Today, November 15, is the Day of the Army of Western Armenia.

1916 On November 15, the French government decides that

  The Armenian Legion would be commanded by French officers, but would not be part of the French army as an auxiliary unit. Armenian warriors would fight only against the Turks and in the territory of Cilicia. In order not to endanger the fragments of Western Armenianness, the legion was not called “Armenian”, but “Eastern”.

  Many fighters who went through the First World War, Armenian prisoners and deserters from the Turkish army, as well as young Western Armenians who came to the USA to escape the genocide against the Armenians, joined the Legion. After long military exercises, in the spring of 1918, the two battalions of the legion, composed of about 4,000 Armenian and 1,000 Arab volunteers, left for the Palestinian front and were placed on the front line on the night of September 14. The heights of Arara (Rafat) were called “the second Dardanelles of the Turks”. It was the most impregnable part of the entire military front, which the large British troops tried to capture three times in vain in March-April 1918 in order to advance to the north. Without the capture of Arara, it was impossible to start the general offensive of the allies, in the event of a successful outcome, Lebanon, Syria and Cilicia would be liberated