Musa Dagh

Musa Dagh is a mountain in the Hatay province of Turkey. In 1915 it was the location of a successful Armenian resistance to the Armenian Genocide, an event that inspired Franz Werfel to write the novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.

The deportation orders of the Armenian population of modern-day Turkey, issued by the Ottoman government, in July 1915 reached the six Armenian villages of the Musa Dagh region: Kabusia , Yoghunoluk, Bitias, Vakef, Kheter Bey and Haji Habibli. As Ottoman Turkish forces converged upon the town, the populace, aware of the impending danger, refused deportation and fell back upon Musa mountain, thwarting assaults for fifty-three days, from July to September 1915. One of the leaders of the revolt was Movses Der Kalousdian, whose Armenian first name was the same as that of the mountain. Allied warships, most notably the French 3rd Squadron in the Mediterranean under command of Louis Dartige du Fournet, sighted the survivors just as ammunition and food provisions were running out. Five French ships, beginning with the Guichen, evacuated 3004 women and children and over 1000 men from Musa Dagh to safety in Port Said. The other French ships were the French seaplane carrier Foudre, the cruiser D'Estrées, the cruiser Amiral Charner and the cruiser Dupleix.

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