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| Turkish invasion of Armenia | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theTurkish War of Independence, theAftermath of World War I, andArmenian–Turkish conflict | |||||||||
 Turkish advance into theFirst Republic of Armenia | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Ankara Government |  Armenia | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Movses Silikyan | |||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 50,000[5][6]–60,000 soldiers[7][8] | 20,000 soldiers[9] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | |||||||||
In September 1920, remnants of the Ottoman Army'sXV Corps under the command ofKâzım Karabekir attacked theFirst Republic of Armenia, specifically in theKars. Karabekir had orders from theAnkara Government to "eliminate Armenia physically and politically".[15][16][17][18] One estimate places the number of Armenians massacred by the Turkish army during the invasion at 100,000[18]—this is evident in the marked decline (−25.1%) of the population of modern-day Armenia from 961,677 in 1919[19] to 720,000 in 1920.[20] The Turkish military victory was followed by theRed Army invasion of Armenia and the establishment of theArmenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Turkish invasion and occupation had drastic humanitarian impacts to Armenia's population,[21] triggering condemnation from German and USA officials.[22][23][24] According to several historians, only Soviet intervention prevented the completion of theArmenian genocide.[17][25][26]
The hostilities ended with theTreaty of Alexandropol and the effective partition of Armenia between Kemalist Turkey and the Soviet union: most ofWestern Armenia was transferred to Turkey andEastern Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union as theArmenian Socialist Republic. This status was solidified by the annulment of theTreaty of Sevres, and the ratification of theTreaty of Moscow (March 1921) andTreaty of Kars (October 1921) between Soviet Russia and theGrand National Assembly of Turkey.
The dissolution of theRussian Empire in the wake of theFebruary Revolution saw the Armenians of the South Caucasus declaring their independence and formally establishing theFirst Republic of Armenia.[27] In its two years of existence, the republic, with its capital inYerevan, was beset with a number of debilitating problems, including fierce territorial disputes with its neighbors and a severe refugee crisis.[28]
Armenia's most crippling problem was its dispute with its neighbor to the west, theOttoman Empire. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians had perished during theArmenian genocide. Although the armies of theOttoman Empire eventually occupied the South Caucasus in the summer of 1918 and stood poised to crush the republic, Armenia resisted until the end of October, when the Ottoman Empirecapitulated to theAllied powers. Though the Ottoman Empire was partially occupied by the Allies, and while being invaded by Franco-Armenian forces during theCilicia Campaign, the Turks did not withdraw their forces to the pre-war Russo-Turkish boundary until February 1919 and maintained many troops mobilized along this frontier.[29]: 416
During the First World War and in the ensuingpeace negotiations in Paris, the Allies had vowed to punish the Turks and reward some, if not all, of theeastern provinces of the empire to the nascent Armenian republic.[30] But the Allies were more concerned with concluding the peace treaties with Germany and the other European members of the Central Powers. In matters related to the Near East, the principal powers,Great Britain,France,Italy and theUnited States, had conflicting interests over the spheres of influence they were to assume. While there were crippling internal disputes between the Allies, and the United States was reluctant to accept amandate over Armenia, disaffected elements in the Ottoman Empire in 1920 began to disavow the decisions made by the Ottoman government in Constantinople, coalesced and formed theTurkish National Movement, under the leadership ofMustafa Kemal Pasha.[31] The Turkish Nationalists considered any partition of formerly Ottoman lands (and subsequent distribution to non-Turkish authorities) to be unacceptable. Their avowed goal was to "guarantee the safety and unity of the country".[32] TheBolsheviks sympathized with the Turkish Movement due to their mutual opposition to "Western Imperialism", as the Bolsheviks referred to it.[33]
In his message toVladimir Lenin, the leader of theBolsheviks, dated 26 April 1920, Kemal promised to coordinate his military operations with the Bolsheviks' "fight against imperialist governments" and requested five millionlira in gold as well as armaments "as first aid" to his forces.[34][full citation needed] In 1920, the Lenin government supplied the Kemalists with 6,000 rifles, more than five million rifle cartridges, and 17,600 projectiles, as well as 200.6 kg of gold bullion; in the following two years the amount of aid increased.[35] In the negotiations of theTreaty of Moscow (1921), the Bolsheviks demanded that the Turks cedeBatum andNakhichevan; they also asked for more rights in the future status of theStraits.[36] Despite the concessions made by the Turks, the financial and military supplies were slow in coming.[36] Only after the decisiveBattle of Sakarya (August–September 1921), the aid started to flow in faster.[36] After much delays, the Armenians received from the Allies in July 1920 about 40,000 uniforms and 25,000 rifles with a great amount of ammunition.[37]
It was not until August 1920 that the Allies drafted the peace settlement of the Near East in the form of theTreaty of Sèvres. Under the terms of the treaty, portions of four northeastern vilayets of the Ottoman Empire were allotted to the First Republic of Armenia and subsequently came to be known asWilsonian Armenia, after the US PresidentWoodrow Wilson.[38] The Treaty of Sèvres served to confirm Kemal's suspicions about Allied plans to partition the empire. According to historianRichard G. Hovannisian, Kemal's decision to order attacks on Armenian troops inOltu District in the erstwhileKars Oblast that eventually expanded into an invasion of Armenia proper was intended to show the Allies that "the treaty would not be accepted and that there would be no peace until the West was ready to offer new terms in keeping with the principles of the Turkish National Pact."[39]
According to Turkish and Soviet sources, Turkish plans to take back formerly Ottoman-controlled lands in the east were already in place as early as June 1920.[40] Using Turkish sources, historian Bilâl Şamşir has identified mid-June as to when exactly the Ankara government began to prepare for a campaign in the east.[41] Hostilities were first begun by Kemalist forces.[42]Kâzım Karabekir was assigned command of the newly formedEastern Front on 9 June 1920[43] and was given authority over afield army and all civil and military officials in the Eastern Front on 13 or 14 June.[44] Skirmishes between Turkish and Armenian forces in the area surrounding Kars were frequent during that summer, although full-scale hostilities did not break out until September. Convinced that the Allies would not come to the defense of Armenia and aware that the leaders of the Republic of Armenia had failed to gain recognition of its independence by Soviet Russia, Kemal gave the order to commanding general Kâzım Karabekir to advance into Armenian-held territory.[45] At 2:30 in the morning of 13 September, five battalions from the TurkishXV Army Corps attacked Armenian positions, surprising the thinly spread and unprepared Armenian forces atOltu andPenek. By dawn, Karabekir's forces had occupied Penek and the Armenians had suffered at least 200 casualties and been forced to retreat east towardsSarıkamış.[46] As neither the Allied powers nor Soviet Russia reacted to Turkish operations, on September 20 Kemal authorized Karabekir to push onwards and takeKars andKağızman.
By this time, Karabekir's XV Corps had grown to the size of four divisions. At 3:00 in the morning of 28 September, the four divisions of the XV Army Corps advanced towards Sarıkamış, creating such panic that Armenian residents had abandoned the town by the time the Turks entered the next day.[47] The armed forces started toward Kars but were delayed by Armenian resistance. In early October, the Armenian government pleaded that the Allies intervene and put a halt to the Turkish advance, but to no avail. Most of Britain's available forces in the Near East were concentrated on crushing theKurdish tribal uprisings inIraq with the help of theAssyrians, while France and Italy were also fighting the Turkish revolutionaries near Syria and Italian controlledAntalya.[48] Neighboring Georgia declared neutrality during the conflict.
On 11 October, Soviet plenipotentiaryBoris Legran arrived inYerevan with a text to negotiate a new Soviet-Armenian agreement.[49] The agreement signed on 24 October secured Soviet support.[49] The most important part of this agreement dealt with Kars, which Armenia agreed to secure.[49] The Turkish national movement was not happy with possible agreement between the Soviets and Armenia. Karabekir was informed by theGovernment of the Grand National Assembly regarding the Boris Legran agreement and ordered to resolve the Kars issue. The same day the agreement between Armenia and Soviet Russia was signed, Karabekir moved his forces toward Kars.
On 24 October, Karabekir's forces launched a new, massive campaign against Kars.[48] The Armenians abandoned the city, which by 30 October came under full Turkish occupation.[50] Turkish forces continued to advance, and, a week after the capture of Kars, took control of Alexandropol (present-dayGyumri,Armenia).[1] On 12 November, the Turks also captured the strategic village ofAghin, northeast of the ruins of the former Armenian capital ofAni, and planned to move towardYerevan. On 13 November, Georgia broke its neutrality. It had concluded an agreement with Armenia to invade the disputed region ofLori, which was established as a Neutral Zone (the Shulavera Condominium) between the two nations in early 1919.[51]
The Turks, occupying Alexandropol (today calledGyumri), presented the Armenians with an ultimatum which they were forced to accept. They followed it with a more radical demand which threatened the existence of Armenia as a viable entity. The Armenians at first rejected this demand, but when Karabekir's forces continued to advance, they had little choice but to capitulate.[48] On November 18, 1920, Armenian and Turkish forces concluded a cease-fire agreement.[1] During the invasion the Turkish Army carried out mass atrocities against Armenian civilians inKars andAlexandropol. These included rapes and massacres where tens of thousands of civilians were executed.[12][13][14]
The Armenian delegation led by Khatisyan then signed theTreaty of Alexandropol with Kemalist Turkey on 3 December 1920.[1] The treaty required Armenia to disarm most of its military forces, renounce theTreaty of Sèvres, and cede the entire territory of the former Kars Oblast and the district ofSurmalu to Turkey, as well as make territorial concessions to Azerbaijan in Nakhichevan.[52] The decision to sign the illegal treaty was justified by Khatisyan as necessary to prevent Karabekir's army from advancing further and reachingEchmiadzin and Yerevan ahead of the Red Army.[53]
As the terms of defeat were being negotiated between Karabekir and Armenian Foreign MinisterAlexander Khatisyan,Joseph Stalin, on the command ofVladimir Lenin, orderedGrigoriy Ordzhonikidze to enter Armenia fromAzerbaijan in order to establish a newpro-Bolshevik government in the country. On the night of 28–29 November, theSoviet Eleventh Army under the command ofAnatoli Gekker invaded Armenia at Karavansarai (present-dayIjevan), meeting little to no resistance.[48] That same day, the Armenian Revolutionary Committee (a committee of Armenian Bolsheviks formed in Baku a week earlier to facilitate Armenia's sovietization) declared Armenia aSoviet republic.[54] A majority of the Armenian leadership agreed that it was impossible to resist both the Russians and the Turks and that the Armenian army and population were exhausted.Drastamat Kanayan and Hambardzum Terterian were authorized to enter negotiations with Boris Legran to accept Soviet rule in Armenia.[55]
On 2 December 1920, the Armenian government signed an agreement with Legran declaring its resignation and the transfer of power in Armenia to a Soviet government. Drastamat Kanayan would temporarily lead the country pending the arrival of the Armenian Revolutionary Committee in Yerevan.[55] On behalf of Soviet Russia, Legran guaranteed the restoration of Armenia's pre-war borders.[53]
With the mass flight of Armenians from the regions designated for Turkish annexation, Karabekir proposed aplebiscite based on self-determination, echoing the procedure the Ottomans had used to legitimize the seizure of Kars after theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk. Karabekir initially attempted to include text in the treaty that claimed that Armenians had never formed a majority in any part of the Ottoman Empire.[56]
The Turkish invasion and occupation had drastic humanitarian impacts:[21] 200 villages were plundered of agricultural equipment and humanitarian supplies,[57] with 12,000 people taken away as slaves,[58] and crops seized or allowed to rot in the fields,[59][60][61] leading to a catastrophic famine-ridden winter between 1918-1919 where 500,000 Armenians were left destitute,[62] and 180,000 thousand Armenians died from starvation,[24][63] corresponding to one-fifth of the population of the new Armenian republic.[64] Shocked by the scale of the killings and starvation, American officials urged President Wilson to withdraw Article 12 of thePeace Declaration unless Turkey stopped the massacres in the Caucasus.[22][23] A German government report stated "the Armenians were subjected to indescribable tortures; children were put in sacks and thrown into the sea. The old men and women were crucified and mutilated, all the young girls and women were handed over to the Turks."[24]
Around 60,000 Armenians were killed by Turkish forces and 38,000 wounded, with 16,000 of 18,000 prisoners perishing through execution, starvation, or exposure, and only 2,000 surviving.[65] In 1919, over 130,000 Armenians and Yazidis lived in theSurmalu andKars regions (present-day Turkish provinces ofIğdır,Kars, andArdahan), but after the 1920 Turkish occupation, massacres, and expulsions, fewer than half—about 59,800—reached the new Armenian republic as refugees.[19]
A commission investigating atrocities committed by the Turkish invaders inShirak reported that 11,886 corpses were buried, of whom 90 percent were women and children and 10 percent were men. InAgbulag, 1,186 were killed; inGhaltakhchi, 2,100; inKaraboya, 1,100; and in three villages where refugees from Kars had gathered, 7,500 people were massacred.[66]
The academic Pamela Steiner wrote, "it seems that the Ottomans could not even tolerate the presence of the Armenian people living in any part of their Transcaucasian homeland."[67] HistorianRobin Cohen states during this period, "the Armenians hung on for 'grim death' " but by the end of 1920, they were only left withSoviet Armenia which comprised 10% of theArmenian homeland.[68]
The Turkish military victory was followed by theRed Army invasion of Armenia and the establishment of theArmenian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to several historians, only Soviet intervention prevented the completion of theArmenian genocide.[17][25][26]
The Red Army entered Yerevan on 4 December 1920, joined by the Armenian Revolutionary Committee the next day. State authority in Armenia formally passed over to the committee. Finally, on 6 December, theCheka, Soviet Russia's secret police, entered Yerevan. Though nominally an independent Soviet republic, Armenia had effectively ceased to exist as an independent state.[48] Reneging on their agreement not to subject members of the former ruling party, theArmenian Revolutionary Federation, to repressions, the new Soviet Armenian authorities arrested numerous members of the ARF and conducted expropriations in the countryside, triggering ananti-Bolshevik uprising in February 1921, during which Soviet power was briefly overthrown in Armenia. The Red Army intervened to restore Soviet authority, although anti-Bolshevik resistance continued in the southern region ofZangezur until July 1921.
The warfare inTranscaucasia was settled in a friendship treaty between theGrand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) (which proclaimed the Turkish Republic in 1923), and Soviet Russia (RSFSR). The "Treaty on Friendship and Brotherhood", called theTreaty of Moscow, was signed on 16 March 1921. The succeedingTreaty of Kars, signed by the representatives ofAzerbaijan SSR,Armenian SSR,Georgian SSR, and the GNAT, cededAdjara to Soviet Georgia in exchange for the Kars territory (today the Turkish provinces ofKars,Iğdır, andArdahan). Under the treaties, an autonomousNakhichevan oblast was established underAzerbaijan's protectorate. The Treaty of Kars effectively confirmed Armenia's territorial losses to Turkey as stipulated by the invalid Treaty of Alexandropol and established theArmenia–Turkey border that exists to this day.
The invasion resulted in Turkey reacquiring most ofWestern Armenia: territory which had beencontrolled by the Ottoman Empire prior to theRusso-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and which was subsequently ceded bySoviet Russia as part of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Industrial income had never been high in Russian Armenia, but in 1918–19 it totalled only 8 per cent of the 1914 pre-war level. The overall agricultural decline exceeded 80 per cent, and this was paralleled by the losses of livestock and farm implements. Thousands of animals had been slaughtered for food by the Turkish armies of occupation and thousands more were driven towards Kars when those armies had to withdraw after the war. Most of the remaining animals were devoured by the refugees or else succumbed to disease. The plight of the population was pitiful.
The American high commissioner for Armenia, William N.Haskell, was so shocked by the scale of the killings that he sent a warning to President Wilson on 16 August, saying that the United States should withdraw the Twelfth Article of his Peace Declaration regarding the Turks unless Turkish officials took effective measures to stop the massacre in the Caucasus.
The Turkish invasion and occupation in 1918 compounded these losses, with more than 200 villages plundered, half the vineyards in the Araxes valley ruined, and about 200,000 large horned animals driven away, together with thousands of carts and agricultural implements. Hence, 80 percent of the households of Armenia were left without a single horse, and nearly half had neither cow nor ox. During the spring sowing season in 1919, only a fourth of the farmland was planted, and agricultural income dipped to a sixth of the prewar level.
Armenians were killed shortly after Turkish entry at the end of October 1920. Similar stories of mass murder, rape, and ubiquitous pillage emerged on the conquest of Alexandropol.23 Alexandropol, indeed, was occupied by Turkish forces for some five months while the Turkish–Russian border was being demarcated, and in that time, according to Soviet sources, some 60,000 Armenians were killed, of whom only half were adult males, and 18,000 carried away for forced labour.
Social historian Nora Nercessian cites a 1918 report revealing that the Ottomans went far beyond the demands they had extracted from the Armenians in the Batum treaty. In Aleksandropol (today's Gyumri), a town just to the northwest of Yerevan, Turkish forces confiscated and transported to Turkey more than 50,000 large antlered animals, 100,000 heads of sheep, 5,000 horses, 90,282,500 pounds of wheat, tools, spades, and 80% of the carts in the province to prevent the future cultivation of lands to replace the wheat and barley the province had been stripped of. Stores were robbed, large quantities of furniture from homes were taken, and rugs and carpets along with large panes of glass, doors, window jams, and roofing had been stripped off houses. Additionally, 12,000 individuals had been taken as slaves.
The Turkish armies of occupation finally withdrew from Erevan province, picking clean the fields and villages, down to sickles, doors, and railway ties, and ushering in a winter of death for the thousands of Russian Armenian peasants who hurried back into the Araxes valley to reclaim their lands.
An American officer named Arrol, who was stationed near Alexandropol with a small U.S. relief effort, noted in late December 1918 that as they were leaving the Armenian areas, the Turkish soldiers stole large quantities of humanitarian supplies, sabotaging the efforts to save Armenians who were dying of starvation. Arrol reported the theft of some 112,000 tons of wheat, 3,000 tons of cot ton, and household goods from the trains and stockpiles. What they couldn't carry they left along the way to rot. Arrol also noted that numerous children had been raped and beaten, and the corpses of dozens of Armenian women littered the road.
It is impossible to count the number of those who died in the terrible famine which affected Armenia from 1918 to 1920. The British High Commissioner in Transcaucasia saw dozens of emaciated victims collapsing and dying on the streets of Erevan. It is estimated that there were half a million homeless refugees from Turkish Armenia in and around Erevan in 1918. It is doubtful if more than half of them survived the famine, epidemics, and freezing cold.
