Armenian–Azerbaijani War

Not to be confused with Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Armenian–Azerbaijani War
Part of World War I and the Russian Civil War
Date 1918–1920 Location Armenia and Azerbaijan Result Soviet victory; Sovietization of Armenia and Azerbaijan Territorial changes Disputes over Karabakh and Nakhichevan settled in favor of Soviet Azerbaijan; Zangezur gained by Soviet Armenia
Belligerents
First Republic of Armenia Republic of Mountainous Armenia Armenian militia/rebels Only for the Battle of Baku: United Kingdom Centrocaspian Dictatorship	Azerbaijan Democratic Republic Only for the Battle of Baku: Ottoman Empire After April 1920: Russian SFSR Turkish Revolutionaries Azerbaijan SSR
Commanders and leaders
Andranik Ozanian Drastamat Kanayan Lionel Dunsterville	Samedbey Mehmandarov Khosrov bey Sultanov Anatoli Gekker
Strength
Dunsterforce (1,000 elite Australian, British and New Zealand soldiers)

History of Armenia
Etymology Timeline Traditional Urheimat
Prehistory Stone & Copper Age Shulaveri-Shomu culture c.6500–3400 BCE Areni-1 Cave Complex Kura–Araxes culture c.3400–2000 BCE Legend of Hayk (?) 2492 BCE Bronze & Iron Age Hayasa-Azzi c.1500–1290 BCE Arme-Shupria c.1300s–1190 BCE Ararat/Urartu Nairi Tribes 1114–860 BCE Kingdom of Van 860–590 BCE
Antiquity Achaemenid Period Satrapy of Armina 549–331 BCE Orontid Dynasty Ancient Armenia Kingdom of Armenia 321 BCE–428 CE Artaxiad Dynasty 189 BCE–12 CE Empire 84–34 BCE Arsacid Dynasty 52–428 CE Roman–Parthian War 58–63 CE Roman Province of Armenia 114–118 CE Christianization 301 CE Armenia Minor 331–72 BCE Kingdom of Sophene c.200–94 BCE Kingdom of Commagene 163 BCE–72 CE Marzpanate Period Byzantine Armenia 387–536 Persian Armenia 428–646 Mamikonian Dynasty Battle of Avarayr 451
Middle Ages Arabic Period Emirate of Armenia 653–884 Hamamshen 700s–1300s Amatuni Dynasty Medieval Armenia Bagratid Armenia 884–1045 Bagratid Dynasty 861–1118 Kingdom of Vaspurakan 908–1021 Artsruni Dynasty Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget 979–1118 Kingdom of Artsakh 1000–1261 House of Hasan-Jalalyan Battle of Manzikert 1071 Cilician & Turco-Mongol Period Seljuq rule 1071–1201 Georgian union 1201–1236 Ilkhanid rule 1236–1335 Principality of Khachen 1261–1750 Turkmen rule 1335–1508 Kingdom of Cilicia 1198–1375 Rubenid Dynasty 1000–1261 Hethumid Dynasty 1226–1373 Lusignan Dynasty 1341–1375
Early Modern Age Perso-Ottoman Period Safavid & Qajar rule 1508–1828 Five Melikdoms Nakhichevan deportation 1606 Ottoman rule 1548–1915 Six Vilayets 1878 Hamidian massacres 1895–1896 Armenian Genocide 1909–1918 Russian Period Russian rule 1828–1918 Armenian Oblast 1828–1840 Western Armenia 1915–1918 National Liberation Movement Armenakan 1885 S.D. Hunchakian Party 1887 ARF (Dashnaktsutyun) 1890 Caucasus Campaign 1914–1918 Battle of Sardarapat 1918 Battle of Karakilisa 1918 Modern Armenia First Republic of Armenia 1918–1920 Treaty of Batum 1918 War with Azerbaijan 1918–1920 War with Georgia 1918 Treaty of Sèvres 1920 Wilsonian Armenia 1920 War with Turkey 1920 Treaty of Alexandropol 1920
Modern Age Soviet Period Armenian S.S.R. 1920–1991 February Uprising 1921 Republic of Mountainous Armenia 1921 Treaty of Moscow 1921 Treaty of Kars 1921 Territorial claims against Turkey 1945–1953 Independence Armenian Diaspora Crypto-Armenians Republic of Armenia since 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War 1989–1994
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Middle Ages Islamic period Seljuk dynasty Atabegs of Azerbaijan Ilkhanate Qara Qoyunlu Aq Qoyunlu Shirvanshahs
Early modern history Safavid dynasty Khanates Afsharid Dynasty Qajar dynasty Russian Rule
Modern history Azerbaijan Democratic Republic March Days Azerbaijan SSR Black January Republic of Azerbaijan
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The Armenian–Azerbaijani War, which started after the Russian Revolution, was a series of brutal and hard to classify conflicts in 1918, then from 1920 to 1922 that occurred during the brief independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan and afterwards. Most of the conflicts did not have a principal pattern with a standard armed structure. The Ottoman Empire and British Empire were involved in different capacities: the Ottoman Empire left the region after the Armistice of Mudros but British influence continued until Dunsterforce was pulled back in the 1920s. The conflicts involved civilians in the disputed districts of Kazakh-Shamshadin, Zanghezur, Nakhchivan and Karabakh. The use of guerrilla and semi-guerrilla operations was the main reason for the high civilian casualties, which occurred during the nation-building activities of the newly established states.

The reasons behind the conflict are still far from being resolved after nearly a century. The story of this campaign has very different perceptions between the Armenian and Azerbaijani views. According to Armenian historians, the First Republic of Armenia aimed to include Nakhchivan among the basic (Eastern Armenian) territories of the Erivan Governorate, as well as the eastern and southern parts of the Elisabethpol Governorate.

Background

Main articles: History of Nagorno-Karabakh (1915-1923) and Shusha

The first clashes between the Armenians and Azeris took place in Baku in February 1905. Soon, the conflict spilled over to other parts of the Caucasus, and on August 5, 1905 the first conflict between the Armenian and Azeri population of Shusha took place.

Active stages

See also: March Days

In the March 1918, ethnic and religious tensions grew and the Armenian-Azeri conflict in Baku began. Musavat and Committee of Union and Progress parties were accused of Pan-Turkism by Bolsheviks and their allies. Armenian and Muslim militia engaged in armed confrontation, which resulted in heavy casualties. Many Muslims were expelled from Baku, or went underground.

Meanwhile the arrest of General Talyshinski, the commander of the Azerbaijani division, and some of its officers all of whom arrived in Baku on March 9, increased the anti-Soviet feelings among the city's Azeri population. On 30 March, the Soviets, based on the unfounded report that the Muslim crew of the ship Evelina was armed and ready to revolt against the Soviets, disarmed the crew which tried to resist. This led to 3-day fighting resulting in the death of up to 12,000 Azeris.

Fight for Baku and Karabakh, 1918–19

Place of British forces after Armstice

See also: Battle of Baku, September Days and Republic of Mountainous Armenia

British forces in Baku

Soldiers and officers of the army of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918

At the same time the Baku Commune was involved in heavy fighting with the advancing Caucasian Ottoman Army in and around Ganja. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman Empire, began to move forward with the newly established Army of Islam. Major battles occurred in Yevlakh and Agdash, where the Turks routed and defeated Dashnak and Russian forces.

Dunsterville ordered the evacuation of the city on September 14, after six weeks of occupation, and withdrew to Iran; most of the Armenian population escaped with British forces. The Ottoman Army of Islam and its Azeri allies, led by Nuri Pasha, entered Baku on September 15 and slaughtered between 10,000 - 20,000 Armenians in retaliation for the March massacre of Muslims. The capital of the Azerbaijan was finally moved from Ganja to Baku. However, after the Armistice of Mudros between the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire on October 30, Turkish troops were substituted by the Triple Entente. Headed by British general W. Thomson, who had declared himself the military governor of Baku, 1,000 Commonwealth soldiers arrived in Baku on November 17, 1918. By General Thomson's order, martial law was implemented in Baku.

Karabakh Reconciliation commission

The Armenian government tried several times to seize Shusha militarily. Beginning with 1918, a Republic of Mountainous Armenia was declared in the region. However throughout the summer of 1918, Armenians in the mountainous Karabag region, under the leadership of Andranik Ozanian resisted the Ottoman 3rd army. After the Armistice, the Ottoman Empire began to withdraw its forces and Armenian forces under Andranik seized Nagorno-Karabakh. Armstice of Mudros brought General Adriank the chance to create a base for further expansion eastward and form a strategic corridor extending into Nakhchivan. In January 1919, Armenian troops advanced towards Shusha. They captured and destroyed 9 Azeri villages on their way but eventually had to retreat. Just before the Armistice of Mudros was signed, Andranik was on the way from Zangezur to Shusha, to control the main city of the Karabakh. The Armenian government tried several times to seize Shusha militarily, before. In January 1919, while Armenian troops advancing, the British military command ordered Andranik back to Zangezur, and gave him the assurances that this conflict could be solved with the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Andranik pulled back his units and British command at Baku gave the control to Khosrov bey Sultanov, a native of Karabakh, who was appointed the general-governor of Karabakh. He had three Armenian and three Azeri aides.

Fight for Nakhchivan, 1919–20

In response to a border proposal by Sir John Oliver Wardrop, British Chief Commissioner in the South Caucasus, that would have assigned Nakhchivan to Armenia, Azeris of Nakhchivan revolted under the leadership of the local landowner Jafargulu Khan Nakhchivanski in December 1918 and declared the independent Republic of Aras, with its capital in Nakhchivan. The republic, which essentially subordinated to Azerbaijan, continued to exist until May 1919, when Armenia advanced its troops led by Drastamat Kanayan into it to gain control over the region. They managed to capture the city of Nakhchivan in June 1919 and establish the Republic of Aras, but immediately clashed with regular Azerbaijani troops, which reinstated Azerbaijan's control over the city in July. Azerbaijani troops led by former Turkish officer Khalil Bey successfully defended the town of Beiuk Vedi, twenty-six miles from the Armenian capital. On 10 August 1919, the Armenians were forced to sign a peace treaty.

Fighting resumed in March 1920, echoing the Armenian revolt in Karabakh, and continued until the Sovietization of Nakhchivan in 1920 when the 11th Red Army, now including former Azerbaijan Democratic Republic troops, effectively defeated the Armenians in Ordubad and Shahtakhty. Despite this, Armenia continued unsuccessful incursions into Nakhchivan until November 1920.

Fight for Karabakh, early 1920

Aftermath of the Shusha massacre of the city's Armenian population: Armenian half of Shusha destroyed by Azerbaijani armed forces in 1920, with the defiled Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Savior on the background.

The largest Armenian-Azeri ethnic clashes in Shusha took place on March–April 1920. On the night from March 21–22, 1920 when the Azeris were celebrating Spring Equinox (Novruz Bayram), the Armenians of Karabakh began to revolt and organized a surprise attack.

On March 22–26, 1920, the Shusha pogrom took place, which resulted many Armenian deaths and the destruction of the Armenian quarter of the city.

Sovietization of Azerbaijan, April 1920

In early April 1920 the Republic of Azerbaijan was in a very troubled situation. In the west, the Armenians still controlled large parts of territory claimed by Azerbaijan; in the east, the local Azeri communists were rebelling against the government; and to the north the Russian Red Army was steadily moving southward, having defeated Denikin's White Russian forces.

On April 27, 1920 the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic received notice that the Soviet army was about to cross the northern border and invade the ADR. Faced with such a difficult situation, the government officially surrendered to the Soviets, but many generals and local Azeri militias kept resisting the advance of Soviet forces and it took a while for the Soviets to stabilize the newly proclaimed Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, headed by the leading Azeri Bolshevik Nariman Narimanov.

While the Azerbaijani government and army were in chaos, the Armenian army and local Armenian militias used the opportunity to assert their control over parts of Azerbaijani territory, taking Shusha, Khankendi, and other important cities. By the end of April the Armenian forces were in control of most of western Azerbaijan including all of Karabakh with the surrounding areas. Other areas captured included all of Nakhchivan and much of Kazakh-Shamshadin district. In the meantime, the Armenian communists attempted a coup in Armenia, but ultimately failed.

Soviet takeover, May 1920

In 1920-21 the only 'solution' of this dispute could come either by military victory – as basically happened in Anatolia, Zangezur and Nakhchivan – or by the imposition from above of a new structure by an imperial power. After the British failed to impose a settlement, the imperial arbiters turned out to be the Bolsheviks, whose 11th Army conquered Karabakh in May 1920. On 5 July 1921 the Bolsheviks' Caucasian committee, the Kavbiuro, under the chairmanship of Stalin ruled that the mountainous part of Karabakh would be part of Azerbaijan. In July 1923 the Nagorny (or Mountainous) Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) was created within Azerbaijan, with borders that gave it an overwhelming Armenian population of 94 per cent of the total inhabitants.

End of hostilities, September–November 1920

In late November, there was yet another Soviet-backed communist uprising in Armenia. On November 28, 1920 blaming Armenia for the invasions of Sharur (20.11.1920) and Karabakh (21.11.1920) the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoli Gekker, crossed the demarcation line between First Republic of Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. The second Soviet-Armenian war lasted only a week.

Aftermath

The Armenian national liberation movement was exhausted by the 6 years of permanent wars and conflicts; the Armenian army and population were incapable of any further active resistance.

Sovietization of Armenia, December 1920

See also: First Republic of Armenia and Turkish-Armenian War

On December 4, 1920, when the Red Army entered Yerevan, the government of the First Republic of Armenia Armenia effectively surrendered. On December 5, the Armenian Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) made up of mostly Armenians from Azerbaijan also entered the city. Finally, on the following day, December 6, Felix Dzerzhinsky's dreaded secret police, the Cheka, entered Yerevan, thus effectively ending all existence of the First Republic of Armenia.

The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was then proclaimed, under the leadership of Gevork Atarbekyan. On February 18 of 1921 a national revolt against Bolsheviks started. General Garegin Nzhdeh, commander Garo Sasouni and the last PM of independent Armenia Simon Vratsyan took the lead of anti-bolshevik rebellion and forced out the Bolsheviks from Yerevan and other places. By April the Red Army reconquered most part of Armenia. However, Atarbekyan was dismissed and Aleksandr Miasnikyan, an Armenian high-ranking Red Army commander, replaced him. Garegin Nzhdeh left the Zangezur mountains after the sovietization of Armenia was finalized in July 1921, leaving Azeri-populated villages cleansed of their population. Persuaded by Soviet leadership, Zangezur had already been ceded by Azerbaijan to Armenia in November 1920 as a "symbol of friendship".

Treaty of Kars, 23 October 1921

Main article: Treaty of Kars

The violence in Transcaucasia was finally settled in a friendship treaty between Turkey and the Soviet Union. The peace Treaty of Kars was signed in Kars by representatives of the Russian SFSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR, and Turkey. Turkey had another agreement, the "Treaty on Friendship and Brotherhood", also called the Treaty of Moscow, signed on March 16, 1921 with Soviet Russia.

By this treaty, Nakhchivan was granted the status of an autonomous region within Azerbaijan. Turkey and Russia became guarantors of Nakhichevan's status. Turkey agreed to return Alexandropol to Armenia and Batumi to Georgia.

External links

• Armenian- Azerbaijani War of 1919 - 1920 (In Russian)
• Soviet-Armenian War and the Collapse of the First Republic: November-December, 1920
• http://hrw.org/reports/1995/communal