians awaited deliverance. 84 Impatient to reach the Plain of Moush and the mountains of Sasoun, the Legion, joined by Andranik's unit, attained south-western extremity of the lake by mid-July and garnered the laudations of General Trukhin. However, when Russian divisions advanced toward Bitlis, they met the vigorous counteroffensive of Abdul Kerim's strongly reinforced Special Army Group, whose blows were directed north of the lake against the main concentration of the IV Caucasus Corps near Manizkert. 85 To avoid encirclement, Trukhin's group was commanded to withdraw to Van, but upon arriving there the general found the entire region already evacuated by the remainder of the IV Corps. Thus, on July 31, 1915, the native inhabitants were ordered to abandon their homes and move toward the Russian border. 86 The panic was indescribable. After the month-long resistance to Jevdet Pasha, after the city's liberation, after the establishment of an Armenian governorship, all was blighted. Fleeing behind the retreating Russian forces, nearly two hundred thousand refugees, losing most of their possessions in repeated Kurdish ambushes, swarmed into Transcaucasia. 87 Providing for this multitude, coping with the impatience to return home, and assuaging their complaints against their Eastern Armenian neighbours were among the many serious problems inherited by the future republic.

If the evacuation of Van occasioned much discontent and grief, the failure of the march toward Bitlis resulted in tragedy. The welcome sound of Russian artillery heard by the Armenians of Moush and Sasoun had faded away as Turkish divisions, having repulsed the foreign enemy, concentrated upon their internal foes. It was only after the few survivors of the blood bath had straggled into Transcaucasia that the full impact and significance of the Western Armenian annihilation was delivered. 88 When the IV Corps and Armenian units reoccupied Van in September, 1915, captured Vostan in October, and advanced into Moush in February and Bitlis in March, 1916, there remained no one to liberate. Russian victory then occasioned little rejoicing among the volunteers or Armenian populace of Transcaucasia. 89