Tsarist and Bolshevik Policy Towards the Armenian Question 1912-1920 Manoug Joseph Somakian % 4 m PhD Thesis University of London School of Slavonic and East European Studies 1 9 9 2 ProQuest Number: 10046013 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10046013 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 A bstract Using extensive primary sources, the thesis examines the direction, changes and ramifications of Tsarist-Bolshevik policy towards the Armenian question in the Ottoman Empire from 1912-20. As background to the main theme of the thesis, the 19th century emergence of the Armenian question is discussed in the introduction. It also examines the conflicting political aims of Britain and Russia towards Turkish Armenia in the course of the widespread Armenian massacres of 1894-96. Chapter two (1908-14) analyses the Young Turk ideology of ’Ottomanism’ and the slogan of ’equality and brotherhood’ within the faltering Ottoman Empire. It is argued that by using such methods, the Young Turk government tried to disguise its actual chauvinistic ideology in an attempt to fend off ethnic nationalist tendencies. The Armenian Reform question and the reasons for Russia’s instigation of a Kurdish revolt are also discussed in detail. In chapter three (1914-16) there is a discussion about Russian strategic and military interests in eastern Turkey and the question of the acquisition of Constantinople and the Straits. The wholesale deportation and massacres of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk government is examined in depth. Russian political aims towards Turkish Armenia after the latter had been conquered by Russia during the course of the war are discussed. Chapter four examines pre-war Pan-Turanian ideology, its origins and impact on Turkish policy. The intense literary and political propaganda for the unification of all the Turkic people in a single Turanian Empire guided by the Young Turk government receives special attention. The favourable response of 3 the Ottoman War Council towards this union; the military operations to fulfil the objective following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917; and the attempts of the Western powers to use Armenia as a means to forestall this union, are fully discussed. The last chapter (1917-20) analyses Russian Provisional Government and then Soviet Government policy towards the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian question. The leading political events in Transcaucasia from the Russian revolution to the soviétisation of the Republic of Armenia, in November 1920, are analysed in some depth. The collaboration between Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey against the Republic of Armenia sheds considerable light on Armenian history. C ontents List of Maps List of Abbreviations page 1. Introduction: The Emergence of the Armenian 7 Question and the Conflicting Political Aims of Britain and Russia 2. The Advent of the Young Turks and Russian Interests 58 in Anatolia 3. Imperial Russian Interests and the Armenian Question 105 During 1914-16 4. Pan-Turanism: The Threat to Armenian National 192 Survival 5. Armenia: In Search of Stability and Territorial 271 Integrity Conclusion 362 Bibliography 370 Maps page 1. The Administrative Divisions in Ottoman Armenia 8 in 1914 2. The Ottoman Frontier According to the Treaties 21 of San Stefano and Berlin 3. Cilicia 66 4. The Partition of Turkey by the Secret Agreements 162 of 1915-17 5. Boundaries Denoting the Pan-Turanian Ideal 217 6. Provinces Disputed by Neighbouring Republics 300 7. Mountainous Karabagh Disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan 302 8. Armenia: Boundaries Proposed by President Woodrow 352 Wilson in November 1920 9. The Boundaries of Soviet Armenia and Present Republic 359 of Armenia Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used throughout: ABHP Russian Foreign Policy Archives CAB Cabinet CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff C. in C. Commander-in-Chief DBFP Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 DMI Director of Military Intelligence EC Eastern Committee FO Foreign Office, Britain L/MIL Military Department L/P & S Political and Secret ^ l- ^ Or- MP Member of Parliament min. minute n.d. no date PP Parliamentary Papers, Britain PRO Public Record Office, London L FAGP Central State October Revolution Archives, Moscow L| FBH A Central State History of War Archives, Moscow L| r 1/1 A Central State History Archives, St. Petersburg 1 Introduction: The Emergence of the Armenian Question and the Conflicting Political Aims of Britain and Russia The Armenian Question burst upon the international scene as a result of the accelerating oppression of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire in its terminal years. Paradoxically, the features of the Armenian question were reciprocal to that of the Eastern Question: as minority peoples in Europe achieved increasing success in their national movements, the plight of the Armenian people went from bad to worse. Thus, the key factors which propelled the Armenian Question to the fore of international diplomacy were the inability of the Ottoman Empire to modernise itself, the example of the success of the Balkan independence movements, and the conflicting and shifting interests of the great powers in their dealings with the Ottoman Empire. After the first quarter of the nineteenth century, historic Armenia was divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, with Armenians living in Western or Turkish (Ottoman) Armenia and Eastern or Russian Armenia. Russia’s engagement in a successful war against Persia in 1826-8, gained her the Armenian provinces of Erevan and Nakhichevan. By the Treaty of Adrianopo^^ of 1829, Russia acquired much of the Caucasus region along with some recognition as protectress of Christians under Muslim rule. Further Armenian territories were acquired by Russia following the Crimean war and especially during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8. Thus, prior to the First World War the provinces where Armenians lived in the Russian sector consisted of Erevan, Nakhichevan, Kars, the southern portion of the province of Tiflis, and the highlands of Karabagh, the latter conquered by Russia in 1805, and incorporated in 1813. Those in the Ottoman Empire, where the bulk of the Armenian population lived, comprised the six vilayets (provinces) of Van, Bitlis, Erzerum, Diarbekir, Kharput and Sivas. A large number of the Armenian community had also been living in CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS BLACK SEA > BA/TUM, SEVAN tn KARS m EREVAN > ERZERUM S VANSIVAS BITLI L. URMIA 00 VAN PERS DIARBEK MEDITERRANEAN : The Administrative Divisions in Ottoman Armenia in 1914 Source: PRO, FO 925/17149 9 Cilicia on the Mediterranean coast. The roots of the Armenian presence in this region dated back to the eleventh century when the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia had come into existence. The foundation of the Cilician kingdom was contemporaneous with the major Seljuk Turkish advances in Armenia and Eastern Anatolia in the eleventh century. According to the Russian statistics of 1909, the population of Armenians living in Transcaucasia was estimated to be one and a half million.^ But the population of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire still remains a debatable issue. Ottoman officials under the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and subsequently the Young Turk government of the Committee of Union and Progress maintained that in the six Armenian provinces Muslims were in an overall majority. Curiously, the Ottoman statistics do not provide separate figures for the Turks and the Kurds of the region; they are grouped as a single entity under the name of ’Moslems’. The official Ottoman statistics gave the number of Armenians in the whole of the 2 empire as 1,294,851 of whom only 636,306 lived in the six vilayets, which was grossly inaccurate. However, Colonel William Everett’s calculations suggest that g the population of Armenians of all denominations in Anatolia was 1,167,734. A more thorough figure concerning the number of Armenians residing in the six \ Republic of Armenia Modern History State Central Archives, Fond 114, L. 2, File 39, Statistical Figures About the Population of Transcaucasia, pp. 61, 65-6, 69; FO608/108/384/2/4, Intelligence Department, Naval Staff, ’Population of Transcaucasia’, 25 June 1919. F0371/4229/86552,Vice-Admiral S.A. Gough Calthorpe to Lord G.N. Curzon, 24 May 1920, Enclosure; Tableaux Indiquant le nombre des divers elements de la population dans l’Empire Ottoman au 1 Mars 1330 (14 Mars 1914), Constantinople 1919. CAB 37/38/26, Report on the Population of Asia Minor by Colonel William Everett, June 1895. 10 vilayets which also included Aleppo, was advanced from the Collective Note addressed by the great powers to the Sublime Porte in January 1895. The statistical table for the year 1880, produces separate figures for the Turks and the Kurds compared with that of the Armenians. It showed that the Armenians were in overall majority by 52.7 per cent. It was only in the vilayet of Sivas that the Turks dominated by 47.4 per cent over the Armenians with the Kurds.^ Moreover, the statistical figures portray a combined number of Turks and Circassians. If the latter are deducted from the total number of Turks, -reckoning them as a separate race- then the Armenians would clearly be in the majority. One should also bear in mind that during 1894-6, on the orders of Sultan Abdul Hamid, 'no fewer than’ 200,000 Armenians had been massacred.^ In addition to this, the 1909 massacres in Cilicia had taken the lives of about 30,000 Armenians.^ Turkish misgovernment, repression and massacres had inevitably contributed to the Ottoman government’s desire for Armenian dispersion.