Transcaucasia declares independence

On the evening of 22 April 1918 the Transcaucasian Sejm, sitting in Tiflis, resolved that Transcaucasia would become an “independent, democratic and federative republic”. So was born the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, covering the lands of present-day Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The session dragged on late, which is why the British chronology of the war speaks of the night of 22/23 April. Independence was not the fulfilment of the dreams of any of the region’s three nations. It was proclaimed under duress, because the Turks had made it a condition for resuming peace talks, and their troops already stood in Batum and before Kars.

A state that did not want to be one

After the Bolshevik coup power in the region was taken over by the Transcaucasian Commissariat, and in February 1918 a Sejm met, made up of deputies elected in Transcaucasia to the Constituent Assembly and chaired by the Georgian Menshevik Nikolay Chkheidze. Tiflis did not recognise Lenin’s authority, but nor did it want to break with Russia. The problem came to light at once at the peace conference in Trebizond, opened on 14 March. The head of the Ottoman delegation, Rauf Bey, asked whom exactly his interlocutors represented. The head of the Transcaucasian delegation, Akaki Chkhenkeli, could not give a clear answer. The Turks held that Transcaucasia was part of Russia and bound by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and must therefore give up the districts of Kars, Ardahan and Batum. On 20 March they made it known that they would return to the talks only with an independent state.

For a long time most of the Sejm preferred to seek an understanding, and the Georgians opposed concessions. The war changed that. When on 14 April the Sejm rejected the Turkish ultimatum, that same day the Turks took Batum almost without a fight, and on 19 April they broke through the Armenian line at Novo-Selim and advanced on Kars. In the face of the Turkish army’s superiority the Georgian National Council concluded that the only way out was to declare independence. The Turks, who had already taken most of the disputed lands, proposed on 22 April a cessation of hostilities and awaited an answer.

The debate

The debate on 22 April was led by the Georgians, who argued that the Turks would return to negotiations if they faced an independent state. The Armenian party Dashnaktsutyun believed that the Turkish advance must first be stopped, and did not want to break with Russia, which it saw as the Armenians’ only protector. The Azerbaijani Musavat, reluctant from the start to wage war on Muslim Turkey, supported independence as the only way to prevent foreign states from partitioning the region. The Socialist Revolutionaries were the most vehemently opposed. Their spokesman Lev Tumanov warned that the people of Transcaucasia did not want this and that everyone would regret the decision. In the end the Dashnaks gave way. The Armenian politician and historian Simon Vratsian wrote that the Sejm chamber “resembled a cemetery”. Hovhannes Kajaznuni, his hair dishevelled, read from the rostrum a statement that the Dashnaktsutyun faction, conscious of the great responsibility it was taking upon itself at this historic moment, was joining in the proclamation of an independent Transcaucasian state.

The motion was put forward by the Georgian Menshevik Davit Oniashvili. Some deputies left the chamber so as not to vote, and the resolution passed with few votes against. At the same sitting the Sejm accepted the resignation of the government of Evgeni Gegechkori and entrusted Chkhenkeli with forming a new cabinet. The new authorities at once informed the commander of the Ottoman Third Army, Vehip Pasha, that they accepted the Brest terms, and ordered the Armenian troops at Kars to cease fighting.

The republic’s short life

Chkhenkeli’s cabinet, in which the prime minister also took charge of foreign affairs, was approved by the Sejm only on 26 April. On 28 April the Ottoman Empire recognised the new state. The Soviet government protested against the separation of Transcaucasia from Russia. Independence did not, however, bring peace. At the Batum conference, opened on 11 May, the Turks demanded much more than the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave them, and the differences between Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis proved irreconcilable. On 26 May the Sejm declared the federation dissolved, and within three days Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan declared their independence.