British in Batum

On 22 December 1918 Major-General George Forestier-Walker, commander of the British 27th Division, arrived by sea at Batum, the main port of Transcaucasia on the Black Sea, with an improvised brigade made up of units of that division. This date is given by the British official history of the Macedonian front (Cyril Falls, Military Operations: Macedonia, vol. II). The British chronology of the war records the occupation of Batum only under 27 December, but the takeover of the town took several days: according to Russian studies, on 24 December the headquarters of Brigadier-General James Cooke-Collis, later the military governor, began work in Batum, and on 26 December the first British units set off inland by rail.

A port for the Allies

Batum changed hands in 1918. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave it to Turkey, and on 14 April Ottoman troops occupied the town almost without a fight. In June Georgia had to recognise it as Turkish in the Treaties of Batum. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire reversed the situation. The Armistice of Mudros obliged the Turks to withdraw their troops from Transcaucasia at the Allies’ demand and forbade them to oppose the occupation of Batum and Baku. According to more recent studies, the first British officers arrived in Batum as early as 4 and 12 December. Most of the Turkish troops then left the Batum district, but more than ten thousand Ottoman soldiers were still stationed there.

The 27th Division was sent to Transcaucasia from the Salonika front. According to Falls, the force at Batum was to be the link between Constantinople and the British 39th Brigade, which had returned to Baku in November. It was to supervise the execution of the armistice, secure the Transcaucasian Railway from Batum through Tiflis to Baku and get the pipeline that carried Baku oil to Batum working again. For the British fleet in the Black Sea the fuel itself also mattered.

War inland

The first news awaiting Forestier-Walker in Batum was of a war between two new republics. Since 7 December the troops of the Democratic Republic of Georgia and of Armenia had been fighting each other south of Tiflis, along the railway line to Baku, over border districts with a mixed population. The general at once sent a staff officer with a small escort to Tiflis. He persuaded both sides to stop fighting, and negotiations began under the chairmanship of General William Rycroft, who happened to be on an inspection tour of the Caucasus. The Armenian–Georgian War ended with a ceasefire on 31 December, and in January 1919 the two sides concluded an agreement in Tiflis.

The Georgian government of Noe Zhordania was counting on Allied help against the Bolsheviks, but it was wary of the presence of British troops in the capital. According to some studies, the troops set off for Tiflis despite its objections. By 9 January 1919 most of the 27th Division had disembarked at Batum. Its headquarters was set up in Tiflis, and one of its brigades stayed in Batum.

British Batum

The British did not hand Batum over to Georgia, although Georgia regarded the town and its surroundings as its own. The Batum district was the only part of Transcaucasia that they ruled directly. Cooke-Collis became military governor, and at the end of December an administrative council of representatives of the various nationalities was set up, headed by a Russian, to which the Georgians objected. According to more recent studies, on 30 December the Ottoman administration formally handed over power in the town to the council. British rule lasted until July 1920, when Britain handed Batum over to Georgia and withdrew its last troops from there.