Battle of Sardarabad begins

On 22 May 1918 Armenian troops for the first time in this war struck at the advancing Turks instead of retreating before them. The day before, on 21 May, a Turkish column moving from Alexandropol, taken on 15 May, along the railway to Erivan had pushed back the Armenian vanguard and in the evening occupied the station and village of Sardarabad, within the area of today’s town of Armavir. Sardarabad lay about 40 kilometres from Erivan, and the Turkish vanguard came within a few kilometres of Etchmiadzin (today Vagharshapat), the spiritual capital of the Armenians. According to Armenian studies, on which this account is based, the counter-attack began at dawn on 22 May. The British historians W.E.D. Allen and Paul Muratoff date the Armenian counter-attacks to 23 and 24 May.

The night before the battle

On the Ararat plain the commander was General Movses Silikian. On the evening of 21 May, while his troops held the line of the villages of Kurakanlu, Kiorpalu and Zeyva, he drew up with his chief of staff a plan to drive the Turks out of Sardarabad. Behind the front crowded the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and tens of thousands of refugees from Western Armenia. Had the Turks advanced further along the railway, they could have cut them off from Erivan. During the night Armenian militia and Yazidi horsemen clashed with the Turks near the village of Molla Bayazet and prevented them from getting into the rear. This gave time to deploy infantry and batteries on the hills.

The Armenians were no longer an army in retreat. A few days earlier the Erivan city council had resolved that the city would be surrendered without a fight, but a committee chaired by the Dashnak Aram Manukian overturned the decision and ordered a defence. Volunteers came forward to join the army, peasants brought in food and ammunition, and Catholicos Gevorg V refused to leave Etchmiadzin.

The counter-attack

The attack was directed by Silikian’s deputy, Colonel Daniel Bek-Pirumian. Early on the morning of 22 May the Armenian troops advanced along the whole line. In the centre the 5th and 6th Rifle Regiments, supported by artillery and machine-gun fire, routed the Turkish forward units. According to Armenian studies, the Armenians retook the village and station of Sardarabad and several surrounding villages and advanced 15–20 kilometres. Turkish losses were said to exceed 500 men. On the same day in the rear, on the Araxes, an Armenian regiment from Van beat off attacks by Muslim inhabitants of the surrounding villages, who had been incited to rise.

The Turks, who had not expected such resistance, fell back towards Araks station and dug in on the nearby hills. The Armenians did not pursue them far. Silikian had to send part of his troops north to the Bash Abaran gorge, through which another Turkish column was advancing on Erivan. The first success was nonetheless of enormous importance, because it broke the panic among soldiers, inhabitants and refugees.

The decision at Sardarabad came only a few days later, after further attacks on the hills near Araks station.