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MOVSES PANOSSIAN'S TESTIMONY* (Born in 1885, Moussa Dagh) I am the last participant of the heroic battle of Moussa Dagh and I'm here, alive... On the 13th of July, 1915 the Turkish government issued an order, telling: "In seven days all the Armenians must leave." The elders of our seven villages met in Yoghun-oluk and said: "I was born here, I will die here. I will not go as a slave to die with tortures under the enemy's order; I will die here, with a gun in my hand, but I will not become an emigrant." And so we did. We ascended the mountains. Everyone took whatever he had with him: mattresses, quilts, pots, pans, animals, and chickens. We took everything to the mountain. The Turkish soldiers said to us: "You're climbing like asses. Tomorrow you will come down like asses and will leave." The world was as mixed up then, as it is now. Before the battle of Moussa Dagh, our Hnchaks of Khederbek had gone to fight the Turks in Zeytoun with Mr. Aghassi. That was why when our Moussa Dagh battle began, Mr. Aghassi said: "These are the seeds I have sown." Until the battle of the mountain, my father used to go to the training by night, and mother used to say to my grandfather: "Your son goes to the training by night, comes in the morning, takes the plough and goes to the fields. He never stays at home." My grandpa said to his daughter-in-law: "We must always be ready like that." So, well organized, we climbed up the mountain. Our two corporals, Sabintsian and Minas' grandfather (he was a master of silk worms) split us into groups. Our Tataralang was a flat open field. In those days, the Tatars had wanted to reap the Armenians with scythes, but our people had made short work of them. That was why that place was called Tataralang; that is to say, a place to massacre the Tatars. We occupied our positions at the pass of Tataralang. Tshents Poghos was there. He had been a soldier of the Turkish army. The English had shot and wounded him. He could play the bugle. He could transfer the news well and he could understand the meaning of the Turk's trumpets: whether the signal meant something good or bad. That trumpeter Poghos said to us: "Go forward, but the Turkish bullet can kill you. It enters as a small bullet, but the wound is big, be careful." What I had was a hunting rifle, and the bullets were filled from the end of the barrel. It was difficult to use it. I didn't have a regular gun to fight the Turks the way I wanted. There Mardjimag was wounded. I saw it but was afraid and changed my place. The son-in-law of Blagh Agoup remained there. A bullet shot him and he died before my eyes. My brother Davit was 30 years old; he died there. We buried him with military honors. There were many boys from Hadji Habibli as were the fighters from Yoghun-oluk. We shot the Turkish commander and their trumpeter. Seeing that, the Turkish soldiers ran away. After the fight, we went down the mountain and saw their corpses on the ground. The Turks left behind their animals and provisions and ran away. I saw the Turks' sheep eating the cracked wheat. I took the wheat that was left and threw it over my back to carry it to the mountain. We reached Ghezeldjekh and my family was in Savalokh. I walked on and on and reached our people. My mother and sister saw me and rejoiced. They had already recruited my brother Hakob in the Turkish army and had killed all the Armenians on the road while taking them to a valley. So my brother Hakob had already been killed before the battle of the mountain... The Turks attacked us four times, but each time got their answer. Our boys of Moussa Dagh fought well: the women and girls helped us; they brought us water to drink in water jugs. Several women, rifle in hand, fought with us. One of them was Nashalian; she was very brave... The children had become messengers: they carried news from one front to the other... All of them were at work. One day a Turk had come to the mountains to plunder. The women had caught him and killed him with stones. Good for you, women! There was always a white cloud, something like mist, on our mountains. One could say that God had sent it specially to help us, for we could see the enemy from above, but the enemy couldn't see us. The Turks tried to come up, but whoever did so was killed. "Come on, eh Mohammed, come on, eh Mohammed," we used to say and shoot. The Turks could hardly stand this for two hours and then they fled... It often rained in the mountains; the rain-drops pierced our body. Once, when it was raining, we entered under a rock for shelter. Sheikh Panos' son was with us. He had a book and it always was under his arm. We said: "Open your book. Let's see what our future will be." Sheikh Panos' son opened the book and began his prediction: "A ladder will come down from Heaven and we'll be rescued." He said this, but we didn't believe him, because we had been fighting for more than forty days, day and night; we were exhausted. Our food and the ammunition were getting less and less... The Mediterranean Sea was behind us. At night, we lit a fire for the passing ships to see us and come closer. During the day, Reverend Andreassian had drawn a Red Cross on a bed-sheet and displayed it on the mountain slope... A few days passed and finally a ship was seen far out at sea. The Kerekians' son was a good swimmer; he dived into the sea and swam to the ship. There was a small metal box hung from his neck, containing a letter written in French. From the ship, they had been watching with field glasses; they had seen him. They helped him to get on board the ship. Movses had knelt, crossed his face to make them understand that he was a Christian, for he couldn't speak French. He had given the captain the written letter; they had read it, understood that about five thousand Armenian Christians of Moussa Dagh were waiting for God's salvation. The captain had asked where they were, where the enemy was, how long they could withstand: "You resist for 8 more days, let me get permission from my government, either we'll bring you weapons or come and rescue you." They didn't bring us any weapons, but they came with warships and rescued us. As Panos' son had said, they lowered ladders from the ship, and we went up on board the ship. What he had said was always in my mind, and I never lost hope, and we were rescued... When the Turks attacked us again for the last time, the French had already found us. This time Fakhri pasha had come with fifteen thousand Turkish soldiers, but we had already descended to the sea-shore. His arrival gave no advantage to the Turks. The English had a school near the town of Levshié, and the wounded had been transported there. The French ship came to take us on board. Petros Dmlakian and Khacher Doumanian went and spoke to the French. We had asked the French ship to bombard the town of Antioch, but the captain refused, saying: "I can use one thousand bullets for one soldier, but I can't fire even one bullet on a town." At that time, an order came from our commander, Yessayi Yaghoubian to make haste, for the Turks had been surrounding us from three sides. When we were leaving Damladjek, we left everything - beds, pots, pans on the mountain. Those who had animals - chickens, cows, goats, etc., killed them so as not to leave them to the enemy. I had a herd of goats. I couldn't slaughter them, but they shelled them from the ship in order not to leave anything to the enemy... We were already on board the ship. Smoke was rising from the funnel. Petros Dmlakian was signaling on how things would go... The Turks were firing at the ship's masts... Sand was filled in sacks and arranged on each other like a rampart to defend us from the enemy's bullets... The bullets of the Turks came, entered the sand sack; they didn't reach us... The ship moved from the shore into the open sea and cast anchor. The enemy's bullets could not reach us anymore. We showed the captain the places to shell. There was a cannon on the ship; they began shelling the military barracks of Levshié. The shells flew over and exploded there... There were no more sounds from the Turkish side. At that time, if the French had given us arms and let us attack the Turks, we would have razed them to the ground... Women, children - all of them were on board the ship. The ship weighed anchor and moved. After sailing for several hours the French captured a German ship. We moved to the German ship, and it took us to Port-Saïd... We landed on Egyptian soil. The yellow sand of the desert burned our feet. We saw tents; they had erected tents for us, with beds, everything... At that time Poghos Nubar pasha was one of the great men of Egypt. God bless his soul. He helped us very much as well as the Armenian orphans of Der-Zor. There, our children used to write the Armenian alphabet on sand, learned Armenian, until Sisvan School was opened in a tent, and next to it was founded a hospital. English captains came there and started training us - one, two, right, two... And we marched. An English officer said to us: "Leave the French and come to our side." We said: "The French rescued us; we'll be on their side." Mleh came there and found us. Then we were enlisted as volunteers for the French army and laid the foundation of the Armenian Legion. Armenian volunteers came from Kharbert, Sebastia, Arabkir, and Houseynik and everywhere in Cilicia. They joined us; we went to the front at Nablous. We fought and won... The English said to our Armenian leaders: "You're wealthier than our king, that you have such brave valiant soldiers..." Each of us was given money as we had triumphed at the battle of Arara...** In 1919, everybody was given the right to go back to his place, and we went to Moussa Dagh. We saw our houses were burned, destroyed, ruined... We began to build, to erect, to plant vineyards, trees and grow vegetables. Then we built a monument on Moussa Dagh to commemorate the ship that had rescued us. There was a cross on it... We lived comfortably until 1939, when the French and the English forgot the big promises they had given to the Armenians and presented the sandjak of Alexandrette to Turkey. Moreover they handed over Moussa Dagh. Eh, what can we do? Could we live with the Turks? We gathered everything and set off to the Syrian sea coast - Passit Field. That night it rained. What rain! It poured and everything was wet... Our people didn't know where to go; there were no trees for shelter. We started dancing in the rain in order to get warm. We danced the whole night. In the morning, many people were ill, and died soon after. Then they took us to Aynjar; it was also an open field. We began to build our new houses, plant new orchards. We channeled water and, in a few years, we turned it to a paradise. We grew oranges, lemons ... whatever you could think of was grown there... In 1946, news came from Armenia saying that all those who wished could settle in Armenia. Let's increase, unite in order to take back our lands from the Turks. We left everything - houses, orchards - and came to Armenia. In the district of Malatia, there weren't many houses then. My wife Iskouhi, my five sons and two daughters, and I, began building a new, two-storied stone house. I was working at the nearby kolkhoz. My sons were builders. They worked on all the big buildings in Yerevan such as the Matenadaran, TseKa,*** the buildings on the Square, the Sports Palace and many other buildings. When the Sports Palace was burning (and we saw it from our house), my son Smbat wept like a child; after all he had put his skill and energy into it... Now, all of us live around the same courtyard. Each of my sons has his house, his family. I'm happy with my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, thank God! Look, we have a garden as well. My wife is busy there. She sows and waters. I, in my turn, take away the stones from the parcel of land on the street side. See, I've sown greens there: it's a shame to leave the earth unused... I'm already 105 years old. I'm healthy yet. Every year, I wait impatiently for the harrissa day, in September, so that all those from Moussa Dagh and their children come to the new Monument, cook harrissa through the night and distribute it to all those present, so that each one eating it may know that we fought for our liberty**** united as the wheat grains in the harrissa dish. * While telling his testimony, Movses Panossian sometimes spoke in the dialect of Moussa Dagh. ** He means the great victory of the Armenian volunteers near Arara, Palestine. *** He means the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, now turned to the Parliament House of Armenia. **** In the spring of 1990, the last participant of the heroic battle of Moussa Dagh, Movses Panossian, died without seeing the beginning of Armenian Independence. |
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