THE CAUCASUS CAMPAIGN

The Caucasus Campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, later including Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Central Caspian Dictatorship and the UK as part of the Middle Eastern theatre during World War I. The Caucasus Campaign extended from the Caucasus to the Eastern Asia Minorregion, reaching as far as Trabzon, Bitlis, Muş and Van. The land warfare was accompanied by the Russian navy in the Black Sea Region of the Ottoman Empire.

On February 23, 1917, the Russian advance was halted following the Russian Revolution, and later the disintegrated Russian Caucasus Army was replaced by the forces of the newly established Armenian state, comprised from the previous Armenian volunteer units and the Armenian irregular units. During 1918 the region also saw the establishment of the Central Caspian Dictatorship, the Republic of Mountainous Armenia and an Allied force named Dunsterforce which was composed of elite troops drawn from the Mesopotamian and Western Fronts. The Ottoman Empire and German Empire had a hot conflict at Batumi with the arrival of the German Caucasus Expedition whose prime aim was to secure oil supplies.

On March 3, 1918, the campaign terminated between the Ottoman Empire and Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and on June 4, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Batum with Armenia. However, the armed conflicts continued as Ottoman Empire was still engaged with the Central Caspian Dictatorship, Republic of Mountainous Armenia and Dunsterforce of the British Empire until the Armistice of Mudros was signed on October 30, 1918.

                         Sovietization of Caucasus

On April 27, 1920, the government of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic received a notice that the Soviet army was about to cross the northern border and invade ADR. In the west, the Armenians still occupied large parts of ADR; 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. ADR officially surrendered to the Soviets, but many generals and local Azeri militias kept resisting the advance of the Soviet forces and it took a while for the Soviets to stabilize the newly proclaimedAzerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. On December 4, 1920, the government of First Republic of Armenia effectively surrendered. On December 5, the Armenian Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) made up of mostly Armenians from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic entered the city. On December 6, Felix Dzerzhinsky's dreaded secret police, Cheka entered Yerevan, thus effectively ending all existence of the DRA. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed, under the leadership of Aleksandr Miasnikyan. On February 25, 1921, the Soviet destruction of the Democratic Republic of Georgia

happened.

   On October 23, 1921, the end of hostilities came with the Treaty of Kars. It was a successor treaty to the earlier Treaty of Moscow of March 1921. and was ratified in Yerevan on September 11, 1922. The Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Kars, which was a treaty between the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which had declared Turkey a republic in 1923, and representatives of Bolshevist Russia, Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia (all these states formed part of theSoviet Union after the December 1922 Union Treaty) in 1921.