The proposed terms were bitter for the Armenians, whose pretensions to the territory long occupied by the Russian Army and for the most part still held by native troops would be shattered. Nonetheless, realising all too well that, isolated, greater tragedy awaited the Armenians, Dashnaktsoutiun sullenly voted in favour of the Seim's bases for peace:
- The Seim was authorised to conclude peace.
- Peace with Turkey was to be permanent.
- The 1914 international boundaries were to be re-established.
- The delegation was to try to guarantee the right of self-determination for eastern Anatolia and, for Western Armenia especially, autonomy within the structure of the Ottoman state. 121
To lead the peace delegation, the Seim elected A. I. Chkhenkeli, considered by many the most Germanophile Menshevik in Tiflis and thus the most suitable choice.
Departure was scheduled for March 2, but on that very day the astounding telegram of Lev Karakhan brought news from Brest-Litovsk that the Central Powers were forcing Soviet Russia to cede Kars, Ardahan, and Batum "under the pretext of self-determination." While the Seim chattered about Western Armenian autonomy, the generals at Brest-Litovsk secured not only the unconditional restoration of the eastern Ottoman vilayets, but also of the three sanjaks awarded Russia by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin. Momentarily suppressing their bewilderment, Gegechkori and Chkheidze, on behalf of the Commissariat and the Seim, wired Brest-Litovsk, the Sovnarkom, the Central Rada in Kiev, the Odessa Soviet, and the governments at London, Rome, Paris, Washington, Tokyo, Constantinople, Berlin, and Vienna, denouncing the Brest treaty, declaring it void in relation to Transcaucasia, and broadcasting that the Tiflis government had already concluded a preliminary agreement with Turkey and was sending its delegates to Trabizond. 122
Thus, from November to March, Transcaucasia recoiled in the face of the Bolshevik victory in central Russia and the monstrous visions of Pan-Turan in the Ottoman Empire. Creating a temporary administration charged with the responsibilities of a permanent government, Transcaucasia groped for a solution to the problem of how to remain part of Russia without recognising its new masters. The question disturbed Moslems the least and the Armenians the most. Bound in an insincere alliance with their Transcaucasian neighbours, the Armenians protested every act that drove a deeper wedge between the plains of Russia and the mountains of Caucasia. Even collaboration with the Bolsheviks was condoned if it would construct a bridge, a possible escape hatch, to Russia. On the battlefield and on the diplomatic front, Transcaucasia dangled on strings pulled by Turkey. February, in particular, had been filled with disaster. The Erzinjan Truce had been shattered and the fate of the entire Caucasus lay in the balance. Trotsky's "no war, no peace" had permitted "more war, more concessions." And on March 2, 1918, the Transcaucasian peace delegation sat in Tiflis wondering what to do.
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