Türkçe TercümeWhen the Russian Civil War started first the Bolsheviks and then the Whites' Volunteer Army attempted to occupy the North Caucasus. The victors of World War I had entrusted the Caucasus to the British. General Denikin's Volunteer Army, to which the British did not withhold any arms or financial aid, turned the Caucasus into a bloodbath. Then, the British messed up their work and hurriedly left the Caucasus when they understood how big the trouble they dragged themselves into was. During the Paris Peace Talks, the Big Four first left the duty to Colonel William Haskell, an inexperienced officer of the American Relief Committee, and then to Colonel Melchiades Gabba, the commander of the Italian mission in the Trans-Caucasus. However, after the Bolsheviks became stronger day by day and started to be a serious threat to the interests of the Big Four, they appointed the experienced French diplomat Damien de Martel to the region as a High Commissioner. Due to the political turbulence in Paris during de Martel’s duty in the Caucasus and the failure of de Martel’s efforts after a short while, he left his post to his colleague Abel Chevalley. Although Abel Chevalley was another distinguished name in French diplomatic circles, he was not a diplomat with the competence and ability to fulfill the requirements of this responsibility in the Caucasus. He could not correctly analyze what he heard and saw, and tried to reach certain conclusions without obtaining the correct information and intelligence. When the Russian Bolsheviks easily seized power first in Azerbaijan and then in Armenia, and knocked on the door of Georgia, Haydar Bammat sent a memorandum to the French diplomat, explaining the Caucasian cause in detail and conveying his recommendations for a solution:
To Mr Chevalley,
A glance at the map is enough to convince you that the Caucasus issue is of the utmost importance to the balance of the world. The Caucasus isthmus commands two seas, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, into which the great river arteries of the Eastern European plains flow. Through these two seas, the Caucasus communicates with the Mediterranean and Europe on the one hand, and with Persia, India, and the entire Asian continent on the other.
The great power that dominates this region can extend its influence throughout Central Asia, threatening both the Mediterranean and Islamic peoples.
The Caucasus is a Single Entity.
The Caucasus, which forms a geographical unit between two seas and two continents, is also an economic unit. The agricultural products of the North Caucasus find an outlet in the Transcaucasus, which does not produce enough cereals and livestock, while the wines, silks, cotton, and carpets of the Transcaucasus are sold in the North, so these two parts of the Caucasus complement each other and form an economic whole.
To a certain extent, the Caucasus is an ethnic unit: the Mountaineers of the North Caucasus inhabit both sides of the great Caucasus range. The Ossetians of the south, the Abkhazians, the Avars of Zakatala, and the Lezgins of the Kuba district are located in Georgia and Azerbaijan respectively. These peoples hold the three passes that link the North Caucasus to the Transcaucasus, making the Caucasus a strategic unit.
The Caucasus, thus understood, possesses all the vital forces likely to serve as the basis for an independent state capable of standing on its own two feet politically, economically, and militarily.
The Division of the Caucasus into Four Independent States is Artificial.
The division of the Caucasus into four states after the Russian Revolution on a purely ethnic basis is all too artificial. Your Excellency had the opportunity to study this question in situ. There is no need to insist on this point, which is all too obvious to all observers of these three years of political and economic life in the Caucasus.
The Idea of Confederation.
Responsible politicians in the North Caucasus have been aware of this state of affairs since the beginning of the Russian Revolution, and for almost four years have been directing all their efforts towards the creation of a Caucasian Confederation comprising Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and the North Caucasus Mountaineers' Union.
At the beginning of 1918, a Peace Conference was held in Trebizond between Turkey and the Trans-Caucasus. The North Caucasus Delegation, which had come to Trebizond only towards the end of the deliberations, took a particular stance there, characterized by a declaration made by me on April 1, the very day the Transcaucasian Delegation left for Tiflis, and which reads as follows:
"The North Caucasians are firmly convinced that the Transcaucasus cannot exist as an independent state without a link to the territory of the peoples of Dagestan and the North Caucasus. The creation of a unified Caucasus is recommended by geographical, economic, strategic, and political considerations. Achieving this lofty goal is the task of the North Caucasian delegation, in line with the steps it took in Tiflis to establish contact with the national and political organizations of the Transcaucasus...”
In May, Transcaucasia broke up into three states: Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. As Chairman of the North Caucasian Delegation and Minister of Foreign Affairs, I immediately sent a formal proposal for the organization of the Caucasian Confederation to the Azerbaijani, Georgian, and Armenian governments.
In the brief presented by the North Caucasian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, we argued the same thesis.
In December 1919, the North Caucasus Insurgent Government, the Defense Council, which was fighting under extremely difficult conditions against General Denikin's armies, sent the same request to the governments of Tiflis and Baku.
In principle, the idea of confederation never provoked a refusal from the Transcaucasian republics, but each one, jealous and suspicious of its neighbors, put every political and practical obstacle in the way of its realization, demonstrating a lack of foresight in the process.
The consequences of this short-sighted policy were disastrous, not only for us but also for the Transcaucasus.
If the Caucasian confederation had been realized at the beginning of 1918, as we had proposed, General Denikin would not have dared to attack and crush the North Caucasian Republic, even during our struggle against the volunteer army. If our Defense Council's request had been accepted, and if we had been supported by France, we would have been able to consolidate our insurgent government several months before the arrival of the Red Armies on our territory, largely liberated by our own forces and assured by our uncompromising attitude towards Soviet Russia, not only the security of the North Caucasus but that of the Transcaucasus as well.
Unfortunately, the governments of Baku, Tiflis, and Erivan failed to appreciate the importance of the North Caucasus question to the destiny of Transcaucasia.
After the invasion of our territory in Dagestan, it took just two weeks and a Red battalion to sweep away the Baku government and establish Soviet rule in Azerbaijan.
Then came the Sovietization of Armenia and, very soon, Georgia.
The Policy to Follow.
In these unfortunate but natural circumstances, long foreseen and predicted by us, there is, in my opinion, only one means of defense against the danger of Bolshevism threatening to submerge the rest of the Caucasus and set fire to the whole of Central Asia, India and the Muslim countries of North Africa, and that is to completely abandon attempts, sufficiently compromised by life, to settle the Caucasian question exclusively within the framework of the Russian problem. By its geographical situation, on the point linking Europe to Asia, by its ethnic composition, by its immediate proximity to Turkey, Persia, and Turkestan (the Caucasus is) by its vital interests, by its innate sympathies more closely linked to the East than to Russia; Any settlement of the status of the Caucasus without taking into account its connections with the East will inevitably be doomed to failure and will only produce new upheavals in this corner of the world, threatening general order and peace throughout the East. If France is interested in not allowing the whole Islamic world to be inflamed by the joint action of desperate national Turkey and Soviet Russia, behind which behind the scenes we can already see the guiding hand of Germany, if it wishes the Caucasus to be able to form a dam now between Bolshevist Russia and the Orient and to institute in the future a buffer state preserving Turkey, Central Asia and Persia from German-Russian expansion, there are measures to be taken now.
The Agreement Between France and Turkey on Changing the Sevres Treaty.
These measures, according to our concept, are as follows:
Turkey's vital interests, even its very existence as a state, were always threatened by the traditional policy of Russia, which since Peter the Great had aspired to access the warm seas and tirelessly pursued a policy of expansion in Asia Minor and Persia. Possession of the Straits and Constantinople remains the dream of all Russians. After the loss of Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia, deprived of direct access to the Baltic, Russia as a vigorous nation, rejuvenated by the Revolution, pushed and organized by Germany, will necessarily resume its old policy in the East with new strength.
Turkey realizes exactly how dangerous it is in the North; the famous agreement between the Government of Angora and Muscous, an abnormal and monstrous agreement created from nothing by the Entente's attitude towards Turkey, dictated to Turkish patriots by deep despair. I know that some Turkish nationalists consider this agreement to be suicide, but they would rather die valiantly, taking revenge on Europe and placing the destinies of the East in the hands of Russia, the Entente's implacable enemy, than drag out a life of misery and slavery.
France, which has already launched the idea of revising the Treaty of Sèvres, should, without wasting any time, proceed to implement this salutary policy and satisfy Turkey's national aspirations to the fullest extent as soon as possible. In this way, France could have created a state of affairs that would remove any basis for the Turkish-Bolshevik agreement.
Once back in possession of Constantinople, Smyrna, Thrace, and Adana, and assured of the Empire's political and economic viability in the West, the Government of Angora would see the need to resume defensive measures on its Caucasian and Persian borders.
After the harsh ordeals of the World War and previous wars, Turkey has a gigantic task of repair and consolidation ahead of her. It would be a task beyond human strength to compete with Russia in the armament to support the Russian border armies considerably enough to confront the Moscow colossus.
Turkey will be inclined to organize its defense in a less costly and more secure manner, in a way that has already given positive results to Great Britain on the borders of its Asiatic empire. I have well-founded reasons to believe that Turkey will want to avoid direct contact with Russia and will support the will of the Caucasian peoples to organize here on the Caucasian isthmus a confederation of independent states, jealous of its independence from Russia, animated by good feelings towards Turkey. This would be a natural policy for Turkey if the Treaty of Sevres were changed adequately. If not, or if the treaty change is delayed, the moderate elements of the Great National Assembly of Angora will be overwhelmed by the extremists who will demand a closer rapprochement with Russia, and Turkey's policy will be irrevocably subjected to the will of Moscow, which is marching with indomitable energy towards a gigantic coalition comprising Germany, Russia, Turkey, the Muslims of the East and China.
France should decide to choose between imperialist and Germanophile Russia, dominating and triumphing in the East, and relatively weak Turkey, aspiring only to consolidate its patrimonial domain, but capable of blocking the path of the Muscovite colossus in the East with the help of the Caucasian Confederation.
The Muslim Peoples of the Caucasus and the East and the Turkish Question.
The prestige of the Khalifate and Turkey in the Islamic world is still such that all Muslim peoples, who understand that Turkey is now fighting for its very existence, will willingly make great material and human sacrifices to ensure the triumph of Turkey's cause, which they consider to some extent to be their own.
All the forces deployed to win over the Islamic peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia, all the political and economic advantages that the Entente could dangle in their eyes, all the pecuniary losses incurred by Europe will be of little use if the Muslims of these regions exploited by Turkish propaganda believe that success in the East will save Turkey.
Your Excellency may rest assured that Bolshevik domination of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan is largely explained by such considerations...
There's one truth, and I can't stress it enough: anti-Bolshevik policy in the Caucasus, on a grand scale of course, is possible, if not with Turkey's direct involvement, at least with its tacit consent and moral support.
Without this, there is nothing to be done in the Caucasus; the Caucasian peoples caught between Turkey and Russia, even if they hesitate to follow this policy, will inevitably be swept along by the Turko-Bolshevik current.
Anti-Bolshevik Action in the Caucasus must be Based on a National Basis.
Western opinion must finally understand that the allogenic elements of the former Russian Empire, particularly the Caucasians, will never support Russian groupings that tend in one form or another to enslave them once again. They would rather march with the Bolsheviks, than with the centralist allogenic peoples who tend to break away from Russia. We consider Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic states to be our natural friends and allies. We have nothing against the various Russian groupings fighting against Bolshevism within the boundaries of ethnographic Russia, but as soon as these groupings show a tendency towards restoring Russia to its 1914 borders, the non-natives turn against them. Despite the presence of the grandson of our national hero Schamyl and the promises he made on behalf of France and Great Britain regarding recognition of our independence and broad financial and military support, the movement failed to win over even a quarter of the population of Dagestan, who were nevertheless very angry with the Bolsheviks. The movement created by the elements linked to General Wrangel and subsidized by him has only resulted in bloodshed, useless in a civil war, where the Mountaineers of Dagestan are interfering to the great joy of the Russian Bolsheviks, and where the grandson of a great patriot has discredited himself and sunk the name of his glorious forefather...
In our country, the fight against the Bolsheviks must become a purely national struggle; only then will Communist propaganda, which portrays resistance against them as the machinations of Russian counter-revolutionaries and their Caucasian agents, be deprived of its basis.
Anti-Bolshevik Action in the Caucasus and Occident must be Linked by a Common Plan.
It's been eight months since the Bolsheviks occupied our country, and General Wrangel’s agents are seeking to exploit the national sentiments of the Mountaineers for an immediate insurrection. We have confined ourselves to verbal protests and anti-Bolshevist propaganda, but we consider this to be the wrong time for an armed struggle. Firstly, Turkey's attitude towards Soviet Russia was unfavorable to us, and we attach great importance to Turkey's role in this matter, as I have already mentioned. Secondly, the action directed and subsidized by General Wrangel was, in our view, doomed to failure. In the end, we were isolated, surrounded by an enemy world superior to us in numbers, weaponry, and organization. The great powers of the West showed us some purely platonic sympathies, but none of them ever supported us, either diplomatically or materially.
In such circumstances, we thought it best to wait, believing that time was on our side. Indeed, subsequent events have clarified several obscure points in our situation in the eyes of our neighbors and the representatives of Europe.
If there have been a few elements among us who were truly attached to Bolshevism, they have become aware of the Bolshevik policy towards our country, so that our population has never been so deeply attached to the national cause and so unanimous in its hatred of the Muscovite invader, as it is now. We believe that the spring will bring serious events. There is reason to expect a rupture between Russia and Poland. According to our information, the Moscow government is trying to provoke Poland. The anti-Bolshevik movement among the peasant population of Ukraine is growing by the day. If France succeeds in giving the Angora Government guarantees that the Sèvres Treaty will be reconciled, I am firmly convinced that (the entire population of Northern Caucasus and Azerbaijan will make a supreme effort to free themselves from the yoke), the Turks will place no obstacle in the way of the efforts of the Muslims of the Caucasus to free themselves from the Bolshevik yoke.
If this were the case, we'd need to take immediate steps to establish a military and political agreement between Poland and its natural allies, which are undoubtedly the Baltic countries: Romania, Ukraine, and the North Caucasus.
Conclusion.
If the general considerations I have just outlined are shared, and if Caucasian patriots can be assured that the French government will support their cause materially and diplomatically, the Unified Bureau of all socialist and democratic parties in the North Caucasus could take a clear stand against the Bolsheviks and create a general movement in the North Caucasus and Dagestan against Russia.
In this case, the Government of Angora would also naturally have to reckon with the will of the peoples between Russia and Anatolia to a greater extent than at present, and it would also be easier for it to bring back to a wiser policy the extremist elements of the great Assembly Nations Le resolutely siding with the Bolsheviks.
Many of Bammat’s statements were quite thought-provoking and his judgments were referring to today’s realpolitik. It's very remarkable that the flaws in the great powers’ perspective on the Caucasus in 1921, today show that humanity has not been able to make any progress in this region, which is of great importance for world peace, for a century. Indeed, Abel Chevalley’s failure to correctly analyze the content of this memorandum in 1921 resulted in the Bolshevik’s occupation of Tbilisi on February 25, 1921. Not only did he not understand the memorandum sufficiently, but he also kept it in his possession for more than 2 weeks. This was also another striking example of how sometimes politicians, diplomats, and bureaucrats representing great powers can be so indifferent. Chevalley had sent Bammat’s memorandum to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Council of Ministers in Paris, Aristide Briand, only two weeks before the ultimate victory of the Bolsheviks, on February 11, 1921, and used the following expressions while expressing his personal views on the memorandum:
(Click on the image for a larger view)
No. 56
On the Revolutionary Committee of the North Caucasus in Tiflis.
Mr. Chevalley, High Commissioner of The Republic In The Caucasus, Tbilisi, February 11, 1921
To The President of The Council, Minister Of Foreign Affairs.
I have the honor to send you herewith a note on the affairs of the Caucasus as seen by the members of the Mountaineers' Committee currently constituted in Tiflis. This is the answer to the objection that I have very often made to them on the lack of unity in the North Caucasus. It does not seem conclusive to me.
The main members of this committee are an Ossetian, Ahmed Tsalikoff, who seems to be the most capable, the most active, and the closest to the people, a Lesghian, Kantemir, who also seems likely to render active services and a Daghestanian Avar, Haidar Bammate, who is the young Talleyrand of this group. Educated, intelligent, and intellectual, he has already participated during the war in the conferences of Trebizond and Batoum, has made a stay in Switzerland and then in France during the Peace Conference, and successively worked against all those who, (Denikists, Wrangelists, Bolshevists) have threatened the emergence of an independent republic of the North Caucasus, He has been in close relations for a year with the Kemalists but claims that if tomorrow, the Kemalists became too powerful in the Caucasus he would also be against them. "Neither Russian nor Turk" is his watchword. He is on good terms with the Georgian government, which he served in November 1920 by helping to ward off the Turkish threat. He is not a man of action like the other two, but a politician who lives by his profession. Moreover, more capable than any other Mountaineers of ensuring contact with the states of the Caucasus and elsewhere. He considers himself, not without reason, as the future foreign affairs commissioner of the future republic. I have also seen the Ingush chief who comes from time to time from Vladicaucasus to Tiflis by the mountain paths. Finally, the Circassian Shakim Ghirei, whom I do not yet know, is represented to me as active, but not sure.
All these Mountaineers are more or less won over to socialism and distrust Tchermoieff, the great capitalist landowner. All are hostile to the exclusively military and religious action that young Schamyl is developing at this moment in the Caucasus and which cannot, they say, have any lasting results because it is based solely on religious fanaticism, the spirit of conquest and depredation. All blame the French military authorities in the East for having, last October-November, "invented" Schamyl, for having brought him from Constantinople to Dagestan. They claim to deplore the fact that France's action in the Caucasus has always, since the war, had the appearance of being conducted by or for Russian or French soldiers. They say that we are thus exposing ourselves to Bolshevist propaganda which represents us throughout the East as the reactionary and militarist power par excellence. They make it clear that no lasting action is possible, even in the mountains of the Caucasus, if it does not rely on social and political forces and that everything else is a passing brigandage... Of course, the social and political forces of the North Caucasus are, above all, their Committee, its newspaper, and its cash register.
In short, the eternal antagonism between the military and imported elements on the one hand, and the local and civilian elements on the other, is manifested in their words and their attitude.
Shamyl may well be only a temporary force but he has done something and he is there.
The French military authorities were therefore not wrong to favor the Dagestan insurrection in his person. I have in my telegram supported and specified the proposals and requests of Colonel Corbel for a more considerable subsidy. It would seem to me deplorable, moreover, that France should bear the costs of this military enterprise alone. After all, the recapture and coverage of Baku interests England more than us. If she refuses to make any sacrifice on this side, I would think not to give anything in money to the Daghestani. It would remain understood that Georgia will send them arms taken from what we will provide her.
But, although without illusions about the immediate result of the action of the Revolutionary Mountain Committee of Tiflis, it seems to me regrettable to neglect it completely from the point of view of subsidies, to let it gravitate towards our enemies, even our friends; and not to fill by a political gratification, to these politicians, the gap which is growing between them and our military, even theirs.
This is why I would propose, if you approve the suggestions contained in my dispatch No. 58 of February 8, to distribute according to the circumstances between their newspaper and "Grouzia" the main portion of the credit that I have proposed to you.
The recent proclamation by the Bolsheviks of two so-called independent republics in the North Caucasus is, obviously, only a decoy and changes nothing in the situation.
Abel Chevalley
The French diplomat was not even able to define the ethnic identities of his interlocutors on the Mountaineers’ side correctly. Alikhan Kantemir was not a Lezgi but an Osset. Haydar Bammat was not an Avar but a Kumyk. The French diplomat's inadequate knowledge of the realities of the Mountaineers was an indication of how baseless his analyses and statements were. Yet, he was eventually convinced that direct assistance to the Mountaineers was inevitable and gave recommendations to the Paris administration in this direction, albeit with contradictory expressions. Very similar to their diplomatic representatives in the Caucasus, the French government had inconsistent feelings and thoughts about the Mountaineers and in such ambiguity, they were proven to be the wrong partner in every respect in the struggle to prevent the Bolshevik invasion in the Caucasus.
Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, 19 November 2024