Midyat Rebellion
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Part of the
Sayfo
and the
Armenian genocide
|
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/%C5%9E%C4%B1rnak_location_%C4%B0dil.png/300px-%C5%9E%C4%B1rnak_location_%C4%B0dil.png) Location of modern Azakh (?dil) district
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Belligerents
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Assyrian defenders
Armenian defenders
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Ottoman Empire
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Commanders and leaders
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I?o Hanna Gabre
|
Omer Naci Bey
|
Units involved
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Azakh National Assembly
- "Christ's Fedayi" (Those who sacrifise for Christ.)
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Ottoman army
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Strength
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1000+ (mostly Assyrians but also including few Armenians)
[1]
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Several thousand men
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Casualties and losses
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Unknown
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Unknown, probably heavy
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The village of
Azakh
(
Syriac
:
???
,
romanized
:
Azakh
) was one of the few remaining pockets of resistance during the
Sayfo
that the Ottoman authorities called the
"Midyat Rebellion"
named after
Midyat
, the largest
Assyrian
town in
Tur Abdin
.
Background
[
edit
]
At the start of the 20th century, the
Assyrian
village of
Azakh
had a population of only 1000, and was inhabited by
Syriac Orthodox
and
Syriac Catholic
Christians.
[2]
The mayor of the village and chief of the
Amnokiye tribe
was
Hanna Makdisi Amno
. The conflict began as Kurdish tribes and other local Muslim militias began to raid and destroy small Assyrian villages throughout
Tur Abdin
throughout the summer of 1915. Most villages were unprepared and fell quickly to the
Kurdish
raiders. Azakh was surrounded in mid-August.
[3]
In May 1915 many
Assyrian
families from surrounding villages as well as some
Armenians
sought protection from massacres, by July more than a thousand determined defenders had gathered in the village of
Azakh
. The "Jesus Fedai", was formed and defense works were built.
[4]
The leader of the Azakh National Assembly who organized the resistance is named I?o Hanna Gabre, other members include: Tuma Abde Kette, Behnan Isko, Murad Hannoush, Andrawos Hanna Eliya, Yaqub Hanna Gabre and Behnam Aqrawi.
[5]
The
Ottoman Empire
was well aware that it was acting against populations that were not Armenians. In Ottoman documents the members of the
Church of the East
are called "Nasturi", the members of the
Syriac Orthodox Church
are called "Suryani" and the members of the
Chaldean Catholic Church
are called "Keldani". Despite the known fact that these villages were not associated with the rebelling
Armenians
Minister of Interior
Talaat Pasha
expressed suspicion about the loyalty of the Assyrian "Nestorians" in July 1914 and sent a deportation order to expel the Assyrians along the borderlands with Iran as early as October 1914.
As the Assyrians armed themselves and put up a resistance Talaat Pasha sent the order to permanently drive them from the
Hakkari mountains
. Minister of War
Enver Pasha
ordered the suppression of Azakh using "utmost severity".
[6]
Defense and battle
[
edit
]
Azakh was attacked on August 18. This led to a counterattack by the village Fedayi led by Andrawos Eliya son of the village leader Hanna Eliya on the night of August 26, they managed to capture and destroy strategic positions of the Kurds who withdrew from Azakh on September 9 After suffering heavy casualties. However, the civil authorities would not give up their campaign to annihilate the Christians. The case of the conflict of Azakh was then passed from the civil officials and given to the military for them to handle.
General Halil
was deceitfully informed that “one thousand armed Armenians had gathered lately and started an assault destroying Muslim villages nearby and massacred their inhabitants” while he was passing through the area with an army division on its way to Bagdad, similarly to a secret Turkish-German expeditionary force tasked with infiltrating Iran, led by Omer Naci Bey, with the German contingent led by
Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter
. This expeditionary force of 650 cavalry and two pieces of field artillery was also diverted to Azakh as they were traveling in the same direction tasked with suppressing the rebels who were falsely accused of “cruelly massacring the Muslim people in the area.”
On October 29, 1915, Omer Naci Bey requested reinforcements to assist with the siege.
The German contingent reacted negatively to this decision as Scheubner-Richter did not permit any of his German forces to participate. According to Paul Leverkuehn (his biographer) Scheubner-Richter was not convinced by the Turkish accusations, he was not convinced that this was a real rebellion. This topic was discussed by General Field Marshal
Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz
and the ambassador in Constantinople
Konstantin von Neurath
consulted with Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
on how to react to the targeting of Ottoman Christian subjects in Anatolia. Neurath wrote:
The request of the Field Marshal was caused by the expedition against a number of Christians of Syriac confession that had been planned for a long time. They are allied with the Armenians and have fortified themselves in difficult terrain between Mardin and Midyat in order to get away from the massacres that the governor of Diyarbakir has organized.
General von der Goltz decided to forbid all German military involvement in the siege of Azakh.
On November 7, the Ottoman army began their frontal assault on the village of Azakh, the assault turned out to be a failure with heavy losses. A surprise attack on the Turkish camp took place on November 13?14. A large number of soldiers and officers were killed. This led to chaos among the surviving Turkish soldiers in the camp that lead to their flight. With this victory, the Azakh fedayi managed to capture large quantities of modern weapons that the Turkish soldiers left behind. As the Ottoman siege of the small village of Azakh had turned into a military fiasco as the hardened villagers put up a surprising resistance. On November 21 Omer Naci Bey began to negotiate for a truce.
[7]
[8]
The
Assyrian Syriac Christians
of
Diyarbekir Vilayet
made significant resistance. Their strongest stand was at the villages of
Azakh
,
Iwardo
, and
Basibrin
.
[7]
[8]
Fighting also took place in Midyat in early July, before succumbing with great loss of life. Fighting in Tur Abdin had begun in mid-June. Battles also took place in Basibrin (Haberli),
Benabil
(Bulbul), Beth-Debe,
Hah
, Hebob,
Kerboran
(Dergecit), and
Zaz
.
[9]
For month, Kurdish tribes and Turkish soldiers commanded by
Omer Naci Bey
were unable to subdue the mostly Syriac Orthodox and
Syriac Catholic
Assyrian villagers
who were joined by
Armenian
and other Assyrian refugees from surrounding villages. The leaders of the Azakh fedayeen swore
We all have to die sometime, do not die in shame and humiliation
and lived up to their fighting words.
[7]
[8]
Aftermath
[
edit
]
After the end of
World War I
and the establishment of the
Kemalist Turkish Republic
, in 1927 the villagers of
Azakh
decided to hand over their weapons to the Turkish government after receiving reassurance for their security by the state. After the villagers were disarmed,
Kemalist agents
assassinated and imprisoned members of the Azakh National Assembly while the rest were hunted by the courts of Diyarbakir.
[5]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"??? ????: ??????? ????? ???????"
(PDF)
.
????? ??????
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2018-08-12.
- ^
"Azakh"
.
Foundation for Conservation and Promotion of the Aramaic Cultural Heritage
(in German)
. Retrieved
11 August
2020
.
- ^
In Times of Genocide 1915?2015
- ^
"Stiftung Aramaer | Azakh"
.
jahrestag.stiftung-aramaeisches-kulturerbe.de
. Retrieved
18 March
2023
.
- ^
a
b
Travis, Hannibal (20 July 2017).
The Assyrian Genocide: Cultural and Political Legacies
.
ISBN
9781351980258
.
- ^
Gaunt, David; Bet?-?awoce, Jan (May 2017).
Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I
.
ISBN
9781785334993
.
- ^
a
b
c
Morris, Benny; Ze’evi, Dror (24 April 2019).
The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894?1924
.
ISBN
9780674916456
.
- ^
a
b
c
Gaunt, David; Atto, Naures; O. Barthoma, Soner (1 May 2017).
Let Them Not Return: Sayfo ? The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire
.
ISBN
9781785334993
.
- ^
Astourian, Stephan; Kevorkian, Raymond (2020-11-01).
Collective and State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State
. Berghahn Books. p. 85.
ISBN
978-1-78920-451-3
.
Sayfo
(Assyrian genocide)
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Background
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Genocide
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Resistance
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Perpetrators
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Cultural depictions
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Aftermath
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