I'm reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain. He recounts a story from an old Syrian priest, telling a siege that was laid out on the Syriac Christians in Tur Abdin, Turkey.

The siege appeared to be monumental that one Syriac Christian Dalrymple encountered said, "Not since Ein Wardo has the situation being so desperate for us here."

Here are the relevant passages,

At the beginning of First World War the Suriani saw the Armenians being led away by the ottoman troops and heard the rumors of what was happening to them. They feared that they would be next, so they made preparations. They bought guns and stored wheat. They chose the most inaccessible of their mountain villages, Ein Wardo, and began to fortify it. They strengthened the walls of the church and secretly prepared barricades to fill the gaps between the houses.

When the Ottomans, backed by Kurd irregulars, began their attacks on the Suriani villages, the then Patriarch gave orders for all the villagers to retreat with their food and weapons to Ein Wardo. For three years the Suriani defended themselves there. Anyone outside the barricades was killed. Nearly every Suriani alive in eastern Turkey today is there because his parents or grandparents took shelter within those walls.

"After three years," continued Abouna Shabo, "they despaired of ever conquering us and said that we were being protected by our saints, Mar Gabriel, John the Arab and especially Mar Hadbashabo.

Eventually a famous Imam, Sheikh Fatullah of Ein Kaf, came to the Muslim army and said he would try to make peace between the two sides. The Muslims asked the Sheikh to say "give up your guns", but the Sheikh, who was an honorable man, advised us not to surrender all our weapons. In the end we handed over 300 of our guns.

The Sheikh gave us his son as a hostage and said we should kill him if the Muslims broke their word. He then went on his donkey to Diyarbakir and took a written order from the Pasha-Commander that the soldiers and the Kurds should leave. I will never forget the sight of the Ottoman army taking down their tents and marching away down the valley towards Midyat."

I tried to look up for information, but I find a scarcity of records. What do we know about the siege, which seems to left a huge wound in Syriac Christian community? What do we know about Ein Wardo itself - how was it prior to the siege, when it was founded, etc?

Been doing some casual reading on this and I'm beginning to think that it's been exaggerated by some authors. I know the basic argument for both sides - large anti-catholic feeling versus the increased mobilisation of Catholics into a huge voting machine but was just wondering what other sides there are to it.

Thanks in advance, I think what you guys do here is fantastic!

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Many New Testament experts at secular universities are Christians. How many of them are literal believers in the miracles that are claimed by Christianity?
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This tactic seems completely, for lack of a better word, retarded.

How could fighting men of that era not see things the same way?

Stand in a line, shoot your weapon, and hope you don't get hit on the return exchange.. How could any commander rally morale to join said retarded forces? It has always boggled my mind..

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How could anyone who understood military tactics and technology view this as an effective technique to defeat the enemy??

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Would an online forum not facilitate discussions much more?

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This has probably been asked before; bare in my mind - I am new to this Reddit thing.

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I love the Minoan civilization. I've studied everything I could possibly get a hold of about it. Heck, I'm creating a comic set in Minoan Crete. However, one question has always bugged me and I want a second opinion on it: how much of what we know about the Minoans is true or at least a very good educated guess and how much did Sir Arthur Evans pull out of his ass or was made up during a botched restoration or both?

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Hi!

Was trying to look up past uses of the US military during other disease outbreaks like the current one with Ebola. I've noticed a lot of people shocked and outraged by the use of military assets to assist the building of hospitals and other logistics. Isn't this a common thing? I'm only interested in response to illness and not general "crisis" action.

Thanks!

Interested in knowing how ideas like liberalism and empire effected big cities like London (19th century). Also if it effected groups in the cities?

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