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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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Turkish Violation of the Erzinjan Truce

Following the December 18 truce, the approximately dour thousand Armenians soldiers along a 64-kilometer front near Erzinjan were constantly harassed by Kurdish tribesmen threatening to sever the outlaying posts from Erzinjan and that city from its main supply base of Erzurum. The daring Kurds intensified their attacks during January, 1918, compelling the Erzinjan Commander, Colonel Morel, to dispatch several of his units from the demarcation lines in an attempt to disarm the rebels in the surrounding highlands. The small patrols had just begun their assignment when they were hastily recalled because of reported Ottoman build-up. 78

Turkish historians show that the condition of Vehib's forces during the winter was far from enviable and that the Ottoman Army as well as the nation was saved from an irreparable catastrophe only by the Russian revolutions and subsequent abandonment of the front. 79 Reorganising on the Armenian Plateau soon after the Bolshevik coup, the Ottomans dissolved the joint Second-Third Army Command and send the Second Army, minus two divisions, to the embattled Syrian theatre. The 5th and 12th divisions, which remained in the Diyarbakir-Moush area, were attached to the Third Army as its IV Corps, commanded by Ali Ihsan Pasha. 80 Simultaneously, Colonel Kiazim Karabekir, 81 ardent Ittihadist and experienced soldier, was appointed to lead the Army's I Caucasian Corps, which faced the Armenian troops near Erzinjan. Northward to the Black Sea stood the divisions of Yakub Shevki's II Caucasian Corps. By the end of January, 1918, Vehib Pasha's Third Army had approximately fifty thousand combat-ready troops. 82

Scarcely a week after the conclusion of the Erzinjan Truce, General Vehib initiated a series of protests to the Caucasus Front and Army commanders, claiming that cold-blooded atrocities were being committed by Armenian bands against the peaceful Moslem population behind the Russian lines. He regretted that, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops, murder, abduction, looting, and burning had increased, and he urged the Caucasian commanders to undertake measures more forceful than simply issuing unimplemented orders. 83 In his communiqué of February 1, Vehib stated, "I am ready to give any type of assistance necessary." He described the horrors perpetrated by the Armenian revolutionary Murad, painted scenes of fifteen hundred Moslems being burned to death by that criminal, and warned that the Ottoman government could not remain indifferent to such truce violations. 84 Generals Odishelidze and Lebedinsky contented that Vehib had received faulty and exaggerated information. Certain preventive steps had been necessitated by the treacherous activity of several Moslem bands. While admitting that about two hundred people had been killed in Erzinjan, Odishelidze insisted that every precaution had been taken to secure the life, honour, and property of all Moslems and that those guilty of crimes against Turkish civilians would be punished. 85 On February 14, after Ottoman violation of the Erzinjan Truce, General Lebedinsky attempted to convince Vehib that action against Moslems in the Russian zone of occupation had been authorised only after Kurdish bands had struck repeatedly at the troops and the Christian population. He warned that renewal of hostilities would jeopardise the safety of the Moslems and protested Vehib's use of the term "Armenian bands," stressing that, although the Caucasus Army had been regrouped into national units, all men under arms were soldiers of the Russian Republic. Lebedinsky negated Ottoman justifications for violating the truce and urged that the order to advance be revoked and Turkish troops be withdrawn to the original demarcation line. 86