Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy

Memoirs of a Soldier about the Days of Tragedy offers a first-hand account of momentous events in the 20th century: the Armenian Genocide, the first major genocide of the 20th century, and decisive World War I battles, such as the Battle of Sarikamish which was a turning point in the Caucasian Campaign. Sergeant Major Bedros Haroian is born in 1894 in Tadem, a remote village in the interior of the Ottoman Empire, which was the Caliphate and operating under Shari'a Law. The Armenians were a despised Christian community within the Caliphate, and within one year, the Sultan Abdul Hamid will order the 1894-1895 Great Massacres that devastate Haroian's family, village, and community. In the long aftermath of the Great Massacres, Haroian finds himself an orphan, and he grows into a young man who is passionate about justice and reprisal. When conscripted in WW I, he eagerly joins to gain the military skills that Armenians had long been denied under the Caliphate and to become part of an Ottoman Army that, once integrated, would be less easily deployed toward massacres of minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Haroian ends up fighting on the front lines, including the brutal Battle of Sarikamish. His observations on Enver Pasha, Minister of War, confirm and enhance insights in the disastrous leadership that led to the military debacle at Sarikamish. The humiliating defeat for the Ottoman Army leads to scapegoating of minority populations once again, and Haroian finds himself regulated to a labor battalion along with other Armenian conscripts. He finds his duties include burying—at gunpoint—the piles of corpses from the Armenian Genocide. Haroian realizes the Armenian soldiers will eventually be slaughtered too, and he escapes. He eventually flees through the Dersim Kurd territory to Russia, and he ends fighting with the Armenian Legionnaires in the French Foreign Legion to protect the remnant Armenian community in southern Turkey. That service ends as cruelly as all others.