The government of Soviet Armenia considered the invalidation of the Treaty of Alexandrapol and the conducting of new Armenian-Turkish negotiations to be pivotal to the establishment of normal relations with the Kemalists. On December 10, 1920, the People’s Commissarof Foreign Affairs, Alexander Bekzadyan sends a note to the Foreign Affairs Commissioner of the Kemalists and to the representative of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in Alexandrapol, anticipating that they will annul “the Agreement [of Alexandrapol] signed by the Dashnaks” and that a new conference will be called “to come to an agreement arising from the new conditions arising from the revolution.”
In the note, it says that, “The intransigent policy of animosity continues towards the Armenians in the regions occupied by the Turkish command.” Bekzadyan complains that, “All the villagers’ animals are being stolen in the okrug of Alexandrapol and, in the towns, all the food stocks which have been designated for homeless children and orphans are being confiscated.” Soviet Armenia proposed selecting “Yerevan, Baku, or Alexandrapol as the site of future negotiations.”
In response to the Armenian note, Ahmet Mukhtar, the foreign minister of Kemalist Turkey responded in a severe tone that Armenia cannot have any pretensions to other territories since“those territories had been given by the British to the Dashnaks for services rendered.” The Kemalists insisted that territorial issues had to be resolved at the impending Russo-Turkish negotiations in Moscow, based on the Treaty of Alexandrapol.
Moreover, on December 13, 1920, Karabekir, citing the Alexandrapol treaty, demanded that the Armenian Revkomtransfer 85 horses and ammunition to Igdir, while also demanding permission to buy goods for the Turkish army in Yerevan.
The Armenian Bolsheviks were trying to make believe that the enmity of the Turks was due to the hatred that the Dashnaks had to the Turks and that it was sufficient for Armenia to be declared Soviet for a brotherly hand to be extended bythe Turks, for Turkish-Armenian relations to improve, and then the Turkish army would immediately leave Alexandrapol and Kars. The first declaration of the Armenian Revkom was filled with this spirit: “We are convinced that the upcoming peace treaty between Soviet Armenia and Turkey will be dictated not by the victor’s sword but by the brotherly solidarity and consensus between the free peoples of Soviet Armenia and Turkey.”
While such words were being said, the Kemalists continued their forays with renewed momentum. The situation is described in detail in one of the reports from the Alexandrapol Revkom: “The province is deserted. All the animals have been driven out, some of the population has been massacred and some have fled. We beg that you transfer the children from here to Yerevan because, due to the total absence of food and fuel here, they are inevitably condemned to death, except for 1000 orphans who are in the American orphanages. Around 4000 orphans are starving here in the city.”
In a matter of a few months, Karbekir’s forces had spread death and destruction throughout the province of Alexandrapol. In a report sent by the Alexandrapol Revkom addressed to the Armenian Revkom in Yerevan it says that, “The Turks are complete masters of the situation and our authority is fictional.” It is noted that, “We are not in a position to work on propaganda amongst the askars [Turkish soldiers] since we have no Turkish communist at our disposal,” therefore,“ Please immediately send Turkish communists from Yerevan to Alexandrapol and, if none exist, then from Baku.”
On January 8, 1921 the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of Soviet Armenia addressed a note to the Kemalist government, demanding the withdrawal of troops from the region of Alexandrapol and the return of the prisoners of war, which the Turkish command had concentrated in Erzurum (Karin) and were keeping under indescribably harsh conditions.
On January 13, in his telegram addressed to Orjonikidze, Chicherin describes the Armenian situation thus: “Not only are the Turks not showing support for the brotherly Soviet republic, but they are blockading, pillaging and condemning it to starvation.” On the same day, Bekzadyan wrote a letter of protest on behalf of the Armenian Revkom to Ahmed Mukhtar, “You have de facto turned the Revkom in Alexandrapol into a weapon in the hands of the occupying Turkish detachment. The Armenian Revkom finds that it cannot recognise the future existence of such an organ.”
On January 19 Bekzadyan sent a telegram to the government in Ankara in which he declared “deep indignation” at the continuing “violence, plunder, and killings” of the population by the Kemalists in “the neutral zones of the provinces of Kars and Alexandrapol.” “Alexandrapol is deserted and all the animals have been driven out. Large stocks of grain, which have been stolen from neighbouring villages, have been concentrated at Nalband train station to be sent to Turkey. Thus the villagers are condemned to starvation. Able-bodied 18-50-year-old males have been forcibly driven out of their homes towards the regions of Sarighamish and Erzurum to do heavy forced labour. In Kars, after its capture by your forces, there were mass acts of pillage in the first three days, violence and killings. In the regions of Aghbulagh and Hamamlu, separate armed groups are invading Armenian villages, plundering, threatening, and raping the women.”
In his response to both this note and that of January 8, Bekir Sami Bay, the newly-appointed Kemalist Commissioner for Foreign Affairs denied the charges, writing that “the behaviour of the Turkish army is exemplary.” The Kemalists also declared that “the Treaty of Alexandrapol embodies justice and its fulfillment is essential to the establishment of peace in the Caucasus.”
On January 19, 1921 in his telegram to the representative of Soviet Armenia in Azerbaijan, Mikael Atabekyan, and Grigorii Orjonikidze, Mravyan stressed that “the Turks have become absolutely brazen” and “are bleeding the semi-starved country dry.” “The country is condemned to starvation. They are executing innocent workers and sending civilians to Erzurum. They have drowned three women in a well. There are numerous incidences of indescribable atrocities. The Turks aim at creating conflict so that they can have a formal basis on which to justify their acts of violence against the Armenian people. Their behaviour towards the Revkom is blatantly antagonistic. They tell us that they do not believe in communism; supposedly we are only disguised, scared Dashnaks.”
The Alexandrapol Revkom resigned on January 25, not wishing “to discredit the idea of Soviet authority.” “We assumed that the army of Mustafa Kemal, which was fighting against the Entente, would bring us freedom from the Dashnakists and would not hesitate in withdrawing from Armenian territory after the establishment of Soviet authority,” says the Revkom’s letter, in which the acts of violence committed by the Kemalists are presented. 15,000 Armenians had been driven to Erzurum, 5,000 were missing or had been killed, the villages had been destroyed, and all the animals had been stolen.
Turkish tyranny was also a common thing in Nakhijevan, which Azerbaijan had agreed to consider a part of Soviet Armenia. A 300-strong unit of Turkish soldiers was in Nakhijevan. With their active participation, the road from Armenia to Iran was closed. The Turkish soldiers were campaigning amongst the population for the union of the region with Turkey. In the end the Kemalists achieved their objective and Nakhijevan was not united with Armenia.
On February 26, 1921 the second Russian-Turkish conference began. Russia was represented by Georgii Chicherin and Jalal al-Din Korkmasov and the Turkish delegation was Yusuf Kemal, Riza Nuri, and Ali Fuat Cebesoy. When territorial issues were being discussed, Josef Stalin, the People’s Commissar for Nationalities, and Behbut Shahtakhtinski, the leader of the Soviet Azerbaijan delegation, participated in the conference’s activities. They did not allow the head of the delegation from Soviet Armenia, Alexander Bekzadyan, to be involved in the working of the conference. The conference ended and the Treaty of Moscow was signed on March 16.
From the correspondence between Chicherin and Orjonikidze, it is clear that the Kemalists had previously decided to also steal the province of Alexandrapol from Soviet Armenia. Even after signing the Treaty of Moscow, the Turks did not withdraw from Armenia.
The treaties of Moscow and Kars, signed on March 16, 1921 and October 13, 1921 respectively, were more damaging to Armenia than the Armenian-Turkish Treaty of Alexandrapol.
On April 13, 1921, on the instructions of the government of Soviet Russia, Commander Gekker, commander of the 11thArmy sent an ultimatum radio telegram from Tiflis to the Turkish military command, demanding that Turkish military units should immediately evacuate the province of Alexandrapol in accordance with the Treaty of Moscow.
Under the command of Mikhael Velikanov, the units of the 11thArmy entered Alexandrapol on April 22. At the end of April, in an interview for the Komunist newspaper, the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, Poghos Makintsyan, presented the situation in Alexandrapol and the province, “The town is ruined. This is the first impression you get of the town after the Turks left. Indications of huge massacres have been found. I myself passed by Nalband station and saw around 3,000 bodies in the gorge close by it.”
The numbers given by the special committee were horrific. In the village of Medz Kyapanak, 1,500 men, women, and children had been slaughtered, their bodies strewn in huts, stalls, barns, and pits. Around 1,500 had been killed in the village of Haji Nazar-Ghuli, of which 500 corpses were in the nearby gorge. In the villages of Pokr Kyapanak and Chorli the number was around 1,000 in each. In Diraklar, the number was 300 and in Jajur, it reached almost 100. Those inhabitants who had been saved and had witnessed it pointed out the atrocities of some Turkish units and the Azerbaijani cavalry.
In his note on May 13 to Ali Fuad, the Turkish Ambassador to the RSFSR, Chicherin protested that, “While evacuating from Alexandrapol, Turkish forces have caused great material damage to the joint armies of Russia and the republics of the Transcaucasus.” Russia’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs “vehemently protests against the hostile operations of the military authorities of a friendly country,” which were taking place at the same time when the Russian government was showing all possible assistance to the government of the friendly Grand National Assembly.
From Tatul Hakobyan‘s book ARMENAINS and TURKS
Images- Alexandrapol in 1877-1878
