Jim Chankalian, defender of Van, was also the leader of the Armenian Americans who joined the Armenian Legion in 1917.
Armenian Diaspora Memory and Innovation collection.
The Defense of Van (1915) was an act of self-defense by the Armenians against the genocide committed by ottoman and nationalist Turks, Kurdish tribes with the complicity of the German Empire.
The Ottoman army and its military elite were modernized and trained by Germany under Colmar von der Goltz guidance, from 1883 to 1895.
The nucleus of the Armenian Legion or Eastern Legion (1917-1920) was composed of former Musa Dagh resistants.