desire to prevent the vacuum left by an eventual French pull-out from Cilicia from being filled by American missionaries, whose enterprises in the regions were already flourishing.69 The Armenian orphans thus found themselves in the thick of a battle for influence being fought out between the great powers.
The Armenian organizations, however, beginning with the AGBU, saw the change in the administration of the Adana orphanage in a very different light. For the Armenians who had lived through the tragedy of the genocide, the nation’s very ... Read all
For all these contradictory reasons, the French authorities opted to maintain the orphanages in which thousands of Armenian children had found refuge, at least for as long as the situation had not radically changed. Indications are that Yesayan, a convinced Francophile, did not clearly perceive the political objectives motivating the French position on the question of the orphanages. Indeed, she was persuaded that it was the Armenian organizations which had blocked transfer of the orphans from Cilicia. In a 1 June 1920 letter to Nubar, she gives vent to her anger, holding the Armenian National Delegation responsible for the turn events had taken: “If, for certain reasons, the Delegation deems it necessary to keep the orphans in Cilicia, which is Turkish territory, I wish to inform Your Excellency that I cannot pursue the mission entrusted to me, since, if I did, I would be unable to maintain relations of even simple courtesy with Turkish officials. It would doubtless be appropriate to replace me with a person who possesses the qualities required to cope with a situation of that sort.”68
Yesayan quit her post in Cilicia in June 1920, her standpoint unchanged. Before she resigned, however, she saw to it that the Adana orphanage, which had been run by the Vorpakhnam, was put under French administrative control. In so doing, she fulfilled the expectations of the French, who were then striving to intensify their activity in the region while simultaneously planning the withdrawal of their army and the officials in charge of the occupation. Their decision was overdetermined by their
The Relocation of the Orphans and the Armenian Exodus
The Adana train station, November 1921: Armenian exodus (Paul du Véou, La Passion de la Cilicie, 1919-1922, Paris, 1954).