Contributions Of The Turkish Eastern Army Under General Kazim Karabekir’s Command To Turkish National Resistance And Peace-Making With The Caucasian Republics At World War-I And The Following Turkish War Of Liberation
Abstract
World War-I was considerably about the territorial
partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The Allied powers of Great Britain and
France had offered, apart from their own shares, Istanbul, Turkish Straits of
the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, parts of the eastern Black Sea coast-line and of
Eastern Anatolia to
Russia, while promising Greece the Aegean coast including İzmir (Smyrnia), also
planning the establishment of carved-out Armenian and Greek-Pontus states. The
Mudros Armistice Treaty of 30 October 1918 and the Sèvres Peace Treaty of 10
August 1920 officialised these secret arrangements upon the defeat of the Central
Powers, whereas the Ottoman Parliament would never ratify the Sèvres Treaty, thereby rendering it
defunct.
The Turkish National Resistance against
the occupying Powers and the surrendering of the Istanbul Government was led by
General Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). However, the Eastern Front under General Kazım
Karabekir’s command deserves the credit for setting the stage at the Erzurum
People’s Congress of July 1919 for the launching of the Resistance Movement
under Mustafa Kemal’s leadership in defiance of orders from the surrendering
Istanbul Government and against the Allied Governments. Karabekir’s military
victories leading to the retrieval of all eastern Anatolian territory from the occupying
Russian and Armenian forces as well as the protection his forces extended to Azerbaijan
against Russian-British-Armenian aggression would win him the popular
reputation as the “Savior
of the East”. His military victories in eastern Turkey and the Caucasus would
be sealed by the peace treaties of Gyumri and Kars which he negotiated with
Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, drawing current borders.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Ali Bilge Cankorel
This is me
0000-0001-9253-6854
Publication Date
December 28, 2018
Submission Date
September 5, 2018
Acceptance Date
October 29, 2018
Published in Issue
Year 2018 Number: 38