3275) Bayonets on Musa Dagh Ottoman Counterinsurgency Operations - 1915 by Edward J. Erickson

Edward J. Erickson
Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army (retired)

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Ottoman military’s escalatory response to violence and frames the Armenian insurrection of 1915 in the historical context of contemporary early twentieth-century counterinsurgency campaigns. A case study is presented, from a military historian’s perspective, of counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Ottoman Army’s 41st Infantry Division against Armenian insurgents on Musa Dag (Musa Dagh) in an operational area south of Iskenderun (Alexandretta). In this particular operational area, it appears that the modern label which most closely approximates what happened there is ethnic cleansing. Finally, the article concludes with an objective assessment of the effectiveness of the Ottoman Army’s counterinsurgency operations.

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Kindly provided by Dr. Edward J. Erickson

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