Agha Petros

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Agha Petros

Agha Petros Elia of Baz (Syriac: ܐܓܐ ܦܜܪܘܣ; born 1 April 1880, died 2 February 1932) was a military general during World War I. An ethnic Assyrian,^[1] Petros was born in the Lower Baz village, Ottoman Empire. He completed his elementary education in his village school and went to Urmia to attend one of the European missionary schools. He spent three years in the United States. He was well learned in the Assyrian, Turkish, Arabic, French, Persian, English, and Russian languages. Due to his language skills, he was employed as secretary by the Turkish Consulate in Urmia. In 1909 he was appointed Turkish Consul. He was exiled by British authorities in what is now Iraq and resided in Toulouse, France. He participated in the League of Nations Peace Conference, October 26, 1923. He was poisoned and died in France on February 2, 1932.

[edit] Military history

Agha Petros defeated the Turks in Sauj Bulak and drove them back to Rowanduz.^{[citation needed]} Agha Petros had no real control over Assyrians or Armenians, and was indeed greatly mistrusted by many of them. There was deep disunion in the ranks, instead of posting a force to contain the Turks who he had defeated^{[citation needed]} he moved his forces to Sain Kala which reached seven days after the British detachment retired. ^[2]

[edit] References

Bet Nahrain

^ Neo-Assyrianism & the End of the Confounded Identity (HTML) (English). Zinda. “The fact remains that throughout the last seven years and the last 150 years for that matter the name Assyrian has always been attached to our political ambitions in the Middle East. Any time, any one of us from any of our church and tribal groups targets a political goal we present our case as Assyrians, Chaldean-Assyrians, or Syriac-Assyrians – making a connection to our “Assyrian” heritage. This is because our politics have always been Assyrian. Men like Naom Faiq and David Perley emerging from a “Syriac” or “Jacobite” background understood this as well as our Chaldean heroes, General Agha Petros d’Baz and the late Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael Bidawid.”
^ The Tragedy of the Assyrians By R. S. Stafford