Armenian–Azerbaijani War

Background

The first clashes between the Armenians and Azeris took place in Baku in February 1905. Soon the conflict spilled over to other parts of the Caucasus, and on August 5, 1905, the first conflict between the Armenian and Azeri population of Shusha took place.

American Commission to Negotiate Peace telegram dating 1919 speaking on the conflict,

Active stages

In March 1918 ethnic and religious tensions grew and the Armenian-Azeri conflict in Baku began. Musavat and Committee of Union and Progress parties were accused of Pan-Turkism by Bolsheviks and their allies. Armenian and Muslim militias engaged in armed confrontations, which resulted in heavy casualties. Many Muslims were expelled from Baku or went underground.

Meanwhile, the arrest of Gen. Talyshinski, the commander of the Azerbaijani division, and some of its officers—all of whom arrived in Baku on March 9—increased anti-Soviet feelings among the city's Azeri population. On 30 March the Soviets, based on the unfounded report that the Muslim crew of the ship Evelina was armed and ready to revolt against the Soviets, disarmed the crew which tried to resist. This led to three days fighting,resulting in the death of up to 12,000 Azeris.

Fight for Baku and Karabakh, 1918–19

At the same time the Baku Commune was involved in heavy fighting with the advancing Caucasian Ottoman Army in and around Ganja. The Ottoman Empire's Enver Pasha began to move forward with the newly established Army of Islam. Major battles occurred in Yevlakh and Agdash.

Dunsterville ordered the evacuation of the city on September 14, after six weeks of occupation, and withdrew to Iran; most of the Armenian population escaped with British forces. The Ottoman Army of Islam and its Azeri allies, led by Nuri Pasha, entered Baku on September 15 and slaughtered between 10,000–20,000 Armenians in retaliation for the March massacre of Muslims. The capital of the Azerbaijan was finally moved from Ganja to Baku. However, after the Armistice of Mudros between the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire on October 30, Turkish troops were substituted by the Triple Entente. Headed by British Gen. W. Thomson, who had declared himself the military governor of Baku, 1,000 Commonwealth soldiers arrived in Baku on November 17, 1918. By Gen. Thomson's order, martial law was implemented in Baku.

The Armenian government tried several times to seize Shusha militarily. In 1918 a Republic of Mountainous Armenia was declared in the region. However, throughout the summer of 1918 Armenians in the mountainous Karabag region, under the leadership of Andranik Ozanian, resisted the Ottoman 3rd Army. After the Armistice the Ottoman Empire began to withdraw its forces and Armenian forces under Andranik seized Nagorno-Karabakh. Armistice of Mudros brought Gen. Adriank the chance to create a base for further expansion eastward and form a strategic corridor extending into Nakhchivan.

In January 1919 Armenian troops advanced towards Shusha. They captured nine Azeri villages on their way. Just before the Armistice of Mudros was signed, Andranik Ozanian was on the way from Zangezur to Shusha to control the main city of the Karabakh. In January 1919, with Armenian troops advancing, the British military command asked Andranik back to Zangezur with the assurances that this conflict could be solved with the Paris Peace Conference. Andranik pulled back his units and the British command at Baku gave control to Khosrov bey Sultanov, a native of Karabakh and "ardent pan-Turkist", who was appointed the general-governor of Karabakh and ordered by the British to "squash any unrest in the region". Sultanov ordered attacks on Armenian villages the next day, increased the sizes of Azeri garrisons in Shusha and Khankendi and drew up plans to destroy several Armenian villages to sever the link between Armenians in Karabakh and the region of Zangezur.

Fight for Nakhchivan, 1919–20

In response to a border proposal by Sir John Oliver Wardrop—British Chief Commissioner in the South Caucasus—that would have assigned Nakhchivan to Armenia, Azeris of Nakhchivan revolted under the leadership of local landowner Jafargulu Khan Nakhchivanski in December 1918 and declared the independent Republic of Aras, with its capital in Nakhchivan. The republic, which was essentially subordinate to Azerbaijan, continued to exist until May 1919, when Armenian troops led by Drastamat Kanayan advanced into it to gain control over the region. They managed to capture the city of Nakhchivan in June 1919 and destroy the Republic of Aras, but afterwards fought combined regular Azeri and Ottoman troops, which reinstated Azeri control over the city in July. On 10 August 1919 a cease-fire was signed.

Fighting resumed in March 1920 and continued until the Sovietization of Nakhchivan in 1920 by the 11th Red Army, now including former Azerbaijan Democratic Republic troops.

Fight for Karabakh, early 1920

The largest Armenian-Azeri ethnic clashes in Shusha took place from March–April 1920. From March 22–26 the Shusha massacre took place, which resulted many Armenian deaths and the destruction of the Armenian quarter of the city.

Sovietization of Azerbaijan, April 1920

In early April 1920 the Republic of Azerbaijan was in a very troubled condition. In the west the Armenians still controlled large parts of territory claimed by Azerbaijan; in the east, the local Azeri communists were rebelling against the government; and to the north the Russian Red Army was steadily moving southward, having defeated Denikin's White Russian forces.

On April 27, 1920, the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic received notice that the Soviet army was about to cross the northern border and invade the Azerbaijan. Faced with such a difficult situation, the government officially surrendered to the Soviets, but many generals and local Azeri militias kept resisting the advance of Soviet forces and it took a while for the Soviets to stabilize the newly proclaimed Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, headed by leading Azeri Bolshevik Nariman Narimanov.

While the Azerbaijani government and army were in chaos, the Armenian army and local Armenian militias used the opportunity to assert their control over parts of Azerbaijani territory, taking Shusha, Khankendi and other important cities. By the end of April Armenian forces were in control of most of western Azerbaijan, including all of Karabakh with the surrounding areas. Other areas captured included all of Nakhchivan and much of Kazakh-Shamshadin district. In the meantime Armenian communists attempted a coup in Armenia, but ultimately failed.

Soviet takeover, May 1920

In 1920–21 the only "solution" to this dispute could come either by military victory—as basically happened in Anatolia, Zangezur and Nakhchivan—or by the imposition from above of a new structure by an imperial power. After the British failed to impose a settlement, the imperial arbiters turned out to be the Bolsheviks, whose 11th Army conquered Karabakh in May 1920. On 5 July 1921 the Bolsheviks' Caucasian committee, the Kavbiuro, under the chairmanship of Joseph Stalin ruled that the mountainous part of Karabakh would be part of Azerbaijan. In July 1923 the Nagorny (or Mountainous) Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) was created within Azerbaijan, with borders that gave it an overwhelming Armenian majority of 94% of the total inhabitants.

End of hostilities, September–November 1920

In late November there was yet another Soviet-backed communist uprising in Armenia. On November 28, blaming Armenia for the invasions of Şərur on November 20, 1920 and Karabakh the following day, the 11th Red Army under the command of Gen. Anatoliy Gekker, crossed the demarcation line between First Republic of Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. The second Soviet-Armenian war lasted only a week.

Aftermath

The Armenian national liberation movement was exhausted by the six years of permanent wars and conflicts; the Armenian army and population were incapable of any further active resistance.

Sovietization of Armenia, December 1920

On December 4, 1920, when the Red Army entered Yerevan, the government of the First Republic of Armenia effectively surrendered. On December 5 the Armenian Revolutionary Committee (Revkom), made up of mostly Armenians from Azerbaijan, also entered the city. Finally, on the following day, December 6, Felix Dzerzhinsky's dreaded secret police, the Cheka, entered Yerevan, thus effectively ending all existence of the First Republic of Armenia.

The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was then proclaimed, under the leadership of Gevork Atarbekyan. On February 18, 1921, a national revolt against Bolsheviks started. Gen. Garegin Nzhdeh, commander Garo Sasouni and the last Prime Minister of independent Armenia Simon Vratsyan took the lead of the anti-Bolshevik rebellion and forced out the Bolsheviks from Yerevan and other places. By April the Red Army reconquered most part of Armenia. However, Atarbekyan was dismissed and Aleksandr Miasnikyan, an Armenian high-ranking Red Army commander, replaced him. Garegin Nzhdeh left the Zangezur mountains after the Sovietization of Armenia was finalized in July 1921, leaving Azeri-populated villages cleansed of their population. Persuaded by Soviet leadership, Zangezur had already been ceded by Azerbaijan to Armenia in November 1920 as a "symbol of friendship".

Treaty of Kars, 23 October 1921

The violence in Transcaucasia was finally settled in a friendship treaty between Turkey and the Soviet Union. The peace Treaty of Kars was signed in Kars by representatives of the Russian SFSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, Georgian SSR and Turkey. Turkey had another agreement, the "Treaty on Friendship and Brotherhood", also called the Treaty of Moscow, signed on March 16, 1921 with Soviet Russia.

By this treaty Nakhchivan was granted the status of an autonomous region within Azerbaijan. Turkey and Russia became guarantors of Nakhichevan's status. Turkey agreed to return Alexandropol to Armenia and Batumi to Georgia.