Rafael de Nogales Méndez
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Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, known as Rafael de Nogales Méndez (San Cristóba,Táchira, October 14 of 1879 - Panama City, July 10 of 1936) was a venezuelan military mercenary and writer.
He studied in Germany, Belgium and Spain, and spoke various languages fluently. He took part in several conflicts in the last part of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX: in 1898 in the Spanish-American War; in 1902 in the Revolución Libertadora of Venezuela; in 1904 in the First Sino-Japanese War. He returned to Venezuela in 1908, after the military coup of Juan Vicente Gómez that overtrow the dictator Cipriano Castro. Even so, he went back to exile after making himself an enemy of the new president. When World War I begun he enlisted in the Ottoman Army , where he reached the rank of Bey. He fought in the Turkish lines during the entire war, and was awarded the Iron Cross of first class by the hands of the Káiser Wilhelm II. After the war ended, he worked with the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto César Sandino
He was in Alaska in the time of the gold fever and was a cowboy in Arizona.
He wrote several books about his experiences: Memorias del general Rafael de Nogales Méndez, Cuatro años bajo la Media Luna, about his experiences as an officer of the Otoman Empire, and El saqueo de Nicaragua. His comentaris about the atrocitites committed against the Armenian people by the Turkish government, in the book Cuatro años bajo la Media Luna, is one of the western testimonies about the Armenian Genocide.
[edit] Bibliography
- Almarza, Pedro: Nogales Bey. San Cristóbal, Diculta, 1997. ISBN 980-330-028-8.
- Nogales Méndez, Rafael de: Memorias. Traducción y prólogo de Ana Mercedes Pérez. Caracas, Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1991. ISBN 980-276-162-1
