The Armenian-Turkish/Tatar Battles and the Massacres in Baku
On May 27, 1918, the Muslim National Council, meeting in Tiflis, resolved to declare the independence of Azerbaijan, a republic that was to encompass “southern and eastern Transcaucasia”. The act was officially proclaimed on the following day, and the governing body of the Transcaucasian Tatars, now Azerbaijanis, selected Ganja (Elisavetpol, Gandzak) as the republic’s temporary capital, since Baku was under the control of a coalition of Armenian and Bolshevik forces.
In April 1918, a Bolshevik government had been created under the presidency of Stepan Shahumyan, head of the Baku Soviet, which had not recognised the authority of the Sejmand had protested against the separation of the Transcaucasus from Russia. The Baku Soviet had a militia consisting of workers and soldiers of different nationalities. Caspian sailors joined them. Besides the 4,000 soldiers of the Baku Soviet, there were 6,000 fighters who could be called on, mostly Armenian soldiers who had returned from the Russian western front, attached to the Baku Armenian National Council chaired by Abraham Gyulkhandanyan.
In February of 1918, Armenian-Tatar clashes had broken out in several locations in the Baku guberniya. By March, they had developed into massacres. The Muslim population predominantly suffered during the clashes. The nationalistic Musavat party revolted against the Baku Soviet. Faced with a common menace, the ARF and Bolsheviks continued to collaborate.
Contradictory evaluations have been made about the Armenian-Tatar massacres. Who fired the first shot? This issue is also unclear. Shahumyan describes the three-day battles as “civil war.” “The beks, khans and aghalars supporting Turkey’s protectorate, hastened to destroy the Baku Soviet. We were even forced to call for the help of the Armenian battalion. The nationalist overtones, which the civil war inevitably received, and the fact that national battalions continued to exist alongside the Red Army, forced us to instigate a certain struggle against them.”
At the end of March, 1918, about fifty officers from the so-called “Savage Division” reached Baku from Lenkoran by boat in order to take part in the funeral of the son of Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, the renowned and wealthy Azerbaijani oil magnate and philanthropist. The Savage Division or the Caucasian Native Mounted Division was composed of volunteers from North Caucasus peoples. Formed in 1914, it took part in World War I commanded by the Russian General Grand Duke Mikhail Romanov, brother of Tsar Nicholas II. On their arrival in Baku, several officers including the commander were arrested by the forces of the Baku Soviet. Calls to armed resistance were heard within certain circles of the Muslim population. Why the Baku Soviet’s forces disarmed the Savage Division and whether it sought to rebel against Shahumyan’s authority, taking advantage of the funeral, remain unanswered. However, the disarming of the division seriously worried the Muslim population of Baku and they threatened to attack the Soviet. They demanded the return of the arms to their owners and punishment for those who were responsible for the humiliation. On the evening of March 30, following several tense hours, when it had been decided to return the weapons with Shahumyan’s knowledge, firing was heard from both sides in the Muslim section of the city. Even though the outbreak of fighting had not spread to the Christian district of the city, many Armenian soldiers hurried to join the Bolshevik forces against the Tatar units. The Musavat authorities accepted Shahumyan’s ultimatum, but it took one more day for the clashes to calm down.
In a letter sent to the Sovnarkom, the Council of People’s Commissars, Shahumyan wrote that furious battles had taken place in Baku for three days. “On the one hand, the Soviet Red Guard, the Red International Army, together with the Red Navy, organised by us, and the Armenian national military units were fighting against the Muslim Savage Division, in which there are Russian officers and Musavat-armed Muslim bands. More than 20,000 people have participated in the battles from both sides. The results were exceptional for us. The destruction of the enemy was complete. The number of those killed on both sides was more than 3,000.”
Muslim sources estimated the number killed to be more than 12,000. That number was presented by the Azerbaijani delegation which went to Paris in 1919 to participate in the Peace Conference. The Musavat leaders condemned the Bolshevik-ARF forces for the killings.
On May 23, 1918, in a telegram to Lenin, Shahumyan warned about the risk of an Ottoman invasion of Baku. After the defeats in Sardarapat and Bash-Aparan and losing several thousand soldiers, the Turks consolidated their forces in Ganja in mid-June. Mursel Pasha’s division joined up with Nuri Pasha’s army of about 7,000 in Ganja. After mid-June, the Turks and Tatars, as well as those that remained from the Savage Division, joined the ranks of the Army of Islam, which had about 20,000 members and strong artillery. They were ready to march on Baku.
On June 10, Tiflis’s Armenian National Council, under pressure from Turkey, had sent Martiros Harutunyan and Michael Arzumanyan on a mission to Baku, to urge the Armenians not to participate in the battles against the Ottoman army. The Armenians ignored the call and on June 12 occupied the Kyurdamir station, located about 150 miles east of Ganja. At the end of June, the Turks held a counter-attack, advancing towards Baku. More than 1,500 Armenians were killed or injured.
By August 1, Soviet forces stood only a few miles from Baku. Alarmed by the approach of Turkish regiments, the Baku Soviet searched desperately for support. Throughout July, Shahumyan kept Lenin abreast of the critical situation, but the Communist leader of Russia could offer little help. Nonetheless, Moscow ordered Shahumyan to oppose the unforgivable inclination of the Baku Soviet to appeal to British aid. Were Baku to fall, it would be better that the Ottomans, and not the experienced British colonialists, become the temporary heirs of that invaluable city and its resources. Most of the Christian population, especially the terrified Armenians, did not share this view. They argued that since no real assistance was forthcoming from Russia, they had no alternative but to accept the British offer to join in the defence. On July 28, Shahumyan presided at a communist conference that vowed that the reins of government would not be surrendered without a struggle and ordered a Bolshevik mobilisation. Pleas for help were wired to the Russian Sovnarkom, but on July 29 Lenin responded, “We will take measures to send you forces.However, we cannot give a definite promise”. Aid did not arrive, and the determination of Baku’s Bolsheviks dissolved into despair. On July 31, the Soviet government of Baku resigned and, on the following day, was replaced by the Centro-Caspian Dictatorship, a coalition dominated by Social Revolutionaries.
The Centro-Caspian Dictatorship received some help from the British: a 1,800 strong contingent led by Colonel C. B. Stokes disembarked at Baku. With the arrival of the British, Baku’s Bolsheviks decided to quit the city. Seventeen ships loaded with men of the Red Army and enormous quantities of military equipment sailed for Astrakhan, Russia. The Dictatorship ordered loyal vessels of the Caspian Fleet to block the Bolshevik exodus. All but one of the fleeing ships was forced back into port and the Baku Bolshevik’s leaders were imprisoned.
During the first days of September, approximately 15,000 Ottoman and Azerbaijani troops resumed the offensive. The struggle had once again turned into an Armenian-Muslim contest. By September 13, the defenders had fallen back into the suburbs of Baku. General Dunsterville prepared to evacuate his small British contingent and urged the Centro-Caspian Dictatorship to negotiate he surrender of the city. The Russian and Armenian leaders now threatened to sink every vessel if the British attempted to desert. But the situation became hopeless and few believed that Baku could hold. The Christian population rushed toward the harbour, where they crammed into every available vessel. On the morning of September 15, the Armenian National Council and the Centro-Caspian Dictatorship departed on one of the last ships. The Christian quarters of Baku were already shrouded in smoke. Halil, Nuri, and Mursel withheld the entry of regular Ottoman units into Baku so that the age-old Islamic custom of looting and pillaging rebellious cities might be observed. The Muslim masses of Baku, thousand of irregular troops, and even several regular Ottoman regiments, swarmed throughout the city, plundering and killing.
A segment of the approximately 70,000 Armenians of the city were saved after reaching the ports of Enzeli (in Persia), Petrovsk (Astrakhan, Russia), and Krasnovodsk (Turkmenistan) by ship. In Vratsyan’s words, “The last person boarding the ship was Rostom,41 the soul of Baku’s heroic battle – gloomy, depressed, and disappointed. At that time, the Great Calamity was starting in the city. For three consecutive days there were killings, lootings, rape, and indescribable brutality.”
Those remaining were left helpless and were slaughtered. The number of Armenians killed was at least 9,000. Citing the Armenian National Council, Firuz Kazemzade, an American historian of Iranian origin, estimated the number at 8,988.
Sergey Melik-Yolchyan, one of the representatives of the Armenians in Baku wrote, “Together with the Turkish command, Azerbaijan’s new government, headed by Khan Khoyskii entered the city. Tens of thousands of stirred-up and frenzied Turks, at Beybut agha Jevanshir’s command and with Khan Khoyskii’s permission, began looting and massacring the unarmed Armenians. Only those who had found shelter with Jews and Persians were saved. About 17,000 people were massacred.”
On September 16, the Ottoman divisions marched into Baku in a victory parade reviewed by the Turkish Command and greeted by thousands of cheering Muslims. The Bolsheviks and Armenians had been expelled, and Khan Khoyskii’s Azerbaijani government was now able to triumphantly relocate from Ganja to Baku.
After becoming convinced that defeat was inevitable, on September 15, the British also left their positions and left for Enzeli by ship. Later they were going to return, headed by General Thomson, after the Allies won World War I. Two days, later Khan Khoyski’s government moved from Ganja to Baku.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Paraquin, chief of the Eastern Army Group’s Commander-in-Chief Halil (Khalil, Kut), informed his superiors in a report written between 15 and 17 September 1918 – that is, while the massacres were underway in Baku – that General Mürsel Pasha, the commander of the Fifth Division, had informed him of the Tatars’ plans to carry out massacres. Paraquin observed that it was only after Armenians had been hunted down in the street for three days that the commander of the Army of Islam, with Nuri’s approval, had imposed martial law. Paraquin concluded that “the carnage was planned weeks in advance and stood in no relation whatsoever with the tactical operations.”
According to French-Armenian historian Raymond Kévorkian, the clearest symptom of the genocidal logic masked by the military campaigns was Behaeddin Şakir’s presence in Baku. Is there any need to point out that the head of the Special Organisation, Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa, was there, together with two of his CUP (Young Turk) comrades, in order to honour the promise that he had made to his Caucasian interlocutors in 1906, that he would “put an end to the importance and the influence of the Armenians in the Caucasus?” It is more than probable that Şakir personally coordinated the butchery in Baku.
Towards Turan
Turkish historians and researchers believe that the Ottoman expedition to Baku is of central importance during the period between the Bolshevik Revolution and the end of the First World War.
Mehmet Talât’s 22 January 1917 accession to the office of Grand Vizier marked a turning point in the history of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). After long leaving the management of day-to-day affairs in the hands of grand viziers and ministers who were more or less submissive, the CUP publicly affirmed its power by putting its president at the head of government.
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and its military consequences put the project of Pan-Turkism back on the Young Turk regime agenda. The hasty evacuation of the front by the Russian army was perceived in Constantinople as an unimagined opportunity to link up with “the Turks of the Caucasus.”
One of the most important issues related with the Ottoman State’s military actions towards the Caucasus was Pan-Turkism. Especially following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, Pan-Turkism became an ideology widely expressed among Turkish intellectuals. Tekin Alp, Zia Gökalp and the publications Turk Yurdu and Tanin assisted in the spread of Pan-Turkist ideology.
Pan-Turkism had an important place especially in Enver Pasha’s military and political strategies. By using pan-Turkism, Enver Pasha wanted to transform the geopolitical dynamics of the Ottoman Empire and Asia. Teşkilat- ı Mahsusa, the Ottoman Secret Service, which was under the command of Enver Pasha, spread pan-Turkist propaganda during World War I amongst the Turkic peoples living outside the Ottoman borders. The Caucasus was one of those central regions for the injectionof pan-Turkist propaganda.
Zia Gökalp was the most influential intellectual who provided the necessary cultural foundations of the Young Turks’ expansionist strategies in Russia. According to Gökalp, all Turks, Ottomans, Azerbaijanis, Crimean Tatars, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and others were potentially one single nation. A couplet of Gökalp’s Kızıl Destan (Red Epic) clearly indicates the true aspirations of Enver Pasha and the Ottoman state in the beginning of the First World War: “The land of the enemy shall be devastated/ Turkey shall be enlarged and become Turan.”
According to Enver Ziya Karal, Ottoman aspirations on the Caucasus were composed of a three-fold plan since the beginning of the war. First, Kars-Ardahan and Batum provinces that were lost to Russia during the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War had to be reacquired. Second, Caucasian Muslims had to be liberated from Russian rule. Third, when reaching the Caspian shores, a bond would be established between Ottomans and Central Asian Turks, and the Turan ideal would be realised.
For Young Turks, the Caucasus and Baku was an attractive region due its vast resources. At that time, Baku held the most valuable oil reserves in the world. It was a fact that Baku was very important for the Turan ideal due to its geopolitical and economic significance, as well as the high number of Turks in the area. Rule over the strategic lands of Caucasus would grant passage to the Caspian Sea, Central Asia, the Black Sea, and the Near East.
The Caucasus was of primary importance en route to Turan. During the war years, occupying Baku was considered one of the main aims of the Ottoman Empire, especially for Enver Pasha. Russian Armenia was one of the most serious obstacles on the road to Turan.
During 1914-1915, Teşkilat- ı Mahsusa agents increased their activities in the Transcaucasus. One of the former Difai members, Fathali Khan Khoyski’s nephew, Aslan Khan Khoyskii, met with Enver Pasha in February 1915 in Erzurum. They discussed the possibility of forming a republic consisting of Baku, Elisavetpol, and Yerevan along with Terek and Daghestan. Aslan Khan Khoyskii promised that, if the Ottomans could secure Iranian Azerbaijani support, hundreds of thousands of Muslims would revolt.
According to Turkish historian Yalçin Murgul, considering the Ottomans’ disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sarıkamış (Sarighamish) in 1915, Azerbaijani Turks would not take the risk to revolt. As a matter of fact, following the Battle of Sarıkamış, Mehmet Emin Rasulzade, the director of the Açıksöz newspaper and the leader of the Musavat party, supported Russia, while Fathali Khan Khoyski felt indifferent both to the Ottoman and the Romanov dynasties. When Russians captured Erzurum in February 1916, for example, Muslim clergymen organised a thanksgiving ceremony.
In 1916, during the Turkic Peoples Conference in Berlin, Yusuf Akçura said that the Turan ideal meant Ottoman imperialism.
Russia’s withdrawal from the war as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 changed the situation profoundly, creating the perfect opportunity for the Ottomans. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Enver Pasha would once more take the chance of applying his geopolitical strategies based on the Turan dream which had previously ended with the Sarıkamış disaster in 1915, and he would choose Baku as the new target.
According to Kâzim Karabekir, Enver’s mind was always focussed on one idea, he had one goal, “To create Turan”. The Commander of the Eastern front of the Kemalists emphasised that he always pointed out to Enver the danger of that goalfor the Ottoman Empire. “I also tried to convince the Internal Affairs Minister Talât that the fight for Turan was dangerous, but my efforts were in vain. […] In response to my requests, they would reply that uniting Caucasian Azerbaijan, including Nahcivan, was a necessity for the future of the fatherland,” wrote Karabekir.
Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Germans viewed Pan-Turkism as a major weapon that could be used against their rival Russia. For that reason, Germany was fully supporting Enver’s occupation projects on the Caucasus and Turkestan. Moreover, Germany was training secret service agents such as the Azerbaijani Turks to promote Pan-Turkism amongst the Muslims of Russia. Germany’s attitude was changed after the Bolshevik Revolution because the Russian Empire was dissolved and the main objective for the Germans was achieved.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Paraquin, who had been Khalil’s (Kut’s) chief of staff in the Caucasus, points out how deeply obsessed an individual such as Khalil was by Turan. For Khalil, the German officer notes, “the conquest of Turkestan, the Turk’s cradle, was the most important item on the agenda”. In Khalil’s eyes, “the Tatars of the Caucasus related to the Turks by their origins” were destined “to be included” in the “federation” he envisaged. As for the “national minorities in the countries in between,” they would have to “submit”. Khalil further noted that “the Armenian question” was on the “verge of being solved, thanks to the war, through the total annihilation of the Armenian race.”
According to Paraquin, Enver sent his younger brother Nuri to Baku in order to lay the groundwork in secret. He even gives us to understand that the “Tatar Republic” had been christened “Azerbaijan” by the Young Turks. “The name is well chosen, no?” Khalil Pasha is supposed to have exclaimed, “Alluding to Persian Azerbaijan, the incorporation of which into the new republic was not merely planned, but had already been initiated by all means possible.”
Well before the Turkish troops arrived in Baku, Nuri “was undisputed master of a new Tatar state that, when I visited it in summer and fall 1918, left me with the distinct impression that I was in a Turkish province”. All the strategic points in the region, Paraquin goes on, “had been occupied by the Turkish troops, who had been given the name ‘Army of Islam,’ as the cause required.”
The defeat of the Central Powers and the British forces’ march on Syria broughta sharp halt to the formation of a Pan-Turkish federation dominated by Istanbul. But the invasion of the Transcaucasus and Persian Azerbaijan allowed Istanbul to come close to completing its program of homogenising its territory and helped create another homogeneous Turkish-speaking entity.
During the years of the Second World War, when the Germans began to fight against the Soviet Union, they once again began propagating Pan-Turkism. Pan-Turkist organisations became visibly more active in Turkey. The Pan-Turkists were in favour of close political and economic cooperation with Germany and, with its help, occupying Turkic-populated territories of the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1942, when things were not going well in the war for the USSR, Turkey centralised 26 divisions along the length of the Turkish-Soviet border, informing Berlin about its interest towards several Soviet territories and announcing its determination to participation in the resolution of those issues. Plans to create buffer states in the Crimea and the Caucasus under the auspices of Germany and Turkey were suggested.
On one hand, Germany was promising to create a state in Turkish territory to the Armenian nationalists and, on the other hand, it was promising Turkey that Armenia and Georgia would become a part of Turkey. “During that period Turkey activated a Pan-Turkist policy. Pan-Turkist committees were created. A similar committee was created in Erzurum and several of Azerbaijan’s leaders, such as Kerkurun, were members,” Turkologist Arsen Avagyan says.
From Tatul Hakobyan’s book – ARMENIANS and TURKS
This book covers almost the whole spectrum of Armenian-Turkish relations, including the different attitudes of Diasporan circles and masses to the past, present, and future relations with the Turks. Tatul Hakobyan’s work is a smooth mix of history and journalism. This extremely complex and significant period of history is presented coherently, simply, in an easy to follow narrative that links together the various periods during the tumultuous 100 years beginning in 1918. Armenians and Turks, is packed with political insight, historical revelation, and even a poetic vision of a complicated relationship which unfolded, over a century, between two peoples. Hakobyan has established himself as an indispensable journalist, expert, and scholar of this ongoing saga. Written in the journalistic style using strict standards of scholarship, the author has evidently undertaken wide-ranging research. This book is of great interest not only to historians, diplomats, or experts who study issues of Armenian-Turkish relations and their impact on the future of the South Caucasus, but also for a wide range of readers.
Paperback: 440 pages,
Language: English, Second Revised Edition
2019, Yerevan, Lusakn,
ISBN 978-9939-0-0706-9.
Image – Baku in the beginning of the 20th century
