In the summer of 1915, as Ottoman authorities carried out the deportation and extermination of Armenians across the empire, the Armenians of six villages beneath Musa Dagh chose not to submit. Most left their homes and climbed the mountain, taking food, animals, bedding, cooking utensils, weapons and whatever supplies they could carry.
Several hundred armed defenders organized the approaches to the mountain while thousands of civilians remained behind them. What followed became one of the best-known examples of Armenian self-defense during the Armenian Genocide: a community under siege that held long enough for French warships in the Mediterranean to see its signals and evacuate more than 4,000 people.
Musa Dagh survivors with the Red Cross signal flag at Port Said, Egypt, after the September 1915 evacuation. Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection. The image was also published by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute and in “The Times. History and Encyclopedia of the War” on 25 July 1916.
THE ARMENIAN VILLAGES OF MUSA DAGH
Musa Dagh, or Musa Ler, rises above the Mediterranean coast near Antioch in the historic district of Svedia (Suedia). Before the Armenian Genocide, six principal Armenian villages surrounded the mountain. They formed an established Armenian rural world of homes, churches, schools, orchards, fields and local institutions.
The villages were not temporary settlements created by war. They were the homeland of communities whose geography, family networks and local identities remained central to Musa Dagh memory long after 1915.
Historical setting
By the summer of 1915, the Armenian Genocide was already underway. Deportations and mass killings had spread across the Ottoman Empire, and news from neighboring districts, including Kessab, which received a deportation order on 26 July, had reached Svedia. For many Armenians of Musa Dagh, an order to leave was therefore understood not as an ordinary population transfer, but as a direct threat to their survival.
MUSA DAGH IN 1915
A mountain, six villages and the sea
The geography explains much of what followed. The villages lay around the mountain rather than behind a conventional fortified line. When most of the population moved upward, civilians and defenders had to turn the mountain itself into a protected refuge. Defensive positions were organized at the approaches, while the coast below remained both a danger and a possible line of contact with Allied naval forces.
Map of Musa Dagh and the six Armenian villages during the 1915 self-defense. Based on a historical map published by Armenica.org and preserved on Wikimedia Commons.
THE DECISION TO RESIST
On 29 July 1915, representatives of the six Armenian villages met in Yoghunoluk, reportedly in the home of Fr. Abraham Ter Galustian, also known as Der Kaloustian, and decided not to obey the expected deportation order. The following day, 30 July, Ottoman authorities formally ordered the Armenian population of the district to leave.
Not every resident made the same choice. A minority obeyed the deportation order and left, and many of those who did were later killed. Most refused to go. Detailed estimates place the number who climbed Musa Dagh at about 4,200 to 4,300 people, from a total population of roughly 6,000 to 6,800 across the six villages. Popular accounts often round the figure to about 5,000. Most of those who reached the mountain were civilians, including large numbers of women, children and elderly residents.
This was not a military retreat to a prepared fortress. It was an entire community leaving its homes and moving ordinary life onto the mountain. Families carried food, livestock, bedding, cooking utensils, tools and whatever weapons they had. The defenders therefore faced two tasks at once: holding back Ottoman forces and protecting thousands of civilians who could not simply scatter or escape.
Around 600 defenders
A fighting force of roughly 600 men was organized. Yesayi Yaghubian, also rendered as Yagupian, was among the principal military organizers. Other leaders named in the sources include Petros Tmlakian, also known as Pierre Dimlakian, Rev. Dikran Andreassian, Petros Tutaglian and Movses Ter-Kalustian.
Musa Dagh Armenians, 1915. Posed group photograph of men associated with the defense. Photographs of this type were generally taken after the rescue, often at Port Said, rather than during the siege on the mountain. Collection used by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
Weapons and ammunition were limited. The defenders had hunting guns and a smaller number of military rifles, so ammunition had to be used carefully. Defensive positions were established along the main approaches to the mountain, commonly described as four sectors: Kizilja, Kuzjeghaz, Damlajik and Kaplan Duzaghi. Discipline was essential because the defenders could not afford to waste either ammunition or manpower.
Civilian organization was just as important. Food had to be rationed, the wounded treated, shelters maintained and thousands of residents kept together under siege. For several weeks, Musa Dagh functioned both as a defensive position and as a refuge for an entire displaced Armenian community.
THE OTTOMAN ASSAULTS
The first major Ottoman attacks came in August. Sources from the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute and later Armenian military accounts describe assaults on 7, 10 and 19 August by regular Ottoman forces that greatly outnumbered the Armenian defenders. The first clash was relatively limited, while the later attacks were larger. The assault of 19 August was also supported by artillery.
Estimates of Ottoman troop strength vary between sources. What is clear is that the defenders used the difficult terrain, prepared positions and their knowledge of the mountain to withstand repeated assaults.
Ottoman forces failed to break the Armenian positions. But surviving the attacks did not end the danger. As the siege continued, shortages of food and ammunition became increasingly serious.
A military struggle becomes a fight for survival
The Armenians could repel an Ottoman assault and still be defeated by hunger or a lack of ammunition. Thousands of civilians remained trapped on the mountain above the coast. The defenders were therefore fighting against two pressures at once: the next Ottoman attack and the steady exhaustion of their supplies. The resistance depended on holding out long enough for help to come from outside the mountain. The Armenians had no radio, no secure road and no reliable way to contact Allied forces.
Armenian fighters associated with the Musa Dagh resistance, 1915. The photograph appears to have been taken during the rescue or shortly afterward rather than during combat on the mountain. Collection used by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
Signals toward the Mediterranean
From Musa Dagh, the Mediterranean was visible below, and Allied warships were operating in the eastern Mediterranean. The Armenians placed large signals facing the sea in the hope that a passing ship would see them. One displayed a red cross. Another carried an appeal for help, with sources recording versions such as “Christians in distress” and “Christians are in danger, save them.” Fires were lit around the signals to make them more visible from the sea.
THE FRENCH FLEET SEES THE SIGNALS
On 5 September 1915, the French cruiser Guichen, commanded by Captain Jean-Joseph Brisson, appeared off the coast and spotted the signals from Musa Dagh. A boat was sent toward shore to investigate. Petros Tmlakian, also known as Pierre Dimlakian, one of the Armenian resistance leaders, reached the French sailors and explained the situation on the mountain.
The contact changed everything. For weeks, the Armenians had been fighting in isolation. Now the French Navy knew that thousands of civilians were trapped on Musa Dagh and running out of time.
From Brisson to du Fournet
Brisson reported the situation to the French naval command. The information reached Vice Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet, commander of French naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean. He later described the episode in his memoirs, Souvenirs de guerre d’un amiral, 1914–1916, published in Paris in 1920.
Du Fournet recognized that the evacuation could not be delayed. Ships had to be assembled, thousands of civilians moved from the mountain to the shore, small boats organized to carry them to the larger vessels, and a safe destination secured.
French authorities considered several possible destinations, including Cyprus. Arrangements were ultimately made to evacuate the Armenians of Musa Dagh to Port Said in British-controlled Egypt.
“I realized that these people had to be evacuated. Time was running out.”
Paraphrased from Louis Dartige du Fournet, Souvenirs de guerre d’un amiral. In the original French, du Fournet writes that the malheureux had to be evacuated and that le temps presse. The English wording above is a translation of the meaning, not a verbatim quotation.
THE EVACUATION
The evacuation became the decisive moment of the Musa Dagh resistance. After contact was established with the French fleet on 5 September, additional warships arrived off the coast. The main evacuation took place between 12 and 14 September 1915 from the beach at Ras el-Mina.
Women, children and elderly residents were evacuated first, followed by the defenders. Thousands of civilians made their way down from the mountain to the shore, where small boats carried them through the surf to the warships waiting offshore.
French naval accounts name the Guichen, Amiral Charner, Desaix, Foudre and D’Estrées among the vessels involved in the operation. Some later accounts also mention the participation of a British cruiser in transporting the evacuees.
Armenian civilians during the French naval evacuation from Musa Dagh, September 1915. Photograph by a French naval officer; copies are held by AGMI and in the “Desaix” album.
Historical sources give slightly different figures for the number of Armenians evacuated from Musa Dagh. AGMI and related publications cite totals of 4,058, 4,080 and 4,092, while some contemporary accounts round the number to about 4,200. The safest formulation is that more than 4,000 Armenians were rescued.
The difference between the number who climbed the mountain and the number who boarded the ships reflects combat deaths, as well as residents who never reached Musa Dagh or had already been deported.
What is not disputed is the outcome. The Armenians who refused deportation survived because they resisted, held Musa Dagh and endured long enough for the French Navy to reach them.
PORT SAID: SURVIVAL IN EXILE
The rescued Armenians were taken to Port Said in Egypt, where a refugee camp was established. The evacuation had saved them from immediate danger, but it did not mean a return home. The survivors remained in Egypt until the end of the First World War.
At Port Said, the community rebuilt life in exile. Families lived in the camp, communal structures were restored, and the rescue banners became symbols of survival. The red cross signal that had helped attract French attention was later photographed with survivors in the camp, in the image that opens this article.
Children and families
AGMI records show that many children were among those rescued. The evacuation of Musa Dagh became one of the best-known large-scale rescues of Armenian civilians during the Genocide. Some children born during or soon after the evacuation were given names linked to freedom or to the French ships involved in the rescue, including Guichen.
From refugees to the Armenian Legion
Hundreds of young men from the Musa Dagh refugee community later joined the French Armenian Legion, the Légion d’Orient. Their service connected the community’s survival in 1915 with the broader Armenian military history of the final years of the war.
Port Said was therefore more than a temporary refuge. It became the place where a displaced community reorganized itself while waiting to see whether a return to Musa Dagh would ever be possible.
RETURN TO MUSA DAGH
After the First World War, the survivors returned to Musa Dagh. They found villages that had been damaged and looted, but they rebuilt their homes and restored Armenian life beneath the mountain.
For roughly two decades, the six communities lived again under French administration in the Sanjak of Alexandretta. This period is important because exile did not become permanent in 1915. The people of Musa Dagh returned, rebuilt their homes and churches, resumed agriculture and restored communal life.
A homeland rebuilt, then threatened again
The political status of the region changed in the late 1930s. In 1938, the Sanjak became the State of Hatay. In 1939, France agreed to its incorporation into Turkey.
For a community that had survived the Ottoman deportation order, resisted on Musa Dagh and spent years in exile before returning home, the transfer raised the prospect of once again living under Turkish rule. Most of the Armenian population chose to leave before the formal annexation on 23 July 1939.
1939: A SECOND DISPLACEMENT
The departure of 1939 uprooted the Musa Dagh Armenians for a second time within a generation. Nearly the entire Armenian population left the six villages. Only a small Armenian community remained in Vakef, today Vakıflı, which is still known as Turkey’s last Armenian village.
This second displacement is essential to understanding the history of Musa Dagh. The story did not end with the French rescue in 1915. The survivors spent years in exile in Egypt, returned to their homeland, rebuilt their communities and then, little more than two decades later, were forced to leave once again.
From Musa Dagh to Anjar
Many Musa Dagh Armenians resettled in Lebanon. In 1939 and 1940, thousands from the community were moved first to Ras al-Basit and later to Anjar in the Bekaa Valley. Early registries recorded about 1,060 families, or slightly more than 4,500 people.
Anjar was divided into six neighborhoods corresponding to the six villages of Musa Dagh: Kabusiye, Vakef, Kheder Beg, Yoghunoluk, Haji Habibli and Bitias. The names and internal geography of the lost homeland were deliberately preserved in the new settlement.
This continuity became one of the defining features of the Musa Dagh community. Although uprooted from their homeland, the survivors preserved their village identities, traditions, family networks and collective memory in Lebanon.
MUSA DAGH IN ARMENIAN AND INTERNATIONAL MEMORY
The resistance became one of the best-known examples of Armenian self-defense during the Armenian Genocide. Its significance lies not only in the battles fought on the mountain, but in the fact that organized resistance directly saved the lives of thousands of civilians.
Franz Werfel and The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
Austrian Jewish writer Franz Werfel brought the story of Musa Dagh to an international audience with his 1933 novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. The book helped transform Musa Dagh into an international symbol of resistance against extermination.
The title popularized the expression “the forty days of Musa Dagh,” but it should not be treated as a precise historical chronology. Werfel chose the number forty partly for its biblical symbolism. Historical accounts calculate the duration of the resistance differently, with AGMI and many reference works describing it as lasting 53 days.
The exact count depends on which event is taken as the beginning: the meeting of 29 July, the deportation order of 30 July, the community’s movement onto the mountain, or the first armed clashes in August. The resistance ended with the evacuation in mid-September.
During the Holocaust, Werfel’s novel circulated among Jewish readers in ghettos and became associated with resistance to destruction. Musa Dagh thus became a symbol whose meaning extended far beyond Armenian memory.
Memory in Armenia and the Diaspora
Musa Dagh is commemorated in Armenia, Lebanon and across the Armenian Diaspora. Descendants of the survivors have preserved village identities, community organizations, traditions and the memory of the 1915 resistance and rescue. The history of Musa Dagh therefore extends far beyond the mountain itself, from the six Armenian villages to Port Said, Anjar, Armenia, France and other diaspora communities.
11. Louis Dartige du Fournet remembered at Tsitsernakaberd
On 26 May 2025, a commemorative plaque dedicated to Vice Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet was unveiled at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan, marking the 110th anniversary of the Musa Dagh resistance.
During the ceremony, soil brought from du Fournet’s grave was placed in the Memorial Wall. Members of his family attended alongside Armenian and French representatives, including Foreign Ministers Ararat Mirzoyan and Jean-Noël Barrot.
Commemorative plaque dedicated to Louis Dartige du Fournet at Tsitsernakaberd, 2025. Photograph: Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.
The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute has described du Fournet’s role in the rescue as decisive. In 1915, as commander of the French naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, he supported the evacuation of the Musa Dagh Armenians and ordered French warships to assist in the operation. More than 4,000 Armenians were ultimately rescued and taken to Port Said.
A French-Armenian chapter remembered 110 years later
The 2025 commemoration gave the rescue a formal place within the Memorial Wall at Tsitsernakaberd. It also recognized the French sailors who carried out the evacuation as part of the broader memory of the Armenian Genocide, alongside the Armenians whose decision to resist deportation made the rescue possible.
12. A history of resistance, survival and return
The Armenian Genocide is a history of mass murder, deportation, dispossession and the destruction of Armenian communities across the Ottoman Empire. It is also a history of resistance.
Musa Dagh remains one of its clearest examples. When the deportation order reached the Armenian villages of Svedia in July 1915, most of the population refused to leave. About 4,200 to 4,300 Armenians climbed Musa Dagh. Several hundred armed defenders secured the approaches to the mountain while thousands of civilians remained behind them.
Ottoman forces attacked repeatedly, but the Armenians held their positions. As food and ammunition began to run out, they raised signals toward the Mediterranean and waited for a passing ship to see them.
The French Navy did.
More than 4,000 Armenians were rescued. The survivors spent years in exile, returned to Musa Dagh after the First World War, rebuilt their six villages and were uprooted again in 1939. In Anjar, Armenia and across the Diaspora, the community rebuilt once more.
More than a century later, Musa Dagh remains one of the defining examples of Armenian self-defense during the Armenian Genocide. Its significance lies not only in the fact that Armenians resisted, but in what that resistance achieved: it saved thousands of Armenian lives.
Selected sources
• Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI): materials on the Musa Dagh resistance, the Louis Dartige du Fournet dossier, the “100 Photographic Stories” project, including the Port Said banner photograph, and the 26 May 2025 commemoration at Tsitsernakaberd.
• Louis Dartige du Fournet, Souvenirs de guerre d’un amiral, 1914–1916 (Paris, 1920): memoir account of the decision to evacuate the Armenians of Musa Dagh. The boxed quotation used in this edition is a paraphrase rather than a verbatim English translation.
• French naval correspondence from September 1915, including reports by Jean-Joseph Brisson, Louis Dartige du Fournet and the 3rd Squadron: records of the 5 September contact by Guichen and the mid-September evacuation.
• Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, call number LC-B2-4646-6, digital ID ggbain.27204: photograph of Musa Dagh survivors with the Red Cross signal banner, believed to have been taken at Port Said.
• The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (Bryce and Toynbee, 1916): early published accounts and figures relating to the Musa Dagh survivors, refugee camp and approximately 600 armed defenders.
• Armenica.org and Wikimedia Commons: historical map, Musa Dagh, Scene of the Famed Armenian Self-Defense, August–September 1915.
• Vahram L. Shemmassian and Hetq reporting: sources on the six villages, the postwar return, 1939 property surveys and the resettlement of Musa Dagh Armenians in Anjar.
• 1914-1918-Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War: background on the Musa Dagh resistance, French evacuation, Port Said and the later international memory of the events.
• Franz Werfel, Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh (1933): the literary source that popularized the phrase “the forty days of Musa Dagh,” rather than a precise military chronology.
