The Armenian-Turkish battles in Sardarapat, Gharakilisa, and Bash-Aparan, the negotiations in Batum and the declaration of Armenia’s independence were preceded by the death throes and the collapse of two opposing empires: the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian lands and the Armenian nation living in its homeland were divided between the two.
In February 1917, the Tsar was toppled. Throughout the Russian Empire, including the Transcaucasus, the spirit of revolution was victorious. A temporary government in Petersburg (Petrograd) was formed and presided over by Russian statesman Georgy Lvov, the first post-imperial Prime Minister and one of the leaders of Constitutional Democratic Party. The Caucasus celebrated the February Revolution with wild enthusiasm, as did the whole of Russia. It ended the three hundred year reign of the Romanov dynasty. Celebrations, processions, rallies, and conferences followed one another. The future seemed rosy to everyone.
In order to control the Transcaucasus and occupied Ottoman Empire territories, the Russian Provisional Government, which remained in power for only nine months, formed aninterim regional administrative body in March, the Special Transcaucasian Committee (in Russian, Особый Закавказский комитет – Озаком, Osobiy Zakavkazskiy Komitet – Ozakom).
Many regarded the Ozakom as a symbol of the new era and expected it to heal the wounds inflicted by the old regime, relieve the critical food shortage, dispel national antagonisms, strengthen the front, and foster just rule. Actually, the Ozakom had neither the means nor the will to undertake such a comprehensive programme.
The inefficacy of the Ozakom aside, the Armenians were cheered by the Provisional Government’s favorable pronouncements about the future status of Turkish Armenia. A decree published at the end of April, 1917, gave Turkish Armenia a civil administration and permitted Armenians to fill many posts there. Moreover, Turkish Armenian refugees, previously forbidden by tsarist commanders from returning to their native villages, began to stream homeward. By the end of 1917, nearly 150,000 Turkish Armenians were rebuilding in the provinces of Van, Erzurum (Erzerum, Karin), and Bitlis (Baghesh).
Russian military officer Pyotor Averyanov was appointed the General Commissar of Western Armenia. Doctor Hakob Zavryan (Zavriev), who in the past had tried to arouse interest amongst Russian diplomats in the Armenian issue and had good connections and was respected within Russian political circles, became his aide for civilian issues; “he was closely connected to the person embodying the Russian revolution [the Justice Minister in the temporary government, Alexander Kerenskii”.
In a short time the regions of Van and Taron (Mush) revived. Armenian villages were being restored and cultivated fields were being covered in green. A gun in one hand and a plough and spade in the other, the Armenian peasant was irrigating his native soil with sweat and with exceptional motivation and energy, rebuilding what the Ottoman Turk had destroyed. The local administration was almost entirely Armenian and the Russians had little influence on proceedings. There were self-defence groups as well as Armenian military units in Van, the regions of Mush, Khnus (Hinis), Alashkert, and close to Erzurum and Yerznka (Erzincan). Orphanages, meal rations, hospitals and medical centres were established in some places. In Vratsyan’s words, TurkishArmenia was being resurrected from under the ashes and was being energetically reconstructed and preparing for a new life. The massacred Western Armenians preserved their strong spirit and organised their collective life. The first Western Armenian congress, which took place from the 2nd to the 11th of May, was significant in this respect.
In November 1917, authority in Petrograd had passed to the Bolsheviks. The Council of the People’s Commissars, Sovnarkom, was formed, headed by Vladimir Lenin. Leon Trotsky was appointed Foreign Affairs Commissar and Joseph Stalin, the People’s Commissar for Nationalities.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun, the Georgian Mensheviks, and the Muslim Musavatists had ideological disagreements with the Bolsheviks.
Prompted by the Bolshevik seizure of power in central Russia, a multinational congress of Transcaucasian leaders met in Tiflis in November, 1917, to create a provisional regional executive board, the Commisariat, for the purpose of maintaining order until the establishment of a democratic federative Russian Republic.
In the beginning, the authority of the Bolsheviks covered the area between Petersburg and Moscow. The Baku Soviet (council), unlike the rest of the councils in the Transcaucasus, announced its loyalty to the government of the Council of People’s Commissars. In December, Stepan Shahumyan was appointed special Commissar to the Caucasus.
The Transcaucasian Commisariat (which included three Georgians, three Muslims, three Armenians, and two Russians) and the Sejm, the legislature organised in February, 1918, were heavily hindered by their claim that the Transcaucasus formed an integral part of the (nonexistent) Russian democracy, while in fact they were being driven to cope with situations that demanded independent action. The longer the Transcaucasus held to the myth of union with Russia, the deeper it sank into contradiction and confusion. The Armenians persistently rejected the slightest suggestion of separation from Russia. Only under the aegis of a powerful Russian republic, they felt, could Russian Armenia and Turkish Armenia be merged into a progressive autonomous region. The Georgian Menshevik leadership also held to the principle of Russia, one and united, but most Muslim spokesmen, although initially advocating a federated Russian republic, were soon drawn toward Turkey by racial and religious bonds.
Simon Vratsyan, the last Prime Minister of Armenia’s First Republic, wrote that the Russian Revolution was received in Karabakh with enthusiasm. “An Armenian-Turkish interparty bureau was created in Shushi, which appointed a regional executive committee to manage government issues of the united region of Karabakh-Zangezur; but it only became Karabakh’s authority. The Armenians and Turks were in accord: the Armenians administered the Armenian parts of the province and the Turks, the Turkish parts.”
In November 1917, General Mehmet Vehib Pasha, the Commander of the Ottoman Third Army, proposed a ceasefire to the Russian army’s command. In order to define the details of the ceasefire, the Transcaucasus’s Commissariat sent a delegation to Yerznka (Erzincan). Negotiations led to the signing of a ceasefire on 18 December 1917 which would apply to the Transcaucasus’s military front stretching from the Black Sea to the southern banks of Lake Van. By command of the Soviet government, the Caucasian military front had to be entirely vacated by the end of 1917. The Russian armies, leaving behind vast reserves of military equipment, began to abandon Western Armenia and return home. Already, by the end of January 1918, the Caucasian front was mostly cleared of Russian forces.
Taking into consideration the collapse of the Caucasian front, on December 13, 1917, the Chief Commander of the Caucasian army allowed the formation of an Armenian Corps, appointing as commander the Russian army officer, Armenian General Tovmas Nazarbekyan (Nazarbekov). Drastamat Kanayan was appointed as special commissar for the Armenian Corps. Parallel to the formation of the Armenian Corps, the Western Armenians were busy organising a military draft and armed forces. They, more than anyone else, were terrified by the dismantling of the Russian army and were searching for ways to forestall the collapse of the front.
From TATUL HAKOBYAN’s book ARMENIANs and TURKs
Image – Tsar Nicolas II’s family
