Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The 1918 Armenian Retreat: Survival Through the Caucasus Mountains
Transcript
- Lucas: When we talk about 1918 in Armenian history, the mind goes straight to the battles—Sardarabad, Bash Abaran, Karakilisa. And rightly so. But there's another story from that same summer that doesn't get as much attention, and it's one I've wanted to dig into for a while. Luna: What's that? Lucas: The civilian retreat. As the Ottoman Third Army under Vehib Pasha pushed east in May 1918, it wasn't just soldiers on the move. Tens of thousands of Armenian civilians from Erzurum, from the villages around Kars, from the entire eastern vilayets, packed whatever they could carry and fled towards the safety of what would become the First Republic of Armenia. It was a mass exodus, and it happened through some of the most brutal terrain in the world. Luna: So they were running from the genocide, essentially. Lucas: Exactly. The genocide had been ongoing since 1915, but by 1918, as the Ottoman army advanced again, the remaining Armenian population in the eastern provinces knew what was coming. The fedayee, the guerrilla fighters we've talked about before, often formed rearguards to protect the columns. Men like Andranik Ozanian and Movses Silikyan didn't just command soldiers; they were responsible for the lives of entire communities on the move. Luna: What was the scale? How many people are we talking? Lucas: Estimates vary, but contemporary accounts suggest somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people took part in this retreat from the Erzurum region alone. They traveled in what were called 'caravans'—not the romantic kind, but long, straggling lines of oxcarts, horse-drawn wagons, and people on foot. The fedayee guarded the flanks, skirmishing with Ottoman irregulars and Kurdish tribes who saw an opportunity. The terrain was brutal: high mountain passes still covered in snow, rivers swollen with spring melt, and virtually no food. Luna: How did they survive? Did they have any supplies? Lucas: Barely. Some had saved grain or dried meat, but most were entirely dependent on what they could forage, which in the highlands of the Caucasus in late spring was almost nothing. There are accounts of people boiling grass, eating tree bark. Disease was rampant—typhus, dysentery, cholera. And they were constantly on the move because the Ottoman advance didn't stop. The retreat from Erzurum to the vicinity of Kars took weeks, and many didn't make it. The road was lined with the dead. Luna: That's horrifying. And it's not something that gets talked about often. Lucas: No, and it's a gap in the popular narrative. We know about the deportations to Deir ez-Zor, but this was a different kind of movement—a desperate flight toward a nascent Armenian state. And it's not just Armenians. There were also Muslim civilians fleeing in the opposite direction as the Russian army pulled back, creating a chaotic intermingling of displaced populations. That complexity is often lost. Luna: So there was a parallel flight of Muslims too? Lucas: Yes. As the Russian Imperial Army disintegrated after the revolution, Muslim communities—many of whom had been settled in the region for centuries—also feared reprisals. The result was a humanitarian disaster on both sides. In the chaos, fedayee sometimes clashed with Kurdish irregulars who attacked the columns, but there were also instances of local Muslims sheltering Armenian families. It's a very grey picture. Luna: Were there any organized efforts to help the refugees? Lucas: The Armenian National Council, which later became the government of the First Republic, tried to coordinate relief, but they had no resources. Some American and European missionaries still in the region distributed what food they could. The real work was done by the fedayee—men like Andranik, who in his memoirs wrote about the crushing weight of seeing the columns of starving people and knowing he couldn't save everyone. Luna: And where did these refugees end up? Lucas: Most eventually settled in the area around Yerevan, in the Ararat plain, or in the newly established Republic. But the journey itself was devastating. Of the tens of thousands who set out from Erzurum, perhaps half arrived. The rest died on the road or were killed. This retreat effectively emptied the Armenian highlands of its indigenous population, a demographic shift that has never been reversed. Luna: It's like the end of an era, a three-thousand-year presence gone in a few months. Lucas: It really was. And that's why understanding this retreat matters—it's not just a footnote to the battles of Sardarabad and Bash Abaran. It's the human reality behind those victories. The soldiers who fought at Sardarabad were often defending the very people in those columns. The republic they saved was, in a very literal sense, a refuge for the survivors. Luna: I'm thinking about the story of the fedayee, and how they transitioned from guerrilla fighters to protectors of civilians. That's a huge shift. Lucas: It is. And it's something that doesn't fit neatly into the heroic narrative of the battles. Andranik, for example, was a legendary commander, but his most important work in 1918 was arguably this rear-guard action—not winning glory, but buying time for the columns to escape. The fedayee were the thin line between the Ottoman army and unarmed women, children, and elderly. Luna: And they knew that if they failed, everyone would be killed. Lucas: Exactly. There's a specific account from a survivor named Hagop, who was a child at the time. He remembered the fedayee riding alongside the column, shouting encouragement, giving their own rations to children. One fedayee, a man named Bedros, carried a child on his horse for three days because the parents had died. Those kinds of stories are everywhere in the memoirs, but they're rarely the focus of history books. Luna: I want to hear more about the logistics. How did they navigate? Did they have maps? Lucas: Mostly they relied on local knowledge. Many of the fedayee were from those very regions, so they knew the passes, the water sources, the places where you could find shelter. But the summer of 1918 was especially harsh—heavy rains turned the dirt roads into mud, and the snowmelt made river crossings treacherous. There's a story about a column crossing the Araxes River near the Ararat plain: the current swept away dozens of people, and the fedayee formed a human chain to pull as many out as they could. Luna: And what about the Ottoman forces? Were they actively pursuing the civilians? Lucas: The official Ottoman policy was to target armed resistance, but the irregulars—Kurdish tribes, Chechen volunteers, and others—often attacked the columns for plunder. The regular Ottoman army was focused on the military objectives, but they didn't always stop the atrocities. At Bash Abaran, the Armenian forces under Silikyan held off a much larger Ottoman force, and that gave the largest column time to cross the mountain pass. That battle, if you will, was as much about protecting the retreat as it was about defending the republic. Luna: So the battles we celebrate are also about the refugees. Lucas: Absolutely. Sardarabad, Bash Abaran, Karakilisa—they were fought not just for a political entity, but for the lives of the people in those columns. And that's a connection that's easy to miss if you only study the military tactics. The human geography of the Caucasus was being redrawn by these movements. Luna: It makes you think about how fragile civilization is, when people have to flee their homeland after thousands of years. Lucas: Yeah. And it's a reminder that the First Republic of Armenia, for all its flaws, was a genuine haven. In just a few years, it absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from the genocide and this retreat. That's an immense achievement, even if the republic only lasted until 1920. Luna: I've heard that some of the refugees later became key figures in the republic's government. Lucas: Exactly. One example is Levon Shant, a playwright and intellectual who had fled from the Ottoman Empire. He became a leading figure in the Armenian National Council. So the very people who were saved by the retreat later helped build the institutions of the republic. That's a powerful legacy. Luna: Do we have any survivor accounts from the perspective of ordinary people, not just the leaders? Lucas: We do. One that stands out is a diary kept by a teacher from Erzurum named Hovhannes. He wrote about the daily horrors—burying children by the roadside, the constant fear of attack, the kindness of strangers. His diary was eventually published in Yerevan in the 1920s. It's a raw, unflinching look at the retreat, and it's one of the few records we have from an ordinary civilian. Luna: I'd love to read that. What's it called? Lucas: I believe it's called 'The Road of Tears' or something similar—I'll have to double-check. But it's a testament to the endurance of ordinary people. And it's stories like these that make history feel real, not just dates and battles. Luna: Speaking of keeping history real and accessible—I know we don't do ads, and that's something listeners often appreciate. It's a choice that makes this show possible. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small but important thing. And the reason we can keep it that way is that a handful of listeners chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's literally what funds producing episodes like this, where we can dig into overlooked stories without worrying about sponsors. So if you've been enjoying these deep dives, that's the simplest way to help keep them coming. Luna: It's a tiny gesture, but it makes a real difference. And now back to the retreat—I'm wondering what happened after they arrived in the Ararat plain. How did the survivors rebuild? Lucas: That's a whole other episode, but briefly: they were housed in makeshift camps, often in empty buildings or even tents. Disease was still a major problem—the typhus epidemic of 1918–1919 killed thousands in Yerevan alone. But the community pulled together. Survivors formed cooperatives, rebuilt villages, and started farming. The land they settled on was often arid and difficult, but they made it work because they had no other choice. That generation of survivors became the backbone of Soviet Armenia and, later, the modern republic. Luna: So in a way, the retreat didn't end at the border—it continued as a struggle to survive in a new place. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the story I think is often missing: not just the horror of the flight, but the resilience of those who made it. The retreat of 1918 is a tragedy, but it's also a story of endurance and the sheer will to live. And that's something worth remembering.