Armenian News Network / Groong
On the
collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty
of Kars
December 20, 2021
By Eddie
Arnavoudian
LONDON, UK
The Collapse of the First 1918-1920
Armenian Republic
PART
TWO
III. The 1920 Turkish offensive
against Armenia and the fall of Kars
On 24 September 1920 Turkey launched its offensive to retake
the Armenian controlled and strategically critical city of Kars and the 60,000
square kilometers of surrounding territory that had passed to Armenia after the
1918 Mudros Armistice. Advancing rapidly Turkish forces reached Kars on 24
October. By 30 October, almost without a shot fired this naturally almost
impregnable, heavily fortified, militarily well-equipped city was captured.
Desertions had melted army ranks and its military and political leadership
suffered a paralysis of incompetence.
The surrender of Kars was the greatest Armenian military
disaster of the 20th century.
It destroyed all hope for the future of the First Republic
and called into question the very future existence of an Armenian state.
Besides the recapture of the Kars and nearly 60% of Armenian controlled
territory, within days Turkish forces also seized the town of Alexandropol (now
Gyumri). Savage massacres, rape, arson, and destruction ensued leaving at least
30,000 dead.
Ataturk’s triumph was sealed by the Treaty of Alexandropol,
which, reminiscent of the 1918 Batum Treaty, once again threatened to reduce
Armenia to an unsustainable minor Turkish protectorate. The Armenian nation was
squeezed back into a tiny space around Yerevan and Lake Sevan. Required to end
all military conscription, Armenian armed forces were limited to 1500 soldiers
with the right to possess no more than eight cannon and twenty machine guns.
Turkish political officials, based in Armenia, were granted powers to oversee
and enforce these clauses. Meanwhile Armenian railway and transportation links
were to be put under Turkish control and the Turkish military acquired rights
to carry out operations in Armenia.
As the Turkish noose tightened Armenia’s Western ‘allies’
offered not an iota of help. Soviet Russia too, albeit in informal alliance
with Turkey, played no direct role in the Armenian-Turkish War. Roubina
Piroumian speaking of some ‘demoralization’ in the army caused by Armenian
‘Bolshevik propaganda (RP264)’ makes no reference to any Russian state or
military role in the fall of Kars. Levon Khurshutyan, always ready to attribute
Armenian misfortunes to Soviet Russia, here speaks differently. The catastrophe
was clearly self-inflicted with responsibility put squarely at the feet of the
Armenian army and state.
‘The Armenian people in 1918, hungry and poorly equipped,
hurled back Turkish forces to register brilliant victories in the heroic May
battles. In 1920, the fantastically well-armed, well-clothed and well-fed
Armenian army failed to carry out its duty to the homeland (LK 200-201).
A shocking but truthful examination of the internal,
systemic causes of the fall of Kars is offered by Gevorg Yazichyan’s excellent
essay - ‘The True Causes Behind the Fall of Kars (1920)’ (in ‘Studies on
Strategy and Security’, ed Armen Ayvazian, 684pp, Lusakn, 2007). A critique ‘of
the large literature’ on the subject that concerns itself primarily with
‘external-diplomatic causes’ at the expense of the domestic, national realities
that prevailed this essay brings to the fore the question of Armenian
responsibility, focusing on the Armenian military and political leadership’s
incapacities and incompetence.
Within a month of the Kars capitulation, to prevent the
total annihilation of the Armenian state at the hands of the Ataturk regime the
ARF government voluntarily and peacefully passed the reins of power to Armenian
Bolsheviks backed by the Russian Soviet military.
IV. Soviet Russia, Turkey, and the
First Republic’s international relations
Almost everything that unfolded in Armenia throughout the
years of the First Republic did so in the web of complex and tense
international relations, most particularly those between Soviet Russia and
Turkey, both powerful presences in the region. Their ambitions and actions and
their relations would have an indubitable and often decisive impact on Armenian
affairs. State and nation building therefore, besides decisive domestic social,
economic, and political measures, required the development of appropriate
foreign relations and alliances with those powers objectively most able to
benefit the First Republic. But here again, in what together with domestic
police was a second critical sphere of action, the Armenian leadership proved
incapable of negotiating the intricacies of Russian-Turkish relations to its
own benefit.
The collapse of the Tsarist and Ottoman Empires, the victory
of the Bolshevik movement in Russia and the rise of Kemal Ataturk’s
imperialist-nationalist movement gave birth to very particular Soviet Russian
and Turkish relations. Both were engaged in what were very different battles
against the Allied powers. Headed by Kemal Ataturk, imperialist Turkish elites fought
to retain exclusive control of the last remnants of the Ottoman Empire that
Britain, France, and the USA hoped to carve up among themselves and their
allies. Soviet Russia meanwhile was in the midst of a desperate effort to
defeat Allied-supported anti-Soviet White forces. Short term strategic and
tactical considerations pushed Russia and Turkey together. Nevertheless, their
relations, agreements and treaties were by no stretch of the imagination free
of tensions and contradictions, especially so in the Caucuses where both sought
to wield direct control or strategic influence at each other’s expense [5].
The Turkish state, in alliance with the Azerbaijani Musavat
regime was unquestionably the primary threat to the Armenian state’s and
nation’s existence. It had organized the Armenian Genocide. Now it was intent
on retaking the Kars-Ardahan region and also had eyes on eastern Armenia, the
conquest of which would offer it a passageway to the oil fields of Baku. Yet
the First Republic’s government made no effort to exploit and develop possible
antagonisms between Russia and Turkey. It made no attempt to drive a wedge
between Turkey and Russia, to sway Russia away from Turkey and towards Armenia.
Did Armenia have anything to put on the table? It didn’t have
any natural resources or any ports. But perhaps if allied to Soviet Russia it
could field, if united and inspired, an army that could reinforce and
strengthen the Bolshevik front and be a countervailing power to the
anti-Armenian and anti-Bolshevik Azerbaijani Musavats
and Georgian Mensheviks. The Armenian ARF government dismissed such options.
Instead of possible accords with Soviet Russia, the First Republic spent two
years ‘engaging in struggle against it (RP234)’ and cultivated relations with
the Soviet government’s most virulent enemies, the anti-Soviet Southern Russian
Front, the Whites and General Denikin (RP149-154)!
More damagingly still the Armenian leadership did nothing
that would strengthen the hand of substantial pro-Armenian circles in the Soviet
government that, with enhanced influence, could have secured means to ease
Turkish pressure on Armenia. At best the Armenian government vacillated
miserably, at a time when Russia urgently needed stable strategic allies.
Placing all of its very few eggs in the Western imperialist,
anti-Soviet basket the ARF government only reinforced the Russian-Turkish
alliance. Despite 60 years of the Great Powers’ ruthless betrayal of Armenian
interests, in the vain hope of securing their aid and support the Armenian
leadership continued to slavishly bend the knee to Britain, France and
increasingly the USA. ‘The government of the Republic of Armenia opted’ Khurshutyan
writes ‘for an anti-Soviet Western orientation (LK113)’ and this despite the
fact that ‘the Allies and Armenia failed to agree on any practical measures to
implement the Treaty of Sevres and save the Armenian Republic (LK111).’
Despite the Soviet State’s and its armies’ geographical
proximity to Armenia and the Caucuses, the first official Armenian-Soviet
governmental negotiations occurred only in May 1920! Yet even as these
commenced and indeed even before the triumph of the Bolsheviks the ARF had
nailed its anti-Bolshevik colors to the mast and tied its cart to the Western
imperialist bandwagon (RP142, 147, 151). During the years of the First Republic
entranced by hopes for ‘Allied and US material assistance’ as well as Western
‘political promises’, the Armenian government did not ‘consider it necessary to
initiate official negotiations with Moscow (RP207).’ Piroumian elaborates:
‘With hopes placed on the Allies, the Armenian leadership
was worried that developing its relations with Bolshevik Russia would cause
dissatisfaction among the Allies and lead to the thwarting of their promises
(RP207).’
The mind boggles in the face of such naïve illusions in
promises from the mendacious West that had already broken more than a thousand
and one pledges and promises! As the Republic neared its end accords were
indeed negotiated between the Armenian and Russian governments (RP210-215). But
by then it was too late. Pro-Armenian personalities in the Soviet state were
marginalized and moreover the Soviet leadership had little ground to trust the
heads of the anti-Bolshevik Armenian Republic [6].
‘Considering Armenia a friend of White (anti-Soviet) Russia’
and ‘an opponent of Soviet Russia (RP152)’, the Soviet government had no cause
to be charitable to Armenian demands or expectations for defense or solidarity.
When Soviet Russia was in a position to arbitrate and negotiate border and
territorial disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as they indeed were,
pressure would be on them to lean towards Azerbaijan, and especially so after
April 1920 when the latter moved early under the Soviet umbrella.
Inevitably as Kemal Ataturk prepared his assault on Kars and
Ardahan, Armenia was once again abandoned by the West. Armenian ‘requests for
weapons and provisions’ produced ‘no practical assistance’ with the Allies
offering ‘only’ the usual ‘sympathetic words and promises (RP251).’ Armenia was
also isolated from Russia, the sole regional power potentially at odds with
Turkey and capable of staying Ataturk’s hand. But Russia then had nothing to
gain from intervening on behalf of an uncompromisingly anti-Soviet Armenian
government! Soviet Russian support for an anti-Soviet Armenian state would have
been not only senseless but would have entailed dangerous risks for Russia.
Soviet Russia was thus on the sidelines when Turkey attacked
and took Kars.
Immediate developments thereafter are matters of fact,
despite unending contentious interpretations and explanations of how these
facts came about. Whether as a result of an aggressive Russian military
invasion or local Communist insurrection or a combination of both, the leadership
of the beleaguered First Republic handed power to the pro-Bolshevik Armenian
Communist Party thus halting further attack on Armenia by Ataturk’s nationalist
forces. A much-diminished Armenian state survived, under the Soviet umbrella.
Within a year the Soviet-Turkish October 1921 Treaty of Kars
drew and formalized the current Turkish-Armenian borders. It recognized Kars as
part of Turkey but enforced a Turkish withdrawal from Alexandropol.
Pronouncements and denunciations of this Treaty as the fruit of Soviet betrayal
and treachery, as the final step of a Russian-Turkish plot to slice up and
destroy Armenia seriously miss the mark.
Immediately as he entered the political arena Kemal Ataturk
had made his intention of seizing Kars and Ardahan for Turkey, categorically
and uncompromisingly clear whatever the cost (LK8, 9; RP297). He would brook no
opposition and refused to countenance any concession whatsoever to Armenia or
anyone else. He insisted, on the pain of endless war, that Kars and Ardahan were
inviolable parts of Turkey. The First Republic’s surrender of Kars-Ardahan
therefore presented Soviet Russia with a fait accompli for which it was not
responsible and which it would find impossible to reverse. Any 1921 Soviet
Russian insistence on a Turkish withdrawal from Kars-Ardahan would have been
fraught with the risk of a war that Russia could not afford. Soviet Russia was
in no position to alter the status quo. It was in no position to wage war
against Turkey to retake Kars that anti-Soviet Armenian leaders had given away
to Kemalist Turkey in the first place!
Had Armenia retained control of Kars and Ardahan in the
September-November 1920 Armenian-Turkish War, the terms of
Russian-Turkish-Armenian relations would have been entirely different. An
Armenian victory against Ataturk’s forces in 1920 would have created facts on
the ground favorable to Armenia. One can
even conjecture that within this context a Soviet-Armenian First Republic
alliance with a larger Armenia as a buffer zone for Soviet Russia against
Western meddling there would have been no 1921 Kars Treaty, a treaty that
merely rubber-stamped Turkish-created facts on the ground.
* * *
The experience of the First Republic, its failure to attend
to and solve pressing issues confronting the common people and its inability to
compensate for domestic and internal weaknesses with a wise and calculated
international foreign policy is instructive for the Third Republic now itself
undergoing endemic crisis exacerbated following its catastrophic defeat in the
September-October 2020 44-Day War.
Note 5
The character of Soviet Russian-Turkish relations merits
separate and detailed consideration. One cannot however refrain from a few
observations. Whatever may have pressed them into temporary alliances there is,
to put it mildly, a sharp unsavory aspect to public, diplomatic Soviet
evaluations and presentations of Kemal Ataturk and his reactionary, racist,
imperialist, nationalist movement. The Soviet misrepresentation of Ataturk as a
progressive, even quasi-proletarian anti-imperialist was total fabrication. Ataturk
resisted US, British and French imperialism not in the name of the common
people of what remained of the Ottoman Empire, nor even in the name of the
Turkish people and the independence of Turkey.
Kemal Ataturk’s nationalist movement was driven by a
neo-imperialist, national-chauvinist determination to preserve control of the
last remnants of the Ottoman Empire exclusively for exploitation by the Turkish
ruling classes. To this end it sought not only to push back European
imperialist forces from Ottoman imperial territories, but to finally cleanse
Western Armenia of its native Armenian population, to continue the subjugation
of the Kurdish people, and to complete the ethnic cleansing of Smyrna and the
Pontus Greeks.
Ataturk’s movement was the manifestation of a reactionary
and proto-imperial Turkish bourgeois nationalism. Soviet misrepresentations
were perhaps devised to conceal this truth so as to render the Soviet alliance
with Ataturk’s Turkey more palatable to Soviet and international pro-Soviet
public opinion.
To their eternal shame some Armenian communists mindlessly
parroted Soviet Russian slogans going so far as to claim that in 1920 invading
Turkish armies were not ‘pillaging bandits’ but ‘Turkish workers, comrades of
the Armenian peasants, soldiers and workers (LK170)’! Inexcusable tripe! Armenian
communists were clearly too weak and rootless in the Caucuses, especially after
the execution of Stepan Shahumyan, to develop their own particular, independent,
and more realistic local evaluation of Ataturk and his relation to the Armenian
and other people of the region. The unforgivable mouthing of deceptive Soviet
Russian diplomatic rhetoric naturally gave the impression that sections of the
Armenian communist movement was no more than a passive outlet for Soviet
Russian foreign policy, worse still an outlet that the Russian government did
not need in order to secure its collaboration with Kemal Ataturk.
Whatever diplomatic dance the Russian Soviet government
performed with Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, however it is argued, there is one area
in which Soviet Russian policy did unquestionably counter the interests of the
international common people that Soviet power purported to represent and fight
on behalf of. This was Soviet Russia’s incorporation into its state-military-political
structures of some of the senior organizers of the Armenian genocide including
Enver Pasha and Nouri Pasha (LK22).
Note 6
It is perhaps worth recalling that in opposition to the
ARF’s pro-Western or at best hopelessly vacillating orientation, Armenian
Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan as early as October 1917 had offered a comprehensive
alternative for Armenian international relations. Aware of consistent Western
imperialist and Tsarist betrayal of the Armenian people he urged immediate recognition
of and alliance with the new Soviet power by all forces in the Caucuses –
socialist or otherwise – as in the best interests of the local people and of
local national self-determination. (See History of Armenian Critical Thought
Part VII – The Armenian Bolsheviks). Significantly Shahumyan’s proposal was
designed in part to secure the continued presence of Soviet Russian troops on the
1917 Armenian-Turkish borders, that at the time gave Armenia control of a
larger swathe of Western Armenia than the Kars and Ardahan region alone.
Shahumyan argued passionately for this strategy but to no avail. The ARF and
the Armenian political establishment remained stubbornly pro-Western.
|
Eddie
Arnavoudian holds degrees in history and
politics from Manchester, England, and is ANN/Groong's
commentator-in-residence on Armenian literature. His works on literary and
political issues have also appeared in Harach in Paris, Nairi in Beirut, and
Open Letter in Los Angeles. |
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author.
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