Electronic version of  “ARMENIA: The Survival of a Nation”, revised second edition © 1990 Christopher J. Walker

 

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8 Striving To Create a Republic

Transcaucasia and the March Revolution     Continued

 

Cilicia

 

It is now necessary to break the narrative of events surrounding the Republic of Armenia, and, by way of interlude (like the intermezzo in Henze's The Bassarids) to travel to a parallel situation, in this case 600 miles south-westwards, to Cilicia.

            Ottoman Cilicia – that is, the sanjaks of Marash, Kozan (Sis), Jebel Bereket and Adana – was a region of mixed and turbulent populations. Most of the population figures are contrived;¹⁴⁶ but it is fairly clear that the Armenians (both urban and peasant) were a large minority in a region where no one religious or ethnic group constituted a clear majority, as a result of their continuous habitation of the land since medieval times, when they had reconstituted the homeland there at the time of the Crusades.

            Cilicia was the scene of fierce rivalry in the period just after the first world war. The Armenians, while they still confidently entertained extensive designs, wanted it to be part of the new sea-to-sea Armenian state. The French felt it should be theirs, in accordance with the Sykes–Picot agreement (1916) and the St Jean de Maurienne agreement (1917). The British found themselves in occupation of it at the end of 1918, and showed some reluctance to hand it over to France, since they had done most of the fighting in the Levant (67,000

 

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Map 9. Cilicia

 

troops, as against 7,000).¹⁴⁷ And finally, it became the target for the first deadly attacks of the Nationalist Turks.

            To take account of the initial conflicting jealousies and aspirations, a bizarre system was constructed. France was to control the civilian administration of Cilicia, while (from February to November 1919) Britain provided the forces for military occupation. In both, spheres of activity were ill-defined, and the source of confusion and difficulty. Moreover, the civilian administration was hampered by working through the existing Ottoman Turkish system. Functionaries could only be appointed or dismissed from Constantinople; everything was done in conformity with Ottoman law.¹⁴⁸

            Nevertheless by mid-January 1919 a measure of agreement had been reached: Colonel Edouard Brémond was appointed by General Allenby to be Chief Administrator, OETA North – that is, Cilicia.¹⁴⁹

            In Cilicia, France had two political options; that they were mutually incompatible meant that, when one failed, the other could be adopted. The first was to occupy the country directly, in the hope of turning it into a colony. This was the policy adopted at first. It entailed squashing any signs of resurgent Turkish nationalism, and using the Armenians to do the imperialist dirty work for her. The Armenians, naïvely trusting her as a great civilising power, willingly assumed the role designed for them. Any humanity that France showed towards Armenians – such as repatriating 60,000¹⁵⁰ survivors of the deportations from Cilicia (an estimated 200,000 had been murdered) – was purely incidental to her main designs.

            France's other option was to work with Turkey. She held 61 per cent of the Ottoman Public Debt, the tobacco monopoly (régie des tabacs), as well as important concessions for Turkish railway construction, mining, ports and so forth. With this set against her hankering to supplant Germany as a great economic power, it would appear to be in France's interest to work with Turkey, should direct occupation fail. (It might even be more profitable.) It

 

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comes as no surprise to learn that France was the first of the Entente powers to open talks with the embryonic Turkish Nationalists, with the visit of Georges Picot to Angora in December 1919.

            Despite France's attitude of blatant commercial adventure, it should not be overlooked that as an Entente power she had the right to occupy parts of Ottoman Turkey, which was a defeated empire. It was to the misfortune of the Armenians – who had suffered so extensively from the empire – that she did not choose to exercise her power more widely and with greater responsibility.

            For most of 1919, while the British were in control, the occupation of Cilicia proceeded fairly quietly, apart from initial disturbances occasioned by the fact of foreign occupation, compounded by the behaviour of the still armed Armenian Legion, who showed an enthusiasm more for setting old scores than for creating a new, harmonious Cilicia.

            When French troops relieved the British in November 1919, their arrival coincided with the first active stirrings of the Kemalist movement. It was very soon apparent that the task of controlling Cilicia was beyond them. Moreover, there was the odd case of indiscipline and corruption. A Syrian lady put it thus (and the same was true at this time for both Syria and Cilicia): 'Les anglais ont envoyés les fils de leurs "Lords", mais les français ont envoyés leurs valets.'¹⁵¹ Such was the stuff of the mission civilisatrice.

            The most critical places for the French were the outlying towns which spanned the unclear border between them and Kemalists: Urfa and Marash in the east, and in the west the towns on the Konya–Adana road, by the Cilician Gates, notably Bozanti. Marash showed the situation most starkly: initially, when the French took over, there were 300 Armenians serving with the French as Légion d'Orient, 30 Algerian cavalry and 80 French soldiers, all under French officers. This handful was later increased to about 3,000, the additions being mostly Armenians and French colonial troops.¹⁵² Commanding them all was General Quérette, a Gilbertian figure whose grandiloquence was only matched by his incompetence.

            The Turks tested the temper of the French in late 1919: a few rifle shots were fired in the town on one occasion (and no action was taken); and leading Turks made a great fuss over the raising of the French flag over the citadel of Marash.¹⁵³ Then leading Turkish notables, confident but not over-confident of their strength, invited their Armenian counterparts to see if they could plan the future of Marash together. Meeting in the Ulu Djami on Friday, 16 January 1920, the Turks put this proposal to the Armenians: join us, fight with us against the French, and we will live together as partners. The Armenian response was 'indefinite',¹⁵⁴ and on the evidence of Turkish treachery over the last 40 years it had to be so; however, a second meeting was arranged for 20 January. But it never took place. The chief Muslim notable, Dayyi Zade, called it off. No understanding between the two was possible, he said.

            Meanwhile, commerce in the city had come to a standstill, with the shops of both communities closed. Large numbers of armed Turks were entering the

 

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city from outside. Then, in the situation of extreme tension, firing broke out on 21 January between Turks and French. A full-scale urban battle soon developed, with Turks firing indiscriminately at French and Armenians, and the French firing on the fortified houses that the Turks had turned into military posts, and setting fire to the Turkish quarters of the city.¹⁵⁵ General Quérette seemed to have little real idea of whom – or what – his forces were fighting; he made no attempt to stem the flow of armed Turks entering Marash from the north.

            The battle continued relentlessly and brutally, the French bombarding the Turkish parts of the city, and the Turks aiming volleys of rifle fire from their fortified houses. Once battle had been joined, the Turks threw all scruples to the wind, and killed with that unrestrained ferocity that is characteristic of Turkish warfare. Dr C. F. H. Crathern, a YMCA secretary who was in Marash during the battle, reported harrowing stories: of children taken from their mothers' arms and ripped up with knives, of young and old women with their flesh savagely torn by dum-dum bullets, of the betrayal of women and children, who, having given themselves up under promise of protection, were slaughtered with hatchets and knives.¹⁵⁶

            French reinforcements were sighted by Crathern on 8 February in the valley to the south of Marash, and they broke through the besieged city later that day; this, together with the fact that the Turks were visibly weakening, brought relief and hope to the Armenians.¹⁵⁷ But bad communications^* and feeble leadership from Quérette led to a ghastly reversal of fate, like the peripeteia of a Greek tragedy.

            The same evening that the reinforcements were seen, Quérette received an order from the French divisional commander in Adana, General Dufieux, to evacuate Marash if the situation was not re-established in the city within 24 hours.¹⁵⁸ The orders were apparently garbled; but Dufieux was nevertheless prepared to sacrifice Marash, since French forces had come under pressure in Urfa. On the 9th the battle was still continuing and General Quérette obeyed the command to the letter. Crathern wrote in his diary: 'General Quérette informed us today that he has received orders to evacuate the city at midnight on the 9th. This news caused alarm through all the compounds. … Women and children are crazed with fear.'¹⁵⁹ Quérette, however, was able to delay the evacuation by 24 hours.

            On the following day the Turks believed themselves beaten. The Turkish leader, Dr Mustafa, got in touch with the Americans, hoping that they would act as mediators between him and the French.¹⁶⁰ But he was unaware that the decision had been taken, that the French would withdraw that night.

            The Armenians too were in the dark, although they felt that the afternoon of the 10th was their hour of dazzling triumph. The Turks were evacuating the

 

                *'The French have no wireless, no aeroplanes, no telegraph, no armoured cars, and to make the situation worse, neither food nor ammunition for an extended siege.' – Crathern, diary entry for 25 January.

 

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town; the attacks had ceased; the sufferings of the past 20 days were justified by this victory. Congratulations and smiles.

            Then the French withdrawal began. Most troops left between 6.00 and 9.00 p.m.; general Quérette and his staff at 10.30.¹⁶¹

            The Armenians were gripped by panic as they realised what was happening. Barely comprehending the terrible reversal, as many as could gathered together a few belongings and followed the retreating French.

            As they were leaving, transformed from victors to destitute refugees, the winter stretched out an icy hand to them: a blizzard raged round the mountains and gorges as they passed. Behind, the city of Marash blazed, lighting up the midnight snow, as they trudged onward in yet another familiar frightful Armenian exodus. Islahiye was 75 miles to the south; three days' march. Three thousand refugees managed to straggle after the troops, but in the weather conditions – which grew worse the further they marched – about a thousand of these perished.

            A second column fared worse. Leaving a few hours after the first refugee convoy, unguarded by soldiers, about 2,000 Armenians tried to get out of Marash, but most were shot or hacked to pieces before they could leave the city. Only about 200 escaped; of these only 20 reached Islahiye.¹⁶²

            In Marash itself a truce was arranged by the Americans: the Armenians were to hand over their weapons, then they would be spared. Peace of a sort returned to Marash on 12 February, although many of the 10,000 Armenians who remained died from starvation during the punitive curfews ('white massacre') that the Kemalists imposed.

            The battle of Marash was a catastrophic, pointless disaster for the Armenians, the French and the Allies. Lord Curzon commented thus on 13 March 1920:

 

            As long as the British were in occupation of Cilicia and Syria no trouble had occurred. … In deference, however, to the insistent pressure of the French government, we had in November last evacuated both Cilicia and Syria.¹⁶³

            What had happened? In Cilicia there had occurred the lamentable events in Marash, by which had been placed in jeopardy not only the position of the French in Cilicia, but the entire fortunes of the Allies in the Middle East.

 

            'Un frémissement d'orgueil galvanisa le Kémalisme encore hésitant,' comments Brémond.¹⁶⁴ Marash was the beginning of the end for the French in Cilicia; thereafter they beat a steady retreat until they finally quit altogether in October 1921. Yet, while the French still considered that Turkish nationalism might be as pliable as the old sultans, their abandonment of Cilicia was less a retreat than a change of balance. Only when Kemal proved to be an implacable nationalist dictator did their imperial ambition have to be satisfied with their control of Syria and Lebanon.

 

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            As the French were preparing to quit Marash, so the Kemalist attack on Urfa began (9 February). For almost two months a small French garrison held out against the Kemalists. By 7 April they had eaten their last transport mule. The French commander, Major Hauger, thereupon negotiated terms with the Turkish chief: he would hand the town over to the Turks if the garrison could receive a safe-conduct out of the town. When they were passing through a ravine known as the defile of Feris Pasha, about ten miles out of Urfa, they were attacked and slaughtered almost to a man.¹⁶⁵ It was another sickening piece of Turkish treachery, and it makes one understand why the Armenians were wary of the invitations from the Turks to co-operate with them.

            There is one town in Cilicia, now obliterated from the map, where the struggle of the Armenians against a relentless Turkish siege was at its most heroic, and most sublimely tragic. The remote town of Hadjin lay in the northern part of the province of Adana, on the very edge of Cilicia. It was 'perched upon a knoll in the middle of a deep basin, formed by bare rugged mountains, which command it on every side' (Capt. Townshend).¹⁶⁶ Out of a pre-war population of 25,000–30,000, 8,000 were repatriated in 1919 from the deserts and death camps, to rebuild their life in their native city, continuously inhabited for hundreds of years.¹⁶⁷

            Hadjin slowly re-established itself throughout 1919. In early February 1920 the town received news of the events in Marash. Many considered that Hadjin would be attacked next. In March Kemalist irregulars – chétés – were sighted. Snow still lay on the ground. A week or so later an old Turkish woman on horseback conveyed a message to the Hadjintzis, to the effect that an organised effort was being made to drive the French from Cilicia; Armenians and other Christians would not be harmed of they remained neutral. To which the Hadjintzis replied that they had no quarrel with the Turkish forces, but merely wished to protect their own homes and loved ones. Besides, there were no French in Hadjin.¹⁶⁸

            The French, for their part, sensing the imminence of an attack upon Hadjin, sent a high-flown, rhetorical message: keep up your courage, in ten days there will not be a single Turk to oppose you! But nothing was seen of the French; an aircraft circled overhead twice in March, the second time dropping a few parcels and a message saying that French reinforcements were coming, who would clear the Turks from Hadjin. The Hadjintzis should prepare a landing strip for the aircraft, which would return next day. Feverishly the population worked to be ready to receive the aircraft. On the following day the aircraft was heard – it approached nearer – it circled above – and it flew away. That was the last the defenders of Hadjin saw of the French.¹⁶⁹

            Women and children were shortly afterwards evacuated from the city, and 300 orphans were taken to the American missionaries' summer compound on the mountainside.¹⁷⁰ From this vantage point the six Americans were to witness almost all the subsequent battle.

            Battle began in earnest on 31 March 1920: the Turks advanced over the

 

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western mountain range, forcing the Armenians to entrench themselves behind rocks at the foot of the mountains. Then more of them appeared from the south.

            The Armenians, for their part, commanded by Sarkis Djebedjian (a man who had fought for two years alongside Andranik) could count on a fighting force about 600 strong, armed with about as many rifles, sent in by mule by the French.¹⁷¹ They believed that they only had to deal with a band of outlaws, perhaps 300 strong, not against a movement of Turkish national resurgence.

            For about a month the Hadjintzis fought in the mountains, but then they were forced back into their town. Then the Turks, who by now completely encircled Hadjin, started shelling; on 4 April, Easter Sunday, they brought up a machine-gun and directed it on to the city. Bombs fell on the city, too. All around the town the Turks were building trenches; more cannon and machine-guns appeared.

            But the Hadjintzis fought back fiercely, and gave the Turks no quarter. Although they had been driven back into Hadjin, they were on the offensive by mid-April. The Turks were compelled to quit their entrenchments. For this the American missionaries in their summer compound were blamed; the Turks alleged they were sending secret signals by candle flame.

            Djebedjian took great care to strengthen the fortified outposts all the time. Firing was continuous, but the Turks let forth an especially heavy barrage each day just before dawn and just after nightfall.¹⁷²

            During May the American missionaries attempted to mediate between the warring parties, but their efforts were in vain since the Turks did not allow them to proceed normally; they were obstructed, and eventually fired on, as they walked the perilous way from their summer compound to the town, squashy with bloated corpses.

            By mid-June the battle was raging again. Once or twice the Turks managed to reach the edge of the city, and to hold their position for a few hours, but in each case the Armenians fought back relentlessly and expelled them.

            One day in late June the Armenians began a particularly heavy attack, an hour after midnight.¹⁷³ The Turks at the time were short of ammunition, and they replied with whatever they had – machine-guns, cannons, bombs, rifle fire. But the Armenians were advancing steadily out of the city. The Turks tried to frighten them back in, but were forced to give way. Everywhere there was the din of battle shrieks, yells, groans; the Turks called on God to favour them, the Armenians cried continually, 'Haratch, haratch!' ('Forward, forward!') The missionaries in their compound could not tell the position of either side. A huge assault on the front gate, and swarms of armed men poured in shouting – surged over the building. Who were they? If they were Turks, it was the end for them and the 300 orphans. Doors were broken down; more troops poured in.

            Dawn began to break, and with a sense of relief as broad as the lightening sky the missionaries realised they were Armenians. The Hadjintzis had broken

 

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out of the confines of their town, and captured the valley and a portion of the surrounding mountains.¹⁷⁴

            But despite this incredible action, and the amazing bravery that had made it possible, their days were numbered unless they received reinforcements; they were still surrounded, and their lines were now longer and less protected. They again tried to contact the French – a number of messengers got through – but no help came.

            The Armenians took all the orphan children into the city for safety. Battle raged around the compound for the next two days; it became a scene of fallen plaster and blood-spattered walls. The missionaries were frequently forced to take shelter in the cellar, beneath stairs slippery with blood. Bullets rained pitilessly on the building, and a shell whined overhead. On the third day after its capture the Armenians became convinced that the compound was not worth holding. A sense of doom and a barely suppressed panic seized them. Their anguish was palpable, as they rushed in all directions. But the decision had been made, and at dusk they retreated back into the town. On the following day the Turks re-occupied the compound (after a sleepless night for the missionaries); intense firing was resumed almost at once. The American missionaries, for their part, escaped to Kayseri.¹⁷⁵

            Throughout the burning Anatolian summer the Hadjintzis continued their brave defence of their town; but as the sun began to decline, lengthening the shadows, so their strength diminished and so, correspondingly, the power of the Kemalists increased. So, too, their hope for French reinforcements proved wholly illusory. Even in August they had been hoping for the French to appear – or rather for the French to sanction the arrival of Armenian volunteers (who made up part of the French army of occupation), who, even if they could not actively assist them, would at least be able to cover their retreat.

            But none came. And finally, in mid-October, with only 480 men left, they decided to abandon the city. This way and that they fled, in twos and threes, south towards Feke and on to Adana. Those who could not escape were butchered. Thus was a town of 30,000 Armenians in 1914 reduced to 8,000 in 1919, and to 480 fleeing exiles by the following year.¹⁷⁶

            The siege of Hadjin astonishes us by the daring and dour determination of its defenders. Yet the bravery of these men – what did it bequeath to their children? Unlike the defenders of Tegea, it handed down no city blossoming in freedom, but a charred ruin full of blackening corpses decaying in the sun, uninhabited to this day; and there are a few elderly men in the Hadjin quarter of Beirut – and until recently one in west London – who, over many cups of coffee, will relate the story of the siege of Hadjin, and the bravery of its heroes. They were a witness that Armenians would not die like sheep, and that the price of expelling them from their ancient native city was very high indeed.

            Throughout Hadjin's terrible siege the political and military situation in Cilicia had been changing – for the Armenians, for the worse. Sis and Bozanti were forced to capitulate; Adana, Tarsus and Mersina came under extreme

 

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pressure. A cease-fire (for which the French were compelled to go to Ankara) served only to give time to the Kemalists to regroup. In early August, when the French seemed to be almost on their knees, the Armenians (together with the few Assyro–Chaldeans) declared the region between the Sehun and Jehun rivers self-governing. The French demanded that the official Armenian bodies condemn this action. They refused. On the contrary, endorsing the Sehun–Jehun action, two days later they declared the independence of Cilicia under French mandate. The day following (5 August 1920) Mihran Damadian, veteran of the Sasun uprising and now representative in Adana of the Armenian National Delegation entered the office of the governor of Adana, together with other Armenian functionaries and representatives of all Armenian political parties, and proclaimed himself governor of Cilicia, under French mandate.¹⁷⁷

            It was a protest, rather than a serious attempt to seize power. All Cilician Armenians were appalled by the way French policy was shifting towards the Turks, and failing to introduce any measures to protect the Armenians. The French appeared more and more to be collaborating with their wartime enemies, the murderers of the Armenians. (The soul of the Turk, Armenians surmised, had not been magically laundered by the coming of Mustafa Kemal.) This action was to remind the French of their obligations to the Armenians.

            But the independence of Cilicia lasted only about an hour. Colonel Brémond ordered the telephone to be cut, and told Damadian to stop 'cette comédie ridicule'. Damadian replied that he would have to be compelled to come out. A sharpshooter took up a position opposite the government building, and beside him a cannon was trained on it too. Damadian and his colleagues left. The French henceforth ceased all official relations with him, to the obvious delight of the Turks.¹⁷⁸

            It is fitting to end this account of the French in Cilicia with the siege of Aintab, for it shows clearly the qualities in evidence during the brief sojourn of the French in the region: the unremitting battle between the Kemalist Turks and the Armenians, the bravery and victory of the Armenians in their determination not to be ousted from their native city, and their betrayal by a political decision of the French. It is a paradigm of what the Armenians experienced under the French. Of course there were other sieges; but Aintab is memorable for its vividness, and its achievement.¹⁷⁹

            In late 1919 the Aintabtzi Armenians sensed they were becoming caught in a cross-fire between Kemalist Turks and occupying French, and attempted to set up a conciliation committee with the Turks. At this time they believed the Kemalist propaganda that the Turks wanted merely to rid themselves of the French, and only later did it become clear to them that the Kemalists were just as keen to throw the Armenians out¹⁸⁰ – to 'cleanse' the land of Armenians, in the manner of almost all Turks of the past 40 years.

            When the Armenians of Aintab heard of the siege of Marash, the three parties – Hunchak, Dashnak and Ramkavar – formed themselves into a united

 

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front (Azgain Miutiun, or national union), and showed that they were on the alert for any Turkish moves – to the displeasure of the Turks, who were themselves on the look-out for a chance to attack the Armenians.

            The Turks believed that they had their opportunity on 1 April 1920, when a large part of the French forces left south for Killis. They launched an attack on the Armenians, but quite failed to subdue them.¹⁸¹ For two weeks the Armenians, without French aid (for the French troops which remained were quartered outside the city), fought off the Turks.¹⁸² French reinforcements arrived on 16 April: during the succeeding months they often fought bravely, but with an alarming inconsistency (thus in late May they were advising the Armenians to quit, since they were incapable of bringing help themselves, while in November French forces under General Goubeau entered the city, only to be withdrawn soon after.¹⁸³) But the Turks were kept at bay, and the knowledge that for the Armenians there was really no alternative to fighting stiffened their resistance; for if they laid down their arms and evacuated they would all be murdered before they got to Killis, in accordance with the usual manner in which the Turks treated defeated enemies going into exile.

            The general truce proclaimed in late May hardened into an armistice.¹⁸⁴ But all three parties – French, Turks and Armenians – knew that it would only be temporary. On 29 July the Turks, believing that they had regrouped their forces sufficiently, broke the armistice with the French. Throughout September the French found themselves under increasing Turkish pressure, and twice asked the Armenians to break their armistice with the Turks, the second time (29 September) adding a veiled threat. The Armenians accordingly did so on 1 October; and the whole of Aintab again raged with battle. With Goubeau's entry into the city it appeared that the Turks had taken on more than they had bargained for, although his sudden withdrawal appeared to give them a chance. However, they were seriously weakened, and on 8 February 1921 they surrendered to the French.¹⁸⁵

            Two weeks later the French and Turks signed a treaty which included, among other things, acceptance of the relevant clauses of the treaty of Sèvres. Armenians were to participate in the government of Aintab. For them it was the vindication of a long struggle, which had ended with the Turks well and truly defeated.^{* 186}

            But the reversal at Aintab was in its way as grim a nemesis as that suffered by the Armenians at Marash. While Aintab was still a scene of dust and smoke, rent by the rattle of rifle fire and the thud of exploding shells, France was planning to negotiate the quickest way out of Cilicia. The Second London Conference (21 February–14 March 1921) had been called to try to amend the treaty of Sèvres so that it would be workable. During it the French prime minister, Aristide Briand, negotiated a separate peace with the Kemalists. The

 

                * It is puzzling why the Turks renamed the city Gaziantep, signifying victory and success.

 

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French would abandon Cilicia, including Aintab and Killis. And what would they obtain in return? Clause G of the agreement read:

 

            Franco–Turkish economic collaboration, with a right of priority for the concessions to be granted for the purpose of improvement and economic development in Cilicia (the regions evacuated by French troops) and also in the vilayets of Mamuret el-Aziz, Diyarbekir and Sivas, insofar as such development will not have been undertaken directly by the Ottoman government or by Ottoman nationals with the help of national capital.

            A concession to a French group for the mines of Argana-Maden.

            Concessions involving monopoly or preference will be exploited by partnerships constituted in accordance with Ottoman law.

            The widest possible partnership between Ottoman and French capital.¹⁸⁷

 

France had found that direct, military colonialism had failed, and was abandoning the strategy of confrontation for one of economic collaboration. But the overriding aim was the same – to harness Turkey to the French economy. In the face of this the mission civilisatrice, friendship going back to the time of the Crusades, even military alliance during the world war was as nothing, and disappeared like civilised values in a crowd of football hooligans. And the cost? Tens of thousands of Armenians again compelled to quit their homes, forced to trudge across the frontiers agreed upon by diplomats, with only so much as they could carry; this time permanently. Seldom can Lord Byron's admonition have been more relevant:

 

Trust not for freedom to the Franks;

They have a king who buys and sells.

 

            The accord signed on 9 March between Briand and Bekir Sami Bey was, however, not ratified by the Turkish assembly at Ankara. It was not extreme enough for them. (A further agreement, signed by Henri Franklin-Bouillon and Yusuf Kemal Bey officially terminated the French occupation of Cilicia six months later.¹⁸⁸) But the Armenians understood the direction of French policy, and saw that their only option was to quit. The Turks, now masters, gave some of those who thought they might stay a few worthless assurances, but the end result was the same for all of them: harassment, oppression and confiscation, cemented by an icy, inhuman bureaucracy.

            In this way, double-crossed by the French, about 50,000 Armenians were forced out of a land which has been theirs for a thousand years, to become refugees, mostly in Lebanon and Syria. There were other factors, too, besides French treachery, which forced them out: above all ruthless Turkish racialism. A measure of blame too must attach to the Armenians themselves, for quite so enthusiastically filling the role assigned to them by French colonial ambitions; however, the French had been expected to come in as protectors and

 

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guarantors, occupying Cilicia impartially until the signature of an enforceable treaty, and in such circumstances a pro-French policy was unavoidable for Armenians. Given the history of their subjection to their Turkish imperial rulers, especially during the years 1915–16, a pro-Turkish orientation was impossible for them.

 

 

The Armenian Republic in the Autumn of 1920

 

Cilicia, and especially Marash, was the theatre in which the Kemalists first tested their strength. But the first region where they enforced their terms was the Republic of Armenia, and it is there that we now return.

            The outlook for Armenia in early September 1920 was dark. Internally, the government was in control after the May uprisings, and indeed the area of its control had been extended by the war of June–July, even though the government had temporarily abandoned its claim to the disputed territories. But clashes were continuing, and Tatar villages were continuing to proclaim themselves as shuras, that is, city-states which were no-go areas for the government. In the alliance of Turkism and Bolshevism, Turkism appeared to be the stronger partner, since in Armenia the intention was not so much revolution as wrecking the country altogether. In Baku, the Communist International called a Congress of Peoples of the East¹⁸⁹ (August–September 1920), which was bitterly hostile to Armenia, not only because Dashnak Armenia was outside the Soviet orbit, but because of the same need felt by the Bolsheviks to support the stance of the Turks in order to maintain their pact. Under the cover of workers' internationalism, a number of cold-blooded Turkists were present at the congress, scheming Hagen-like for the destruction of Armenia. Chief of them was the educated intellectual Dr Behaeddin Shakir, who never rested from plotting and making propaganda for the elimination of Armenia.

            Internally, the country was beset by problems, too. Chief of them were the continuing lawlessness of the armed bands of Dashnaktsutiun (the 'Mauserists'), whom the Dashnak government itself was unable to control; and the disastrous economic situation. Firuz Kazemzadeh says, quoting Soviet historian B. A. Borian:

 

            From September 1918 to January 1920 the state treasury of Armenia had an income of 30 million roubles, while it spent 300 million. The deficit of 270 million was covered by the ever ready printing press, bringing about inevitable inflation. The value of the Armenian rouble decreased with astonishing rapidity. In March 1920 an American dollar was worth 1,000 Armenian roubles; in November it bought 28,000 roubles.¹⁹⁰

 

            As regards her relations with the outside world, Armenia was appearing isolated and deserted. The British were gone, and any kind of Allied support

 

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seemed quite remote. Armenia's leaders clung to the treaty of Sèvres as though it were a magic talisman. No progress had been made in the negotiations with Legrand for a 'treaty of friendship' with Soviet Russia (indeed it was 11 October before Legrand even deigned to visit Yerevan), and the promised Soviet mediation seemed a bodiless fiction; on the other hand, a Turko–Soviet draft treaty was initialled on 24 August. Under article 1 of this treaty the signatories 'declined to recognise any treaty imposed on the other', and Soviet Russia said she would not recognise any agreement not ratified by Kemal's Grand National Assembly in Ankara; and under article 3, 'In order to secure … unhindered relations between the two countries, the two countries agree to take all necessary measures to ensure the traffic of goods and people, free from all impediments.'¹⁹¹

            The previous March Lenin had stressed the importance of the Sovietisation of the Caucasus in a wire to Orjonikidze; as a result, a special Caucasian Bureau (Kavburo) had been set up, with the aim of installing Soviet regimes in the region.¹⁹² If we recall the links between Armenia's adversary and her alleged mediator, the prospect for any genuine mediation between her and the Kemalists was dim indeed. Nevertheless, there was far from total accord between Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey: the draft treaty (initialled on 24 August) was not ratified in Ankara for one important reason, that the Soviet state planned that some of the land of Turkish Armenia should be awarded to Armenia – an idea as heretical now in Ankara as it had been in Constantinople in the days of Abdul Hamid.

            Now, as ever, the main threat to Armenia came from the Turks. But within Turkish strategy we must distinguish two strands. One sought to impose a military defeat on Armenia solely for reasons connected with the Nationalist struggle (against the Allies and the puppet sultan's government). A defeat on Armenia would serve two purposes: it would forestall the threat of an Allied attack on Turkey from the east, and it would hasten the flow of Soviet weapons and gold roubles from Azerbaijan. The chief proponent of this course was Mustafa Kemal himself. The other strand was that of the fanatical anti-Armenian extremists, whose pan-Turkism dictated the extermination of Armenians. Chief of these was General Kiazim Karabekir,¹⁹³ commander of the eastern front, a man whose desire to eliminate Armenia was only matched by his brilliant instinct for military strategy – no rash Enver-like dreamer he. Thus not only were there divergent aims to the parties of the Turko–Soviet alliance, but even within the Turkish camp there were differences. Each party sought to make maximum use of the others, but as they struggled over Armenia their differences were to be brought into the open.

            As early as February 1920 Kemal had himself been meditating on a Caucasian offensive, to reach the Bolsheviks who were on the northern slopes of the Caucasus. Karabekir, in Erzerum, eagerly mobilised and equipped his troops by the spring. Kemal was, however, sceptical of the strength of the Eastern Army, and forbade any troop movements. But Karabekir pressed for

 

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the attack to start. In May he made three separate requests to the Grand National Assembly in Ankara for permission to attack Armenia, on the 6th, the 9th and 30th.¹⁹⁴ (To Karabekir's third request Kemal replied, 'You cannot succeed with a section of 3½ men '¹⁹⁵) Acting on his own, Karabekir sent an ultimatum demanding the surrender of Sarakamish within 48 hours, claiming that the forests were needed for construction in Erzerum. The Armenian government refused to accede to the demand, and Karabekir took no action in enforcing his ultimatum.

            To a further request from Kiazim Karabekir, Mustafa Kemal gave orders for a partial mobilisation of the Eastern Army on 6 June.¹⁹⁶ But the support of Soviet Russia was essential, and some days later a note (dated 3 June) reached Kemal from Soviet foreign affairs commissar Chricherin, which spelled out the conditions for a Soviet–Kemalist friendship treaty.¹⁹⁷ One of these conditions was that the peoples living in Turkish Armenia (Chicherin's term), Kurdistan, the district of Batum, eastern Thrace and regions inhabited jointly by Turks and Arabs should be given the right to decide their own fate. Refugees living in Soviet Russia and those made homeless against their will were to be accepted back, and allowed to participate in a referendum. So the alert was cancelled, to Karabekir's displeasure.

            The Turks were not at all pleased with Chicherin's note of 3 June, and they orchestrated all their most chauvinist arguments against it. Karabekir comments:

 

In Turkey there has been neither an Armenia nor territory inhabited by Armenians. … Those [Armenians] living in Turkey committed murders and massacres, and have escaped to Iran, America, Europe, and some of them to Armenia. How is it possible to call back these murderers and give them the right to vote?¹⁹⁸

 

When Chicherin persisted, and put the same proposal on 13 August to the Turkish delegation in Moscow, he was told, 'No Armenian provinces have ever existed in Turkey.'¹⁹⁹

            Chicherin's repetition of these principles shows that he meant them and was not just making propaganda. Nevertheless his theoretical position is hard to square with the actions on the ground of the Bolshevik forces in Transcaucasia: the simultaneous occupation of Karabagh, Nakhichevan and Zangezur, the adoption of a position towards Armenians very similar to that of the pre-Bolshevik Musavatist regime, and the use made by the Bolsheviks of notorious Armenocides like Khalil, Enver and Nuri.

            But although Chicherin's note cooled the Kemalists' ardour to strike at Armenia, a local dispute was sufficient to inflame relations between Ankara and Yerevan. The district (okrug) of Olti was the most westerly part of the province of Kars. In pre-war days its Turko–Tatar population had been over five times greater than all the Armenians there. It was a district claimed by

 

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Armenia, Azerbaijan and (without much conviction) Georgia. Only briefly in 1919 had Armenia been able to establish her authority there; for many months it had been a shura, or self-governing Tatar city-state.

            In June 1920, as part of the war waged by the Armenian government on all sides in order to impose its rule of law, Armenia occupied part of the district, including the rich coal-mines. The Turkish Nationalists protested, and demanded an Armenian withdrawal, basing their demands on the treaties of Batum and Brest-Litovsk. In return the Armenian government claimed that such demands were invalid, since those two treaties had been signed by the Constantinople government, against which the Nationalists were now in revolt. These exchanges continued until the end of july.²⁰⁰

            Despite the chill cast on the Turko–Soviet relations by Chicherin's note of 3 June, Karabekir still pressed ardently to attack Armenia. At one stage he seemed about to launch an attack without the sanction of the Grand National Assembly, and Ismet (Inönü) was compelled to make him stay his hand. In early September he travelled to Ankara, to persuade Mustafa Kemal in person of the necessity of an attack. Weighing up the possibilities – believing that the Allies would not now intervene, and that the Bolsheviks were preoccupied with the Russo–Polish war, Kemal authorised the attack to start.²⁰¹

 

 

Winterreise

 

The Kemalist offensive began in late September 1920. Already, on 13 September, according to a report of Commander Luke, at least four battalions of Kiazim Karabekir's troops had forced the Armenians out of Olti.²⁰² On the 24th the Armenians moved, to try to repel the Turks, whereupon the latter considered that they had their pretext for launching the offensive.

            The position of the Bolsheviks was equivocal at this juncture. Clearly they wanted to make as much political and military capital as possible out of the Kemalist attack on Armenia – a state with such close links with the Entente. To this end there was simultaneous pressure on Armenia in the Dilidjan region – the northern end of Armenia's frontier with Soviet Azerbaijan, where troop movements were most practicable. There was no full-scale military invasion comparable to the Turkish operation; just the occupation of a few villages, which the Communists claimed were theirs anyway under the terms of the provisional agreement of 10 August (something the Armenian government hotly denied).²⁰³ To speak of a 'concerted Turko–Bolshevik plot to destroy Armenia' is to make a disproportionate claim; but one cannot deny Communist opportunism.

            By 28 September the Turks had managed to occupy Karaurgan, the old Russo–Turkish frontier post, as well as Bardiz and Mount Ziyaret: together these three points made up a triangle, which enclosed Sarikamish. That night, the Armenians were compelled to evacuate Sarikamish.²⁰⁴ On the 29th

 

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Map 10. The Kemalist War, September-November 1920

 

Kaghizman fell. Captain George F. Gracey, head of the British military mission in Yerevan, sent an 'extremely urgent' cable to Commander Luke in Tiflis, conveying the request of the Armenian government for intervention to stop the Turkish advance.²⁰⁵ But nothing at all was done in reply; by now, despite the pledges of the past, the emotional, massively cheered speeches (filling the speaker with a wonderfully complacent sense of doing good), Armenia was all alone, as deserted as one of the derelict caravans of deportees in 1915.

            By 4 October the Turks were closer to Kars; Lieutenant-Colonel C. B. Stokes, the new Chief British Commissioner for the Caucasus, reported that they held Merdenek on the Olti–Kars road, and Novo Selim on the Sarikamish–Kars road.²⁰⁶ But the Armenians were putting up a spirited fight, he implied.

            By chance, on the same day, Colonel Haskell, the black-marketeer who had filled his pockets by selling to the Azerbaijanis charitable relief supplies intended for Armenia, was in London, where he was received by the Foreign Office. The man in the Eastern Department who received him was a stubborn, chilly Armenophobe, by the name of D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne, almost all of whose minutes on papers relating to the Caucasian situation betray a profound racial hatred of Armenians. Osborne missed no opportunity to belittle them, or to make them seem cowards or charlatans. He reported a self-satisfied Haskell saying of Armenia: 'The country is a desert and the people nothing but professional beggars.'²⁰⁷

            The only nation at all able to stop the Turkish advance was Soviet Russia; and at this time Russia offered to arrange a Turkish withdrawal. But the terms were severe: Armenia must sever all contact with the Entente.²⁰⁸ This would entail the irrevocable abandonment of the promises made in the treaty of Sèvres.

            Colonel stokes had a curious notion that the British could halt the Kemalist

 

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advance, even though there was scarcely a section of British soldiers in the entire Caucasus at the time. His John Buchan-ish idea was that the British should raise a revolt in the North Caucasus.²⁰⁹ This would occupy the Bolsheviks, and turn their attentions away from giving guns and money to the Kemalists. If (for a moment) his proposal is taken seriously, it represents an overestimation of the strength of the Turko–Bolshevik accord. In the first place, although the Turks were moving forwards, capturing towns and villages in the Kars province, the Bolsheviks were not pressing their advance against Armenia in the region of Dilidjan. And, secondly, Lenin himself wrote on 9 October that he believed that the Kemalists were seeking Baku, a prospect he can scarcely have viewed with joy.²¹⁰ So even if an anti-Bolshevik uprising had been staged in the North Caucasus, it is unlikely that it would have changed the granite resolve of Kiazim Karabekir in any way at all.

 

 

Legrand's Phony Mediation

 

On 11 October Legrand, the Bolshevik plenipotentiary, arrived at last in Yerevan, and shortly afterwards made his conditions known. These were:²¹¹

 

(i)                  Armenia must repudiate the treaty of Sèvres;

(ii)                Armenia must allow the Bolsheviks to use her roads and railways;

(iii)               All Armenian border disputes must be solved through the mediation of Soviet Russia.

 

            The first was categorically rejected, and Armenia made a great display at the time of rejecting the second too, just to see if the Allies would do anything at all for them; when they did nothing, the objection was dropped and the draft Russo–Armenian treaty, initialled a week later, said in essence:

 

(i)                  Soviet Russia recognises the independence and integrity of Armenia. Zangezur will go to Armenia; the fate of Karabagh and Nakhichevan will be settled by arbitration.

(ii)                Russia is to intervene immediately and stop the Armeno–Turkish war. A neutral zone is to be established on the 1914 frontier, and Armenian/Turkish frontier disputes are to be solved by Russia.

(iii)               Free passage through Armenia was to be granted to Communist forces en route for Turkey. Thirty per cent of the munitions passing through would be left for Armenia.

(iv)              Armenia accepts the mediation of Russia in solving her territorial disputes.

(v)                Soviet Russia is to give assistance to Armenia to enable her to recover economically.²¹²

 

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            With this draft under his arm, Legrand left. He said he was going to Moscow, to obtain approval for the treaty, and would be back when that was done. But he dallied for many days in Baku; and by the time he was back in Yerevan, the war had progressed to such a state as to make the treaty meaningless. In the opinion of Alexander Khatisian, Legrand was only playing at negotiations; his real aim was to decrease Armenian watchfulness, so that when Armenia was sufficiently prostrate she would be unable to resist Sovietisation.²¹³

            Until late October the war continued only inconclusively. In the south, a fierce to-and-fro battle was fought for Igdir. In the north, Armenian forces attempted a counter-attack in the Kars sector on 14 October, but it was a failure.²¹⁴ The new recruits brought in for the attack were too raw, and the Armenian army lacked a strategist as able as Kiazim Karabekir. The Armenians were driven back to Haramvartan, north of Benliahmet, on the Sarikamish–Kars road.²¹⁵

            On the 18th Ruben Ter Minasian, minister of war, travelled to Tiflis, to try to persuade the Georgians to make common cause with the Armenians against the Turks; but they replied optimistically that their treaty with Soviet Russia protected them against the Turks.

 

 

The Fall of Kars

 

Six days later the Turks began a massive thrust along a front from Kars all the way down to Igdir. The Armenians fought back desperately, and recorded some successes, especially in the Igdir region.²¹⁶ Simon Vratsian notes the relief felt in Yerevan when the distant thud of the guns at Igdir ceased. The Armenian air force – three aircraft bought from the French – was in operation for the first time. But around Kars the story was one of failure, tragedy and despair, Continuing from his description of the Igdir successes, Vratsian writes:

 

            Events followed an altogether different course on the Kars front. … Aircraft were in action for the battle of Kars, as well as the armoured train Azatamart ('Freedom fighter'). In command of the fortress of Kars was General Pirumian, while commanding the artillery of the fortress was a Bulgarian officer, Col. Babajanov. The commander-in-chief of the Kars garrison was General Silikian, and his staff officer was Col. Vekilian. Parts of both the fortress and the field were organised laxly; the great part of the soldiers had been recently recruited and had not yet been properly integrated. In many sections the relations between officers and men were not very close. Also relations were not good between General Pirumian, General Hovsepian and Governor Ghorghanian; this attitude was reflected on the men who surrounded them. A part of the troops had been hastily armed with Ross rifles, newly received from England, which they were not accustomed

 

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to. The rear was not organised, and anti-state elements – Bolsheviks – were able to promote difficulties. So, on 2 October, seven versts distant from Karayal station, near the village of Shahnalor, a train taking soldiers to the front was destroyed; fourteen wagons were smashed, and of the soldiers twelve were killed and forty-three wounded. This was the work of Bolsheviks.

            In order to test the military ability of our troops, and with the intention of increasing their fighting spirit, the high command resolved to undertake a general offensive. In the event of success, the intention was to move forward. The assault did not command success. As a result of the enemy's firm resistance our troops retreated almost up to Kars. After that the initiative passed entirely into the hand of the Turks. Squeezing us step by step, on 28 October they occupied the heights of Vezenköy. For the whole of the 28th fierce battles took place; Mazmanian's regiment attempted to re-take Vezenköy. In these battles both sides sustained heavy losses. The leader of the front, General Gnduni, was wounded. On 29 October the army regrouped. In accordance with a given command, on the morning of 30 October our troops would have gone over to a counter-attack, with the intention of occupying Vezenköy. But the 1st regiment refused to carry out the order, and did not move from its position. In despair and powerless, Col. Mazmanian committed suicide with two shots of his Mauser, in view of everyone. Even this did not influence the disposition of the troops. At that time the Turks launched an assault with great force. A confused flight began. A part of our troops and the armoured train retreated towards Mazraa. The population and the rest of the troops flung themselves down towards the gorge in the direction of the village of Prokhladnaya. Our aircraft flew to Yerevan. Kars fell into the hand of the enemy. They took prisoner Gen. Pirumian, Gen. Araratian, Col. Shaghubadian, Col. Vekilian, Col. Babajanov, Lieut-Col. Ter Arakyalian, thirty-odd officers of various ranks, and nearly 3,000 soldiers, Minister A. Babalian, Garegin Abp. Hovsepiants, provincial sub-governor Chalkhushian, mayor Norhatian and a great number of native citizens. For three days uninterruptedly the Turks looted, raped and killed, and perpetrated every kind of savagery in the city.

            Minister A. Babalian, himself a witness of the events, describes with terrifying colours the cruelties done by the Turks. The Armenians were subjected to slaughter, beautiful women were taken into concubinage, able-bodied men were driven away into the interior of Turkey. Additionally, he gives shocking information of the role played by the Bolsheviks. 'On the fifth day of our captivity', he writes, 'four Armenians decorated with red bands visited us, accompanied by a few Turkish officers. They were the Armenian Communists of Kars. They were visiting the hostels and were betraying their enemies to the Turks. They were members of the Revolutionary Committee. The Turkish officers had persuaded them that they were going to hand over Kars to a Bolshevik administration, and in every way they were flattering

 

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the dregs of the Communists. In return these men were making denunciations, and were showing them the sites of ammunition dumps and giving them essential information about the Armenian troops and regarding the terrain.'

 

            However, the following extract, from the Baku Armenian-language paper Komunist (no. 42), described in the following manner the behaviour of the Turks in Kars:

 

            'On 30 October the vanguard of the Turkish troops entered Kars, not meeting any resistance at all from the Armenian forces, and occupied Kars. Until the entry of the Turkish troops the Armenian soldiers were firmly convinced that the troops attacking Kars were Bolsheviks, and for that reason they offered no resistance to the Turks. The same opinion was shared by the working people of Kars, who were absolutely convinced that the troops attacking under the red banner were the revolutionary army of Red Turkey. But the troops which entered the city spared neither women, children nor the aged. For five days these bloodthirsty soldiers and the Kurds perpetrated upon the head of the peaceful population atrocities which were beyond the imagination of man. Armenians alone they killed. Everyone was looted indiscriminately.

            'They did not even spare the Communists, who presented certificates proving identification. In Kars alone 6,000 Armenians fell victim to Turkish brutality.

            'Mass arrests of Armenians followed the terrible massacre. They stripped them from head to foot, and in hundreds they dispatched them to work in Erzerum and Sarikamish. Those sent were struck down by cold and died from hunger and suffering.

            'At the same time a movement of Turkish immigrants towards the region of Kars began. Those who saw it related with fear how a crowd of many thousands of old men, women and children were moved in during that cold weather to Sarikamish and Kars, to be installed as quickly as possible in villages and houses of the Armenians who had fled.'²¹⁷

 

            Alexander Khatisian, who was in Yerevan at the time, describes how the Armenian capital heard the news, and the effect it had there:

 

            On 30 October at nearly 2.00 p.m. I noted an aircraft flying over the city of Yerevan. Its noise could be clearly heard in the city. The plane landed. No one could guess that that plane had brought terrible news; in the morning of 30 October the Turks had taken Kars.

            At 3.00 p.m. I received an invitation to attend a government meeting. When I entered the hall there were about twenty people present: the corps of ministers, the president of parliament, a few members and a few military men. A deep silence reigned. All were profoundly depressed.

 

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            Opening the session the chairman announced that he had received news that Kars had fallen. Details were sketchy, but the officer who had arrived by air announced that he personally had seen Turkish askers enter the city from the direction of the station, and that Armenian soldiers and people were fleeing from the city. The pilot had considered it his duty to fly on, in order to save the aircraft and to take the news of the capture of Kars to Yerevan.²¹⁸

 

Eyewitnesses related on the following day (Khatisian continues) that Kars had fallen almost without a shot being fired. The collapse of the morale of the garrison was total. One detail that Khatisian mentions, which Vratsian omits, is that the killers and looters in the city were 'bandit groups [that is, bashibozuks] which the troops had allowed in'. Little had changed, it appeared, in a thousand years of Turkish warfare.

            Summing up, Khatisian describes the fall of Kars as 'a catastrophe in all respects', adding that 'from that day the independent days of Armenia were numbered'.²¹⁹ The Armenian army had suffered a disastrous reverse; and the state had been reduced to a tiny size, crammed with cold, starving, ragged refugees. Conditions were very similar to those prevailing at the birth of independent Armenia in May 1918, when, too, a Turkish Caucasian offensive was in progress.

 

 

Further Turkish Advances

 

Now, as then, the Armenian leaders realised that they had to make peace with Turkey at any price. But whereas the humiliating peace of Batum (June 1918) was lightened by the prospect of the destruction of the Central powers, and the emergence of – as they thought – a new, just world led by Britain, France and the United States, now there was no hope. For Armenia at this moment the sense of abandonment, despair, desolation, misery and death was complete. All that remained was to salvage what could be saved from utter destruction.

            Perhaps, though, there was a choice; alternatively to making peace with Turkey (as in 1918), she might make peace with Soviet Russia, and then obtain, as Georgia believed that she had obtained, protection against a Turkish attack. But the negotiations with Legrand had ground to a halt. Besides, the Dashnak leaders of Armenia listened very carefully to the advice of Colonel Stokes in Tiflis, and Lord Curzon a few days later was to endorse Stokes's suggestion that Britain favoured a Turkish orientation.²²⁰

            In the meantime, the Turkish advance continued. By 4 November the Turks had pressed forward 30 miles east of Kars, and the Armenians attempted to halt them at Kizilchakchak; but to no avail. They were only briefly held up by heavy snow west of Alexandropol.²²¹

 

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            Then on 6 November Yerevan received Kiazim Karabekir's terms for an armistice. These were:

 

(i)                 Armenian forces were to withdraw to positions 15 kilometres east of the Arpa Chai;

(ii)                Turkish forces would occupy the fortress and the railway station of Alexandropol (but not the city itself), and Turkish forces would occupy the vicinity of the city for a radius of 10 kilometres;

(iii)              The Turks would guarantee order in Alexandropol.²²²

 

All this was to be accomplished within 24 hours.

            The Armenian government accepted these terms, and hoped that negotiations would start at once. But within 24 hours Armenia had received a crushing new ultimatum. Ahmed Mukhtar, Turkey's commissar for foreign affairs, had overruled Karabekir's terms, and made fresh demands, utterly crippling for Armenia. These were, in essence:

 

(i)                  Armenia was to give Turkey a vast quantity of war material;

(ii)                Turkey was to be in control of the railway line as far north as Sanahin;

(iii)               Armenian forces were to withdraw to a line Surmalu–Araxes station–Mount Kizil Ziarat–Mount Alagöz–Tanagermaz village–Novo Mikhailova–Nurikend–Talvanadagh (that is, roughly along a line from Araxes station to the north end of Lake Sevan).²²³

 

            However defenceless she might be, this near-annihilating ultimatum was unacceptable to Armenia. It was rejected. ²²⁴ Instead, on 10 November Yerevan proposed a peace conference, based on Karabekir's initial terms. The Turkish reply came back the same day: no; the war resumes. Hostilities recommenced the following day,²²⁵ and Kiazim Karabekir transferred his headquarters to Alexandropol.

            Anticipating – or so they claimed – an Armenian counter-attack on Alexandropol, the Turks launched a fierce attack on 14 November, and forced the Armenians to retreat still further to Hamamlu, east of Alexandropol. South of it they captured Aghin. With the prospect of nothing but further defeat, ruin and cold extinction, the Armenians finally accepted Ahmed Mukhtar's armistice terms on 17 November at 3.00 p.m.²²⁶ At last the guns were silent.

 

 

After the Kemalist War: Attitudes and Manoeuvres

 

At the same time, the Allies made it clear that they would help Armenia in no way whatever. None of them considered themselves bound by promises and verbal undertakings to support Armenia which had been made during the first

 

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world war and the post-war period. Armenia was now without food, without warmth, and all but overrun by a ruthless inveterate foe. The desolation and death that the country had been reduced to were reminiscent of the terrible winter of 1918–19. Moreover, this time the abandonment was international too. When Avetis Aharonian came to London in the second week of November, the Foreign Office – in the person of the Armenophobe D. G. Osborne – advised Lord Curzon not to receive him. Curzon assented. Instead, Osborne treated Aharonian to a lecture, in the form of a letter drafted by himself and signed by Curzon, which concluded with the precept: 'What we want to see now [sic] is concrete evidence of some constructive and administrative ability at home, instead of a purely external policy based on propaganda and mendicancy.'²²⁷

            In Yerevan Alexander Khatisian was designated leader of the delegation to make peace with Kemalist Turkey. In these extreme circumstances making peace meant manipulating one power – Turkey or Russia – against the other, so that Armenia might gain some small advantage. And so, in these last critical days of independent Armenia, there were in effect two peace efforts continuing, one led by Khatisian, to keep the Turkish army from overrunning what remained of Armenia, and the other (albeit on ice for the moment) attentive to the Bolsheviks, to see if there was any way of reaching agreement with the Communists without actual Sovietisation of the country.

            Differing views were held on the nature of the Armenia that should be saved. Some of these were dangerously hypothetical, and only concerned in a cerebral, unrealistic way the saving of the remnant, and had little regard for the real Armenia: the villagers, their homes and their livelihood. One such intellectual concoction had just been dashed to the ground, and that was that Britain and France would 'rescue' Armenia. With that fantasy out of the way – with the realisation that all the statements and declarations from Western Europe about Armenia were as meretricious as Klingsor's magic garden – there was a very belated chance to pursue the path of reality. Yet there were other nebulous theories hanging in the air, based on allegiance to political parties. Since, however, a pro-Communist slant meant that Armenia would be underpinned by the might of the Eleventh Red Army, it represented realism disguised as theory; the only realism left to the country.

            The first action of Khatisian, as the leader of the delegation to make peace with Kemalist Turkey, was to travel to Tiflis in order to discuss matters with the representatives of the Allied governments.²²⁸ As expected, none could give him any real help. Stokes told him that it was preferable that Armenia should come to an agreement with Turkey, since a treaty with Soviet Russia would be 'worse'.²²⁹ To the end Britain was using Armenia as an instrument of her own foreign policy; the slaughter of Kars, the flight of refugees, the shivering starvation of the country and all the other inhuman barbarities that a Turkish invasion brought were nothing if the Bolsheviks could be kept a few kilometres further away.

 

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Change of Government

 

But Armenia did not intend to bare its throat to the Turks for the sake of any foreign power. 'Nothing remains for the Armenians to do but to choose the lesser of two evils,' says Vratsian.²³⁰ In these sombre, grief-stricken days, which for the Armenians often seemed like the very end of time, the eyes of all Armenians were (to quote Vratsian again) fastened on the north, seeking salvation from the Russians.²³¹ In response to this feeling Prime Minister Ohandjanian tendered his resignation; the man who had suppressed the Bolshevik uprising six months earlier was clearly unacceptable for Soviet Russia. The man most widely supported as his successor was Hovhannes Kachaznuni, Armenia's first prime minister. When asked to form a government, he accepted with these words:

 

            Gentlemen, I know well what is being asked from me. You require a sacrifice to save the shipwrecked vessel and you want me to be the sacrifice. If that is the way to the salvation of the fatherland, and the will of the people, I bow before it.²³²

 

            But Kachaznuni found himself unable to form a government. The other parties – Populists, Social Democrats – refused to collaborate with the Dashnaks. So Kachaznuni himself resigned, and recommended that Simon Vratsian, known for his pro-Russian views, be appointed prime minister. In his own words, Vratsian 'had no choice but to accept' (23 November).²³³

            Once prime minister, Vratsian lost no time in re-opening negotiations with Legrand, representative of Soviet Russia. He confidently expected that Russia would mediate between Armenia and Turkey, and that Budu Mdivani, another Bolshevik plenipotentiary in Yerevan, would travel to Alexandropol for that purpose.²³⁴ But – a vital demonstration of how the Kemalists and Bolsheviks were moving further apart politically the closer they came to one another physically – this plan was rejected by both sides. On the one hand, the Turks would not allow Mdivani to be present at Alexandropol, and on the other hand Legrand gave Vratsian these stark terms for Russian aid: Khatisian's peace delegation must be recalled from Alexandropol, the terms of the Armeno–Turkish armistice of 17 November must be rejected, and Soviet forces should be invited into the country. These terms Vratsian turned down, believing in the first place that Soviet forces would be physically unable to stop a renewed attack of the Turks who were poised near the Markara bridge, 40 kilometres from Yerevan, and also that to invite Soviet forces into Armenia would be to end the independence of the country.²³⁵

 

 

President Wilson's Award

 

Amid these realistic efforts to reach an agreement a strange echo, like the rattle of bones, reached Armenia from the old world of the New World. This was

 

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Map 11. President Wilson's Award, November 1920

 

President Wilson's award of territory to Armenia, as stipulated under article 89 of the treaty of Sèvres. It was announced on 22 November. Armenia was awarded a huge amount of land – 42,000 square kilometres – from Ottoman Armenia, including a 400-kilometre coastline, from Giresun (Kerasond) to the Georgian frontier. Such towns as Gumush-khana, Erzindjan, Moush and Bitlis were to be included in the new Armenia. Eighteen months earlier such an award would have been possible; now, because none of the powers had any intention at all of enforcing it, it was an antique irrelevance which served only to distract the parties from reaching an agreement with one another based on the existing political and military realities. It was in the main a fair and just award (although the vast coastline was over-generous, meaning that large numbers of Greeks and Laz would be incorporated into the projected Armenian state^*) and it made ample recompense for the mass murder of the Armenians five years before. But it was predicated upon the notion that right and justice prevail in the world, not force, cunning and self-interest. As such, it served no purpose.²³⁶

 

 

Khatisian in Alexandropol

 

Vratsian had tried to negotiate with Legrand, but had been rebuffed. Khatisian, for his part, was just beginning to negotiate – in rather the same way that the cornered mouse negotiates with the cat – with Kiazim Karabekir in Alexandropol. His delegation had gone to Alexandropol with the hopes of an

 

                * The Pontic Greeks would have preferred their own state, but would have chosen Armenian sovereignty as a second alternative. As it was, they remained in Turkey, and within a couple of years most of them had been deported and murdered.

 

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Armenia consisting of the republic as it had existed for the past two years, together with Van, Lake Van, Moush and, to given outlet to the Black Sea, the port of Rize. Trebizond and Erzerum would go to Turkey. Kiazim Karabekir, with a finely wrought mixture of realism and hypocritical solicitude, confronted the Armenians with their fate: all members of the League of Nations have abandoned you, Europe has exploited your value and thrown you away, Russia is advancing south to the warm waters she needs and will engulf you. Only one power can protect and help you: Turkey.²³⁷ (Georgia, he continued, was pledged by a secret treaty not to intervene in the Turkish–Armenian conflict.) Karabekir indicated that the Armenian delegation's map of the projected Armenia was too large for a defeated country, and on 30 November he presented his own proposals: Kars and Surmalu would go to Turkey, Nakhichevan and Zangezur would become Azerbaijani protectorates. Armenia would be left with 27,000 square kilometres. She would be permitted to keep an army of only 1,200 troops, armed with 20 machine guns and 8 cannons. The representatives of the Allies should leave.²³⁸ The only Armenia that Karabekir was permitting was a tiny protectorate, wholly dependent on Turkish goodwill.

 

 

The Bolsheviks Act

 

Karabekir was racing to create 'his' Armenia, to forestall the Bolsheviks from creating theirs, which would put dreams of capturing Baku even further off. Yet as he was negotiating with Khatisian, the Bolsheviks had decided to act. On 27 November Stalin instructed Orjonikidze (in Baku) to begin operations against Armenia.²³⁹ Two days later Legrand informed the government that 'the Central Committee of the Russian Communist party has decided to establish a Soviet regime in Armenia. The Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) has already arrived in Armenia. Any delay is detrimental.'²⁴⁰ Meanwhile, on that very same day, the 29th, Armenian Bolshevik forces entered the country at Karvansaray (modern Idjevan), followed by the Revkom, who proclaimed that 'by the will of the insurgent toiling people of Armenia it declares Armenia henceforward a Soviet Socialist Republic.'

            Late at night on the following day there was a special meeting in Yerevan of the Cabinet, with a number of MPs and all members of the Bureau of Dashnaktsutiun, as well as some army officers. All agreed to accept Legrand's conditions and not to try to oppose the situation as it had developed.²⁴¹ Already negotiations on the practicalities for the hand-over of power were taking place, between Dro and Terterian on the one hand and Legrand on the other. But that night, too, the Parliament had another matter to discuss. They had received details of Karabekir's demands given to Khatisian that day. Now, in view of the fact that power was being handed over to the Bolsheviks, should Khatisian sign the treaty with Karabekir? Should not all negotiation with the Turks be left to the Bolsheviks, who were about to become the government,

 

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and Khatisian's delegation be recalled from Alexandropol? Thereby the Dashnaks would at least be spared the task of signing the humiliating treaty which Karabekir had prepared. But what would happen if the delegation was recalled from Alexandropol? Members voiced the fears that Vratsian had expressed to Legrand a week earlier – that the Turks would invade and lay waste Yerevan and Echmiadzin before Red forces could arrive. Later the Bolsheviks might be able to compel them to quit; but by then the heartland of Armenia would have been denuded of Armenians. Finally, almost all agreed that the treaty should be signed, and they comforted themselves with the thought that if the Bolsheviks really were so influential with the Turks, they would soon be able to sign another treaty with Turkey, more favourable to Armenia.²⁴²

 

 

The Hand-over of Power

 

At the same time talks began between Dro, Terterian and Legrand, on the hand-over of power. These were successfully concluded on 2 December, by an eight-point agreement.^{* 243} The two parties agreed that the hand-over of power to a Communist-controlled coalition would take place at midnight, 2/3 December. To this end a decree was published by the government, saying that due to external factors it had agreed to surrender the reins of government, and that the entire country was temporarily under the dictatorship of Dro.²⁴⁴

            Thus the transfer of power was achieved in an orderly and peaceful manner.

 

 

Khatisian's Puzzle in Alexandropol

 

But what of Khatisian's delegation at Alexandropol? Let us recall that Karabekir had made known his terms to Khatisian on 30 November, and these had been telephoned to Yerevan, where they had been discussed deep into the night, with the upshot that the country's leaders agreed to accept them. But Karabekir was impatient, and fearful that the Bolsheviks would gain Armenia before he did, thus destroying his plan for creating a corridor through to Baku.

 

                * In essence: (i) Armenia is an independent socialist republic; (ii) power is temporarily vested in a provisional Military Revolutionary Committee; (iii) Soviet Russia recognises as Armenia: the province of Yerevan; part of Kars province (to ensure military control of the railway from Jajur to Araxes stations); the Zangezur district, part of the Kazakh and Tiflis districts; (iv) the army command is not held responsible for the army's actions prior to Sovietisation; (v) members of Dashnaktsutiun and other socialist parties will not be victimised for belonging to their parties; (vi) The Military Revolutionary Committee will consist of five Communists and two left Dashnaks appointed with the approval of the Communist Party; (vii) Soviet Russia will immediately introduce sufficient military forces into Armenia for its defence; (viii) on the signature of this agreement the authority of the Armenian republic ends, and until the arrival of the Revkom power is transferred to a Military Command, headed by Comrade Dro. Comrade Céline (Silin) is appointed Soviet Russian commissar for the Military Command of Armenia.

 

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So at 11.00 a.m. on the morning of 1 December he issued an ultimatum, saying that unless signature was immediate his troops would move on Yerevan.²⁴⁵

            Khatisian, realising the supreme importance of delay at such a critical moment, objected and asked for permission to communicate the main points of the treaty to Yerevan in order to receive explicit instructions. Karabekir assented in the afternoon, and a message was sent to Yerevan with a request for an urgent reply. Late that night the reply came back:

 

            The government has resigned; our forces at Dilidjan and Karvansarai met Bolshevik forces without any opposition. With Dro and Terterian from the Dashnaks a coalition government is being formed with the Bolsheviks. We are obliged to accept the Turkish terms. You are fully authorised to sign the treaty.²⁴⁶

 

            There is a curious inconsistency in the wording of that reply, which troubled Khatisian. On the one hand it says that the government has resigned, and on the other it authorises him to sign the treaty. When, at 6.00 p.m. on the following day (2 December), Dro telegraphed Khatisian, there was both clarification and a deeper ambivalence. His message ran: 'On behalf of the Revolutionary government I herewith inform you that you are free to sign or not to sign the treaty.'²⁴⁷

            Khatisian was both confused, and aware of the great responsibility that rested on his shoulders: to make a false move might lead to the Turks overrunning all that remained of Armenia. So he asked Dro a second time: 'Is the government itself in favour of signing or of refusing to sign? We are waiting here for clear and simple instructions.'²⁴⁸

            Dro replied: 'I have already told you that you may act as you think best [literally, "according to your understanding (hasgatsoghutiun)"]. I am speaking in the name of Comrade Céline and myself.'

            Thereupon Khatisian called a meeting of all 16 members of the delegation, and asked each for his opinion. They were unanimously in favour of signing the treaty.

            At 8.00 that evening the final session of the Alexandropol conference opened. Both sides went through the treaty, clause by clause. The Armenians were able to make a few small changes in their favour (such as increasing the permitted size of the Armenian army from 1,200 men to 1,500); but on matters such as Ani, Nakhichevan and Surmalu the Turks made no concessions at all. Finally, at 2.00 a.m. on 3 December, the treaty of Alexandropol was signed.²⁴⁹

 

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol

 

The circumstances of the signature of the Alexandropol treaty present several puzzling features, which have provided the materials for anti-Dashnaks to

 

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build elaborate conspiracy theories about Turko–Dashnak collusion. For instance, why were Dro's answers to Khatisian so oracular? And what was the point of a delegation representing a defunct government signing a treaty? But both these points can be answered by the absolute necessity of Khatisian to keep talking, to make the Turks think that they were engaged in a significant activity, in order that they would not take up their arms again.

            The treaty consists of 18 clauses,²⁵⁰ the first of which states that war between Turkey and Armenia is ended. The boundary between the two states is similar to today's Soviet–Turkish border, that is, roughly, along the Araxes river in the south, then north along the Arpa Chai, to Mount Akbaba. Nakhichevan, Shakhtakhti and Sharur were to be disputed land, whose future was to be decided later by a plebiscite^* (article 2); likewise too the region between the old 1914 frontier and the new one, if Armenia requested it (article 3).

 

            * It seems incredible that the Turks could mouth terms of political sophistication like 'plebiscite', at the same time as their soldiers and 'irregulars' were perpetrating death and destruction similar to, or even worse than, that in Kars. A Soviet document describes the situation in Kars and Alexandropol as follows:

 

               Those people who were saved from massacre are condemned to starvation and untold privation, since the districts of Kars and Alexandropol are in total economic ruin. The Turks have taken away all the bread, rice and other foodstuffs from these places. They have left behind not even one single animal, whether cow, horse or sheep – all are herded in droves towards Erzerum. Parallel with this deathly economic breakdown are the relentless massacres which the Turks have perpetrated in these same regions from the very first moment they invaded them. … the Armenian population of Alexandropol and of some tens of towns in various regions of Armenia have been put to sword. (E. K. Sarkissian and R. G. Sahakian, Vital Issues in Modern Armenian History, trans. E. B. Chrakian (Watertown, 1965), pp.54–5; see also FO 371/6266.3428).

 

                Another Soviet document, dated 24 December 1920, describes the situation in Alexandropol thus:

 

               Hitherto unseen and unheard-of crimes are being perpetrated in the rural districts. … All the towns are plundered, there is nothing left behind – no livestock, no bread, no clothes, nor yet fuel. The streets of these towns are filled with dead bodies. This is nothing yet; it all becomes far worse when the soldiers harass their prisoners and punish the people in more horrible ways. Not content with this, they seek more pleasure by subjecting them to a variety of tortures. They force parents to hand over to these executioners their eight-year-old daughters and twenty- to twenty-five-year-old sons. They rape the girls and murder the young men – all this in the presence of parents. This is the way they conducted themselves in all the towns. Young girls and women up to the age of forty are snatched away, no one knows where to, while men up to forty-five years of age are murdered. These towns are depopulated. The situation has no precedent; it is beyond description (Sarkisian and Sahakian, Vital Issues, p. 56).

 

                Oliver Baldwin, son of the future British prime minister, socialist, anti-Bolshevik and British agent, records his impressions of Turkish-occupied Alexandropol thus:

 

               The streets were dirty, the town almost empty of inhabitants. Here and there an aged Armenian tailored for the Turkish soldiery or baked Turkish cakes or cobbled shoes, but the rest of the population were scattered, massacred, or living in caves by the side of Alagöz, waiting for death. The silence of the town was enhanced by the snow in the streets, and our rumbling wheels were the only sounds, except for the soft patter of a Turkish soldier's feet on the pavement (Oliver Baldwin, Six Prisons and Two Revolutions (London, 1924),p. 150).

 

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With the sincere desire that conditions and movements violating public order, which are the results of provocation and incitement by the imperialist states, will never again be possible, the Yerevan republic agrees that it is not permitted to form an army except for a lightly armed police force.

 

            Thus begins article 4 with a preamble of stunning hypocrisy, in that it is this article which encapsulates the ruthless imperialism – though the word is too weak – of Kemalist Turkey towards Armenia. For defending the country's borders Armenia was allowed a 'detachment' of 1,500 soldiers equipped with 20 machine-guns and 8 field cannon. Compulsory military service was forbidden. All these matters could be inspected at any time by a Turkish political agent resident in Yerevan (article 5); and, the same article alleged, Turkey would come to Armenia's aid against internal and foreign threats. Refugees might be allowed to return home (6), but only if they returned within a year (7). Turkey will not demand an indemnity (8). 'With the sincerest benevolence' – a benevolence similar to that of the Walrus and the Carpenter towards the Oysters – Turkey would aid the development and preserve the sovereignty of Armenia (9). Armenia declares the treaty of Sèvres null and void, and recalls its ambassadors from Europe and America (10). Muslims in Armenia will elect their own muftis directly, and the election of the Grand Mufti of Armenia will be subject to confirmation by Turkey (11). Freedom of transit will be assured; and Turkey will have the right to supervise and inspect goods entering Armenia

 

____________________________

                The same author, travelling west from Sarikamish in mid-March 1921, records the following:

 

               Eventually our train snored and creaked and we started slowly on the last stage of our journey, rolling through high banks of snow that had been made by the clearing of the track by poor Armenian peasants who stood waist deep in the snow and watched us with hungry eyes, clutching their rags round their shoulders, their teeth chattering with the cold, their shovels held loosely in their yellow hands. … The sight of these little gangs of prisoners made one's heart bleed. Here and there a body in the snow; here and there we saw a man drop as he shovelled the snow, whilst his colleagues worked on, making curious whimpering sounds, like starving dogs (ibid., pp. 187, 189–90).

 

                Colonel A. Rawlinson, Mustafa Kemal's prisoner in Erzerum for most of 1920, noted at about this time:

 

               On leaving our old quarters we first saw 'Armenian prisoners'. Those we saw were being used as labourers (slaves would be the proper word), and accustomed as I had become to see starvation, misery, and privations of every description, yet the appearance of these men gave me, even at that time, a shock such as I had never before experienced, and a memory which will remain with me whilst life lasts. It was then midwinter, the snow everywhere lying deep, the force and temperature of the arctic wind being beyond description; yet those miserable spectres were clothed, if the word can be applied to their condition, in the rottenest and filthiest of verminous rags, through which their fleshless bones protruded in many places, so that it seemed impossible that humanity could be reduced to such extremities and live. In fact, the duration of their tragic misery depended only upon the individual vitality, which enables some, possibly the least fortunate, to continue to exist longer than others, to whom death brought a speedier relief from their sufferings (A. Rawlinson, Adventures in the Near East, 1918–1922 (London, 1934 edn), p.238).

 

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(12). Turkey may undertake temporary military action inside Armenia if she feels herself threatened (13). Armenia declares as null and void anti-Turkish stipulations in treaties with other states (14). Diplomatic and commercial relations will begin on the signature of the treaty (15), as will rail, telegraph and postal communication (16). The Turkish military occupation of part of Armenia will end, and an exchange of prisoners take place, when Armenia has fulfilled all her treaty obligations (17). The treaty will be ratified within one month (18).

            The treaty of Alexandropol was crushing; yet, in terms of international diplomacy, it was meaningless. Since it was signed after midnight on 2/3 December, the signature was that of a superseded administration. (Dro's words 'I am speaking in the name of Comrade Céline and myself' cannot alter this fact; they merely show that the Bolshevik, too, was in favour of keeping the Turks happy by negotiating, and signing, or whatever.) Moreover, it was never ratified. Yet the treaty of Alexandropol has a considerable historical significance. It represented the last act of independent Armenia, and the forced closure of the Armenian question, that is, of the attempt by Armenians to enlist foreign diplomatic and military aid to enable them to wrest an autonomous or independent Armenia from the eastern provinces of imperial Turkey. Now independent Armenia itself had signed away its claims not only to pre-1914 Ottoman imperial regions but to pre-1878 as well. It was a grave and sad moment for those who had dreamed of an independent Armenia; all the hopes, the efforts, the terrible sacrifices of the past 40 years had turned to dust beneath the boot of the Turkish soldier. This had happened in the past, certainly, but then there had always been the hope of eventual restitution. Now there was none.

 

 

Bolshevik Armenia

 

But if the hope of independent Armenia comprising Russian and Turkish Armenias was dashed, at least the advent of the Bolsheviks in Yerevan meant that Caucasian Armenia was reverting to her old position as Russia's younger brother. The dreadful shortages would end, the seething uncertainty and political instability that had racked the whole region since 1917 would be over. Few Armenians had any real idea what Communism entailed, and only a very few of that largely non-industrial land had any understanding of its theory; yet most were prepared, in December 1920, to give it a try. Vratsian, who had himself always favoured a Russian orientation, agrees that the change of government was initially welcomed.²⁵¹ Leon Surmelian, the author and translator, who was in Nor Bayazid at the time, remarked simply: 'What disturbed me was the attitude of the natives towards this sudden change in regime: they were too glad about it.'²⁵²

 

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International Excesses and External Failures

 

But Russia did not come bringing bread and peace. Within a few days Armenia, even now in its exhausted and prostrate condition, found itself gripped by the reign of a new terror. The Revkom, consisting of Armenians from Azerbaijan, entered the country on 5 December, and the Cheka – the secret police – was set up on the 6th. What followed has been described thus by Soviet historian B. A. Borian:

 

            The Revkom started a series of indiscriminate and peremptory seizures and confiscations, without regard to class principle and without taking into account the general economic and psychological condition of the peasantry. Devoid of planned or revolutionary character, and executed with unnecessary brutality, these confiscations were wholly unorganised and arbitrary. Unattended by a disciplined machinery, without the preliminary propaganda or enlightenment, and with utter disregard of the country's unusually distressing conditions, the Revkom issued its slogan of seizing and nationalising the food stores of the towns and the grain of the peasantry. With amazing recklessness and unconcern, they seized and nationalised everything – military uniforms, artisans' tools, rice mills (whether publicly or privately owned), all the water mills, barbers' tools, beehives, linens, woollens, household furniture of citizens regardless of their class status. … Naturally, this forcible requisitioning was the basic cause of the people's rebellion.²⁵³

 

            Plots and conspiracies against the state were searched out where there were none; the people were too cold and hungry to bother with such things. When the Communists had moved in there was no opposition to them at all; even the Dashnak party had accepted that only their presence could save the country, and the Parliament had voted in favour of letting them in.

            The excesses committed internally by the Revkom, headed by Sargis Kasian, but with the 21-year-old adventurer Avis Nurijanian as its guiding spirit, were only paralleled by its failures externally. Although Soviet Azerbaijan agreed, in a fraternal gesture, to hand over to Soviet Armenia the disputed regions of Mountainous Karabagh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan,²⁵⁴ of those territories only Zangezur was actually attached. The reason was that when the status of these lands came to be formally laid down, the objections of Kemalist Turkey were taken more seriously than the wishes of the Sovietised Armenians. The new Soviet government of Armenia met with no greater success with respect to Georgia, which had occupied the neutral zone of Lori-Borchalo during the Armeno–Turkish war; now, despite notes from Yerevan, she refused to budge from this land with its clear Armenian majority. Nor would Georgia release large quantities of food stores destined for Armenia, which were held up in Black Sea ports. But the greatest failure was in relation to Turkey itself. The

 

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notes that Yerevan sent Ankara requesting immediate withdrawal from Alexandropol were rejected; and indeed it was 22 April 1921 before Soviet troops were able to enter the town amidst ruin and death. Moreover, even though one of the first actions of the new Soviet Armenian regime was to repudiate the treaty of Alexandropol, the representative of Ankara, Ahmed Mukhtar, saw no reason for doing so, and intimated that Turkey still held it to be valid.²⁵⁵ Indeed the Turks continued to occupy villages after Sovietisation, and murdered Communist Armenian officials with as much enthusiasm as they had ever killed other Armenians (for example, after occupying the village of Kaftali on 13 December they butchered 13 young officials).²⁵⁶

            The agreement signed on 2 December between Legrand, Dro and Terterian was entirely disregarded. Arrests followed: the first wave included Hamo Ohandjanian and General Hamazasp, later on the president of the Parliament, A. Sahakian, and later still of Hovhannes Kachaznuni and Nikol Aghbalian.²⁵⁷ The country, whose day-to-day conditions were wretched beyond description, cowered beneath a tyranny of pure intellectual ideology.

            There was only one way out: rebellion. The Dashnak party was still strong, and although it had agreed to co-operate on handing over power to the Communists, its outlook was basically hostile to the Communists, if only because they represented a political force which was centrally organised, like itself. A secret Dashnak organisation, the Committee for the Liberation of the Fatherland, was established under the leadership of Simon Vratsian.

            Zangezur declared itself independent of the Yerevan government on 25 December.²⁵⁸ At the same time mass purges of the army were being carried out. But the Cheka felt itself hindered by the presence of the great national figure Dro; consequently he was ordered to Moscow in early January 1921, and left on the 10th. Mass arrests and purges followed. Fifteen hundred Armenian officers were deported to Azerbaijan.²⁵⁹ In the outlying areas opposition was crystallising into action.

            But, as their rule was snapping in Armenia, the Bolsheviks began military operations against Georgia, perhaps fearing that a counter-revolution in Armenia allied with an anti-Bolshevik government in Tiflis would provide the opportunity for Britain and France again to strike at Soviet rule. The immediate result was that Soviet troops were withdrawn from Armenia, which simplified the situation for the Dashnaks.

 

 

The February Uprising

 

Fighting broke out on 12 February. The Communist government replied by issuing a decree (signed by Avis Nurijanian, minister of war, and countersigned by the sadistic, leather-clad Cheka chief Gevorg Atarbekian, known as the 'bloody-jawed') saying that unless the revolt ceased at once, about 100 of the arrested Armenian leaders would be shot in jail.²⁶⁰ It did not stop, and that

 

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night the first 50 were shot in cold blood. The following night, as the sounds of the insurgents' gunfire grew closer to Yerevan, a second group were hacked to death (the Armenian Communist soldiers had refused to fire on them).

            The Dashnaks re-established themselves in power in Yerevan on 18 February, after first freeing the remnant of the prisoners who had escaped the Communist slaughter. Yet what could they do – what political options were open to them? The answer must be, almost none at all. The Dashnaks had handed over power to the Communists 11 weeks earlier because they realised that they were impotent. Nothing had changed to make their situation any better; indeed, with the Sovietisation of Georgia proceeding, it was considerably worse. They sent off a flurry of telegrams – to the powers and to the League of Nations, appealing to their 'conscience', and to Lenin and Chicherin, claiming that their action was 'not directed against Russia or Soviet authority'.²⁶¹ They also asked Georgia for assistance; but Georgia, in the throes of Sovietisation, was in no position to help.

            'The proletarian flag flies over Tiflis!' cabled Orjonikidze to Lenin and Stalin on 25 February;²⁶² and with the capture of the Georgian capital, the Communists were able to reinforce their forces in the south. The following day Yerevan was shelled, and on 1 March a Soviet attack was repulsed with heavy losses.²⁶³ The same day Vratsian, clutching at burning straws, asked the Turkish political agent in Yerevan to pass on a request for Turkish military aid.²⁶⁴ Armenia stood by the treaty of Alexandropol, he said. No reply came from Ankara; the Turks were keener on getting good terms from the Russians at the forthcoming Moscow conference than giving aid to the anti-Soviet rebellion in Armenia which would jeopardise their position.^*

            By 9 March Yerevan was surrounded by Soviet troops; Vratsian implored Moscow to settle the dispute by negotiation rather than by weapon. Moscow did not reply.

 

 

The Treaty of Moscow

 

One week later, as the Dashnaks still held out against an ever-tightening steel ring of Soviet forces, the Russians and Turks concluded their negotiations in Moscow with a treaty: Chicherin and Jellaleddin Korkmasov represented the Soviet state, and Yusuf Kemal, Riza Nur and Ali Fuad Nationalist Turkey.²⁶⁵ No representative from Armenia or Georgia was there, even though the main subject was relations between the Caucasian states and the new Turkey. It was like a return to the cynical old days of the tsars and sultans, when imperial rulers dispensed the fortunes of their vassals according to their own whims and

 

                * Vratsian's request to Turkey has been taken as a de facto ratification of the treaty of Alexandropol, and of evidence that the Dashnaks all along were keener to do a deal with the Turks than with the Soviet Russians; but it is perfectly explicable by the need simply to improvise.

 

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interests. The frontier between Turkey and Armenia was (as far as I can make out, from the names of the relevant border villages) exactly the same as for the treaty of Alexandropol; if there were any differences, they were minimal. Kars and Ardahan went to Turkey, and the new frontier was to be from Mount Akbaba south along the Arpa Chai (Akhurian) and then east along the Araxes. Surmalu, with its main town Igdir, never Turkish except intermittently in the eighteenth century, went to Turkey, as did Mount Ararat. The district of Nakhichevan was to be autonomous territory under the protection of Azerbaijan. Other clauses dealt with elegant diplomatic niceties like consular representation and reciprocal treatment of each other's nationals, all of which was redundant, while the Turks' main ambition, as deduced from their actions, was to make as many Armenians as possible die from cold and starvation, after extorting a measure of forced labour from them. However, in the Moscow treaty the Armenians were spared the hypocritical and humiliating 'protection' verbiage – of being protected by only maintaining an army of 1,500 and suchlike, as Alexandropol had laid down. At least the remnant of the Armenians had got the Turks off their backs. Turkey would not be able to intervene in Armenia, as she had been able to under the Alexandropol treaty (articles 5, 9, 12 and 13). The treaty of Moscow would, its final paragraph said, be later ratified at Kars.

 

 

Why the Bolsheviks Favoured Non-Bolshevik Turkey

 

The immense favour shown to Turkey by the treaty of Moscow did not result from the circumstances of the counter-revolution proceeding at the time of its signature. It sprang from the curious view that the forces of the left – specifically of the anti-colonial left – held about the Kemalist movement. Although Kiazim Karabekir could be said, in his unquenchable thirst for territory, to be stepping straight into the imperial boots of Sultan Selim the Grim, the Kemalist movement was hailed – by the periodic blindness and moronic befuddlement to which international leftists are notoriously prone – to be an 'anti-imperialist' struggle. The Congress of the Peoples of the East, held in Baku, reinforced this view. The presence there of Enver and Behaeddin Shakir should have been sufficient to raise suspicions. This congress proved the high regard in which Kemal's defiance to the Allies was held by the forces which might weaken the international hold of British capital. It threw the Bolsheviks and Kemalists deeper into their tactical alliance. B. A. Borian comments, referring to the subsequent treaty of Kars, which kept the borders of the treaty of Moscow:

 

            The eastern question constituted the cornerstone of the international revolution and the international policy of Soviet countries, in whose opinion Turkey was the organising centre and idealistic leader of the national emancipatory movements of the east; consequently the fate of imperialism in

 

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the east wholly depended upon Turkey's political activity in the east. It was under these conditions that Soviet Armenia was forced to sign a peace treaty with Turkey; by the contingencies of history Turkey was given a free hand in the determination of Soviet Armenia's boundaries. Turkish diplomacy had prepared the draft of the peace treaty, according to which Armenia could either sign or reject the eastern policy of the Soviet fraternal republics.

            By rejecting the proposal of the Soviet fraternal republics, Armenia would have had to sever her political and economic relations with them, and wage a war with Turkey, which she could not. At the same time, without the economic and political aid of the neighbouring Soviet republics, Armenia was not in a position to build up a soviet government.

            Armenia's choice was predetermined by her historical setting. In signing the treaty to be included with Soviet Georgia and Soviet Azerbaijan, and to enjoy the participation of Russia, Armenia was made the ransom price in the eastern policy of the Soviet, in the interests of world revolution. This was quite a price to pay for the interests of the world's working men, for the Soviet countries and for world revolution. For the adverse economic and political consequences which resulted, the Soviet countries later paid dearly by hastening material aid to ravished Soviet Armenia.²⁶⁶

 

 

The Bolsheviks Return: Lernahayastan

 

In Yerevan it was only a matter of days before the collapse of the central part of the anti-Soviet revolt. The Bolsheviks received reinforcements, and pressed tighter and tighter around Yerevan. On 2 April they reached Kanaker, on the city's outskirts; panic seized Yerevan, and thousands fled south towards Zangezur and Iran. The following day Atarbekian telegraphed Moscow that 'the detestable adventure of the Dashnak party was today liquidated'.²⁶⁷

            Nevertheless, despite the words of the Cheka boss, the revolt continued in the mountains of Zangezur. Zangezur had been independent from 27 December; morale had been boosted by hearing of the February rebellion by radio. Leader of the Dashnak forces there was Garegin Nzhdeh. Extending his authority to Daralagiaz in February, he declared the region independent Lernahayastan, mountainous Armenia. So firmly lodged were the Dashnak forces in the mountains that the Bolsheviks decided upon negotiations (see below, p. 352); but these broke down, and a series of military thrusts in July 1921 finally destroyed the quasi-republic of Lernahayastan. Large numbers of fighters and refugees were forced to ford the fast-flowing waters of the Araxes into Iran.²⁶⁸

            In this way, amidst suffering and privation greater than she had known for any of the two and half years of her existence, independent Armenia died. A vision of a potential state collapsed. It is possible to speculate endlessly about the reasons for the collapse, but one thing must stand as the major factor: the

 

[Page 328]

 

Turkish offensive of autumn 1920, and the unbreakable resolve of Kiazim Karabekir to crush Armenia. Without that attack it is perfectly possible that Armenia could have kept her independence. Of course there were other things that aggravated the situation; especially Armenia's geographical remoteness, the lack of a sea coast, the perfidy of Britain and France (who, even if they broke no specific undertaking or treaty, acted in a way contrary to all their declarations on Armenia), the delay in producing the treaty of Sèvres, and in Armenia itself the nature of the Dashnaktsutiun, which so seldom seemed to understand the value of compromise. Also – reflecting in the statements of European leaders concerning them – many Armenians held an amazing and misconceived belief and trust in Europe and America, which amounted to a dogmatic refusal to see themselves as Easterners and Asiatics, whose political connections must necessarily be in that part of the world. Yet all these factors were subsidiary to the deadly blow wielded by Karabekir's troops.

            Did the Bolsheviks save Armenia? The notion that they did would seem to be a curious proposition, in view of the close political ties between Moscow and Ankara, and the ease with which the treaty of Moscow handed over large tracts of purely Armenian-inhabited land to the Turks. Then, too, when the Bolsheviks eventually arrived in Yerevan, the terror they created cannot fail to have reminded some of a Turkish occupation. But the Bolsheviks did not murder Armenian women and children merely for the sake of exterminating them, as the Turks did. Even a shocking act such as the slaughter of the 75 officers is not in the same category as the utterly relentless, ruthless and indiscriminate actions which accompanied the Turkish capture of a town. It is with this in mind that even Avis Nurijanian's murderous reign of terror must be seen as a saving grace, because it was backed by the might of the Eleventh Red Army, which was the only power capable of halting a Turkish advance. However cynical the Communist seizure of power in Armenia may have been in its design and execution, it resulted in a small area of the globe remaining to Armenia, and not being relegated to the history books, as had been the fate of Cappadocia, Commagene or Caucasian Albania. Moreover, despite the close alliance between the Kemalists and Bolsheviks, there is strong evidence that in the last desperate days before Sovietisation of Armenia, there was a race between Bolsheviks and Turks for control of the country; hardly the action of two powers acting together to destroy the third situated between them.

 

 

Lenin's Letter

 

After the grim events of the spring of 1921, Lenin took personal charge of events in the Caucasus, and he despatched Alexander Miasnikian to Yerevan as his own representative. Arrogant intellectual youths such as Avis Nurijanian, who believed that they knew the solution to every problem from cold theory alone, were bared from entry into Armenia. To Miasnikian Lenin gave

 

[Page 329]

 

a letter addressed to local Bolshevik leaders, whose sentiments were healing and conciliatory:

 

            You will need to practice more moderation and caution, and show more readiness to make concessions to the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and particularly to the peasantry. You must make the swiftest, most intense and all possible economic use of the capitalist west through a policy of concessions and trade…

            What the republics of the Caucasus can and must do, as distinct from the RSFSR [that is, Russia], is to effect a slower, more cautious and more systematic transition to socialism…

            You must make immediate efforts to improve the condition of the peasants and start on extensive electrification and irrigation projects. What you need most is irrigation, for more than anything else it will revive the area and regenerate it, bury the past and make the transition to socialism more certain.²⁶⁹

 

 

The Kars Conference

 

Finally, there was the conference at Kars, to ratify the Moscow treaty. This conference sealed the border in the form that it has today, and its resultant treaty wound up all the suffering, slaughter, starvation and incessant uncertainty that the region had endured since 1914. It also spelt an end to any Armenian hopes of Turkish Armenia.²⁷⁰ The conference lasted from 26 September to 13 October 1921.²⁷¹ Kiazim Karabekir represented Turkey; the Soviet states of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan were represented respectively by Askanaz Mravian, Shalva Eliava and Bebut Shakhtakhtinsky. But the real spokesman for the Caucasian states was Yakov Ganetzky (or Hanecki), Chicherin's own representative.

            On the subject of borders, Ganetzky accepted those laid down in the Moscow treaty, with two small revisions: the first was the ruins of Ani, situated on the west bank of the Arpa Chai, the actual border between Turkey and Soviet Armenia; and the second was the salt mines of Goghb (Kulp), between Igdir and Kaghizman, which he described as an 'inseparable part of Transcaucasia'.

            But Karabekir's response was that of an inflexible bureaucrat. He referred to the treaty of Moscow, pointing out that since these changes were new to it, they lay outside the scope of the conference. By way of response, at a later session, Ganetzky read a prepared statement:

 

            We were hopeful that the Turkish delegation would give us an affirmative answer in regard to Armenia's claim to Ani, which is wholly devoid of any military, economic or geographical significance. At the last moment, as in

 

[Page 330]

 

the case of Goghb, so too in the case of Ani, the Turkish delegation rejected the claims with the objection that, in ceding Ani which is on the west of the Akhurian river, the treaty of Moscow would be impaired.

            The delegation of the Transcaucasian republics record with deep sorrow the rejection of their proposal In regard to Ani, which mean so much to the Armenians from the national, historical and artistic point of view. It should be added that the Transcaucasian peoples will take the rejection with genuine sorrow.²⁷²

 

            On the two matters of Armenian concern – the frontier with Turkey and the status of Nakhichevan – the Kars and Moscow treaties were the same (and the border itself was the same as that laid down in the treaty of Alexandropol). Soviet historian B. A. Borian said of the Kars treaty, 'A more intolerable and more unfavourable treaty than the treaty of Kars can scarcely be found in all the pages of hitory,'²⁷³ and while allowing for justifiable exaggeration, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that just as the Allies refused to recompense Armenia for her losses during the first world war, so now the Communists were discriminating against Soviet Armenia (and Georgia, for that matter) in favour of non-Soviet Turkey; and doing so at a time when the international situation was clearly improving for Moscow. But this was only a subsidiary element in the Armenian tragedy of the past six years, which was now at an end. For at every juncture, until this time, as Armenia had looked for a political solution to her problems, or as she had had incomplete solutions imposed on her, the cost in human suffering to her people had increased. The fixing of the border would end that suffering by ending the political uncertainty. It was harsh and unjust, but at least it meant that the inhabitants of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic would henceforth be able to live.

 

 

Notes

 

1. Richard G. Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), p. 63 (henceforward cited as 'Hovannisian, Independence'.

2. W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 363, 368, 383, 409.

3. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 63.

4. Ibid., pp. 75–80.

5. Allen and Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, pp. 422–3.

6. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 81.

7. Ibid., pp. 85–6.

8. Ibid., pp. 86–90.

9. Ibid., p. 108.

10. Ibid., pp. 109–10.

11. Ibid., p. 119; also G. Korganoff, La participation des arméniens à la guerre mondiale sur le front du Caucase, 1914–1918 (Paris, 1927), p. 103.

12. Korganoff, Participation des arméniens, p. 95.

13. Firuz Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917–1921 (Oxford and New York, 1951), p. 91.

 

[Page 331]

 

14. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 100.

15. Ibid., p. 99.

16. Kazemzadeh Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 93–4.

17. Hovannisian, Independence, pp. 113–17.

18. Ibid., pp. 134–7.

19. Korganoff, Participation des arméniens, p. 113.

20. Kazemzadeh Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 95–6.

21. Ibid., p. 97.

22. Ibid., p. 70.

23. Ibid., p. 73.

24. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 159.

25. Ibid., pp. 162–9.

26. Ibid., p. 168.

27. Ibid., p. 172.

28. Ibid., pp. 173–5; also Allen and Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, p. 471.

29. Allen and Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, p. 472.

30. See Jacques Kayaloff, The Battle of Sardarabad (The Hague, 1973), especially Chapter 2.

31. Allen and Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, pp. 472–6.

32. Hovannisian, Independence, pp. 193–4.

33. Ibid. pp. 181, 184; Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, p. 119.

34. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 122–3.

35. Ibid., p. 115.

36. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 189.

37. Ibid., pp. 190–1.

38. Ibid., p. 191.

39. Simon Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun (Beirut, 1958), p. 177.

40. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 198.

41. Ibid., p. 191.

42. Richard G. Hovannisian, The Republic of Armenia, vol. I, The First Year, 1918–1919 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), p. 40 (henceforward 'Hovannisian, Republic, I').

43. Ibid., pp. 40–2.

44. Ibid., pp. 51–5.

45. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, p. 128.

46. Ronald Grigor Suny, The Baku Commune, 1917–1918 (Princeton, 1972), p. 275.

47. Ibid., p. 304.

48. Ibid., p. 305.

49. CAB 23/6.435 (8).

50. Suny, Baku Commune, p. 312.

51. Ibid., pp. 326–7; Hovannisian, Independence, p. 221.

52. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 222.

53. L. C. Dunsterville, The Adventures of Dunsterforce (London, 1920), p. 279.

54. Jacques Kayaloff, The Fall of Baku (Bergenfield, N.J., 1976), p. 12 (slightly adapted).

55. Suny, Baku Commune, p. 338.

56. Ibid., p. 339.

57. Ibid., pp. 342–3.

58. Hovannisian, Independence, pp. 238–41.

59. A. J. Toynbee, The Times History of the War (London, 1919), vol. XX, pp. 103–4.

60. FO 371/3657.10607.

61. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 303.

62. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening (London, 1938), p. 435.

63. Hovannisian, Independence, p. 251.

64. Ibid., p. 252.

65. Hovannisian, Republic, I, p. 277.

66. Great Britain, Foreign Office, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, 1st series, eds. W. L. Woodward and Rohan Butler (London, 1947–63), vol. IV, p. 914 (henceforward 'DBFP').

67. Hovannisian, Republic, I, pp. 277–81.

 

[Page 332]

 

68. Ibid., p. 64.

69. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 175–6.

70. Hovannisian, Republic, I, pp. 93–113.

71. Ibid., pp. 126–30.

72. The Times, 4 January 1919, p. 5.

73. Ibid., 16 January 1919, p. 8.

74. Ibid., 22 January 1919, p. 7.

75. Ibid., 2 May 1919, p. 13.

76. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 167–8.

77. Ibid., p. 241.

78. Hovannisian, Republic, I, pp. 157–8n.

79. Ibid., pp. 88–9.

80. Ibid., pp.175–82.

81. Ibid., pp.192–6.

82. Ibid., pp.199–227.

83. Ibid., pp.228–49.

84. Ibid., pp.459–67.

85. Ibid., pp.471–5.

86. Hovhannes Kachaznuni, H. H. Dashnaktsutiunë anelik chuni ailevs (Vienna, 1923), trans. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation has Nothing to Do Any More (New York, 1955), pp. 8–9.

87. Hovannisian, Republic, I, pp. 434–7.

88. Michel Paillarès, Le Kémalisme devant les alliés (Paris, 1922), p. 57.

89. FO 406/41, p. 162.

90. See James B. Gidney, A Mandate for Armenia (Kent, Ohio, 1967), pp. 168–91.

91. FO 406/41, p. 360.

92. Gidney, Mandate for Armenia, pp. 187–9.

93. DBFP, vol. XIII, p. 60.

94. Graham Nicol, Uncle George: Field-Marshal Lord Milne of Salonika and Rubislaw (London, 1976), p. 210.

95. Hovannisian, Republic, I, pp. 241–2.

96. FO 608/78.16453, 17750, 17582.

97. DBFP, vol. IV, p. 716.

98. Ibid., pp. 778–9.

99. DBFP, vol. II, pp. 563, 569–70.

100. FO 371/4933.1570.

101. FO 371/4953.1561.

102. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 356.

103. DBFP, vol. VII, 643–9.

104. League of Nations, Official Journal, no. 3 (April–May 1920), pp. 85–7.

105. DBFP, vol. VIII, pp. 107–22.

106. Ibid., p. 177.

107. Gidney, Mandate for Armenia, p. 237.

108. DBFP, vol. III, p. 746.

109. FO 371/4352, FO Memo of 21 November 1918, pp. 19–20.

110. FO 371/4932.1097.

111. Ibid.; also DBFP, vol. XII, pp. 573–4.

112. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 591.

113. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 277 ff.

114. Ibid., p. 283.

115. Ibid., p. 284.

116. FO 406/44, p. 8.

117. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 602.

118. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 387.

119. Ibid., pp. 378–86.

120. FO 371/6265.48, p. 3.

121. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, pp. 388–9.

122. Ibid., p. 389.

 

[Page 333]

 

123. Ibid., p. 390.

124. Ibid., p. 390n.

125. FO 371/4942.7619.

126. Ibid.

127. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 396.

128. Ibid., p. 398.

129. James L. Barton, Story of Near East Relief (New York, 1930), pp. 120 ff.

130. FO 371/4942.7619.

131. Sir Harry Luke, Cities and Men (London, 1953), vol. II, p. 146.

132. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 610.

133. Ibid., p. 609n; Luke, Cities and Men, p. 110.

134. Hambardzoum Terterian, 'The Levon Chanth Mission to Moscow', I, Armenian Review, vol. VIII, no. 2–30 (June 1955), p. 6.

135. Ibid., p. 8.

136. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

137. Ibid., p. 12.

138. Luke, Cities and Men, vol. II, p. 154.

139. Terterian, 'Levon Chanth Mission to Moscow', p. 13.

140. Ibid., p. 14.

141. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 457.

142. DBFP, vol. XII, pp. 633–4.

143. See map in FO 371/4962.1398, p. 176.

144. FO 406/44, p. 23.

145. Treaty Series, no. 11 (1920), pp. 25–6.

146. Paul du Vèou, La Passion de la Cilicie, 1919–1922 (Paris, 1954), p. 47.

147. Col. E. Brèmond, La Cilicie en 1919–1920 (Paris, 1921), pp. 4–5; du Vèou, Passion de la Cilicie, p. 59.

148. Brèmond, La Cilicie, pp. 9–11; du Vèou, Passion de la Cilicie, pp. 70–2.

149. Brèmond, La Cilicie, p. 8.

150. Ibid., p. 11.

151. FO 406/43, p. 231.

152. Ibid., p. 240.

153. Brèmond, La Cilicie, p. 33.

154. FO 406/43, p. 240.

155. Ibid., pp. 242 ff.

156. Ibid., pp. 243, 244.

157. Ibid., p. 247.

158. du Vèou, Passion de la Cilicie, p. 131.

159. FO 406/43, p. 248.

160. Ibid., p. 248.

161. Ibid.

162. Ibid.

163. Ibid., p. 221.

164. Brèmond, La Cilicie, p. 41.

165. du Vèou, Passion de la Cilicie, pp. 180–4; Stanley E. Kerr, The Lions of Marash (New York, 1973), pp. 216–18.

166. Capt. A. F. Townsend, A Military Consul in Turkey (London, 1910), p. 116.

167. Brèmond, La Cilicie, p. 46.

168. D. B. Eby, At the Mercy of Turkish Brigands (new Carlisle, Ohio, 1922), pp. 100–1.

169. Ibid., p. 106.

170. Ibid., p. 108.

171. Personal interview with Khatchig Metribian, Chiswick, June 1973.

172. Eby, At the Mercy of Turkish Brigands, p. 160.

173. Ibid., pp. 206 ff.

174. Ibid., p. 216.

175. Ibid., p. 221.

176. Brèmond, La Cilicie, p. 46.

177. Ibid., p. 66.

 

[Page 334]

 

178. Ibid.

179. M. Abadie, Les quatre sièges d'Aintab (Paris, 1922); K. A. Sarafian, A Briefer History of Aintab (Arlington, 1957).

180. Sarafian, Briefer History of Aintab, pp. 151 ff.

181. Ibid., p 154.

182. Abadie, Les quatre sièges d'Aintab, pp. 47–50.

183 Ibid., p. 100.

184. Ibid., pp. 47–50.

185. Ibid., p. 111.

186. DBFP, vol. VIII, pp. 809–65.

187. G. F. de Martens, Nouveau receuil général de traités, 3ième série (Leipzig, 1925), vol. XIII, pp. 332–4.

188. Turkey no. 2 (1921).

189. See Brian Pearce (trans. and ed.), Congress of the Peoples of the East (London, 1977).

190. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, p. 212.

191. Tevfik Biyiklioglu, Atatürk Anadoluda (1919–1921) (Ankara, 1959), vol. I, p. 20.

192. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), p. 224.

193. Kazim Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz, 2nd edn (Istanbul, 1969), pp. 661–846.

194. Ibid., pp. 661, 682, 714–15.

195. Ibid., p. 805.

196. Ibid., p. 727.

197. Ibid., p. 735.

198. Ibid., pp. 736–7.

199. Ali Fuat (Cebesoy), Moskova Hatiralari (Istanbul, 1955), p. 70.

200. Alexander Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, 2nd edn (Beirut, 1968), pp. 254–60.

201. Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz, p. 830.

202. FO 371/4960.11896.

203. FO 371/4962.13994, pp. 188–91.

204. Ibid., pp. 181, 182.

205. Ibid., p. 184.

206. FO 406/44, p. 48.

207. FO 371/4960.12174.

208. FO 406/44, p. 49.

209. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 637.

210. Quoted in E. K. Sarkissian and R. G. Sahakian, Vital Issues in Modern Armenian History, trans. E. B. Chrakian (Watertown, 1965), p. 54.

211. Hambardzoum Terterian, 'The Levon Chanth Mission to Moscow', II, Armenian Review, vol. VII, no. 3–31 (Autumn 1955), p. 97.

212. Ibid.; see also Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, pp. 261–2.

213. Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, p. 263.

214. FO 371/4964.14902, p. 1 of report of 22 October.

215. Ibid., p. 3.

216. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 642; FO 371/4964.14902, p. 4 of report of 28 October.

217. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, pp. 479–81.

218. Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, pp. 278–9.

219. Ibid., p. 280.

220. FO 371/4964.14759.

221. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 643; FO 371/4963. 14100.

222. FO 371/4963.14301.

223. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, pp. 482–3, Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz, pp. 844–5; FO 371/4964.14541.

224. FO 371/4964.14636.

225. FO 371/4963.14293.

226. FO 371/4963.14373; FO 371/4964.14568.

227. FO 371/4963.14033.

228. Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, p. 290.

229. DBFP, vol. XII, p. 653.

 

[Page 335]

 

230. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 485.

231. Ibid., p. 490.

232. Ibid., p. 487.

233. Ibid., p. 488.

234. Ibid., p. 495.

235. Ibid., p. 498.

236. United States, Foreign Relations of the United States 1920, vol. III, pp. 790–804.

237. Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, p. 307.

238. Ibid., p. 308.

239. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 232.

240. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 500.

241. Ibid., p. 503.

242. Ibid., p. 504.

243. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union, pp. 232–3.

244. Oliver Baldwin, Six Prisons and Two Revolutions (London, 1924), photograph of document facing p. 32.

245. Khatisian, Hayastani Hanrapetutian dsagumn ou zargatsumë, p. 309.

246. Ibid., p. 310.

247. Ibid.

248. Ibid.

249. Ibid., p. 311.

250. Copy of the treaty, translated from the Turkish text by Prof. T. Halasi-Kun, in the hands of the author, courtesy of Jacques Kayaloff.

251. Simon Vratsian, 'How Armenia was Sovietized', IV, Armenian Review, vol. I, no. 4 (October 1948), p. 94.

252. Leon Z. Surmelian, I Ask You, Ladies and Gentlemen (London, 1946), pp. 164–5.

253. Quoted in Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 512; also Simon Vratsian, 'How Armenia was Sovietized', IV, Armenian Review, vol. I, no. 4 (October 1948), p. 95.

254. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, pp. 291–2.

255. Ibid., 292.

256. Simon Vratsian, 'How Armenia was Sovietized', V, Armenian Review, vol. II, no. 1–5 (February 1949), p. 119.

257. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, p. 511.

258. Ibid., p. 551.

259. Baldwin, Six Prisons, pp. 82–3.

260. Ibid., pp. 102–7; on Atarbekian see Oliver Baldwin, The Questing Beast (London, 1932), pp. 122–3.

261. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, pp. 529–30; see also FO 371/6266.

262. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 238.

263. Baldwin, Six Prisons, p. 130.

264. FO 371/6267.3698; see also 'Survey of the Press', Caucasian Quarterly (Berlin), no. 3 (1938), p. 130.

265. Text in J. Degras (ed.), Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (London, 1951), vol. I, pp. 237–42.

266. Quoted in Vratsian, 'How Armenia was Sovietized', V, p. 125.

267. S. R. Harutiunian, Hai Zhoghovrdi Patmutiun (Yerevan, 1970), vol. 4, p155.

268. Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun., pp. 546–61.

269. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (in English) (Moscow, 1965), vol. 32, pp. 316–18.

270. Text in Degras, Soviet Documents, vol. I, pp. 263–9.

271. See Vratsian, Hayastani Hanrapetutiun, pp. 643–8.

272. Vratsian, 'How Armenian was Sovietized', V, p. 123.

273. Quoted in Ibid., p. 125.

 

 

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