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Following the devastation resulting from what has come to be known as the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915, the survivors of the massacres were dispersed across the Middle East, North America and Western Europe. Not content with watching World War I silently from the sidelines, a large number of Armenian volunteers joined the French Foreign Legion. They were trained in Cyprus and fought extensively in Palestine and Cilicia alongside General Allenby, eventually playing a crucial role in defeating German and Ottoman forces in Palestine at the Battle of Arara in September 1918.

The Armenian Legionnaires signed up on the understanding that they would be fighting in Syria and Turkey, and, should the Allies be successful, they would be part of an occupying army in their old homelands, laying the foundation for an independent Armenia.

Susan Pattie describes the motivations and dreams of the Armenian Legionnaires and their ultimate betrayal as the French and the British shifted their priorities, leaving their ancestral homelands to the emerging Republic of Turkey. Complete with eyewitness accounts, letters and photographs, this book provides an insight into relations between the Great Powers through the lens of a small, powerless people caught in a war that was not their own, but which had already destroyed their known world.

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Susan Pattieis an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London and former Director of the Armenian Institute in London. In recent years she served as Director of the Armenian Museum of America and was Program Manager of the National Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemorations in Washington, DC. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from University College London.

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