Assyrian war of independence
Encyclopedia
The Assyrian struggle for Independence was waged by the Assyrian Patriarch and the chiefs (Assyrian
: malik
) of the Assyrians
between 1843 and 1933, with later assistance from the British Empire
, against the Ottoman Empire
, the Soviet Union
, the Persian Empire
, the Kingdom of Iraq
, the French Mandate of Syria
, and the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.
As Austen Henry Layard, the British Empire's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, wrote, the Assyrians survived the Arab, Mongol, and Kurdish conquests in the mountains of Hakkari, where they fought to maintain their independence in the nineteenth century. As Professor Abraham Yohannan of Columbia University wrote in 1916, the Assyrians "are a sturdy people who, like the Kurds about them, have maintained a state of semi-independence and have been more or less able to defend themselves against attacks." The traditional Assyrian homeland extends from the Tigris river into northeastern Persia.
, Şırnak
, and Mardin
. These areas also had a sizable Kurdish
population. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians
, Greeks
and Assyrians
of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution of the Christian
community of Anatolia
.
At the outset of World War I
, approximately one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today Southern Turkey. The Young Turks
, an ultranationalist group, took control of the Ottoman Empire only five years before the beginning of World War I
. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers
and join the German Reich
in dividing up the British and French empires in Asia. In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in October 1914 by bombarding Russian ports on the Black Sea
.
In late 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime declared a holy war on the Christians of the Empire along with the British and Russian Empires, who were all grouped together as the enemies of Islam. Ottoman Turks and Kurds proceeded to massacre tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains of ancient Assyria (upper Mesopotamia, present-day southeastern Turkey) prior to any alliance between the Assyrians and the British or Russians. The Patriarch of the Assyrians
, Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin, declared war on the Ottomans on behalf of the Assyrian nation. The Assyrian army under General David, the patriarch's brother, led the Assyrians out of an encircling Ottoman army maneuver across the Persian border onto the plains of Urmia
.
In April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its tribal chiefs of Baz, Jilu
, Tyari
, Tkhuma
, and Diz
"took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians." Over the summer of 1915 they held off the Ottoman army and 10,000 Kurdish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans brought in artillery and ammunition that outmatched the Assyrians, however. The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of Baz, Jilu
, Tyari
, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwari
, Amadia and Seert to be massacred. Some survivors joined the remnant of the Assyrian Persias from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyro-Chaldean army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Russia, Persia, and historic Assyria until the Russian Revolution of 1917
dissolved the Russian army. Lacking allies except the British some miles away in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians planned to follow the Russian lines to the Caucasus, but the Allies (including British, French, and Russian diplomats) urged Mar Shimoun and the Assyrian army to defend the Allied-Ottoman front lines, and enjoy autonomy and independence in the post-war period as their reward.
An Assyrian nation under British and Russian protection was promised the Assyrians first by Russian officers, and later confirmed by Captain Gracey of the British Intelligence Service. Based on these representations, the Assyrians of Hakkari, under their Mar Shimun XXIX Benjamin and the Assyrian tribal chiefs "decided to side with the Allies, first with Christian Russia, and next with the British, in the hope that they might secure after the victory, a self-government for the Assyrians." The French also joined the alliance with the Assyrians, offering them 20,000 rifles, and the Assyrian army grew to 20,000 men co-led by Agha Petrus Elie of Baz, and Malik Khoshaba
of Tiyari.
In October 1914, 71 Assyrian men of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkale and killed. Also in April, Kurdish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men (among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest). The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Kurds and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Kurds "assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss. In April 1915, Ottoman Troops easily invaded Gawar, a region of Hakkari, and massacred the entire population.
In late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province
, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself called "The Butchers' Battalion" , ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilian
s in at least 30 villages. Cevdet is reported to have held a meeting in February 1915 at which he said, "We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac [Christian]s from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van". The following is a list documenting the villages that were attacked by Cevdet's soldiers and the estimated number of Assyrian deaths:
The village of Sairt/Seert, was populated by Assyrians and Armenians. Seert was the seat of a Chaldean Archbishop, the orientalist Addai Scher
who was murdered by the Kurds.
On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish soldiers, assassinated one of the most important Assyrian leaders at the time, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin. This resulted in Malik Khoshaba
counterattacking the Ottomans, so that some 30 soldiers were killed or wounded.
The Assyro-Chaldean National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 "Assyro-Chaldeans" died between 1914 and 1918. The Times
of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Assyrians and Chaldeans eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted....
As the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the House of Lords
on 28 November 1933, stated, ‘‘the Assyrians fought on our side during the war,’’ and made ‘‘enormous sacrifices,’’ having ‘‘lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number.’'.... About half of the Assyrian nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the Anglican Church, which had a mission to the Assyrians.
Scholars have placed the number of Assyrian victims at 250,000 to 500,000.
Contemporary sources usually speak of the events in terms of an Assyrian genocide
, along with the Armenian genocide
and Greek genocide by the Ottoman Empire
. For example, the International Association of Genocide Scholars reached a consensus that "the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks." After this resolution, the Dictionary of Genocide co-authored by eminent genocide scholar Samuel Totten
, an expert on Holocaust education and the genocide in Darfur
, contained an entry on the "Assyrian genocide."[18] The President of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton
, endorsed the "repudiation by the world's leading genocide scholars of the Turkish government's ninety year denial of the Ottoman Empire's genocides against its Christian populations, including Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians."
The death toll of the Assyrian genocide was approximately 250,000, according to contemporary and more recent sources. "In 1918, according to the Los Angeles Times, Ambassador Morgenthau confirmed that the Ottoman Empire had 'massacred fully 2,000,000 men, women, and children -- Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians; fully 1,500,000 Armenians.'" With 250,000 Greeks among the dead, that makes Ambassador Morgenthau's estimate of Assyrian deaths about 250,000.
held them off until June 1918, at which point they were again encircled and had no choice but to break through to their British allies across the border in Mesopotamia. Up to 100,000 Assyrians left Persia in 1918, but around half died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.
Hannibal Travis, Assistant Professor of Law at Florida International University
, wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal that the Assyrian city of Urmia was "completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred," with 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of Assyrian dead, and hundreds of thousands more Assyrians starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. The Associated Press reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, ‘‘Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians.’’ The victims included 800 massacred near Urmia, and 2,000 dead from disease. Two hundred Assyrians were burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, ‘‘mostly naked and mutilated,’’ some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces. Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Assyrian genocide. The New York Times
reported on 11 October that 12,000 Persian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.
Up to 1921 the Levies had consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans. Now that Iraq Army was to be formed, the Arabs would be required to join it rather than to go to Levies. It was decided to enlist Assyrians in the Levies. In July 1922 Orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army
, those serving could not re-engage, A 1922 Treaty between Great Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as "local forces of the Imperial garrison" and that its members were "members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq". By 1923 the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies was half Assyrian and half Kurd
, plus an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Turkomans
. The original Levies were not Assyrians until 1928 when the levies became entirely Assyrian.
As a high British official in Mesopotamia wrote in 1933: "As they became more disciplined they rendered excellent service; during the Arab
rebellion of 1920 they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trial, steadfast loyalty to their British
officers."
In 1931 Assyrian levies and Iraqi army units were patrolling Barzan district. Government troops implied government control, which Shaykh Ahmad still wanted to avoid.
On October 23, 1931, the Catholicos
of the Church of the East
, Mar Eshai Shimun, and the malik
s of the Jilu
, Baz, Tkhuma, and Upper Tiyari tribes wrote to the Chairman of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations to request resettlement out of Iraq, to French Syria or any other country in the League that would accept them as refugees. The Patriarch wrote that: "The Assyrian Nation which is temporarily living in Iraq, ... have unanimously held a Conference with me in Mosul on the 20th October 1931. At this Conference were present the temporal and spiritual leaders of the Assyrian Nation in its entirely as it will be observed from the document quoted above bearing the leaders' signatures." He goes on to say that at the conference, "it was unanimously decided by all those present that it is quite impossible for us to live in Iraq." He added that "together with the undermentioned signatories being the responsible leaders of the Assyrian Nation" wanted to inform the League that the Assyrians, "which in past centuries numbered millions but reduced to a very small number due to repeated persecutions and massacres that faced us, ... have been able to preserve our Language and Faith up to the present time." He conclused that "WE ARE POSITIVELY SURE THAT IF WE REMAIN IN IRAQ, we shall be exterminated in the course of few years."
On June 1, 1932 the Assyrian levies presented a signed memorial to their Commanding Officer stating that "all the men had decided to cease serving as from 1st July." The reason was Britain had "failed adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the termination of their mandate over Iraq."
In early 1933, the American representative in Iraq, Paul Knabenshue, described public animosity towards the Assyrians as reaching a 'fever' pitch. With Iraq's independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
, demanded that the Assyrians be given autonomy
within Iraq, seeking support from Britain
. He pressed his case before the League of Nations
in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian levies
(a levy
under the command of the British, serving British interests), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriarch was invited to Baghdad
for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman
’s government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Mar Shimun would eventually be exiled to Cyprus
, thus forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East
to be located in Chicago
to this day.
In early August 1933, the chiefs of the Tkhuma Tribe
and the Tiyari led more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria
in crossing the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq, where their wives and children had remained. The French
, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned, shots were fired resulting in 30 Iraqi and Assyrian casualties. Anti-Assyrian and Anti-British xenophobia
, apparent throughout the crisis, accelerated. Reports circulated of Assyrian mutilation of Iraqi soldiers (later proven to be false). In Baghdad, the government panicked, fearing disaster as the Assyrians presented a formidable fighting force that could provoke a general uprising in the north. The government unleashed Kurdish
irregulars who killed some 120 inhabitants of two Assyrian villages in the week of August 2 to August 9 (with most of the massacre occurring on August 7). Then on August 11, Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi
(who had clashed with Assyrians before) led a march to what was then one of the most heavily inhabited Assyrian area in Iraq, the Simele district.
The Assyrian population of the district of Simele was indiscriminately massacred; men women, and children. In one room alone, eighty one Assyrians of Baz tribe were massacred. Religious leaders were prime targets; eight Assyrian priest
s were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive. Girls were raped and women violated and made to march naked before the Muslim army commanders. Holy books were used as fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and pierced with bayonets.
Back in the city of Nohadra, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.
In the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.
The Semele or Simele Massacre
is the term used to describe the systematic targeting of Assyrians
of Northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is used to describe not only the massacre of Simele, but also the killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 innocent Assyrians.
The Simele Massacre
of the Assyrian people
is often regarded as a phase of the Assyrian genocide
beginning in August 1914 in the early days of what became World War I
. By 1933, an estimated two-thirds of their population was massacred by Ottoman Turks
and Kurds.
Today, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids on Assyrians
were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign, Badr Sidqi was invited to Baghdad for a victory rally. The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.
Immediately after the massacre and the shutting down of the Assyrian uprising, the Iraq
i government demanded a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army, to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul
demanded that the central government ‘ruthlessly’ stamp out the rebellion, and that it eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and that the government take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service. The next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the ‘Assyrian insurgents’, stating that a "nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army," they requested compulsory military service. Rashid Ali presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell before it was legislated and Jamil Midfai’s government enacted conscription in January 1934.
The massacre would eventually lead to 15,000 Assyrians leaving the Nineveh Plains for neighboring French Mandate of Syria
, and create 35 new villages on the banks of the Khabur River
.
Raphael Lemkin
, who coined the term genocide
, was directly influenced by the story of this massacre. The Simele massacre inspired Lemkin to create the concept of "Genocide
". In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations
conference on international criminal law in Madrid
, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based the Simele massacre, the Armenian Genocide
and the Jewish Holocaust.
, to resist German efforts to gain a foothold in the Middle East. The Iraq Levies distinguished themselves in May 1941 during the Anglo-Iraqi War
.
In the early days of World War II
, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani came to power as Prime Minister of Iraq. As one of his first acts, he sent an Iraqi artillery
force to confront the RAF
base situated in Habbaniya
, RAF Habbaniya
. By the end of April, the Iraqi armed forces were situated in strong positions on the escarpment above the base and a siege began.
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni ( 1895/1897 - July 4, 1974), was the choice of the Nazis and Italian fascists to make inroads into the Middle East, including Iraq. A veteran of the Ottoman army, from 1921 to 1948 he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
.
As early as 1920, al-Husayni was active in both opposing the British in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab State and opposing Jewish immigration and the establishment of their National home in Palestine. His oppositional role peaked during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, wanted by the British, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in Lebanon
, Iraq
, Italy
and finally Nazi Germany
where he met Adolf Hitler
in 1941. He asked Germany to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
al-Husayni was still in the Kingdom of Iraq
when, on 1 April 1941, pro-German
Rashid Ali and his pro-German "Golden Square" supporters staged a coup d'etat
. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état caused the pro-British
Regent
Abdul Ilah
to flee and the pro-British Prime Minister
Taha al-Hashimi
to resign. From his base in Iraq, al-Husayni issued a fatwa
for a holy war against Britain in May. Less than days later, the Rashid Ali government collapsed, Regent Abdul Ilah returned, and British troops occupied the country.
Iraq had been a major supplier of petroleum
to the Allied
war effort and represented an important landbridge between British forces in Egypt
and India
. To secure Iraq, Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
ordered General Archibald Wavell to protect the air base at Habbaniya.
During 1940/41 Iraq joined the Axis powers and the Battle of Habbaniya took place. At Habbaniya, the besieging Iraqis demanded the cessation of all training activities and of all flights in and out of the base.
The commander at RAF Habbaniya, Air Vice-Marshal
Harry George Smart
, responded to the Iraqi demands by launching a pre-emptive strike against the Iraqi forces overlooking the air base. During the Rashid Ali
rebellion in 1941 the base was besieged by the Iraqi Army
encamped on the overlooking plateau. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol
), part of Habforce
sent from Palestine
, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad. The Levies then recruited an additional 11,000 men, mostly Assyrians but also some Kurd and Yezidi.
The siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF
, and the RAF's Iraq Levies. This action initiated the Anglo-Iraqi War
. Within a week, the Iraqis abandoned the escarpment. By mid-May, British forces from Habbaniya had moved on to Fallujah
and, after overcoming Iraqi resistance there, moved on to Baghdad. On 29 May, fearing a British onslaught, Gaylani fled to Persia. As a result, al-Husayni fled to Persia where he was granted legation asylum
first by the Empire of Japan
and then by Fascist Italy.
By 1942, the Iraq Levies consisted of a Headquarters, a Depot, Specialist Assyrian companies, 40 service companies and the 1st Parachute Company, which consisted of 75% Assyrian and 25% Kurd. The new Iraq Levies disciplinary code was based largely on the Indian Army Act. The Levies had 22 Assyrian companies, 5 Mixed Assyrian/Yizidi companies, 10 Kurdish companies, 4 Gulf Arab companies and 3 Baluchi
companies. Eleven Assyrian companies served in World War II-era Palestine
and another four served in Cyprus
. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were active in both Albania
and Greece
. The Iraq Levies was renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.
In 1945 after the Second World War 1945- the Iraq Levies were reduced to 60 British officers and 1,900 other ranks and the RAF Regiment
took over command of the Levies. In 1946 the Iraq Levies battalions were redesignated as Wings and Squadrons to conform to the RAF Regiment procedure.
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is a Neo-Aramaic dialect, spoken by an estimated 220,000 people , formerly in the area between Lake Urmia, north-western Iran, and Siirt, south-eastern Turkey, but now more widely throughout the...
: malik
Malik
Malik is an Arabic word meaning "king, chieftain".It has been adopted in various other, mainly Islamized or Arabized, Asian languages for their ruling princes and to render kings elsewhere. It is also sometimes used in derived meanings...
) of the Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
between 1843 and 1933, with later assistance from the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, against the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, the Persian Empire
Qajar dynasty
The Qajar dynasty was an Iranian royal family of Turkic descent who ruled Persia from 1785 to 1925....
, the Kingdom of Iraq
Kingdom of Iraq
The Kingdom of Iraq was the sovereign state of Iraq during and after the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. The League of Nations mandate started in 1920. The kingdom began in August 1921 with the coronation of Faisal bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi as King Faisal I...
, the French Mandate of Syria
French Mandate of Syria
Officially the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate founded after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire...
, and the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.
As Austen Henry Layard, the British Empire's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, wrote, the Assyrians survived the Arab, Mongol, and Kurdish conquests in the mountains of Hakkari, where they fought to maintain their independence in the nineteenth century. As Professor Abraham Yohannan of Columbia University wrote in 1916, the Assyrians "are a sturdy people who, like the Kurds about them, have maintained a state of semi-independence and have been more or less able to defend themselves against attacks." The traditional Assyrian homeland extends from the Tigris river into northeastern Persia.
Battle of Hakkari
Assyrians in present Turkey primarily lived in the provinces of HakkariHakkari
Hakkâri , is a city and the capital of the Hakkâri Province of Turkey. The name Hakkâri is derived from the Syriac word, Akkare, meaning farmers...
, Şırnak
Sirnak
Şırnak is a town in southeastern Turkey. It is the capital of Şırnak Province, a new province that split from the Hakkari province...
, and Mardin
Mardin
Mardin is a city in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for its Arabic-like architecture, and for its strategic location on a rocky mountain overlooking the plains of northern Syria.-History:...
. These areas also had a sizable Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
population. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution of the Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
community of Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
.
At the outset of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, approximately one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today Southern Turkey. The Young Turks
Young Turks
The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...
, an ultranationalist group, took control of the Ottoman Empire only five years before the beginning of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
and join the German Reich
Reich
Reich is a German word cognate with the English rich, but also used to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is the word traditionally used for a variety of sovereign entities, including Germany in many periods of its history...
in dividing up the British and French empires in Asia. In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in October 1914 by bombarding Russian ports on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
.
In late 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime declared a holy war on the Christians of the Empire along with the British and Russian Empires, who were all grouped together as the enemies of Islam. Ottoman Turks and Kurds proceeded to massacre tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains of ancient Assyria (upper Mesopotamia, present-day southeastern Turkey) prior to any alliance between the Assyrians and the British or Russians. The Patriarch of the Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
, Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin, declared war on the Ottomans on behalf of the Assyrian nation. The Assyrian army under General David, the patriarch's brother, led the Assyrians out of an encircling Ottoman army maneuver across the Persian border onto the plains of Urmia
Urmia
- Demographics :According to official census of 2006, the population of Urmia is about 871,204.- Language :The population of Urmia is mainly Azerbaijani people, with Kurdish, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian minorities...
.
In April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its tribal chiefs of Baz, Jilu
Jilu
Jīlū was a district located in Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia.Before 1915 Jīlū was home to Christian Assyrians, as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The area was traditionally divided into Greater and Lesser Jīlū, and Ishtāzin - each with its own...
, Tyari
Tyari
Ţyāré is an Assyrian tribe of ancient origins, and a historical district within Hakkari. The area was traditionally divided into Upper and Lower Ţyāré - each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Before 1915, Ţyāré was home to Christian Assyrians from the Ţyāré tribe as well as a minority of...
, Tkhuma
Tkhuma Tribe
Prior to World War I, the Tkhuma were one of five principal Assyrian Tribes subject to the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Assyrian Patriarch with the title Mar Shimun....
, and Diz
Diz
-References:*...
"took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians." Over the summer of 1915 they held off the Ottoman army and 10,000 Kurdish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans brought in artillery and ammunition that outmatched the Assyrians, however. The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of Baz, Jilu
Jilu
Jīlū was a district located in Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia.Before 1915 Jīlū was home to Christian Assyrians, as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The area was traditionally divided into Greater and Lesser Jīlū, and Ishtāzin - each with its own...
, Tyari
Tyari
Ţyāré is an Assyrian tribe of ancient origins, and a historical district within Hakkari. The area was traditionally divided into Upper and Lower Ţyāré - each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Before 1915, Ţyāré was home to Christian Assyrians from the Ţyāré tribe as well as a minority of...
, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwari
Barwari
Barwar also known as Barwari and Barwari Bala, is a region situated in northern Dohuk Governorate in Iraq. The region is populated by Kurds although it was once mainly inhabited by Assyrians with a large Jewish minority.-History:...
, Amadia and Seert to be massacred. Some survivors joined the remnant of the Assyrian Persias from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyro-Chaldean army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Russia, Persia, and historic Assyria until the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
dissolved the Russian army. Lacking allies except the British some miles away in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians planned to follow the Russian lines to the Caucasus, but the Allies (including British, French, and Russian diplomats) urged Mar Shimoun and the Assyrian army to defend the Allied-Ottoman front lines, and enjoy autonomy and independence in the post-war period as their reward.
An Assyrian nation under British and Russian protection was promised the Assyrians first by Russian officers, and later confirmed by Captain Gracey of the British Intelligence Service. Based on these representations, the Assyrians of Hakkari, under their Mar Shimun XXIX Benjamin and the Assyrian tribal chiefs "decided to side with the Allies, first with Christian Russia, and next with the British, in the hope that they might secure after the victory, a self-government for the Assyrians." The French also joined the alliance with the Assyrians, offering them 20,000 rifles, and the Assyrian army grew to 20,000 men co-led by Agha Petrus Elie of Baz, and Malik Khoshaba
Malik Khoshaba
Malik Khoshaba was an Assyrian leader of the ancient Bit-Tyari tribe who played a significant role during the Assyrian war of independence during World War I...
of Tiyari.
In October 1914, 71 Assyrian men of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkale and killed. Also in April, Kurdish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men (among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest). The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Kurds and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Kurds "assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they led the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss. In April 1915, Ottoman Troops easily invaded Gawar, a region of Hakkari, and massacred the entire population.
In late 1915, Cevdet Bey, Military Governor of Van Province
Van Province
Van Province is a province in eastern Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. It is 19,069 km2 in area and had a population of 1,035,418 at the end of 2010....
, upon entering Siirt (or Seert) with 8,000 soldiers whom he himself called "The Butchers' Battalion" , ordered the massacre of almost 20,000 Assyrian civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s in at least 30 villages. Cevdet is reported to have held a meeting in February 1915 at which he said, "We have cleansed the Armenians and Syriac [Christian]s from Azerbaijan, and we will do the same in Van". The following is a list documenting the villages that were attacked by Cevdet's soldiers and the estimated number of Assyrian deaths:
| Sairt - 2,000 | Sadagh - 2,000 | Mar-Gourya - 1,000 | Guedianes - 500 | Hadide - 1,000 | Harevena - 200 |
| Redwan - 500 | Dehok - 500 | Ketmes - 1,000 | Der-Chemch - 200 | Piros - 1,000 | Der-Mar-Yacoub- 500 |
| Tentas - 500 | Tellimchar - 1,500 | Ketmes - 1,000 | Telnevor - 500 | Benkof - 200 | Bekend - 500 |
| Altaktanie - 500 | Goredj - 500 | Galwaye - 500 | Der-Mazen - 300 | Der-Rabban - 300 | Charnakh - 200 |
| Artoun - 1,000 | Ain-Dare - 200 | Berke - 500 | Archkanes - 500 |
The village of Sairt/Seert, was populated by Assyrians and Armenians. Seert was the seat of a Chaldean Archbishop, the orientalist Addai Scher
Addai Scher
Addai Scher Also written Addai Sher, Addaï Scher and Addai Sheir , was the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Siirt. He was killed by the Ottomans during the Assyrian Genocide.-Early life:...
who was murdered by the Kurds.
On March 3, 1918, the Ottoman army led by Kurdish soldiers, assassinated one of the most important Assyrian leaders at the time, Mar Shimun XIX Benyamin. This resulted in Malik Khoshaba
Malik Khoshaba
Malik Khoshaba was an Assyrian leader of the ancient Bit-Tyari tribe who played a significant role during the Assyrian war of independence during World War I...
counterattacking the Ottomans, so that some 30 soldiers were killed or wounded.
The Assyro-Chaldean National Council stated in a December 4, 1922, memorandum that the total death toll was unknown, but it estimated that about 275,000 "Assyro-Chaldeans" died between 1914 and 1918. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Assyrians and Chaldeans eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted....
As the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
on 28 November 1933, stated, ‘‘the Assyrians fought on our side during the war,’’ and made ‘‘enormous sacrifices,’’ having ‘‘lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number.’'.... About half of the Assyrian nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the Anglican Church, which had a mission to the Assyrians.
Scholars have placed the number of Assyrian victims at 250,000 to 500,000.
Contemporary sources usually speak of the events in terms of an Assyrian genocide
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...
, along with the Armenian genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
and Greek genocide by the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. For example, the International Association of Genocide Scholars reached a consensus that "the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks." After this resolution, the Dictionary of Genocide co-authored by eminent genocide scholar Samuel Totten
Samuel Totten
Samuel Totten is a genocide scholar, Professor of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, a Member of the Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem...
, an expert on Holocaust education and the genocide in Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...
, contained an entry on the "Assyrian genocide."[18] The President of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton
Gregory Stanton
Gregory H. Stanton is the founder and president of Genocide Watch, the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and the founder and Chair of the International Campaign to End Genocide...
, endorsed the "repudiation by the world's leading genocide scholars of the Turkish government's ninety year denial of the Ottoman Empire's genocides against its Christian populations, including Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians."
The death toll of the Assyrian genocide was approximately 250,000, according to contemporary and more recent sources. "In 1918, according to the Los Angeles Times, Ambassador Morgenthau confirmed that the Ottoman Empire had 'massacred fully 2,000,000 men, women, and children -- Greeks, Assyrians, Armenians; fully 1,500,000 Armenians.'" With 250,000 Greeks among the dead, that makes Ambassador Morgenthau's estimate of Assyrian deaths about 250,000.
Battle of Persia
The Ottoman forces threatened Urmia and northwestern Persia after the Russian Revolution (1917) in October 1917. The Assyrians, led by Assyrian general Agha PetrosAgha Petros
Petros Elia of Baz , better known as Agha Petros, was an Assyrian military leader during World War I.- Early years :...
held them off until June 1918, at which point they were again encircled and had no choice but to break through to their British allies across the border in Mesopotamia. Up to 100,000 Assyrians left Persia in 1918, but around half died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.
Hannibal Travis, Assistant Professor of Law at Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
, wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal that the Assyrian city of Urmia was "completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred," with 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of Assyrian dead, and hundreds of thousands more Assyrians starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. The Associated Press reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, ‘‘Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Christians.’’ The victims included 800 massacred near Urmia, and 2,000 dead from disease. Two hundred Assyrians were burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, ‘‘mostly naked and mutilated,’’ some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces. Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Assyrian genocide. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported on 11 October that 12,000 Persian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.
Battle of Iraq
In Iraq, the Assyrians joined the Kurds and Arabs in celebrating the Ottoman defeat, and joining the levies of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia.Up to 1921 the Levies had consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans. Now that Iraq Army was to be formed, the Arabs would be required to join it rather than to go to Levies. It was decided to enlist Assyrians in the Levies. In July 1922 Orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Army is the land component of the Iraqi military, active in various forms since being formed by the British during their mandate over the country after World War I....
, those serving could not re-engage, A 1922 Treaty between Great Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as "local forces of the Imperial garrison" and that its members were "members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq". By 1923 the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies was half Assyrian and half Kurd
Kürd
Kürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
, plus an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Turkomans
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
. The original Levies were not Assyrians until 1928 when the levies became entirely Assyrian.
As a high British official in Mesopotamia wrote in 1933: "As they became more disciplined they rendered excellent service; during the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
rebellion of 1920 they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trial, steadfast loyalty to their British
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
officers."
In 1931 Assyrian levies and Iraqi army units were patrolling Barzan district. Government troops implied government control, which Shaykh Ahmad still wanted to avoid.
On October 23, 1931, the Catholicos
Catholicos
Catholicos, plural Catholicoi, is a title used for the head of certain churches in some Eastern Christian traditions. The title implies autocephaly and in some cases is borne by the designated head of an autonomous church, in which case the holder might have other titles such as Patriarch...
of the Church of the East
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
, Mar Eshai Shimun, and the malik
Malik
Malik is an Arabic word meaning "king, chieftain".It has been adopted in various other, mainly Islamized or Arabized, Asian languages for their ruling princes and to render kings elsewhere. It is also sometimes used in derived meanings...
s of the Jilu
Jilu
Jīlū was a district located in Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia.Before 1915 Jīlū was home to Christian Assyrians, as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The area was traditionally divided into Greater and Lesser Jīlū, and Ishtāzin - each with its own...
, Baz, Tkhuma, and Upper Tiyari tribes wrote to the Chairman of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations to request resettlement out of Iraq, to French Syria or any other country in the League that would accept them as refugees. The Patriarch wrote that: "The Assyrian Nation which is temporarily living in Iraq, ... have unanimously held a Conference with me in Mosul on the 20th October 1931. At this Conference were present the temporal and spiritual leaders of the Assyrian Nation in its entirely as it will be observed from the document quoted above bearing the leaders' signatures." He goes on to say that at the conference, "it was unanimously decided by all those present that it is quite impossible for us to live in Iraq." He added that "together with the undermentioned signatories being the responsible leaders of the Assyrian Nation" wanted to inform the League that the Assyrians, "which in past centuries numbered millions but reduced to a very small number due to repeated persecutions and massacres that faced us, ... have been able to preserve our Language and Faith up to the present time." He conclused that "WE ARE POSITIVELY SURE THAT IF WE REMAIN IN IRAQ, we shall be exterminated in the course of few years."
On June 1, 1932 the Assyrian levies presented a signed memorial to their Commanding Officer stating that "all the men had decided to cease serving as from 1st July." The reason was Britain had "failed adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the termination of their mandate over Iraq."
"They had dug trenches and were determined on destroying the Assyrians and taking their properties and possessions. Assyrians painfully remembered the massacre of 1933 in Simele and the surrounding villages and pledged "Never Again!". They remembered the raping and pillaging of defenseless Assyrian villagers."
In early 1933, the American representative in Iraq, Paul Knabenshue, described public animosity towards the Assyrians as reaching a 'fever' pitch. With Iraq's independence, the new Assyrian spiritual-temporal leader, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII , sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse, was Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920, when he was a youth, until his assassination on 6 November 1975...
, demanded that the Assyrians be given autonomy
Assyrian homeland
Assyrian homeland refers to a geographic and cultural region inhabited traditionally by the Assyrian people; who call it Assyria . It is largely coterminous with the Kurdish homeland, including parts of what is now northeast Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey.The area...
within Iraq, seeking support from Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. He pressed his case before the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
in 1932. His followers planned to resign from the Assyrian levies
Assyrian Levies
The Iraq Levies was the first Iraqi military forces established by the British in British controlled Iraq. The Iraq Levies were a most noteworthy feature of the Kingdom of Iraq, and especially of northern Iraq during the years of the mandate, and no account of the Assyrians or indeed of Iraq itself...
(a levy
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
under the command of the British, serving British interests), and to re-group as a militia and concentrate in the north, creating a de facto Assyrian enclave. In June 1933, the Patriarch was invited to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
for negotiations with Hikmat Sulayman
Hikmat Sulayman
Hikmat Sulayman was prime minister of Iraq from October 30, 1936 to August 12, 1937 at the head of a Party of National Brotherhood government. Sulayman, an ethnic Turkmen, was a key figure in the early days of Iraqi independence and the effort to create a multi-ethnic state. He came to power in...
’s government and was detained there after refusing to relinquish temporal authority. Mar Shimun would eventually be exiled to Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, thus forcing the head of the Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
to be located in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
to this day.
Tkhuma Tribe
Prior to World War I, the Tkhuma were one of five principal Assyrian Tribes subject to the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction of the Assyrian Patriarch with the title Mar Shimun....
and the Tiyari led more than 1,000 Assyrians who had been refused asylum in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
in crossing the border to return to their villages in Northern Iraq, where their wives and children had remained. The French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, who at the time were controlling Syria, had notified the Iraqis that the Assyrians were not armed; but while the Iraqi soldiers were disarming those whose arms had been returned, shots were fired resulting in 30 Iraqi and Assyrian casualties. Anti-Assyrian and Anti-British xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
, apparent throughout the crisis, accelerated. Reports circulated of Assyrian mutilation of Iraqi soldiers (later proven to be false). In Baghdad, the government panicked, fearing disaster as the Assyrians presented a formidable fighting force that could provoke a general uprising in the north. The government unleashed Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
irregulars who killed some 120 inhabitants of two Assyrian villages in the week of August 2 to August 9 (with most of the massacre occurring on August 7). Then on August 11, Kurdish general Bakr Sidqi
Bakr Sidqi
Bakr Sidqi , an Iraqi nationalist and general of Kurdish origin, but not a Kurdish nationalist, was born 1890 in Kirkuk and assassinated on August 12, 1937, at Mosul.-Biography:...
(who had clashed with Assyrians before) led a march to what was then one of the most heavily inhabited Assyrian area in Iraq, the Simele district.
The Assyrian population of the district of Simele was indiscriminately massacred; men women, and children. In one room alone, eighty one Assyrians of Baz tribe were massacred. Religious leaders were prime targets; eight Assyrian priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s were killed during the massacre, including one beheaded and another burned alive. Girls were raped and women violated and made to march naked before the Muslim army commanders. Holy books were used as fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and pierced with bayonets.
Back in the city of Nohadra, 600 Assyrians were killed by Sidqi's men.
In the end, around 65 Assyrian villages were targeted in the Mosul and Dohuk districts.
The Semele or Simele Massacre
Simele massacre
The Simele Massacre was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Iraq during the systematic targeting of Assyrians in northern Iraq in August 1933...
is the term used to describe the systematic targeting of Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
of Northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is used to describe not only the massacre of Simele, but also the killing spree that continued among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 innocent Assyrians.
The Simele Massacre
Simele massacre
The Simele Massacre was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Iraq during the systematic targeting of Assyrians in northern Iraq in August 1933...
of the Assyrian people
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
is often regarded as a phase of the Assyrian genocide
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...
beginning in August 1914 in the early days of what became World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. By 1933, an estimated two-thirds of their population was massacred by Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...
and Kurds.
| List of targeted villages | ||||||||
| Ala Keena | Bameri | Betershy | Dairke | Gond Naze | Kaserezden | Korekavana | Majel Makhte | Sirchuri |
| Aloka | Barcawra | Betafrey | Dair Kishnik | Harkonda | Kerry | Kowashey | Rabibyia | Shekhidra |
| Badalliya | Baroshkey | Bidari | Derjendy | Idleb | Kitba | Lazga | Rekawa | Spendarook |
| Baderden | Basorik | Biswaya | Fishkhabour | Kaberto | Khalata | Mansouriya | Sar Shorey | Tal Zet |
| Bagerey | Bastikey | Carbeli | Garvaly | Karpel | Kharab Koli | Mawani | Sezary | Tel Khish |
| Bakhitmey | Benaringee | Chem Jehaney | Gereban | Karshen | Kharsheniya | Qasr Yazdin | Sidzari | Zeniyat |
Today, most of these villages are inhabited by Kurds. The main campaign lasted until August 16, but violent raids on Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
were being reported up to the end of the month. After the campaign, Badr Sidqi was invited to Baghdad for a victory rally. The campaign resulted in one third of the Assyrian population of Iraq fleeing to Syria.
Immediately after the massacre and the shutting down of the Assyrian uprising, the Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i government demanded a conscription bill. Non-Assyrian Iraqi tribesmen offered to serve in the Iraqi army, to counter the Assyrians. In late August, the government of Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...
demanded that the central government ‘ruthlessly’ stamp out the rebellion, and that it eliminate all foreign influence in Iraqi affairs, and that the government take immediate steps to enact a law for compulsory military service. The next week, 49 Kurdish tribal chieftains joined in a pro-conscription telegram to the government, expressing thanks for punishing the ‘Assyrian insurgents’, stating that a "nation can be proud of itself only through its power, and since evidence of this power is the army," they requested compulsory military service. Rashid Ali presented the bill to the parliament. His government fell before it was legislated and Jamil Midfai’s government enacted conscription in January 1934.
The massacre would eventually lead to 15,000 Assyrians leaving the Nineveh Plains for neighboring French Mandate of Syria
French Mandate of Syria
Officially the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate founded after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire...
, and create 35 new villages on the banks of the Khabur River
Khabur River
The Khabur River , , , ) is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syrian territory. Although the Khabur originates in Turkey, the karstic springs around Ra's al-'Ayn are the river's main source of water. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah, together creating...
.
Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 from the root words genos and -cide...
, who coined the term genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, was directly influenced by the story of this massacre. The Simele massacre inspired Lemkin to create the concept of "Genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
". In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
conference on international criminal law in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based the Simele massacre, the Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
and the Jewish Holocaust.
Assyrian Resistance to German Domination in World War II
The British and Soviet Allies used the Iraq Levies, many of whom were AssyriansAssyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
, to resist German efforts to gain a foothold in the Middle East. The Iraq Levies distinguished themselves in May 1941 during the Anglo-Iraqi War
Anglo-Iraqi War
The Anglo-Iraqi War was the name of the British campaign against the rebel government of Rashid Ali in the Kingdom of Iraq during the Second World War. The war lasted from 2 May to 31 May 1941. The campaign resulted in the re-occupation of Iraq by British armed forces and the return to power of the...
.
In the early days of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani came to power as Prime Minister of Iraq. As one of his first acts, he sent an Iraqi artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
force to confront the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
base situated in Habbaniya
Habbaniyah
Al Habbaniyah or Habbaniya is a city in Al-Anbar Province, in central Iraq.-References:...
, RAF Habbaniya
RAF Habbaniya
Royal Air Force Station Habbaniya, more commonly known as RAF Habbaniya, was a Royal Air Force station at Habbaniyah, about west of Baghdad in modern day Iraq, on the banks of the Euphrates near Lake Habbaniyah...
. By the end of April, the Iraqi armed forces were situated in strong positions on the escarpment above the base and a siege began.
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni ( 1895/1897 - July 4, 1974), was the choice of the Nazis and Italian fascists to make inroads into the Middle East, including Iraq. A veteran of the Ottoman army, from 1921 to 1948 he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.-Ottoman era:...
.
As early as 1920, al-Husayni was active in both opposing the British in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab State and opposing Jewish immigration and the establishment of their National home in Palestine. His oppositional role peaked during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, wanted by the British, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and finally Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
where he met Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in 1941. He asked Germany to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
al-Husayni was still in the Kingdom of Iraq
Kingdom of Iraq
The Kingdom of Iraq was the sovereign state of Iraq during and after the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. The League of Nations mandate started in 1920. The kingdom began in August 1921 with the coronation of Faisal bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi as King Faisal I...
when, on 1 April 1941, pro-German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
Rashid Ali and his pro-German "Golden Square" supporters staged a coup d'etat
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état caused the pro-British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
Abdul Ilah
'Abd al-Ilah
Crown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Hejaz, GCB, GCMG, GCVO was a cousin and brother-in-law of King Ghazi of the Kingdom of Iraq. Abdul Ilah served as Regent for King Faisal II from April 4, 1939 to May 2, 1953, when Faisal came of age...
to flee and the pro-British Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Taha al-Hashimi
Taha al-Hashimi
Taha al-Hashimi served briefly as prime minister of Iraq for two months, from February 1, 1941, to April 1, 1941. He was appointed prime minister by the regent, 'Abd al-Ilah, following the first ouster of the pro-Axis government of Rashid Ali al-Kaylani during World War II...
to resign. From his base in Iraq, al-Husayni issued a fatwa
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
for a holy war against Britain in May. Less than days later, the Rashid Ali government collapsed, Regent Abdul Ilah returned, and British troops occupied the country.
Iraq had been a major supplier of petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
to the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
war effort and represented an important landbridge between British forces in Egypt
Kingdom of Egypt
The Kingdom of Egypt was the first modern Egyptian state, lasting from 1922 to 1953. The Kingdom was created in 1922 when the British government unilaterally ended its protectorate over Egypt, in place since 1914. Sultan Fuad I became the first king of the new state...
and India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. To secure Iraq, Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
ordered General Archibald Wavell to protect the air base at Habbaniya.
During 1940/41 Iraq joined the Axis powers and the Battle of Habbaniya took place. At Habbaniya, the besieging Iraqis demanded the cessation of all training activities and of all flights in and out of the base.
The commander at RAF Habbaniya, Air Vice-Marshal
Air Vice-Marshal
Air vice-marshal is a two-star air-officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in...
Harry George Smart
Harry George Smart
Harry George Smart, CBE, DFC, AFC, is best known as the commander of RAF Habbaniya during the first part of the Anglo-Iraqi War. Smart was a British officer in the British Army, the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the Royal Air Force...
, responded to the Iraqi demands by launching a pre-emptive strike against the Iraqi forces overlooking the air base. During the Rashid Ali
Rashid Ali al-Kaylani
Rashid Aali al-Gaylani served as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Iraq on three occasions. He is chiefly remembered as an Arab nationalist who attempted to remove the British influence from Iraq...
rebellion in 1941 the base was besieged by the Iraqi Army
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Army is the land component of the Iraqi military, active in various forms since being formed by the British during their mandate over the country after World War I....
encamped on the overlooking plateau. The subsequent arrival of a relief column (Kingcol
Kingcol
-Creation and composition:Kingcol was created to allow a portion of Habforce to relieve RAF Habbaniya as soon as possible. The column was named after its commander, Brigadier J.J. Kingstone...
), part of Habforce
Habforce
Habforce was a British Army military unit created during the Anglo-Iraqi War and still active during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign.-Creation and composition:...
sent from Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, then a British mandate, combined with the Habbaniya units to force the rebel forces to retreat to Baghdad. The Levies then recruited an additional 11,000 men, mostly Assyrians but also some Kurd and Yezidi.
The siege was lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF
Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF
The Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF was a military unit of the Britain's Royal Air Force which played a role in the defense of RAF Habbaniya during World War II.- Creation :...
, and the RAF's Iraq Levies. This action initiated the Anglo-Iraqi War
Anglo-Iraqi War
The Anglo-Iraqi War was the name of the British campaign against the rebel government of Rashid Ali in the Kingdom of Iraq during the Second World War. The war lasted from 2 May to 31 May 1941. The campaign resulted in the re-occupation of Iraq by British armed forces and the return to power of the...
. Within a week, the Iraqis abandoned the escarpment. By mid-May, British forces from Habbaniya had moved on to Fallujah
Fallujah
Fallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries....
and, after overcoming Iraqi resistance there, moved on to Baghdad. On 29 May, fearing a British onslaught, Gaylani fled to Persia. As a result, al-Husayni fled to Persia where he was granted legation asylum
Right of asylum
Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...
first by the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
and then by Fascist Italy.
By 1942, the Iraq Levies consisted of a Headquarters, a Depot, Specialist Assyrian companies, 40 service companies and the 1st Parachute Company, which consisted of 75% Assyrian and 25% Kurd. The new Iraq Levies disciplinary code was based largely on the Indian Army Act. The Levies had 22 Assyrian companies, 5 Mixed Assyrian/Yizidi companies, 10 Kurdish companies, 4 Gulf Arab companies and 3 Baluchi
Baloch people
The Baloch or Baluch are an ethnic group that belong to the larger Iranian peoples. Baluch people mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia....
companies. Eleven Assyrian companies served in World War II-era Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and another four served in Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were active in both Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. The Iraq Levies was renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.
In 1945 after the Second World War 1945- the Iraq Levies were reduced to 60 British officers and 1,900 other ranks and the RAF Regiment
RAF Regiment
The Royal Air Force Regiment is a specialist airfield defence corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942. After a 32 week trainee gunner course, its members are trained and equipped to prevent a successful enemy attack in the first instance; minimise the damage caused by a successful attack; and...
took over command of the Levies. In 1946 the Iraq Levies battalions were redesignated as Wings and Squadrons to conform to the RAF Regiment procedure.
Primary sources
- Ismet InönüIsmet InönüMustafa İsmet İnönü was a Turkish Army General, Prime Minister and the second President of Turkey. In 1938, the Republican People's Party gave him the title of "Milli Şef" .-Family and early life:...
, Cable sent from Ismet Inönü, head of the Turkish delegation in Lausanne, to the Turkish government. Cable No. 353, January 15, 1923. See the original Ottoman text in http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20040306a.html.