However, the massacres and deportations of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, which began in April 1915, confronted the AGBU with new emergencies. At the Catholicos’s request, Nubar traveled to Europe on 2 May to take the reins of the Armenian National Delegation. He worked together with Yervant Aghaton (the AGBU’s vice-president), Bishop Kevork Utujian (from Manchester, Great Britain), and H. Mostichian (also from Britain).109 The task now was to plead Armenia’s case before the great powers of the Entente. The June 1915 issue of Miutyun included an essay by Mikayel Gurjian entitled “Silence Please, Gentlemen: People are Dying Over There”; this was one of the first echoes of the Young Turks’ treatment of the Armenians to reach Egypt. But the AGBU inaugurated its relief program for the Armenian deportees only in September of the same year, when it took charge of the 4,270 refugees from Musa Dagh whom French ships had put ashore in Port Said. In particular, it assumed responsibility for the education of more than one thousand boys and girls, opening the Sisvan School in Port Said in October 1915. As Nubar was absent, the Union’s affairs were managed by its vice-president, Yacoub Artin Pasha. In January 1916, a Union board was created in Tiflis by genocide survivors who had fled Turkey, notably Hambardzum Arakelian and a former principle of the teacher-training institute in ... Read all
The Outbreak of the First World War
Schoolchildren at the AGBU's primary school in Feke in 1912 (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
The Port Said tent camp for refugees from Musa Dagh (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/ Paris).
WWI, Armenian Genocide and AGBU - An Armenian Destiny (Video)
WWI, Armenian Genocide and AGBU- Armenian Destiny (video)