ARMENIAN IRREGULAR UNITS

'Armenian irregular units' ('Armenian militia', 'Armenian partisans', or 'Armenian Chetes'), better known by Armenians as 'Fedayee' (Ֆէտայի), are Armenian guerrillas who voluntarily (thus, the naming 'kamavor' (կամավոր), meaning "volunteer") leave their families to fight for Armenians.

Contents

Origins in the Ottoman Empire

Abdul Hamid II era

Second Constitutional Era and Iran

World War I

Fedayees elsewhere

Notes

References

See also

Origins in the Ottoman Empire

Abdul Hamid II era

The term ''Fedayee'' was first used in the Ottoman Empire although Fedayeen was used by Arab fighters earlier. Armenians, like other minorities such as Greeks and Assyrians were persecuted by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. They did not possess the same rights as the Turkish citizens of the empire because of their religion and the distrust Abdul Hamid II had for them. Frequently, Armenian villages were pillaged and its citizens murdered by criminals, Kurds and Hamidian guards.
These conditions, and the fact that Armenia was still under Ottoman Empire control prompted Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to form guerrilla organizations and bands. These guerrillas were called 'Fedayee'.

Their main goal was to defend Armenian villagers from persecution and at the same time, disrupt the Ottoman Empire's activities in Armenian populated regions. However, their ultimate goal was always to gain Armenian autonomy (Armenakans) or independence (Dashnaks, Hunchaks) depending on their ideology and degree of oppression received on Armenians. This can be seen in the Dashnak slogan "'Azadoutioun gam Mah'", which literally translates as "'Liberty or Death'". These bands committed sabotage activities like cutting telegraph lines and raiding army supplies. They also committed assassinations and counter-attacks on Muslim villages. They helped Armenians defend themselves during village purges by Ottoman officials. They were supported by Armenians and quickly gained fame, support and trust by them.

Second Constitutional Era and Iran

Their activities in the Ottoman Empire dissipated after the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire, Committee of Union and Progress came into power, and for a time granted Armenians the same rights as Turkish and Kurdish citizens of the empire. Most fedayee groups disbanded, returning to their families while others left to help Iran and its revolution.

World War I

Some fedayee groups joined the Ottoman army after the Ottoman government passed a new law to support the war effort that required all enabled adult males up to the age of forty-five to either be recruited in the Ottoman army or to pay special fees (which would be used in the war effort) in order to be excluded from service. As a result of this law, most able-bodied men were removed from their homes, leaving only the women, children, and elderly by themselves. Most of the Armenian recruits were later turned into road laborers, and many were executed prior to the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
The genocide gave way to the return of the fedayees. Apart from thousands of Armenians who were drafted or volunteered in several different armies fighting against the Ottoman empire, and apart from those who were drafted in the Ottoman army prior to World War I,^[1] the fedayees fought inside Ottoman borders.
During the first year of the new republic, Armenians were flooding from Anatolia to safe havens. Roads were clogged with refugees. Further southeast, in Van, the fedayees helped the local Armenians resist the Turkish army until April, 1918, but eventually were forced to evacuate it and withdraw to Persia. The fedayees soon merged with the Armenian army. General Tovmas Nazarbekian took command of the Caucasus front and another fedayee, Andranik Toros Ozanian took the command of Armenia within the Ottoman Empire. They fought in numerous successful battles such as the Battle of Kara Killisse, the Battle of Bash Abaran and the Battle of Sardarapat. Meanwhile, Drasdamat Kanayan, another well-known fedayee, led the battle in the Georgian-Armenian War.
The total number of guerrillas in these irregular bands was 40-50,000, according to Boghos Nubar, the president of the "Armenian National Delegation":

Note that Boghos Nubar, as a part of the Armenian Delegation, had the intention to expand the borders of the independent Democratic Republic of Armenia. Thus, he might have elevated the number of Armenian fedayees who were able to fight in order to show that the Armenians are capable of defending an eventually large Ottoman-Armenian border. In reality, their numbers at that time were much lower, considering the fact that there were no more than a few handful of fedayees in most of the confrontations between them and Kurdish irregulars or Turkish soldiers, even according to foreign accounts. Moreover, many of the fedayees were the same and reappeared in various places and battles. One should also note that many Armenian irregular fighters died defending regions of Western Armenia during the genocide.
The fedayee bands soon disbanded or left the new Soviet Armenia as Armenia lost its independence to the USSR mostly to Europe and North America.

Fedayees elsewhere

The term fedayee was later used by Armenian guerrillas around 1990 when the dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh was turning into the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Notes

1. http://www.hist.net/kieser/aghet/Essays/EssayZurcher.html

References

★ Vartanian, H.K. ''The Western Armenian Liberation Struggle'' Yerevan, 1967

★ Translated from the Armenian: Mihran Kurdoghlian, Badmoutioun Hayots, C. hador [Armenian History, volume III], Athens, Greece, 1996, pg. 59-62.

See also

★ Abdul Hamid II

★ Armenian Genocide

★ Democratic Republic of Armenia

★ Fedayeen

★ List of Armenian national heroes

★ Nagorno-Karabakh War

★ Van Resistance