Rafael de Nogales Mendes

[Joseph]

AZG Armenian Daily #072, 19/04/2007

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RAFAEL DE NOGALES MENDES AND WE

Moscow publishing-house ‘Russki vestnik’ has recently published a new book concerning our biggest national tragedy -The Armenian Genocide. The book called ‘Four years under the crescent’ is written by a Venezuelan writer, service man and political figure Rafael de Nogales Mendes. This book is one of the first worldwide echoes of the Armenian Genocide, which has had a hard and peculiar destiny.

Rafael de Nogales Mendes was born in 1879, in San Christobal, Tachira state, Venezuela. He got higher education in Europe – studying at High Military Colleges of Germany, Belgium and Spain. He was fluent not only in Arabic and Chinese, but also in Spanish, English, French and German. He took part in many military actions and had a stormy life full of events: in 1898 he struggled with Spanish against USA in Cuba, in 1902 he took part in the next Latin-American revolution in Venezuela, in 1904 he appeared in China and took part in Chinese-Japanese war, in 1908 he returned to his motherland but because of the new dictator Chuan Vicente Gomes he had to leave for Europe. Soon he became an officer of the Turkish expeditionary forces in Iran, and after this took part in the evacuation and genocide of the Armenian people of West Armenia as an officer of the Ottoman Empery military forces. So he became one of the eyewitnesses of the First Genocide in the world.

He is a bearer of the Iron Cross Order, which he received at the hands of Wilhelm 2nd for the services in the World War I.

Then he took part in the revolution of Nicaragua. After that he was a military leader of the Palestinian right-bank region. After the war he appeared in Alaska as a gold searcher and soon he became a cowboy in Arizona.

Rafael de Nogales took part also in the Mexican revolution being with Madero side-by-side after the revolution.

He wrote several books about his stormy and rough life – ‘Memories of General Rafael de Nogales’, ‘The plundering of Nicaragua’, ‘Four years under the crescent’, etc.

The book ‘Four years under the crescent’ (‘Cuatro anos bajo la Media luna’) is very important and significant for Armenian people as it is about the Armenian Genocide. The acknowledgement of his guilt and the pangs of conscience made him to speak and tell the world about the first genocide and the most nasty and horrible tragedy in the world.

The book was published in 1920, in Venezuela. The writer was pursued and even an attempt was made upon him, and all the print run of the book was bought and destroyed. The second edition published in the Caracas City by the ‘Casa de Especialidades’ publishing-house had the same fate. At that time Nogales lived in Panama. He died in 1936 from tuberculosis.

Even today its very difficult and even impossible to find this book in the libraries of the world. Only an example of this edition was preserved by an eyewitness of the Armenian Genocide, our compatriot Mihran Kehyan, who had been evacuated from the West Armenia and settled in Venezuela. The mentioned example has been placed at the disposal of the publishing-house in Moscow.

The book has a nice preface. The parts about Armenia and Armenians have detailed footnotes. The book has also a wonderful design and two maps – one is the map of the historical Armenia and the second one is the map of the regions where the genocide has been committed. There are also several photographs in the book that have historical and documentary value. The print run of the book is ten thousand.

Our people must know about Rafael de Nogales and his life. This book is translated and published into English and French languages. It would be great if the book was translated into Armenian and presented to the Armenian reader.

By Yuri Khachatrian

[1.5 million]

I've had this book (in English) for many years now. It provides some quite telling accounts of (so-called) Armenian uprisings (not) and of treatment and attitudes of various Turkish officials and functionaries and military officers/soldiers towards Armenians.

[bell-the-cat]

The book was published in 1920, in Venezuela. The writer was pursued and even an attempt was made upon him, and all the print run of the book was bought and destroyed. The second edition published in the Caracas City by the ‘Casa de Especialidades’ publishing-house had the same fate. At that time Nogales lived in Panama. He died in 1936 from tuberculosis.

Even today its very difficult and even impossible to find this book in the libraries of the world. Only an example of this edition was preserved by an eyewitness of the Armenian Genocide, our compatriot Mihran Kehyan, who had been evacuated from the West Armenia and settled in Venezuela. The mentioned example has been placed at the disposal of the publishing-house in Moscow.

Come on! The book is relatively easy to find and is not particularly rare.

As for the "The writer was pursued and even an attempt was made upon him, and all the print run of the book was bought and destroyed" stuff - it's hard to know what is true - Nogales was a self-publicist. But if he did, in reality, fear for his safety it is not from Turks (which the article sort of implies ) but from Armenians, and from the American justice ststem which, for a time, sought to bring him to trial for his alleged involvement in the death of American citizens in Van, and the destruction of American property there.

[Joseph]

Come on! The book is relatively easy to find and is not particularly rare.

As for the "The writer was pursued and even an attempt was made upon him, and all the print run of the book was bought and destroyed" stuff - it's hard to know what is true - Nogales was a self-publicist. But if he did, in reality, fear for his safety it is not from Turks (which the article sort of implies ) but from Armenians, and from the American justice ststem which, for a time, sought to bring him to trial for his alleged involvement in the death of American citizens in Van, and the destruction of American property there.

Interesting. Thanks for the info Bell. He was most certainly a scoundrel mercenary and probably did partake in the genocide. I remember reading somewhere last year that the Turkish Historical Society/ Halacaoglu? was releasing an abridged version of Nogales book sans parts regarding massacres of Armenians.

[bell-the-cat]

He was most certainly a scoundrel mercenary and probably did partake in the genocide.

He wrote several other books which also contain his version of events in Turkey.
They contain additional information which he presumably did not want to put in the original book. For example - he had with him as his cook a Jew from New York! He says in one book that he never got any pay from the Turks! So how did he support himself for 4 years? Again we get some hints - he says that his cook went off one day to do some looting of Armenian property in (I think) Hoshap near Van, a couple of days after all the Armenians there had been massacred. He returned with a donkey laden full of expensive Persian carpets. The same person, writes Nogales, was interested in finding the insurance policies of murdered Armenians in Siirt. We can probably assume Nogales did exactly the same things.