Latest / The Story of Armenia: Survival Through Empires and Genocide — Fexingo History / The Battle of Bash Abaran: Armenia's Other Last Stand
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked about Sardarabad, about Karakilisa — the two big battles that saved Armenia in 1918. But there was a third, fought on the same day, just as close to Yerevan. It's called Bash Abaran, and if it had fallen, Sardarabad wouldn't have mattered. Luna: I've heard the name, but I honestly don't know much about the actual fighting. Lucas: That's the thing — it gets overshadowed. Sardarabad gets the statues and the poems, Karakilisa gets the dramatic mountain retreat, but Bash Abaran was the one where the Armenians had almost nothing, and they stopped an entire Ottoman division cold. Lucas: By May 1918, the Ottoman Third Army, under Vehib Pasha, had regrouped after the Russian collapse and was driving east toward Yerevan. Their 9th Division — commanded by Yakub Shevki Pasha — was ordered to take the village of Bash Abaran, which sat in a pass on the main road from Alexandropol to Yerevan. Luna: So the Ottomans were coming from the northwest, through the mountains. Lucas: Exactly. And the Armenians had hardly any regular army. At Sardarabad, they'd scraped together about 5,000 men, mostly fedayee fighters and local peasants with hunting rifles. At Bash Abaran, they had maybe 2,000, led by Drastamat Kanayan — you might know him as Dro — a seasoned fedayee commander. Lucas: Dro had been a guerrilla leader for years, fighting the Ottomans and then the Russians. He knew the terrain around Bash Abaran intimately. He positioned his men on the heights overlooking the pass, and when the Ottoman column came through on May 21, they walked straight into an ambush. Luna: Wait — May 21 is the same day Sardarabad started, right? Lucas: Exactly the same day. The three battles — Sardarabad, Bash Abaran, and Karakilisa — all kicked off within hours of each other. The Ottoman plan was a three-pronged advance: one column at Sardarabad, one at Bash Abaran, one at Karakilisa. If any one of them broke through, Yerevan would fall. Lucas: So at Bash Abaran, the fighting was brutal. The Ottoman force was better armed, better trained, and outnumbered the Armenians maybe three to one. But the Armenians held the high ground and they had the advantage of desperation. For three days, from May 21 to May 23, they held the pass. Luna: How did they hold against such superior numbers? Lucas: Partly the terrain. The pass was narrow — only a few hundred meters wide in places — so the Ottomans couldn't bring their full force to bear. And partly the fighting spirit of the fedayee. These were men who had lost their families, their villages, their homes in the genocide. They were fighting for their last piece of earth. Lucas: There's a famous story from the battle. On the second day, the Ottoman troops broke through one of the Armenian positions and seemed about to flank the whole line. Dro himself led a countercharge with about 200 horsemen — can you imagine? A cavalry charge against machine guns. Luna: In 1918? That's insane. Lucas: It was. But the Ottomans weren't expecting it. They broke and ran long enough for the Armenian infantry to plug the gap. That charge bought them the time they needed. By May 23, the Ottomans had lost so many men they couldn't push through. They pulled back. Lucas: Bash Abaran was a victory, but not a decisive one. The Ottomans didn't retreat far — they just regrouped. But the Armenians held the pass, and that meant Yerevan was safe for another week. By the time the Treaty of Batum was signed on June 4, the republic had its breathing room. Luna: So Bash Abaran is sometimes called 'the other last stand.' But I notice it doesn't have the same place in memory. Lucas: No, it doesn't. Sardarabad has a huge memorial complex, a yearly commemoration. Karakilisa has its monument too. Bash Abaran has a smaller monument, and it's often just mentioned as a footnote. Partly that's because the commander, Dro, wasn't as celebrated as Andranik or Movses Silikyan. And partly because the battle itself was defensive — it didn't have the same dramatic breakthrough. Lucas: But without Bash Abaran, the whole plan collapses. If that pass had fallen, the Ottomans would have been in Yerevan before Sardarabad was even decided. The First Republic would have been stillborn. Luna: It's strange how history picks its heroes. Dro was a fedayee leader for decades, fought in the Balkan Wars, the Caucasus front, even served in the Soviet Armenian army for a while, and he's barely remembered. Lucas: And that's part of what makes this episode interesting — the question of who gets remembered and why. Dro lived a long life, died in exile in the United States in 1956. His memoirs are a major source, but they're not widely read. Bash Abaran remains a footnote even in Armenian history books. Luna: Speaking of sources — you mentioned the cavalry charge. Is that from Dro's memoirs? Lucas: It's corroborated by Ottoman records too. The Ottoman commander, Yakub Shevki Pasha, filed a report complaining about 'irregular cavalry' that disrupted his lines. So it's not just Armenian legend. The charge happened. It was probably no more than 200 men, but it was enough. Lucas: There's also a letter from the Armenian commander at Sardarabad, Movses Silikyan, who sent reinforcements to Bash Abaran on May 22. He knew how important it was. He wrote: 'If Bash Abaran falls, we are surrounded.' So the commanders understood the interdependence of these battles. Luna: It really was a coordinated defense, not three isolated fights. Lucas: Exactly. And that coordination is what saved the republic. The Ottoman plan was to overwhelm each point individually. But the Armenians, despite having no central command, managed to shift forces between the three fronts. That's remarkable for a force that was essentially a militia. Lucas: For those of us coming along on these conversations about the Caucasus and the fight for survival, it's worth pausing on the fact that we can have these discussions at all. And we do it without ads or sponsored segments. If that kind of independent historical storytelling matters to you, there's a simple way to support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that keeps the whole thing ad-free and focused on the history. Lucas: Exactly. Anyway — back to the battlefield. After the Ottoman retreat from Bash Abaran, the Armenian forces didn't pursue. They didn't have the logistics. So the Ottoman army simply pulled back to Alexandropol and licked its wounds. Lucas: But the strategic effect was real. When the Ottoman delegation came to the peace talks in Batum, they knew the Armenian army had held them. That gave the Armenian negotiators some leverage, even if the final treaty was harsh. The republic survived the summer, and that was enough to build a foundation. Luna: So Bash Abaran is a victory of will more than firepower. Lucas: That's a good way to put it. The Armenians had almost no artillery, no air support, no supply lines. They had rifles, a few machine guns, and the determination that they had nowhere left to run. Bash Abaran is that kind of battle — a place where a small force decided it would rather die on its feet than live on its knees. Lucas: And that's why, even if it's not the most famous, it deserves to be remembered. It's the battle where the fedayee spirit — the khumb, the guerrilla bands — proved it could stand up to a conventional army in a conventional fight. That was the proof that the Armenian republic could defend itself. Luna: I wonder if there's a modern lesson there about the power of local knowledge and motivation against a larger force. Lucas: Probably. But for us, it's a reminder that history isn't just the big names and the big battles. Sometimes the turning point is a muddy pass, and a cavalry charge that should have been suicidal but wasn't. Lucas: Today, the village of Bash Abaran is called Aparan, and there's a small monument on the hill where Dro's men held the line. Every year on May 28 — Republic Day — some people go there. But it's a quiet place. Maybe that's fitting for a battle that did its job without fanfare. Luna: Thanks for bringing it to light. I think it adds a lot of depth to the story of 1918. Lucas: Glad to. Next time, we'll look at the aftermath — how the First Republic tried to build a state in the shadow of war.