The British return to Baku

On 17 November 1918 ships from Enzeli in Persia entered the port of Baku, carrying the British and Indian troops of Major-General William Thomson, commander of British forces in northern Persia, and the Russian soldiers of General Lazar Bicherakhov. They were covered by the British flotilla of armed ships on the Caspian Sea. According to the war diary of The Times, the vessels sailed under British, French, Russian and American colours. Two months after General Dunsterville’s British had fled Baku by night before the Caucasian Army of Islam, they returned to the city without a fight, and the Turkish troops had to leave it. The British official history (F. J. Moberly, The Campaign in Mesopotamia, vol. IV) and the chronology of the war give the same date.

The road to Baku

The return was settled by the Armistice of Mudros. In it Turkey undertook to withdraw its troops from Transcaucasia at the Allies’ demand and not to oppose the occupation of Baku. The War Office instructed the commander in Mesopotamia, General William Marshall, to occupy the city. Britain wanted to keep order between the Caspian and the Black Sea and to enforce the terms of the armistice until the peace conference decided the fate of these lands. Baku’s oil and control of the Caspian also counted. The British flotilla of Captain Washington, a few armed ships with Russian crews and British officers, was to prevent hostile forces from moving troops across that sea.

The Turks tried to keep Azerbaijan in their sphere of influence. On 1 November Nuri Pasha, commander of the Caucasian Army of Islam, renamed himself commander-in-chief of the Azerbaijani army and announced that all Turkish soldiers in Azerbaijan now served the new republic, not Turkey. The British regarded this as a ruse to keep Turkish officers in the country. When Nuri learned of the plans to occupy Baku, he referred them to the Azerbaijani authorities, but according to Moberly his evasions achieved nothing. According to The Times, Nuri was warned that he must leave the city by 17 November.

Meanwhile, on 6 November, Washington’s flotilla reached Petrovsk (today Makhachkala), where Bicherakhov was holding out against the Turks and Azerbaijani forces. The British asked him to take part in the occupation of Baku, because the presence of Russians was meant to dispel the local population’s suspicions about Britain’s intentions. Bicherakhov agreed and on 12 November arrived at Enzeli with his troops and three gunboats. On 16 November Thomson received at Enzeli a delegation from Baku, politicians of the Musavat party which governed Azerbaijan. It was agreed that the Turkish and Azerbaijani troops would leave the city and that the British and Russians would enter it the following day.

A general as governor

Various accounts estimate the force with which Thomson arrived in Baku at 2,000 to 5,000 men. Its core was the British-Indian 39th Brigade. Thomson proclaimed himself military governor of the city and imposed martial law. The Russian inhabitants welcomed the British enthusiastically, but to the Azerbaijani government the newcomers were not allies. According to Azerbaijani and some Western accounts, Thomson had the flag of the republic taken down in the port and spoke publicly of restoring order in Russia, which the Azerbaijanis took as a sign that Russian rule would return. During the talks at Enzeli, however, he had given assurances that the British would not interfere in internal affairs and that the fate of the country would be decided by the peace conference.

The British attitude to Azerbaijan changed in the following weeks. At the end of December, according to most accounts, Thomson recognised the government of Fatali Khan Khoyski as the sole local authority, and British troops remained in Baku until August 1919. For Turkey, the return of the British meant the end of the influence it had gained on the Caspian in 1918.