In January 1918, Vehib Pasha invited the representatives of the Transcaucasus to Brest-Litovsk. He promised to have his allies – the Germans, Austrians, and Bulgarians –also recognise the Transcaucasus government. The Georgian nationalists supported going to Brest-Litovsk, but the Georgian Mensheviks and Armenians were resolutely against it.
Since an agreement had not yet been reached between the Bolsheviks and Germans in Brest-Litovsk, the Turkish and German armies moved forward. The Transcaucasus’s government petitioned the Sejm to negotiate with the Turks with a special delegation. The Sejm chose the members of adelegation headed by the Georgian Akaki Chkhenkeli.
During the February 2, 1918, session of the Sejm, the Armenians, Georgians, and Tatars (Azeris) once again debated the issue of war and peace.
Noi Zhordania announced that the kind of peace that the Bolsheviks signed “we will not sign: it is better to die at our posts with honour, rather than be humiliated and cursed by future generations”.
On behalf of the ARF-D faction, Hovhannes Kajaznuni announced, “Peace without expropriations and with war reparations on the basis of the self-determination of peoples: on our front this principle must result in the establishment of Turkish Armenia’s autonomy”.
The Azeris demanded an immediate end to the war, respect for the 1914 borders, and no interference with the internal issues of Ottoman Turkey. They considered the Turkish-Armenian issue to be the Ottoman Empire’s internal affair.
During the February 3 session, the Sejm accepted the main principles of the negotiations: a) the Sejm has the authority to sign a peace with the Ottoman Empire, b) the border between Russia and the Ottoman Empire before 1914 must be the basis for peace, c) the autonomy of Turkish Armenia must be tried to be achieved “within the framework of Turkish statehood.”
In February, Vehib Pasha sent the Commander of the Caucasian forces, General Lebedinskii, several notes of protest in which he accused “Armenian bands” commanded by Sebastatsi Murad (Murad of Sebastia) of massacring 15,000 Turks. This accusation, which seems to have been a psychological ploy, served as a pretext for breaking the truce. An offensive was launched on Yerznka, leading to the panicked flight of several thousand Armenian Genocide survivors who had returned to the region in the spring of 1916.
After a couple of days of fierce battles, the Armenian armies evacuated Yerznka and, together with its Armenian residents, retreated toward Erzurum, where General Andranik Ozanyan was appointed as the commander of the defenc of the fortress.
Indeed, without waiting for the negotiations to end, the Ottoman forces, commanded by Vehib Pasha, were moving forward. During the days of negotiations in Trebizond (Trabzon), Muslim actions in Kars and Ardahan intensified. Armed Muslim bandits were seen on the Kars-Alexandrapol road. Telegrams from Kars and Ardahan depicted the situation in dark colours. In essence, the Russian army no longer existed.
On February 14, 1918, the evacuation of Erzurum also began. The soldiers and refugees retreated towards Hasan Kala. The more than a hundred Armenians who remained in Erzurum were massacred and the Turks seized a vast quantity of armaments. With the fall of Erzurum, Western Armenia once again was in the hands of the Turks. The Armenians also retreated from the Baberd (Bayburt) region.
“In terrible cold and freezing weather, the mass of thousands moved back, with great losses. The number of those killed and injured ran into several hundreds. The angry mass, in its turn, was harming and damaging any Muslims that came their way in any way it could. No Muslim village remained standing from Yerznka to Erzurum. They were all burnt and destroyed and the residents fled or were massacred,” writes Vratsyan.
Chkheidze and Gegechkori announced that the Transcaucasus does not recognise the Brest-Litovsk treaty and sent its delegation to Trebizond to negotiate with the Turks. Armenian Lev Karakhan, the secretary of the Bolshevik delegation conducting negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, sent a telegram reporting that the Central Powers – Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria – were ready to concede Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to the Turks.
On March 14, the very first day of the Trebizond conference, the chief Ottoman envoy Hüseyin Rauf (Orbay) demanded that the Brest-Litovsk agreement be the basis for the upcoming negotiations, i.e. the Ottoman Empire’s right to Kars, Ardahan, and Batum. The Georgians were not against compromising Kars, but never Batum. The Armenians emphasised that the Transcaucasus could not exist without the Kars fortress, while the Muslims were ready to accept all of the Ottoman demands.
The Turks were also insisting that the Transcaucasus announce its independence before starting negotiations. The Turks considered the insistence for Western Armenia’s autonomy an internal issue for the Ottoman Empire, insisting that the Ottoman delegation would not allow interference in its domestic affairs.
Without waiting for the negotiations to conclude, the Ottoman forces, headed by Vehib Pasha occupied Yerznka and the Erzurum fortress.
Realising that defeat was inevitable on the battlefield, Chkhenkeli agreed to the Brest-Litovsk stipulations and informed Rauf Bey. He also sent a telegram to his government and the Georgian Menshevik leadership and tried to convince them to approve of his unauthorised step, explaining that only this way would it be possible to save Batum.
However, neither the Georgians nor the Armenians in the Sejm wanted to even hear about such a thing and they ordered Chkhenkeli to return to Tiflis. On April 14, a few hours after the recall of the delegation, the Turks occupied Batum. The Georgian members of the Sejm had no choice other than to implement the Ottoman conditions, declare the Transcaucasus independent of Russia, and recognise Turkey’s territorial rights.
“On the very first day of our conference, we received news of the two decisive incidents – first, that the Turkish armies had occupied Erzurum and second, that the Bolsheviks had signed a peace treaty in Brest-Litovsk by which they had conceded Kars, Batum, and Ardahan to the Turks,” wrote Alexander Khatisyan, one of the leaders of Armenia’s First Republic. “In order to present the activities of our conference more clearly, we must also remember that, during the entire time of the conference, the Turks were moving forward on the Caucasian front, while our armies were constantly retreating.”
The Alashkert-Khnus-Van region had still not been occupied, but its fate had been determined. On March 2, Nazarbekyan, the Commander of the Armenian Corpswas appointed as Commander from Olti (Oltu) to Maku, and the Georgians were supposed to defend the Olti-Batum line. On March 10, General Areshyan gave the order to retreat and the Armenian forces left Sarikamish. Later on, the armies also retreated from the valley of Alashkert. Only in Van did the Armenian forces resist until mid-April and then retreated, fighting, towards Persia (Iran).
In order to come out of this impasse, the Transcaucasus delegation sent some of its members, amongst them Kajaznuni, to Tiflis, to present the process of the negotiations and bring new orders. The Sejm decided “to give Chkhenkeli, the President of the peace delegation, special authorisation to take all necessary steps independently.”
The Turks presented an ultimatum to immediately adopt the Brest-Litovsk treaty and to declare the independence of the Transcaucasus in order to give the negotiations an official status. Hovhannes Kajaznuni and Khatisyan sent a telegram to the ARF faction of the Sejm, noting that accepting the Turkish conditions would be the lesser of two evils. Chkhenkeli also shared this opinion. During his speech in the Sejm, Gegechkori insisted that the Transcaucasus’s government was ready to reject Turkish demands and fight to the end. Social-Democrat Irakli Tsereteli spoke with the same spirit. ARF representative Martiros Harutunyan expressed resolute opposition: “There is no other salvation for us but through arms.” The Sejm rejected the Turkish ultimatum and recalled the Trebizond delegation.
“Thus, instead of peace, we brought back war from Trebizond to our country,” wrote Khatisyan.
A few hours after calling back the delegation, the Turks occupied Batum. The Georgian members of the Sejm had no other choice, but to obey the Ottoman demands and announce the independence of the Transcaucasus from Russia.
From TATUL HAKOBYAN’s book ARMENIANs and TURKs
To be continued
See previous chapter here – https://www.aniarc.am/2015/08/12/from-the-fall-of-the-russian-empire-to-december-1917/
Image – Noi Zhordania
