The Forty Days of Musa Dagh - Synopsis - Book Three: Disaster, Rescue, The End

Book Three: Disaster, Rescue, The End

The scene now changes to Istanbul and Johannes Lepsius’s meeting with members of a dervish order called the “Thieves of the Art.” It was important to Werfel to show that the Young Turks and the Three Pashas did not represent Turkish society as a whole. It was also important to show that even Enver was right on certain points in regard to the Western powers, which had exploited Turkey and treated it throughout the nineteenth century as a virtual colony. For this reason, most of the first chapter of Book Three is written as a dramatic dialogue during which Lepsius witnesses the Sufi whirling devotions and learns firsthand about the deep resentment against the West—especially Western “progress” as instituted by the Young Turks—and the atrocities in the concentration camps set up in the Mesopotamian desert for deported Armenians. He also encounters Bagradian’s friend, Agha Rifaat Bereket. The latter agrees to bring supplies to Musa Dagh purchased with funds collected by Lepsius in Germany. The episode ends with Lepsius witnessing Enver and Talaat being driven past in a limousine. When the car suffers two loud tire punctures, Lepsius at first thinks they have been assassinated (which foreshadows the real deaths of Talaat and Djemal Pasha by Armenian assassins).

The chapter that follows resumes with Stephan and Haik. They encounter the inshaat taburi, the notorious forced labor details composed of Armenian draftees into the Ottoman Army, and travel through a swamp, where Stephan and Haik form a real friendship. It is cut short, however, when Stephan falls ill and is cared for by a Turkmen farmer, another of the righteous Muslims that Werfel represents in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Too sick to continue on the mission to Antioch, Stephan is returned to Yoghonoluk, which has been resettled by Muslim refugees from war zones of the Ottoman Empire. There, Stephan is discovered to be Bagradian’s son and a spy, and is brutally murdered.

Stephan’s death causes Bagradian to withdraw for a time, during which Turkish soldiers capture the last of the Armenian livestock. This disaster opens up rifts in Musa Dagh’s society and resolve. Other setbacks follow. With the arrival of a seasoned Ottoman general from the Gallipoli front as well as reinforcements from the regular army, the Ottomans begin to tighten the noose around Musa Dagh. Meanwhile, Bagradian recovers from his grief to form guerrilla bands to disrupt the Ottoman advance and buy more time. But no ships have been sighted, and the various attempts to contact the Allies or to seek the diplomatic intercession of the United States, still a neutral power, or Turkey’s ally, Imperial Germany, come to naught.

Bagradian derives strength—and comfort—from Iskuhi, who has volunteered to care for Juliette. Nevertheless, Iskuhi sees the end coming and the likelihood that their love entails dying together, not a life. When the Agha’s mission arrives, he finds the Armenians starving. He can do little, though since the red-haired müdir has confiscated most of the supplies intended for the Armenians as a humanitarian gesture despite the approval of Turkey’s highest religious authority. The camp, filled with smoke from the forest fires, inspires a vision in him that disturbingly anticipates the Holocaust and the death camps of World War II.

The Armenian camp and resistance also faces its greatest challenge from within when criminal elements among the Ottoman Army deserters—who Bagradian allowed to help in Musa Dagh’s offense—go on a rampage. As Ter Haigasun prepares to celebrate a mass to ask for God’s help, the deserters set the altar on fire and the resulting conflagration destroys much of the Town Enclosure before the uprising is suppressed by Bagradian’s men.

The Ottomans, seeing the fire, now prepare for the final assault. Oskanian leads a suicide cult for those who do not want to die given the Turks’ reputation for violent reprisals. The little teacher, however, refuses to jump off a cliff himself after fending off the last of his followers. Soon after, he discovers the large Red Cross distress flag the Armenians flew to attract Allied ships and sights the French cruiser Guichen in the fog. It had diverted course after its watch spotted the burning of the Armenian camp on Musa Dagh from out at sea. As Oskanian waves the flag, the warship begins shelling the coast. Soon more ships come. The Turks withdraw and the Armenians are rescued.

Bagradian remains behind after ensuring that the people he led, Juliette, and Iskuhi are safely aboard the French and British ships. His reasons are complex and can be traced throughout the novel to the realization that he cannot leave and go into exile again in an internment camp in Port Said, Egypt. He thinks Iskuhi follows him back up Musa Dagh from the sea. On the way, he experiences a divine presence and confronts the cross on his son’s grave. He is followed, however, by a skirmishing party of Turkish troops. They approach in a crescent—which alludes to the battle formations of the Ottoman armies of the past—and kill Bagradian with a sniper’s headshot.