Formation of Armenian Legion Article Published PDF

The Historical Journal
http://journals.cambridge.org/HIS
Additional services for The
Historical Journal:
Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here
FRENCH AND BRITISH POST-WAR IMPERIAL

AGENDAS AND FORGING AN ARMENIAN
HOMELAND AFTER THE GENOCIDE: THE
FORMATION OF THE LGION D'ORIENT IN
OCTOBER 1916
ANDREKOS VARNAVA
The Historical Journal / Volume 57 / Issue 04 / December 2014, pp 997 - 1025
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X13000605, Published online: 12 November 2014
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0018246X13000605

How to cite this article:
ANDREKOS VARNAVA (2014). FRENCH AND BRITISH POST-WAR IMPERIAL
AGENDAS AND FORGING AN ARMENIAN HOMELAND AFTER THE
GENOCIDE: THE FORMATION OF THE LGION D'ORIENT IN OCTOBER 1916.
The Historical Journal, 57, pp 997-1025 doi:10.1017/S0018246X13000605
Request Permissions : Click here
Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/HIS, IP address: 129.96.82.202 on 14 Nov 2014
The Historical Journal, , (), pp. Cambridge University Press

doi:./SX
F R E N C H A N D B R I T I S H P O S T - WA R
IMPERIAL AGENDAS AND FORGING
AN ARMENIAN HOMELAND AFTER THE
GENOCIDE: THE FORMATION OF THE
L G I O N DO R I E N T I N O C T O B E R *
A N D R E KO S VA R N AVA
Flinders University
A B S T R A C T . In October , the French government agreed with Armenian political elites

to establish a Lgion of Armenian volunteers in British Cyprus to ght the common Ottoman enemy.
Despite British, French, and even Armenian rejections of such a Lgion during different times
throughout and early , all sides overcame earlier concerns. Understanding how they
managed to overcome these concerns will allow for this little-known episode in the history of the Great
War in the eastern Mediterranean to contribute to the knowledge on () the complex French and
British wartime stances towards this region, driven by imperialism and humanitarianism; () the
ability of local elites to draw concessions from the Allies; () the important role played by local British
and French colonial and military ofcers; and () broader historiographical debates on the responses
to the Armenian Genocide. This article explores the origins of how the Entente co-opted Armenians
in their eastern Mediterranean campaigns, but also made them into pawns in the French and British
reinvention of their imperial rivalry in this region in order to achieve their post-war imperialist
agendas.
I
On October , in the comfort of the French Embassy in London, Boghos
Nubar Pasha, the founder and rst president of the Armenian General
Benevolent Union (), and the head of the Armenian National Delegation in Paris from December , was shown the SykesPicot Agreement.
The British and French diplomats present at the meeting, Mark Sykes and
Francois Georges-Picot respectively, the co-authors of the SykesPicot Agreement, led Nubar to understand that the Armenian-populated areas of the
School of International Studies, Flinders University, GPO Box , Adelaide , South Australia
andrekos.varnava@inders.edu.au
* I would like to acknowledge the following people in the making of this article: Dr David
Close, Dr Matthew Fitzpatrick, Dr Evan Smith, and Ms Justine Tilman from Flinders University,
and the anonymous reviewers for The Historical Journal.
Ottoman Empire would be divided into two parts after the war: one composing
the eastern vilayets of Van, Erzerum, Bitlis, Dersim, and Trabzon, under Russian
control, and the other including Cilicia and the three western vilayets of Sivas,
Kharput, and Diayarbekir, under French control. Thus, the Armenianpopulated areas of the Ottoman Empire would come under the protection of
two of the Allied powers of the Great War. Nubar recalled that Georges-Picot
had asserted that the French would be willing to grant the Armenians an
autonomous state under their control, but the Armenians should earn the
right to the liberation of their fatherland, by providing volunteers for a planned
expedition in Asia Minor. Accordingly, they agreed to form the Lgion
dOrient, with the following particulars:
. The constitution of the Lgion dOrient aimed to have Armenians contribute
to the liberation of their fatherland in exchange for granting them new
entitlements in line with their national aspirations.
. The Armenian Lgionnaires would only ght against the Ottoman Empire and
only on the soil of their fatherland.
. The Armenian Lgion would constitute the future nucleus of the Armenian army
in the future Armenian state.
This agreement planned for the establishment of a French protectorate over

the Armenian-populated areas of western Armenia in exchange for creating an
Armenian Lgion in the French army and thus contributing to an Allied victory
against the Ottoman Empire.
This article does not deal with the operational history of the Armenian
Lgion, yet it is important to understand its wider military and geo-strategic
signicance once operational. Six battalions with roughly men were formed
and trained on Cyprus, and those that served in the Palestine Campaign,
specically at the battle of Arara, exhibited good ghting qualities according
to General Edmund Allenby, who was in charge of the campaign. The Lgion
dOrient, which also contained Syrian Arabs (initially trained on Cyprus,
but later moved to Syria), was renamed Armenian Lgion after the armistice
when it formed a part of the French Army of Occupation of Cilicia and its
surrounding areas. Its role in this capacity has been the subject of some
Boghos Nubar memorandum on creation of Lgion dOrient, Dec. , London, The

National Archives (TNA), Foreign Ofce (British) (FO) //; Boghos Nubar, Note on
the circumstances and conditions under which the Lgion dOrient was created in ,
Dec. , Paris, Nubarian Library (NL), Lgion dOrient, Armenian Volunteers,
Ibid.
Miscellany, box .
Despatch from General Allenby, Oct. , London Gazette, Dec. , TNA, War
Ofce (British) (WO) /; Boghos Nubar, Note, Dec. , NL, Lgion dOrient,
Armenian Volunteers, Miscellany, box .
See Simon Jackson, Diaspora politics and developmental empire: the Syro-Lebanese at the
League 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
F O R M I N G T H E L G I O N DO R I E N T
controversy, both in relation to the Franco-Turkish War and the subsequent

exodus of Armenians. Albeit in a limited way, the Lgion has also been discussed in relation to the Armenian Genocide (see below). Yet, despite some
works on its role in these events, nothing denitive has been published in the
English language on its formation (particularly of the Armenian component)
in October , let alone the rather long build-up that included numerous
rejections.
This article uses British, French, Armenian, and Cypriot archival sources as
well as British, French, and Turkish language historiography to reconstruct the
story of the formation of the Lgion dOrient in October . It attempts to
show that the Lgions formation transpired after many rejections rst from
the British, then the French, and then from Armenian political elites during a
transition period for British and French policy-makers in relation to their approach to the war in the Near and Middle East and their post-war role there, as
well as for Armenians during the implementation of the Genocide. This argument will contradict the claims of Armenian Genocide denialists that the
Lgion was established because of French and British support for Armenian
aspirations in a conspiracy to topple the Ottoman government, or as an Allied
humanitarian response to the Armenian Genocide. The Lgion dOrient was
formed to serve the British and French (in particular) strategic-military agenda
against the Ottoman Empire and post-war French imperial ambitions as these
had evolved in spring in the SykesPicot Agreement. The hope of
Armenian political elites for a secure autonomous homeland was merely a
corollary of these broader French and British agendas.
There is little English-language historiography on the Lgion dOrient
and what there is betrays a deep politicization: Turkish authors primarily use
its existence to justify the Ottoman governments deportation policy; while
Armenian 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 a
potted account of the rst proposals for the establishment of an Armenian
Lgion and the implications on the proposal to land forces at Alexandretta.
Tauber, La Lgion dOrient et La Lgion Arabe (The Lgion dOrient and the Arab Lgion),
Revue Franaise dHistorie dOutre-Mer, (), pp. .
Stanford Shaw, The Armenian Lgion and its destruction of the Armenian community of
Cilicia, 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 the
Lgion dOrient, in Marc A. Mamigonian, ed., Armenians of New England: celebrating a culture and
preserving a heritage (Belmont, MA, ), pp. . Not much academic material exists,
mostly memoirs. Of note is the exhibit honouring the Armenian Lgion titled Forgotten
heroes: the Armenian Lgion and the Great War, which was held in the Armenian Library and
Museum of America from Sept. to the end of Feb. .
As part of justifying his denial of an Ottoman Genocide of Armenians, he

claimed that the British and Armenians (i.e. all of them en masse) colluded to
topple 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 Lgion during various periods in and
early , nor does he explore the circumstances that led to the creation of
the Lgion in October . The exceptions are Akaby Nassibians book from
, which provides much narrative and not as much analysis and context as
the less detailed account in Donald Bloxhams study.
The Turkish-language historiography on the Lgion dOrient is no better,
centring on the work of Armenian Genocide denialists Ulvi Keser and
Halil Aytekin. The former produced two monographs on the subject, using
the Turkish Military Archives, yet no French archives, while the latter accessed
archives from Turkey, Britain, and France, but was far more schematic and
patchy. Both were fundamentally awed because they use the existence of the
Lgion, not formed until October , to justify the Ottoman deportation
policy of spring , confusing the chronology of events and the context of
French and British decisions.
There is a broader historiography than that of the Lgion dOrient and
Armenian Genocide, and that is the British recruitment of Ottoman subjects
into the grand coalition against the Central Powers, particularly the Ottoman
Empire. Here, the interconnected and sometimes contradictory themes of rival
imperialisms and nationalisms, the entanglement of humanitarianism and imperialism, and subaltern agency are most important. There is a signicant historiography on the formation of Arabs into ghting units and the Jewish Legion
later in for the purposes of defeating the Ottoman Empire.
The Armenian case differs because it was under French command, but also
because there was a greater level of humanitarianism involved. So, whereas the
British justied encouraging the Arab revolt and the formation of the Jewish
Legion 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 Gucels book in Reviews in History, () (www.history.ac.uk/
reviews/review/); see also M. Serdar Palabiyik, Establishment and activities of French
Lgion dOrient (Eastern Lgion) in the light of French archival documents, Review of
Armenian Studies, (), pp. .
Akaby Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian question, (London, ),

pp. ; Donald Bloxham, The great game of genocide: imperialism, nationalism and the
destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford, ), pp. , .
Halil Aytekin, Kbrsta Monarga (Bogaztepe) Ermeni Lejyonu Kamp (Monarga camp of
Armenian Lgion in Cyprus) (Ankara, ); Ulvi Keser, Kbrs, : Fransz Ermeni
kamplar I ngiliz esir kamplar ve Atatrk Kbrs Trk (Cyprus, : French Armenian
camps, British prisoner camps and Kemalist Cypriot Turks) (Istanbul, ); Ulvi Keser, KbrsAnadolu ekseninde Ermeni dogu Lejyonu (Armenian Eastern Lgion 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, ).
Armenians both the British and the French had used the Armenian Genocide
to create a public humanitarian response against Ottoman savagery. In his
recent study, Davide Rodogno has argued that European humanitarian interventions in the Ottoman Empire date back to the s, but the humanitarianism usually hid behind the real motivations (and sometimes was an ex post
facto justication), which were usually political, imperial, economic, and/or
strategic, and intervention could only be made if more than one European
power was involved. In the case presented here, the incentive to win the war
was linked to post-war imperial expansion, thus motivating both the French and
the British to form the Lgion dOrient. This explains why the determination to
form it materialized only after the SykesPicot Agreement was signed.
European humanitarianism and imperialism and their links with the
Armenian Question must be understood within the broader Eastern
Question, and specically on how the three Allied powers in the First World
War all had a traditional claim to protecting the Christians in the Ottoman
Empire and a special relationship with the Armenians. This, of course, did not
automatically result in a decision to form the Lgion, since intervention, as
Rodogno showed, needed more than humanitarianism to propel it and was
often an ex post facto justication for intervention.
During the nineteenth century, a corollary of the Eastern Question was
how the Ottoman state recognized the European Powers, particularly the
French and the Russians, as the protectors of the Catholic (Maronite and other
eastern Catholics) and Orthodox Christians respectively. For example, in
the case of the French, the Catholic presence in Syria and to a lesser extent
Palestine propelled French imperial interests in this part of the Ottoman
Empire. The role of protecting Ottoman Christian minorities was extended to
the Armenians, but with signicant differences. Armenian protection was not
guided by religious afliation, although there was a religious dimension to
Russian feeling, particularly earlier in the century, but by liberalism (particularly 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 Rodognos 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, British
imperialism in Cyprus, : the inconsequential possession (Manchester, ); and
Andrekos Varnava, British and Greek liberalism and imperialism in the long nineteenth
century, in Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, ed., Liberal imperialism in Europe (London, ),
pp. . For information on French liberal imperialism, see J. P. Daughton, An empire
divided. Religion, republicanism, and the making of French colonialism, (Oxford, );
Convention and in the Treaty of Berlin, both of , the British government

led the way in compelling the Ottoman Empire to agree to reforms for its
Christian communities in its eastern provinces a clear reference to Armenians.
Lord Beaconselds Conservative government aimed to establish informal
imperial hegemony over Asia Minor and Syria, but this failed because Sultan
Abdul Hamid II refused to implement reforms, and relations between the two
countries deteriorated. Although conservative governments were in power
in both France and Britain at the time, it was British and French liberals
who sympathized more with the ambitions of Armenian secular political elites
for more representation. More generally, most European governments sympathized with the Armenians after the massacres perpetuated against them by
Abdul Hamids regime in the s, yet no action was taken to prevent them at
the time or in the future, with further massacres in . Nevertheless, British
and French governments were able to create much public humanitarian feeling
and action in support of Armenian refugees. For their part, Armenian political elites were inuenced by British, French, and Russian political developments, but especially the revolutionary character of opposition groups in
the latter. But by the eve of the First World War, Armenian political elites,
having set aside violent revolutionary approaches, were closer to the French and
British, and European powers were locked in discussions with the Ottoman
government, now led by the Committee of Union and Progress, on implementing reforms that would benet Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
This helps explain the readiness of Armenian political elites to seek protection and to align themselves with the Russian, British, and French alliance
during the First World War. Although some Armenians fought in the Ottoman
army, others on the Russo-Ottoman border joined the Russians, while
political elites in Europe and the US advocated a British Armenian Lgion,
for French missionaries in the Ottoman Empire, see Owen White and J. P. Daughton, eds., In
Gods 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, (),
Bloxham, The great game of genocide, pp. .

pp. .
Ibid., pp. . For the reforms issue, see TNA, FO//; British Library
(BL), India Ofce Records (IOR) Political and Secret Annual Files, IOR/L/PS// ;
Political and Secret Annual Files, IOR/L/PS// ; and Political and Secret Annual
Files, IOR/L/PS// .
Sarkis Torossian was one fascinating case. He was in charge of the rst fort at the
Dardanelles entrance and was awarded for his bravery in stopping the British attempt to force
the Dardanelles. He later served in the Lgion dOrient after discovering that family had died
during the Genocide. Sarkis Torossian, From Dardanelles to Palestine: a true story of ve battle fronts
of Turkey and her Allies and a harem romance (Boston, MA, ).
Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian Question, pp. and ; Bloxham, The great game of
genocide, pp. .
which the British rejected in March . Consequently, on April ,

Boghos Nubar requested to go to Paris to defend the interests of Ottoman
Armenians because he wished to convince the French government of the need
for the Entente to protect the Armenian population, through incorporating
them into a Syria under French control. The British and French governments
linked the protection of Ottoman Armenians with their own imperial interests
in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite the many decades leading up to the
Great War when such interests were cultivated informally (more formally in
the British cases of Cyprus and Egypt), French and British imperial interests in
the Ottoman Empire remained informal until well into . The entry of the
Ottoman Empire into the war did not result in the start of a serious military
front in any of the areas where either the British or French had imperial
interests. This was despite the fact that originally the plan was to force the
Dardanelles by ships alone and, succeed or fail, land troops at Alexandretta.
This was overlooked instead for landing troops on Gallipoli. Subsequently, the
Armenian Genocide had no impact on British and French war strategy, as their
withdrawal from Gallipoli took them to Salonika. Yet the Gallipoli failure did see
them reconsider their traditional imperial interests on the Ottoman periphery
in the eastern Mediterranean. But even then it took the best part of a year after
the Gallipoli failure for the British and French to start focusing their military
strength there, which helps explain the delays in forming the Lgion dOrient.
The Armenians were pawns in the greater game of post-war French and British
imperial expansion, and thus, as Rodogno has shown for the century before the
Great 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 the
Armenians by forming the Lgion.
II
Boghos Nubar rst proposed using Armenians as part of an Allied landing at
Alexandretta in November in order to protect Cilician Armenians, who he
feared would be massacred by the Ottomans in revenge for Armenians near the
Russian border joining the Russian army. The landing at Alexandretta appealed to many British strategic planners, especially General Sir John Maxwell,
Andrekos Varnava, Imperialism rst, 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 in
Arabic numerals and issue in Roman numerals will be provided.
See Varnava, Imperialism rst, the war second.
Boghos Nubar to Kevork V, Paris, July , Vatche Ghazarian, ed. and trans., Boghos
Nubars papers and the Armenian question, : documents (Waltham, MA, ), doc. ,
AA (hereafter, Boghos Nubar papers).
commander-in-chief of the British forces in Egypt, Lord Kitchener, the war

secretary, and Winston Churchill, the rst lord of the Admiralty. But there were
complications, such as the French demanding a role in a landing, and the
unsuccessful attempt to force the Dardanelles with the navy alone on March
. The original plan was to land troops at Alexandretta regardless of
whether 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 of
the naval and army high command in charge of forcing the Dardanelles.
In any event, the British government had rejected the formation of a Lgion of
Armenian volunteers on March for various reasons, including: the uncertainty over the Alexandretta landing; that they were cold about forming such
Lgions, having also rejected in Cypriot and Jewish Legion proposals;
and as shown below, the British considered that the proposal would result in the
killing of non-combatant Armenians, before and after the Genocide.
On the day ( April) that the Ottoman government arrested leading
Armenian elites in Constantinople, the day that Armenians commemorate
the Armenian Genocide, Cecil Spring-Rice, the British ambassador to
Washington, informed Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, that
George Bakhmeteff, the Russian ambassador to Washington had told him that
the Armenian National Defence Committee were offering to send , men
via Canada to ght in operations in Cilicia and would pay for uniforms and
passage to a Canadian port. The War Ofce would not entertain this or any
other scheme and Spring-Rice was accordingly informed. The Foreign Ofce
was equally opposed. In a minute on April, Harold Eustace Satow opined:
I dont know what value from a military point of view an Armenian rising in
Cilicia would have, but I feel little doubt that it would lead to the massacre of a
large number of innocent Armenians. Little, of course, did he know what had
transpired 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, Kitcheners 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 les TNA, Colonial Ofce (British) (CO) //, CO//,

CO//, CO//, CO//, and CO//.
Watts, The Jewish Lgion and the First World War, pp. and ; see also Matityahu
Mintz, Pinhas Rutenberg and the establishment of the Jewish Lgion of , Studies in
Zionism, (), 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//.
In any event, Grey informed the Colonial Ofce, which was being included in
the discussion because the scheme involved training the Armenians on Cyprus,
that he rejected it because the Army Council have repeatedly expressed the
view that half organised volunteer risings of this description would have little
military value and that they should not be encouraged. There is also little doubt
that such an expedition . . . would result in the massacre of many innocent
Armenians.
Despite the Army Council rejecting the Armenian scheme to raise a
contingent, various quarters pushed for one after the Ottoman extermination
policy. In July , the Armenian Committee of National Defence addressed a
letter to General Maxwell in Egypt, calling on British military action on the
Cilician coast in order to stop the massacres against the Armenians and that
there were Armenian volunteers in Egypt willing to participate. About a week
later, the Committee of Armenian National Defence reiterated their appeal to
Maxwell, disclosing that a volunteer movement under their direction was
developing in America and elsewhere. The committee recognized that it was
useless for the Entente to now land at Cilicia as previously suggested, but it could
not remain idle as reports of massacres continued to pour in. Modifying their
earlier proposal, the committee now wanted to concentrate a force in Cyprus
and 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 difculty in holding
the Taurus, Anti-Taurus and Amanus Mountains against the Turks, especially
now that the latter are fully occupied with the Russians on the Caucasus and the
Anglo-French in Gallipoli. The committee was certain of , men now in
Russia, Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria, and America, and all that it wanted was for
British ofcers to train them on Cyprus.
British ofcials in Egypt continued to show interest. Lieutenant-Colonel
Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, the high commissioner in Egypt since January
, sent Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Sykes, a Conservative MP and a long time
traveller to the Ottoman Empire, to consult with Armenian representatives
in Cairo. There, on August, he discussed the proposal with Vahan Malezian, a
Cairo attorney and secretary to Boghos Nubar, and Mihran Damadian, a
Hunchak and a leader of the Sassoun rebellion of . Sykes informed
Maxwell of the plan, which called for the raising of , Armenians, , of
whom had fought in the Bulgarian and Ottoman armies, and the rest workers in
the 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//.
with the rest forming bands of about fty and landing at various points between
Ayas and Piyas, pushing north towards Zeitun and Albistan, and there operate as
comitajis (irregular ghting units) along Macedonian lines. From approval of
the scheme, the force would be operational in eight weeks, so if approved on
August, operations would commence on October, allowing the force to
enter the mountains before the snow began. The Armenians only needed from
the Allies arms, munitions, transport, and cover for their landing. Sykes opined
that the concentration of such a force on Cyprus would be protable even if
held 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 it
would be better to give the Armenians something to do rather than have them
become restless and perhaps divided. Also, the French would need to approve
and could provide their contingent at the Dardanelles as an army of occupation
of the Adana Vilayet if the scheme succeeded.
The Russians, desirous of having another front in Anatolia or Syria to relieve
pressures in Transcaucasia, pushed the British with a similar scheme put
forward by Captain A. H. Torcom, a Bulgarian Armenian serving in the Russian
army. Torcom visited George Buchanan, the British ambassador extraordinary
and plenipotentiary at Petrograd, leaving with him his scheme for the
organization of Armenian volunteers for service against the Ottoman Empire.
Torcom claimed that he could recruit , men into ten battalions, and
perhaps even , men into thirty battalions, through recruiting centres at
Alexandria, Marseilles, Liverpool, and New York. The corps would be concentrated 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, but
believed it would be hard to gather the volunteers and provide them with
arms.
Despite Russian encouragement, the Ottoman extermination policy, and the
military benets outlined by the Armenian committee in Cairo and Torcom,
the War Ofce stood rm in rejecting the schemes, a decision the Foreign
Ofce supported. Harold Nicolson at the Foreign Ofce minuted that
the scheme proposed by the Committee is not over ambitious and might be
successful, if only in creating a diversion . . . [but] the difculty is that the Turks
would immediately take reprisals on the Armenians actually in their power, and
massacres 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//.
As for Torcoms proposal, the Army Council thought it more practical than
any of the others previously submitted, but the results likely to be achieved . . .
are not such . . . to justify His Majestys Government in supporting the scheme in
view of the difculties that its adoption would entail, and of the Financial
responsibilities in which it would involve this country.
The War and Foreign Ofces had a number of reasons to oppose the
formation of an Armenian Lgion. In a reverse-type of humanitarianism, their
approach to preventing massacres was not to provoke the Ottomans or to
embark upon a humanitarian intervention in response to predicted massacres
of allies in the event of a landing. This takes further the cases explored by
Rodogno across the century before the Great War started, where he shows how
humanitarian intervention required both a favourable European political
climate and one or more European powers believing that their interests, usually
imperial, were at threat before intervening. Ultimately, this was a weak
position, alongside the Armenian approach, which was to defend themselves
against the inevitable through the formation of an Armenian Lgion. In weighing up the idea, the British also determined that the investment in nance,
materials, and training did not justify the potential results. These potential
results must be understood in two ways: defeating the Ottoman Empire and in
post-war spoils (i.e. imperialism). Both British and German military personnel
wrote after the war, so with the benet of hindsight, that they were bewildered
that the British and French had not attacked Alexandretta in because the
area was an Ottoman point of weakness in so many ways, while British
intelligence in the area was certainly aware of this. What was missing from the
equation was the additional gains war spoils and therefore imperialism and
these had not been considered let alone determined, while the area was as
much a French interest as it was of British interest.
III
The British rejection of an Armenian Lgion was further reected in the British
and French rejection of General Maxwells plan to use the able-bodied Musa
Dagh survivors to launch raids on Alexandretta, and in the subsequent French
rejection of a French Armenian Lgion.
The story of the Musa Dagh refugees, made famous in Franz Werfels
epic tale, warrants a separate article, yet for the purposes of this article it is
necessary to establish how the refugees played an important part in why the
French were approached to form the Lgion 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 rst, the war second; and Andrekos Varnava, British military
intelligence in Cyprus during the Great War, War in History, (), pp. .
subsequent decision to establish the Lgion dOrient almost a year after in

October .
Starting in July , Musa Dagh (Moses Mountain) was the site of an
Armenian resistance to Ottoman extermination efforts. The inhabitants of the
region, issued with deportation orders, f led to the mountain where they prepared a camp and defensive lines, and successfully thwarted several Ottoman
assaults for fty-three days. Just when defence was becoming impossible, they
communicated with French warships patrolling the Syrian coast, which transported them to Port Said.
The British authorities did not want the responsibility of looking after the
Musa Dagh refugees and neither they nor the French knew what to do with
them, until almost a year later when the men t for military service formed the
nucleus of the Lgion dOrient. On September , John Clauson, the
high commissioner of Cyprus, telegraphed Andrew Bonar Law, the colonial
secretary, that three days earlier Louis Dartige du Fournet, the French admiral
on the Syrian coast, telegraphed him that , Armenians were bravely
ghting the Ottomans at Musa Dagh. The admiral, replying to a distress signal,
provided them with munitions and provisions, but the Armenians wanted the
safe removal of about , women, children, and elderly to Cyprus. Fournet
needed 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 also
reached the French Foreign Ministry on that day, in which he bluntly wanted
the admiral informed that
I greatly regret that in view of the very limited accommodation in Cyprus which has
already hypothecated for other refugees it is quite impossible to receive them. I may
add that the introduction of victims of insurrectionary ghting amongst this partly
Turkish and partly Christian population is politically inadvisable.
Both of Clausons points were misplaced. The eventual introduction of

the Lgion into the ChristianMuslim mix of Cyprus did not see Christians
(Cypriots and Armenians) teaming-up against Muslims, instead exposed a
peasant and labouring class still emerging out of a pre-modern Ottoman millet
tradition with an identity based on religious afliation, the village, and opposition 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, , rst 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 dtat-major de la Escadre de la
Mediterranee to Lieutenant-Colonel Elgood, Port Said, Sept. , Cambon to Delcass,
Sept. , Bertie to Foreign Ministry (French) (FM), immediate, Sept. , Le contreadmiral Darrieus, Commandant la Division et p. I. Escarde de la Mediterranee to Elgood,
Sept. , Bertie to FM, immediate, Sept. , and various other documents, in Arthur
Beylerian, ed., Les grandes puissances, lEmpire Ottoman et les Armniens dans les archives franaises
() (Paris, ), pp. .
racial factors. Clausons other claim that the Armenians ghting at Musa
Dagh were part of an insurrection, that is, part of one of the Armenian
revolutionary groups that had now revolted, was also wrong. The Musa Dagh
Armenians were resisting deportation, and doing a good job of ghting the
mutual Ottoman enemy.
General Maxwell believed this, writing to Kitchener that
everything should be done, I think, to help the movement, and, with either Cyprus
or Rhodes taking their women and children, it will make an important diversion
from the Dardanelles if we can promote the Armenian movement. I think it is
advisable to exercise a little pressure in Cyprus.
Maxwell was bored with his role of providing training and supplies to troops
destined for Gallipoli and Salonika (his transfer request was honoured in March
, whereupon he was posted to Ireland and notoriously put down the Easter
Rebellion), so action closer to Egypt excited him. The War Ofce, not understanding the urgency of the situation, wanted more information because it
disbelieved the number of Armenians holding off the Ottoman forces.
With no answer on September, Paul Cambon, the French ambassador
to London, informed the Foreign Ofce that the admiral wanted to transport
the refugees to Cyprus or Egypt, while on the same day Maxwell informed
the War Ofce 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 Cypriot
political-religious elite and their gradual move away from co-operation with the Ottomans and
British to hostility, see Michalis N. Michael, Panaretos, : his struggle for absolute
power during the era of Ottoman administrative reforms, in Andrekos Varnava and Michalis N.
Michael, eds., The archbishops of Cyprus in the modern age: the changing role of the ArchbishopEthnarch, 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 rst of
the new Archbishop-Ethnarchs?, in ibid., pp. ; Andrekos Varnava and Irene
Pophaides, Kyrillos II, : the rst Greek nationalist and Enosist ArchbishopEthnarch, in ibid., pp. ; for an understanding of how Europeans and educated Cypriots
established a provincial high society and exploited the peasantry and working classes, see
Rolandos Katsiaounis, Labour, society and politics in Cyprus (Nicosia, ); and Marc Aymes,
The port-city in the elds: investigating an improper urbanity in mid-nineteenth-century
Cyprus, Mediterranean Historical Review, (), pp. ; for an introduction into Cypriot
society at the time of the Great War, the importance of the Cypriot Mule Corps and the impact
of the Armenian Lgion, see Andrekos Varnava, Famagusta during the Great War: from
backwater 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//).
On September, the Foreign Ofce debated where the , Armenian

refugees should be taken, one minute stating that pressure should be exerted
on Cyprus; then Grey minuted that both Cyprus and Egypt were out of the
question. Finally, on September, the Foreign Ofce informed Baron Bertie
of Thame, the British ambassador to Paris, that the importation of victims of
insurrectionary ghting between Turks and Christians would in present state of
feeling in both Cyprus and Egypt be wholly undesirable, and that the French
should arrange to take them to Rhodes or Algeria. In other words, the French
should 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 relieving
the refugees, disembarked them at Port Said, much to the annoyance of the
Egyptian authorities, who insisted to London that this could only be temporary. Clearly, the French political and military authorities were in a weak
position alongside their British allies, so much so that they attempted to accommodate the British position to relocate the refugees. They tried and failed to
have them accepted in Rhodes, Algeria, Tunis, Morocco, and by the Russians in
the Caucasus. This not only reects the power of allies to inuence policies,
but also of local bureaucratic elites on the periphery to do so as well, even
against their own central state authorities.
While the British pushed the French to relocate the Armenians elsewhere
and to take complete responsibility for them, General Maxwell proposed
forming them into a ghting unit to raid the Syrian and Cilician coasts. On
September, a week after they had been dumped at Port Said, the French
minister in Cairo (since ), Jules-Albert Defrance, informed Paris that a
leader of the Musa Dagh resistance, Pierre (or Peter) Dimlekian, informed him
that those in a condition to bear arms numbered and were aged between
fteen and sixty, and about of these would make good soldiers. Defrance
informed his superiors that Maxwell had proposed forming an Armenian
Lgion, which could raid Ottoman coasts in the Alexandretta region, but
Dimlekian preferred to ght with the French. Paris wanted more information
about Maxwells plan and the refugees, so Defrance visited the camp on
September, where the Armenians were under British quarantine, and
informed Paris that there were , in total: men, , women, boys,
girls, and infants. He conrmed that men were t to ght 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 high
commissioner, 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. .
to work. The Armenians told Defrance that they had resisted the Ottomans
for over forty days and wanted to continue ghting the Turks. Defrance
informed Paris that Maxwell had spoken to Dimlekian about the British using
the Armenians to raid Alexandretta and that Defrance had told Dimlekian that
the French and British were co-operating on this because the French were not
competing with the British.
Although Maxwell was interested in using the Musa Dagh Armenians to form
a Lgion, he was not interested in those that could not ght. Defrance and
Maxwell proposed to their respective governments that the French would cover
the expenses of the Armenian refugees and an Armenian Lgion should be
formed to launch raids on the Syrian and Cilician coasts. Soon, the various
opinions on the formation of an Armenian Lgion manifested. Lieutenant de
Saint Quentin in Cairo opined that a raid by Armenians in the Alexandretta
region would attract the Ottomans to the region and should therefore not be
attempted so long as the French and British still had designs on the region.
A member of the Foreign Ministry suggested forming a committee of
Armenians to appeal for support from the Armenian diaspora, notably in the
US, but the bottom line was that, like the British government, the French did
not want to encourage a rebellion which did not have good prospects of success.
Ultimately, however, both governments would decide together. Maxwell
pushed for a decision because he wanted the refugees to leave as he worried
they would become frustrated if they remained idle. Grey informed his
French counterpart that the French were responsible for nding work for the
refugees, and suggested work on the Gallipoli beaches. Thophile Delcass,
in one of his last acts as foreign minister, informed Cairo that he had agreed
with Grey that the Armenian refugees should be sent as labourers to Mudros.
Indeed a French military agent in Egypt attempted to recruit from the Musa
Dagh refugees for service at Gallipoli and Mudros.
Yet the voices supporting the formation of the Musa Dagh refugees into a
combat unit were numerous. Arshag Hovhannes Tsobanian (or Chobanian), an
Ottoman Armenian in Paris, and a famous writer, journalist, and editor,
suggested to the Foreign Ministry that the refugees be formed into combat
units, especially since, in his view, the Armenian struggle in Cilicia and the
surrounding 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 fty-three.
Three letters, Defrance to FM, Sept. , pp. , FFMA, , I.
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.
the Musa Dagh leaders did not want to work as labourers and they should not be
treated like Ottoman prisoners or like Somalis employed at Mudros. Then,
Vice-Admiral Gabriel Darrieus, the new commander of the rd Squadron on
the Syrian coast, weighed in, informing Paris that the Armenian refugees
wanted revenge on the Turks, not to work as labourers. He favoured using them
as combatants in their native region, particularly in a raid to cut Ottoman rail
communications.
But the voices of opposition weighed more heavily. The French Foreign
Ministry and Defrance in Cairo thought establishing an Armenian Lgion and
using it to raid the Alexandretta area would be a bad idea and it was best to
employ them at Mudros. Captain E. De Jonquires of the French navy, agreed,
rejecting an Armenian corps of irregular troops because this might provoke the
Turks, and although the Armenians may not like it, they should be pushed to
work as labourers at Mudros. Cambon reported that the British and he were
sceptical about encouraging an Armenian uprising in Cilicia because of
Ottoman reprisals and were coming around to the idea of employing them at
Mudros, well away from Egypt where they might cause mischief. The French
War Ministry agreed, although worried about using the Armenians as labourers
because of their lack of aptitude, the naval authorities were opposed to
forming them into a ghting unit. The new French foreign minister and
prime minister, Aristide Briand, agreed with the reservations over forming an
Armenian Lgion, which were also shared by Defrance, because it would merely
provoke further Turkish massacres.
Ofcially, however, it seems that the French authorities in Cairo were not
informed of this decision. In December , Defrance messaged Paris that the
male Armenian refugees wanted to return to their mountains after being
trained and armed and that if the government approved the French authorities
in Egypt would arrange this.
IV
One of the reasons given for rejecting an Armenian Lgion in was that it
would incite the Ottomans to implement more massacres, but this reason was
overcome in January . In a letter to the French military authorities in
Egypt, the War Ministry instructed it to proceed with forming an Armenian
Lgion. 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.
Cairo, the British and French military representatives in Egypt agreed to form a
Lgion 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 no
interest to the Allied Powers; the only object of their employment is to give to the
Armenians some material claim to their reinstatement in their original country; it is
therefore a matter of purely Armenian interest . . . [Therefore], the Allied
Governments are free of any moral responsibility for reprisals or acts of violence
on the part of the Turks that may be regarded as reprisals for the employment of
these volunteers.
Based on this extraordinary condition, the Armenian committee was told that
the Allied Governments are prepared to form a Volunteer force from the
Armenian refugees of Djebal Moussa and from such other Armenian
Volunteers as may be sent in by the Committee.
The deal the Armenian National Committee was being asked to accept was
unbalanced. The Allied governments would administer military training; provide arms, ammunition, accoutrements, and boots; and employ the volunteers
only in the districts of Cilicia and Lesser Armenia with which the Armenians
are as natives familiar. On the other hand, the Armenian committee was
responsible for proving each volunteer with a ration allowance and pay totalling
PT (Egyptian Piastres) per diem; six trained men as sous-ofcers, funded by
the committee; extra pay of PT a day for volunteers given responsible positions; and material for clothing since not all the volunteers would wear
uniforms. It is obvious from both the tone and the content of the letter that the
French government had approved the detailed and specic proposals.
Despite this change of heart, this time it was the Armenians who rejected the
formation of a Lgion. Defrance informed Paris that the matter of forming an
Armenian force was in doubt because the Armenian National Defence
Committee believed that activities by such a force would provoke dangerous
Turkish reprisals. The Hunchak party, however, was pressing the French naval
commander to hasten the arming of Armenians, but Vice-Admiral Moreau,
commander of the rd Squadron, opposed using the Musa Dagh refugees in
this way. Defrance, however, believed that the option should be open. The
strongest opposition came from the most inuential Armenian, Boghos Nubar.
In a letter to Moreau on March, he conrmed his position rst taken on
March that he opposed any Armenian action that could lead to retaliations
on Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, including the formation of a volunteer
Lgion. He argued that if Armenians wanted to ght, they should enlist with
one of the Allies. In Nubars 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. .
expressed concern over the British training about Musa Dagh Armenians in
order to blow up railway bridges in Alexandretta and was relieved that the idea
was abandoned after the Armenian bishop in Cairo and the Eastern Orthodox
patriarch of Alexandria objected for fear of Ottoman reprisals. The concerns
over retaliations must be understood within the context of the Genocide and its
progress, since it implies that there were still some Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire that had escaped it, but unlike six months earlier these Armenians were
isolated and not in a position to be protected by an Entente landing with an
Armenian contribution.
Nubars rejection carried much weight, despite the obvious power imbalance
alongside the French and British. Indeed, Defrance believed that the question
of raising an Armenian Lgion was nally closed. Then, seemingly, the nal
nail in the cofn came from the French War Ministry, which announced that
French law forbade the enlistment of enemy nationals into the French army.
V
It was not, however, the nal nail in the cofn. The proposal was resurrected
and agreed to in August by the commander-in-chief of the French army
and the French government and ofcially agreed to by all parties concerned in
October.
On June , the British Foreign Ofce informed its French counterpart
that it had received a request to free Armenian prisoners of war held in India
and wanted to know whether the French had any plans to use the Armenians in
any way related to the war. Then, on July, Cambon informed the Foreign
Ministry that an idea was being examined to form an Armenian corps on
Cyprus, at French expense, since a recent agreement ceded large parts of
Armenia to France. Here lies the reason for the resurrection of the proposal
to form an Armenian Lgion, but before exploring this further it is important to
complete the story. Over two weeks followed before Cambon updated the
Foreign Ministry that Brigadier-General Gilbert Clayton, of the Arab Bureau in
Cairo, in discussions with Georges-Picot, suggested that the Armenian refugees
in Egypt and those imprisoned in India could be made into soldiers and
grouped on Cyprus to dissuade the Ottomans from moving all their troops
southwards against the sherif of Mecca. The British suggested that the
Armenians be trained and armed by French ofcers, which Cambon thought
would show French strength without enlarging their eld of operations and
control 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,
Ibid., Cambon to FM, July , p. .

July , p. .
northern Syria. Also, it offered a solution as to what to do with the Musa Dagh
refugees, who refused to take jobs or act as auxiliaries.
The resurrection of the idea to form an Armenian Lgion was largely due to
the SykesPicot Agreement. This was what Cambon meant when he mentioned
the cession of Armenian populated territories to France in a recent agreement.
When the Gallipoli expedition failed, resulting in Bulgaria joining the Central
Powers, and when the British offer of Cyprus to Greece, in order for that
country to aid Serbia immediately, also failed, the British and the French (and
indeed the Russians) needed to work together more closely. Consequently, they
decided that they needed to focus on what their aims were in defeating the
Ottoman Empire, and given Russian ambitions on Constantinople and
Transcaucasia (reected in a separate agreement with the Russian foreign
minister, Sergei Sazonov), French interests in Syria and Cilicia, and British
interests in Egypt and Mesopotamia, it became obvious that the military effort
needed to concentrate on where the British and French interests were. These
interests were captured in the SykesPicot Agreement, negotiated and signed by
Franois 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 who
proposed 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 in
Armenia. The SykesPicot Agreement divided the Ottoman vilayets from
Adana to Basra into either direct or indirect (where an Arab state would be
created) spheres of French or British control. Cilicia (mostly in the Adana
vilayet) and neighbouring Ottoman vilayets with a substantial Armenian population would come under direct French control; with the other vilayets populated by Armenians coming under Russian protection. British and French
imperial rivalry was suddenly reinvented and a new collaborative relationship
was formed, linking the successful prosecution of the war with post-war imperial
expansion.
Once French and British post-war imperial expansion was settled upon, it
did not take long for them to embark upon a determined effort to form an
Armenian Lgion. On August the commander-in-chief of the French army,
General Joseph Joffre, accepted the proposal to form an Armenian Lgion.
Joffre agreed with General Pierre Roques, the minister of war, a close friend
from their days at the cole Polytechnique in the s, that forming an
Armenian Lgion on Cyprus was an opportunity to threaten the Ottomans and
allow 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 le, TNA, FO//.
Joffre, commander-in-chief army, to Roques, Aug. , sent to FM on same day,

pp. , FFMA, , I.
Bosnian battalion at Salonika was an example, thirty ofcers would sufce,

opined Joffre. Joffre wanted the Armenian corps to be ready to exploit any
political situation in order to cause the Ottoman Empire insurmountable
difculties in this region, and so he wanted the Lgion to be under a
commander who was responsible to the rear-admiral commanding the Naval
Division of Syria. He wanted an Armenian revolt and would direct the rearadmiral to supply them with arms, because ultimately it was in the interests of
the Allies to keep Ottoman forces dispersed and engaged in Asia.
The Foreign Ministry was anxious for the War Ministry to decide, and the
afrmative decision from Roques came on August. He told President
Raymond Poincar and Briand that he would be willing to supply personnel,
arms, and provisions for an Armenian Lgion on Cyprus, which could act either
as partisans or as one of several foreign battalions, constituted like the Bosnian
battalion in regular units, receiving the same supplies as French troops. The
second option would best maximize the investment and was therefore more
economical, as Joffre indicated. Roques wanted to know if the British had
agreed and was worried that there were not enough Musa Dagh refugees (on
May he was informed no more than ) and their mediocre value had led
the War and Naval Ministries to reject using them. He assumed, therefore, that
the units formed would be drawn from the Armenian population in Egypt
and India, and from the scattered individuals assembled from Asia Minor and
Syria in various places. Roques wanted French ofcers sent to ascertain the
conditions in which the rst units would be created, with the head of this
mission becoming the commander of the corps. He would have to reach an
understanding with local British authorities, and with the rear-admiral
commanding the French naval division, and then would have to submit to
Roques his proposals for organizing the corps. If this was agreeable to the navy,
the British, and Poincare and Briand, Roques would immediately send this
mission to Cyprus.
Four days later, the French Foreign Ministry informed Cambon that the War
Ministry was ready to send a mission to Cyprus to organize an Armenian corps,
following the suggestion of Brigadier-General Clayton, and wanted Cambon to
ask Whitehall if it agreed and if so to inform the French on how many t
Armenians there were in Egypt and India who could join. Cambon informed
Grey but did not mention if the Lgion would be trained by the British, the
French, or both, putting it forward as a joint Anglo-French idea. Sykess
minute 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//.
corollary of the SykesPicot agreement and because it would propel AngloFrench military co-operation in the Levant. Cambon did not ask if the British
agreed to the Lgion; instead, he asked how many militarily t Armenians the
British held. The War Ofce informed Grey that there were in Egypt
(Musa Dagh refugees) and another prisoners of war in India, but how many
were t for combat and would consent to ght was unknown. The prisoners at
Sumerpur, India, the India Ofce opined, would do well, having been taken
from the Ottoman army in Mesopotamia. As for the Musa Dagh refugees in
Egypt, the director of military intelligence, Major-General Macdonogh, believed
that few had martial qualities, while he claimed that Brigadier-General Clayton
was against the idea because they were not of good ghting material,
contradicting French views of Claytons position. A labour company was formed
in Egypt from amongst the refugees for work on the defences of the canal, while
Maxwell was considering using them as muleteers in Salonika to augment the
Macedonian (Cypriot) Mule Corps. In any event, Sir Ronald Graham, of the
Ministry of the Interior in Cairo, revealed that there were about capable
men at the Armenian refugee camp, but that he had failed to induce any to
volunteer for the Macedonian Mule Corp or for a labour camp, and felt that
compulsion might be needed.
The Foreign Ofce replied to Cambon without stating that the British
government had accepted or rejected the proposed scheme, although it
implied that it had accepted it because it only encouraged it. The letter
disclosed how many Armenians were under British authority and that Clauson
had been requested to provide information on a camp.
The initial Colonial Ofce view was neither negative nor positive. There was,
a minute stated, no reason why such a body should not be sent to Cyprus were it
not that it might have very bad political results on the Moslem population of the
Island who do not like Armenians. This was a gross generalization. The
Colonial Ofce decided to wait for Clausons views before ofcially giving its
own. 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 Ofce to FO, Aug. , FO//, M. ; telegram from
India Ofce secretary to viceroy, June , TNA, FO//, M. ; viceroy
to Lord Bryce, India secretary, June , TNA, FO//, H. ; B. B.
Cubitt, WO, to under-secretary for India, military secretary India Ofce (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
, he had refused to inform the Greek and Turkish Cypriot political elites
that the British government had formally offered to cede the island to Greece
because he did not want to upset the loyal Muslim elites; he had a difcult
relationship with the military intelligence ofcers working on Cyprus and Egypt
because they considered him too negligent on security and he considered the
military intelligence ofcers too intrusive; and nally his rejection of the
Musa Dagh refugees. This time, Clauson was obliging, informing Bonar Law
that there were difculties of sea and land transport and the necessity of
importing many necessities at much expense and delay, and it was advisable to
minimise contact with the Cypriot Turks who are uneasy . . . For these reasons
I would recommend that a secluded site in the north or east of the island be
sought. Bonar Law informed Cambon that he agreed with Clauson on
minimizing contact with the Cypriot Turks.
The military and government authorities in Egypt had mixed views about the
scheme. McMahon, Graham, and General Archibald Murray, commander-inchief of the troops in Egypt, were pleased to be rid of the Musa Dagh refugees
and that the force was not going to be trained in Egypt, but Murray stated
that the British authorities were unable to provide equipment or training, so the
French had to take all responsibility. He was also unhappy with Cypruss
selection as the training base: I do not consider that Cyprus would be a
desirable place in which to train these men but no doubt it will be possible to
nd some other locality which is in French occupation. Graham agreed,
stating that there seems no reason that we should undertake their training
in Cyprus and I imagine that the authorities in Cyprus would not encourage
any idea of the kind. The French now hold several islands in the eastern
Mediterranean, which are equally, or almost equally, suitable for the purpose.
Both Graham and Murray were wrong, as the French wanted Cyprus and
Clauson had agreed, although he had never been asked to agree or disagree
as one Foreign Ofce minute put it, Clauson implied a grudging acceptance.
During September, the French remained apprehensive about the British
position on an Armenian Lgion 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//.
informed the Foreign Ministry that the French were training about
Armenian refugees in Port Said, but the British preferred to send them to
Salonika as muleteers, although the British merely wanted to be rid of them. He
wanted advice on whether the French government wanted them or not, and if
the French wanted them whether they would pay the cost of keeping them and
their families. Colonel T. G. Hamelin, of the French General Staff second
section Africa, learned that the British were opposed to using Cyprus and so the
French should drop the idea, adding that the Armenians were not worth the
money to compensate the British. But then Defrance sent to Briand two
documents detailing discussions on the ground between French and British
ofcers over what to do with the Musa Dagh refugees that showed that a Lgion
under French command in Cyprus was feasible. In Bremonds letter to
Defrance he detailed the number of Musa Dagh refugees at Port Said, those t
for service, the training already undertaken, and the constructive discussions
with two British ofcers, General Althem and Colonel Elgood, over using the
Armenians. Discussions between Defrance and McMahon showed that the
British had found the Armenians difcult, and would be pleased to be rid of
them.
It was not until September that Cambon informed Briand that the British
did not oppose the creation of an Armenian Lgion, but wanted it camped in
northern or eastern Cyprus where there were fewer Muslims. He also informed
Briand 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 Lgion
was moving towards acceptance, a nal decision had not yet been taken.
Meanwhile, the Musa Dagh refugees were growing restless. The French navy
in the Mediterranean reported to the Naval Ministry that some Musa Dagh
Armenians had protested to the minister of state, Denys Cochin, about being
enrolled in the British army and asking to be employed as paid guides for the
French in their country. The letter, dated September (but not sent to
Briand until October), thanked France for saving them from certain
extermination and declared that they considered themselves under French
protection. They had started military training, but it was stopped without
explanation, 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 they
would ght the Ottomans on their home soil). They were now told that the
planned operations (i.e. at Alexandretta) could have devastating consequences
for 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. .
training to help France when it needed them to aid in reconquering their

villages and Cilicia. They claimed that the British were threatening to send them
to work on the Port Said roads, and although they have nothing against the
British, they wanted the French to honour the assurance given when they were
saved. Defrance highlighted the restlessness of the Musa Dagh refugees to
the Foreign Ministry on September, asserting that a decision was vital
because of friction with the British. Clearly, the role of local agency again
came to the fore, since the actions (or inaction from a British view point) of the
Musa Dagh refugees in Egypt frustrated the British in Egypt into becoming the
strongest advocates for their formation into the Lgion.
Finally, on September, the ofce of the chief of General Staff, General
Pierre-Georges Duport, informed Briand that London had nally consented to
the formation of a Frenchtrained Armenian corps in northern or eastern
Cyprus (letter received from French Military attach in London dated
September). The problem was that there were only about refugees in
Port Said available and the French vice-admiral had agreed to their
employment as muleteers by the British in Egypt or Salonika. Duport was
sending Commandant Louis Romieu, an infantry ofcer, to Egypt to resolve the
situation with the British. Subsequently, Duport added that the corps may be
recruited from Armenians outside Egypt as well.
The French authorities in Egypt, who were not updated on the latest
developments, observed a change in the British. Saint-Quentin informed the
Foreign Ministry that British authorities were willing to leave employment of the
Armenians to the French, so long as they and their families were removed from
Egypt. Defrance and the French military attach in Egypt informed the
Foreign Ministry that General Murray was fed up with the Armenians because
they had refused to serve as muleteers and had failed as labourers, so he would
be relieved if the French took responsibility for all of them, including their
families. Briand, referring to a further letter by Bremond on the subject,
informed Roques that it was vital to form the Lgion to end British and
Armenian frustration.
In October, the project gathered momentum. On October, Duport
informed Briand that Romieu had left for Egypt to start recruiting and nalize
discussions with the British. Defrance suggested that the French government
could reimburse the British for the costs of looking after the Musa Dagh
Cochin, state minister to Briand, Oct. , enclosing letter signed by Kardiros

Boyadjian, 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 attach, London, to NM,
Ibid., Duport to FM, Sept. , p. .

Sept. , p. .
Ibid., Saint-Quentin to FM, Sept. , p. .
Ibid., Defrance to FM, Sept. , p. , and military attach, Cairo, to FM, Sept.
Ibid., Briand to Roques, Sept. , p. .

, p. .
refugees (, francs a month) over the last year and take on the expense of
caring for the women, children, and elderly. Finally, on October, the
Foreign Ofce ofcially informed Cambon that there was no objection to
releasing any of the men in the refugee camp to form the Lgion on Cyprus.
Egypt, however, was not informed about the ofcial decision. McMahon asked
the Foreign Ofce for answers after two French ofcers visited him about
transporting the Armenians to Cyprus. Although the Foreign Ofce had
consented to the French government, it had not been informed of French
procedures to transport and train the Armenians on Cyprus. As late as
October, Defrance had informed the Foreign Ministry that he had word that
Murray opposed Cyprus as the training base. On that day, however, Romieu
met Murray and they agreed for the Lgion to be trained on Cyprus, but Murray
would await approval from the War Ofce and Clauson. On October,
Cambon informed the Foreign Ministry that London had informed its
authorities in Egypt to facilitate departure of Armenians to Cyprus. Indeed,
Grey informed Egypt that the French had appointed Romieu to arrange with
the Egyptian authorities for the transportation of the militarily t Armenian
refugees to Cyprus for training. The British military in Egypt, however, would
only comply if the War Ofce, which Grey had kept in the dark, approved.
Eventually, the Foreign Ofce informed the War Ofce of its decision.
Meanwhile, arrangements were also made for the British to transport the
Armenian prisoners of war in India to Cyprus, earning the ire of one
Colonial Ofce minion: I am not impressed with this method of raising
troops. The French government was so pleased with the British government
that Cambon asked the British also to send to Cyprus the Armenian
prisoners of war near Bombay. The Foreign Ofce agreed, informing the
authorities in Egypt that the Armenian patriarch was travelling to India to
persuade them to enrol themselves under French ag. 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..); commander-in-chief Egypt to chief of the General Staff, Oct. , TNA, FO//.
FO to DMI, Oct. , TNA, FO//.
Condential, 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//, .
French Armenian Lgion was a joint Allied project, as was inadvertently stated
by the Foreign Ofce to the India Ofce.
The nal arrangements were left to Clauson and Romieu in Cyprus, again
reecting the important role of local agents and men on the ground. Defrance
informed the Foreign Ministry that the British Foreign Ofce had nally
telegraphed Clauson that Armenians would go to Cyprus. Indeed, a letter
dated October reveals that the Cyprus government informed Romieu
that a site had been found at Monarga, a Muslim Cypriot hamlet (despite earlier
concerns about interaction with Cypriot Muslims) sixteen miles north of
Famagusta, and near Boghaz, an Orthodox Christian hamlet, at the base of the
Karpass Peninsula. Three weeks passed, before Clauson telegraphed Bonar
Law with this fact, where he also revealed that the rst Armenians would arrive
by the end of November. Romieu informed his superiors of his meeting with
Clauson on October, with the only outstanding question remaining that of
transporting and settling the non-combatants on Cyprus. The nal question
for the British was secrecy. The Colonial Ofce ordered Clauson to keep a strict
watch on the correspondence from Cyprus with a view to suppressing
reference to the Armenian Corps at Monarga. Accordingly, John Fenn, the
acting chief secretary, ordered the military authorities on the island to suppress
references to the Armenian corps.
The Colonial Ofce was concerned at the establishment of the French
Armenian camp in Cyprus. W. D. Ellis, a secretary in the Colonial Ofce who
had rst dealt with Cyprus in , claimed that you cannot bring some
thousands of Armenians to Cyprus without the Government being injured in
the matter, especially because the Armenians were unpopular with both
Greeks and Turks again projecting an observation of Anatolian politics onto
Cyprus, where Armenians were a small minority. He hoped that Clauson
would prevent any difculties arising.
Lastly, there remained convincing Boghos Nubar Pasha, who had been left
out of the decision-making process until October. In Paris, on October ,
Nubar was informed about the establishment of the Lgion dOrient 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.
Condential, John Fenn to ofcer 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 minorities
of Cyprus: development patterns and the identity of the internal-exclusion (Newcastle upon Tyne,
Ellis minute, Oct. , TNA, CO//.

), pp. .
Romieus appointment as commander. Romieus aim, Nubar postulated, was

the training of a group of military and non-military volunteers for a possible
expedition to Asia Minor. Nubar believed that the force could be used in two
possible expeditions: in northern Syria to aid rebels of the sherif of Mecca, or in
the allied campaign in the Balkans. He was condent that the Allies would land
troops in Syria and Cilicia, and so the Armenian volunteers would become
civilian administrators. He estimated that ,, volunteers would be
raised, who would serve in a larger Allied contingent. The existence of the
force, Nubar worried, had to remain a secret because the Ottoman and German
justication for the deportation and subsequent extermination of the Ottoman
Armenians was their enlistment in Allied armies. The French Foreign
Ministry believed that Nubar wanted a guarantee that Cilicia would be separated
from Syria, and that Armenians would have religious freedom in Cilicia. The
anonymous writer also thought it important to French inuence in Asia Minor
to employ Armenians, and recommended that Romieu be authorized to recruit
more Armenians in Egypt. Then, a member of the French War Ministry in
Egypt weighed in, arguing that several months before, after the success of the
Russian army in the Caucasus, Armenian elites had hoped for an autonomous
region under the czar, including some Ottoman Armenian territories, but now
they understood that more of them could be under French rule. Therefore,
France should promise this in order to recruit as many Armenians from across
the world as possible. The author was assured that Boghos Nubar and his
supporters would aid Romieus efforts to enrol Armenians.
Returning to the beginning of this article, over three years later, in December
, Nubar in a memorandum on the Armenian Lgion, disclosed that on
October , in the French embassy in London, he met for the rst time
Georges-Picot in the presence of Sykes, and was shown the SykesPicot
Agreement. From this agreement, and that with Russia, Nubar believed that
Armenia would be divided into two parts after the war: one composed of the
eastern vilayets of Van, Erzerum, Bitlis, Dersim, and Trabzon, under Russian
control, and the second part Cilicia and the three western vilayets of Sivas,
Kharput, and Diayarbekir, under French authority. By December , Russia
had been Bolshevik for two years, and the Russian Armenians, led by Dashnak
leaders, had established a precarious independent republic in Transcaucasia.
Ostensibly, Russian Armenia had become independent, but in order to survive
it needed support from a great power that opposed both Bolshevism and any
Ottoman/Turkish resurgence. Nubar recalled that Georges-Picot asserted that
the French would be willing to grant autonomy to the Armenians under their
control, 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. .
fatherland, by providing volunteers for a planned expedition in Asia Minor.

Accordingly, it was agreed to form the Lgion dOrient, with the three
particulars outlined at the beginning of this article. Thus Nubar had been
brought on side.
VI
This article has tapped into various historiographies in order to answer the
complex question of why and how the Lgion dOrient was formed in October
. These historiographies included: French and British imperialism in the
eastern Mediterranean; the French and British war effort and war spoils at
the expense of the Ottoman Empire; French and British interventions in the
Ottoman Empire and responses to the Armenian Genocide; and Armenian
efforts to avenge the Genocide and forge a safe homeland. Overall, the French,
British, and Armenians had different agendas, yet exhibited a similar cautious
attitude to bringing to fruition these different aims, as shown by the various
rejections of the formation of an Armenian Lgion, until, for the French and
British, they had determined on the war spoils in the SykesPicot Agreement of
May .
The eventual formation of an Armenian Lgion under French auspices in
October reected in every way the differing agendas of the three parties
involved, as well as French and British determination to form it after the Sykes
Picot Agreement. For the French, the Lgion allowed them to contribute
manpower to a military theatre of imperial importance where otherwise they
could not, because troops were preoccupied ghting elsewhere, especially the
western front. This theatre was of growing importance because both the French
and 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. The
formation of the Lgion also beneted the British. They were relieved of
Armenians in their care in Egypt and India, which was becoming a nuisance
for local ofcials. Secondly, it allowed them to accept the French as partners in
the campaign in the Middle East by adding it was hoped once trained French
troops, without the British expending any resources, with the exception of space
for training them in Cyprus. For Armenian political elites, it was initially a
defence against what they believed would be Ottoman massacres in revenge for
Armenians joining the Russian army in the Caucasus, and what they hoped
would lead to Armenian autonomy, and certainly at the time of accepting it, the
lure of a safe homeland under French protection was too great.
It is important to understand that in order to achieve the formation of the
Lgion dOrient, a signicant hurdle was overcome, namely the traditional
Nubar memorandum on creation of Lgion dOrient, Dec. , FO//.

Ibid.
British and French imperial rivalry in the eastern Mediterranean. This was
reinvented to bring about a greater French military contribution to the Middle
East theatre (via the Armenian volunteers), and as evidenced by the SykesPicot
Agreement, the British were willing to accept a formal French empire in
portions of three (Sivas, Harput, and Diyarbakir) of the so-called six Armenian
vilayets, parts of Adana vilayet, and the Syrian coast, not because they were not
interested in these areas themselves, because they were certainly interested in
Alexandretta, but because this territory was of less interest to them than
Mesopotamia and Palestine. If this territory had been of prime imperial interest
to the British they would have accepted to undertake the Armenian Lgion
scheme when rst proposed in late or during . Moreover, by
providing the French with the use of Cyprus, which had been under British
occupation and administration since and annexed in , as well as
facilitating the recruitment of Armenian men for the Lgion from Egypt and
India, the British were aiding the French in achieving their imperial ambitions
in the eastern Mediterranean, which, although tied to the war effort, could
threaten existing British imperial interests in Cyprus and Egypt, and new ones
in 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 of
the Lgion early in , they had done so by drawing upon the exact reason
the British and French had given to reject it in the likely Ottoman
massacres against Armenians and thus on humanitarian grounds that could not
be questioned. The Armenians were clearly in the weaker position, having failed
to convince the British and French to form the Lgion in , while not being
able to resist its formation once the great powers had become determined to
form it late in , especially since there were by now few Armenians left in the
Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the Armenian desire to forge a safe and secure
homeland was reliant on French imperialism, which was dependent, as
discussed above, largely on British military prowess in the Middle East. What
kind of Armenian autonomy would the French grant the Armenians who are
being asked to ght for it when according to the SykesPicot Agreement
Cilicia and its surrounding areas were to come under formal French imperial
control? The French (and British) were using the Armenians for their own postwar imperial agenda(s), reecting the obvious power imbalance, and
humanitarianism, in response to the Genocide, was merely an afterthought, if
that, since the Lgion remained a public secret. In this way, this episode of
humanitarianism clashing with imperialism resembles some of the examples
discussed in Rodognos book. The fact that the French pulled out of their deal
with the Armenians in (a subject deserving revisiting elsewhere) indicates
the weakness of their humanitarian impulse as much as their weak imperial
impulse and imperial capabilities at the end of the long nineteenth century.

Formation of Armenian Legion Article Published PDF

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Formation of Armenian Legion Article Published PDF

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

The Historical Journal

Email alerts: Click here

FRENCH AND BRITISH POST-WAR IMPERIAL

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0018246X13000605

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/HIS, IP address: 129.96.82.202 on 14 Nov 2014

The Historical Journal, , (), pp. Cambridge University Press

A B S T R A C T . In October , the French government agreed with Armenian political elites

This agreement planned for the establishment of a French protectorate over

Boghos Nubar memorandum on creation of Lgion dOrient, Dec. , London, The

See N. E. Bou-Nacklie, Les troupes speciales: religious and ethnic recruitment,

controversy, both in relation to the Franco-Turkish War and the subsequent

As part of justifying his denial of an Ottoman Genocide of Armenians, he

Akaby Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian question, (London, ),

Davide Rodogno, Against massacre: humanitarian interventions in the Ottoman Empire,

Convention and in the Treaty of Berlin, both of , the British government

Varnava, British imperialism in Cyprus, pp. and .

See also Bloxham, The great game of genocide, pp. , , and .

Bloxham, The great game of genocide, pp. .

which the British rejected in March . Consequently, on April ,

See Varnava, Imperialism rst, the war second.

commander-in-chief of the British forces in Egypt, Lord Kitchener, the war

Churchill to Kitchener, Jan. , London, BL, Curzon papers, F/; George H.

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

See les TNA, Colonial Ofce (British) (CO) //, CO//,

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

Under-secretary at WO to under-secretary at FO, Apr. , TNA, FO//

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

FO to CO, May , TNA, CO//, /.

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

Sykes to Maxwell, Aug. , TNA, FO//.

Langley to Army Council, Aug. , TNA, FO//; FO to Findlay,

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

WO to FO, Sept. , TNA, FO//// (M...).

subsequent decision to establish the Lgion dOrient almost a year after in

Both of Clausons points were misplaced. The eventual introduction of

See Sourian intro. to novel in ibid.

Telegram, Clauson to Bonar Law, Sept. , TNA, CO//; telegram by

Bloxham, The great game of genocide, p. .

Secret, Maxwell to Kitchener, Sept. , TNA, FO//; Secret,

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

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

On September, the Foreign Ofce debated where the , Armenian

Nicolson minute, Sept. , and Grey minute, Sept. , TNA, FO//

FO to Bertie, Sept. , TNA, CO//, .

McMahon to FO, Sept. , TNA, FO//; Darrieu report, Sept.

Algeria, Sept. , p. , Russians, Sept. , p. , Russians, Sept. ,

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

Ibid., Defrance to Paris, Oct. .

Ibid., British MIO, Cairo, to Armenian committee members, Feb. , pp. .

Ibid., Defrance to Paris, Feb. , pp. .

Ibid., Defrance to Briand, Apr. , p. , including Nubar letter, 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,

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

Ibid., Cambon to FM, July , pp. .

See le, TNA, FO//.

Joffre, commander-in-chief army, to Roques, Aug. , sent to FM on same day,

Bosnian battalion at Salonika was an example, thirty ofcers would sufce,

Ibid., Roques to Briand, Aug. , p. .

Ibid., FM to Cambon, Aug. , p. .

French ambassador, London, to FO, Aug. , TNA, FO//; FO to

Sykes minute, Aug. , TNA, FO//.