In April 1919, from the very first day of his arrival in Paris, Bammat launched a colossal lobbying campaign for the recognition of the independence of the North Caucasus, receiving considerable support from European intellectuals and giving extensive interviews to important publications on the Caucasian cause. One of them was an interview he had with the newspaper Le Journal on May 13, which was almost a political lecture rather than an interview for a correspondent. When this voluminous interview would be published, information about the developments in the North Caucasus since the fall of the Tsarist regime would have reached the French public opinion in detail. Two days later, Le Journal's reporter sent a letter of apology to Bammat, saying that he had been too busy and was not able to publish their interesting conversation, but that he did not forget it and that he would be happy to defend the Caucasian cause as soon as possible. It was not possible to find a published version of this interview, which even today sheds light on many obscure aspects of the period, either in Haydar Bammat's personal archive or in the publications of the French media of the time that we could have access to until now. Obviously, the content of the interview was not a center of attraction for the French media in those hectic post-war days...Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, 29 July 2024
Türkçe Tercüme
THE CAUCASUS AND IN PARTICULAR THE NORTH CAUCASUS
SINCE THE END OF THE OLD REGIME IN RUSSIA
INTRODUCTIONS
Mr. Bammat, a Muslim and member of a well-known Dagestani family, has played an important part in the political and national revolution that has developed in the North Caucasus since the fall of the old Russian regime.
Foreign Minister of the Union of Peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan, Mr. Bammat arrived in Paris at the end of April 1919 as a member of the delegation sent to France and England by this Union.
The following account summarizes our discussions with Mr. Bammat It is given subject to the possible errors of memory of Mr. Bammat in the detail of facts and dates, and noting that the point of view presented is always that of our interlocutor.
-I- THE CAUCASUS FROM THE FALL OF THE OLD RUSSIAN REGIME TO RECENT MONTHS
- Assembly of Vladicaucase. May 1917.
After the fall of the Old Russian Regime, the convening of an assembly in Vladicaucase in May 1917 was the first attempt by the peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan to form a political union since the Russian regime.
Represented at the Assembly were Dagestan, the indigenous (non-Caucasian) population of the Terek and Kuban region, and the Turkmen and Nogais of the territory between the Terek and Kouma rivers, in the province of Stavropol.
Under the name "Central Committee of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan", the Vladicaucase Assembly created a permanent executive body. It adopted the following political program: Autonomy, and federal ties with Russia.
The various national groups in the Transcaucasus - Georgians, Armenians, Tatars - now also seemed ready to rally behind this program.
At the same time, a Congress of Russian Muslims, to which Mr. Bammat was delegated by Dagestan, was held in Moscow (May 1917). It called for the formation of various autonomous Muslim states within a Russian federation. - Rise of the Bolsheviks. Organization of the independence of the North Caucasus.
The defection of the indigenous Caucasian cavalry division at the gates of Petrograd, organized by representatives of the North Caucasus, had been the main reason for the failure of Kornilov's attempt to restore the Old Regime to Kerensky's government. Following Kornilov's failure, Kerensky sent this division back to the Caucasus, where its presence in the vicinity of Petrograd was inconvenient.
Thus, at the time of the maximalist revolution, the North Caucasus found itself in possession of the elements of an indigenous national army.
When this revolution broke out, a new assembly of representatives from the North Caucasus, convened at the end of September 1917, was sitting in Vladicaucase. This assembly consolidated the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus and produced a draft constitution for the Union.
This constitution formulated the following principles:
A. Political union of the peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan.
B. Autonomy of each of the member peoples of this Union, for their internal affairs.
C. Establishment of two legislative chambers: one chamber elected based on one deputy per 30,000 inhabitants, and a senate composed of representatives of the peoples of the Union based on two representatives for each people.
D. Election of an executive power by the Chambers. Choice by this executive power of a President, head of the Union.
This Union government is responsible for common affairs: finance, the army, and external affairs.
With these principles established, and until circumstances allowed for their realization, the Vladicaucase Assembly handed over its powers to a new Central Committee forming a provisional government. Mr. Chermoeff, former President of the Assembly, became head of this government.
All relations with Moscow and Petrograd were severed. The North Caucasus now enjoyed de facto independence.
From then until the autumn of 1918, the Government of the North Caucasus pursued a dual policy. By fighting the Bolshevik regime, it asserted its independence from Russia. On the other hand, it negotiated with Turkey and Germany, striving for joint action with the national groupings of the Transcaucasus. The aim of these negotiations, imposed by circumstances, was both to rely on Turkey and Germany to consolidate the independence of the Caucasus and at the same time to safeguard this independence from these powers after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Without going into the confused details of the North Caucasus' struggle against the Bolsheviks, it suffices to mark the main stages:
- After the fall of Kerensky, the North Caucasus Union was temporarily associated with the South-East Russian Union.
The South-East Union had been formed in Yekaterinodar, against the maximalists, by Russian nationalist cadets (Generals Alexiev and Kaledin), and by the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban (October-November 1917).
This Union aimed to remove the influence of the new Central Russian government from the Caucasus and to isolate the Cossacks from Russia, to fortify the position of the North Caucasus Union behind this barrier.
2. Disappearance of the South-Eastern Union.
The Bolsheviks' push into the Don region, the Terek Cossacks' adherence to Bolshevism, and the Bolsheviks' invasion of the Kuban region resulted in the disappearance of the South-Eastern Union (the Bolsheviks took Yekaterinodar at the end of December 1917). The North Caucasus Union thus found itself isolated, and alone against the Bolsheviks.
On December 2, 1917, the Central Committee of the North Caucasus Union proclaimed the Union's independence until the convening of a Russian constituent assembly. On December 21, it lifted this restriction, thus severing the last links with Russia.
Following this declaration, the Central Committee enlarged the Caucasus Native Division and developed it into an army corps.
3. Bolshevik invasion of the North Caucasus
When Bolshevism penetrated the Caucasus after the defeat of the Don Cossacks, it necessarily took on the form of a Russian national movement. All the Russians of the Caucasus, and with them the Terek Cossacks, rallied to Bolshevism as a safeguard of their privileged position against the political and agrarian demands of the indigenous peoples. The Russian armies of the Caucasus, returning from the Turkish front and concentrated in towns and railroad stations, took part in the movement.
The Cossacks of the Kuban, towards whom the hostility of the indigenous population was much less acute, and with whom the Central Committee of the North Caucasus had reached an understanding, remained for the most part outside this thrust.
After crossing the Kuban region, the Bolsheviks took Vladicaucase (February 1918), Petrovsk, and Derbent (May 1918) in turn. The Provisional Government of the North Caucasus withdrew to the Dagestan capital, Temirhan-Shura.
4. Elimination of the Bolsheviks.
The Bolshevik occupation was to be precarious. Reduced to a few towns, it could not penetrate the indigenous mass. When maximalist propaganda sought to introduce the soviet system into this mass, it came up against irreducible opposition from the Muslim mentality, which is repugnant to Communism. The Terek Cossacks, on the other hand, broke away from the Bolsheviks when the latter raised the question of equitable land redistribution, at the expense of the Cossacks and to the benefit of the natives robbed during the Russian conquest.
During 1918, the Provisional Government had reformed its military forces in Dagestan, and by the end of autumn 1918, after a hard-fought recapture of Petrovsk and Derbent. Except for Vladicaucase, which would not be definitively retaken until January 1919, the whole of the North-East Caucasus had been cleared. In the Transcaucasus, Bolshevism had only been able to establish itself in Baku, the workers' center, where it remained as an isolated local Soviet until the British occupied Baku for the first time.
PROCLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR THE NORTH CAUCASUS
1. Previous relations with the Central Powers.
In December 1915, a Caucasian delegation went to Vienna and Berlin to express to the governments of the Central Powers the desire of the peoples of the Caucasus to have their independence recognized. Asking for the moral and material support of the Central Powers, this delegation proposed the creation of a Caucasian Federation, intended to serve as a buffer state between Russia and Anterior Asia.
In its reply, the German government professed sympathy in principle for these demands but made no commitments.
2. Negotiations after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Position of the question of the Unity of the whole Caucasus, Trebizond Conference with Turkey (February-March 1918)
In November 1917, following the Bolshevik revolution, an attempt at independent government in the South Caucasus was attempted by Georgian, Armenian, and Tatar groups, under the name of the Transcaucasian Commissariat. It was a provisional independence, conceived as an expedient to escape Bolshevism while awaiting the meeting of an All-Russian Constituent Assembly. This attempt remained a platonic declaration.
Under the influence of the North Caucasus Union, however, the idea of the unity of the whole Caucasus and the formation of a Caucasian confederation continued to assert itself as an object common to the North Caucasus and Transcaucasus.
In the aftermath of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ceded Ardahan, Kars, and Batum to Turkey, the question arose practically. Transcaucasus did not want to recognize the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which mutilated it. After fruitless negotiations, the Transcaucasian republics belatedly agreed to cooperate with the North Caucasus Union.
The Union took the initiative of sending to Tiflis a mission composed of Messrs. Tchermoeff, Bammat, etc... The mission's mandate was to deal with the various national groups in the Transcaucasus and also to enter into relations with Turkey to safeguard the interests of the Caucasus by presenting to Turkey the question of the Caucasus as an indivisible whole.
The mission arrived in Trebizond too late, just as Turkey broke off negotiations with the Transcaucasians and occupied Batum (April 1, 1918).
The North Caucasus delegation, at least, had taken advantage of its presence in Trebizond to publish a manifesto on the need for a union of the entire Caucasus:
"The North Caucasians are convinced that the Transcaucasus cannot exist as an independent government without a union with the peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan. The creation of a unified Caucasus is recommended by geographical, economic, strategic, and political considerations."
3. North Caucasus negotiations with Turkey in Constantinople Notification to the powers of the independence of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus (May 11, 1918)
On leaving Trebizond, the North Caucasus delegation headed for Constantinople to obtain recognition from Turkey of the independence of the Union of North Caucasian Peoples, and to continue defending the interests of Transcaucasus. The Turkish government gave it the warmest of welcomes. It refused to cede Batum, Ardahan, and Kars. However, it expressed its desire to maintain good relations with the Caucasus, accepted the principle of independence for the North Caucasus, and pledged to support this cause with its allies.
Backed by these promises, on May 11, 1918, Messrs. Tchermoeff and Bammat issued a proclamation notifying all the Powers of the independence of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus and Dagestan:
The Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus decides to separate from Russia and establishes itself as an independent state...
The territory of the new state will have as its borders: to the north, the geographical borders previously held, within the Russian Empire, by the governments and provinces of Dagestan, Terek, Stavropol, Kuban, and the Black Sea; to the west, the Black Sea; to the east, the Caspian Sea; to the south, the borders will be determined by agreement with the Transcaucasian government.
4. Negotiations with Germany in Batum (June 1918) and Constantinople (September 1918).
Following this proclamation, the North Caucasus delegation went to Batum to negotiate with General von Lossow, Germany's military plenipotentiary in Constantinople (end of May 1918).
Von Lossow declared that the German government was prepared to recognize the independence of the North Caucasus and lend its support to the new state, but on condition that the Bolshevik government recognized the separation from Russia. To this end, he proposed pressure from Mr. von Mirbach, the German Ambassador in Moscow.
Meanwhile, the cooperation of the various Transcaucasian governments had broken down. In Turkey, an annexationist party inspired by Talaat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and the Union and Progress Committee was intent on seizing Baku and Azerbaijan.
Georgia, frightened, secretly made a treaty with Germany. Germany recognized Georgia's isolated independence and forced Lenin's government to recognize it. Georgia sent Mr. Tckhenkeli as its representative in Berlin.
Following this treaty, a strong German brigade occupied Tiflis, and the Poti-Tiflis railroad line. Germany thus established its protectorate over Georgia. It was establishing itself both on the Black Sea and at the mouth of the central Caucasus routes. It intended to use the Caucasus as a new base for political and economic expansion in the East, and after gaining control of Georgia, to use this position to establish links with the Muslim elements of the Caucasus.
This is confirmed by the proposals made by General von Lossow to Mr. Bammat on May 25, before he departed for Poti. The General asked Mr. Bammat to conclude a treaty with Germany similar to the one Georgia had accepted and suggested sending a plenipotentiary from the North Caucasus to Berlin. Bammat rejected these proposals.
They were to be taken up by Germany in the autumn of 1918, during a new visit by Mr.Bammat to Constantinople.
Through the intermediary of Count Bernstorf, the German Ambassador in Constantinople, Mr.Bammat had renewed his approaches to the German Government, to obtain its recognition of the independence of the North Caucasus. In the early days of October, before the Bulgarian debacle, Mr.Bammat received an invitation from the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs to visit Berlin, and from General Ludendorf to visit the German Supreme Headquarters. Without responding to these advances, Mr.Bammat stalled for time.
5. Final failure of negotiations with Turkey. Orientation towards the Entente Powers.
A. In the meantime, Caucasian relations with the Turkish Government had remained close. At the end of May and the beginning of June 1918, the four Caucasus republics - North Caucasus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan - concluded friendship treaties with Turkey.
Following this treaty, the Turkish government sent Nouri Pacha, Enver's brother, to Azerbaijan, and Izzet Pascha, a young Circassian general, to Dagestan. Other Turkish military representatives were sent to Georgia and Caucasian Armenia, to Tiflis and Erivan.
B. But these friendly relations with Turkey were doomed to remain fruitless. The Turkish and Caucasian sides were pursuing different objectives. The Government of the North Caucasus sought guarantees and support for its independence by moving between Turkey and Germany. But, while willingly leaning on Turkey, Russia's invariable enemy, and on the influence of Ottoman Circassians in the Turkish government and army, it feared the appetite for conquest of the government in Constantinople. Having lost all hope of retaking Arabia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria, Turkey would have liked to remake itself by finding compensation elsewhere. This ulterior motive weighed heavily on the Turkish government's relations with the peoples of the Caucasus. Convened by the Turkish government under pressure from Germany, a new conference was to be held in Constantinople between representatives of the Caucasian republics and those of the Quadruplicate. Despite the presence of delegates from the various Caucasian republics in Constantinople from the end of June to the end of October 1918, this conference never took place, due in part to the differences of opinion between Turkey and Germany, and in part to Turkey's growing reluctance. Turkish ambitions for the Caucasus were encouraged by the capture of Baku, evacuated by the British at the end of September after an initial occupation.
C. On the Western Front, however, as on the Eastern Front (the collapse of Bulgaria), events were accelerating. Turkey, like Germany, seemed doomed.
Putting an end to this long equivocation, Mr.Bammat decided to travel to the West and enter into relations with the Entente Powers. Fuad Selim Bey, an Egyptian of Circassian origin, then Turkish ambassador to Berne, who had come to Constantinople to urge his government to conclude the peace, had informed Mr.Bammat of the general situation. Through this intermediary, at the beginning of October, Mr.Bammat sent the English Government a proposal for cooperation in the North Caucasus with English forces to retake Baku.
On October 26, he left Constantinople. On November 24, he arrived in Berne. From there, he sent notes to the English and French governments.
SENDING A DELEGATION FROM THE NORTH CAUCASUS TO PARIS AND LONDON...
At the end of January 1919, the North Caucasus Parliament approved Mr.Bammat's policy and confirmed him as Foreign Minister. It was decided to send a delegation to London and Paris under the chairmanship of Messrs. Tchermoeff, and Bammat was appointed as a member of this delegation, along with Mr. [Ibrahim] Haidar[ov], Daghestanien, former deputy to the Empire Duma, and Dr. Hadzarak, President of the Ossetian People (Central Caucasus).
After the November 11th armistice, a British occupation of the Caucasus took place.
General Thomson, Commander of the British forces in the Caucasus, and the British government had favored sending this delegation of the North Caucasian Union to the West. It was with the help or under the guidance of English agents that Mr. Bammat's colleagues made their journey, delayed for a while in Constantinople, where they were waiting two months for authorization from the French government.
-IV- SITUATION IN THE CAUCASUS AT THE BEGINNING OF 1919.
BRITISH PENETRATION.
BRITISH POLICY IN THE CAUCASUS AND TURKESTAN
Two events characterized the situation in the Caucasus at the beginning of 1919: firstly, the British occupation, and secondly, a new invasion by the Bolsheviks, halted at Vladicaucase (end of January and beginning of February 1919) by the forces of the North Caucasus Union.
1. English penetration of the Caucasus.
English penetration of the Caucasus followed the Turkish debacle in Mesopotamia and Syria and the armistice. An occupation corps was established in the Caucasus, under the command of General Thomson, in mid-November 1918.
General Thomson came by sea from Enzeli (Persia) and settled in Baku, where he established relations with all the local governments in the Caucasus. He occupied the Baku-Petrovsk line along the Caspian Sea to the north and the Transcaucasian line as far south as Batum. At the same time, he re-established the oil pipelines to the Black Sea along this line: this was the first condition he imposed on the governments of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
North of the Caucasus, he sent Colonel Rowlandson to Dagestan, -received by Arab emissaries-, and accredited him to the Government of the Northern Union. South of the chain, he occupied Abkhazia and other districts disputed between Georgia and the Union of Northern Peoples. The British, thus firmly established in the North-East and South Caucasus, appeared there as the saviors of order, the restorers of economic prosperity, and the protectors of the independence of the Caucasian peoples.
General Thomson in fact recognized the independence of the various Caucasian republics. We have seen how he facilitated the sending by the Northern Union Government of a delegation to make contact with the Entente Governments.
2. English policy in the Caucasus and Turkestan.
It is hardly necessary to emphasize, from an international point of view, the political and economic importance of English penetration of the Caucasus, and of the stranglehold which England has, at the same time, established in Russian Turkestan.
The Russian debacle, England's military successes in the East, and Germany's defeat enabled Great Britain both to eliminate Germany in the East and to achieve the traditional object of English policy in Asia: to close Western and Central Asia to Russia.
In the Caucasus, England has just successfully resumed the policy it pursued sixty years ago, when, under Schamyl's leadership, the peoples of the Caucasus were still resisting Russian conquest, and when, in the aftermath of the Crimean War, the British Government unofficially proposed to France that it recognize the independence of the Caucasus.
The British penetration of the Caucasus is a vital part of the overall project of British control of the whole of Asia from the Mediterranean to India, the development of which is now coming to an end before our very eyes.
Strategically, the Caucasus is the key to communications from Turkestan, Persia, and Mesopotamia to Russia and the West.
From a political and religious point of view, the Caucasus, as a predominantly Muslim country, is a center of influence of the first order, either in general through its relations with the entire Islamic world of the East, from Constantinople to Egypt and India, or in particular because of the numerous and lively Circassian colonies established in Anatolia, in Mesopotamia, in Syria, because of the credit enjoyed by Ottoman Circassians in Turkish governmental and military circles, and because of the special relations that Dagestan, where the clergy retains a tradition of Arab origin, has always maintained with the Arab world.
From an economic point of view, by intervening in the Caucasus, England has practically put its hands on all Caucasian oil, not only in Baku, but also in the new oil region of Grozny, on the northern edge of Dagestan, and the cotton crops developed over the last ten years, with excellent results, by the Tatars of Azerbaijan.
Similarly, by seizing Russian Turkestan, England secured control of one of the world's largest cotton-producing centers, while at the same time covering Persia and India to the north.
The seizure of remote and isolated Russian Turkestan was carried out quietly and inexpensively.
The last memory left in Turkestan during the war by the former Russian government was an impression of terror in 1915 when the Russian government tried to kidnap large numbers of natives from Russian Turkestan to transport them as labor to Russia. Resistance to this attempt led to bloody repression. Russian troops massacred the recalcitrants, wiped out the town of Djisak near Tashkent, and drove thousands of natives back into the mountains, where they were condemned to die of misery and starvation.
Later, after the fall of the Kerensky government, the Bolsheviks set up a Soviet in Tashkent made up of the remnants of the old Russian garrison mixed with new elements, and at the end of 1918 proclaimed the independence of Turkestan within the Russian Federal Republic.[1]
Bolshevik action did not extend beyond Tashkent. The isolated Russian Soviet was soon replaced by a Soviet of indigenous notables, which still theoretically represents the delegation of the Bolshevik government.
Indolent, and inaccessible to all influences, the population of Turkestan is easy to govern. England only needed a small number of troops to intervene successfully.
English advisors were appointed to the Muslim Soviet in Tashkent. Today, the English domination of Turkestan is out of the question.
Will England succeed in transforming the Caucasus - for its own benefit - into a zone of exclusive influence, as it has done in Turkestan? This is the problem we face today, the last word on the Caucasus question.
-V- BOLSHEVIK OFFENSIVE
THEIR DEFEAT AT VLADICAUCASE BY NORTHERN UNION TROOPS.
GENERAL DENIKIN ATTACKS THE NORTHERN PEOPLE'S UNION
1. New invasion and defeat of the Bolsheviks.
At the beginning of 1919, the Bolsheviks vigorously resumed the offensive. In November 1918, after a hard and bloody battle lasting more than two weeks, the invasion was repulsed by the troops of the North Caucasus Union.
2. Assurances given by General Thomson
In a letter dated November 27, 1918, addressed to the President of the North Caucasus Government, General Thomson, commander of British troops in the Caucasus, acting as representative of the British and Allied Governments, stated that the international situation of the North Caucasus Republic would be settled by the Peace Conference, and asked the Government of the North Caucasus Republic to collaborate with the Cossacks and General Denikin in the fight against the common enemy: Bolshevism.
At the same time, General Thomson affirmed that General Denikin would not interfere in the affairs of the North Caucasus Republic and asked that General Denikin be given facilities to communicate, through the territory of this republic, with the British Command in Baku.
It was on the strength of these assurances that the North Caucasus Government, without the assistance of either the English or General Denikin, fought the battle that led to the victory at Vladicaucase. In his letter of February 10, 1918, General Thomson confirmed his earlier statements, adding that there was no reason for any misunderstanding between the peoples of the North Caucasus and General Denikin.
3. General Denikin's hostile action
General Denikin's aim is the restoration of a single, indivisible Russia, a goal in line with the declaration issued in Paris in March 1919 by Prince Lvov. Messrs. Sazonof and Maklanof, the substance of which is as follows:
"The local governments of the allogeneous peoples of Russia must be recognized as existing until, the convocation of a new Russian constituent, to wage war against Bolshevism. But Russia does not recognize the right of any non-Russian people to determine its own destiny without the consent of the Russian people".
So, this declaration, whatever one's opinion of its second part, confirmed in its first part General Thomson's statements, and the commitment made about General Denikin.
It was under these conditions that General Denikin, the day after the battle of Vladicaucase, attempted to exploit against the North Caucasians the success they had just achieved over the common enemy, and used the arms and resources supplied by the allies to attack the North Caucasian Union and try to destroy its government, and subject the country to a Russian military dictatorship.
By way of ultimatum, he demanded the disarmament of the Ingush people (Vladicaucase region), the cession of the Grozny oil center[2], the enrolment of Caucasians in his army, and the payment of two war contributions, one of 120 million rubles by the Ingush, the other of 30 million by the Ossetians. General Lyakhov, appointed by him Government of the Terek and Dagestan provinces, notified the Government of the Northern Union of an order to dissolve.
The North Caucasus Government then sent several protests to General Thomson, one after the other, but these remained unanswered and unheeded.
The Transcaucasus, however, united materially and morally with the North Caucasus against Denikine. The governments of Georgia and Armenia sent protests to General Thomson. The Government of the Tatar Republic of Azerbaijan (Baku and Elizavetpol region) promised aid to the North Caucasus and granted a loan of 50 million roubles.
4. Defense of the North Caucasus against General Denikin's aggression
Meanwhile, faced with this aggression, the government of the North Caucasus had to take steps to defend the country against General Denikin.
On March 27, the general's troops attacked and destroyed three villages in the Grozny district; women and children were massacred.
On March 28 and 30, these troops were defeated in fighting around Grozny. Denikine was forced to ask for an armistice and to negotiate. He was offered the following conditions: Immediate evacuation and participation of an Allied representative in the negotiations. An English delegate on behalf of the Allies took part in his negotiations, the outcome of which is not yet known (to us here in Paris).
-VI- NEW EXPLOITATION OF THE SITUATION BY THE LENIN GOVERNMENT-
DANGER OF THE CURRENT SITUATION
During these hostilities, the Lenin government, quick to exploit the situation, addressed a new appeal to the North Caucasus, inviting it to defend its independence. The Government of the North Caucasus and the peoples it represents thus find themselves caught today between General Denikin, who claims to treat the North Caucasus as a conquered country, and the advances of the Bolsheviks, which the Government of the North Caucasus is determined to repel, and the anxiety which the apparent indifference of the Allies has caused in the country, after the assurances given on behalf of the Allies by General Thomson.
It seems that England has already appreciated this situation. General Thomson and his deputy have reportedly been replaced.
The danger was immediate, and the North Caucasus Government demanded that the Allies force General Denikin to evacuate the invaded territory.
If this intervention did not take place, the Caucasus would be at risk of a conflagration with potentially serious consequences.
As General Denikin is the only one to receive financial and military aid from the Allies in the fight against the Bolsheviks in the Caucasus, it is necessary to fear that, as a result, the Indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus will develop unfavorable feelings towards the Allies, and that a movement in favor of the Bolsheviks will now develop in the North Caucasus.
We have also seen that the Transcaucasus has shown solidarity with the Northern Union. Finally, the delegation sent by the Kuban Cossacks to Paris (May 1919) made a similar approach to the North Caucasus delegation: several of the Cossack units in the Denikin army appear to have left the army as a result of the position taken by General Denikin.
CONCLUSION
THE CURRENT STATE OF THE CAUCASUS
THE CAUCASUS - AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE
REVENDICATIONS OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS UNION
THE DESIRE TO ESTABLISH RELATIONS WITH FRANCE
Two conclusions can be drawn from this overview.
1. In the first place, the complexity and current difficulties of the situation in the Caucasus:
In the north, a persistent struggle against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, efforts to counter the political and military pressure of General Denikin were supported by the Allies.
On this same northern line, the proximity of two groups of Cossacks, once established by the Russian conqueror as military settlers on the land of the indigenous peoples, since then half-mixed on their territory with this indigenous population, and today solicited by three influences: that of General Denikin and the supporters of Russian restoration, that of the Bolsheviks, and the apparently dominant influence of the indigenous peoples.
In the North-East and South, finally, English control, then once again, very recently, the manifestation of ill-defined ambitions on the part of Italy, which has just sent a military and economic mission to the Caucasus.
The focal point of the picture has been the resistance of the North Caucasus against the Bolsheviks. Today, however, this resistance faces an additional difficulty. In seeking to consolidate its position at all costs, Lenin's government has for some time been inclined to renounce any national struggle on the part of Russia against the non-native peoples of the Old Empire.
Whatever its merits, this recognition at a time of General Denikin's aggression risks weakening the Caucasian peoples' resistance to Bolshevism.
Other causes of uncertainty are the international situation in general, the particular position of the Allies concerning Russia, the as-yet unresolved Armenian question, and the question of Anatolian Turkey.
2. Taking all the elements of this highly charged situation into account, we can nevertheless see the material and moral facts on which the desire for independence of the peoples of the Caucasus, and of the Union of the Peoples of the North in particular, is based, and which underline the international importance of the Caucasian problem.
I. CURRENT STATE OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS UNION
1. Territory and population.
The Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus today effectively comprises the territory of the indigenous peoples between the Kuban, the Terek, and the Caucasus dividing line, plus, to the south of this line, firstly in the center of the Caucasus, the southern extension of the small country of the Ossetians, and secondly, three enclaves populated by Circassians; in the north-eastern corner of the Transcaucasus, between the mountains and the sea, Abkhazia, occupied by the British, who guaranteed it against encroachment by Georgia, and then, to the south-east, the enclaves of Zakatala and Kuba.
Established as a minority between two groups of indigenous peoples, the Terek Cossacks, who could not remain isolated, today participate in the Union and its Government. While this is not the case for the Kuban zone, the Union's relations with the Kuban are close, and the Circassians of the region are represented in the Cossack "Rada" of Yekaterinodar.
To the northeast of the Caucasus, beyond these limits, between Terek and Kouma, the Turkmen and Nogai Tatars belong to the Northern Union. To the southeast of the chain, the Tatars of Azerbaijan (provinces of Baku and Elizavetpol), who form a separate republic, maintain close relations with the Union and politically form the link between the North Caucasus and Transcaucasus.
The total population thus defined, the vast majority of whom are Muslim, probably exceeds four million souls. Included in this number are several thousand isolated Russians, both settlers and city dwellers, whose fate is inseparable from that of the Union, and who have been welcomed into it with full equality of civil and political rights.
Dagestan, once the last retreat of the Caucasus' long resistance against the Russian Empire, and now the focus of the Caucasus' struggle against Bolshevism, is the most active element and the moral, political, and military center of the whole group.
One of the aims of the Northern Union Government was to repatriate to their homeland at least some of the Circassians who were expelled by Russia or emigrated either from the north-western Caucasus after the end of the Russian conquest in 1864, or from Abkhazia after the Russo-Turkish war. The number of these expellees or emigrants has been variously estimated. According to information from local sources, they numbered no more than 750,000 in all. All in all, we're talking about an entire population of several hundred thousand souls. Despite the considerable losses suffered by this population as a result of the disastrous conditions under which the exodus took place, it is well known that large Circassian colonies have been established, mainly in Anatolia, but also in other regions of the East, and as far afield as America.
Wherever they settled, the Circassians retained a strong national character. Today, the total number of Circassians living outside their homeland is estimated at around one and a half million.
2. Organization and Political Unity
The political and administrative reconstruction, both local and central, of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus, is necessarily less advanced so far, from an administrative point of view than from a political one.
Administratively, the country still lives within the frameworks and with the bodies that the Caucasus inherited from Russia. The military organization has, under the pressure of circumstances, been more actively pushed forward. Based on the principle of compulsory service, and the traditions of a population renowned for centuries for its warlike qualities, it has provided and will continue to provide considerable manpower of great military value.
What the Caucasus needs assistance with, however, is training, armament, and supplies. Generally speaking, what the country needs is material and technical assistance, and this is what the Government of the North Caucasus is requesting from the Entente powers.
Politically, in the new framework created since 1917, the essentials of a government and political life, of political unity, exist. This is because the unity and political life of the North Caucasus is based on a strong unity of sentiment.
Nowhere is the desire for separation from Russia, which prevails throughout the Caucasus today, more alive than among the peoples of the North, the main and last actors in the Caucasus' resistance to Russian conquest.
II. TRANSCAUCASUS AND CAUCASIAN UNITY
PROJECT FOR A CONFEDERATION OF THE ENTIRE CAUCASUS
The Union of the North Caucasus stimulated by its example and is committed to developing through the action of its government, the idea of a more extensive political Union embracing the entire Caucasus.
Born of a community of geographical conditions and a long community of historical life, enlivened in the modern period by the Russian conquest and its imprint, the feeling of Caucasian unity has, for the last two years, been powerfully stimulated by the weakening and dislocation of Russia, by the de facto separation from Russia, and by the impetus which the war, the Victory of the Entente, and the doctrine of America and its President have given to national ideas throughout the world.
Although the Transcaucasus is morally and religiously more fragmented than North Caucasia, the idea of a Caucasian union does exist. It is taking shape. Transcaucasian national groups realize that the Transcaucasus cannot exist politically and economically on its own.
Tatar Azerbaijan has already effectively rallied to the political influence of the North Caucasus. A conference of all the national groupings of the Caucasus is currently meeting in Tiflis, intending to resolve, in a spirit of unity, economic issues of common interest to the whole Caucasus, organizing a common system of communications, railroads, posts, and telegraphs, and forming a Caucasian customs union.
On the political front, developments are less advanced. But even in Paris, the governments of the various Caucasian republics affirmed their policy of union. The Tatar, Georgian, and Armenian delegations sent to the Paris Peace Conference maintain close relations with the North Caucasus delegation and are pursuing joint action with it.
Caucasian politicians have already put forward the idea of constituting the Caucasus into a confederation, and to ensure the international security of this confederation, to set it up as a neutralized buffer state, like an Asian Switzerland, with the recognition and under the guarantee of the League of Nations.[3]
III. POSITION OF THE NORTH CAUCASUS
INTERNATIONAL POINT OF VIEW
In addition to these possibilities, the actual existence of the Union of the Peoples of the North Caucasus today poses questions of obvious international significance for the Entente.
1. The Union argues that its cooperation against the Bolsheviks has some value in terms of the Entente's interests. It asks that the Entente help it materially and morally in its fight against the Bolsheviks.
2. It points out that its position, and its international orientation in the future, are of appreciable importance, in any case, and especially if one were to foresee a close community of interests and action with Russia as the basis of future German policy, and for the Caucasus, a role analogous to that to which Poland seems destined in Northern Europe.
3. Separated in fact from Russia, the Union of the North Caucasus requests that, in any case, the Entente consider sympathetically the desire of the North Caucasus to see its independence confirmed.
4. The Union Government does not wish to be influenced exclusively by England.
It not only has an obvious interest in seeking French support and technical assistance, but also in seeing France participate in the economic development of the country it represents, and in fostering the national aspirations of that country.
In asking for France's support, he is inspired by strong moral reasons. Many of the men who today direct Caucasian affairs studied in French and speak French - they would like France. In the aftermath of its victorious struggle against Germany, and at a time when the decline of France's action in the East is being regretfully observed, not to give up exerting in the Caucasus the beneficial and desired influence of its language and ideas.
[1] Another feature of Turkestan's recent history: in the summer of 1918, representatives of Turkestan appeared in Constantinople to ask Turkey to recognize their country's independence. This was doomed to remain a platonic gesture.
[2] European capital invested in Grozny is 1/3 British, the rest Belgian, Swedish and German. A Caucasian writes: "Denikin, who received money for ammunition, weapons, and tanks to fight the Bolshevik, has turned his forces against us to seize our oil centers. His agents in Paris are now making proposals for the sale of benzine to various financial groups."
[3] Transcaucasian Armenia occupies a special position in the Caucasus question. It offers a more numerous and compact Armenian core than the former Turkish Armenia. If a Greater Armenia is formed, with access to the eastern Mediterranean, Armenia's center of gravity will shift southwards, and the former Russian Armenia will break away.