3140) The Tricolor Over The Taurus: Excerpts

“The Tricolor Over The Taurus” Robert F. Zeidner, (ISBN 975 16 1767 7)

This book elaborates the French occupation of Cilicia, vicinity, and the incidents during the period 1918-1922 (P.5) Aside from such mundane matters as the availability of sources, the Cilician conflict reflected adversely on the glory and prestige of la France victorieuse by marking the first major French defeat in a colonial war since 1763. Moreover, as French overtures for peace with Turkey in 1920 moved toward a definitive pact during the following year, a significant number of French writers and political thinkers began to exhibit increasing discomfort with the prospects of abandoning the Armenians of Cilicia to Turkish rule in apparent violation of various assurances offered them since 1915. Then, in the course of the long flood of ‘Bancroftian’ historiography that followed the World War in France, there was little room for self-flagellation over so small an incident, small in comparison to French experience on the German front, as the Cilician conflict. Hence, it appears to have been swept under the rug .. .

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