German-Turkish intervention in the Caucasus

During the First World War, Russian troops of the Caucasus Front occupied a significant part of the territory of Turkey . By the end of 1917, the front line passed along the line: Trebizond , Gyumyushkhan , Erzincan-Kale , Hnyskala, the southern shore of Lake Van , the Persian border.

The February Revolution of 1917 caused chaos and fermentation in the troops of the Caucasus Front. On May 31, General N.N. Yudenich was removed from command of the front "for resisting the instructions" of the Provisional Government and surrendered the command to the general from infantry M. A. Przhevalsky . During 1917, the Russian army gradually decomposed, soldiers deserted, heading home, and by the end of the year, the Caucasian front was completely destroyed.

After the Bolshevik armed uprising in Petrograd, power in Transcaucasia was taken over by the Transcaucasian Commissariat - a coalition government created in Tiflis with the participation of Georgian Social Democrats ("Mensheviks") , Socialist Revolutionaries, Armenian Dashnaks and Azerbaijani Musavatists .

The decision to create an "Independent Government of the Transcaucasus" was made on November 11 (24), 1917 at a meeting on the organization of local power in the Caucasus in connection with the October Revolution . The meeting was attended by representatives of political parties, the Territory and Tiflis Soviets, the Special Transcaucasian Committee , the commander of the Caucasus Front , and consuls of the Entente countries. The meeting refused to recognize the power of the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia . Relying on national armed forces, the Transcaucasian Commissariat extended its power to all of Transcaucasia , except for the Baku region, where Soviet power was established .

On December 5 (18), 1917, by agreement of representatives of the Ottoman Empire and the Transcaucasian Commissariat, represented by the commander of the Caucasian Front, General Przhevalsky, a ceasefire was concluded, which led to the mass withdrawal of Russian troops from Western (Turkish) Armenia to Russian territory. By the beginning of 1918, only a few thousand Caucasian (mostly Armenian) volunteers under the command of two hundred officers actually opposed Turkish forces in the Transcaucasus.

The declaration of the Transcaucasian Commissariat indicated that it would act “only until the All-Russian Constituent Assembly is convened, and if it is impossible to convene ... until the congress of the Constituent Assembly members from the Transcaucasus and the Caucasus Front ”.

On January 5 (18), 1918, the All-Russian Constituent Assembly was convened in Petrograd. Deputies from the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries refused to recognize Soviet power and the decrees of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets , which left the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats (Bolsheviks) left the meeting, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee passed a decree on the dissolution of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. Its members, elected from a single Transcaucasian constituency, returned to Transcaucasia, where on January 12 (25), 1918, the Transcaucasian Commissariat decided to convene the Transcaucasian Sejm as the legislative body of Transcaucasia.

On January 30 (February 12), 1918, two weeks before the convening of the Transcaucasian Sejm, Turkish troops, taking advantage of the collapse of the Caucasus Front and violating the terms of the Erzincan Armistice, launched a large-scale attack on the Erzurum, Van and Primorsky directions. Erzincan was almost immediately occupied by them, and Trebesund on February 11 (24) .

At the very first meeting of the Transcaucasian Sejm ( February 10 (23) ), a heated discussion unfolded on the issue of Transcaucasia independence and relations with Turkey. The Armenian (Dashnak) fraction proposed to leave Transcaucasia as part of Russia as autonomy divided into national cantons, and in relations with Turkey to insist on the self-determination of Western Armenia. The Muslim (Azerbaijani) delegation stated that Transcaucasia should decide its fate independently of Russia, making peace with Turkey on the basis of refusing to intervene in its internal affairs. The Georgian faction mainly supported Muslims in the matter of declaring independence of the Caucasus and concluding an independent agreement with Turkey, because the Caucasus simply did not have the strength to confront Turkey.

In connection with the stubborn position of the Armenian faction, the issue of independence was temporarily postponed. Regarding the position of the Caucasus in future negotiations with Turkey on a separate peace, the Seimas after a lengthy discussion adopted the following resolution:

1. Under the circumstances, the Sejm considers itself authorized to conclude an agreement with Turkey.
2. Starting negotiations with Turkey, the Diet aims to conclude a final truce.
3. The peace treaty should be based on the principle of restoring the Russian-Turkish borders at the time the war began.
4. The delegation should try to acquire the rights of self-determination for the peoples of Eastern Anatolia, in particular, autonomy for the Armenians within Turkey.

While the Seim was negotiating positions, on February 21 ( March 6 ) the Turks captured Ardagan . On February 27 ( March 12 ), the retreat of Armenian troops and refugees from Erzurum began. With the fall of Erzurum, the Turks actually regained control of all of Western Armenia .

On January 30 (February 12), 1918, the Turkish command, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, advanced 7 infantry divisions (about 25 thousand men, under the command of Lieutenant General Mehmed Vekhib Pasha) in the Erzurum, Van and Primorsky directions. The interventionists were opposed by the Georgian (about 12 thousand people) and Armenian (about 17 thousand people) corps. In the Erzurum direction, Turkish troops occupied Erzincan (February 12 (25)) and Bayburt (February 13 (26)), and by February 24 (March 9) - Trebizond and Mamahatun . The whole burden of the struggle with the interventionists fell on the Armenian troops . The outbreak of the Armenian-Turkish war was complicated by the assistance of the Musavatists to the interventionists ^[1] . Armed Muslim units of the latter openly sided with the Turkish army ^[1] . The Transcaucasian Commissariat declined to participate in the negotiations in Brest (see Brest Peace ), but entered into negotiations in Trebizond with Turkey. The latter put forward a condition that can participate in peace negotiations only with an independent state.

On March 30, 1918, Turkey presented an ultimatum to the Transcaucasian Committee on the immediate cleansing of the Kars , Batumi and Ardagan regions. The Transcaucasian Sejm rejected these demands, but was not able to withstand the Turkish army.

The government of the RSFSR in response to the Turkish offensive sent a note of protest to Germany (April 12, 1918), in order to prevent the destruction of the Transcaucasian civilian population by Turkish troops ^[1] .

April 14 on the river Cholok (north of Kobuleti ), Georgian self-defense units engaged in battle with units of the Turkish army and held back the latter for some time. On the night of April 15, the Turkish army occupies the Batumi fortified area, and by April 25, Kars and Ardagan. At the request of the Turkish command, the government of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic (ZDFR; proclaimed on April 22) was withdrawn abroad, which before the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 along the Cholok and Arpachay rivers. Despite this, the Turkish army continued its offensive on Tiflis. On May 16-18, a partisan detachment under the command of Major General Andranik Ozanyan and the Armenian Bolshevik squad led fierce battles with Turkish troops and local Muslim troops near the village of Vorontsovka , but the Turkish army was able to break through to Tiflis at a distance of 20-25 km.

An ally of Turkey, Germany, in 1918, although it did not have a springboard for an invasion of Transcaucasia, it fully supported the Turkish offensive. However, the plans of the German command were to establish control over the Caucasus. On April 27, 1918, the German leadership forced Turkey to conclude a secret agreement in Constantinople on the division of spheres of influence. Turkey was allotted to the territory of Georgia that it had already seized and most of Armenia; the rest of Transcaucasia was withdrawn under German control. On April 28, at the request of Germany, Turkey announced its agreement to begin peace negotiations with the government of the ZDFR, which began on May 11 in the city of Batum . On the other hand, on May 14, the Georgian National Council asked Germany for patronage. In response, the German government, which had already seized Russian Black Sea ports by that time, agreed to help Georgia.

In early May, through the organization of the Red Cross, Germany achieved the concentration of its prisoners of war in points along the railways under the guise of preparation for departure to their homeland, and with the intention of arming and using them in the future. On May 25, the first 3,000th echelon of the German troops arrived from Poti in Crimea . On the same day, on the night of May 26 , the Georgian faction of the Transcaucasian Sejm decides to withdraw Georgia from the federation, and the Georgian National Council proclaims the creation of the Georgian Democratic Republic . At the same time, the Turkish delegation in the city of Batum presents an ultimatum on the elimination of the ZDFR. On May 28, in connection with the actual collapse of the ZDFR in Tiflis, the Provisional National Council of Azerbaijan proclaims the creation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic ^[2] , on the same day in Tiflis, the Armenian National Council proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Armenia . From that moment, the Armenian and Georgian delegations negotiated separately with the Turks.

On June 4, 1918, Turkey signed peace and friendship treaties with Armenia and Georgia, according to which, besides the Kara, Ardagan and Batumi regions, Turkey departed: from Georgia, the Akhalkalaki district and part of the Akhaltsikhe district ; from Armenia Surmalinsky district and parts of Alexandropol , Sharur , Echmiadzin and Erivan counties. Turkish troops received the right to unhindered rail traffic.

Entry into Georgia

On May 28, the Georgian government was recognized by Germany and 6 agreements were concluded in Poti, under which Germany received a monopoly on the exploitation of Georgian resources, and the port of Poti and the railway came under the control of the German command. On June 10, German troops entered Tiflis (by June 15, about 5 thousand people); German garrisons were stationed in Kutaisi , Gori , Sighnag , Samtredi , Novosenaki, Ochamchire and others. The German garrison in Poti consisted of more than 10 thousand people and artillery. In total, in Germany, German troops (including prisoners of war and mobilized German colonists) numbered about 30 thousand people. The command of the occupation forces was carried out by Major General F. Kress von Kressenstein .

Occupation regime

German interventionists took control of mail, telegraph, banks, military and financial departments; German instructors were attached to the Georgian army. Under agreements with the Georgian government dated July 12, Germany received the Chiatura Manganese Mines for 30 years, the port of Poti for 60 years, and the Shorapani - Chiatura - Sachkhere railway line for 40 years. From May to September, German interventionists exported 30 million grades of copper , tobacco , bread, tea, fruit, wine, etc. from Georgia, including 31 thousand tons of manganese , 360 tons of wool, 40,350 pieces of sheepskins.

The creation and fall of the Baku commune

In March 1918, power was seized in Baku by the Bolsheviks, with the support of the armed forces of the Armenian nationalist party Dashnaktsutyun. At the same time, more than 12,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Baku and various settlements of the Baku province . After gaining a foothold in Baku, the troops of the Baku Council launched an offensive on Ganja , where the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic moved. In this situation, the Azerbaijani government turned for military assistance to the Ottoman Empire, which was provided in accordance with the agreement between the two countries. For this purpose, the Caucasian Islamic Army was involved, the formation of which by that time had already begun.

The Turkish command, wishing to build on its success, launched an offensive on Baku. His plans also included the capture of Dagestan and the regions of the North Caucasus with a Muslim population. A group of troops "Vostok" was created (about 28 thousand people). The capture of Baku was entrusted to the Caucasian Islamic Army (about 13 thousand people with 40 guns) and the Muslim ADR, which became part of it, (about 5 thousand people with 10 guns). Concentrating by June 10 in Ganja, the Turkish-Azerbaijani troops launched an offensive in the following directions: northeastern - on Shemakha ; central (along the Transcaucasian railway ) - to the station Kurdamir ; southeastern - to Mugan . A detachment (500 people) was sent to Dagestan.

The armed forces of the Baku commune consisted of approximately 18 thousand people, 19 guns, 3 armored trains, several hydroplanes, 4 gunboats and 3 armed merchant ships. In the Baku region there were up to 13 thousand people, half of the soldiers were unarmed, there were only 60 machine guns. From Soviet Russia in Baku in June 4 armored cars, 13 aircraft, weapons and ammunition arrived, and in July - a detachment of G.K. Petrov (about 800 people with 6 guns), weapons, ammunition and uniforms.

The enemy transferred 2 more divisions to Baku. On July 20, Turkish troops occupied Shemakha without a fight because of the betrayal of the commander of the 3rd Soviet brigade, Amazasp . At the end of July, L.F.Bicherakhov , who commanded the right wing of the Soviet troops, left with a detachment in Dagestan, exposing a 32-km section of the front. On July 31, the Caucasian Islamic Army launched an offensive in Baku. On the same day, a coup took place in the city, and on August 1, power passed to the dictatorship of the Central Caspian .

Battle of Baku

After the dictatorship came to power, the Central Caspian under the conditions of the Turkish offensive called for help from the British troops. On August 4, a small English squad arrived from Enzeli . The next day, Turkish troops broke into Baku, but were knocked out of the city with artillery fire and counterattack.

The dictatorship of the Central Caspian on the night of August 13-14 arrested the leaders of the Baku commune who started the evacuation and disarmed pro-Bolshevik-minded military units (about 3 thousand people). On August 17, the 2nd English detachment arrived in Baku (in total, there were about 1 thousand people in the city of English soldiers in early September 1918). The Turkish command, pulling up another 3 divisions, resumed the offensive on September 14. The British and parts of the dictatorship of the Central Caspian left the city. On September 15, Turkish-Azerbaijani troops occupied Baku.

In early October, Turkish troops (over 4 thousand people) invaded Dagestan and, with the support of local Muslim groups, occupied Derbent (October 6) and Temir-Khan-Shuru (October 23). The Soviet troops (5-6 thousand men) led by M. Dakhadaev and U. Buinaksky fought against the invaders and troops of the Mountain Government .

After the defeat of the Austro-German bloc in World War I, according to the Mudros Armistice (October 30, 1918), Turkey withdrew its troops from Transcaucasia. The Allied Intervention in the Caucasus began .

• Civil war and military intervention in the USSR. Small Soviet Encyclopedia, 1983. p. 630-631
• Mikoyan A.I. That was. - M .: Vagrius, 1999. [1]