Türkçe TercümeToday, I will share an interesting archival finding from World War I. This document is a report on the Caucasus submitted by General Prince Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, one of the most decisive players in Germany's Caucasus policy, to the Foreign Ministry and the German Army High Command in August 1919. This report, in which Germany's performance in the Caucasus is evaluated and recommendations for future policy are given, contains fascinating statements. Indeed, the report is quite different than General von Kress's memoirs that was given to the German Army Archive in 1943 and published by the Goethe Institute in 2005. You can also access his memoirs through our library. However, this report itself is a striking indication of the sick state of mind of a German officer who has some racist ambitions to colonize the Caucasus for Germans in the future. Underlining that the German presence in the Caucasus was in the interests of the German war economy and the rapid and far-reaching exploitation of the riches of the Caucasus, von Kress stated that the High Command desired the establishment of a strong operational base in the Caucasus for future operations to India via Afghanistan. Although he undermined the attempts of the unity of Caucasians at every opportunity, von Kress admitted in his report that Georgians, Azeris, Armenians, and the Mountaineers had to live together and rely on each other in ethnographic, economic, and political conditions, showing that he understood that they could only exist if they defended their interests together against Russia and Turkey. Kress stated that the Georgians had thrown themselves into the arms of Germany, the Azerbaijanis were completely dependent on Turkey, and the Armenians always hoped for the victory of the Entente and tried to keep in touch with the British through Iran. The Mountaineers of the North Caucasus, on the other hand, were fragmented as the German supporters and Turkish supporters fought each other, the German officer claimed
Kress, who was highly esteemed by the Georgian Mensheviks of the time and today's Chauvin Georgians, on the one hand, described the Georgians as an extremely friendly, educated, and highly cultured people, and on the other hand, he did not hesitate to add an expression of contempt to his characterization by saying that “they are basically Asiatics and Orientals and will always remain so”. Von Kress took his contempt even further by stating that “the basic oriental character of their nature manifests itself in most cases in a certain degree of cunning and honesty and a lack of confidence that is difficult to overcome”. Kress also claims that the Germans did not want to interfere in Georgia's internal affairs, but he was not able to explain what compelled him to do so. “From the beginning, I devoted myself to the development of relations between Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the North Caucasus. My goal was to create at least a railway and customs community. Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve this goal,” Kress continued to lie, unable to explain what prevented him from doing so. In the report, Kress also gives interesting statements about the Armenian-Georgian conflicts. I have translated for you the sections of his report that deal specifically with Abkhazia and the North Caucasian Mountaineers. You can access the full German original of the report in our document archive or by clicking on the document image below.
Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, 30 August 2024
Abkhazia, which was extremely important for its mineral resources, tobacco growing, and coastal development, was a constant source of concern for the Georgians. The majority of the Abkhazian population was democratic, in some cases even Bolshevik, and wanted to join Georgia while being granted a certain degree of autonomy. The very rich Muslim landowners, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with an annexation to democratic Georgia, which wanted to nationalize their estates. After turning to us in vain, they sought support from the Turks. The wishes of the Abkhazian princes came across to the Turks. Wehib intended to encircle Georgia and Armenia by inciting the Tartars, the mountain peoples, and the Abkhazians, to cut off all external supplies, starve them out, and force them to join and submit to Turkey by strangling them. Wehib Pasha and later his brother Essad Pasha sent several hundred Turkish soldiers, allegedly born Abkhazians, on small boats to Abkhazia at night with machine guns under the leadership of Turkish officers to support and strengthen the insurrectionary movement against Georgia. Fortunately, these Turkish operations were so poorly prepared and so weakly executed that the Georgians were able to control them more easily. However, the failure of the Turkish operations greatly intensified the Turks' antagonism towards us Germans and the Georgians.
Mountaineers
The mountain peoples' desire for freedom is well-known in history. But just as great as their desire for independence is their disunity. When we arrived in Tbilisi, Mr. Chermoeff, co-owner of the oil fields in Grozny, introduced himself as the President of the North Caucasian Republic. He is a Mohammedan, completely Turkish, and wanted us to obtain permission for the Turks to bring troops, weapons, and ammunition through Georgia to the North Caucasus. I behaved very cautiously towards him and had serious doubts from the outset as to whether Tschermoeff was really authorized to negotiate on behalf of the North Caucasian Republic. In fact, it later turned out that the republic represented by Tschermoeff only existed on paper and that some of the tribes that were supposed to form it were even fighting each other or negotiating with the Bolsheviks. The situation in the North Caucasus remained confused and unclear throughout our stay in Tbilisi. There was a lack of personalities whose influence extended beyond the wider area of their village. The mountain peoples are currently still completely immature for the republican form of government. They need a dictator who can rely on a strong military force.
Towards the end of our stay in the Caucasus, the situation among the mountain peoples seems to have consolidated somewhat. The efforts of the rather influential, shrewd, pro-German Mr. Jabagieff and Mr. Kotseff succeeded in convening a kind of national assembly, which was attended by almost all the tribes and whose purpose was to bring about unification and the election of a generally recognized government. I never learned the result of this negotiation.
Since the way through Georgia was blocked, the Turks had sent a large number of imams, officers, and soldiers along impassable mountain paths into the eastern part of the North Caucasus to consistently implement their program to encircle Georgia. It seems that the emissaries were initially quite successful and strongly incited the mountain peoples against us and the Georgians, but over time made themselves very unpopular through their clumsy, presumptuous behavior and their great claims.
I now also believed that I should step out of the restraint imposed on me by our relations with Russia and support the North Caucasians - initially on a small scale - with money, weapons, and ammunition. Apart from the fact that the North Caucasus is a rich grain country and the oil fields of Grozny are not inferior to those of Baku in terms of yield, we also had the keenest political interest in the North Caucasians forming a self-starting and viable state. They have the most important Caucasus passes and only in friendship and alliance with the mountain peoples are the Georgians able to defend their country against attempts by the Russians to reconquer it. Above all, however, it was necessary to prevent a unification between the mountain peoples and the Bolsheviks, who still occupied Vladikavkaz at the time, a danger that was by no means beyond the realm of possibility.
The mountain tribes are for the most part still very wild, uncultivated, predatory tribes who have provided the Russians with the best irregular soldiers. Apart from Vladikavkaz, there are no large settlements in the North Caucasus. To be able to control the restless mountain tribes, the Russians established a large number of Cossack settlements in their territory; pushing them back behind the Terek and the Kuma was the first condition for the formation of an independent mountain tribe state. When we left the Caucasus, this condition was pretty much fulfilled. The mountain peoples are also largely prosperous and very receptive to industrial products.
Our Future Relations With The Caucasus
How the political conditions in the Caucasus countries develop in the future, whether and to what extent the republics will be independent or dependent on one of the great powers hostile to us, will be of decisive importance in shaping our future relations with the Caucasus. Western prerequisites for the resumption of economic relations between us and the Caucasus countries are in place. In the Caucasus we enjoy the widest sympathy and great esteem, and not only among the Georgians. Towards the end of our stay in the Caucasus, the Azerbaijanis and the mountain peoples also recognized what they had to expect from the Turks and sought to join us, especially in economic terms. Now that the Caucasians have had the opportunity to compare us and our work with that of the Entente, their sympathy for us has undoubtedly increased considerably. The Armenians will also be deceived by the high expectations they have placed in the Entente and will then naturally seek economic ties with us.
There is no doubt that German trade, German industry, German capital and entrepreneurship, the German farmer, engineer, craftsman, and even the skilled German worker can find a wide field of activity in the Caucasus. The climate is healthy and conducive to the Central European.
Over the next few years, we must expect an extraordinarily large number of Germans, including many intellectuals, to emigrate from Germany. The German government is faced with the important and difficult task of guiding this emigration in certain directions and preventing these millions of Germans from emigrating to countries where they will find a culture equal or superior to our own and, as a result, be lost to German culture. In my opinion, emigration must be directed to countries where Germans can preserve their national identity. One country that meets these requirements is the Caucasus - like the master regions of former Tsarist Russia.
The Swabian colonists who immigrated to the Caucasus 100 years ago have for the most part retained their German identity, even though their material situation in Tsarist Russia was excellent and even though the German Reich showed almost no concern for them and did nothing for them. Whether Germanness in the Caucasus will continue to exist after our collapse will depend primarily on the attitude of the German Empire towards the German colonists. After our defeats and after the revolution, it is, in my opinion, more necessary than ever that wherever political conditions permit, much closer relations than before are established and maintained between Germany and its sons living abroad, that the German Reich first and foremost ensures that a good German press and good German schools are maintained in such countries, that funds are made available to the official representations to promote German association life, etc.
The German colonies in the Caucasus are pure and can bear by far the greater part of the burden themselves; in my opinion, however, it is nevertheless absolutely necessary for the Reich to demonstrate its keen interest in the preservation of Germanness abroad in practice by providing funds and also to secure a certain influence. These subsidies need by no means be particularly high.
To enable their sons to attend German universities, the German colonists founded a German grammar school last year. The costs for the first school year were estimated at 30,000 roubles. One-third was paid by the German community of Tbilisi, one-third by the German National Council - the representation of all the German colonies in the Caucasus - and the third third I gave from the disposition fund at my disposal. I have detached a portion of the teachers from the troops under my command. If this foundation is to be maintained, it is urgently necessary for German teachers to be sent to Tbilisi on leave as soon as normal conditions prevail and for the Reich to provide an annual subsidy of 10 - 15,000 roubles a year at least until the foundation is on a firm footing. I also believe that the permanent financial support of the only newspaper published in the German language in the Caucasus is a matter of necessity and political prudence.
The old German colonies will be a great support for future German immigration if one knows how to interest them in this national question. Among the Germans residing in the Caucasus, there will be many capable forces to organize German immigration and direct it in the desired direction. The Georgians and Azerbaijanis, and probably even the Armenians, would welcome German immigration to their sparsely populated areas and would probably also facilitate it as far as possible.
It would go beyond the scope of this report if I were to go into further detail on the question of our policy of colonization in the Caucasus. However, I believe that I could not refrain from drawing the attention of the relevant authorities to this extremely important question, which is worthy of in-depth study. I am of the opinion that the question of immigration to the Caucasus should be studied immediately and prepared to such an extent that its practical implementation could be initiated as soon as diplomatic relations with the Caucasus are resumed.
Prince von Kress
Grossgündlach, 20 August 1919