Prologue: Some parts of Armenian history
0.5 - Independance years
1915 massacres and exodus *
Launched by the Ottomans on October 29th 1914, war against Russia begins in the area contained between the Van and Urmiah lakes. The local populations - Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds - got mixed up to the confrontations. In april 1915, an Armenian revolt break out at Van. Ottoman government proceeds to mass arrests within the Armenian elite in Constantinople and orders the deportation of all Armenians of eastern Anatolia. Local Armenian prominent citizens are arrested and executed. Population movings are made in terrible conditions, aggravated by women and children abductions and massacres, perpetrated in particular by Kurds. Casualties are contained between 600.000 and 800.000. In July, only 50.000 survivors arrive at Alep. As the Russian troops took Van in May, some 300.000 Armenians escape to the disaster in this region. During the summer, Cilician Armenains (and from the rest of Anatolia) are also deported to Syria and Mossul. The casualties are also considerable there. Simultaneously, the Ottoman troops take back Van. Armenians refugee in Transcaucasia. But in September, Russian armies come back and muslims are then victims from massacres.
In 1916, Russians occupy Erzurum, Trebizond and Erzincan. War decimates the local muslim populations. In a devastated country, hostilites stop in practrice from August 1916 to the late 1917. In April 1917, Russsian authorities permit to the Armenian refugees to come back to eastern Armenian. Some 150.000 from them settle back near Van, where they manage to harvest during the summer...
Armenian resistants in Van, 1915
Armenia in the Transcaucasian experience
After the Russian revolution of March 1917, Transcaucasia becomes autonomous in fact. Concerned with their safety, Armenians create their own military forces. An Armenian National Council is put in place in Tiflis in october. When the Bolcheviks take power in Russia, Transcaucasia authorities refuse the regime change and sign with the Ottoman army an armistice in December 1917. Armenian forces then control the area stretching from Van to Erzincan. In January 1918, a Constituent Assembly (Sejm) of Transcaucasia is put in place. There is 33 Armenians for 112 members. But the attitude towards the Ottomans divides them: Armenians feel deeply hostiles towards them, while Azeris are favourable and Georgians only want peace.
Flag of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic
Ottomans decide at their place: in March and April, they reconquer all the ground as far as Van and Kars. Once more, Armenians surge back to the North-East. In April, the Selj declares the independance of Transcaucasia, while the Ottomans continue their advance, dangerously approaching Everan. But due to the Georgian decision, Transcaucasia blows up the next month, forcing Armenian to proclaim his independance. Armenians manage to stop the Ottoman advance (Sardarapat victory). Nevertheless, they sign in Batum a treaty which secedes to the Ottomans the area of the Alexandropol-Djulfa railroad and autorizes Ottoman troops to cross Armenian territory to rally Azerbaijan.
Sardarapat Memorial to the eponymous battle.
Armenian war of independance (1918-1920)
At June 1918, Ottomans are in Azerbaijan. They raise in August the Karabakh question. A local Assembly, predominantly composed with Armenians, refuses the incorporation toe Azerbaijan but soon has to give up. The Ottomans, after the armistice of Mudros (October 30th 1918), must nevertheless retire behind their 1914 borders, while British forces take position in Transcaucasia.
Armenians then fight their neighbours. An armed conflict blows up in the late 1918 with Georgia. The British mediation permits in April 1919 a sharing of the disputed territories. Numerous Georgian Armenians later emigrate to Armenia. In the west, Kars region muslims proclaim in January 1919 a "provisional national government of the South-West Caucasus". British intervene and give the administration of Kars to the Armenians. In the East, during the conflict with the Azeris, Britishs arbitrate in the beginning of 1919: Nakhichevan goes to Armenia while Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
Members of the first Armenian government.
Armenia, to be true, can be barely considered as a state. She has no administration, nor capital (Erevan was before a very secondary city), nor Constitution. The Dashnak party leaders, which is prominent, are first military heroes. Muslims (almost a third of the country population) are in dissidence. Armenian population itself is composed for a half of refugees. To a catastrophic economic situation is added epidemics. Fortunately, American aid arrives in Armenia from the year 1919.
Armenian borders dispute
At the Paris Peace Conference (1919), there is two delegations: one representing the Ottoman Armenia (and the upper clergy), the other free Armenia. Their demands includes Erzurum and an access to the Black Sea, even an extension to Cilicia. These claims, considered as excessives, helps the Armenian cause. The most common hypothesis is this of an American mandate over Armenia, but the American Senate refuses the mandate in May 1920. Treaty of Sèvres, in august 1920, recognizes to Armenia a right over eastern Anatolia, without defining the limits. The President Wilson's arbitration, in November 1920, is very favourable to the Armenians; the Kemalist Turks, which has been defeated by the Greeks, can do nothing but to recognize the independance of Armenia and their control over some parts of eastern Anatolia; but the key position of Trebizond, and the access to the Black Sea, fails to independant Armenia with the creation by the Greeks of the independant kingdom of Pontus. In May 1921, the acting government of Avetis Aharonyan organizes free elections in Armenia, under supervision of the League of Nations.
The 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was a strong supporter of the Armenian cause.
Freely translated from History of Independant Armenia (1918-nowadays), by François Manouchian, éditions La Découverte, Paris, 1993
*This appellation doesn't violate the forum rules in my sense; if it recognizes the historicity of massacres during the Great War by the Ottoman Army (which were historically proved, and at some degree recognized by the Turkish government), it doesn't qualify the Armenian massacres of genocide. If a moderator doesn't agree with this, please PM me, so I can remove the bad parts.
