Turkish–Armenian War

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Turkish–Armenian War (1920)
Part of the
Transcaucasia
Result Turkish victory
Territorial
changes		 Armenia cedes more than 50% of the territory it controlled before the war.[2][3][4]
Belligerents Ankara Government First Republic of Armenia ArmeniaCommanders and leaders
Strength 50,000[5][6]–60,000 soldiers[7][8] First Republic of Armenia 20,000 soldiers[9]Casualties and losses Unknown
  • First Republic of Armenia 1,100+ soldiers killed[10]
  • First Republic of Armenia 3,000+ prisoners[11]
  • First Republic of Armenia 60,000–98,000[12] or 198,000–250,000[12][13][14] Armenian civilians killed

The Turkish–Armenian War (

Soviet Russia as part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
.

Karabekir had orders from the

Soviet occupation of Armenia prevented another Armenian genocide.[15]

The Turkish military victory was followed by the Bolshevik occupation of Armenia and the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Treaty of Moscow (March 1921) between Soviet Russia and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the related Treaty of Kars (October 1921) confirmed most of the territorial gains made by Karabekir and established the modern Turkish–Armenian border.

Background

The dissolution of the Russian Empire in the wake of the February Revolution saw the Armenians of the South Caucasus declaring their independence and formally establishing the First Republic of Armenia.[19] In its two years of existence, the republic, with its capital in Yerevan, was beset with a number of debilitating problems, including fierce territorial disputes with its neighbors and a severe refugee crisis.[20]

Armenia's most crippling problem was its dispute with its neighbor to the west, the Ottoman Empire. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians had perished during the Armenian genocide. Although the armies of the Ottoman 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 Empire capitulated to the Allied powers. Though the Ottoman Empire was partially occupied by the Allies, and while being invaded by Franco-Armenian forces during the Cilicia 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.[21]: 416 

Bolshevik and Turkish nationalist movements

During the First World War and in the ensuing

Bolsheviks sympathized with the Turkish Movement due to their mutual opposition to "Western Imperialism", as the Bolsheviks referred to it.[25]

In his message to

Battle of Sakarya (August–September 1921), the aid started to flow in faster.[28] 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.[29]

It was not until August 1920 that the Allies drafted the peace settlement of the Near East in the form of the

Kars 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."[31]

Active stage

Early phases

Main articles: Battle of Oltu and Battle of Sarikamish (1920)
The territory of the Republic of Armenia in 1920.

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.[32] 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.[33] Hostilities were first begun by Kemalist forces.[34] Kâzım Karabekir was assigned command of the newly formed Eastern Front on 9 June 1920[35] and was given authority over a field army and all civil and military officials in the Eastern Front on 13 or 14 June.[36] 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.[37] At 2:30 in the morning of 13 September, five battalions from the Turkish XV Army Corps attacked Armenian positions, surprising the thinly spread and unprepared Armenian forces at Oltu and Penek. By dawn, Karabekir's forces had occupied Penek and the Armenians had suffered at least 200 casualties and been forced to retreat east towards Sarıkamış.[38] As neither the Allied powers nor Soviet Russia reacted to Turkish operations, on September 20 Kemal authorized Karabekir to push onwards and take Kars and Kağızman.

Araratian regiment going to the Turkish–Armenian front, 1920

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.

Iraq with the help of the Assyrians, while France and Italy were also fighting the Turkish revolutionaries near Syria and Italian controlled Antalya.[40]
Neighboring Georgia declared neutrality during the conflict.

On 11 October, Soviet plenipotentiary Boris Legran arrived in Yerevan with a text to negotiate a new Soviet-Armenian agreement.[41] The agreement signed on 24 October secured Soviet support.[41] The most important part of this agreement dealt with Kars, which Armenia agreed to secure.[41] The Turkish national movement was not happy with possible agreement between the Soviets and Armenia. Karabekir was informed by the Government 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.

Capture of Kars and Alexandropol

Main articles: Battle of Kars (1920) and Battle of Alexandropol
Armenian civilians flee Kars after its capture by Turkish forces

On 24 October, Karabekir's forces launched a new, massive campaign against Kars.[40] The Armenians abandoned the city, which by 30 October came under full Turkish occupation.[42] Turkish forces continued to advance, and, a week after the capture of Kars, took control of Alexandropol (present-day Gyumri, Armenia).[1] On 12 November, the Turks also captured the strategic village of Aghin, northeast of the ruins of the former Armenian capital of Ani, and planned to move toward Yerevan. On 13 November, Georgia broke its neutrality. It had concluded an agreement with Armenia to invade the disputed region of Lori, which was established as a Neutral Zone (the Shulavera Condominium) between the two nations in early 1919.[43]

Treaty of Alexandropol

New York Times
, 10 December 1920

The Turks, headquartered in Alexandropol, 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.

Alexandropol. These included rapes and massacres where tens of thousands of civilians were executed.[12][13][14]

As the terms of defeat were being negotiated between Karabekir and Armenian Foreign Minister

Anatoli Gekker invaded Armenia at Karavansarai (present-day Ijevan), meeting little to no resistance.[40] 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 a Soviet republic.[44] 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.[45]

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.

Surmalu to Turkey, as well as make territorial concessions to Azerbaijan in Nakhichevan.[47] The decision to sign the illegal treaty was justified by Khatisyan as necessary to prevent Karabekir's army from advancing further and reaching Echmiadzin and Yerevan ahead of the Red Army.[46]

Aftermath

Destroyed Yerevan after Turkish-Armenian war, 1920
The Soviet-Turkish frontier established in the Treaty of Kars.

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, the Cheka, Soviet Russia's secret police, entered Yerevan. Though nominally an independent Soviet republic, Armenia had effectively ceased to exist as an independent state.[40] Reneging on their agreement not to subject members of the former ruling party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, to repressions, the new Soviet Armenian authorities arrested numerous members of the ARF and conducted expropriations in the countryside, triggering an anti-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 of Zangezur until July 1921.

Settlement

Main article: Treaty of Kars

The warfare in

Georgian SSR, and the GNAT, ceded Adjara to Soviet Georgia in exchange for the Kars territory (today the Turkish provinces of Kars, Iğdır, and Ardahan). Under the treaties, an autonomous Nakhichevan oblast was established under Azerbaijan's protectorate. The Treaty of Kars effectively confirmed Armenia's territorial losses to Turkey as stipulated by the invalid Treaty of Alexandropol and established the Armenia–Turkey border
that exists to this day.

Death toll

According to Soviet historiography, 60,000 Armenian civilians had been killed, including 30,000 men, 15,000 women, 5,000 children, and 10,000 young girls; Of the 38,000 wounded, 20,000 were men, 10,000 women, 5,000 young girls, and 3,000 children. Of the 18,000 men taken prisoner, 2,000 survived (the rest were executed or died of exposure or starvation).

Kars Oblast (present-day Kars and Ardahan provinces) within Armenia. As a result of the 1920 Turkish occupation of those territories and subsequent massacre and expulsion of their inhabitants, only 59,843 Armenians and Yazidis arrived in modern-day Armenia—less than half of the 130,753 Armenians and Yazidis in those areas in 1919.[17]

A commission's findings of atrocities carried out by the Turkish invaders in Shirak revealed that a total of 11,886 corpses were buried, 90 percent of whom were women and children and 10 percent were men: In the village of Agbulag, 1,186 were killed, Ghaltakhchi – 2,100, Karaboya – 1,100, in three villages where refugees from Kars had gathered – 7,500.[49]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "Andrew Andersen". www.conflicts.rem33.com. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  2. ^ Andrew Andersen, Turkish-Armenian war: Sep. 24 – Dec. 2, 1920
  3. ISBN 0-226-33228-4
  4. ^ (In Russian) Turso Armenian Conflict
  5. ^ Kadishev, A. B. (1960), Интервенция и гражданская война в Закавказье [Intervention and civil war in the South Caucasus] (in Russian), Moscow, p. 324{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Andersen, Andrew. "Turkey After World War I: Losses and Gains". Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
  7. ISBN 5-89831-013-4
    .
  8. ^ Asenbauer, Haig E. (19 December 1996). "On the right of self-determination of the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh". Armenian Prelacy. Retrieved 19 December 2019 – via Google Books.
  9. ISBN 2-87027-280-4
    .
  10. ISBN 975-7423-06-8. Archived from the original
    on 9 June 2022.
  11. ^ Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, Croom Helm, 1980, p. 310.
  12. ^
    ISBN 1-57181-666-6
    .
  13. ^ a b Walker, Christopher (1980). Armenia: The Survival of a Nation.[full citation needed]
  14. ^
    A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. pp. 327
    .
  15. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78920-451-3
    .
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-2-13-062617-6
    .
  17. ^ a b Korkotyan, Zaven (1932). Խորհրդային Հայաստանի բնակչությունը վերջին հարյուրամյակում (1831-1931) [The population of Soviet Armenia in the last century (1831–1931)] (PDF) (in Armenian). Yerevan: Pethrat. pp. 164–184. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 February 2022.
  18. OCLC 229988654.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  19. ISBN 0-520-00574-0
    .
  20. ^ The full history of the Armenian republic is covered by Richard G. Hovannisian, Republic of Armenia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971–1996.
  21. ISBN 978-0520019843
    .
  22. S2CID 159108928
    .
  23. ISBN 0-520-04186-0
    .
  24. ^ "Turkish War of Independence". All About Turkey. Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  25. S2CID 162360397
    .
  26. ^ Международная Жизнь, 1963, No. 11, pp. 147–148 (in Russian). The first publication of Kemal's letter to Lenin, in excerpts.
  27. ^ Международная Жизнь, 1963, No. 11, p. 148 (in Russian).
  28. ^
    ISBN 1860649580
    .
  29. ISBN 2-87027-280-4
    .
  30. ISBN 0-520-08804-2
    .
  31. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, p. 180.
  32. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, p. 194, note 27.
  33. ^ (in Turkish) Şimşir, Bilâl N. Ermeni Meselesi, 1774–2005 [The Armenian Question, 1774–2005]. Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005, p. 182.
  34. ^ Sarkisi︠a︡n, Ervand Kazarovich; Sargsyan, Ervand Ghazari; Sahakian, Ruben G. (19 December 1965). "Vital issues in modern Armenian history: a documented exposé of misrepresentations in Turkish historiography". Armenian Studies. Retrieved 19 December 2019 – via Google Books.
  35. ^ (in Turkish) T. C. Genelkurmay Harp Tarihi Başkanlığı Yayınları, Türk İstiklâl Harbine Katılan Tümen ve Daha Üst Kademelerdeki Komutanların Biyografileri, Genkurmay Başkanlığı Basımevi, Ankara, 1972.
  36. ISBN 978-975-343-349-5
    .
  37. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 182–184.
  38. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 184–190.
  39. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 191–197.
  40. ^
    ISBN 0-226-33228-4
  41. ^ a b c Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, p. 259.
  42. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 253–261.
  43. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 222–226.
  44. ^ Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, p. 377.
  45. ^ a b Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, pp. 384–388.
  46. ^ a b Hovannisian. Republic of Armenia, Vol. IV, p. 391.
  47. ^ Hovannisian, Richard G. (2017). "The Contest for Kars, 1914–1921". Armenian Kars and Ani. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers. p. 316.
  48. ISBN 1-57181-666-6
    .
  49. ISBN 5-8080-0436-5
    .
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