Memoirs of an Armenian Revolutionary, Volume 1 — Chapter 4: The Basen Fights

In the years 1900–1904, the life of Kars was more than turbulent, and subject to storms. Marked changes had come about both in its inner organizational life and in the very character of the struggle.

We have made acquaintance with the conditions of election to the Central Committee. The electors had to know not only the person of the candidate, but the past of his forebears, who had to be faithful to the Armenian ways. This circumstance was the reason the Central Committee was generally made up of natives, or of men of Akhalkalak and Alexandropol, who were known to them and were of one and the same people — born of Upper Armenia. This state of things made the character of the Central Committee enduring and traditionalist.

A second circumstance must be pointed out too:— The Central Committee kept in its own hand only the helm of the work, but itself remained secret. Those who plied the oars of the work were the field-workers, who were generally chosen according to the taste of the Central Committee — generally from persons of their own district or of districts they knew, or from those districts of the Land whose base of support was Kars. These were Upper Armenia and Taron and the districts adjoining them. Whatever the causes may be, it is a fact that, though the first field-worker of Vaspurakan was a man of Kars, yet no field-worker or fighter of Vaspurakan ever came to Kars. At the same time Artsakh and Syunik, which had flooded Transcaucasia, Persia, and Vaspurakan with their field-workers and fighters, were wholly absent from Kars, from Upper Armenia, and from Taron. So it was until the year 1900.

Nothing had changed in the districts of Kars and of central Armenia, where the old patriarchal ways went on and the differences of class were not felt. But in Tiflis, in Baku, and in Karabagh, a good deal had changed. Changed too were the local circles — young men who, having received a higher education, came from the seminary of Echmiadzin or from the diocesan secondary schools (generally expelled from them), and who criticized all the established orders severely. Likewise those who came from the Russian schools of Tiflis were pleased with nothing, and were seeking some new thing — denying the old, yet unable to give shape to the new. Among these were Derenik and Vahagn Demirchian, Avetik Isahakian,^t18 and others, who in after years became well-known figures, once they had drunk water from ten springs. Of them the old folk would say:

"Janım, even the hen, hen though she is, cackles only after she has laid her egg. Our whelps, without laying any egg — sprung from us — would teach us to swim, and go about cackling. Is this a thing that ought to be?"

The parents did not understand that there was a travail in the world — one they did not feel, but their children did feel, though in a vague way. And this had two sources. The one was the inner rot of the clerical order, which had made that order a thorn in the eye — above all in the eyes of those who had come out of the ecclesiastical schools. The other was aimed at the townsman class, which had already taken root, and in particular against the Armenian bourgeoisie, which was reckoned an instrument of the Russian tyranny.

These antipathies among the youth, if they had not ripened in the districts of Kars and central Armenia — where those classes did not yet exist — had nonetheless crystallized in the great cities of Transcaucasia and in little Shushi.

It was around the year 1900.

The young men, the students, would dispute hotly, would quarrel, would fall out with one another — not over the current questions of life, but to settle the questions of the whole world. They put the questions point-blank:

— At the root of the differences between nations and states, of their conflicts, of their empire-buildings, lie economic factors — the strivings of the exploiting classes to keep the exploited classes in bondage. With the abolition of classes all this comes to an end, and socialism reigns.

— No, — the majority would object, — the national question is no offspring of economic factors. It is a force given by nature, and independent of class and of material data alike. A nation that is not free, and is dominated by another, is already an exploited, an oppressed class; while the one that dominates it is the exploiter. Hence the freedom of nations, and their federation, leads to socialism. Socialism can be brought about only by the union of the toil of free peoples, federated with one another, against the exploiting classes.

In these disputes there took part, on the one side, A. Tsaturian, Nariman Ter-Ghazarian and Ghazar Ter-Ghazarian, Sako Hambardzumian, A. Hovhannesian, and Levon Atabekian, who was reckoned to face both ways — and on the other side, Aram,^t19 Torgom,^t20 Isajan.^t21 Those who listened to them were the students, among whom were Menak^t22 and little Nikol (who later became known by the name of Ishkhan).^t23 The older men would listen, shaking their heads and exclaiming: "They are idle boys; with nothing to do, they are trying to thicken water."

Perhaps the older men were right, since half a century has gone by and still that water has not thickened. But the parents of those disputing youths did not understand their children's yearnings. To their ears those quarrels were but the sound of running water, or seemed the clattering of storks migrating in the autumn.

These ceaseless disputes of the young men ended in this: that one day they too, dividing into two wings, took wing into the sky. The one wing turned northward, toward Russia, in search of the revolution of all mankind, and in the persons first of Plekhanov and then of Lenin^t24 found the Social-Democratic party, into which it melted away. And not one of them ever saw his own house and home again.(*) The second wing — at whose head went Isajan, at whose flanks Torgom and Aram, and the flock behind them — did not step outside the cares of Armenia, but turned southward and came down upon the frontiers of the Land, finding there the soldiery of the A.R.F. and melting into it. Of this last flock of Shushi, too, not one returned to his own house and home. All of them fell upon the soil of Armenia — for its freedom, and for the federation of free nations.

And these two groups remained adversaries of one another to the very end, and died as adversaries, though some of them

(*) These men played a great part to Russia's advantage, yet did not earn even so much gratitude as the old generals of Armenian blood.

were own brothers — as were Kosti and Sako Hambardzumian.

How did it come about that these seeking youths of Shushi — who were kindled with a spirit national and socialist alike — having lost their accustomed road to Persia and Vaspurakan, fell into the district of Kars, with the vow of crossing thence into Taron? I do not think this happened of itself. Nor do I believe it happened by the invitation of Kars or of the Land. I believe that over the city of Shushi there had passed the shadows either of Rostom or of Hamo (Ohanjanian). And they fell into Kars in just the way that I had fallen there — to "get accustomed."

The hardships of Kars and of the Land wearied the wings of some of those cranes and neutralized them — as, for example, Farsadan; but the others — such as Sergei (Aram), Isajan, Tuman, Menak, Nikol (Ishkhan) — drove such a plow through the life of Kars and of the Land that, though half a century has passed, their furrows are not effaced, and along their track the Armenian people still sows, to build its political future.

Thus they reasoned:—

— Let the believer love the church. We are not against that, and we are bound to defend that institution, since the believers are of our own nation. But that does not mean that the nation must go in under the skirts of the cowled ones and put its bridle into their hands. The shepherd on the mountain is more of a believer than the vardapet [the celibate doctor-priest] who reads the Gospel every day. The soldier who by force of duty holds the bayonet in his hand and kills us is a more warm-hearted Armenian than the Beniks (a vardapet), the Mesrops (a bishop) who has the fame of a scholar, or the Ashghians, who are reckoned heads of the church. These are functionaries and celebrants of rites, who are wherever much bread or much honor is to be looked for. The Russian can give more, and they are with him, and will be. The helm must be entrusted to the people's representation alone.

The people of Kars listened to these thoughts with astonishment and reserve. But they became unreserved when the seizure of the church estates took place — when these "godless ones" made a rampart of their own breasts against the bayonets of the Cossacks, and compelled the clergy to walk with them.

A novelty too was the attitude of these young men toward the bourgeois class, which was already on the point of reaching the summit of its power, and had shown its national countenance in Shushi, Baku, and Tiflis.

— True, — they would say, — in your districts there are no classes; every man is a peasant, or something like one. Zitoghtsev in Alexandropol, Baghdasarov in Kars are no class: they have no claws to their fingers, no teeth in their mouths. They cannot rid their surnames of the Russian tails "-ov" or "-ev." But know that the danger is there. Such men, one day, will without fail be a scourge on your heads. With us too it was so. Our Vardan and Nikol used to reason as you do. They would say: "Those fellows love money — let them go and earn it; perhaps they may come in useful for something." But that opinion of theirs was wrong. We did not understand that from a snake's egg a snake comes forth; they did not crush the eggs, and now are repentant. It is late already. They have formed a class, taken the clergy and the conservatives under their wing, doled out to each a dog's "whelp's share," and now count themselves the representatives of their own nation. You say: "We have two enemies — the Turkish and the Russian tyrannies." Well. But it is these men who strengthen those tyrannies. Are they our enemies or not? They are our enemies, even if they are reckoned Armenians. Do you drink wine along with yogurt? Of course not. Do you yoke a cart from its two opposite ends? Of course not. The cart will stay where it is. In our committees there is no place for men whose god is gold.

Thus loud and bold they would speak; and in the end Yeruand Hamamchian in Kars and Vahan Jallatian in Alexandropol were neutralized and driven from the field.

The newcomers had their own peculiar way of thinking about the work in the Land as well.

— Beyond doubt, Sasun must be strengthened. But it grows strong by quality and by arms, and not by the number of those who offer themselves up — of whom it is rich already. Perfected arms must be sent not piecemeal, at many hazards, but in bulk, at a single hazard.

These views were a fundamental review of the way of working followed until then.

— There, in the Land, — they went on, — the brave and the fighter are many, but arms and trained forces are few. Let the physician and the man of learning, then, go into the Land — the officer and the under-officer, and the specialist in the craft of war.

So said Sergei and those who had come with him, out of their sound instincts; but not one of them, as yet, met those qualifications himself. For that reason Isajan was eager to become a specialist in bombing quickly — and to the preparations for it, sadly, he would fall victim.

*

Of the youths of Shushi who had come to Kars I knew not one beforehand. Of them all, only Tuman had I met — under very strange circumstances, in 1901 or 1902.

Every kind of troops of Transcaucasia and the Caucasus had gone out to maneuvers along the Turkish frontier. We did not know whether there was to be war, or whether it was a mere maneuver for all the armies. The whole stretch from Alexandropol to Kars, Sarıkamış, and Ardahan was covered with white tents. Horses neighed, wagons in an endless file moved sluggishly along, and soldiers swarmed like honey-flies. And the Polygon had become a place where, had you dropped a needle, it would not have reached the ground. On every mouth was "the viceroy is coming," and when he should arrive from Tiflis, everything would begin. What was to begin — that was not for us to know. The great ones alone knew.

Under one tent we were five men. We had already grown cocky, for within ten days at most we were to become "officers of the victorious Russian army." Only a formal examination remained, which we were sure to pass with success.

Of us all, only Katz was one who did not look for that happy day, though he was the ablest and best-prepared of us all. Katz's father was a diamond-merchant, whose shop stood on Golovinsky Prospekt in Tiflis, near the viceroy's palace. Among his customers were the viceroy and, above all, his duchess. Our friend Katz wore on his breast the graduation medal of the University of Odessa. He had lately returned from Berlin, where he had also finished the university there. In a word, he was the most learned of us all, the richest and the most presentable. Beyond question he had passed the officer's examination more successfully than any of us. But he could receive only a single stripe of common soldiery and could not become an officer, because he was by origin a Jew. This he knew; and, already reckoning us officers and himself a private, he bought us every kind of drink and food at his own expense, so that we might make him feel his origin at least the less. This eagle-nosed, tall Katz was a likable man, for all his persecuted origin.

The second was a Georgian, but what he was he would not let you know. He was proud of his title of knyaz (prince), and was called Knyaz Tumanov. He was proud that near the corner of Veriysky Spusk and Mikhailovsky Prospekt he had his own theater, and in Mtskheta a splendid palace besides. He waited impatiently for the day when he would deck himself out in the gilded officer's epaulettes he had already bought, and with the jurist's badge that was much prized among the military. He might become a "prosecutor" without exposing himself to the perils of the front. He would be an officer without the tedium of fighting. He was an honest man, and exceedingly hospitable.

The third was a pure-blooded Russian — more exactly, a Ukrainian, by the name of Rudenko. He was under the influence of the "Black Hundreds."^t25 He too had a university graduation badge, and already pictured himself commander of the invincible Russian army. Though his interest lay elsewhere, he wished to be entertained again and again in Knyaz Tumanov's palace at Mtskheta; and with the "Zhid" (Jew) Katz he was forever talking of commercial affairs, and wanted to get the taste of the various drinks Katz set before him.

Of the remaining two, one was I, the other my seminary companion Artashes Sütjian. Though we had no university badges, we were sure that we too would soon wear the officer's epaulettes, however little our Russian ran as smoothly as theirs, and however unlike our dreams were to theirs.

I was a misfit among those officers-to-be. Artashes, at least, would come in useful for something. He played the violin well, Rudenko blew the horn well, and they kept us — and the officers of the neighboring tents — entertained.

When Rudenko and Artashes had brought their playing to a stop, Katz turned to us and said:

— Allow me today to invite you, that we may make a little merry in the company of a most agreeable officer. To him I owe a hospitality: last evening I was his guest.

Rudenko answered at once:

— Of course, of course…

Already he had a foretaste of Katz's costly drinks.

Artashes and I followed his lead, saying "of course, of course," without knowing who Katz's guest was to be.

Courteous Katz, turning to Prince Tumanov — who had not yet called out "of course, of course" — added:

— Perhaps it will be a great surprise for you. That agreeable officer is Tuman Tumanov — perhaps a kinsman of yours by blood, though he has named himself Tumaniants.

Prince Tumanov was intrigued, and said, "Please, please do."

Katz slipped out of the tent and in twenty minutes returned in the company of an officer.

The newcomer had a brand-new officer's uniform. At his side the sword swung. He was of middle height, his face a little pock-marked, his eyes smiling — more tender than the imperious and disdainful look proper to epauletted officers. He came up to all of us as to old acquaintances, and sat down at the head of the table without ceremony.

Prince Tumanov was taken by no surprise, since the newcomer was a man of common stock — not so much as a melik — whereas he himself was a prince, a Catholic, while the other was of the Illuminator's church.

— Gentlemen, gentlemen, allow me to say a few words, — said Rudenko, swelling up, the glass of cognac in his hand.

With difficulty, but at last, gravity prevailed.

— Here we are six men, — said he. — We have at least four religions, and two of them undefined. We have at least four mother tongues, and two men who have not even that. We have six origins, whose nature only our mothers know. And here we are — all these different men — gathered together as kinsmen, wearing one face, thanks to our one and great Fatherland, thanks to our empire and its invincible army. Let us drink the health of our glass; let us drink the health of that officer-corps which leads it. Alaverdi [the toast passes] to you, Sir Tuman.

Tuman, taken aback, had no way of avoiding it, since he was the only person there wearing the officer's epaulettes. He glanced at his watch. Rudenko's toast had told upon us all — above all upon Katz, who had turned a yellow morsel. We dreaded Tuman's answer, which might become a calamity beneath our roof.

— I, — said Tuman, — have but five minutes to spend with you; I have an appointment. Yes, Rudenko is right to be proud of this union of ours, which is knit the closer thanks to this rich table and these bottles — for which I thank you. You, the leaders of tomorrow's army — I drink your health, and I wish that you may feel yourselves the servants of the people, and not spare your lives for its happiness.

He begged their pardon and slipped out of the tent.

Rudenko, suddenly catching his meaning, cried out:

— Did you take his meaning? That ass of a Karabaghtsi is a nihilist. Woe to our army, that is to be led by such armyashkas [the Russian sneer for Armenians].

— We took his meaning, we took his meaning, — answered Prince Tumanov, beside himself. — It is men with tongues like yours who create nihilists; and those who root out those same nihilists are armyashkas like the Loris-Melikovs,^t26 of whom you make your boast.

Thus the two Tumans wrecked our union, and we all fell apart, each to himself.

My first meeting with Tuman was under those circumstances — without our exchanging a word, without our knowing each other. But for me it became plain that we are the servants of the people, and nothing more.

Two or three years had passed, and we had lost track of each other.

Toward the end of 1903, Sergei said to me:

— Let us go to Torgom. He has come back from Sasun. He is off to the General Assembly.

When we met, I understood that Torgom was that same Tuman. He too, looking at me, said:

— Bless you, lad, we are old acquaintances. What became of your companions? Are you too among us? When I come back, find me, and we will go to Sasun together.

— I am not one bound for Sasun; I am bound for Van. Of my companions I have no news, but I am sure that, save for Rudenko, all of them, after your words, are disposed to be the servants of the people rather than of tyranny.

Tuman was pleased.

We had not much time to talk; he departed, and I never saw him again to the end of my days.

Torgom-Tuman, having given up his commission, had become a field-worker of Kars, and his fixed thought was the strengthening of Sasun. The ideas he had upheld were these:

— Insurrection, fighting, do not depend on consciousness alone, on self-sacrifice, on courage, on superiority of material; they are a craft and a science, which must be learned. Without this last, the rest are nothing. Without the first, this last too is worthless.

It was as a consequence of the deepening of these principles that he was able to gather about him men more experienced than himself, men of name and renown, and to organize the "Mrrik" [Whirlwind] band, some thirty horsemen. Into this band there entered under-officers and soldiers of the Russian army, as well as Artashes of Akhaltskha, who was killed afterward in the district of Tiflis; Nikol of Akhalkalak, who saw many trials and died; the soldier Grigor, who struck the blow in Alay-bek's face while himself lying wounded: "Dog, do not bind up my wounds; I want death. If you heal me, I will kill you."

In that band were also Baftar Arshak, who was afterward called Beri and won the martyr's crown in Persia; Beros Arshak, who was afterward christened Sepuh and became a general of Armenia; Turbakh of Kars, who became Tuman's standard-bearer; Grigor of Mok, Avetis of Mashad, the impartial Avo of Gümüşhane, Arkel, Murad of Sivas — all of whom became, one by one, historic figures — and others who did not pass unremarked.

All of them, under the leadership of Torgom-Tuman, reached Sasun unharmed and played their part in its struggle. And all this was accomplished thanks to Menak, who, by agreement with Torgom, had crossed unremarked into the Land and had determined the roads and the dangers for the "Mrrik" band.

Torgom, at Hrayr's insistence, entered the command staff of Sasun, but was constrained to go to the General Assembly and to return with fresh force, together with Vagharshak.

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Menak (Yeghor Aratamian) was Torgom's comrade, and from Shushi had fallen into the furnace of Kars. He went by the road of Rostom and of Hrayr. His principle was: "Before you sow, first plow, and make the soil ready."

Menak I never saw. But of him I have heard from his intimate friends. They would say that he was an intellectual of positive bent and of a likable countenance. Very close to him had been the poet Avetik Isahakian, who dedicated a poem to him as well.

This young man — having no special training, and not counting himself one to have soldiers or people to command under him — took upon himself the most responsible and the most dangerous work. He reasoned, and Sergei confirmed it, that in order to link up with Sasun and to bring forces through, one must first study the roads two or three hundred kilometers in length, fix the stages, prepare stores of supply at certain places, and determine the enemy's manner of movement. For the carrying-out of all this no arms were needed, nor anything else, but only sharp eyes and caution. And in disguise he crossed the districts of Basen and Khnus, as a peasant reached Sasun several times, and became a perfect valad [guide]. He gave his directions to the "Mrrik" band, and the band reached Sasun in safety.

One of Menak's feet was in Basen, the other in Kars and Alexandropol. In this thankless, yet most arduous work he was killed, while hastening to the aid of Nevruz's band.

The news of his death weighed doubly upon Sergei: first, because the march of the arms-running bands by way of Basen had failed; and second, because Menak — the young comrade of his hope and his faith — had been killed, and of Nikol (Ishkhan) too there was no word.

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Isajan of Shushi, by the time I reached Kars, was already killed. And I never saw him at all. Kars was in mourning; it would remember him and the deeds he had done, and would often say: "Had Isajan been alive, the issue of that affair would have been otherwise."

Sergei, who was his intimate friend, could not remember him without feeling:

"Better that we had died and Isajan remained," he would say. "You cannot know what a loss we suffered. Had he been alive, our bands of Basen would have reached their place. Had he been alive, the case of Kars and of Sasun would have been otherwise. It was he who gave spirit to me and to my comrades."

Perhaps these estimations were the exaggerations of feeling that follow after the dead. But it must be reckoned beyond doubt that in Kars he had played a great part and was an authority among the comrades who had come with him. One of his watchwords — which, as I later understood, was also the rule of conduct of Nikol Duman — was this: "When you fight against an unequal force, you must not fight with the ordinary and equal weapon. Choose a weapon that will take your adversary by surprise. And if you have not that weapon, you must invent it."

Isajan had set himself to the work of inventing that weapon in the city of Kars. He was making bombs. From the careless mixing of chlorate of potash and sugar the bombs had gone off, so I learned, and he and his comrades had been killed on the spot.

One of the comrades who had come with him was Vardan Donoyan, a man of Kars, who was the right arm of Hagop Chilingarian and one of the pillars of the work in Kars. The second was Poghos Poghosian, whom I had seen in the seminary of Echmiadzin as a student. That dreamy youth had withered while still a bud, before he had become a flower. The fourth was Hovhannes Nahikian, of whom they would say: "America too, besides money, gave its blood." The fifth and last victim was Sarkis of Rodosto.

Thus, from five different places, five young men in the flower of their youth fell victim to an experiment that might have been avoided, had but one among them been a specialist. Let this be a lesson — that mastery of knowledge is more necessary than will and than desire. Though now I understand that lesson, yet I myself made the same mistake in my time.

*

Sergei's comrades, who had come from Shushi, were being killed off one by one, or were departing for the Land. He himself was the one who sent them on their way, and that weighed upon him, because he had stayed behind and had not followed them.

The Central Committee of Kars would say to him:

"Kars too is the Land. 'The Land,' they say, and off they go — let them go, let them all go. But you are the field-worker here. Is it not work, then, to choose men, to make them ready, and to send them off to the Land? Is it fighting you want? Is it not fighting, then, to stand against the Russians, who would have us change our faith and follow the crooked cross? See — our churches, our monasteries, are shut up; their estates are seized; and these onions [the Russians] would strangle us too."

Sergei, fallen into his element, was hard at work. It was as though the war of Byzantium and Ani, of the Illuminator's church and the Orthodox, had begun again. Catholic, Protestant, and Gregorian there was no longer; all the Armenians had become one person. The apothecary Kösseyan, who I think was a Catholic, had taken down under cover of night the Russian flag that flew over the fortress of Kars and had raised a black flag of mourning in its place. A dog had been killed — Kollo — and on its head the kamilavka of a Russian priest (the Russian priest's hat) had been drawn, and it was set on show on the bridge. In broad daylight the knives would be driven into the ribs of unmasked spies, who, like cut ears of grain, would roll noiselessly to the ground. When you heard the crack of a pistol, you knew that a Russian policeman was giving up his soul.

At daybreak, if you passed down the main street and saw before the door of the Russian governor an empty coffin, and on the coffin a letter nailed in a black border, you knew that within it was written in red ink: "You have taken everything, and deceived us. To snatch away, from those you have deceived, even the last consolation — the right to pray — is no great honor to you. If a stop is not put to it, let this coffin be a gift to you — and no jest."

In the inner national life there reigned an intense frame of mind of this sort, which may be summed up as follows:—

"Where is our Catholicos, whom we have made our Hayrik? Where are our bishops, our vardapets, our ter-ters [village priests], whose hands we kiss? It is war, it is struggle — let them come out to the work. If they feel themselves prisoners, let them transfer the See wherever they will, as was done before this — only, let them go without concession. If they are waiting for us to die, and mean to come like ravens to our burial, they are mistaken. Without their burying us, there is no dying for the Armenian people. If they are waiting to eat the wedding-feast — to sit at the head of it — they are mistaken; for at that time there will be no need of them either."

The struggle widened, reaching Gyumri, where "Paduali Vagho" and Totov Avetik (Isahakian) blew on the fire after the example of Kars and turned it to flame, and the smoke reached the city of Tiflis. Men of great name, men who bore arms, came to say:—

— Hey, are you gone mad? You take the Russian flag down from the fortress, you hang up a flag of mourning, you clap a Russian cowl on the head of a dead dog, you kill off the loyal subjects of the state one by one. And if the order comes to the troops of those fortresses to put us, great and small, to the sword — what will your case be then?

Kars and Gyumri would answer:—

— Enough of their toying with our souls. We are not blind, and every day we see that two corps of troops, and more than a thousand cannon, are turned against us. We know our end — that we will live without honor. If you are Armenians, go to Tiflis and to Petersburg, and make all this understood on the spot, there. Here you have nothing to say.

It is well known that after this the whole Armenian people rose to its feet, that Echmiadzin too became the rear-guard, and that in the end the concession came from Russia's side, and the rights of the church were restored, with certain limitations.

They were days of half-victory, wedding days. The Central Committees of Kars and Alexandropol and their field-workers — Sergei, Nikol (Aghbalian), Vagho, Avo (Isahakian), Hagop (Chilingarian), and above all that Catholic Armenian whose very name I confuse, to my shame (Kösseyan?) — were absent from the tables of rejoicing. Whereas it was they who had begun the defiance and had brought the Armenian people together; it was they who had scorned the Russian cannon and troops and had brought on the wedding days of that time.

At the head of the harissa sat Khrimian Hayrik. According to their rank, the celibate clergy were ranged in order, and the guests invited from every province and county stood ready, their spoons at hand. Many of them, only a few days before, had drawn back from the public square, saying:

— What a calamity these madmen have brought down upon our heads!

Such men now smiled happily and had become the most talkative of all:

— I did thus, I did so; had I not shouted in the face of the gubernator (the governor), God is my witness, the thing would never have come off…

In that same style spoke the bishops of Echmiadzin:

— The concord of our brotherhood, the single will of the people, the wisdom of the beneficent government…

But Bishop Sukias, his white beard on his breast, his mouth full of water, listened dumbfounded and looked on in silence. It was the Hayrik of the Armenians who was speaking; he was no common vainglorious man — he knew what he was saying:

— Ah, see now, our nation is a strange and a faithful nation. Archbishop Sukias holds his peace, but he fell into hardship; at his age he grew weary. Our wondrous people had unharnessed the horses from the carriage and, harnessing themselves, came on foot from Erevan all the way here, in their thousands upon thousands. Well, this too will pass; I too went so, as far as Alexandropol. We give thanks to God, not many men were killed. They are not with us, nor are those who are absent. Whatever they be, they are my own true children. Let us say a hogwots [a requiem] for them.

Of the absent, some had been killed. They heard the requiem and slept in peace. Some were on a journey, with an escort, the glittering Cossack sabers their guard; they rotted away in the corners of Siberia. Among them was that Catholic too. But the greater part spent their gold, procured a false passport, and, like men come into a new world, went on with their lives.

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In those days there had come from Shushi the short, wiry Ishkhan, who was Sergei's pupil. Ishkhan lent his strength to Sergei's undertakings — Sergei being an authority in his eyes — half in jest, half out of tasib [zealous loyalty].

— Sergei, now that it is all over, let me tell you something. It is not for nothing they say, "mountain and dale — the belly of the ter-ter." Was it worth our while, I wonder, to leave our own proper work and fall into the affairs of those ter-ters?

Sergei was astonished at Ishkhan's misgiving. Ishkhan began to give his explanations — which are of interest for understanding his future line of conduct.

— The struggle is reckoned ended, with our victory. But I do not reckon it ended. I think so because, even in the hot time of the struggle — noticing, perhaps, my want of enthusiasm — a vardapet and a ter-ter would ask me: "If we do not succeed in getting the estates back, how are our institutions to be maintained, how is our livelihood to be secured? Is it true, I wonder, that the government, after seizing the estates, has resolved to maintain all the Armenian institutions at its own expense, and to fix a salary for all the Armenian clergy according to their rank — for the Catholicos, as much as a viceroy; for a bishop, as much as a governor; and for a priest, as much as a pristav [a district police-captain]?" You should have seen how, behind those questions, they felt a contentment and a happiness…

At that moment Bznuni had come in, the government cap on his head, and Norhatian.

— Hey, who were those dog-and-son-of-a-dog clergymen? We fight for their sake, and they — look — what were they dreaming of? Traitors…

— The essential thing is not who those traitors were. One more, one fewer — it comes to the same reckoning. In my view the question is graver than the pinning-down of who is traitor and who is true. I am only a recruit; you are the leaders. But I too have an opinion. We began the fight from the wrong side, and the result we have won may fall into the water. For that reason I do not reckon the affair ended. First: we and the people rightly reckon all the national institutions, the riches, the rights handed down from our forefathers, to be the inheritance of the nation — taking in the ecclesiastical order too. And for its sake the nation rose to its feet as one man, and made as if to conquer. We are in self-deception. The lawful owner of that inheritance is not our people, but the Catholicos. But when there is no nationally-elected administration attached to the Catholicosate, but only the will of the churchmen — and they, moreover, firmly convinced that the nation is a milch cow and an ass to be ridden for their benefit — then the church, the spiritual power, is the personification of the nation. On the other hand, when the clerical order, having laid the Gospel of Jesus aside, has made a trade of service in order to scrape together a bellyful of bread; when that order, without understanding the meaning of what it reads and does, repeats it as a mere rite — what do you look for from these wretched, benighted creatures? Sergei, let me turn back upon you your own under-the-stone words. You used to say: "For the dead man who lies in the ground, call no ter-ter; when he asks for money, do not let him read the Gospel. Read the Gospel yourself, and bury your own dead. He who reads the Gospel only after taking your money, and preaches with tears in his eyes — believe him not at all: he means to send your dead man to hell. Give money again, that he may stanch his tears." And it is to this same order that you would entrust our national rights, won at so many perils. Put it out of your sight — else they will either sell it or squander it. Keep your fist in your pocket: without fail they will prefer the gubernator's salary that the Russian has promised.

Sergei found his pupil's rebellion bitter. "You have run on too long; give you the face and you want the lining too," he said, seeking to silence him. But Norhatian, who had seen Ishkhan but had not spoken with him, said in astonishment:

— Why do you not let this lad finish what he has to say? I thought this whelp was not fit to be so much as a haiduk [irregular] soldier. But it turns out he is the shrewdest man of all. Where did you get your schooling?

— At the spring of Bekh, — Ishkhan answered, with wicked eyes.

— The lad speaks the truth. Not two days have passed since they were fouling their shalvars for fear. Now that they get a telegram from Petersburg, from Tiflis, that all is going well and there is nothing to dread, every dog and cur of them is gathered at Echmiadzin eating the harissa, with sugar on top of it — while we here, crept into hole after hole, are wondering to which corner of Siberia we will be driven. The lad speaks the truth.

Sergei was storming within, but outwardly feigned calm. He exclaimed, offended:

— One would think you had made some great discovery. It was in full awareness of all this that we took the initiative. Had even a single spoon been put into your hand, you would not talk so. Once we have laid the bear low, to tan its hide is no hard matter. Better let us think about our own work.

In those days I was absent from the Caucasus. When, immediately after these events and the battle of Basen, I went to Kars, Sergei — to acquaint me with the characters of the dead and of those left alive — recounted to me the conversation set down above. And Norhatian sweetened it with spice.

Afterward, when I saw Ishkhan at his work, I saw how faithful to the life were the things that had been told me. Ishkhan went, in consistent fashion, along that road which Sergei had marked in his comrade-pupil — the road that would lead to the purge of Aghtamar.^t27

*

The songs and airs composed by the ashugh Fahrat had magnetized our popular masses. "With Gilded Bashliks," "There Was No Moon," "Fight, Lads," and songs of that kind — which are sung to this day, but with a yawn — in those days drove the popular masses toward war. And from every quarter, of their own accord, candidates for the fight set out toward the Land — meaning, as such, the Armenia that lay in the hands of the Turks.

The candidates were many. One might have formed whole armies. But neither the political nor the material means allowed of doing so. Only the tried men were chosen — those versed in the military art, the schooled, the picked — and they were sent to places near the frontier: Basen, Takht. Among them was Ishkhan of Shushi (Nikol), who, though short and thin, was a hardy and healthy young man. He had entered Nevruz's^t28 infantry company as a common soldier.

A general and mistaken conviction has taken hold concerning the aims of Nevruz's infantry and Khan's^t29 cavalry bands. They were not formed for frontier raids or for demonstrative aims of vengeance, like the Khanasor Expedition^t30 or, later, the Porun Mosuni expeditions. The aims of the two united bands of Nevruz and Khan had been fixed precisely as follows:—

a) To provision the two bands abundantly (their combined number reached 150), and to convey that store of supply to Sasun for its needs.

b) To fill the bands with men who, on reaching the Land, could become local military leaders, and to send the rest back — if they were only bearers of arms.

The fully-equipped bands set out — seemingly without having settled what they should do if the road of some 250 kilometers before them were held by the enemy. Stay and fight to the end, or fall back? That was left to the decision of Nevruz and Khan.

This undertaking was the first and last of the very largest undertakings of the A.R.F. with a view to bringing a tangible force into the Land. Before it, beginning in the 1890s, numerous small zinatar bands of five to ten men had crossed into the Land. From Russian Armenia they went by way of Alashkert or Basen straight into Taron, Sasun, or Akhlat. Those small bands, on the perilous roads two or three hundred kilometers long, were often marked by troops and, still more, by Kurdish tribes; they were forced into battle, spent in the fighting the war-materiel they carried, and some were annihilated — like Arabo's band — while others, reaching a safe place, had so far depleted the munitions they carried that, as the saying goes, "there was not enough left even to blacken an eye with kohl" for the needs of the Land.

To forestall these disadvantages, it had several times been attempted to send bands of thirty to fifty men. Their advantage was that the Kurds along the road did not dare to cut off their path without the support of troops, and that such bands could bring through a tangible quantity of war-materiel. But the defect of these bands was that they were inevitably marked by frontier-guards, shepherds, and Kurdish tribes, who followed them and gave word to the troops. And the unequal battle became inevitable.

The most arduous of these battles, the longest, the bloodiest and the most brilliant, must be reckoned the battle waged at Chartar, which is known by the names of Khatavin, Jragats, and others, and which to this day the Armenians and the Kurds sing under the names "Arakel, Mushegh," "Khatavin," "Torune, vay Lmbne," and others.

The road of some 200 kilometers, from Alashkert to Nemrut — fighting by day, in the evening screening the road against the enemies who barred their way, by night advancing under fire and by day sitting still and fighting the whole day long, and at Khatavin falling into burning scrub — on the sixth day the remnant of the band reaches Nemrut, having spent all the war-materiel it carried and lost the greater part of its members.

Heroic though that band's battles were, they had not reached their goal. Of such large bands an exception had been Tuman's cavalry band, which had reached Sasun alive and whole and with its entire store of supply.

The aim of Nevruz and Khan's zinatar bands of 150 was the same as Tuman's and as Chartar's, only more perfected, and five times greater in number. But a bitterer fate was allotted to them than to the heroes of Khatavin.

Assuredly the preparation and the movements of so large a band along the frontier could not remain unnoticed by the Russians. The Russian authorities would at the least form their conjectures. Nor did it remain unnoticed by the Turks, who have always kept their spies in the places near the frontier. Besides, in those years the Russo-Turkish friendship was close, and the antipathy of the two toward the Armenians was, moreover, a common one; they could pass their observations to one another. If these are conjectures, it is no conjecture that the Russian forces had been strengthened along the frontier, while the Turkish forces had been drawn forward from Erzurum and massed at Hasan-Ghala, Köprü-Köy, and their surroundings — which was verified by later reckoning.

Nevruz's and Khan's bands cross the Russo-Turkish frontier without incident, and unhindered reach the triangle of Dali-Baba, Gomadzor, and Yudveran, some twenty kilometers deep from the border. And the battle begins that had begun in the morning. Those who take part in this battle are the frontier-guard troops, not the rabble; the rabble is only a spectator. On the one side, the regular troops; on the other, the two haiduk bands made up of 150 men. On the one side, numbers and three kinds of arms (reckoned at 8 battalions, 4 cannon, and 300 sabers); on the other, the resolve to die dear, or to reach the goal.

The enemy, methodically, stubbornly, and by plan, squanders his fire and presses the fedayis hard; but they keep their cold blood, and, fitted to their position, hold out and check the enemy's assaults.

The sun has broken noon. The Turkish troops have grown angry; they press on and fling some 200 horsemen at a gallop, to drive those "jan-bezars" [the life-weary ones] out of the hollows of the ground. The horsemen reach our haiduks' positions, but do not succeed in stirring them from their place. Fire against fire, bayonet against bayonet — and now, from under the hill, Khan's horsemen come piling into the middle of them, and the Turkish troops go flying slapa toward their own — faster than a bullet. The Armenian horsemen prudently withdraw to their places.

Our lads' positions had turned into a garden caught in hail. Horse and man, foe and friend, were strewn on the ground like windfallen pears, tangled together. Some gazed at the sky, silent, with glassy eyes; some poured their blood onto the ground and moaned and pleaded: "For the love of God, one drop of water — water"…

Not an hour had passed before a new affliction. Four cannon roar and plow up the ground around the positions Nevruz holds. Shek Hamo of Javakh — who had earned three stripes in the Russian army, and on whom the band's eye now rested — watches the movements and says:

— Lads, a matagh for your dear lives, don't fret at all, give no answer, let the fire die down. You have this task before you. Whoever's position is not deep in the ground, let him deepen it with claw and bayonet. Whoever's is deep, let him not put his head out, let him not stir; if he is hungry, let him eat; if he is drowsy, let him sleep; if he is weary, let him smoke and take his rest. I will keep watch over you. When I blow the whistle, then our work will open.

For two hours the cannon plow the positions, throw the earth up and cover the lads like a shroud. But the lads keep silent, though they breathe. The enemy fancies a graveyard before him and sounds his bugles. The enemy, formed into three dense columns, rifles on shoulders, moves forward.

"Why does he not form a skirmish-line? He must think we are dead, or he trusts too much in the power of his cannon," our men think; "but like it or not, the cannon will fall silent once the infantry comes within 100 or 200 paces of our positions. That is when we show ourselves, and with a volley thin out their ranks."

Shek Hamo, lowering his voice, calls to them all:

— A matagh for your souls, our luck is working. The coward is the one who fires from afar, without an order. Lower your pritsel [the sight], and when the signal is given at 200 paces, fire.

The enemy comes and comes. He is at 2,000 paces; 1,000 is passed; he comes faster and is already at 500 paces, and the lads grow tense. "Have patience a little longer" — and now the cannon are silent and the volleys have begun, and the dense columns of the troops are mown like fields of wheat. As though they had forgotten what they came to do, some run forward and drop, spent, at the foot of the positions. Some sit where they are and fire without cease. Some go back and are hunted anew. And thus, after an hour or two of the death-struggle, the bugles blow, and under the lads' bullets they draw back, just as the sun was living its last moment, sinking behind the mountains.

Their joy was great. Some say: "Let us pursue them and seize the cannon." But Shek Hamo, who understood the business, says: "No — for today we must sing a song together. Sing, all of you"…

"Come, strike, strike!… Come, lekhsn, lekhsn, bra mrni lekhsn… Arakel and Mushegh came down from the mountains, a ruined mill became their lodging"…

They sing; they take their reckoning — who is killed, who wounded and unable to move. And that day one in four is killed and three are alive and whole, and their store of supply remains at the same quantity, if the supply of the slain and of a few wounded is divided among the living. That is the operation that is carried out.

The most piteous is not the case of those who, taking cannon- and rifle-balls, or mutilated by bayonet and saber, have been killed and are finished. The most cruel is not that, the battle not yet ended and his strength spent, a man already tastes the uncertainty of tomorrow's fight. The most tragic of all, the hardest, for the Armenian fedayi, is to have fallen wounded.

On this let us give the word to Garegin the Tall, from the Erzurum districts, who had come safe out of the Basen battle, and whom I questioned closely about his escape and the fight.

— What wretched questions you ask. The dream you saw last night — do you remember it today? Why, five months have passed since that fight. It came and went like a pain in the elbow; I remember nothing. Only one thing I can never forget — said Garegin, and his eyes filled.

— Well then, tell me that one thing you remember, I asked of him.

— Seto, the son of Srgey of our village — you do not know him. He was a good comrade of mine. We fought in the same squad of ten. I understood that he had been hit. I loved him dearly, more than my own brother. "Garegin, Garegin," he called; I made as if I did not hear, I did not look his way. I was afraid. Evening came. We had broken the troops and were singing "Arakel-Mushegh," making merry. All at once that godless Shek Hamo stood over me. "Seto has been hit in both legs and in the chest. You will go and take Seto's last word. This water-flask, this halva, and this little purse with 20 manats in it — you will set beneath his head. His cartridge-belt and rifle you will take. From me and from yourself you will kiss him on the mouth. Do not tarry long; a little later we take the road." My legs trembled, my eyes darkened. Seto turned his head to me, saw me, did not speak, looked into my eyes; my heart crumbled. The flask, the halva, the purse that Shek Hamo had given, I set beneath his head, and added what I myself had to them. He asked where Shek Hamo was. I lied; I said he was wounded, that he would stay here, that he had sent these things to you, that they might come in need. I said: "Seto, I must go, I am one bound on the road. Your rifle and cartridges will come in need to me." He did not object, and said: "Garegin — so, then, we are to go by roads that part from one another?" My heart could bear no more. I wanted to flee, but he stopped me and said: "My soul tells me that you will come through safe and sound. Tell my bride that if she has a child by me, let her find my mother and live with her. You will see my mother, and you will tell her that if my bride has no child by me, let her release my bride freely — let her keep her without mourning, find her a bridegroom with her own hand, and make her her own daughter." I kissed him, but I wept along the road. You will forgive me. When I remember this, I become a woman, and my weeping comes.

Seto had not eaten the halva; but he had drunk the water. To this day his end remains unknown.

Let us return to the thread of our story.

With what intent Shek Hamo had struck up "Come, strike!… Come, lekhn, lekhn" — the song of the ruined mill of Khatavin, which goes on to this day, decade upon decade — no man can say. Perhaps it was simply the chance choice of a song; but perhaps, too, a foreboding of tomorrow's menace. The answer to that Shek Hamo alone could have given, who by the next day would himself be no more. But that song, to all appearance, had worked powerfully on Nevruz. He checks the war-materiel — gathering both from those fallen on our side and from what was taken from the enemy — and sees that it is so much that it is hard to carry all of it off with the forces at hand. Though one in four had been killed or fallen out of the ranks, yet the remnant was twice the number of the fighters of Khatavin. And he exclaims:

— It is good, very good; in today's fight we have laid low of the enemy — you say a thousand, I, to be modest, say two hundred. Our force is still fully in its place, several times more than the other bands that were sent out on the road. So then, make ready to continue our road. Change the song — strike up "Lazi Shorer" [Laz Clothes].

There was no objection from the fedayis, roused to tasib. Only Shek Hamo went on muttering under his breath: "A ruined mill, dear soul, became the lodging"…

Nevruz was right: had he turned back, he knew what awaited him — from those who make sense of a woman's kerchiefs, and above all from those who do not. He could not turn back. But on the other hand, he did not reckon that a man's body has its limit of endurance, that this was still but the beginning of the road, and that 250 kilometers of road still lay before him. And so, by ceaseless fighting, it was an impossible thing to tear open the enemy's line — the more so as the enemy was abundant in number and, having taken up their trail, would come upon them at every moment with fresh forces.

Perhaps Khan, with his horsemen, could have thrown the enemy off his trail; but he too was bound by the infantry, which he had no right to abandon.

The band, divided into parts, when darkness falls, walks forward silent as the grave. Menak is not there, nor the experienced among the road-guides who had been with him; the day before they had been killed. There are guides who, though they reckon themselves all-knowing, have lost their own way. They turn the road, wind to the right, twice cross the cold water of the Arax, and only toward daylight do they understand that they are still in the same places as yesterday. Nevruz's infantry, soaked, weary, drowsy, were very, very far from the place appointed with Khan.

Khan, long since arrived with his horsemen, the field-glass to his eye, was waiting for the infantry.

— There, our lads have appeared, — he exclaims, rejoicing.

But a moment later, when in the dawn he marks that the mountains are held by a multitude of men, he understands that these are not Nevruz's lads, but soldiers who have surrounded them.

— Lads, horses ready, — he calls; but he watches the troops and does not stir from his place.

He might have withdrawn, avoided the fight, and saved — at least — the greater part of the band. Infantry, ten times slower than he, how were they to surround a retreating cavalry?

— If it is that same cavalry, — he says, — which we saw yesterday, it can do us no harm today, the more so as today we are in the mountains of Dali-Baba.

In truth, to his south were the mountains of Kaliazi, from which in ten hours he could come down to Haramik of Khnus. The road before him was open. His horsemen of Khnus were drunk with that prospect. At his back was the saddle of Tahar, from which the road runs to Alashkert — a single manzil [a day's stage] for horses. To his north was the Russo-Turkish frontier, barely two hours' road to cross toward Kaghzvan, or Russian Basen.

The escape of Khan's band was beyond doubt, had he willed it. But he had stayed rooted like a statue, while the enemy troops drew near, bringing certain death. And then, all at once, Khan turns to the impatient comrades gathered about him and says, in Turkish:—

— Let them say that Khan was so good-for-nothing that, with a horse beneath him, he died a dog's death of some lameness. But let them not say that, to save his own dry skull, he left his comrades and made off. Draw up the horses and tie them one to another. We are not going anywhere from this place.

To all appearance, the Turkish troops, after the hot fight of the day before, had resolved to keep our bands surrounded from a distance. They had marked Khan's band and thought that this was the whole of it. Nevruz's band, meanwhile, being noiseless and having lost its way, had remained unnoticed until eleven o'clock, before noon.

He who a whole night through has fallen ceaselessly over mountain and dale, then fought the whole day, then again continued the road, knows very well that even death is nothing anymore. The one aim is to sleep, which comes over him like a master.

It was in this state that Nevruz's soldiers were when the order comes to sit down. That was as good as sleep — which was mighty as death.

— Who can give his word to keep watch without sleeping? — ask the leaders of ten.

Some are already asleep; some hear, but have not the power to take in the question. Only nine men answer. Among them was little Nikol, the future Ishkhan.

These nine men, with Shek Hamo added over them as leader, take their orders from the leader:— Only three are to stay awake one hour, and after each hour the other three are to relieve them. They are not to stand, not to walk, not to speak aloud. They must see that all the rest stay asleep and raise no noise. Each hour they must wake him and, after making their report, change their turn.

In the first hour of daybreak, the first watch wakes Shek Hamo and says:

— Near us we heard no sound and saw no movement. Only there, on the flanks of that far mountain's slope, troops, it seems, are passing on and on.

Shek Hamo rubs his eyes, thinks a little, and says:

— By that side they will not come upon us; they are going elsewhere. Change over, you, and sleep.

And he too falls asleep.

An hour later, when the sun had already grown warm, the second watch wakes Shek Hamo and says:

— Near us we heard no sound and saw no movement. Only there, from those far places, troops go on endlessly and endlessly. We do not know where they are going.

Shek Hamo rubs his eyes and says:

— Well and good. Let them go where they will. Change over and sleep.

And he too falls asleep.

In the third hour Shek Hamo hears the same report, but with one addition:

— It seems as though from afar, from under the ground, sounds of battle come, zalb upon zalb [volley upon volley].

Shek Hamo rubs his eyes and says:

— What business has a battle under the ground? You are weary; your ears are ringing. Change over, sleep, and when the watch hears that ringing, let them wake me.

Before the fourth hour was out, little Nikol wakes Shek Hamo:

— Up, up, hear the ringing. Set your ear against the rock.

Shek Hamo rubs his eyes, yawns, strains his ears, but hears nothing. He sets his ears against the rock, and hears the throb, throb, and the hum of a samovar coming to the boil.

— What else did you see? — he asks.

— From among those rocks opposite, six horsemen came, looked our way, and, dividing into two parties, drove their horses off in two directions and vanished.

— Eh, did they see us? — asks Shek Hamo.

— Unless the field-glass on their eyes was blind, they saw us for certain, — Nikol answers.

— They saw us, they saw us. Today we will not be idle. Sleep no more, — and, troubled, he rises from his place. He lights two cigarettes and wakes Nevruz.

— Get up, smoke a cigarette. The day has come to noon.

And as Nevruz lights his cigarette, Shek Hamo gives his report.

— Khan is in a fight somewhere — I do not know where. We have been seen, and soon the fight will be upon us. Shall I wake the band?

Before noon it was the second day's battle upon Nevruz's band. And at the break of morning, upon Khan's horse-band, that had willingly turned infantry.

⁂

What episodes passed on that second day, no one can say for certain. In the course of that day's — and perhaps the following day's — partial fighting, all the leaders were killed. To have a notion of the general state of things is conjecture. Four or five men had fallen prisoner in a wounded condition. But they had been taken prisoner after the first day's fight. Once their wounds were healed, the survivors had been carried off to the prison of Erzurum. They were four men: Nikol of Javakh, Melkon of Gandzak, Gelasim of Karabagh, and Usul Khecho of Akhaltskha. One of them, Nikol, took part later in the volunteer army. They were as ignorant as we of the end of their bands.

Of the second day's battles the escaped men gave limited information, and made allusion only to the third day's death-agony struggle. They had cast themselves over to the other side of the Russian frontier. Their number too was limited — barely ten or twelve men, all of them from Nevruz's infantry and not one, I think, from Khan's horsemen.

These dozen or so escaped men were not cowards, nor forsakers of their leaders and their band, nor men who had saved their own skins. Their leaders had been killed, the band cut to pieces; they had been left without orders, and, as fortune would have it, wounded or whole, singly and alone, with no word of one another, they had fallen — kyor kyoruni [blindly, at random] — onto the Russian frontier.

They were of one voice on one thing — though they had no word of their separation from one another:

— We, they would say, did not know exactly where we were. Above, far off, there was fighting upon Khan; below, there was fighting upon our band. A stern order came to us to sit fast in the place we held, never to leave open the ground and the rock we held until each of us should have laid ten low, and only at night to await a new order. Night came; all had been killed. I found myself alone, took some direction, and came out here.

They soon proved that what they said was true. Of those ten or twelve men, I came to know Minas of Saron a few months after his escape. He had one longing — to go into the Land and take vengeance for his comrades. I came to know too Mikayel of the Erzurum district (I think) and Garegin, who, having left Seto's testament unfulfilled, wished to enter the fight anew. And so also Vardan of Aruarinj.

Of these acquaintances of mine, Minas entered Gayl Vahan's band in 1904 and was killed in the battles of Khorun and Mosuni. Garegin and Mikayel entered Tuman's second band and were killed by the Russians. Vardan enlisted in the cavalry regiment of Kaytsak Vagharshak and, though he was the only one to come out alive from the battle of Zivin, yet died in another fight. I am sure that the other escaped men, too, went by that same bloody road.

These recollections are proof of two things that must not be forgotten. First, that the vow to be martyred is mightier than the fear of death or the love of life. Nevruz's and Khan's bands had that vow, and for its sake all of them were martyred. Second, that it is a false opinion which holds that he who has tasted death and the bitterness of battle no longer wishes to meet with them. On the contrary, he who has tasted the savor of battle and of death wishes to taste it again and again — if his vow has not died within him.

And that is why not one man of Khan's and Nevruz's bands is left alive; all of them have fallen in battle.

Among the exceptional survivors — and afterward among the martyred — was Nikol of Shushi, Sergei's pupil-comrade, the Ishkhan of Lernapar. Here is what Margar of Mkhcho would recount, who had gone to the frontier-head to gather news and collect the remnant of the band:—

— I was at Stahan. In despair, in the morning I meant to go back to Kars. Before the dawn had broken, they woke me. They said a Turk, a Russian, or an Armenian had been taken prisoner near the village, and that he was on horseback too. I said: "Bring him, let me get a look" (that is, let me see). I look and look — I cannot know him. He looks at me and gives my name. How was I to know he was no whelp of a Turk? On his head a greasy Turkish fez, on his back a bloody askari [soldier's] jacket, got up like a chamchakhatun [a bedraggled figure], ragged, nothing like our strapping lads. And beneath him, into the bargain, a fiery ambling horse that ill became him. Come now — and try not to suspect he was a spy or of some other race!

— Now, tell me straight, who are you, where do you come from? — I asked.

— Who I am, Sergei knows. If he is alive, ask him, — he answered. I was in Nevruz's band. After two days of fighting, when there was no longer any man left alive around me, at night — trusting to luck — I took a road, and here I am.

He wished to cut it short; I asked:

— My dear, tell it properly: who is alive, who is killed, how many of the enemy are killed, whose is that horse, where did you get that askari dress of yours? Speak, my dear.

Nikol looked at me as at an enemy, but gave a dry, curt answer:

— You wish to learn who I am. Do you know Sergei? He is not dead, I think. You were standing at his side that evening when you came to send us off into the Land. Go, and learn from him who I am.

Margar of Mkhcho seized his fair beard, opened his eyes wide, and cried out in astonishment:

— May my eyes go blind! With Ezo (Menak) he often came to our shop, and was very fond of raisins and lablabu [roasted chickpeas]. Woe, may I go blind — how had he so changed?

Margar, left ashamed, had wished to draw near and kiss him, but before Nikol's wicked eyes he had sat back in his place. And Nikol-Ishkhan had gone on giving his answers, as though he sat before a prosecutor.

— That evening, when we parted from you, we entered the Turkish frontier. Whether they saw us or not — I was a common soldier, I know nothing. We walked and walked, and the lads said: "We have come to the marches of the Armenian villages." The order came to us to take up positions and sit down. So we did, and we waited for the dawn.

"At dawn Ezo (Menak) joined our band with several armed villagers. He came to my position, and for the last time we kissed. If only he had not come — that same day he was killed, together with those who had come with him.

"The sun rose, the battle began, and went on the whole day. Many of us were killed. Of the enemy, more were killed. The battle ceased when the sun went down.

"At night we became two parts and took the road. Our part lost the way and did not reach the other part. Twice we crossed the river and fell exhausted. When it had grown light, we rested an hour or two, and a fight began upon us. We had an order not to stir from the spot, to cling to the last to the ground we held, until we should hear the sound of the whistle. We fought. Evening came; no whistle-sound came — I think no man was left alive to whistle. I remained alone, and, thinking how to shift for myself, I reached this place.

When he reckoned his tale finished, Margar of Mkhcho pressed him further:—

— Welcome to you; now tell a little more of the fight — who is alive, who dead? How did you come through?

— A fight it was, to be sure. They came on, and we struck. They struck, and we were killed. The lads of our position were all struck down. I stayed alive, thanks to two great rocks between which I had crept. Before us, too, were Shek Hamo and his lads. They stayed alive longer; it was near evening, and we were still fighting. But at the last assault, I saw that they were all killed, and the Turks took their positions. The other positions were far off, and, one by one, still answered. When the sun went down, all fell silent.

— And afterward, how were you saved?

— When they took our positions and those alongside, they seemed to have forgotten me. Two soldiers came my way. I took aim; one fell, the other vanished. I felt that someone was on the rock behind me. I turned, just as the khshtik [blade] was about to enter my back. I do not know how, but my napan [dagger] came out. I struck, and he toppled onto me and gave up his soul before my feet. It came into my head: since our men are gone and our positions are filled with troops, let me turn myself into a soldier. I stripped off my clothes and put on a slain man's jacket and fez, exchanged my rifle for his, and came out of my place. I went among the corpses. Our men and theirs were mingled together. I reached a mound. A horseman called to me: "My son, come this way." There was no going back. I came up. He said something, I did not understand, and by way of answer I struck him with my pistol and in one motion sprang onto the horse. They loosed their bullets after me, but I got away. Night had come. I drove the horse without looking right or left, only toward the northeast. I crossed the mountains and did not know where I had come. And now here I am, questioned like a prisoner, as though I had come out of the midst of the Turks.

With tears in his eyes Margar says to Nikol:

— No, my soul, our hearts ache for you and for the lads. We wish to have news. Our hearts rejoice at the enemy's losses. We wish to have news. Do not take us for Turks.

— How should I not take you so? You see my state. It is three or four days since my eyes have closed, since anything has entered my belly; and you demand a reckoning of me, as of a spy — as though I had had nothing to do but sit and keep the count of the Turkish and Armenian dead. You have come and are raking at my heart, to make me remember our fallen and the enemy's…

After his escape Nikol was sound in body, but sick in soul. For a week or two he slept without cease — ate and slept, stared fixed at the ceiling, and wished to be alone and to speak not at all, even were it Sergei who would speak with him.

The cause of Ishkhan's spiritual torments was not only the heavy impressions of the battle, the annihilation of his comrades, the sight of the enemy's corpses, and other harrowing effects. His soul was shattered, and he had lost his faith in the way of working that had been followed. In his silence he sought ways out — to pursue the goal by other roads. Before fifteen days had passed, he had said to Sergei:—

— We say, and we go, that one must be martyred for the Fatherland. Here, some 150 of us went, and within a few days we were martyred. Save for a few, all of them fell with honor. But is it the being martyred that matters, or the reaching of the goal?

"Seven times our number of wretched soldiers lay strewn as corpses about us. Around us it was like a forest hewn down without mercy. Men had fallen in sheaves. I am ashamed to say that we did the slaughtering. We did not set out on the road to slaughter, but to reach a place, or to conquer. Neither the one came about nor the other, and we too were slaughtered. This must be taken into account.

"The matter must be looked at from the other side too. I do not say that we will abandon our aims, or that reaching them is impossible. But the trial has shown that, at least by this road — and that by main force — to carry out what we planned is impossible. Or else it is a matter of luck, and luck is not a thing to lean on. Reckon it up: before we had traversed a tenth of the road, the enemy set at least 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers against us. As many more await along the roads. As many more, likely, he held in reserve. So then: to reach Sasun with armed bands cannot be done, and to come out of there again would be a miracle. I have withdrawn my hand from the work of going with armed bands. Do you withdraw your hand too, and think of reaching our goal in another way.

Sergei, after telling me this, said:

— Within a few days Nikol had become a mature man. I could not object, for there was substance in what he said. I could not accept it at once, because that was as good as reviewing everything anew. Only that I would think on it. He said to me:—

— I have thought, and have decided for myself, once and for all. If you will help me, tomorrow itself you will set me on the road to Persia. By the roads of our Vardan and of Nikol (Duman) you will send me into the Land. My mind is made up to do a thing there; I will come out no more, but stay there. If it proves impossible to do anything, I will come out and leave it all.

Little Nikol did just so. He went first to Erevan and thence, by way of Alashkert and Abas Göl, crossed into Vaspurakan, where he took upon himself the name of Ishkhan — but became a true ishkhan [prince] in the land of Rshtunik^t32 that he organized, calling to mind the ancient sovereigns of those lands. He took with him Vahan (Papazian),^t31 who adopted the name of Koms.

The accounts of the survivors of the Basen band concerning Shek Hamo agreed one with another. He had been not only brave, but aware of their situation, and stout-hearted, and had met death without flinching.

The survivors disagreed only about the duration of the battle. According to some, the battle had lasted four days and three nights. That is, one day and one night more. This must be explained by the fact that, after three days and two nights of the bands' combined fighting, the remnants had continued the struggle individually, so as not to surrender, and their last few had come safe away only by crossing the frontier.

Later, after the Ottoman Constitution,^t33 it was confirmed — from the accounts of the Turks — that the battle had indeed been merciless. The Armenian fighters of Basen had fought to the death, and had carried off with them some 800 soldiers. "It was a war of states, not of chetas [irregular bands]," the participants would say.