From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.history,soc.culture.yugoslavia
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: "Arromdian": source of pride for all "wieneramus".
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 22:51:45 EDT
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1992Oct9.221851.9069@blaze.cs.jhu.edu> arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:

>Unrebutted territorial claims are dangerous even if the country in question
>doesn't happen to have troops at the moment.

Your ignorance always cramps my conversation. Remember the Armenian genocide
of 2.5 million Muslims between 1914 and 1920?


Source: "World Alive, A Personal Story" by Robert Dunn. Crown Publishers, 
Inc., New York (1952), p. 363 (first paragraph). 

 'How many people lived there?'
 'Oh, about eight hundred.' He yawned.
 'Did you see any Turk officers?'
 'No, sir. I was in at dawn. All were Tartar civilians in mufti.'

 "The lieutenant dozed off, then I, but in the small hours a voice woke me - 
 Dro's. He stood in the starlight bawling out an officer. Anyone keelhauled
 so long and furiously I'd never heard. Then abruptly Dro broke into 
 laughter, quick and simple as child's. Both were a cover for his sense
 of guilt, I thought, or hoped. For somehow, despite my boast of irreligion,
 Christian massacring 'infidels' was more horrible than the reverse would
 have been.

 From daybreak on, Armenian villagers poured in from miles around.....
 The women plundered happily, chattering like ravens as they picked over
 the carcass of Djul. They hauled out every hovel's chattels, the last scrap 
 of food or cloth, and staggered away, packing pots, saddlebags, looms, even
 spinning-wheels.

 'Thank you for a lot, Dro,' I said to him back in camp. 'But now I must leave.'
 ... We shook hands, the captain said 'A bientot, mon camarade.' And for hours
 the old Molokan scout and I plodded north across parching plains. Like Lot's
 wife I looked back once to see smoke bathing all, doubtless in a sack of
 other Moslem villages up to the line of snow that was Iran.'

p. 354.

"At morning tea, Dro and his officers spread out a map of this whole
 high region called the Karabakh. Deep in tactics, they spoke Russian,
 but I got their contempt for Allied 'neutral' zones and their distrust
 of promises made by tribal chiefs. A campaign shaped; more raids on
 Moslem villages."

p. 358.

"It will be three hours to take," Dro told me. We'd close in on three
 sides.
"The men on foot will not shoot, but use only the bayonets," Merrimanov
said, jabbing a rifle in dumbshow.
"That is for morale," Dro put in. "We must keep the Moslems in terror that
 our cruelty beats theirs."
"Soldiers or civilians?" I asked.
"There is no difference," said Dro. "All are armed, in uniform or not."
"But the women and children?"
"Will fly with the others as best they may."

p. 360.

"The ridges circled a wide expanse, its floors still. Hundreds of feet down,
 the fog held, solid as cotton flock. 'Djul lies under that,' said Dro,
 pointing. 'Our men also attack from the other sides.'

 Then, 'Whee-ee!' - his whistle lined up all at the rock edge. Bayonets
 clicked upon carbines. Over plunged Archo, his black haunches rippling;
 then followed the staff, the horde - nose to tail, bellies taking the
 spur. Armenia in action seemed more like a pageant than war, even though 
 I heard our Utica brass roar.

 As I watched from the height, it took ages for Djul to show clear. A tsing
 of machine-gun fire took over from the thumping batteries; cattle lowed,
 dogs barked, invisible, while I ate a hunk of cheese and drank from a snow
 puddle. Mist at last folded upward as men shouted, at first heard faintly.
 The came a shrill wailing.

 Now among the cloud-streaks rose darker wisps - smoke. Red glimmered about
 house walls of stone or wattle, into dry weeds on roofs. A mosque stood in
 clump of trees, thick and green. Through crooked alleys on fire, horsemen
 were galloping after figures both mounted and on foot.

 'Tartarski!' shouted the gunner by me. Others pantomimed them in escape
 over the rocks, while one twisted a bronze shell-nose, loaded, and yanked
 breech-cord, firing again and again. Shots wasted, I thought, when by
 afternoon I looked in vain for fallen branch or body. But these shots and
 the white bursts of shrapnel in the gullies drowned the women's cries.

 At length all shooting petered out. I got on my horse and rode down toward
 Djul. It burned still but little flame showed now. The way was steep and 
 tough, through dense scrub. Finally on flatter ground I came out suddenly,
 through alders, on smoldering houses. Across trampled wheat my brothers-in-
 arms were leading off animals, several calves and a lamb."

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)