Today V. 1915

Having climbed Musa Dagh Mountain it seems impossible to me for a civilian army to withhold a regular army for over 40 days. This question has been on my mind since. Tonight I have spoken to Yessayi Havatian who has added all the bits that now make sense. Firstly the Turkish Army did not know that the Armenians were armed with weapons and only sent a few soldiers to “Fix the problem.” The commander of the Turkish said I could send two Soldiers to fix this problem in the beginning. They were fired upon and came back for reinforcements. The Turkish were busy with other issues and conflicts and did not give this issue the resources needed. The second attempt was with and extra 100 soldiers. They too were bogged down and could not make head way. The third attempt included artillery and 5000 soldier from 3 different entry points. This would easily achieve the objective from my knowledge. What I did not know is the mountain side was “like the Amazon jungle” with the canopies of the trees so thick it stopped sunlight reaching the ground. When I showed the photos I took to Yessayi Havatian he commented that the conditions I experienced re the fog is exactly what it was like during the 40 odd days on the Mountain. The other interesting point is the Armenians were not in one spot. They were spread out over the mountain in the areas I had walked thru. The walk is over 1hour between each of the 4 groups of Armenian civilians on the mountain. So with thick Forrest, fog, spread out groups of population, lack of resources and importance applied to the task by the Turkish leaders initially by the Turkish army I can now see how the civilians were successful.
Yessayi Havatian told me a fascinating piece of information. Apparently when the ships initially were told of the Armenians on the Mountain they had to get authorisation from higher authorities to save or assist the Armenians. So the ship gave the civilians a French flag. They were told to raise this flag if things got bad as this would authorise immediate action from the ship and override the governments decision of waiting for approval.