This was the state of affairs when there came the crash of the Russian
revolution. The heart of every Armenian was greatly relieved, thinking
that the greater part of their torments would come to an end. And in
truth, during the first few months of the revolution, the temporary
government of Kerensky made definite arrangements to rectify the unjust
treatment of the Armenians by the government of the Czar. But events
progressed in a precipitate manner. The demoralization of the Russian
troops on all the fronts assumed greater proportions as the days went
by. Foreseeing the danger which threatened the Caucasus, the Armenian
National Organization of the Caucasus, as early as April, 1917, sent to
Petrograd on a special mission Dr. Zavrieff, already mentioned, and the
writer of these lines, in order to have them obtain permission to
transfer to the Caucasus some 150,000 Armenian officers and men
(scattered throughout the Russian army), by whose assistance the
Armenians might be able to protect their own native land against the
Turkish advance. Mr. Kerensky, who was well acquainted with the abnormal
conditions reigning in the Caucasus, agreed to grant the request of the
Armenian delegates, but, on the other hand, for fear of receiving
similar requests from the other races in case he granted an order
favorable to the Armenians, he decided to fulfill our request
unofficially, that is, without a general ordinance, to send the Armenian
soldiers to the Caucasus gradually, in small groups, in order not to
attract the attention of the other races. And he carried out this plan.
[Illustration: KHETCHO DRO ARMEN GARO
The staff of the second battalion of Armenian volunteers in the Caucasus
in November, 1914.]
But unfortunately, scarcely 35,000 Armenian soldiers had been able to
reach the Caucasus by November, 1917, when Kerensky himself fell at the
hands of the Bolsheviks, and there was created a chaotic condition the
result of which was the final demobilization of the Russian army. During
December, 1917, and January, 1918, the Russian army of 250,000 men on
the Caucasian front, without any orders, abandoned its positions and
moved into the interior of Russia, leaving entirely unprotected a front
about 970 kilometers (600 miles) in length, extending from the Black Sea
to Persia. As soon as the Russian army disbanded, the 3,000,000 Tartar
inhabitants of the Caucasus armed themselves and rose en masse. Toward
the end of January last, the Tartars had cut the Baku-Tiflis railroad
line as well as the Erivan-Joulfa line, and now began to raid and
plunder the Armenian cities and villages, while behind, on the frontier,
the regular Turkish army had commenced to advance in the first days of
February. Against all these Turks and Tartars the Armenians had one army
corps made up of some 35,000 regular troops under the command of General
Nazarbekoff, and nearly 20,000 Armenian volunteers under the command of
their experienced leaders. Armenia's only hope of assistance was their
neighbors, the Georgians, who were as much interested in the protection
of the Caucasus as the Armenians were, because the Turkish demands of
the Brest-Litovsk treaty included definite portions of Georgia, as well
as of Armenia; for example, the port of Batoum. And in fact, during the
months of January and February they seemed quite inclined to help the
Armenians, but when the Turks captured Batoum on April 15 and came as
far as Usurgeti, the morale of the Georgians was completely broken, and
they immediately sent a delegation to Berlin and put Georgia under
German protection. From this time on the 2,000,000 Armenian inhabitants
of the Caucasus remained entirely alone to face, on the one hand, the
Turkish regular army of 100,000 men, and on the other hand, the armed
forces of hundreds of thousands of Tartars. From the end of February the
small number of Armenian forces commenced to retreat step by step before
the superior Turkish forces, from Erzingan, Baiburt, Khenous,
Mamakhatoun, Erzeroum, and Bayazid, and concentrated their forces on the
former Russian-Turkish frontier. Here commenced serious battles which
arrested for quite a long time the advance of the Turkish troops. It
took them until April 22 to arrive before the forts of Kars, where the
first serious resistance of the Armenians took place. The fierce Turkish
attack which continued for four days was easily repulsed by the
Armenians, owing to the guns on the ramparts of Kars.
During these events a temporary government of the Caucasus existed in
Tiflis, composed of representatives of three Caucasian races--Georgian,
Armenian, and Tartar. This Caucasian government was formed immediately
after the _coup d'etat_ of the Bolsheviks, and conducted Caucasian
affairs as an independent body. It refused to recognize the authority of
the Bolshevik government, or the terms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty
signed by its accredited delegates. The president of the government was
Chekhenkeli, a Georgian. Immediately after the capture of Batoum the
Caucasian government opened peace negotiations with Turkish delegates in
Batoum itself. The Turks, by their usual crafty tricks, persuaded the
Georgian delegates that they would return Batoum to the Georgians if
Kars surrendered without resistance. Feeling assured of this Turkish
promise, the Georgian president of the Caucasian government,
Chekhenkeli, on the night of April 25, without consultation with the
other members of the government, telegraphed the commander of Kars that
an armistice had been signed with the Turks on condition of surrendering
Kars, and therefore to give up the forts immediately and retreat as far
as Arpa-Chai. On the following day the commander of the Armenian
soldiers who were defending Kars delivered the fortress into the hands
of the Turks and retreated to Alexandropol. Then it became known that
Chekhenkeli had sent the fateful telegram on his own responsibility, but
it was already too late. This event occasioned very strained relations
between the Armenians and Georgians. Not long after, on the 26th of May,
the Georgians, assured of German protection, declared in Tiflis the
independence of Georgia. Thus the temporary Caucasian government
dissolved.
[Illustration: MOURAT
Who lead the volunteers at Erzingan after the Russian collapse and died
heroically in the fighting at Baku.]
After the separation of the Georgians the Armenian National Council of
the Caucasus declared Armenian independence, under the name of the
Republic of Ararat, with Erivan as its capital. While the negotiations
were going on in Batoum--always between the delegates of the Turks and
the three Caucasian races comprising the Caucasian temporary
government,--the Turkish armies, after the occupation of Kars, became
more aggressive and commenced to advance toward Alexandropol and
Karakilissa. Concentrating their forces around Karakilissa and Erivan,
early in June, the Armenians in two fierce battles drove the Turks back
almost to their frontier. In the battle of Karakilissa, which lasted
four days, the Turks left 6,000 dead before the Armenian posts, and
escaped to Alexandropol. When the Turks felt that their position in the
face of the Armenian resistance was becoming more and more hopeless and
that it would cost them dear to continue the fight, they immediately
began to make concessions. Up to that time the Turks had not yet
recognized the right of Russian Armenia to independence, their objection
being that they only recognized in the Caucasus Georgian and Tartar
countries. But when they heard the news of the last military victory of
the Armenians, on June 14, in Batoum, the Turkish delegates, together
with the representatives of the Republic of Ararat, signed the first
terms of armistice, leaving the final peace signature to the congress of
Constantinople, where the final negotiations were to take place.
The delegates of the three nations of the Caucasus reached
Constantinople on June 19. They were 32 in number. Among them were also
the representatives of the Republic of Ararat, Mr. A. Khatissoff, the
minister of foreign affairs, and Mr. A. Aharonian, the president of the
Armenian National Council. In that congress, which convened in presence
of the delegates of the German and Austrian governments, the Turks
signed peace treaties with each of the newly-formed Caucasian Republics.
It is needless to say that those treaties had as much value as that
which the Roumanian government was forced to sign a few months before by
the central powers. And, as was expected, the Turks and the Germans
rewarded the Georgians and the Tartars at the expense of the Armenians.
They gave the greater part of the Armenian territories to the other two
nations, and the remainder was claimed by Turkey, with the exception of
32,000 square kilometers (about 12,350 square miles), with 700,000
Armenian inhabitants, which were left to the Republic of Ararat.
According to these terms only one-third of the Armenians of the Caucasus
are included within the Republic of Ararat, while the remaining
1,400,000 Armenians are left in territories allotted to the Tartars or
the Georgians.
That portion of the Armenians which inhabits the mountainous regions of
Karabagh (which was assigned to the Tartars), up to this very day,
October, 1918, resists the Turco-Tartar hordes and refuses at any price
to be subjected to the unjust terms of the treaty of Constantinople,
while beyond, the Armenians at Van, when their military forces realized
that their retreat was cut off early last May, after being sheltered for
two whole months in Van, moved toward Persia, there joined the Christian
Assyrians in the neighborhood of Urmia, repulsed for a long time the
Turkish and Kurdish attacks, and only early in September succeeded in
shattering the Turkish lines and thereby reached the city of Hamadan in
Persia, where they entrusted to the care of the British forces the
protection of about 40,000 Armenian and Assyrian refugees. In order to
complete this picture of the heroic resistance of the Caucasian
Armenians, let me say a few words more about the struggle at Baku.
As already mentioned, early in May, 1917, through the efforts of the
Armenian National Organization of the Caucasus, the Armenian soldiers
and officers scattered throughout Russia were gradually brought together
and mobilized on the Caucasian front. With that purpose in view an
Armenian Military Committee was formed in Petrograd with General
Bagradouni as president. Bagradouni was one of the most brilliant young
generals of the Russian army. He had received his military training at
the highest military academy of Petrograd, and, during Kerensky's
administration, was appointed Chief of the Staff of the military forces
at Petrograd. When the Bolsheviks assumed power they ordered him to take
an oath of loyalty to the new government. General Bagradouni refused to
do so, and for that reason he was imprisoned, with many other high
military officials. After remaining in prison two months, through
repeated appeals by the Armenian National bodies, he was freed by the
Bolsheviks on condition that he should immediately leave Petrograd.
After his release from prison, General Bagradouni, accompanied by the
well known Armenian social worker, Mr. Rostom, with 200 Armenian
officers, left for the Caucasus to assume the duties of
commander-in-chief of the newly-formed Armenian army. This group of
Armenian officers reached Baku early in March, where it was forced to
wait, for the simple reason that the Baku-Tiflis railroad line was
already cut by the Tartars. During that same month of March from many
parts of Russia a large number of Armenians gathered at Baku and waited
to go to Erivan and Tiflis in response to the call issued by the
Armenian National Council. Toward the end of March nearly 110,000
Armenian soldiers had come together at Baku.
[Illustration: Armenians valiantly defending Baku against the Tartars.
_Taken from "Asia."_]
By the 30th of March the news of German victories was spread throughout
the Caucasus by the Turco-German agents. On the same day in Baku and
other places appeared the following leaflets:
"Awake, Turkish brothers!
"Protect your rights; union with the Turks means life.
"Unite, O Children of the Turks!
"Brothers of the noble Turkish nation, for hundreds of years our
blood has flowed like water, our motherland has been ruined, and we
have been under the heel of thousands of oppressors who have almost
crushed us. We have forgotten our nation. We do not know to whom to
appeal for help.
"Countrymen, we consider ourselves free hereafter. Let us look into
our conscience! Let us not listen to the voice of plotters. We must
not lose the way to freedom; our freedom lies in union with the
Turks. It is necessary for us to unite and put ourselves under the
protection of the Turkish flag.
"Forward, brothers! Let us gather ourselves under the flag of union
and stretch out our hands to our Turkish brothers. Long life to the
generous Turkish nation! By these words we shall never again bear a
foreign yoke, the chains of servitude."
And on the following day (March 31) from all sides of the Caucasus the
armed hordes of Tartars attacked the Armenians. The leaders of the
Tartars at Baku were convinced that they would easily disarm the
Armenian soldiers, because they were somewhat shut up in Baku, but they
were sadly mistaken in their calculations. After a bloody battle which
lasted a whole week the Armenians remained masters of the city and its
oil wells. They suffered a loss of nearly 2,500 killed, while the
Tartars lost more than 10,000. The commander of the military forces of
the Armenians was the same General Bagradouni, who, although he lost
both of his legs during the fight, continued his duties until September
14, when the Armenians and the small number of Englishmen who came to
their assistance were forced to abandon Baku to the superior forces of
the Turco-Tartars, and retreat toward the city of Enzeli in the northern
Caucasus.
During these heroic struggles, which lasted five and a half months, the
small Armenian garrison of Baku, together with a few thousand Russians,
defended Baku and its oil wells against tens of thousands of Tartars,
the Caucasian mountaineers, and more than one division of regular
Turkish troops which had come to the assistance of the latter by way of
Batoum. Time after time the Turkish troops made fierce attacks to
capture the city, but each time they were repulsed with heavy losses by
the gallant Armenian garrison. The Armenians had built their hopes on
British assistance, since nothing was expected from the demoralized
Russian army. But, unfortunately, the British were unable to reach Baku
with large forces from their Bagdad army. Nevertheless, on August 5,
they landed at Baku 2,800 men to help the Armenians. The arrival of this
small British contingent caused great enthusiasm among the tired and
exhausted defenders of the city. But meanwhile the Turks had received
new forces from Batoum and renewed their attacks. After a series of
bloody battles the armed Armenian and British forces were forced to
leave Baku on September 14 and retreat toward Persia, taking with them
nearly 10,000 refugees from the inhabitants of the city. As to the
condition of those who were left behind, this much is certain; that on
the day the city was occupied by the Turco-Tartars, nearly 20,000
Armenians were put to the sword, the greater portion of them being women
and children. According to the news received from Persia, after that
first terrible massacre, other massacres likewise have taken place. The
number of the losses is not known; but it may safely be surmised without
any exaggeration that out of the entire 80,000 Armenian inhabitants of
Baku, all those who were unable to leave the city in time were
slaughtered by the revengeful Turks and Tartars. Thus ended the
resistance of five months and a half by the Armenians at Baku against
the Turco-Germans.
[Illustration: Young Armenian students in France, who took part in the
immortal defence of Verdun in 1916.]
The remnants of the retreating Armenian garrison of Baku, at the time of
writing, are located in the Persian city of Enzeli, where, under the
command of their heroic leader, General Bagradouni, they are
recuperating before hastening to the aid of the Armenians in the eastern
Caucasus, who, as already mentioned, up to this very day are resisting
the forces of the Turco-Tartars in the mountains of Karabagh.