Andranik, Ozanian

Ozanian Andranik (1865 –1927) was an Armenian military commander and statesman, a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement. He was active in the Armenian armed struggle against the Ottoman government. First by leading few hundred Armenian volunteers within the Bulgarian army against the Ottomans during the First Balkan War and later in the early stages of World War I by commanding an Armenian volunteer battalion within the Russian Imperial army. After the Revolution of 1917, the Russian army retreated and left the Armenian irregulars outnumbered against the Turks. Andranik was forced to retreat. In 1918 the Armenian National Council declared the independence of Armenia and signed the Treaty of Batum with the Ottoman Empire, by which Armenia gave up its rights to Western Armenia. Andranik never accepted the existence of the First Republic of Armenia because it included only a small part of the area many Armenians hoped to make independent. Andranik left Armenia in 1919 and spent his last years of life in Europe and the United States seeking relief for Armenian refugees. Andranik is greatly admired as a national hero by Armenians; numerous statues of him have been erected in several countries.