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Armenia and the Caucasus in the Genesis of the Soviet–Turkish Entente

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Richard G. Hovannisian
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angles

Extract

On 26 April 1920, three days after the opening of the Grand National Assembly in Angora (Ankara), Mustafa Kemal addressed his first officially confirmed message to the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) of Russia. Shortly thereafter, Bekir Sami Bey (Kundah), Turkish foreign minister, departed for negotiations in Mosocow.A draft treaty was initialed in August and delivered to Angora in September, and in March 1921 the governments of the Turkish Grand National Assembly and of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic established formal bonds by concluding the Treaty of Moscow. During the few intervening months the small Caucasian Armenian republic, which had been created in May of 1918 and which had become the fulcrum of Armenian aspirations for an independent state encompassing both the Russian Armenian provinces and the contiguous Turkish Armenian provinces of eastern Anatolia, was crushed by the invasion of General Kazim Karabekir's XV Army Corps. The offensive, begun after attainment of a vague Soviet-Turkish understanding, not only overturned the Allied-imposed Treaty of Sévres, which had awarded to the Armenian republic much of the four eastern vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Diyarbakir, and Erzurum, but also restored to Turkish dominion the sanjaks of Kars and Ardahan, since 1878 parts of Russian or Eastern Armenia. What was more, Nationalist Turkey annexed the Surmalu district, embracing Mount Ararat, the historic symbol of the Armenian people.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

page 129 note 1 For details on the formation of the Armenian republic, see Hovannisian, Richard G., Armenia on the Road to Independence (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967).Google Scholar A useful survey of events in the Caucasus between 1917 and 1921 is made by Kazemzadeh, Firuz, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (Oxford, [1951]).Google Scholar

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page 135 note 1 The Armenian press was quick to expose the activities of the Ittihadist leaders in Turkey. See, in addition to nearly every Armenian newspaper, the following Foreign Office files: E/272/44 and E/345/44 in class 371, and 385/1/17 and 385/1/25 in class 608.Google Scholar

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page 137 note 1 Tunaya, Tarik Z., Türkiyede siyasî partiler, 1859–1952 (Istanbul, 1952), pp. 520–3;Google ScholarRustow, ‘Army’, p. 540; Cruickshank, ‘Young Turk Challenge’, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar See also Jäschke, Gotthard, ‘Neues zur russisch-türkischen Freundschaft von 1919–1939’, Die Welt des Islams, N.S., vol. 6, 3–4 (1961), p. 204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 137 note 2 Karabekir, Istiklâl Harbimiz, p. 74; Cebesoy, Millî mücadele, pp. 94–5.Google Scholar

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page 139 note 1 Kandemir, Kemal, 89.Google Scholar According to Yunus Nadi the Nationalist leaders attempted without success to send agents over an alternate route on motor launches to Odessa and the Crimean ports. See Aralov, S. I., Vospominaniia sovetskogo diplomata, 1922–1923 (Moscow, 1960), p. 20;Google ScholarKuznetsova, Ustanovlenie Sovetsko-turetskikh otnoshenii, p. 14.Google Scholar

page 139 note 2 For the activities of these Turkish officers during 1919 and 1920, see FO 371, Files 512/58, 1015/58, E/I/58, E/134/58, E/262/44;Google ScholarUnüvar, Veysel, İlâl harbinde Bolşeviklerle sekiz ay 1920–1921 (Istanbul, 1948); and documents and accounts throughout Kâzim Karabekir's İstiklâl Harbimiz.Google Scholar

page 139 note 3 Extensive materials on Turkish influence in Azerbaijan are included in FO 371, Files E/3/44, E/262/44, and E/59/58, and in the memoirs of the Nationalist leaders.Google Scholar

page 139 note 4 For a résumé of Bolshevik activity in Baku and the Caucasus during the first part of 1919, see Hovannisian, Richard G., The Republic of Armenia, vol. 1 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1971), pp. 398403.Google Scholar

page 140 note 1 FO 371, E12472/262/44, report for week ending 9 September 1919; Ertürk, Iki perde, 203–4; Karabekir, İstiklâl Harbimiz, pp. 185–8;Google ScholarJäschke, Gotthard, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kampfes der Türkei umn ihre Unabhängigkeit’, Die Welt des Islams, N.S., vol. 5, 1–2 (1957), pp. 46–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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page 141 note 1 Karabekir, İstiklâl Harbimiz, pp. 413–14; FO 371, E 300/262/44, report for week ending 14 January 1920.Google Scholar

page 141 note 2 Kheifets, Sovetskaia Rossiia i Vostok, p. 96.Google Scholar

page 141 note 3 FO 371, E 262/262/44, report for week ending 22 January 1920, and E 1428/262/44, report for week ending 28 January 1920. In April the Tiflis Armenian newspaper Nor Ashkhatavor published an alleged Soviet–Turkish treaty that included terms strikingly similar to those agreed to by the Muvahhidin society.Google Scholar

page 141 note 4 FO 371, E 5353/262/44, report for week ending 29 April 1920.Google Scholar

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page 142 note 3 Atatürk'ün tamim, telgraf ve beyannameleri, publ. of Türk Inkilâp Tarihi Enstitüsü, vol. 5 (Ankara, 1964), pp. 294–7; Karabekir, İstiklâl Harbimiz, pp. 630–2.Google Scholar

page 142 note 4 Kheifets, Sovetskaia Rossiia i Vostok, p. 101. Chicherin's wire was intercepted by British intelligence and is included in FO 371, E 14638/345/44.Google Scholar

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page 144 note 1 Karabekir, İstiklâl Harbimiz, pp. 465–7; FO 371, E 6151/262/44, report for week ending 13 May 1920, appendix L. The date given for the communiqué in Atatürk'ün tamim, pp. 180–4, is 5 February 1920.Google Scholar

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page 146 note 2 Ibid. pp. 632–4. The British 39th Infantry Brigade had occupied strategic points in Baku in November 1918 and the 27th Division, disembarking at Batum in December, had spread out along the Transcaucasian railway system and established headquarters in Tiflis. Because of strong domestic pressures and international considerations, most of these forces were withdrawn in the summer of 1919, and only at the last moment, with the entreaties of the United States government and the urgings of the British Foreign Office, did the Cabinet order the British command at Constantinople to hold Batum for a time longer. The Batum garrison, which always had to be taken into account in the formation of Turkish Nationalist policy and strategy, was finally withdrawn in July of 1920.

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