In the summer of 1920, Armenia was simultaneously involved in three different wars. The republic’s forces had just quelled the internal revolts of the Tatars when the brief Turkish-Armenian border clashes began in June. These continued and in September transformed into a war which had tragic consequences and defeat for Armenia. Near the eastern borders of the country, in Ijevan and Artsakh (Karabakh), the Armenian forces were having great difficulty in driving the Bolshevik-Tatar attacks back. The situation was exacerbating because the Tatar revolts in the country were also being provoked from Baku, and the Bolsheviks and Kemalists were co-ordinating the attacks from the east and the west. And the most serious blow that Armenia was receiving was the ongoing machinations of the Armenian Bolsheviks – first and foremost, their attempts to disband the Armenian forces and to destroy Armenia’s statehood.
From May onwards, the entire country, young and old, had risen up. The battles against the Bolsheviks exhausted the people’s energy. The Russian troops were constantly attacking the northern borders and constantly keeping the country in a tense state. The military operations against the Muslim population in Zangibasar, Vedibasar, and Sharur that started in May also exhausted the army and demoralised many because of lootings. The war started during harvest season in Armenia and, as Vratsyan put it, it was very difficult for the villager to leave the reaped wheat in the field, under the rain, and go to the battlefield, throwing his family into the clutches of hunger.
The Bolsheviks were aware that Mustafa Kemal was preparing to attack Armenia. The Armenian leaders of that time believed that if the Bolsheviks did not wish it, the Turks would not dare to move towards Armenia. Not only did the Bolsheviks want it, but on September 13, when the Turks began military operations against Armenia, they were well-disposed with regards to it. There were Bolshevik figures amongst the Turkish army moving towards Armenia who were trying to demoralise and destroy the rear, and disband the Armenian forces.
After suppressing the Bolshevik riots in May, Ruben Ter-Minasyan started working towards silencing the rioting Tatar regions. After the operation of seizing the coal mines of Kars province, he planned the subjugation of Vedibasar. After occupying Medz Vedi, the Armenian forces, fighting victoriously, reached Nakhijevan. On Ruben’s order the eastern shore of Lake Sevan, the Gorge of Karakoyunlu was also cleared of Tatars, as was Koghb, on the right shore of the Araxes River, in September.
The Armenian-Turkish war started in mid-June, when the Armenian forces attacked the coal mines of Olti from Sarighamish. On June 21, Daniel BekPirumyan, the General Commander of the Kars forces, informed Ruben Ter-Minasyan and the Chief Commander of the Army General Tovmas Nazarbekyan by telegram that the attacks carried out in three directions had ended with the occupation of Kosor and Penyak.
The Turks started the war, even though the Armenians were looking for an opportunity to expand the borders of the republic. Information received from the delegation in Paris was reassuring. The issues of the occupation of Erzurum and Van were openly being discussed in government offices and military ministries. If, on the one hand, the result of the military operation in Olti was the provision of coal to fuel-starved Armenia, on the other hand it was viewed as a preliminary step towards Erzurum in government and military circles.
“By occupying the region of Olti, the roads towards Western Armenia have been opened for our forces,”wrote Haraj.
After the incidents in Olti, the Kemalists appealed to the government of Armenia, demanding the withdrawal of Armenian forces. On June 23, in a message sent to Armenia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Kemalist Minister of Foreign Affairs Bekir Sami (Kunduh) Bey noted that the Turks “wish to maintain friendly relations with the Armenian nation,” adding, “Your delegation in Moscow is negotiating with the Russian Soviet Government. Having initiated political relations with the Soviet authorities, we are jointly working on ending the war, and thus your attack is absolutely shocking and painful.”
The Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Hakob Ter-Hakobyan, responded to the Kemalists, emphasising that the latest military operations of the Armenian forces in the region of Olti were aimed at “liberating Armenian land from anarchic elements and were never directed towards the peaceful Muslim population”. “The re-establishment of friendly relations between Armenia and Turkey depends entirely on the Turkish leaders, who must once and for all recognise the rights of the Armenian nation concerning the borders of a complete Armenia, and end the activities of the agents on Armenia’s borders.”
The reason for the Armenian-Turkish disagreements was different. In Vratsyan’s words, the Turks were talking “in the language of the Brest-Litovsk and Batum treaties”, which was incomprehensible in Armenia. The occupation of the coal mines was merely a pretext. The Turks were looking for ways “to force the Armenians to refuse Europe’s mediation and reject the treaty that was shortly to be signed in Sèvres.” On the contrary, “the Armenians were relying on Europe and that treaty” and did not believe that a direct agreement with Turkey was possible. The Turks knew that and were preparing to “oppose Sèvres with an iron fist.”
Who started the Turkish-Armenian war? Artashes Babalyan, one of Armenia’s ministers, who was takenhostage in Kars, wrote, “We started it, because we were aiming at occupying the region of Olti and reaching the Black Sea, the path to our salvation. It was us, because we were preparing to consolidate our forces in Kars, eager to implement the Treaty of Sèvresthroughour own means. The Turks started the war, because they initiated the attack. It can be said that both sides were preparing for war. Could we have avoided war if we had acquiesced to Bekir Sami Bey’s suggestion and had wished to negotiate with Ankara and, by making compromises, ensured our borders until spring? Yes, there would have been no war, or it would have been postponed, had we expressed willingness to negotiate with the Turks.”
Karo Sasuni, the Governor of Shirak, considered Babalyan’s claim that the Armenian side started the war by occupying Olti in order “for us to reach the sea” to be incorrect. “Armenia’s leaders were not dreamers detached from this world, to try to move from Olti to Trabzon with one thousand soldiers.”
The correspondence between the Kemalists and Bolsheviks shows that the attack on Armenia was inevitable. Moreover, the Kemalists had co-ordinated the postponing of the attack on Armenia from June to September with the Bolsheviks.
On August 14, 1920, Mustafa Kemal explained to the members of the parliament why he had ordered the attack on the Armenian forces and why it had been temporarily postponed. In Kemal’s words, Kâzim Karabekir had proposed firstly to ensure the prompt departure of the Kemalist delegation in Erzurum to Moscow by the Kars-Baku train, then to take measures “to stop the massacres of the Muslim population in Armenia” and thirdly, since the Armenian forces were going to try to occupy Erzurum at a suitable opportunity, “our forces must occupy the territory of the three sanjaks11 given to us through the Brest-Litovsk and Batum agreements, Sarıkamış and the Soğanlu mountain range and its approaches, for us to have strategically advantageous positions against the Armenian army.”
“On June 6, we ordered [Karabekir] to prepare for military operations. On June 16, one of our delegation members returned from Moscow. He had brought Chicherin’s letter with him. The Soviet government considered that our further advance towards the Armenian positions was not desirable. From an official communication it became clear that the Russian Embassy was coming here by train, through Kars. Taking that circumstance into consideration, we ordered [Karabekir] to stop the military actions, so that we could continue them after establishing relations with the Russian Embassy. That was on June 20. That was the reason why we halted the eastern army’s attack,” Kemal explained.
The same confirmation was in a letter sent in the summer of 1920, from Mustafa Kemal to Chicherin: “We fear the massacres of the population of indisputably Turkish lands. In order to eliminate that situation, it was necessary to promptly occupy several parts of Kars, Batum, and Ardahan but, because of your letter, we postponed those actions.”
When the Armenian forces occupied Olti, inter-racial brawls began between the Greeks and Kurds, initiated and backed by General Artyom Hovsepyan. The Greeks of Ardahan invaded the region of Olti and the looting began. As a result of the continuous clashes between the Greeks and the Muslims, both communities were displeased with Armenia’s leadership. The Greeks viewed the criminal actions brought against them by the governor as pressure on the community, and a group of bandits on trial succeeded in provoking the Greek community of 40,000 and prompting their emigration to Greece. The houses of the fleeing Greeks were being occupied by Muslims who, a couple of months later, during the Kemalists’ attack, rebelled against the Armenian government and stabbed the retreating Armenian army in the back.
Apart from that, the resettled Russian Molokans in the region of Kars spied for the Turks during the Turkish-Armenian war and, when the Armenians retreated, they joined with the adversary. Even before the Armenians had left Kars, the Molokans, together with the Turks, were waiting to loot their belongings.
But the Armenian officers and soldiers were also looting, though that can hardly be considered the main reason for the defeat of the Armenian army in autumn. The looting was also creating a general demoralisation in the army and the population. In April 1920, by a decision of the Armenian government, Vahe Artsruni (Melikset Muradyan) was regulating the migration issue in Kars. He, together with American missionaries, stayed in the city until January 15, 1921. “Were the Greek volunteers the only ones obsessed with the mentality of looting? Weren’t the Armenian regular and irregular ranks also interested in that? The complaints against the Greeks were true, but not equally just. The itch for looting had infected the Armenian officers.”
Artsruni presents those Armenian officers in detail, the overwhelming majority of whom were mainly unfamiliar both with Armenia’s environment and their native language, and were incorrigibly pro-Russian. “There was a lack of patriotism. They lacked the idea of native land, culture, and honour. The overwhelming majority of the Armenian officers were the bearers of the idea of a powerful Great Russia and were finding it hard to accept the idea of the existence of a state limited within the borders of the Ararat valley. The military in Armenia had been educated in foreign schools and, even though they were somehow connected to the Republic of Armenia and worked for it, they did not do so with a warm heart, but without sincere love, and without deep and unconditional faith.”
From Tatul Hakobyan’s book – ARMENIANS and TURKS
Image – Vratsian and Dro in 1915
