16 - Kurds and Armenians

Summary

During World War I the British made various vague promises to the Armenians, never committing themselves to definite boundaries of a new Armenia. The cause of the Armenians was a convenient propaganda tool against the British enemies, the Turks. Britain also wanted the Armenians of Trans-Caucasia to do all they could to fight the Ottomans, who were taking Trans-Caucasia after the evacuation of Russian troops in the Russian Revolution. The British encouraged the Armenians, but promised little. Nevertheless, the British were willing to create an Armenian state, as long as it needed little military or financial commitment from them.

Before the war ended, Lloyd George and the cabinet felt that the creation of an Armenia in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus would be an easy task: ‘The Prime Minister said that, as far as Armenia was concerned, the argument when the decision was taken had been that if the Allies were in Constantinople they could do what they liked as regards Armenia.’ He was mistaken.

Ottoman troops had abandoned Trans-Caucasia and Northeastern Anatolia, approximately to the pre-war boundary, after the Mudros Armistice. A new Armenian Republic, with a capital at Erivan, had moved troops into the Kars-Ardahan region. It claimed large territories in Eastern Anatolia. By the summer of 1919, however, it had become obvious to everyone but Lloyd George that the Armenian state could not defend even its limited territory that had been part of Russia (mainly the Russian Erivan Province), let alone claim large territories in Anatolia. British military analyses stated categorically that the Armenian Republic would only survive if the Allies supported it with significant military force. Instead of that, the British withdrew even their small expeditionary force in the Trans-Caucasia, only temporarily remaining in Batum in September 1919. Clemenceau summarised the situation:

The conclusion was that France could do nothing; Italy could do nothing; Great Britain could do nothing and, for the present, America could do nothing. It remained to be seen whether, as the result of this any Armenians would remain.

However, rather than undertake a costly (and perhaps impossible) military invasion, the Peace Conference (bureaucrats all) created a committee – the Commission for the Delimitation of the Boundaries of Armenia.