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Concept
Armenian resistance during the Armenian genocide
Summary
Armenian resistance included military, political, and humanitarian efforts to counter Ottoman forces and mitigate the Armenian genocide during the first World War. Early in World War I, the Ottoman Empire commenced efforts to eradicate Armenian culture and eliminate Armenian life, through acts of killing and death marches into uninhabitable deserts and mountain regions. The result was the homogenisation of the Ottoman Empire and elimination of 90% of the Armenian Ottoman population.
Those efforts were countered by Armenian attempts to mitigate the plight through the establishment of humanitarian networks. Those provided for basic needs like food and hiding places. Several armed uprisings attempted to resist deportation are notable, namely the Defence of Van (1915), in Musa Dag and Urfa. Still, violent resistance was rare and often not effective, compared to the humanitarian network which saved up to 200,000 Armenians from death. Local resistance movements were notably supported by a transnational network of help, namely the ABCFM, US Armenian relief committee and missionaries.
Additionally, military efforts to counter the Ottoman Army were conducted by Armenian forces, such as the Armenian Resistance Forces (called fedayeen/ fedayis) and the Armenian irregular units. Those supported Russian efforts to advance on the Ottoman front in the Caucasus.
Humanitarian resistance refers to illegal conduct to mitigate the effects of deportation and prevent annihilation. Core actors of this resistance were religious and civic leaders, such as church committees, doctors and nurses, local Muslims, and influential Armenian dignitaries and foreign missionaries. Those established a self-help network, which supplied deportees in camps with basic needs, such as food, fuelwood, and financial support through money transfer. This network saved thousands of Armenians from death. At the beginning of the deportations, such efforts were still legal but with increasing tensions, those efforts faced crackdowns in 1915, criminalization and forcing to move into the underground.
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