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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 Invasion of the Yerevan Guberniia

The immediate need to utilise the Kars-Joulfa railway served as the Ottoman excuse for advancing into the Yerevan guberniia. Ostensibly, the line was to be employed to transport Turkish troops to North Persia, where the threat of concentrated British activity had intensified. According to German sources, the actual motivation for the Turkish demand was not to check the still-distant Entente forces but to secure a route from Kars through Joulfa to Baku. This corridor was essential for the realisation of Enver's obsessive vision Already deputations of Transcaucasian Moslems had appealed to Ottoman authorities to liberate Baku from the Bolshevik-Armenian coalition. 69 If the German thesis is accepted, the diplomatic and military incidents involving Alexandropol and the territory through which the railway passed are readily understood.

In Batum, the two delegations appointed a special commission on military affairs to consider, among other topics, the Ottoman request to place the railway from Alexandropol to Joulfa at the disposal of the Turkish Army. No agreement was reached because the Transcaucasian representatives, generals Odishelidze and Korganov, firmly reiterated Chkhenkeli's stipulation that the matter be settled through a supplementary agreement to the general peace treaty. 70 Away from the commission's deliberations, Halil and Vehib urged the Armenian members of the Transcaucasian delegation to yield to the Ottoman demand. The pair claimed to represent the moderate faction of the Ittihad party and promised to do all in their power to assure the return of the railway and surrounding land at the conclusion of the World War. Should Khatisian and Kachaznouni remain adamant, the Enver-Talaat radical element would succeed in its goal of annihilating Armenia. 71 When Khatisian bitterly decried Turkish wartime policies, Halil wasted no time on words. Late at night on May 14, he wrote Chkhenkeli that a friendly agreement for use of the Kars-Alexandropol-Joulfa railway. Consequently the Turkish forces would be compelled to advance on the following morning. The activity would be local and should not be labelled as violation of the truce. If the Armenians offered no resistance, they would not be harmed. Having received the note at six in the morning, the Transcaucasian delegation found it impossible to warn the Tiflis government in time for it to relay tactical instructions to General Nazarbekian. 72

Meanwhile, toward dawn in Alexandropol, General Nazarbekian received a Turkish ultimatum to relinquish the railway running to the Persian frontier and to withdraw all forces under his command to a line 25 kilometres east of Alexandropol and the railroad. One unit of Armenian militia would be permitted to remain in the city to assist the Ottoman authorities in maintaining order. These terms were to be accepted within three hours. 73 Even before the communiqué had been translated from Turkish, parts of the I and II Caucasian corps crossed the Arpa-chai and stormed Alexandropol. Fortunately for the Armenians, the defenders fought stubbornly on the morning pf May 15, allowing approximately twenty thousand inhabitants of the city to flee toward Yerevan and Tiflis. The enemy was already in the outskirts of Alexandropol that afternoon when Nazarbekian gave the order to retreat. The entire 1st Division and two regiments of the 2nd Division withdrew eastward toward Gharakilisa and, in compliance with the Turkish demand, took new positions along a line 25 kilometres from Alexandropol. Just to their rear was the village of Hamamlu, where the main road branched toward Gharakilisa and Tiflis on the one hand and toward Yerevan on the other. The remaining regiments of the 2nd Division together with units of militia retreated along the Joulfa railway as far as the Sardarabad-Etchmiadzin zone, the western gateway to Yerevan. 74 The cordon around the Armenian heartland was tightening as thousand of refugees crowded into the small area still free of Turkish troops.