An Ottoman Soldier | Rafael Inchauspe Méndez,

The man in the photograph appears to be an ordinary Ottoman officer, he is Rafael Ramon Nogales Mendez, an adventurous soldier born in Venezuela on October 14, 1877, who served on the Syrian-Palestinian and Eastern Anatolian fronts during World War I. Born in Venezuela, he received education in Spain and Belgium. After serving in the Spanish army, he met Fethi Okyar in Sofia, was impressed by Turkish hospitality, and became an Ottoman citizen.

With his 12,000-man unit, he defeated the 30,000-strong Armenian bandit Aram Manukyan; stopped two large Russian units attempting to enter Anatolia from the Iranian border; and earned six Ottoman and one German medals. He also received an Iranian medal for saving the life of an Iranian statesman. After his discharge in November 1918, his memoirs titled “Four Years Under the Crescent” were published in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. In his memoirs, as a neutral adventurer officer who played an active role in the fight against Armenian gangs, he made striking statements for the time, such as that the Turks did not attack Armenian civilians, but the Armenians mercilessly massacred Turkish civilians.

PG 462-3

".During those days I also had the pleasure of attending a small banquet given me by Captain E. J. Foulton and several others of the ten or twelve British officers, former prisoners of ours, whom I had been able to favor and perhaps even save from death during their transfer from Musul to Rasul-Ain in February or March, 1906, and who, upon learning that I was back in Turkey, far from being content with celebrating me, carried their gratitude to the extreme of recommending me to the English Military High Commission, as well as to Lieutenant-Colonel Temple (Chief of the Naval Staff Offices), and to his cultured associates, Commanders Welsh, Stock, and Captain Tomson, who from then on took great pains to look after me, so that when I applied for permission, a few months later, to return to America, it was immediately granted and on the margin of my passport they added the note "good for passage by first available opportunity," which in Spanish means "see that the bearer may depart." as soon as possible.

And so it was that one morning in the month of April (1919), while the sun was casting golden gleams over the blond beaches of the Troada and the islands and islets of the Aegean Sea burned like topaz in the middle of the sea, I stood gazing from the ship that was taking me to Spain, for the last time, at those strange lands that were barely visible towards the East now in the form of violet lines, when suddenly, I felt as if an icy hand were vehemently pressing my heart, and without knowing why, I stood at attention and saluted those horizons of pink hues and orange blossom skies, where I had left so many brave companions sleeping the sleep of death beneath the flowery grass of their mountains and the burning sands of their deserts. And after a brief stay in the Motherland, I once again took flight towards the West, in pursuit of my distant American homeland, which after two weeks I was able to glimpse. like swimming on the surface of the ocean and in the middle of a beautiful halo of golden distances, of blue clouds and reddish horizons like the blood of Heroic Venezuela." THE END

Cuatro años bajo la Media Luna (1925), English title: Four Years Beneath the Crescent

In this sensational book, Rafael de Nogales, an indomitable Venezuelan adventurer who was compared to Lawrence of Arabia, recounts the entire ordeal of his dogged participation in the First World War. Although he volunteered for other sides—Belgian, French, German—he ended up enlisting in the Turkish army and commanding a shock corps that earned him high military honors and even allowed him to have his own personal guard. Four Years Under the Crescent, published in 1924, is, among many other things, a chronicle of the vicissitudes of this "knight-errant" across the length and breadth of the Turkish front during the First World War. As he trots through his journey, we accompany Nogales through the Anatolian steppe, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Syria, Persia, Palestine, the Mohammedan Holy Places, the Egyptian Sinai... while rubbing shoulders with all the figures involved in the Ottoman and German high command on each of the fronts in which he participated. Particularly memorable is his tour of duty on the Caucasus front and his participation in the siege of Van, where he witnessed the Turkish army's atrocities against the Armenian population. He completely disagreed with the Turkish command, given the cruelty of the events and his own Christian identity. Today, this book is considered one of the earliest firsthand accounts of what is known as the "Armenian genocide," of which Nogales provides a stark account. Why is Lawrence of Arabia remembered and Nogales forgotten? Both were recklessly adventurous; both "worked with their hands stained with blood" for several years in the desert; both were writers. General Nogales's book, Four Years Under the Crescent, has the same somber grandeur as Thomas E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I believe it was only fair to evoke the book of the adventurer Nogales, while Lawrence's work is so vividly remembered.

 Roberto Arlt FOREWORD BY JAVIER GONZÁLEZ-COTTA

Reviewed Work: Cuatro años bajo la media luna by Rafael De Nogales

Review by: Gladys A. Barnes Books Abroad, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1927), p. 68 (1 page)

Mavi Boncuk |

Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, known as Rafael de Nogales Méndez (October 14, 1877 in San Cristóbal, Táchira – July 10, 1937 in Panama City) was a Venezuelan soldier, adventurer and writer who served the Ottoman Empire during the Great War (1914–18). He travelled extensively and fought in many of the wars of his age.

Education and first conflicts

When he was a young man his father sent him to study in Europe. He attended Universities in Germany, Belgium and Spain, and came to speak several languages fluently. Despite his education, Nogales felt more attracted to the military profession and he began to travel where the news of war took him. He took part in several conflicts in the last part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th: he fought for the Spanish against the Americans in the Spanish–American War.

In 1902 with the support of president Zelaya of Nicaragua, Nogales participated in a failed attempt to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Cipriano Castro involving an expedition aboard the schooner La Libertad. The forces landed in La Guajira peninsula but were defeated by general Antonio Davila in Carazua as part of Revolución Libertadora of Venezuela.

In 1904 participated in the Russo-Japanese War as a double agent. Additionally, he spent time in Alaska during the time of the gold rush there. In California he fought with the forces of Mexican revolutionary Ricardo Flores Magón and also worked as a cowboy in Arizona. He returned to Venezuela in 1908, after the military coup of Juan Vicente Gómez that overthrew his enemy Cipriano Castro. Nogales was appointed by General Gómez as president of Apure State, however, he went into exile after making himself an enemy of the new president.

World War I

When World War I began, after unsuccessfully attempting to join a number of other European armies, he enlisted in the Ottoman Army and was assigned to the Caucasus Front, where he reached the rank of major. He led Ottoman Gendarmerie troops into battle against Armenian insurgents during the Siege of Van but asked to be relieved due to what he believed were "unjustified massacres of Christians". He believed that the massacres were committed by Khalil Bey, the Commander and Chief of the Expeditionary Army he volunteered to serve with. He later wrote a book describing his experiences with the Ottoman Army in World War I.

In his book, de Nogales recounts the massacres of the Armenian population in Van during the Armenian genocide and wrote:

At dawn I was awakened by the noise of shots and volleys. The Armenians had attacked the town. Immediately I mounted my horse and, followed by some armed men, went to see what was happening. Judge of my amazement to discover that the aggressors had not been the Armenians, after all, but the civil authorities themselves! Supported by the Kurds and the rabble of the vicinity, they were attacking and sacking the Armenian quarter, I succeeded at last, without serious accident, in approaching the Beledie reis of the town, who was directing the orgy; whereupon I ordered him to stop the massacre. He astounded me by replying that he was doing nothing more than carry out an unequivocal order emanating from the Governor-General of the province to exterminate all Armenian males of twelve years of age and over.

Nogales Méndez reported that the civil authorities found it preferable to murder at night with the help of local Kurds. When visiting Aghtamar, an island in Lake Van where the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross is located, he notes that he uncovered the corpses of many priests.

Nogales Méndez visited Diyarbakir on June 26, 1915 and spoke with Mehmet Reşid, who was the governor of the province. During his time in Diyarbakir, he witnessed the massacres of the local Christian population of the province. According to his conversation with Reşid, the orders to massacre were sent from Interior Minister Talat Pasha. Nogales Méndez recounts in his memoirs that Reşid mentioned to him that he received a telegram directly from Talat Pasha ordering him to "Burn-Destroy-Kill".

After being transferred from the Caucasus, he saw action on the Sinai and Palestine Front. He fought in the Turkish lines during the entire war and was awarded the Iron Cross by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Post-war years and death

After the war ended, he worked with the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César Sandino. In London, Nogales wrote some books about his adventures around the world.

In 1936, after the death of Gómez, Nogales Méndez returned to Venezuela and was sent as commissioner to Panama to study the army of that country.

Books

Nogales Méndez wrote several books about his life experience.

Cuatro años bajo la Media Luna (1925), English title: Four Years Beneath the Crescent, about his experiences as an officer of the Ottoman Empire. The book includes details about the atrocities committed against the Armenian people by Turkish officials.

A la Venezuela de la época le bastaría la imagen del héroe, el Miranda del Siglo XX, el Sigfrido criollo, aquel a quien el poeta andino Otto H. Burguera le cantara: (Mérida, 19 de octubre de 1940). 

“ En su bajel de eterno, errante peregrino, 

los inmensos mares de la aventura surca. 

Y, sueña cuatro años este Andino, 

Bajo la Media luna de la Bandera Turca”.

For the Venezuela of that time, the image of the hero, the Miranda of the 20th century, the Creole Siegfried, the one to whom the Andean poet Otto H. Burguera sang: (Mérida, October 19, 1940).

“On his ship of eternal, wandering pilgrim,

he sails the immense seas of adventure.

And, for four years, this Andean man dreams,

Under the Crescent of the Turkish Flag.”

El saqueo de Nicaragua (1928), English title: The Looting of Nicaragua (1928)

Memorias de un Soldado de Fortuna (1932), English title: Memoirs of a Soldier of Fortune (1932)

Silk Hat and Spurs (1934, original in English), with a prologue by Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, who describes him as "a brave enemy, and now a trusty friend".

SOURCE FOR THE FOLLOWING IMAGES