Democratic Republic of Armenia

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The Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA; Armenian: Դեմոկրատական Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Demokratakan Hayastani Hanrapetutyun; also known as the First Republic of Armenia), 1918–1922, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Armenia. The country was created after the collapse of the Russian Tsarist empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its established borders were with the Georgia in the north, the Ottoman Empire to the west, the Persian Empire to the south, and Azerbaijan to the east. The country encompassed the Administration for Western Armenia and the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan.

The Republic had a setback with the Treaty of Batum, however with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the Entente Powers, especially the United States and Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer the Wilsonian Armenia back to the country in the Treaty of Sèvres. However this treaty was never put into effect and the territories were eventually annexed to Turkey during the Turkish War of Independence. Facing permanent internal and external problems, the young state was unable to withstand the invasion by the Russian SFSR Red Armies, and collapsed to become part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Its borders would later be reduced even further in the Treaty of Kars, in which Turkey ceded Adjara to the USSR for Kars, Aradahan, and Iğdır. Nakhichevan was later ceded to Azerbaijan on the dissolution of the TSFSR in 1936, when Armenia was proclaimed a Soviet republic.

Contents

1 Establishment
2 First Government
3 World War I

3.1 Georgian-Armenian war
3.2 Armenian-Azeri war
3.3 Treaty of Sèvres

4 After World War I

4.1 Refugee Problem
4.2 Turkish-Armenian War

5 Government Structure

5.1 Prime Ministers

6 References

6.1 Publications

7 See also

Establishment

Visions of liberation flourished with the 1916 Russian offensive and subsequent occupation of the eastern half of Anatolia - or Western Armenia, including most of the provinces of Van, Bitlis, and Erzurum and coastal regions of the Black Sea Trabzon. Armenian visions of liberation with Russian help from the Ottoman Empire were the main reason Armenians in these provinces were helping the Russian army. As soon as the Imperial army reached its goals, they disbanded the Armenian volunteer regiments that had participated in these offensives. To prevent the regrouping of the Armenians migrated to the deep Russian territories (Caucasus) they were disbanded, to return to their homelands newly freed from the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians in the Caucasus were faced with Russian censorship.

Armenians learned the logic of all these activities over them after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. (see: mainly London Pact, also Sykes-Picot Agreement) The tsarist regime had secret wartime agreements with the Triple Entente on the partition of the Ottoman Empire. While The tsarist regime was giving consent to the splitting of the Middle East, Western Anatolia, and Cilicia, they wanted to replace the Muslim residents of the Northern Anatolia and Istanbul with more reliable Cossack settlers. The Armenian Plateau was never intended to be Armenian. These documents were made public by the February/March revolution in 1917 to gain the support of the Armenian public. Armenians hailed the end of the Romanov dynasty.

After the set of Russian Provisional Government, Armenians learned again that Grand Duke Nicholas with the Special Transcaucasian Committee (особый Закавказский Комитет (ОЗАКОМ), osobyy Zakavkazskiy Komitet (OZAKOM)) committee, Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and their promise in helping Armenians to move back to their homeland from Caucasus refugee camps was again to be left on cold. The ones (in thousands) who moved to their hometowns with their own resources found out that Russian soldiers left their posts and return their hometowns.

This is the first time Armenians recognized that they have to build their own control system. Bolshevik slogan of the time ‘peace without annexations and indemnities’ was turning into ‘land, peace, and bread’. The Armenians under the Russian control devised a national congress at October of 1917. The convention in Tiflis was concluded in September of 1917 with delegates from former Romanov realm (203), which 103 belonged to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

The Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians devised policies to control (direct) the war efforts, the relief and repatriation of refuges. The council pass the law to organize the defense of the Caucasus against the Turks using the vast quantity of supplies and ammunition left from the Russian army. The congress specifically devised a local control and administrative structure of the Transcaucasia. Even if the Congress did not devised specific solutions for the soldiers left in Baku, Tiflis and Kars and many militias in eastern Anatolia, they did not resist the ongoing reality of these soldiers serving for the other forces. The Congress also selected a fifteen member permanent executive committee, known as the Armenian National Council. The leader was Avetis Aharonian. This committee’s first task was set the stage and then declare the Democratic Republic of Armenia.

First Government

Drastamat Kanayan was the first minister of the Ministry of Defense.

Aram Manougian was the first minister of Interior. The Armenian Police was created in 1918. Independent Armenia established the Ministry of Interior, of which the Police was an integral part. In addition to enforcing law and order, the Interior Ministry was initially also responsible for communications and telegraph, railroad, and the public school system. The Armenian parliament passed a law on the police on April 21, 1920, specifying its structure, jurisdiction, and responsibilities.

World War I

Caucasus Campaign
Sarikamis – Malazgirt – 1st Kara Killisse – Van – Koprukoy – Erzurum – Erzincan – 2nd Kara Killisse – Sardarapat – Bash Abaran

Caucasus Campaign
Sarikamis – Malazgirt – 1st Kara Killisse – Van – Koprukoy – Erzurum – Erzincan – 2nd Kara Killisse – Sardarapat – Bash Abaran

For more details on this topic, see Armenian Genocide.

During the first year of the new republic, Armenians were flooding from Anatolia to safe havens. Roads were clogged with refugees. Further southeast, in Van, the Armenians resisted the Turkish army until April, 1918, but eventually were forced to evacuate it and withdraw to Persia. When the Azerbaijanis sided with the Turks and seized the communication lines, thus cutting off the Armenian National Councils in Baku and Erevan from the National Council in Tiflis.

Meanwhile, The government of Ottoman Empire, Ittihad (Unionist), moved to win the friendship of the Bolsheviks. The signing of the Ottoman-Russian friendship treaty (January 1, 1918), helped Vehib Pasha to attack the Armenian Republic. General Tovmas Nazarbekian was the commander on the Caucasus front and Andranik Toros Ozanian took the command of Armenia within the Ottoman Empire. Under heavy pressure from the combined forces of the Ottoman army and the Kurdish irregulars, the Republic was forced to withdraw from Erzincan to Erzurum. Van was abandoned as well in 1918 and hundreds of thousands of Armenians followed the reatreating troops. Vehib Pasha also occupied Trabzon, where the Russians had left huge quantities of supplies. The Republicans in the end were evacuated from Erzurum and Sarikamis after resisting at the Battle of Kara Killisse (1918), the Battle of Sardarapat, and Battle of Bash Abaran. These conflicts concluded with the Treaty of Batum.

Georgian-Armenian war

For more details on this topic, see Georgian-Armenian War 1918.

In December 1918, Armenia and Georgia engaged in a brief military conflict over the disputed marchlands in the largely Armenian-populated Lorri district which, along with some other neighboring regions, was claimed by both nations but had been taken by Georgia after the Ottomans' evacuation of the area. The fighting continued with varying success for two weeks. Despite initial success, Armenian offensive under Drastamat Kanayan was finally halted and the war ended through the British mediation, establishing a joint Armeno-Georgian civil administration in the "Lorri neutral zone."

Armenian-Azeri war

For more details on this topic, see Armenian-Azeri war 1918.

With the declarion of Armenia and Azerbaijan after the Russian Revolution of 1917 ended with a series of brutal and hard to classify wars between 1918, than 1920 to 1922.

Treaty of Sèvres

For more details on this topic, see Treaty of Sèvres.

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The Treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers and Ottoman Empire at Sevres, France on August 10, 1920. The treaty had a clause on Armenia. It made all parties signing the treaty to recognize Armenia as a free and independent State. The borders drawn for the Republic on the treaty reflected the efforts given by Armenians upon the defeat of the Ottoman Empire on the Caucasus Campaign. This treaty was signed by the Ottoman Government, but Sultan Mehmed VI never signed the treaty; hence the treaty had never come into effect. Turkish Revolutionaries began a Turkish National Movement which, in turn, confronted with the new Republic.

See Turkish-Armenian War.

After World War I

The Treaty of Batum, which stopped the Ottoman Empire movements against the new Republic, did not give any freedom to the government. After the Ottoman Empire made the Armistice of Mudros, 30 October 1918, it was supposed to be a calm period.

With the Armistice of Mudros, British forces came ashore at Batum and Baku and occupied the Transcaucasian railway. The Ottoman Armies left the Transcaucasia, including Baku, Elizavetpol, Tiflis, Batum and Yerevan. Than later in early 1919 they were pulled back from Kars and Ardahan. This gave a chance to the Armenian Republic to triple its size. Tens of thousands of Muslim Turks and Kurds were killed and displaced as a result of the efforts of Armenian Republic irregulars to control this newly acquired region from the Ottoman Empire.

As 1919 approached, the Islamic rebellion overthrew Shaumyan and declared a Transcaucasian Federation independent from Russia. Shaumyan was executed by British troops in September 1918.

The coalition group that took control in 1918 fell apart and in June 1919, the first national elections were held.

During the 1919, the leaders of the Republic had to deal with issues on three fronts: domestic, regional, and international. The establishment of law was a problem: Armenians had the most organized structure in their homeland; however, it was undeniable that several other ethnic groups had been settled for many centuries in these lands (Kurds and Azeri’s were the major ones). There was also an Armenian settlement problem that brought conflict with other ethnic residents. In all, there were 300,000 embittered and impatient refugees escaping from the Ottoman Empire which were now the government's responsibility; this proved an insurmountable humanitarian issue for it.

During 1920's, which began under the premiership of Hovannes Kachaznuni, Armenians from the former Russian Empire and United States developed the judicial system. January 1919 was an important milestone as the first University was founded.

Refugee Problem

The first winter after the declaration of the state, the government of Hovhannes Kachaznuni had come face to face with a most sobering reality. The newly formed government was responsible for over half a million Armenian refugees in the Caucasus. The 393,700 refugees were under their jurisdiction as follows:

District Erivan Ashtarak Akhta-Elenovka Bash-Grani Novo-Bayazit Daralagiaz Bash-Abaran Etchmiadzin Karakilisa Dilijan
Number of Refugess 75,000 30,000 22,000 15,000 38,000 36,000 35,000 70,000 16,000 13,000

District	Erivan	Ashtarak	Akhta-Elenovka	Bash-Grani	Novo-Bayazit	Daralagiaz	Bash-Abaran	Etchmiadzin	Karakilisa	Dilijan
Number of Refugess	75,000	30,000	22,000	15,000	38,000	36,000	35,000	70,000	16,000	13,000

It was a long and harsh winter. The homeless masses, lacking food, clothing, and medicine had to endure the elements. Many who survived the exposure and famine, succumbed to the ravaging diseases (note: Great Flu Epidemic of 1918). Typhus was also a major sickness, because of its effect on children.

Conditions in the outlying regions, not necessarily consisting of refugees, weren't any better. The Ottoman governing structure and Russian army had already withdrawn from the region. Armenian government had neither time, nor resources, to rebuild the infrastructure. A report in early 1919 noted that the lives had been claimed of: 65% of the population of Sardarabad, 40% of the population of eight villages near Etchmiadzin, 25% of the population of Ashtarak, and this continues...

By the spring of 1919, the typhus epidemic had run its course, the weather improved and the first American shipment of wheat reached Batum, with the British army transporting the aid to Yerevan. Yet by that time some 150,000 of the refugees had perished. (Vratzian, Hanrapetium put this figure at around 180,000) That was nearly 20% of the whole nascient Republic.

Turkish-Armenian War

Turkish-Armenian War
Oltu – Sarikamis – Kars – Gyumri
At this point the Turkish Revolutionaries began fighting the Armenians. The justification of which was that the Armenians across the border were performing "crimes" against the Turkish population in the Ottoman provinces, thus starting the Turkish-Armenian War.

Turkish-Armenian War
Oltu – Sarikamis – Kars – Gyumri

For more details on this topic, see Turkish-Armenian War.

Mustafa Kemal sent several delegations to Moscow in search of an alliance. This proved disastrous for the Armenians.

Armenia gave way to communist power in late 1920. In September 1920, the Turkish revolutionaries moved in on the capital, forcing the Treaty of Alexandropol on 2nd and/or 3rd of December 1920. During this time (December 2nd) the transfer of Armenian power had taken place in a bloodless coup (as both sides were communist) to Soviet plenipotentiary Boris Legran. The Soviet administration pledged to take the steps to rebuild the army, protect the Armenians, etc.

After the invasion of Armenia by the Red Army in 1922, under the conrol of communist government, it was included into the newly created Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.

Government Structure

Prime Ministers

Hovhannes Qadjaznuni / Igitghanyan/
Alexandr Ghatisyan
Hamo/Hamazasp/ Ohanjanyan
Simon Vratsyan

References

The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917-21, by Kazemzadeh, F.
The Republic of Armenia, Hovannisian, R.G.

Publications

The Free Republic of Armenia 1918. Armenian National Committee, San Francisco. [1980].