The volunteer units who fought in the army of Paskevitch, also participated in the action on the southern Western Armenian front, as well. They were intrinsic in the defence of the fortress in Bayazid (the 2 500-strong garrison included approximately 1 000 Armenians) against the attacks of the Pasha in Van, which would become one of the most famous military campaigns of the Caucasian army. 65
Also worth mention are the superbly organised military campaigns of the Armenian General Arghoutian, who, leading the first row of the cavalry battalion himself, took the city of Olti. 68
At the end of the war, General Paskievitch praised the Armenians, calling them "our brothers in arms and loyal allies." 69
During the Crimea War (1853-1856) Armenians were again on the Armenian front lines, both among the officers and the ordinary soldiers. General Behboudian, in the war at Gyumri (then Alexandropol) by the Arpa River, caused the first defeat of Turkish Asian army, by crushing the forces of Ahmet Pasha on November 14, 1853. 70 During the last days of the war, in November 1855, the Turkish commander, Omar Pasha, devised a cunning plan to force the Russians to break their siege of Kars and marched with his army from Batum, to all appearances en route to conquer Tbilisi. It was General Behboudian who brought the plans of Omar Pasha to an end, by halting the Turkish army in Kutais. 71
Throughout the war, Colonel Loris Melikian, the future victor of the 1877-1878 war and prime minister-to-be of Tsar Alexander II, distinguished himself at the first row of the battalion of Armenian and Caucasian volunteers. On December 20, 1855, at a point between Kars and Gyumri, he led the battalion to a glorious victory, for which he received a golden-laid sword from the tsar. 72
Several other Armenian officers distinguished themselves in the Russian army, during the wars in the northern Caucasus and Daghestan, fought over several years from the middle of the 19th century onwards. These wars resulted in Russian rule over all these regions, inhabited by courageous and warrior mountain-dwellers. The names of some of the most famous future commanders, among others Loris Melikian, Lazarian, Ter-Ghoukasian and Shelkovnikian, first appeared in these struggles.
However, it was the Russian-Ottoman war of 1827-1828 which allowed the Armenian commanders in the Russian army to truly prove their competence and value. General Loris Melikian was appointed supreme commander of the Caucasus army. General Lazarian was among the officers under his command, who led the left flank of the Russian army in the battle by the river Arpa. With this skilful manoeuvre he crushed the army of Mokhtar Pasha, undoubtedly shaping the outcome of the war. In the campaigns at the front near Erzurum, another Armenian officer, Tartaian, planned the surprise attack on the fortress of Azizi, forfeiting his life for the victory. 73 General Ter-Ghoukasian, a great military engineer led a unit operating in southern Western Armenia, in which 74 Armenian volunteers fought together with the Russian soldiers. 75 They played an important role in the second defence of Bayazid. 76
Finally, the Armenians performed crucial services in the border units which guarded the boundaries of Transcaucasia. There were many Armenians in this well-trained force, which was responsible for the maintenance of security and order in the mountainous regions, and therefore subject to constant attack from armed Turkish and Kurdish nomadic groups. 77
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