Magazine Fall 2009 Napoleon’s Armenian “Ring”
Napoleon’s Armenian “Ring”
Napoleon Bonaparte’s ascent to power was so swift that the European public saw in the Corsican, and quite justifiably, a new “Caesar,” but on a much bigger scale. A different mood was felt in the East. As soon as the thirty year old General stepped onto Egyptian soil, the nations oppressed by the Ottoman Empire took heart. Inspired by the hope of shedding the loathed yoke of oppression, they started preparations for war against the Sultan. Armenians were among the first who came to the French camp.
Genius of war
After the victorious battle at the Pyramids of Giza outside the city of Cairo, Napoleon moved his troops to Syria and soon surrounded the troops of Djezzar-Pasha, the Sultan’s General-Governor, at St. Jean d’Arc. To help the Turks, the English rushed into the fray by sea and Abdallah’s army pursued Napoleon’s troops over land. Promising freedom in skillfully crafted and vigorous appeals, Bonaparte won over numerous groups of Berbers, Druses and Arab Christians, known as Maronites. The grateful tribal unions delivered food and other supplies to his camp and provided the Blue – as the French called themselves because of the color of their uniform – with valuable information. Even cautious Israelites be-lieved in him, seeing in the short warrior a long-awaited liberator. Once, after the bloody battle at Mount Tabor, an Armenian deputation with members from various parts of the East was ushered into the decorated general’s tent. Eager to win their support, Napoleon offered them wide autonomy in the state that was about to appear on the world’s map after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians began preparing to fight for the “key to the gates of the East” – Damascus – and other battles. Unfortunately, an outbreak of the bubonic plague disrupted Bonaparte’s plans forcing his return to Egypt.
Once, by a twist of fate, he met a giant deserter from the besieged camp, Mameluk Roustam Hunanian, who would soon ride a camel to Cairo with a secret mission from the Blue’s leader to the sheiks and ulems.
Elite squadron
In Cairo at the time, the Armenian and Coptic communities wielded immense influence. The Armenians conducted wholesale trade around the world and therefore had nuanced knowledge of tax policies in various countries. They helped Bonaparte in every way possible and, naturally, expected reciprocal preference from him. These interactions established a wide intelligence network encompassing almost the entire Near East. Quite a few Armenians became secret agents for Bonaparte who nurtured political plans for the distant future.
One especially ambitious project required him to leave Egypt and the day finally came when the Corsican “Caesar” crossed his Rubicon. “Fortune is also a woman and the more she does for me the more I should demand from her. So far no one in our time has come up with a truly great project. Let’s set an example,” he declared. By the beginning of 1800 Bonaparte held the post of the First Council of the Republic and held vast power in his hands. Although France was ruled formally by the Triumvirate from Paris, few doubted that the formal power structure was merely a tribute to political correctness.
The very first task of the newly minted ruler, who exchanged his military uniform for civilian clothes, was to create an army loyal to him personally; the one he called the Great Army, Grande Armee de la Republique. Back in Egypt, Bonaparte announced the recruitment into the Mameluk forces of a new type of warriors from Armenian, Greek, Arab, Berber and Nubian communities who willingly enlisted.
In 1802, these troops arrived in Marseilles. In a few years, under the command of French officers Rapp and Demetrius, they were re-formed and incorporated into the elite squadron that joined the ranks of Napoleon’s Old Guard. Anania, Big Azaria, Small Azaria, Petros, Hakop, Shaken, Baghdasar are some of the Mameluk names in the Armenian Fist Squadron – as the soldiers called the unit among themselves. Out of sheer laziness French military clerks often failed to check the spelling of the Eastern names and entered them into army records with many distortions. As a result Hakop became Jacob, Hussein turned into Housan, etc.
No major battle of the Napoleonic era occurred without the Emperor throwing his brave Armenians into the very midst of Hell. For numerous valiant feats of arms, Napoleon treated them very kindly by bestowing decorations, pensions, fine uniforms and comfortable barracks in Melun, 60 km west of Paris. The only problem was that the breaks for the elite cavalry were too short and too rare – they fought almost constantly. In fact, except for Roustam, no one else from the Armenian Mameluks ever started a family.
One time, in the severe Spanish winter of 1808, Napoleon trusted these daredevils with covering his artful maneuver to make it appear like a retreat to an outsider. The Armenian soldiers formed a ring around Napoleon and marched through a snowstorm. Trying to keep their spirits up, they merrily recounted the hot fights of Egypt – glorious times of their too brief youth. Shaken was killed in that Spanish campaign and other warriors fell beside him, but the backbone of the Armenian Mameluks followed the Emperor until the final battle at Waterloo.
Napoleon knew that, with the “Fist” of these fearless cavalrymen, he could knock out a force of double or even triple its size. At Austerlitz they showed their heroism by essentially changing the course of the battle. Under their attack, the crack troops of the Russian General, Prince Repnin, first wavered and then fled, allowing their General to be captured. Even before the battle was over, the enraptured Napoleon ordered the famous painter Gerard, who accompanied him, to depict the Mameluks on a battle piece. The Commander in Chief also decorated the wounded squadron leader, Shaken, with the Order of the Legion of Honor.
Many high-ranking commanders had chosen Mameluks as bodyguards. Soon after Roustam’s example, Petros became a personal Mameluk guard to Napoleon’s stepson, Eugene Beaharnais, while Baghdasar started serving for the Old Guard Marshal Bessierres. Giant Baghdasar fell heroically in the Wagram battle and, as he used to be everyone’s favorite, was mourned by the entire Old Guard.
The Mameluks’ squadron participated in Napoleon’s tragic Russian campaign of 1812, known in France as the Second Polish campaign. In the Russian capital they were destined to recall their Armenian roots. Since they waited in Moscow for forty days at Napoleon’s will, Roustam suggested that the Armenian Mameluks visit their fellow countrymen in the Armenian alley close to the Kremlin. The French command favorably regarded Lazarian-Lazarevs’ request to allow Armenian soldiers to attend mass in Surb Khach – one of the few city churches that survived the devastating fire. Thousands of Moscow Armenians gave their support and attention to the soldiers. The Mameluks gratefully remembered this until the end of their lives. In the last years of the Empire, Napoleon sent the squadron to fight in Spain.
In 1814, after Napoleon’s abdication and the restoration of the Bourbons, the Royalists, seeking revenge, slaughtered many Mameluks in Marseilles. Among those killed were many Armenians but some of the survivors managed to return to Egypt. One Mameluk, Hovanes, participated in the Russian-Persian war in 1826 in his native land of Karabakh and even asked Nikolay I to petition the French King Lois XVIII to return his Order of the Legion of Honor.
