french and british post-war imperial agendas and … · the armenian-populated areas of western...

FRENCH AND BRIT ISH POST -WARIMPERIAL AGENDAS AND FORGING

AN ARMENIAN HOMELAND AFTER THEGENOCIDE : THE FORMATION OF THELÉGION D’ORIENT IN OCTOBER *

ANDREKOS VARNAVAFlinders University

A B S T R AC T . In October , the French government agreed with Armenian political elitesto establish a Légion of Armenian volunteers in British Cyprus to fight the common Ottoman enemy.Despite British, French, and even Armenian rejections of such a Légion during different timesthroughout and early , all sides overcame earlier concerns. Understanding how theymanaged to overcome these concerns will allow for this little-known episode in the history of the GreatWar in the eastern Mediterranean to contribute to the knowledge on () the complex French andBritish wartime stances towards this region, driven by imperialism and humanitarianism; () theability of local elites to draw concessions from the Allies; () the important role played by local Britishand French colonial and military officers; and () broader historiographical debates on the responsesto the Armenian Genocide. This article explores the origins of how the Entente co-opted Armeniansin their eastern Mediterranean campaigns, but also made them into pawns in the French and Britishreinvention of their imperial rivalry in this region in order to achieve their post-war imperialistagendas.

I

On October , in the comfort of the French Embassy in London, BoghosNubar Pasha, the founder and first president of the Armenian GeneralBenevolent Union (–), and the head of the Armenian National Dele-gation in Paris from December , was shown the Sykes–Picot Agreement.The British and French diplomats present at the meeting, Mark Sykes andFrancois Georges-Picot respectively, the co-authors of the Sykes–Picot Agree-ment, led Nubar to understand that the Armenian-populated areas of the

* I would like to acknowledge the following people in the making of this article: Dr DavidClose, Dr Matthew Fitzpatrick, Dr Evan Smith, and Ms Justine Tilman from Flinders University,and the anonymous reviewers for The Historical Journal.

School of International Studies, Flinders University, GPO Box , Adelaide , South [email protected]

The Historical Journal, , (), pp. – © Cambridge University Press doi:./SX

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Ottoman Empire would be divided into two parts after the war: one composingthe eastern vilayets of Van, Erzerum, Bitlis, Dersim, and Trabzon, under Russiancontrol, and the other including Cilicia and the three western vilayets of Sivas,Kharput, and Diayarbekir, under French control. Thus, the Armenian-populated areas of the Ottoman Empire would come under the protection oftwo of the Allied powers of the Great War. Nubar recalled that Georges-Picothad asserted that the French would be willing to grant the Armenians anautonomous state under their control, but ‘the Armenians should earn theright to the liberation of their fatherland, by providing volunteers for a plannedexpedition in Asia Minor’. Accordingly, they agreed to form the Légiond’Orient, with the following particulars:

. The constitution of the Légion d’Orient aimed to have Armenians contributeto the liberation of their fatherland in exchange for granting them newentitlements in line with their national aspirations.

. The Armenian Légionnaires would only fight against the Ottoman Empire andonly on the soil of their fatherland.

. The Armenian Légion would constitute the future nucleus of the Armenian armyin the future Armenian state.

This agreement planned for the establishment of a French protectorate overthe Armenian-populated areas of western Armenia in exchange for creating anArmenian Légion in the French army and thus contributing to an Allied victoryagainst the Ottoman Empire.

This article does not deal with the operational history of the ArmenianLégion, yet it is important to understand its wider military and geo-strategicsignificance once operational. Six battalions with roughly men were formedand trained on Cyprus, and those that served in the Palestine Campaign,specifically at the battle of Arara, exhibited ‘good fighting qualities’ accordingto General Edmund Allenby, who was in charge of the campaign. The Légiond’Orient, which also contained Syrian Arabs (initially trained on Cyprus,but later moved to Syria), was renamed Armenian Légion after the armisticewhen it formed a part of the French Army of Occupation of Cilicia and itssurrounding areas. Its role in this capacity has been the subject of some

Boghos Nubar memorandum on creation of Légion d’Orient, Dec. , London, TheNational Archives (TNA), Foreign Office (British) (FO) //; Boghos Nubar, ‘Note onthe circumstances and conditions under which the Légion d’Orient was created in ’, Dec. , Paris, Nubarian Library (NL), ‘Légion d’Orient’, Armenian Volunteers,‘Miscellany’, box . Ibid.

Despatch from General Allenby, Oct. , London Gazette, Dec. , TNA, WarOffice (British) (WO) /; Boghos Nubar, ‘Note’, Dec. , NL, ‘Légion d’Orient’,Armenian Volunteers, ‘Miscellany’, box .

See Simon Jackson, ‘Diaspora politics and developmental empire: the Syro-Lebanese at theLeague of Nations’, Arab Studies Journal, (), pp. –, at pp. –.

See N. E. Bou-Nacklie, ‘Les troupes speciales: religious and ethnic recruitment,–’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, (), pp. –; Eliezer

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controversy, both in relation to the Franco-Turkish War and the subsequentexodus of Armenians. Albeit in a limited way, the Légion has also been dis-cussed in relation to the Armenian Genocide (see below). Yet, despite someworks on its role in these events, nothing definitive has been published in theEnglish language on its formation (particularly of the Armenian component)in October , let alone the rather long build-up that included numerousrejections.

This article uses British, French, Armenian, and Cypriot archival sources aswell as British, French, and Turkish language historiography to reconstruct thestory of the formation of the Légion d’Orient in October . It attempts toshow that the Légion’s formation transpired after many rejections – first fromthe British, then the French, and then from Armenian political elites – during atransition period for British and French policy-makers in relation to their ap-proach to the war in the Near and Middle East and their post-war role there, aswell as for Armenians during the implementation of the Genocide. This argu-ment will contradict the claims of Armenian Genocide ‘denialists’ that theLégion was established because of French and British support for ‘Armenianaspirations’ in a conspiracy to topple the Ottoman government, or as an Alliedhumanitarian response to the Armenian Genocide. The Légion d’Orient wasformed to serve the British and French (in particular) strategic-military agendaagainst the Ottoman Empire and post-war French imperial ambitions as thesehad evolved in spring in the Sykes–Picot Agreement. The hope ofArmenian political elites for a secure autonomous homeland was merely acorollary of these broader French and British agendas.

There is little English-language historiography on the Légion d’Orientand what there is betrays a deep politicization: Turkish authors primarily useits existence to justify the Ottoman government’s ‘deportation’ policy; whileArmenian authors portray it as a celebration of Armenian national awakening.

Most publications lack a comprehensive archival research base. More recently,Yucel Guclu, an employee of the Turkish embassy in Washington, published apotted account of the first proposals for the establishment of an ArmenianLégion and the implications on the proposal to land forces at Alexandretta.

Tauber, ‘La Légion d’Orient et La Légion Arabe’ (The Légion d’Orient and the Arab Légion),Revue Française d’Historie d’Outre-Mer, (), pp. –.

Stanford Shaw, ‘The Armenian Légion and its destruction of the Armenian community ofCilicia’, in Turkkaya Ataov, ed., The Armenians in the late Ottoman period (Ankara, ),pp. –.

Ibid.; see also Mim Kemal Oke, The Armenian question, – (Nicosia, ),pp. –.

Robert O. Krikorian, ‘In defence of the homeland: New England Armenians and theLégion d’Orient’, in Marc A. Mamigonian, ed., Armenians of New England: celebrating a culture andpreserving a heritage (Belmont, MA, ), pp. –. Not much academic material exists,mostly memoirs. Of note is the exhibit honouring the Armenian Légion titled ‘Forgottenheroes: the Armenian Légion and the Great War’, which was held in the Armenian Library andMuseum of America from Sept. to the end of Feb. .

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As part of justifying his denial of an Ottoman Genocide of Armenians, heclaimed that the British and Armenians (i.e. all of them en masse) colluded totopple the Ottoman Empire, thus justifying the ‘relocation’ of the Armenians.His account fails to explore let alone identify the reasons the British, French,and even Armenian elites rejected a Légion during various periods in andearly , nor does he explore the circumstances that led to the creation ofthe Légion in October . The exceptions are Akaby Nassibian’s book from, which provides much narrative and not as much analysis and context asthe less detailed account in Donald Bloxham’s study.

The Turkish-language historiography on the Légion d’Orient is no better,centring on the work of Armenian Genocide denialists Ulvi Keser andHalil Aytekin. The former produced two monographs on the subject, usingthe Turkish Military Archives, yet no French archives, while the latter accessedarchives from Turkey, Britain, and France, but was far more schematic andpatchy. Both were fundamentally flawed because they use the existence of theLégion, not formed until October , to justify the Ottoman ‘deportation’policy of spring , confusing the chronology of events and the context ofFrench and British decisions.

There is a broader historiography than that of the Légion d’Orient andArmenian Genocide, and that is the British recruitment of Ottoman subjectsinto the ‘grand coalition’ against the Central Powers, particularly the OttomanEmpire. Here, the interconnected and sometimes contradictory themes of rivalimperialisms and nationalisms, the entanglement of humanitarianism and im-perialism, and subaltern agency are most important. There is a significant his-toriography on the formation of Arabs into fighting units and the Jewish Legionlater in for the purposes of defeating the Ottoman Empire.

The Armenian case differs because it was under French command, but alsobecause there was a greater level of humanitarianism involved. So, whereas theBritish justified encouraging the Arab revolt and the formation of the JewishLegion by propagating against the oppression of Ottoman rule, with the

Yucel Guclu, Armenians and the Allies in Cilicia, – (Salt Lake City, UT, ),pp. –; see my review of Gucel’s book in Reviews in History, () (www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/); see also M. Serdar Palabiyik, ‘Establishment and activities of FrenchLégion d’Orient (Eastern Légion) in the light of French archival documents’, Review ofArmenian Studies, (), pp. –.

Akaby Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian question, – (London, ),pp. –; Donald Bloxham, The great game of genocide: imperialism, nationalism and thedestruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford, ), pp. –, –.

Halil Aytekin, Kıbrıs’ta Monarga (Bogaztepe) Ermeni Lejyonu Kampı (Monarga camp ofArmenian Légion in Cyprus) (Ankara, ); Ulvi Keser, Kıbrıs, –: Fransız Ermenikampları Ingiliz esir kampları ve Atatürkçü Kıbrıs Türkü (Cyprus, –: French Armeniancamps, British prisoner camps and Kemalist Cypriot Turks) (Istanbul, ); Ulvi Keser, Kıbrıs-Anadolu ekseninde Ermeni dogu Lejyonu (Armenian Eastern Légion in the Cyprus-Anatolia axis)(Ankara, ).

See David Murphy, The Arab revolt, –: Lawrence sets Arabia ablaze (Oxford, );and Martin Watts, The Jewish Legion and the First World War (New York, NY, ).



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Armenians both the British and the French had used the Armenian Genocideto create a public humanitarian response against Ottoman savagery. In hisrecent study, Davide Rodogno has argued that European humanitarian inter-ventions in the Ottoman Empire date back to the s, but the ‘humanitari-anism’ usually hid behind the real motivations (and sometimes was an ex postfacto justification), which were usually political, imperial, economic, and/orstrategic, and intervention could only be made if more than one Europeanpower was involved. In the case presented here, the incentive to win the warwas linked to post-war imperial expansion, thus motivating both the French andthe British to form the Légion d’Orient. This explains why the determination toform it materialized only after the Sykes–Picot Agreement was signed.

European humanitarianism and imperialism and their links with the‘Armenian Question’ must be understood within the broader ‘EasternQuestion’, and specifically on how the three Allied powers in the First WorldWar all had a traditional claim to ‘protecting’ the Christians in the OttomanEmpire and a ‘special’ relationship with the Armenians. This, of course, did notautomatically result in a decision to form the Légion, since intervention, asRodogno showed, needed more than humanitarianism to propel it and wasoften an ex post facto justification for intervention.

During the nineteenth century, a corollary of the ‘Eastern Question’ washow the Ottoman state recognized the European Powers, particularly theFrench and the Russians, as the protectors of the Catholic (Maronite and other‘eastern’ Catholics) and Orthodox Christians respectively. For example, inthe case of the French, the Catholic presence in Syria and to a lesser extentPalestine propelled French imperial interests in this part of the OttomanEmpire. The role of protecting Ottoman Christian minorities was extended tothe Armenians, but with significant differences. Armenian protection was notguided by religious affiliation, although there was a religious dimension toRussian feeling, particularly earlier in the century, but by liberalism (par-ticularly for the British and French) and imperialism. In the Anglo-Turkish

Davide Rodogno, Against massacre: humanitarian interventions in the Ottoman Empire,– (Princeton, NJ, ). Egypt is an exception to Rodogno’s interpretation.

Ibid. After the Crimean War, Russia focused on the Slavic Orthodox Christians in the Balkans.

See Jelena Milojkovic-Djuric, Panslavism and national identity in Russia and in the Balkans,–: images of the self and others (Boulder, CO. and New York, NY, ).

See, for example, ibid.; also Benedict Humphrey Sumner, Russia and the Balkans,– (Oxford, ); and Michael Boro Petrovich, The emergence of Russian panslavism,– (New York, NY, ).

For British liberal imperialism in the Ottoman Empire, see Andrekos Varnava, Britishimperialism in Cyprus, –: the inconsequential possession (Manchester, ); andAndrekos Varnava, ‘British and Greek liberalism and imperialism in the long nineteenthcentury’, in Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, ed., Liberal imperialism in Europe (London, ),pp. –. For information on French liberal imperialism, see J. P. Daughton, An empiredivided. Religion, republicanism, and the making of French colonialism, – (Oxford, );




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Convention and in the Treaty of Berlin, both of , the British governmentled the way in compelling the Ottoman Empire to agree to reforms for itsChristian communities in its eastern provinces – a clear reference to Armenians.Lord Beaconsfield’s Conservative government aimed to establish informalimperial hegemony over Asia Minor and Syria, but this failed because SultanAbdul Hamid II refused to implement reforms, and relations between the twocountries deteriorated. Although conservative governments were in powerin both France and Britain at the time, it was British and French liberalswho sympathized more with the ambitions of Armenian secular political elitesfor more representation. More generally, most European governments sym-pathized with the Armenians after the massacres perpetuated against them byAbdul Hamid’s regime in the s, yet no action was taken to prevent them atthe time or in the future, with further massacres in . Nevertheless, Britishand French governments were able to create much public humanitarian feelingand action in support of Armenian refugees. For their part, Armenian poli-tical elites were influenced by British, French, and Russian political develop-ments, but especially the revolutionary character of opposition groups inthe latter. But by the eve of the First World War, Armenian political elites,having set aside violent revolutionary approaches, were closer to the French andBritish, and European powers were locked in discussions with the Ottomangovernment, now led by the Committee of Union and Progress, on implement-ing reforms that would benefit Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

This helps explain the readiness of Armenian political elites to seek pro-tection and to align themselves with the Russian, British, and French allianceduring the First World War. Although some Armenians fought in the Ottomanarmy, others on the Russo-Ottoman border joined the Russians, whilepolitical elites in Europe and the US advocated a British Armenian Légion,

for French missionaries in the Ottoman Empire, see Owen White and J. P. Daughton, eds., InGod’s empire: French missionaries and the modern world (Oxford and New York, NY, ), chs. –.

Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus, pp. – and . See also Bloxham, The great game of genocide, pp. –, –, and –. See, for the British case, the work of the following people in Cyprus: Emma Cons,

‘Armenian exiles in Cyprus’, Contemporary Review, (), pp. –; Patrick Geddes,‘Cyprus, actual and possible: a study in the Eastern Question’, Contemporary Review, (),pp. –. Bloxham, The great game of genocide, pp. –.

Ibid., pp. –. For the reforms issue, see TNA, FO//; British Library(BL), India Office Records (IOR) Political and Secret Annual Files, IOR/L/PS// ;Political and Secret Annual Files, IOR/L/PS// ; and Political and Secret AnnualFiles, IOR/L/PS// .

Sarkis Torossian was one fascinating case. He was in charge of the first fort at theDardanelles entrance and was awarded for his bravery in stopping the British attempt to forcethe Dardanelles. He later served in the Légion d’Orient after discovering that family had diedduring the Genocide. Sarkis Torossian, From Dardanelles to Palestine: a true story of five battle frontsof Turkey and her Allies and a harem romance (Boston, MA, ).

Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian Question, pp. – and ; Bloxham, The great game ofgenocide, pp. –.




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which the British rejected in March . Consequently, on April ,Boghos Nubar requested to go to Paris to defend the interests of OttomanArmenians because he wished to convince the French government of the needfor the Entente to protect the Armenian population, through incorporatingthem into a Syria under French control. The British and French governmentslinked the protection of Ottoman Armenians with their own imperial interestsin the eastern Mediterranean. Despite the many decades leading up to theGreat War when such interests were cultivated informally (more formally inthe British cases of Cyprus and Egypt), French and British imperial interests inthe Ottoman Empire remained informal until well into . The entry of theOttoman Empire into the war did not result in the start of a serious militaryfront in any of the areas where either the British or French had imperialinterests. This was despite the fact that originally the plan was to force theDardanelles by ships alone and, succeed or fail, land troops at Alexandretta.This was overlooked instead for landing troops on Gallipoli. Subsequently, theArmenian Genocide had no impact on British and French war strategy, as theirwithdrawal fromGallipoli took them to Salonika. Yet the Gallipoli failure did seethem reconsider their traditional imperial interests on the Ottoman peripheryin the eastern Mediterranean. But even then it took the best part of a year afterthe Gallipoli failure for the British and French to start focusing their militarystrength there, which helps explain the delays in forming the Légion d’Orient.The Armenians were pawns in the greater game of post-war French and Britishimperial expansion, and thus, as Rodogno has shown for the century before theGreat War, humanitarianism, in this case in relation to the Armenian Genocide,was not the main motivation for the British and French to take the side of theArmenians by forming the Légion.

I I

Boghos Nubar first proposed using Armenians as part of an Allied landing atAlexandretta in November in order to protect Cilician Armenians, who hefeared would be massacred by the Ottomans in revenge for Armenians near theRussian border joining the Russian army. The landing at Alexandretta ap-pealed to many British strategic planners, especially General Sir John Maxwell,

Andrekos Varnava, ‘Imperialism first, the war second: the British, an Armenian Legion,and deliberations on where to attack the Ottoman Empire, November –April ’,Historical Research, Early View () (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/./-./abstract).

Cairo to Paris, Apr. , Paris, French Foreign Ministry Archives (FFMA), War–, Turkey, vol. , Armenian, I, Aug. to Dec. . Hereafter, volume inArabic numerals and issue in Roman numerals will be provided.

See Varnava, ‘Imperialism first, the war second’. Boghos Nubar to Kevork V, Paris, July , Vatche Ghazarian, ed. and trans., Boghos

Nubar’s papers and the Armenian question, –: documents (Waltham, MA, ), doc. ,– AA (hereafter, Boghos Nubar papers).



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commander-in-chief of the British forces in Egypt, Lord Kitchener, the warsecretary, and Winston Churchill, the first lord of the Admiralty. But there werecomplications, such as the French demanding a role in a landing, and theunsuccessful attempt to force the Dardanelles with the navy alone on March. The original plan was to land troops at Alexandretta regardless ofwhether the forcing of the Dardanelles by the navy had succeeded or failed.But this plan was overlooked for landing troops at Gallipoli, upon the advice ofthe naval and army high command in charge of forcing the Dardanelles.

In any event, the British government had rejected the formation of a Légion ofArmenian volunteers on March for various reasons, including: the un-certainty over the Alexandretta landing; that they were cold about forming suchLégions, having also rejected in Cypriot and Jewish Legion proposals;

and as shown below, the British considered that the proposal would result in thekilling of non-combatant Armenians, before and after the Genocide.

On the day ( April) that the Ottoman government arrested leadingArmenian elites in Constantinople, the day that Armenians commemoratethe Armenian Genocide, Cecil Spring-Rice, the British ambassador toWashington, informed Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, thatGeorge Bakhmeteff, the Russian ambassador to Washington had told him thatthe Armenian National Defence Committee were offering to send , menvia Canada to fight in operations in Cilicia and would pay for uniforms andpassage to a Canadian port. The War Office would not entertain this or anyother scheme and Spring-Rice was accordingly informed. The Foreign Officewas equally opposed. In a minute on April, Harold Eustace Satow opined:‘I don’t know what value from a military point of view an Armenian rising inCilicia would have, but I feel little doubt that it would lead to the massacre of alarge number of innocent Armenians.’ Little, of course, did he know what hadtranspired four days earlier.

Churchill to Kitchener, Jan. , London, BL, Curzon papers, F/; George H.Cassar, The French and the Dardanelles: a study of failure in the conduct of war (London, ),pp. –; and George H. Cassar, Kitchener’s war (Dulles, VA, ), p. .

Cassar, The French and the Dardanelles, pp. –; Les A. Carlyon, Gallipoli (New York, NY,), pp. –.

Secretary to Army Council to under-secretary at FO, Mar. , TNA, FO//.

See files TNA, Colonial Office (British) (CO) //, CO//,CO//, CO//, CO//, and CO//.

Watts, The Jewish Légion and the First World War, pp. – and –; see also MatityahuMintz, ‘Pinhas Rutenberg and the establishment of the Jewish Légion of ’, Studies inZionism, (), pp. –; Yanky Fachler, ‘The Zion Mule Corps and its Irish commander’,History Ireland, (), pp. –.

Decipher of telegram from Sir C. Spring-Rice, Washington, to FO, Apr. , TNA,FO//, p. .

Under-secretary at WO to under-secretary at FO, Apr. , TNA, FO//; FO telegram to Sir C. Spring-Rice, Apr. , TNA, FO///.

Minute, Harold Eustace Satow, Apr. , TNA, FO//.




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In any event, Grey informed the Colonial Office, which was being included inthe discussion because the scheme involved training the Armenians on Cyprus,that he rejected it because ‘the Army Council have repeatedly expressed theview that half organised volunteer risings of this description would have littlemilitary value and that they should not be encouraged. There is also little doubtthat such an expedition . . . would result in the massacre of many innocentArmenians.’

Despite the Army Council rejecting the Armenian scheme to raise acontingent, various quarters pushed for one after the Ottoman exterminationpolicy. In July , the Armenian Committee of National Defence addressed aletter to General Maxwell in Egypt, calling on British military action on theCilician coast in order to stop the massacres against the Armenians and thatthere were Armenian volunteers in Egypt willing to participate. About a weeklater, the Committee of Armenian National Defence reiterated their appeal toMaxwell, disclosing that a volunteer movement under their direction wasdeveloping in America and elsewhere. The committee recognized that it wasuseless for the Entente to now land at Cilicia as previously suggested, but it couldnot remain idle as reports of massacres continued to pour in. Modifying theirearlier proposal, the committee now wanted to ‘concentrate a force in Cyprusand make landings at Mersina and, if strong enough, at Beilan’. If successful,these actions could paralyse Ottoman movements in Asia Minor. Once they had‘disembarked a large force from Cyprus they would have no difficulty in holdingthe Taurus, Anti-Taurus and Amanus Mountains against the Turks, especiallynow that the latter are fully occupied with the Russians on the Caucasus and theAnglo-French in Gallipoli’. The committee was certain of , men now inRussia, Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria, and America, and all that it wanted was forBritish officers to train them on Cyprus.

British officials in Egypt continued to show interest. Lieutenant-ColonelSir Arthur Henry McMahon, the high commissioner in Egypt since January, sent Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Sykes, a Conservative MP and a long timetraveller to the Ottoman Empire, to consult with Armenian representativesin Cairo. There, on August, he discussed the proposal with Vahan Malezian, aCairo attorney and secretary to Boghos Nubar, and Mihran Damadian, aHunchak and a leader of the Sassoun rebellion of –. Sykes informedMaxwell of the plan, which called for the raising of , Armenians, , ofwhom had fought in the Bulgarian and Ottoman armies, and the rest workers inthe US, who would be trained on Cyprus to land on the northern Syrian coast,landing about men to seize Suedieh and create disorder in the vicinity,

FO to CO, May , TNA, CO//, /. McMahon to Grey, July , incl., enclosures signed by T. Moutafoff and

A. Gamsaragan, TNA, FO//, p. . McMahon to Grey, July , TNA, FO//, p. ; notes on military

operation at Cilicia by the Committee of Armenian National Defence, July , TNA,FO//.




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with the rest forming bands of about fifty and landing at various points betweenAyas and Piyas, pushing north towards Zeitun and Albistan, and there operate ascomitajis (irregular fighting units) along Macedonian lines. From approval ofthe scheme, the force would be operational in eight weeks, so if approved on August, operations would commence on October, allowing the force toenter the mountains before the snow began. The Armenians only needed fromthe Allies arms, munitions, transport, and cover for their landing. Sykes opinedthat the concentration of such a force on Cyprus would be profitable even ifheld in reserve, ‘causing the enemy uneasiness as regards a vulnerable point,and might be useful as a feint to conceal other operations’. Sykes added that itwould be better to give the Armenians something to do rather than have thembecome restless and perhaps divided. Also, the French would need to approveand could provide their contingent at the Dardanelles as an army of occupationof the Adana Vilayet if the scheme succeeded.

The Russians, desirous of having another front in Anatolia or Syria to relievepressures in Transcaucasia, pushed the British with a similar scheme putforward by Captain A. H. Torcom, a Bulgarian Armenian serving in the Russianarmy. Torcom visited George Buchanan, the British ambassador extraordinaryand plenipotentiary at Petrograd, leaving with him his scheme for theorganization of Armenian volunteers for service against the Ottoman Empire.Torcom claimed that he could recruit , men into ten battalions, andperhaps even , men into thirty battalions, through recruiting centres atAlexandria, Marseilles, Liverpool, and New York. The corps would be con-centrated at Egypt and under the command of either the French or the British.Buchanan told Torcom that he sympathized with the scheme and its cause, butbelieved it would be hard to gather the volunteers and provide them witharms.

Despite Russian encouragement, the Ottoman extermination policy, and themilitary benefits outlined by the Armenian committee in Cairo and Torcom,the War Office stood firm in rejecting the schemes, a decision the ForeignOffice supported. Harold Nicolson at the Foreign Office minuted that

the scheme proposed by the Committee is not over ambitious and might besuccessful, if only in creating a diversion . . . [but] the difficulty is that the Turkswould immediately take reprisals on the Armenians actually in their power, andmassacres would immediately follow in Constantinople and elsewhere.

Sykes to Maxwell, Aug. , TNA, FO//. Torcom, Aug. , TNA, FO//; Buchanan to Grey, Aug. ,

incl. Torcom outline of Armenian Corps, Aug. , TNA, FO//, p. . Langley to Army Council, Aug. , TNA, FO//; FO to Findlay,

July , TNA, FO//; WO to FO, Aug. , TNA, FO//// (M...); FO to DMO, Aug. , TNA, FO//.

Minute, Harold Nicolson, Aug. , TNA, FO//.




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As for Torcom’s proposal, the Army Council thought it ‘more practical’ thanany of the others previously submitted, ‘but the results likely to be achieved . . .

are not such . . . to justify His Majesty’s Government in supporting the scheme inview of the difficulties that its adoption would entail, and of the Financialresponsibilities in which it would involve this country’.

The War and Foreign Offices had a number of reasons to oppose theformation of an Armenian Légion. In a ‘reverse-type’ of humanitarianism, theirapproach to preventing massacres was not to provoke the Ottomans or toembark upon a ‘humanitarian intervention’ in response to predicted massacresof ‘allies’ in the event of a landing. This takes further the cases explored byRodogno across the century before the Great War started, where he shows howhumanitarian intervention required both a favourable European politicalclimate and one or more European powers believing that their interests, usuallyimperial, were at threat before intervening. Ultimately, this was a weakposition, alongside the Armenian approach, which was to defend themselvesagainst the inevitable through the formation of an Armenian Légion. In weigh-ing up the idea, the British also determined that the investment in finance,materials, and training did not justify the potential results. These ‘potentialresults’ must be understood in two ways: defeating the Ottoman Empire and inpost-war spoils (i.e. imperialism). Both British and German military personnel

wrote after the war, so with the benefit of hindsight, that they were bewilderedthat the British and French had not attacked Alexandretta in because thearea was an Ottoman point of weakness in so many ways, while Britishintelligence in the area was certainly aware of this. What was missing from theequation was the additional gains – war spoils and therefore imperialism – andthese had not been considered let alone determined, while the area was asmuch a French interest as it was of British interest.

I I I

The British rejection of an Armenian Légion was further reflected in the Britishand French rejection of General Maxwell’s plan to use the able-bodied MusaDagh survivors to launch raids on Alexandretta, and in the subsequent Frenchrejection of a French Armenian Légion.

The story of the Musa Dagh refugees, made famous in Franz Werfel’sepic tale, warrants a separate article, yet for the purposes of this article it isnecessary to establish how the refugees played an important part in why theFrench were approached to form the Légion in and rejected it, and the

WO to FO, Sept. , TNA, FO//// (M...). See various cases in Rodogno, Against massacre. Lieutenant-General Sir Gerald Ellison, deputy quartermaster general during the Gallipoli

campaign, and Paul von Hindenburg, chief of the German General Staff. See Varnava, ‘Imperialism first, the war second’; and Andrekos Varnava, ‘British military

intelligence in Cyprus during the Great War’, War in History, (), pp. –.




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subsequent decision to establish the Légion d’Orient almost a year after inOctober .

Starting in July , Musa Dagh (‘Moses Mountain’) was the site of anArmenian resistance to Ottoman extermination efforts. The inhabitants of theregion, issued with deportation orders, f led to the mountain where they pre-pared a camp and defensive lines, and successfully thwarted several Ottomanassaults for fifty-three days. Just when defence was becoming impossible, theycommunicated with French warships patrolling the Syrian coast, which trans-ported them to Port Said.

The British authorities did not want the responsibility of looking after theMusa Dagh refugees and neither they nor the French knew what to do withthem, until almost a year later when the men fit for military service formed thenucleus of the Légion d’Orient. On September , John Clauson, thehigh commissioner of Cyprus, telegraphed Andrew Bonar Law, the colonialsecretary, that three days earlier Louis Dartige du Fournet, the French admiralon the Syrian coast, telegraphed him that , Armenians were bravelyfighting the Ottomans at Musa Dagh. The admiral, replying to a distress signal,provided them with munitions and provisions, but the Armenians wanted thesafe removal of about , women, children, and elderly to Cyprus. Fournetneeded a reply by September when he would head for Port Said. Yet,Clauson waited three days before sending his reply to London, a reply that alsoreached the French Foreign Ministry on that day, in which he bluntly wantedthe admiral informed that

I greatly regret that in view of the very limited accommodation in Cyprus which hasalready hypothecated for other refugees it is quite impossible to receive them. I mayadd that the introduction of victims of insurrectionary fighting amongst this partlyTurkish and partly Christian population is politically inadvisable.

Both of Clauson’s points were misplaced. The eventual introduction ofthe Légion into the Christian–Muslim mix of Cyprus did not see Christians(Cypriots and Armenians) ‘teaming-up’ against Muslims, instead exposed apeasant and labouring class still emerging out of a pre-modern Ottoman millettradition with an identity based on religious affiliation, the village, and op-position to ‘outsiders’ (in this case Armenians), rather than ethnic or

For the dramatization, see the famous novel by Franz Werfel, The forty days of Musa Dagh,intro. Peter Sourian (New York, NY, , first published in German, ).

See Sourian intro. to novel in ibid. Telegram, Clauson to Bonar Law, Sept. , TNA, CO//; telegram by

McMahon to FO, Sept. , TNA, FO //; various, pp. –, FFMA, , I;see also Le captitaine de vaisseau Chamonard, Chef d’état-major de la Escadre de laMediterranee to Lieutenant-Colonel Elgood, Port Said, Sept. , Cambon to Delcassé, Sept. , Bertie to Foreign Ministry (French) (FM), immediate, Sept. , Le contre-admiral Darrieus, Commandant la Division et p. I. Escarde de la Mediterranee to Elgood, Sept. , Bertie to FM, immediate, Sept. , and various other documents, in ArthurBeylerian, ed., Les grandes puissances, l’Empire Ottoman et les Arméniens dans les archives françaises(–) (Paris, ), pp. –.




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racial factors. Clauson’s other claim that the Armenians fighting at MusaDagh were part of an insurrection, that is, part of one of the Armenianrevolutionary groups that had now revolted, was also wrong. The Musa DaghArmenians were resisting deportation, and doing a good job of fighting themutual Ottoman enemy.

General Maxwell believed this, writing to Kitchener that

everything should be done, I think, to help the movement, and, with either Cyprusor Rhodes taking their women and children, it will make an important diversionfrom the Dardanelles if we can promote the Armenian movement. I think it isadvisable to exercise a little pressure in Cyprus.

Maxwell was bored with his role of providing training and supplies to troopsdestined for Gallipoli and Salonika (his transfer request was honoured in March, whereupon he was posted to Ireland and notoriously put down the EasterRebellion), so action closer to Egypt excited him. The War Office, not under-standing the urgency of the situation, wanted more information because itdisbelieved the number of Armenians holding off the Ottoman forces.

With no answer on September, Paul Cambon, the French ambassadorto London, informed the Foreign Office that the admiral wanted to transportthe refugees to Cyprus or Egypt, while on the same day Maxwell informedthe War Office that the French admiral had already loaded the ,refugees onto cruisers and that they should be taken to Cyprus or Rhodes.

See Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus, pp. –; for an exploration of the Cypriotpolitical-religious elite and their gradual move away from co-operation with the Ottomans andBritish to hostility, see Michalis N. Michael, ‘Panaretos, –: his struggle for absolutepower during the era of Ottoman administrative reforms’, in Andrekos Varnava andMichalis N.Michael, eds., The archbishops of Cyprus in the modern age: the changing role of the Archbishop-Ethnarch, their identities and politics (Newcastle upon Tyne, ), pp. –; Kyprianos D. Louis,‘Makarios I, –: the Tanzimat and the role of the Archbishop-Ethnarch’, in ibid.,pp. –; Andrekos Varnava, ‘Sophronios III, –: the last of the “old” and the first ofthe “new” Archbishop-Ethnarchs?’, in ibid., pp. –; Andrekos Varnava and IrenePophaides, ‘Kyrillos II, –: the first Greek nationalist and Enosist Archbishop-Ethnarch’, in ibid., pp. –; for an understanding of how Europeans and educated Cypriotsestablished a provincial ‘high society’ and exploited the peasantry and working classes, seeRolandos Katsiaounis, Labour, society and politics in Cyprus (Nicosia, ); and Marc Aymes,‘The port-city in the fields: investigating an improper urbanity in mid-nineteenth-centuryCyprus’,Mediterranean Historical Review, (), pp. –; for an introduction into Cypriotsociety at the time of the Great War, the importance of the Cypriot Mule Corps and the impactof the Armenian Légion, see Andrekos Varnava, ‘Famagusta during the Great War: frombackwater to bustling’, Michael Walsh and Tamas Kiss, eds., Famagusta: city of empires (–) (Newcastle upon Tyne, forthcoming ).

Bloxham, The great game of genocide, p. . Secret, Maxwell to Kitchener, Sept. , TNA, FO//; Secret,

Maxwell to Kitchener, Sept. , TNA, CO//. Secret, WO to GOC Egypt, Sept. , TNA, FO// (also in CO/

/). French admiral, Sept. , TNA, FO//; GOC Egypt to WO, Sept.

, TNA, FO// (also in CO//).




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On September, the Foreign Office debated where the , Armenianrefugees should be taken, one minute stating that pressure should be exertedon Cyprus; then Grey minuted that both Cyprus and Egypt were out of thequestion. Finally, on September, the Foreign Office informed Baron Bertieof Thame, the British ambassador to Paris, that the ‘importation of victims ofinsurrectionary fighting between Turks and Christians would in present state offeeling in both Cyprus and Egypt be wholly undesirable’, and that the Frenchshould arrange to take them to Rhodes or Algeria. In other words, the Frenchshould deal with them in Algeria, or the Italians in Rhodes. In the event,the French admiral, no doubt desirous of getting back to his work and relievingthe refugees, disembarked them at Port Said, much to the annoyance of theEgyptian authorities, who insisted to London that this could only be tem-porary. Clearly, the French political and military authorities were in a weakposition alongside their British allies, so much so that they attempted to accom-modate the British position to relocate the refugees. They tried and failed tohave them accepted in Rhodes, Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, and by the Russians inthe Caucasus. This not only reflects the power of allies to influence policies,but also of local bureaucratic elites on the periphery to do so as well, evenagainst their own central state authorities.

While the British pushed the French to relocate the Armenians elsewhereand to take complete responsibility for them, General Maxwell proposedforming them into a fighting unit to raid the Syrian and Cilician coasts. On September, a week after they had been dumped at Port Said, the Frenchminister in Cairo (since ), Jules-Albert Defrance, informed Paris that aleader of the Musa Dagh resistance, Pierre (or Peter) Dimlekian, informed himthat those in a condition to bear arms numbered and were aged betweenfifteen and sixty, and about of these would make good soldiers. Defranceinformed his superiors that Maxwell had proposed forming an ArmenianLégion, which could raid Ottoman coasts in the Alexandretta region, butDimlekian preferred to fight with the French. Paris wanted more informationabout Maxwell’s plan and the refugees, so Defrance visited the camp on September, where the Armenians were under British quarantine, andinformed Paris that there were , in total: men, , women, boys, girls, and infants. He confirmed that men were fit to fight and

Nicolson minute, Sept. , and Grey minute, Sept. , TNA, FO//. FO to Bertie, Sept. , TNA, CO//, .

McMahon to FO, Sept. , TNA, FO//; Darrieu report, Sept., pp. –, FFMA, , I.

Algeria, Sept. , p. , Russians, Sept. , p. , Russians, Sept. ,p. , Tunis, Sept. , p. , Morocco, Sept. , Russians, Sept. , p. ,Algeria, Oct. , p. , FFMA, , I.

For an example of how this happened in Cyprus, between John Clauson, the highcommissioner, and the authorities in London, see Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus,pp. –, and Varnava, ‘British military intelligence in Cyprus during the Great War’.

FFMA, , I, Defrance to Paris, Sept. , p. .




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to work. The Armenians told Defrance that they had resisted the Ottomansfor over forty days and wanted to continue fighting the Turks. Defranceinformed Paris that Maxwell had spoken to Dimlekian about the British usingthe Armenians to raid Alexandretta and that Defrance had told Dimlekian thatthe French and British were co-operating on this because the French were notcompeting with the British.

Although Maxwell was interested in using the Musa Dagh Armenians to forma Légion, he was not interested in those that could not fight. Defrance andMaxwell proposed to their respective governments that the French would coverthe expenses of the Armenian refugees and an Armenian Légion should beformed to launch raids on the Syrian and Cilician coasts. Soon, the variousopinions on the formation of an Armenian Légion manifested. Lieutenant deSaint Quentin in Cairo opined that a raid by Armenians in the Alexandrettaregion would attract the Ottomans to the region and should therefore not beattempted so long as the French and British still had designs on the region.

A member of the Foreign Ministry suggested forming a committee ofArmenians to appeal for support from the Armenian diaspora, notably in theUS, but the bottom line was that, like the British government, the French didnot want to encourage a rebellion which did not have good prospects of success.Ultimately, however, both governments would decide together. Maxwellpushed for a decision because he wanted the refugees to leave as he worriedthey would become frustrated if they remained idle. Grey informed hisFrench counterpart that the French were responsible for finding work for therefugees, and suggested work on the Gallipoli beaches. Théophile Delcassé,in one of his last acts as foreign minister, informed Cairo that he had agreedwith Grey that the Armenian refugees should be sent as labourers to Mudros.

Indeed a French military agent in Egypt attempted to recruit from the MusaDagh refugees for service at Gallipoli and Mudros.

Yet the voices supporting the formation of the Musa Dagh refugees into acombat unit were numerous. Arshag Hovhannes Tsobanian (or Chobanian), anOttoman Armenian in Paris, and a famous writer, journalist, and editor,suggested to the Foreign Ministry that the refugees be formed into combatunits, especially since, in his view, the Armenian struggle in Cilicia and thesurrounding mountains was not lost. Indeed, Defrance informed Paris that

Perhaps this is where Werfel got the idea of the forty days, since it was actually fifty-three. Three letters, Defrance to FM, Sept. , pp. –, FFMA, , I. Ibid., Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., French military, Defrance, to FM, Oct. , p. . Ibid., Bertie, undated, pp. –. Ibid., Paris to FM, Oct. . Lord Bertie to FO, Oct. , TNA, FO//, pp. . Tsobanian to Paris, Sept. , p. , FFMA, , I.




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the Musa Dagh leaders did not want to work as labourers and they should not betreated like Ottoman prisoners or like Somalis employed at Mudros. Then,Vice-Admiral Gabriel Darrieus, the new commander of the rd Squadron onthe Syrian coast, weighed in, informing Paris that the Armenian refugeeswanted revenge on the Turks, not to work as labourers. He favoured using themas combatants in their native region, particularly in a raid to cut Ottoman railcommunications.

But the voices of opposition weighed more heavily. The French ForeignMinistry and Defrance in Cairo thought establishing an Armenian Légion andusing it to raid the Alexandretta area would be a bad idea and it was best toemploy them at Mudros. Captain E. De Jonquires of the French navy, agreed,rejecting an Armenian corps of irregular troops because this might provoke theTurks, and although the Armenians may not like it, they should be pushed towork as labourers at Mudros. Cambon reported that the British and he weresceptical about encouraging an Armenian uprising in Cilicia because ofOttoman reprisals and were coming around to the idea of employing them atMudros, well away from Egypt where they might cause mischief. The FrenchWar Ministry agreed, although worried about using the Armenians as labourersbecause of their ‘lack of aptitude’, the naval authorities were opposed toforming them into a fighting unit. The new French foreign minister andprime minister, Aristide Briand, agreed with the reservations over forming anArmenian Légion, which were also shared by Defrance, because it would merelyprovoke further Turkish massacres.

Officially, however, it seems that the French authorities in Cairo were notinformed of this decision. In December , Defrance messaged Paris that themale Armenian refugees wanted to return to their mountains after beingtrained and armed and that if the government approved the French authoritiesin Egypt would arrange this.

I V

One of the reasons given for rejecting an Armenian Légion in was that itwould incite the Ottomans to implement more massacres, but this reason wasovercome in January . In a letter to the French military authorities inEgypt, the War Ministry instructed it to proceed with forming an ArmenianLégion. Then, in a letter to members of the Armenian Defence Committee in

Ibid., Defrance to Paris, Oct. . Ibid., Darrieus to Paris, Nov. , pp. –. Note to FO, Oct. , p. , FFMA, , I. Jonquires to Paris, Nov. , pp. –, FFMA, , I. Ibid., FM to Defrance, Nov. , p. . Ibid., War Ministry (French) (WM) to FM, Nov. , p. . Ibid., Nov. , p. . Defrance to FM, Dec. , p. , FFMA, , I. WM to French military, Cairo, Jan. , FFMA, , I.




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Cairo, the British and French military representatives in Egypt agreed to form aLégion only if they would not be held responsible for more Ottoman massacres.

The number of Armenians likely to serve is so small as to be at the present time of nointerest to the Allied Powers; the only object of their employment is to give to theArmenians some material claim to their reinstatement in their original country; it istherefore a matter of purely Armenian interest . . . [Therefore], the AlliedGovernments are free of any moral responsibility for reprisals or acts of violenceon the part of the Turks that may be regarded as reprisals for the employment ofthese volunteers.

Based on this extraordinary condition, the Armenian committee was told that‘the Allied Governments are prepared to form a Volunteer force from theArmenian refugees of Djebal Moussa and from such other ArmenianVolunteers as may be sent in by the Committee’.

The deal the Armenian National Committee was being asked to accept wasunbalanced. The Allied governments would administer military training; pro-vide arms, ammunition, accoutrements, and boots; and employ the volunteers‘only in the districts of Cilicia and Lesser Armenia with which the Armeniansare as natives familiar’. On the other hand, the Armenian committee wasresponsible for proving each volunteer with a ration allowance and pay totalling PT (Egyptian Piastres) per diem; six trained men as sous-officers, funded bythe committee; extra pay of PT a day for volunteers given responsible posi-tions; and material for clothing since not all the volunteers would wearuniforms. It is obvious from both the tone and the content of the letter that theFrench government had approved the detailed and specific proposals.

Despite this change of heart, this time it was the Armenians who rejected theformation of a Légion. Defrance informed Paris that the matter of forming anArmenian force was in doubt because the Armenian National DefenceCommittee believed that activities by such a force would provoke dangerousTurkish reprisals. The Hunchak party, however, was pressing the French navalcommander to hasten the arming of Armenians, but Vice-Admiral Moreau,commander of the rd Squadron, opposed using the Musa Dagh refugees inthis way. Defrance, however, believed that the option should be open. Thestrongest opposition came from the most influential Armenian, Boghos Nubar.In a letter to Moreau on March, he confirmed his position first taken on March that he opposed any Armenian action that could lead to retaliationson Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, including the formation of a volunteerLégion. He argued that if Armenians wanted to fight, they should enlist withone of the Allies. In Nubar’s letter, which Defrance sent to Briand, he

Ibid., British MIO, Cairo, to Armenian committee members, Feb. , pp. –. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., Defrance to Paris, Feb. , pp. –. Boghos Nubar to Admiral Moreau, Port Said, Mar. , p. , FFMA, , II, Turkey,

Jan. to Mar. .




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expressed concern over the British training about Musa Dagh Armenians inorder to blow up railway bridges in Alexandretta and was relieved that the ideawas abandoned after the Armenian bishop in Cairo and the Eastern Orthodoxpatriarch of Alexandria objected for fear of Ottoman reprisals. The concernsover retaliations must be understood within the context of the Genocide and itsprogress, since it implies that there were still some Armenians in the OttomanEmpire that had escaped it, but unlike six months earlier these Armenians wereisolated and not in a position to be protected by an Entente landing with anArmenian contribution.

Nubar’s rejection carried much weight, despite the obvious power imbalancealongside the French and British. Indeed, Defrance believed that the questionof raising an Armenian Légion was finally closed. Then, seemingly, the finalnail in the coffin came from the French War Ministry, which announced thatFrench law forbade the enlistment of enemy nationals into the French army.

V

It was not, however, the final nail in the coffin. The proposal was resurrectedand agreed to in August by the commander-in-chief of the French armyand the French government and officially agreed to by all parties concerned inOctober.

On June , the British Foreign Office informed its French counterpartthat it had received a request to free Armenian prisoners of war held in Indiaand wanted to know whether the French had any plans to use the Armenians inany way related to the war. Then, on July, Cambon informed the ForeignMinistry that an idea was being examined to form an Armenian corps onCyprus, at French expense, since a recent agreement ceded large parts ofArmenia to France. Here lies the reason for the resurrection of the proposalto form an Armenian Légion, but before exploring this further it is important tocomplete the story. Over two weeks followed before Cambon updated theForeign Ministry that Brigadier-General Gilbert Clayton, of the Arab Bureau inCairo, in discussions with Georges-Picot, suggested that the Armenian refugeesin Egypt and those imprisoned in India could be made into soldiers andgrouped on Cyprus to dissuade the Ottomans from moving all their troopssouthwards against the sherif of Mecca. The British suggested that theArmenians be trained and armed by French officers, which Cambon thoughtwould show French strength without enlarging their field of operations andcontrol the Armenian partisans who might seek to create principalities in

Ibid., Defrance to Briand, Apr. , p. , including Nubar letter, Mar. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to Briand, Mar. , p. . WM to Cairo, May , p. , and WM to Cairo, May , p. , FFMA, , I. Ibid., FO to FM, June , p. ; also commander-in-chief French armies to FM,

July , p. . Ibid., Cambon to FM, July , p. .




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northern Syria. Also, it offered a solution as to what to do with the Musa Daghrefugees, who refused to take jobs or act as auxiliaries.

The resurrection of the idea to form an Armenian Légion was largely due tothe Sykes–Picot Agreement. This was what Cambon meant when he mentionedthe cession of Armenian populated territories to France in a recent agreement.When the Gallipoli expedition failed, resulting in Bulgaria joining the CentralPowers, and when the British offer of Cyprus to Greece, in order for thatcountry to aid Serbia immediately, also failed, the British and the French (andindeed the Russians) needed to work together more closely. Consequently, theydecided that they needed to focus on what their aims were in defeating theOttoman Empire, and given Russian ambitions on Constantinople andTranscaucasia (reflected in a separate agreement with the Russian foreignminister, Sergei Sazonov), French interests in Syria and Cilicia, and Britishinterests in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it became obvious that the military effortneeded to concentrate on where the British and French interests were. Theseinterests were captured in the Sykes–Picot Agreement, negotiated and signed byFrançois Georges-Picot for the French and Mark Sykes for the British on May. Sazonov played an important role in the agreement, since it was he whoproposed to Picot that France obtain a share of Ottoman Armenia (i.e. Cilicia),which pleased Picot, who was ‘in the highest spirits over his new Castle inArmenia’. The Sykes–Picot Agreement divided the Ottoman vilayets fromAdana to Basra into either direct or indirect (where an Arab state would becreated) spheres of French or British control. Cilicia (mostly in the Adanavilayet) and neighbouring Ottoman vilayets with a substantial Armenian popu-lation would come under direct French control; with the other vilayets popu-lated by Armenians coming under Russian protection. British and Frenchimperial rivalry was suddenly reinvented and a new collaborative relationshipwas formed, linking the successful prosecution of the war with post-war imperialexpansion.

Once French and British post-war imperial expansion was settled upon, itdid not take long for them to embark upon a determined effort to form anArmenian Légion. On August the commander-in-chief of the French army,General Joseph Joffre, accepted the proposal to form an Armenian Légion.

Joffre agreed with General Pierre Roques, the minister of war, a close friendfrom their days at the École Polytechnique in the s, that forming anArmenian Légion on Cyprus was an opportunity to threaten the Ottomans andallow the Allies to support a revolt against the Ottomans if desirable. If the

Ibid., Cambon to FM, July , pp. –. Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus, pp. –. Christopher M. Andrew and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, France overseas: the Great War and the

climax of French Imperial expansion (London, ), p. . See file, TNA, FO//. Joffre, commander-in-chief army, to Roques, Aug. , sent to FM on same day,

pp. –, FFMA, , I.




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Bosnian battalion at Salonika was an example, thirty officers would suffice,opined Joffre. Joffre wanted the Armenian corps to be ready to exploit anypolitical situation in order to cause the Ottoman Empire insurmountabledifficulties in this region, and so he wanted the Légion to be under acommander who was responsible to the rear-admiral commanding the NavalDivision of Syria. He wanted an Armenian revolt and would direct the rear-admiral to supply them with arms, because ultimately it was in the interests ofthe Allies to keep Ottoman forces dispersed and engaged in Asia.

The Foreign Ministry was anxious for the War Ministry to decide, and theaffirmative decision from Roques came on August. He told PresidentRaymond Poincaré and Briand that he would be willing to supply personnel,arms, and provisions for an Armenian Légion on Cyprus, which could act eitheras ‘partisans’ or as one of several foreign battalions, constituted like the Bosnianbattalion in regular units, receiving the same supplies as French troops. Thesecond option would best maximize the investment and was therefore moreeconomical, as Joffre indicated. Roques wanted to know if the British hadagreed and was worried that there were not enough Musa Dagh refugees (on May he was informed no more than ) and their mediocre value had ledthe War and Naval Ministries to reject using them. He assumed, therefore, thatthe units formed would be drawn from the Armenian population in Egyptand India, and from the scattered individuals assembled from Asia Minor andSyria in various places. Roques wanted French officers sent to ascertain theconditions in which the first units would be created, with the head of thismission becoming the commander of the corps. He would have to reach anunderstanding with local British authorities, and with the rear-admiralcommanding the French naval division, and then would have to submit toRoques his proposals for organizing the corps. If this was agreeable to the navy,the British, and Poincare and Briand, Roques would immediately send thismission to Cyprus.

Four days later, the French Foreign Ministry informed Cambon that the WarMinistry was ready to send a mission to Cyprus to organize an Armenian corps,following the suggestion of Brigadier-General Clayton, and wanted Cambon toask Whitehall if it agreed and if so to inform the French on how many fitArmenians there were in Egypt and India who could join. Cambon informedGrey but did not mention if the Légion would be trained by the British, theFrench, or both, putting it forward as a joint Anglo-French idea. Sykes’sminute was most revealing. He backed the scheme because it was a necessary

Ibid. Ibid., FM to WM, Aug. , pp. –. Ibid., Roques to Briand, Aug. , pp. –. Ibid., Roques to Briand, Aug. , p. . Ibid., FM to Cambon, Aug. , p. . French ambassador, London, to FO, Aug. , TNA, FO//; FO to

CO, Aug. , TNA, CO//, w//; Cambon to FO, Aug. ,TNA, CO//.




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corollary of the Sykes–Picot agreement and because it would propel Anglo-French military co-operation in the Levant. Cambon did not ask if the Britishagreed to the Légion; instead, he asked how many militarily fit Armenians theBritish held. The War Office informed Grey that there were – in Egypt(Musa Dagh refugees) and another prisoners of war in India, but how manywere fit for combat and would consent to fight was unknown. The prisoners atSumerpur, India, the India Office opined, would do well, having been takenfrom the Ottoman army in Mesopotamia. As for the Musa Dagh refugees inEgypt, the director of military intelligence, Major-General Macdonogh, believedthat few had martial qualities, while he claimed that Brigadier-General Claytonwas against the idea because they were not of good fighting material,contradicting French views of Clayton’s position. A labour company was formedin Egypt from amongst the refugees for work on the defences of the canal, whileMaxwell was considering using them as muleteers in Salonika to augment theMacedonian (Cypriot) Mule Corps. In any event, Sir Ronald Graham, of theMinistry of the Interior in Cairo, revealed that there were about capablemen at the Armenian refugee camp, but that he had failed to induce any tovolunteer for the Macedonian Mule Corp or for a labour camp, and felt thatcompulsion might be needed.

The Foreign Office replied to Cambon without stating that the Britishgovernment had accepted or rejected the proposed scheme, although itimplied that it had accepted it because it only encouraged it. The letterdisclosed how many Armenians were under British authority and that Clausonhad been requested to provide information on a camp.

The initial Colonial Office view was neither negative nor positive. There was,a minute stated, ‘no reason why such a body should not be sent to Cyprus were itnot that it might have very bad political results on the Moslem population of theIsland who do not like Armenians’. This was a gross generalization. TheColonial Office decided to wait for Clauson’s views before officially giving itsown. Clauson was a notoriously stubborn high commissioner: in October

Sykes minute, Aug. , TNA, FO//. WO to under-secretary at FO, Aug. , TNA, FO////

(M. I..); Secret, FO to Cambon, Aug. , TNA, FO//, W./;Secret, India Office to FO, Aug. , FO//, M. ; telegram fromIndia Office secretary to viceroy, June , TNA, FO//, M. ; viceroyto Lord Bryce, India secretary, June , TNA, FO//, H. ; B. B.Cubitt, WO, to under-secretary for India, military secretary India Office (British) (IO), June, TNA, FO//// (M. I..).

R. Graham, Ministry of the Interior to McMahon, Sept. , TNA, CO//, p. .

FO to Cambon, Aug. , TNA, FO//. Minute, Aug. , TNA, CO//. Secret, CO, Bonar Law to Clauson, Aug. , TNA, CO//; CO,

Grindle, to FO, Aug. , TNA, CO//; FO to CO, Sept. , TNA,CO//, w//; Cambon to Grey, Sept. , TNA, CO//, ; FO to CO, Sept., TNA, CO//, w//; Grey to




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, he had refused to inform the Greek and Turkish Cypriot political elitesthat the British government had formally offered to cede the island to Greecebecause he did not want to upset the ‘loyal Muslim’ elites; he had a difficultrelationship with the military intelligence officers working on Cyprus and Egyptbecause they considered him too negligent on security and he considered themilitary intelligence officers too intrusive; and finally his rejection of theMusa Dagh refugees. This time, Clauson was obliging, informing Bonar Lawthat there were difficulties of sea and land transport and the necessity ofimporting many necessities at much expense and delay, and it was ‘advisable tominimise contact with the Cypriot Turks who are uneasy . . . For these reasonsI would recommend that a secluded site in the north or east of the island besought.’ Bonar Law informed Cambon that he agreed with Clauson onminimizing contact with the Cypriot Turks.

The military and government authorities in Egypt had mixed views about thescheme. McMahon, Graham, and General Archibald Murray, commander-in-chief of the troops in Egypt, were pleased to be rid of the Musa Dagh refugeesand that the force was not going to be trained in Egypt, but Murray statedthat the British authorities were unable to provide equipment or training, so theFrench had to take all responsibility. He was also unhappy with Cyprus’sselection as the training base: ‘I do not consider that Cyprus would be adesirable place in which to train these men but no doubt it will be possible tofind some other locality which is in French occupation.’ Graham agreed,stating that ‘there seems no reason that we should undertake their trainingin Cyprus and I imagine that the authorities in Cyprus would not encourageany idea of the kind. The French now hold several islands in the easternMediterranean, which are equally, or almost equally, suitable for the purpose.’Both Graham and Murray were wrong, as the French wanted Cyprus andClauson had agreed, although he had never been asked to agree or disagree –as one Foreign Office minute put it, Clauson implied a ‘grudging accept-ance’.

During September, the French remained apprehensive about the Britishposition on an Armenian Légion on Cyprus. On September, Defrance

Cambon, Sept. , TNA, CO//, w./; CO, to FO, Aug. ,TNA, FO////.

Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus, pp. –. Varnava, ‘British military intelligence in Cyprus during the Great War’. Paraphrase telegram, Clauson to Bonar Law, Sept. , TNA, FO//

; Grey to Cambon, Sept. , TNA, CO//, w./. CO to under-secretary at FO, Sept. , TNA, FO//; FO to

Cambon, Sept. , TNA, FO//. FO to CO, Oct. , TNA, CO//, w//; McMahon to Grey,

Sept. , TNA, CO//, , /; see also FO//. Murray, commander-in-chief Egyptian Expeditionary Force, to McMahon, Sept.

, TNA, CO//. Minute, Sept. , TNA, FO//.




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informed the Foreign Ministry that the French were training about

Armenian refugees in Port Said, but the British preferred to send them toSalonika as muleteers, although the British merely wanted to be rid of them. Hewanted advice on whether the French government wanted them or not, and ifthe French wanted them whether they would pay the cost of keeping them andtheir families. Colonel T. G. Hamelin, of the French General Staff secondsection Africa, learned that the British were opposed to using Cyprus and so theFrench should drop the idea, adding that the Armenians were not worth themoney to compensate the British. But then Defrance sent to Briand twodocuments detailing discussions on the ground between French and Britishofficers over what to do with the Musa Dagh refugees that showed that a Légionunder French command in Cyprus was feasible. In Bremond’s letter toDefrance he detailed the number of Musa Dagh refugees at Port Said, those fitfor service, the training already undertaken, and the constructive discussionswith two British officers, General Althem and Colonel Elgood, over using theArmenians. Discussions between Defrance and McMahon showed that theBritish had found the Armenians difficult, and would be pleased to be rid ofthem.

It was not until September that Cambon informed Briand that the Britishdid not oppose the creation of an Armenian Légion, but wanted it camped innorthern or eastern Cyprus where there were fewer Muslims. He also informedBriand on the number of Armenians under British control (in Egypt and India)who could form the nucleus of the corps. Although the proposal for a Légionwas moving towards acceptance, a final decision had not yet been taken.

Meanwhile, the Musa Dagh refugees were growing restless. The French navyin the Mediterranean reported to the Naval Ministry that some Musa DaghArmenians had protested to the minister of state, Denys Cochin, about beingenrolled in the British army and asking to be employed as paid guides for theFrench in their country. The letter, dated September (but not sent toBriand until October), thanked France for saving them from certainextermination and declared that they considered themselves under Frenchprotection. They had started military training, but it was stopped withoutexplanation, and the British offered them work (i.e. as muleteers in Salonika),which did not match the assurances they were previously given (i.e. that theywould fight the Ottomans on their home soil). They were now told that theplanned operations (i.e. at Alexandretta) could have devastating consequencesfor Armenians still in the Ottoman Empire. Yet, they wanted to continue

Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. , FFMA, , I. Ibid., Hamelin to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to Briand, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Bremond to Defrance, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to Bremond, Sept. , pp. –. Ibid., Cambon to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Admiral Pothuau to Navy Ministry (French) (NM), Sept. , p. .




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training to help France when it needed them to aid in reconquering theirvillages and Cilicia. They claimed that the British were threatening to send themto work on the Port Said roads, and although they have nothing against theBritish, they wanted the French to honour the assurance given when they weresaved. Defrance highlighted the restlessness of the Musa Dagh refugees tothe Foreign Ministry on September, asserting that a decision was vitalbecause of friction with the British. Clearly, the role of local agency againcame to the fore, since the actions (or inaction from a British view point) of theMusa Dagh refugees in Egypt frustrated the British in Egypt into becoming thestrongest advocates for their formation into the Légion.

Finally, on September, the office of the chief of General Staff, GeneralPierre-Georges Duport, informed Briand that London had finally consented tothe formation of a French–trained Armenian corps in northern or easternCyprus (letter received from French Military attaché in London dated September). The problem was that there were only about refugees inPort Said available and the French vice-admiral had agreed to theiremployment as muleteers by the British in Egypt or Salonika. Duport wassending Commandant Louis Romieu, an infantry officer, to Egypt to resolve thesituation with the British. Subsequently, Duport added that the corps may berecruited from Armenians outside Egypt as well.

The French authorities in Egypt, who were not updated on the latestdevelopments, observed a change in the British. Saint-Quentin informed theForeign Ministry that British authorities were willing to leave employment of theArmenians to the French, so long as they and their families were removed fromEgypt. Defrance and the French military attaché in Egypt informed theForeign Ministry that General Murray was fed up with the Armenians becausethey had refused to serve as muleteers and had failed as labourers, so he wouldbe relieved if the French took responsibility for all of them, including theirfamilies. Briand, referring to a further letter by Bremond on the subject,informed Roques that it was vital to form the Légion to end British andArmenian frustration.

In October, the project gathered momentum. On October, Duportinformed Briand that Romieu had left for Egypt to start recruiting and finalizediscussions with the British. Defrance suggested that the French governmentcould reimburse the British for the costs of looking after the Musa Dagh

Cochin, state minister to Briand, Oct. , enclosing letter signed by KardirosBoyadjian, Djabra Kazandjian, Serop Kabaghian, and Sarkis Andonian, Port Said, on Sept., pp. –, FFMA, , II.

Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. , FFMA, , I. Ibid., Duport to Briand, Sept. , p. , and military attaché, London, to NM,

Sept. , p. . Ibid., Duport to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Saint-Quentin to FM, Sept. , p. . Ibid., Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. , and military attaché, Cairo, to FM, Sept.

, p. . Ibid., Briand to Roques, Sept. , p. .




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refugees (, francs a month) over the last year and take on the expense ofcaring for the women, children, and elderly. Finally, on October, theForeign Office officially informed Cambon that there was no objection toreleasing any of the men in the refugee camp to form the Légion on Cyprus.

Egypt, however, was not informed about the official decision. McMahon askedthe Foreign Office for answers after two French officers visited him abouttransporting the Armenians to Cyprus. Although the Foreign Office hadconsented to the French government, it had not been informed of Frenchprocedures to transport and train the Armenians on Cyprus. As late asOctober, Defrance had informed the Foreign Ministry that he had word thatMurray opposed Cyprus as the training base. On that day, however, Romieumet Murray and they agreed for the Légion to be trained on Cyprus, but Murraywould await approval from the War Office and Clauson. On October,Cambon informed the Foreign Ministry that London had informed itsauthorities in Egypt to facilitate departure of Armenians to Cyprus. Indeed,Grey informed Egypt that the French had appointed Romieu to arrange withthe Egyptian authorities for the transportation of the militarily fit Armenianrefugees to Cyprus for training. The British military in Egypt, however, wouldonly comply if the War Office, which Grey had kept in the dark, approved.

Eventually, the Foreign Office informed the War Office of its decision.

Meanwhile, arrangements were also made for the British to transport theArmenian prisoners of war in India to Cyprus, earning the ire of oneColonial Office minion: ‘I am not impressed with this method of raisingtroops.’ The French government was so pleased with the British governmentthat Cambon asked the British also to send to Cyprus the Armenianprisoners of war near Bombay. The Foreign Office agreed, informing theauthorities in Egypt that the Armenian patriarch was travelling to India to‘persuade them to enrol themselves under French flag’. For the British, the

Ibid., Duport to Briand, Oct. , pp. –. FO to Cambon, Oct. , TNA, CO//, w//. Telegram, McMahon, to FO, Oct. , TNA, FO//. FO to Cambon, Oct. , TNA, FO//, W. /. Defrance to FM, Oct. , p. , FFMA, , I. Ibid., Romieu telegram, Oct. , p. , and Defrance to FM, Sept. ,

p. . Ibid., Cambon to FM, Oct. , p. , and FM to Cairo, Oct. , p. . FO to McMahon, Oct. , TNA, CO//; Cambon to Grey, Oct.

, TNA, FO//; FO cypher to McMahon, Oct. , TNA, FO//.

WO to FO, Oct. , TNA, FO//// (M. I..); com-mander-in-chief Egypt to chief of the General Staff, Oct. , TNA, FO//.

FO to DMI, Oct. , TNA, FO//. Confidential, IO to FO, Oct. , TNA, FO//, M. ; FO to IO,

Oct. , TNA, CO//; FO to IO, Oct. , TNA, FO////. Minute, Nov. , TNA, CO//.

FO to McMahon, Dec. , TNA, FO//, .




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French Armenian Légion was a joint Allied project, as was inadvertently statedby the Foreign Office to the India Office.

The final arrangements were left to Clauson and Romieu in Cyprus, againreflecting the important role of local agents and men on the ground. Defranceinformed the Foreign Ministry that the British Foreign Office had finallytelegraphed Clauson that Armenians would go to Cyprus. Indeed, a letterdated October reveals that the Cyprus government informed Romieuthat a site had been found at Monarga, a Muslim Cypriot hamlet (despite earlierconcerns about interaction with Cypriot Muslims) sixteen miles north ofFamagusta, and near Boghaz, an Orthodox Christian hamlet, at the base of theKarpass Peninsula. Three weeks passed, before Clauson telegraphed BonarLaw with this fact, where he also revealed that the first Armenians would arriveby the end of November. Romieu informed his superiors of his meeting withClauson on October, with the only outstanding question remaining that oftransporting and settling the non-combatants on Cyprus. The final questionfor the British was secrecy. The Colonial Office ordered Clauson to keep a ‘strictwatch’ on the correspondence from Cyprus with a ‘view to suppressingreference to the Armenian Corps at Monarga’. Accordingly, John Fenn, theacting chief secretary, ordered the military authorities on the island to suppressreferences to the Armenian corps.

The Colonial Office was concerned at the establishment of the FrenchArmenian camp in Cyprus. W. D. Ellis, a secretary in the Colonial Office whohad first dealt with Cyprus in , claimed that ‘you cannot bring somethousands of Armenians to Cyprus without the Government being injured inthe matter’, especially because the Armenians were unpopular with bothGreeks and Turks – again projecting an observation of Anatolian ‘politics’ ontoCyprus, where Armenians were a small minority. He hoped that Clausonwould ‘prevent any difficulties arising’.

Lastly, there remained convincing Boghos Nubar Pasha, who had been leftout of the decision-making process until October. In Paris, on October ,Nubar was informed about the establishment of the Légion d’Orient and

FO to IO, Oct. , TNA, FO////. Defrance to FM, Oct. , p. , FFMA, , I. Letter, Oct. , Nicosia, Cypriot State Archives (CSA), Secretariat Archive (SA),

SA//. CO to Grey, Nov. , TNA, FO////; paraphrase

telegram, Clauson to Bonar Law, Nov. , TNA, FO////. Defrance to FM, Oct. , p. , FFMA, , I. Ultimately, it was decided to leave

them in Port Said. Confidential, John Fenn to officer commanding troops, Cyprus, Dec. , CSA,

SA//, leaf . Ahmet An, ‘The Cypriot Armenian minority and their cultural relationship with the

Turkish Cypriots’, in Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia, eds., The minoritiesof Cyprus: development patterns and the identity of the internal-exclusion (Newcastle upon Tyne,), pp. –. Ellis minute, Oct. , TNA, CO//.




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Romieu’s appointment as commander. Romieu’s aim, Nubar postulated, was‘the training of a group of military and non-military volunteers for a possibleexpedition to Asia Minor’. Nubar believed that the force could be used in twopossible expeditions: in northern Syria to aid rebels of the sherif of Mecca, or inthe allied campaign in the Balkans. He was confident that the Allies would landtroops in Syria and Cilicia, and so the Armenian volunteers would becomecivilian administrators. He estimated that ,–, volunteers would beraised, who would serve in a larger Allied contingent. The existence of theforce, Nubar worried, had to remain a secret because the Ottoman and Germanjustification for the deportation and subsequent extermination of the OttomanArmenians was their enlistment in Allied armies. The French ForeignMinistry believed that Nubar wanted a guarantee that Cilicia would be separatedfrom Syria, and that Armenians would have religious freedom in Cilicia. Theanonymous writer also thought it important to French influence in Asia Minorto employ Armenians, and recommended that Romieu be authorized to recruitmore Armenians in Egypt. Then, a member of the French War Ministry inEgypt weighed in, arguing that several months before, after the success of theRussian army in the Caucasus, Armenian elites had hoped for an autonomousregion under the czar, including some Ottoman Armenian territories, but nowthey understood that more of them could be under French rule. Therefore,France should promise this in order to recruit as many Armenians from acrossthe world as possible. The author was assured that Boghos Nubar and hissupporters would aid Romieu’s efforts to enrol Armenians.

Returning to the beginning of this article, over three years later, in December, Nubar in a memorandum on the Armenian Légion, disclosed that on October , in the French embassy in London, he met for the first timeGeorges-Picot in the presence of Sykes, and was shown the Sykes–PicotAgreement. From this agreement, and that with Russia, Nubar believed thatArmenia would be divided into two parts after the war: one composed of theeastern vilayets of Van, Erzerum, Bitlis, Dersim, and Trabzon, under Russiancontrol, and the second part Cilicia and the three western vilayets of Sivas,Kharput, and Diayarbekir, under French authority. By December , Russiahad been Bolshevik for two years, and the Russian Armenians, led by Dashnakleaders, had established a precarious independent republic in Transcaucasia.Ostensibly, Russian Armenia had become independent, but in order to surviveit needed support from a great power that opposed both Bolshevism and anyOttoman/Turkish resurgence. Nubar recalled that Georges-Picot asserted thatthe French would be willing to grant autonomy to the Armenians under theircontrol, but ‘the Armenians should earn the right to the liberation of their

Boghos Nubar meeting with Gout, Paris, Oct. , Boghos Nubar papers, doc. ,– FA.

FM memorandum (unsigned), Oct. (no exact date), p. , FFMA, , I. Ibid., War Ministry, Cairo, to FM, Oct. , p. .




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fatherland, by providing volunteers for a planned expedition in Asia Minor’.

Accordingly, it was agreed to form the Légion d’Orient, with the threeparticulars outlined at the beginning of this article. Thus Nubar had beenbrought on side.

V I

This article has tapped into various historiographies in order to answer thecomplex question of why and how the Légion d’Orient was formed in October. These historiographies included: French and British imperialism in theeastern Mediterranean; the French and British war effort and war spoils atthe expense of the Ottoman Empire; French and British interventions in theOttoman Empire and responses to the Armenian Genocide; and Armenianefforts to avenge the Genocide and forge a safe homeland. Overall, the French,British, and Armenians had different agendas, yet exhibited a similar cautiousattitude to bringing to fruition these different aims, as shown by the variousrejections of the formation of an Armenian Légion, until, for the French andBritish, they had determined on the war spoils in the Sykes–Picot Agreement ofMay .

The eventual formation of an Armenian Légion under French auspices inOctober reflected in every way the differing agendas of the three partiesinvolved, as well as French and British determination to form it after the Sykes–Picot Agreement. For the French, the Légion allowed them to contributemanpower to a military theatre of imperial importance where otherwise theycould not, because troops were preoccupied fighting elsewhere, especially thewestern front. This theatre was of growing importance because both the Frenchand the British had imperial designs on the Ottoman Empire once defeated,and in the French case they planned to use the Armenians not only as ‘proxies’to ‘liberate’ their homeland but as part of the army of occupation after. Theformation of the Légion also benefited the British. They were relieved ofArmenians in their care in Egypt and India, which was becoming a ‘nuisance’for local officials. Secondly, it allowed them to accept the French as ‘partners’ inthe campaign in the Middle East by adding – it was hoped once trained – Frenchtroops, without the British expending any resources, with the exception of spacefor training them in Cyprus. For Armenian political elites, it was initially adefence against what they believed would be Ottoman massacres in revenge forArmenians joining the Russian army in the Caucasus, and what they hopedwould lead to Armenian autonomy, and certainly at the time of accepting it, thelure of a safe homeland under French protection was too great.

It is important to understand that in order to achieve the formation of theLégion d’Orient, a significant hurdle was overcome, namely the traditional

Nubar memorandum on creation of Légion d’Orient, Dec. , FO//. Ibid.




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British and French imperial rivalry in the eastern Mediterranean. This wasreinvented to bring about a greater ‘French’military contribution to the MiddleEast theatre (via the Armenian volunteers), and as evidenced by the Sykes–PicotAgreement, the British were willing to accept a formal French empire inportions of three (Sivas, Harput, and Diyarbakir) of the so-called six Armenianvilayets, parts of Adana vilayet, and the Syrian coast, not because they were notinterested in these areas themselves, because they were certainly interested inAlexandretta, but because this territory was of less interest to them thanMesopotamia and Palestine. If this territory had been of prime imperial interestto the British they would have accepted to undertake the Armenian Légionscheme when first proposed in late or during . Moreover, byproviding the French with the use of Cyprus, which had been under Britishoccupation and administration since and annexed in , as well asfacilitating the recruitment of Armenian men for the Légion from Egypt andIndia, the British were aiding the French in achieving their imperial ambitionsin the eastern Mediterranean, which, although tied to the war effort, couldthreaten existing British imperial interests in Cyprus and Egypt, and new onesin Mesopotamia and Palestine.

It is also important to understand the complex power balances at play.Although the Armenian political elites were able to once reject the formation ofthe Légion early in , they had done so by drawing upon the exact reasonthe British and French had given to reject it in – the likely Ottomanmassacres against Armenians and thus on humanitarian grounds that could notbe questioned. The Armenians were clearly in the weaker position, having failedto convince the British and French to form the Légion in , while not beingable to resist its formation once the great powers had become determined toform it late in , especially since there were by now few Armenians left in theOttoman Empire. Furthermore, the Armenian desire to forge a safe and securehomeland was reliant on French imperialism, which was dependent, asdiscussed above, largely on British military prowess in the Middle East. Whatkind of Armenian autonomy would the French grant the Armenians – who arebeing asked to fight for it – when according to the Sykes–Picot AgreementCilicia and its surrounding areas were to come under formal French imperialcontrol? The French (and British) were using the Armenians for their own post-war imperial agenda(s), reflecting the obvious power imbalance, andhumanitarianism, in response to the Genocide, was merely an afterthought, ifthat, since the Légion remained a public secret. In this way, this episode ofhumanitarianism clashing with imperialism resembles some of the examplesdiscussed in Rodogno’s book. The fact that the French pulled out of their dealwith the Armenians in (a subject deserving revisiting elsewhere) indicatesthe weakness of their humanitarian impulse as much as their weak imperialimpulse and imperial capabilities at the end of the long nineteenth century.




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french and british post-war imperial agendas and … · the armenian-populated areas of western...

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