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139-717: The short-lived Republic of Armenia , established in 1918, was occupied by the Russian Bolsheviks in 1920 and incorporated shortly after into the Soviet Union. This was something which members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF; Dashnaks) political party never reconciled themselves with, as many of them were imprisoned, killed, or expelled by Soviet authorities following the Soviet takeover. In 1942, in order to fight Turkey's anti-Armenian politicking,

278-539: A 1961 Soviet encyclopedia that places the death toll at 198 thousand. An estimate by historian Christopher J. Walker places the number of Armenians massacred between 1919 and 1922 at "probably" 250 thousand. According to Soviet historian Zaven Korkotyan, the territory of present-day Armenia had a population of 961,677 in 1919, indicating that Armenia lost 241,677 or 25 percent of its population from 1919 to its sovietisation in late 1920. With Sergo Ordzhonikidze 's approval, Revkom units advanced into Armenia from Qazax on

417-511: A Western Armenian fedayee, Sebouh Nersesian , with the directive to suppress the uprising. On 13 May, Sebouh's unit reached Alexandropol; by the next day the rebels fled the city whilst government forces entered and established order. The leaders of the revolt, including Sargis Musayelyan and Ghukas Ghukasyan, were initially imprisoned as the Soviet government on 4 June warned the Armenian government that diplomatic relations would be "detrimented" if

556-454: A bridge between themselves". Gevorg Varshamyan  [ hy ] was appointed to become the civil governor of the district. Armenia's annexation of Nakhchivan was announced on 3 May 1919, after which Armenian forces commanded by Drastamat Kanayan advanced southward into the district along the railway. On 13 May 1919, Khatisian arrived in Nakhchivan to discuss terms of capitulation with

695-616: A fate suffered by nearly all of the former Soviet prisoners of the war. Several Jewish Red Army POWs were saved by some of the Armenians in the Legion and there were several instances of Jews being sent to the battalion to evade detection by the Nazis. Josef Moisevich Kogan, a Red Army soldier captured by the Germans, for example, stated that he received help by an Armenian doctor in the 812th Battalion when he

834-635: A horse and almost half deprived of a cow or ox. In the Akhalkalaki uezd , which was claimed by Armenia, 60,000 of 110,000 inhabitants had survived, over seventy villages were completely destroyed by the Turkish army in 1918. On 18 October 1918, as the Ottoman Empire was preparing itself to capitulate to the Allies, Armenian forces entered southern Lori and came into contact with German–Georgian forces. In response,

973-719: A mass scale. Through dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), pre-historians could calibrate radiocarbon dates to a much higher degree of accuracy. And finally, before the 1970s, parts of eastern Europe and central Asia had been off-limits to Western scholars, while non-Western archaeologists did not have access to publication in Western peer-reviewed journals. The pioneering work of Marija Gimbutas , assisted by Colin Renfrew , at least partly addressed this problem by organizing expeditions and arranging for more academic collaboration between Western and non-Western scholars. The Kurgan hypothesis , which

1112-507: A nation with a distinct and distinguished history was spread by patriots, teachers, writers, and revolutionaries". The Russian offensive during the Caucasus campaign of World War I , the subsequent occupation and creation of a provisional administrative government gave hope for ending Ottoman Turkish rule in Western Armenia. With the help of several battalions of Armenians recruited from

1251-526: A number of Dashnaks entered into negotiations with Berlin, and reluctantly agreed to participate in the formation of a military legion. This was a move, however, that was officially repudiated by ARF party organs. The majority of the soldiers in the 812th Battalion legion were drawn from the ranks of the Red Army , prisoners of war who had opted to fight for the German Army rather than face the brutal conditions of

1390-556: A result of the uprising, leaving 25,000 homeless (including nearly 6,000 refugees from Shusha). On 5 April 1920, to relieve pressure in Karabakh, Azerbaijani forces in Qazax initiated border clashes with Armenia. During the following two weeks, they occupied strategic heights and occupied and burned Armenian villages. On 9 April, a short-lived ceasefire was reached, however, it was broken by Azerbaijani forces occupied several other villages – this

1529-611: A specific foreign power". Despite the US sending $ 11 million (equivalent to $ 167,302,326 in 2023) in aid to Armenia, the vote for an American mandate over Armenia was rejected by the Senate on 1 June 1920. At the Paris Peace Conference, the delegation led by Avetis Aharonian from the Armenian republic united with the delegation from the Armenian diaspora , headed by Boghos Nubar , forming

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1668-482: A tree), thus avoiding his end of the bargain. According to the authors, the reconstruction of this folktale to PIE implies that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had metallurgy, which in turn "suggests a plausible context for the cultural evolution of a tale about a cunning smith who attains a superhuman level of mastery over his craft". Researchers have made many attempts to identify particular prehistoric cultures with

1807-991: Is derived from the Russian kurgan (курга́н), meaning tumulus or burial mound. According to three autosomal DNA studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also very common in South Asia ) would have expanded from the Pontic steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages. Studies which analysed ancient human remains in Ireland and Portugal suggest that R1b

1946-569: Is not shared by most linguists, because proto-languages, like all languages before modern transport and communication, occupied small geographical areas over a limited time span, and were spoken by a set of close-knit communities– a tribe in the broad sense. Researchers have put forward a great variety of proposed locations for the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European. Few of these hypotheses have survived scrutiny by academic specialists in Indo-European studies sufficiently well to be included in modern academic debate. The Kurgan (or Steppe) hypothesis

2085-528: Is still used to refer to the branch that settled in Southern Asia). According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely-related populations that were ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, Bronze Age Indo-Europeans. This is believed especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this belief

2224-426: Is the basis for Greek and Germanic word forms which seem only to denote the ruling elite of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) society. In fact, the most accessible evidence available confirms only the existence of a common, but vague, socio-cultural designation of "nobility" associated with PIE society, such that Greek socio-cultural lexicon and Germanic proper names derived from this root remain insufficient to determine whether

2363-743: Is the most widely held theory as of 2017, depends upon linguistic and archaeological evidence, but is not universally accepted. It posits that the PIEs originated in the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the chalcolithic age. A minority of scholars prefer the Anatolian hypothesis , which posits an origin in Anatolia during the neolithic age. Other theories ( Armenian hypothesis , Out of India theory , paleolithic continuity theory , and Balkan hypothesis ) have only marginal scholarly support. In regard to terminology, in

2502-667: The Aegean (the linguistic ancestors of Mycenaean Greece ), the north of Europe ( Corded Ware culture ), the edges of Central Asia ( Yamnaya culture ), and southern Siberia ( Afanasievo culture ). Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European In

2641-533: The Anatolian hypothesis , in spite of the geographical proximity of the respective Urheimaten suggested, diverging from the time-frame suggested there by a full three millennia. The Anatolian hypothesis , notably advocated by Colin Renfrew from the 1980s onwards, proposes that the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from Anatolia from around 7000 BC with the Neolithic Revolution 's advance of farming ( wave of advance ). The culture of

2780-467: The Anatolian languages in its scenario. The phonological peculiarities of PIE proposed in the glottalic theory would be best preserved in the Armenian language and the Germanic languages , the former assuming the role of the dialect which remained in situ , implied to be particularly archaic in spite of its late attestation. Proto-Greek would be practically equivalent to Mycenean Greek and would date to

2919-865: The Armenian genocide . in Baku , Ottoman –Azerbaijani forces slew some 15,000 Armenians in the September Days massacre, in retribution for the March Days massacre of thousands of Azerbaijanis. Despite these atrocities, a peace agreement was signed in Tiflis under the auspices of Georgia and the United States in order to end the Azerbaijani campaign against Zangezur. In the areas claimed by Armenia and disputed with Azerbaijan and Georgia, there were 410,000 Armenians, 460,000 Muslims, and 36,000 others, totalling 906,000. Despite

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3058-486: The Erivan Governorate regained an Armenian majority for the first time in several hundred years, and these regions would later "form the nucleus" of an independent Armenia. Armenian nationalism was rooted in the "long textual tradition" of clerics and scholars. According to historians Edmund Herzig and Marina Kurkchiyan, "in the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth centuries a coherent sense of Armenians as

3197-541: The Georgian army bolstered its presence in the region. These manoeuvres set the scene for an Armeno-Georgian military confrontation. The territorial conflict with Georgia was rooted in the contention over the counties of Akhalkalaki and Borchaly , particularly, the Lori subdistrict of the latter—both sectors possessed an Armenian ethnic majority . Under Georgian control, the Armenians of Lori were discontent due to their treatment by

3336-623: The Late Neolithic period (6,400–3,500 BC). Mainstream scholars place them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe across Eurasia (this steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania , through Moldova , and southern and eastern Ukraine , through the Northern Caucasus of southern Russia , and into the Lower Volga region of western Kazakhstan , adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to

3475-587: The Ottoman Empire during the Caucasus campaign . Following the Armistice of Mudros , Armenia expanded its borders in the wake of the Ottoman withdrawal, leading to a brief border war with neighbouring Georgia . During its first winter, hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country who had fled the Armenian genocide died from starvation or exposure. In the spring of 1919, Armenia, with British support, incorporated

3614-519: The Paris Peace Conference 's decision on the inter-Caucasian borders. Before Nagorno-Karabakh's capitulation, Azerbaijani forces carried out a massacre of 600 Armenians in villages nearby Shusha to pressure the region's inhabitants into submission. Andranik, who had been tasked with the defence of Erzurum, denounced the Dashnaks and Armenia for their treachery in seeking peace after gaining

3753-740: The Pontic Greeks were unhappy with the decision to assign Pontus to Armenia, "Greek and Armenian officials were confident that the issue could be resolved through adequate guarantees for an autonomous administration in the Pontus". On 10 August 1920, Armenian representatives in Paris signed the Treaty of Sèvres, thereby granting it de jure recognition and assigning it 103,599 square kilometres (40,000 square miles), thus expanding Armenia's borders to "60,000 square miles or 155,000 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to

3892-507: The Russian annexation of the Karabakh Khanate in 1801 and the khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan in 1828. Due to Russian colonial policies, large numbers of Armenians from Persia and the Ottoman Empire repatriated to Russian Armenia. Armenians had already formed a majority in some regions, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, and this migration bolstered their numbers in the area. In particular,

4031-628: The Transcaucasian Commissariat on 28 November 1917, which would later form the nucleus of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR). As Russian and Ottoman armies, despite the revolution, were still engaged in combat, the Transcaucasian Commissariat signed the Armistice of Erzincan with the Ottoman Empire on 18 December. On 30 January 1918, the Ottoman Empire in violation of

4170-503: The northern Caucasus of southern Russia , and into the lower Volga region of western Kazakhstan ), expanded into the area through several waves of migration during the 3rd millennium BCE, coinciding with the taming of the horse . Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see Corded Ware culture ), they subjugated the supposedly peaceful, egalitarian, and matrilinear European neolithic farmers of Gimbutas' Old Europe . A modified form of this theory, by J. P. Mallory , which dates

4309-473: The "Delegation of Integral Armenia". With Greek and Russian backing, Armenia claimed territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire covering the Six Vilayets and Cilicia . The White Russian delegation, whilst refusing to tolerate the independence of Azerbaijan and Georgia, was willing to allow Russian Armenia to unite with Turkish Armenia, believing that "such a united Armenia will be our friend and even ally in

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4448-542: The "persecution of Communists continued" and due to the fact that several notable Dashnaks were imprisoned in Russia and Azerbaijan at the time. Moreover, Armenia's domestic situation deteriorated as the government lost its prestige. In Soviet historiography, the uprising was "extensively glorified and sharply criticized", the latter due to its poor organisation and irresolution—critics agreed that "Bolshevism in Armenia existed only in

4587-576: The 17th century BC, closely associating Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan migration to India at about the same time (viz., Indo-European expansion at the transition to the Late Bronze Age , including the possibility of Indo-European Kassites ). The Armenian hypothesis argues for the latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European ( sans Anatolian), a full millennium later than the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis . In this, it figures as an opposite to

4726-550: The 19th and early 20th centuries, the term Aryan was used to refer to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants. However, Aryan more properly applies to the Indo-Iranians , the Indo-European branch that settled parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as only Indic and Iranian languages explicitly affirm the term as a self-designation referring to the entirety of their people, whereas the same Proto-Indo-European root (*aryo-)

4865-778: The Armenian Bolsheviks headed by Avis Nurijanyan staged a revolt in May. The events preceding the revolt started on 1 May 1920, International Workers' Day , with the Bolsheviks demonstrating against the Dashnak government in various cities. The revolt escalated after the armoured train Vardan Zoravar ( Վարդան Զորավար , ' General Vardan ') and its crew under the command of Captain Sargis Musayelyan  [ hy ] joined

5004-466: The Armenian republic organised an "abortive" rebellion in Karabakh that led to the massacre and displacement of Shusha's Armenian population. Even though the Armenian rebels failed to oust Azerbaijani garrisons in Khankend and Shusha, the countryside of Nagorno-Karabakh was under local control. The Azerbaijani army, despite the Red Army being stationed on its frontiers, moved towards Karabakh to put down

5143-633: The Armenian victories at Abaran, Karakilisa, and Sardarabad reached the conference, the Ottomans agreed to a "minor territorial rectification" whereby an additional 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometres) in the Alexandropol uezd were relinquished "for the sake of the friendly relations that have begun". The Treaty of Batum was thereafter signed on 4 June. In June 1918, German officials informed Armenian representatives in Istanbul that Germany would not recognise

5282-554: The Armenian-populated territories of the former Russian Empire known as Eastern or Russian Armenia . The republic was established in May 1918, with its capital in the city of Yerevan , after the dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation . It was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages . In its first year of independence, Armenia was confined to a small territory around Lake Sevan after its invasion by

5421-562: The Armenians as an Aryan people, Adolf Hitler personally did not trust them, and as a result the Armenian battalion was mainly stationed in the Netherlands . Speaking about military units from Soviet peoples, Hitler said: "I don't know about these Georgians. They do not belong to the Turkic peoples...I consider only the Muslims to be reliable...All others I deem unreliable. For the time being I consider

5560-413: The Armenians. On 24 October, a concerted Turkish attack began on Surmalu, however, Dro's forces repelled the attack 2 days later. By 29 October, Kars was surrounded on three sides, however, was well armed and prepared to withstand an assault. The military council of Kars prohibited the 40 thousand inhabitants of the city from evacuating "not to undermine troop morale or give cause for panic". On 30 October,

5699-516: The Bolshevik rebels who had formed a revolutionary committee and proclaimed Armenia a Soviet state in Alexandropol on 10 May. The Bolshevik rebels also seized control in Kars and Sarıkamış . On 5 May 1920, Khatisian's cabinet resigned and a new one was formed under the leadership of Hamo Ohanjanyan , made up entirely of Dashnaks. The parliament then declared a state of emergency , appointing to commander

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5838-586: The Dashnaks for "dislocation and ruin" that came as a result of the uprising. As a result of "Turkish–Azerbaijani aggression", Nagorno-Karabakh's population had declined by 20 percent in 1918–1920. Since 1920, Azerbaijani forces carried out massacres against Armenians in Khankend on 22 February 1920 leaving 400 dead, and Shusha from 22 to 26 March 1920 leaving 500 dead. By 11 April 1920, 30 villages in Nagorno-Karabakh had been "devastated" by Azerbaijani forces as

5977-536: The Devil , can be reconstructed to the Proto-Indo-European period. This story, found in contemporary Indo-European folktales from Scandinavia to India, describes a blacksmith who offers his soul to a malevolent being (commonly a devil in modern versions of the tale) in exchange for the ability to weld any kind of materials together. The blacksmith then uses his new ability to stick the devil to an immovable object (often

6116-548: The East". Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos was a "staunch champion of the Armenians" and constantly kept their delegation apprised of developments. Armenian relations with Azerbaijan were strained by overlapping territorial claims coupled with ethnic cleansing conducted by both sides. Throughout August 1919, Armenian militias were exacting "retribution from the most vulnerable Muslim settlements", sacking large Muslim villages, and according to Azerbaijani diplomats, massacring

6255-648: The First Republic for short. Other names of the state include the Araratian Republic ( Արարատյան հանրապետություն , 'Ararat Republic'), as the republic was largely based around Mount Ararat ; Further names include the Republic of Erivan, and the Erivan Republic, as Yerevan was the principal city of the republic. These terms were often used by Ottoman Armenians and the Armenian diaspora who regarded

6394-493: The Georgian delegates of the Seim declared the independence of Georgia ; Azerbaijan followed suit two days later. With the collapse of the TDFR, the Armenian National Council , based in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi ) and led by Russian Armenian intellectuals representing Armenian interests in the Caucasus, declared Armenia's independence on 28 May 1918. The council dispatched Hovhannes Kajaznuni and Alexander Khatisian , both Dashnaks, to Yerevan to assume power, and issued

6533-688: The German eagle. Neither German military ranks, nor German rank insignia were, however, to be used. Members of the Eastern Legions were given positional insignia, denoting which position in the command hierarchy held. The following positions were used in the Eastern Legions: stellvertretender Gruppenführer (assistant squad leader), Gruppenführer (squad leader), stellvertretender Zugführer (assistant platoon leader), Zugführer (platoon leader), stellvertretender Kompanieführer (assistant company commander), Kompanieführer (company commander). According to OKH Instruction 8a/3 29.4.1943, all in closed formations or as Hilfswilliger employed Armenian soldiers in

6672-403: The Indo-Europeans as inferred by linguistic reconstruction raises difficulties for this theory, since early neolithic cultures lacked the horse, the wheel, and metal – terms for all of which are securely reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. Renfrew dismisses this argument, comparing such reconstructions to a theory that the presence of the word " café " in all modern Romance languages implies that

6811-413: The Kars Oblast. The Ottoman Empire also sponsored the creation of the Republic of Aras in the Muslim-dominated southern districts of the Erivan Governorate corresponding to Nakhchivan. Following the conclusion of the Armeno-Georgian War in late 1918, Armenia repositioned its forces to annex the Republic of Aras. Their advance into the district was halted by the establishment of a British governorship in

6950-399: The Nazi POW camps, though a number of Armenian veterans who had escaped to the United States after World War I also came back to Europe to join it. Command of the unit was given to a former Defense Minister of Armenia , General Drastamat Kanayan (Dro). Kanayan was among the minority in the legion who volunteered, under the hope of freeing Soviet Armenia from the control of Moscow. Through

7089-428: The Oltu river. The voices of the militaristic factions in the Armenian government were strengthened by the successes in Zangibasar and Penek, therefore, the army prepared to retake the districts of Vedibasar and Nakhchivan; the advance into the former began on 11 July and by the next day, Armenian forces had recaptured the district and Boyuk Vedi, reaching the boundary of the Erivan and Sharur-Daralayaz districts at

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7228-514: The Ottoman delegation at Batum that Armenia would accept Turkish conditions for peace, thereby initiating the Batum Conference between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, in refusing to countenance Armenian pretensions to the highland portion of the Elizavetpol Governorate , offered Armenia the entirety of the Nor Bayazet uezd , and parts of the Erivan , Etchmiadzin , and Alexandropol counties, essentially confining it to an area of 4,000 square miles (10,000 square kilometres). When news of

7367-446: The Ottoman territory awarded to Armenian totalled 16,216 square miles (42,000 square kilometres). According to reporter Tatul Hakobyan , a total of 87,000 square kilometres (34,000 square miles) were awarded. For the Armenia–Azerbaijan–Georgia territorial disputes, Article 92 of the treaty provided for the arbitration of frontiers by the "Principal Allied Powers" if the states couldn't determine it themselves through "direct agreement" by

7506-618: The Paris Peace Conference was inconclusive on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the governor-general, Khosrov bey Sultanov , dissolved the Armenians' autonomy and issued an ultimatum on 19 February 1920; thereby the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were being coerced into permanently becoming part of Azerbaijan. The ultimatum was accepted by 45 Armenian representatives in Shusha , but was rejected by representatives who had gathered in Shosh who "categorically rejected any possibility of union with Azerbaijan". Receiving news that Azerbaijan intended to "move against Zangezur" again on 25 March, agents from

7645-411: The Proto-Indo-European-speaking peoples, but all of such theories remain speculative. The scholars of the 1800s who first tackled the question of the Indo-Europeans' original homeland (also called Urheimat , from German ), had essentially only linguistic evidence. They attempted a rough localization by reconstructing the names of plants and animals (importantly the beech and the salmon ) as well as

7784-419: The Russian Empire, the Russian Imperial Army advanced as far as the city of Erzurum in 1916, continuing to make considerable advances even after the toppling of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. Following news of the Bolshevik coup in Russia , the Ozakom (a committee formed in February by the Russian Provisional Government to oversee the Caucasus ) was superseded by a caretaker government known as

7923-414: The Southwest Caucasus Republic dissipated when it defied British directives by backing Muslim insurgents in the counties of Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe to resist Georgia. This prompted the Georgian government to unite with Armenia's in opposing the Southwest Caucasus Republic's existence. Consequently, the Kars Oblast (excluding western Olti and northern Ardahan ) was annexed to Armenia, falling under

8062-501: The TDFR would be also obligated to cede western sectors of the Erivan and Tiflis governorates . Without awaiting the TDFR's consent to the new terms, the Ottomans resumed their offensive in Armenia on 21 May, leading to the battles of Abaran , Karakilisa , and Sardarabad , whereby local Armenian forces emerged victorious. In retaliation for their losses, the Turkish divisions defeated by Armenians massacred several thousand villagers. On 26 May, after secret negotiations with Germany ,

8201-489: The Treaty of Batum. Though denying Armenia official recognition, Germany promised a conference whereby the treaties would be "revised". Armenian representatives in the Ottoman capital humbled themselves as to "expressing gratitude" to the unsympathetic Enver Pasha for tolerating the Armenian republic's establishment. Enver rejected any notion of the Armenian republic expanding its borders, observing that he had consented to "a small Armenian state that could never in any way affect

8340-526: The Turkish army occupied the city of Kars, "which was supposed to be impregnable", "it was to be the last day the Armenian flag would fly over the citadel of Kars". According to a French source, "fatigue, starvation, lack of clothing and equipment" disorganised the 25 thousand men defending Kars, enabling its capture by 12 thousand Turks. The fall of Kars led to the capture of thousands of officers, 2 thousand of whom were taken to Erzurum for forced labour and internment. There were 1,500 Armenian casualties after

8479-454: The Turkish invasion of May–September 1918, including 25,000 in the Kars Oblast. In the six-months of Turkish occupation of Eastern Armenia, particularly in the region of Pambak , Armenians were used as "bayonet practice" by Turkish soldiers. Hovannisian estimates that at least 8,000 young men were taken to Erzurum for slave labour, and 125,000 livestock, 30,000 agricultural equipment, 6,000 carts and 18,000 tons of foodstuffs were confiscated by

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8618-400: The Turkish invasion, Georgia was averse to "tie its fate with that of the beleaguered Armenians". Turkish envoys assured the Georgian government that Turkey would present no threat to them, and wouldn't object to Georgia occupying "certain territories in contention with Armenia". Georgia had already attempted to assert its authority in Armenian-held Ardahan, though with limited success. During

8757-415: The Turkish resistance movement and overestimated their own strength and potential". On 30 September, Armenia mobilised men up to 35-years-old. The Turkish attacks on Merdenek , Sarıkamış, and Kağızman displaced some 50 thousand Armenians. According to American High Commissioner Mark Bristol , "the Armenians had started the trouble by moving into Olti in the summer". Though the Georgian press had denounced

8896-450: The Turks whilst they were on the run, however, Silikian refused and ordered his forces to halt. This is due to the fact that the Armenian forces' ammunition were nearly exhausted, and the Turks' reinforcements were close. According to the UCLA historian Richard G. Hovannisian , "If peace were not concluded and the tide of victory turned in favor of the Ottomans, the consequences would be disastrous". Armenian negotiators on 30 May informed

9035-405: The Volunteer Army was defeated in the North Caucasus region by the victorious Bolsheviks; in light of this, the League of Nations and the Supreme Allied Council formally recognised Georgia and Azerbaijan as de facto governments over the region. Armenia's recognition followed on 19 January; the recognition was used as a last-ditch effort to prevent the sovietisation of the South Caucasus. As

9174-471: The Wehrmacht/Heer would collectively be known as the Armenian Legion. In May 1943 rank insignia of Czarist Russian type were introduced, followed in December 1943 by those shown in the tables below. First Republic of Armenia The First Republic of Armenia , officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia , was an independent Armenian state that existed from May (28th de jure , 30th de facto ) 1918 to 2 December 1920 in

9313-434: The ancient Romans are the ancestors of the French, the Romanians, and the Brazilians. The Indo-Europeans were a people in the sense of a linguistic community. We should probably think of them as a loose network of clans and tribes, inhabiting a coherent territory of limited size." While 'Proto-Indo-Europeans' is used in scholarship to designate the group of speakers associated with the reconstructed proto-language and culture,

9452-421: The ancient Romans had cafés too. Another argument, made by proponents of the steppe Urheimat (such as David Anthony) against Renfrew, points to the fact that ancient Anatolia is known to have been inhabited in the 2nd millennium BC by non-Indo-European-speaking peoples, namely the Hattians (perhaps North Caucasian -speaking), the Chalybes (language unknown), and the Hurrians ( Hurro-Urartian ). Following

9591-402: The armistice, launched an offensive to recapture Western Armenia. Delegates of the major South Caucasian political parties established the Transcaucasian Seim —the representative and legislative body of the TDFR —on 23 February, with the Dashnaks representing the Armenians, the Musavat the Muslims and Caucasian Tatars, and the Mensheviks the Georgians . On 2 March, a delegation from the Seim

9730-442: The attack, of whom 500 were killed. Another source writes that 6,000 Armenians were massacred by the Turks following the capture of Kars. In the span of two months, Armenia "lay prostrate in defeat"; Karabekir imposed on Armenia the Treaty of Alexandropol on 3 December 1920, whereby the latter denounced the Treaty of Sèvres and was confined to the province of Yerevan, thereby ceding Kars, Nakhchivan, and Surmalu. The other terms of

9869-437: The broad Armenian Revolutionary Federation party (commonly referred to as the Dashnaks), however, the cabinet posts were initially shared with the "bourgeois" Armenian Populist Party and later, Social Revolutionaries . Since Armenia's gaining of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, in Armenia and modern historiography, the state is referred to as the First Republic of Armenia ( Հայաստանի Առաջին Հանրապետություն ) or

10008-462: The city. In discussions of a territorial settlement, the Armenian negotiators ultimately offered to drop their claim on the Akhalkalaki district in return for the entirety of the Lori neutral zone, however, Georgia was only willing to drop its claims on the districts of Olti and southern Lori. During its independence, Armenia established diplomatic relations with 40 countries. By 10 January 1920,

10147-503: The civil governorship of Stepan Ghorghanyan  [ hy ] —this allowed for the repatriation of 60,000 Armenians (out of more than 100,000 had fled in April 1918). As a result of the annexation, Armenia increased its territory to "more than 17,000 square miles (44,000 square kilometres)". In an announcement to parliament, Armenian prime minister Alexander Khatisian announced that as of 3 June 1919, 300,000 Armenians had been resettled in

10286-596: The commander of the "united troops of the Soviet Russia and Red Turkey in Nakhichevan" addressed the Armenian army in Şahtaxtı, proclaiming Soviet rule over the rest of Nakhchivan, thereby ending the Armenian campaign. As no country was willing to assume the mandate over Armenia, the peace conference decided to only assign it the vilayets of Erzurum , Van , Bitlis , and Trebizond , with the precise boundary to be arbitrated by American president Woodrow Wilson . Although

10425-402: The concept was limited to the designation of an exclusive, socio-political elite, or whether it could possibly have been applied in the most inclusive sense to an inherent and ancestral "noble" quality which allegedly characterized all ethnic members of PIE society. Only the latter could have served as a true and universal self-designation for the Proto-Indo-European people. By the early 1900s,

10564-707: The country as "only a dusty province without Ottoman Armenia whose salvation Armenians had been seeking for 40 years". It has also been known as the Dashnak Republic due to the fact that the Dashnaks were the dominant political force in the country . During the Soviet-era , the Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia referred to the state as the Bourgeois Republic of Armenia ( Հայաստանի Բուրժուական Հանրապետություն ). Sources vary on when Armenian statehood

10703-477: The country of Czecho-Slovakia or the state of Illinois ". During the League of Nations's discussions regarding Armenia's application to join the organisation, it was stated that "Wilson's award might expand the territory from the existing 70,551 square kilometers, or 26,305 (actually 27,232) square miles, to as much as 214,000 square kilometers, or 80,000 (actually 82,604) square miles". According to Hewsen and Walker,

10842-408: The culture and technology (a bronze-age culture that was centered upon animal husbandry and having domesticated the horse ). The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, which positted a migration from Europe to Asia, and an Asian hypothesis, which positted that the migration took place in the opposite direction. In the early 1900s, the question became associated with

10981-622: The data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 192,000 people died due to the typhus epidemic and famine by the summer of 1919. The Ninth Army of the Ottoman Empire occupied the Kars Oblast at the time of the Armistice of Mudros, being permitted to winter in the district until early 1919; on 7 January 1919, the British ordered their complete withdrawal to the pre-war Russo-Ottoman border. Intended to hinder

11120-506: The district of Sardarapat had died. By April 1919, 40 percent of the inhabitants of eight villages near Etchmiadzin and 25 percent of the sixteen villages in Ashtarak perished. During the winter, the population of the district of Talin declined by 50 percent, and nearly 60 percent of Armenians in Surmalu died of starvation. American historian Richard Pipes writes that Soviet estimates place

11259-535: The district, formed as a means to prevent clashes between Armenian soldiers and local Muslims of up to 10,000 armed men. British sympathy to the Aras Republic was reversed under the authority of Major-General William Montgomerie Thomson who suspected Pan-Turkic influence in Nakhchivan due to the presence of Azerbaijani and Ottoman envoys. Thomson believed that Azerbaijan and the Ottoman Empire were scheming to "forge

11398-534: The east, both forming part of the larger Eurasian Steppe ). Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the Middle Neolithic period (5500 to 4500 BC) or even the Early Neolithic period (7500 to 5500 BC) and suggest alternative origin hypotheses . By the early second millennium BC, descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached far and wide across Eurasia, including Anatolia ( Hittites ),

11537-697: The end of the war, morale among the men in the unit began to collapse; many in the legion deserted or defected. Hans Houterman reported that in one case, a battalion in the Netherlands where the legion was stationed even revolted. Many men surrendered to the Western Allied forces . If not detained by them, they were turned over to Soviet authorities who, in accordance with an order proclaimed by Joseph Stalin , sent them to camps in Siberia as punishment for surrendering to Axis forces and "allowing themselves to be captured",

11676-482: The expansion of a supposed " aryan race ", a now-discredited theory that was promoted during the expansion of European empires and the rise of " scientific racism ". The question remains contentious within some flavours of ethnic nationalism (see also Indigenous Aryans ). A series of major advances occurred in the 1970s due to the convergence of several factors. First, the radiocarbon dating method (invented in 1949) had become sufficiently inexpensive to be applied on

11815-475: The following "intentionally vague" statement on 30 May (retroactive to 28 May): In view of the dissolution of the political unity of Transcaucasia and the new situation created by the proclamation of the independence of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Armenian National Council declares itself to be the supreme and only administration for the Armenian provinces. Because of the certain grave circumstances,

11954-527: The following year in Nagorno-Karabakh (then under provisional Azerbaijani rule), ending in April after Azerbaijan's sovietisation . In August 1920, Armenian representatives at the Paris Peace Conference signed the Treaty of Sèvres , which awarded Armenia an additional 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometres) of territory in Western Armenia , albeit the treaty was never implemented. In late 1920, Armenia

12093-402: The following year, the number of refugees declined to 310,835. By late 1920, about 360,000 (almost half of Armenia's population of 720,000) or 200,000 refugees remained. By the time relief aid reached Armenia, some 150,000–180,000 refugees (20 percent of the population) had perished due to famine, exposure, or hunger. According to a report from February 1919, 40 percent of the inhabitants of

12232-588: The following year, the number of refugees fell to 263,393. During this period, there was a flow of Western Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus . In 1918 to the spring of 1919, the number of refugees from Western Armenia was estimated to be 300,000, with 100,000 residing in "makeshift shelters or abandoned military barracks" in Alexandropol alone. In November 1919, the number of refugees again rose, reaching 333,170 and consisting of 284,870 Western Armenians and 48,300 Eastern Armenians. In April of

12371-596: The formation of these battalions of purely Caucasian peoples very risky, while I don't see any danger in the establishment of purely Muslim units...In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don't trust the Armenians either." Minister of the Occupied Territories and Racial Theorist Alfred Rosenberg declared that the Armenians were Indo-European , or Aryans , and thus they were immediately subject to conscription. According to Versteeg, however, "Although Armenians officially were considered 'Aryans',

12510-454: The former, falling back to Selim where they believed the Turks would strike. Accompanying the civilian population, Armenian forces retreated eastwards to more defensible positions. After Karabekir announced his successes to Kemal, the latter ordered a temporary halt to the invasion, fearful of Allied or Russian intervention. The Turkish victory had indicated that "the Armenians had underestimated

12649-499: The formerly occupied regions of Kars and Nakhchivan , thereby tripling in size since independence; however, Armenian control of these regions collapsed during the Muslim uprisings that erupted in the summer of 1919. In late 1919, the isolated Armenian region of Zangezur came under attack by neighbouring Azerbaijan . The fighting subsided until an Armenian rebellion was launched in March of

12788-454: The heads of intellectuals". On 18 June 1920, Armenia issued an ultimatum to the Muslim insurgents in the outskirts, some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) of Yerevan, to submit to Armenian rule. Having no expectation that the ultimatum would be answered, the Armenian army launched an offensive to recapture the rebelling villages on the following day; the Armenians were victorious on 21 June and had secured

12927-708: The initial difficulties in Armenia–Georgia relations , the two governments signed a transit treaty on 3 November 1919 which was "substantive and immediate in its economic implications". The half-million Armenians in Georgia were "resented" by the Georgians due to the former's "decades-long ... dominance in Tiflis". In the Georgian capital, the Armenians had suddenly become a "disadvantaged minority", most who were civil servants were dismissed, and refugees and families were evicted from

13066-723: The interests of the new Turkish empire". On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed, thus ending hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies . The armistice only stipulated the Ottomans' withdrawal to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk boundaries, thereby allowing their armies to winter in Kars and Batum. Throughout November, Ottoman forces evacuated the Erivan Governorate, thereby Armenia gained 6,000 square miles (16,000 square kilometres) of formerly-occupied territory. An estimated 50,000–100,000 Armenians had been massacred during

13205-446: The latter policy prevailed in the case of Penek. Armenian and Turkish reports confirmed the presence of Turkish soldiers operating in the district; in spite of this, the Armenian offensive to capture the western half of the Olti district began on 19 June 1920. By 22 June, the Armenian army had converged on Penek and ousted its Turko-Kurdish defenders, setting the new Armenian–Turkish frontier at

13344-469: The men of six villages and destroying "300 Muslim villages ... since the beginning of 1918". Conversely, 25,000–40,000 Armenians in western Azerbaijan were massacred by the Azerbaijani–Ottoman advance in 1918, forcing the survivors to gather in the three remaining Armenian villages (of 51 originally); further, thousands of Armenian women and girls were abducted during the advance, in an extension of

13483-485: The migrations to an earlier time (to around 3500 BCE), and puts less insistence upon their violent or quasi-military nature, remains the most widely accepted theory of the Proto-Indo-European expansion. The Armenian hypothesis , based on the glottalic theory , suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the 4th millennium BC in the Armenian Highland . This Indo-Hittite model does not include

13622-520: The minister of war of the Aras Republic, Kalb Ali Khan Nakhichevanskii  [ ru ] , thereby effecting the annexation. Beginning in July 1919, a series of insurgencies against Armenian rule erupted in the Kars and Nakhchivan regions, fostered by Azerbaijani and Turkish envoys who instructed local Muslims to resist. The insurgencies were motivated by the British military withdrawal from Armenia which took place in mid-June. The town of Böyük Vedi and

13761-606: The mountain pass known as the "Wolf's Gates"—this again caused the local Muslims to flee, now southward to Sharur . On 14 July, the Armenian advance continued through the Wolf's Gates into the Sharur district, capturing it two days later whilst the locals fled across the Aras river into Iran. Before the Armenians could advance into the Nakhichevan uezd proper, the national council ( Azerbaijani : milli şura ) of Nakhchivan appealed for peace, however,

13900-457: The national council, deferring until the near future the formation of an Armenian National government, temporarily assumes all governmental functions, in order to take hold the political and administrative helm of the Armenian provinces. With the success in the May battles in Abaran, Karakilisa, and Sardarabad, Armenian commander Movses Silikian was urged by the Armenian military command to chase out

14039-430: The negotiations only served in delaying Armenia's advance, after which the town of Şahtaxtı some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Nakhchivan was captured. By this time, the 11th Army of Soviet Russia (which had previously sovietised Azerbaijan ) reached southern Nakhchivan to form a link with Kemalist Turkey — through this link, Russia hoped to bolster its supply of weapons and ammunition to Turkey. Colonel Tarkhov,

14178-478: The newly established Armenian and Azerbaijani republics engaged in a two-year war over their territorial ambitions. The disputed regions were principally Nakhchivan, Zangezur, and Nagorno-Karabakh. In the 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi) of mountainous highlands of the Elizavetpol Governorate which were mostly controlled by Azerbaijan yet claimed by Armenia, Armenians formed "nearly 70 percent of

14317-589: The night of 28–29 November 1920. On 29 November, the Revkom issued its declaration, proclaiming Soviet rule in Armenia—the declaration began as follows: By the will and desire of the insurgent labouring people of Armenia, the Armenian Communist Party declares Armenia from this day a Socialist Soviet Republic . Henceforth, Soviet Armenia's Red Flag will protect the working people from the centuries-long yoke of

14456-719: The notion of them being 'Levantine traders', similar to the Jews, was deep-seated in Nazi circles, and racial 'purists' along with Hitler himself were prone to look upon the Armenians as 'non-Aryans.'" With the "Provisions for the establishment of the Eastern Legions" of 24 April 1942, members of the Eastern Legions were to wear German Army uniforms with the German Eagle . Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians were allowed German uniform, but not

14595-408: The number of Armenians who perished due to famine and disease at 300,000. In 1919, 19,000 inhabitants of Yerevan contracted typhus and 10,000 died from exposure, famine, and pestilence. By mid-1919, 200,000 inhabitants of Armenia had perished; according to Hovannisian, there were 8.7 births and 204.2 deaths per 1,000 persons, yielding a net loss of 195.5—"it was verily a land of death". According to

14734-501: The oppressors Proto-Indo-Europeans The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family . Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics . The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during

14873-503: The peripheries of Yerevan, leading the Azerbaijani population to flee to Aralık in the nearby Surmalu uezd to avoid retribution. Occurring simultaneously with the Armenian counteroffensive against insurgents near Yerevan, an attempt was made to seize the coal reserves in Penek . Armenian policy towards integration of Muslim areas was split between peaceful civilian incorporation with local autonomy and military invasion and threats, ultimately,

15012-414: The population"; the claimed boundaries were designed to incorporate a maximum number of Armenians, 300,000, also incorporating "a minimum number of Muslims", 90,000. If Armenia successfully incorporated the highlands of Elizavetpol, its population, "according to pre-war statistics", would rise to 1.797 million, including 1.169 million Armenians. According to Hovannisian, a population exchange whilst practical

15151-713: The provisional Ottoman government failed to win support for ratification of the Treaty of Sèvres, remnants of the Ottoman Army's XV Corps under the command of Kâzım Karabekir , who had orders from the Ankara Government to "eliminate Armenia physically and politically", invaded Armenia on 28 September 1920. After unsuccessful Turkish manoeuvres in Sarıkamış, Armenian military command, not believing its 2.5 thousand and 1.5 thousand man garrisons in Sarıkamış and Olti-Merdenek, respectively, were enough to hold those positions, evacuated

15290-458: The publication of several studies on ancient DNA in 2015, Colin Renfrew subsequently acknowledged the important role of migrations of populations speaking one or several Indo-European languages from the Pontic–Caspian steppe towards Northwestern Europe , noting that the DNA evidence from ancient skeletons "had completely rejuvenated Maria Gimbutas' kurgan hypothesis." Archaeogenetics has allowed

15429-512: The rebellion. As the Armenian army was dispatched by Armenia to assist the rebels, the Red Army put an end to the Azerbaijani republic through an unabated invasion. An ultimatum by the Red Army—which supplanted the Azerbaijani army following the latter's sovietisation—prompted an the army's withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh. The region's Armenian inhabitants blamed the Armenian republic's agents and

15568-404: The region and absorb Muslim-controlled Nakhchivan, however, were forced to retreat some days later due to their defeat in battle, despite initially meeting success on all fronts. According to Hewsen, Armenia's foreign policy objectives consisted of "obtaining foreign aid to prevent its people from perishing, ... securing international recognition ... and ... placing Armenia under the protection of

15707-494: The reports of large-scale massacres of the local Armenians in the Nakhchivan region, amounting to 10,000 dead and 45 villages destroyed. During the insurgencies, only the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin sent ammunition to replenish the Armenian army. By late 1919, Armenia lost control of the peripheries of the Kars and Surmalu regions, as well as the entirety of Nakhchivan. In 1918, after attaining independence from Russia,

15846-404: The retreating Ottoman army. The richest areas were left barren, stripped of crops, animals, tools, and any movable possessions. Little trace remained of the former Armenian villages, with all clothing, furniture, utensils, pottery, and even doors and windows taken. Along the railway, no functioning locomotives or freight cars were left, and each station lay in ruins. In Alexandropol , rubble filled

15985-456: The soldiers—using this pretext, Armenia fomented insurrection, thereby elevating tensions. Skirmishes began on 7 December, and escalated in Armenia's favour, with them coming within 30 miles (48 kilometres) of Tiflis, after which Allied representatives demanded a ceasefire. Armenia was unsuccessful in its objective of occupying lands up to the Khrami river and was pushed back by Georgian forces to

16124-539: The span of active service, the 812th Battalion participated in the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and the North Caucasus . One unit comprising a part of the Armenian Legion, was the 4th Battalion of the 918th Grenadier Regiment, 242 Infanterie-Division, one of the few Eastern Legion units to be given German insignia after March 18, 1944. The battalion participated in the unsuccessful defense of Toulon . At

16263-618: The streets after the Turks set off explosives and ammunition before withdrawing. Hovannisian further adds: "As the Armenian soldiers advanced, the full significance of the saying, 'the Turk has passed here,' was bruisingly demonstrated". As a result of the Turkish invasion, 200 villages were plundered, half the vineyards in the Aras River valley were ruined, 200,000 large-horned animals were chased away in addition to thousands of carts of agricultural implements, and 80 percent of households were deprived of

16402-441: The summer of 1918 was packed with "at least six hundred thousand refugees", one of the factors that led him to write that "of the three Transcaucasian republics Armenia suffered the greatest hardship in the fateful years 1918–1920". By December 1918, there remained 350,000 refugees distributed throughout the Armenian republic, in addition to 30,000 who had accompanied Armenian partisan commander Andranik to Zangezur. In February of

16541-414: The term "aryan" had come to be widely used in a racial sense, in which it referred to a hypothesized white, blond, and blue-eyed superior race. The dictator Adolf Hitler called this race the " master race " ( Herrenrasse ), and, in its name, led massive pogroms in Europe. Subsequently, the term Aryan as a general term for Indo-Europeans has been largely abandoned by scholars (though the term Indo-Aryan

16680-543: The term 'Indo-Europeans' may refer to any historical people that speak an Indo-European language. Using linguistic reconstruction from old Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit , hypothetical features of the Proto-Indo-European language are deduced. Assuming that these linguistic features reflect culture and environment of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the following cultural and environmental traits are widely proposed: A 2016 phylogenetic analysis of Indo-European folktales posits that one folktale, The Smith and

16819-677: The time of the delineation of Armenia's western frontier. On 10 August 1920, the same day that Armenia signed the Treaty of Sèvres which set their western frontier, a treaty with Soviet Russia was signed which set their "preliminary" eastern frontier; the agreement provided for an end to Soviet–Armenian clashes in Zangezur and Qazax, for Armenia to "occupy" the Şahtaxtı– Xok – Aznabyurt – Bardzruni – Kükü – Gorayk line and in Qazax, "the line they held on 30 July" of 1920. The treaty also recognised Karabakh, Nakhchivan, and Zangezur as disputed districts that Russia

16958-506: The treaty effectively made Armenia a Turkish puppet state. However, the treaty was later declared null by the new authorities in Yerevan who had sovietised the country the previous day. "In consequence of Turkish, and, presumably, Communist, massacres", 200 thousand Armenians were massacred. Another estimate places the number of Armenians massacred by the Turkish army during the war at 100 thousand. Turkish–German historian Taner Akçam mentions

17097-415: The upper hand in battle, seeing them as becoming "nothing more than an Ottoman vassal state". With his three-thousand-strong force, Andranik "pushed over Nakhichevan into Zangezur", where he remained for the duration of the war, destroying Tatar villages and expelling their inhabitants. Thereby the Armenians "retained control in Zangezur". In early November 1919, Azerbaijan launched a campaign to incorporate

17236-545: The use of genetic analysis to trace migration patterns. The Kurgan hypothesis or steppe theory is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term

17375-485: The village cluster around it served as a symbol of defiance for Muslims in Armenia. As the insurgencies raged, the Azerbaijani diplomatic envoy to Armenia, Mahammad khan Takinski  [ az ] , transferred funds to the insurgents and apprised the Azerbaijani government of developments —earlier, he had worked to forestall the Armenian annexation of Nakhchivan. Investigations by American relief workers confirmed

17514-423: The village of Sadakhlo by the time of the ceasefire which came into effect at midnight on 31 December. In spite of being pushed back in the last days of the war, Armenia was successful in loosening Georgian control over northern Lori, which the latter had held before the war, insomuch as the region was designated a neutral zone under British supervision. Yale historian Firuz Kazemzadeh wrote that Armenia in

17653-476: The war, the Armenian army fielded 40 thousand men, including 33 generals, more than 2 thousand officers, and 66 colonels. However, the army's structure was "top-heavy with a large, conservative officer corps accustomed to classical battle strategies". On 14 October, the Turkish army resumed its offensive, reaching the Merdenek-Selim-Kağızman line. On 27 October, Karabekir attacked towards Kars, flanking

17792-602: The westward expansion of the fledgling Armenian and Georgian republics into the Kars Oblast, the Ottomans backed the establishment of the Southwest Caucasus Republic with moral support, also furnishing it with weapons, ammunition, and instructors. The Southwest Caucasus Republic administered the entire Kars and Batum oblasts as well as neighbouring occupied districts for some three months before provoking British intervention, leading to its capitulation by Armenian and British forces on 10 April 1919. British tolerance of

17931-447: The words of philologist Martin L. West , "If there was an Indo-European language, it follows that there was a people who spoke it: not a people in the sense of a nation, for they may never have formed a political unity, and not a people in any racial sense, for they may have been as genetically mixed as any modern population defined by language. If our language is a descendant of theirs, that does not make them ‘our ancestors’, any more than

18070-605: Was invaded by Kemalist Turkey , ending with its partition and sovietisation by the Russian SFSR , with the latter founding the superseding Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic . Shortly thereafter, an anti-Bolshevik revolt resisted Soviet authority from February to July 1921 . In the two and a half years of its existence, Armenia formed diplomatic relations with 40 countries, gained de jure recognition, underwent parliamentary elections , and founded its first university . The nation's parliament and government were dominated by

18209-616: Was deemed "preposterous" for the Karabakh Armenians because the region's cession "to the Pan-Turanian fanatics will open the door to endless invasions, endanger the peace of the Orient, and shake the political equilibrium off its foundations". Nagorno-Karabakh, despite initially being self-governed , capitulated to British–Azerbaijani pressure and became an autonomous part of Azerbaijan through an agreement signed on 22 August 1919, pending

18348-604: Was first formulated by Otto Schrader (1883) and V. Gordon Childe (1926), and was later systematized by Marija Gimbutas from 1956 onwards. The name originates from the kurgans (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes. The hypothesis suggests that the Indo-Europeans, a patriarchal , patrilinear , and nomadic culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe (which is now part northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania , through Moldova , and southern and eastern Ukraine , through

18487-587: Was introduced in these places along with autosomal DNA from the Pontic steppes. The subclade R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) is most commonly associated with Indo-European speakers. Data so far collected indicate that there are two widely separated areas of high frequency, one in Eastern Europe , around Poland , Ukraine , and Russia , and the other in Southern Asia , around the Indo-Gangetic Plain , which

18626-413: Was justified through a note from the Azerbaijani government to Armenia, accusing it of attacking nine Azerbaijani settlements. On 18 April, officials from Dilijan and Qazax agreed on a ceasefire agreement that included the repatriation of all displaced residents and the restoration of the former boundary, thereby ending the clashes. Encouraged by the Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan in late April 1920,

18765-580: Was lost. Though the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia ceased to exist in 1375, other sources suggest that Armenian statehood was lost in 1045 with the fall of Bagratid Armenia as Cilician Armenia was outside of the traditional Armenian homeland, while Bagratid Armenia was the last major independent Armenian state in the Armenian Highlands . In the centuries after losing its independence, Armenia remained mostly under Muslim Turkic or Persian rule until

18904-556: Was only accepted by the Trancaucasian delegates weeks later on 5 April. Due to this delay, the Ottomans continued their advance and reached the pre-war 1914 Russo-Turkish frontier by the end of March. On 11 May, a new peace conference was convened in Batum ; the Ottoman delegation stated that as the Ottoman Empire and TDFR were in a state of war, they would no longer recognise Brest-Litovsk and instead presented an alternative treaty by which

19043-614: Was scheduled to depart to participate in the Trebizond Peace Conference with the Ottoman Empire; however, by the time of the conference, Soviet Russia had signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers , ceding Kars and Batum to the Ottomans. From the outset of the Trebizond Peace Conference, the Ottomans demanded that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk serve as the basis of peace negotiations, which

19182-837: Was snuck into the battalion itself, later escaping with the help of the Dutch underground . There were a number of other units that Armenians also served in aside from the 812th Battalion, their total number, according to Joris Versteeg, reaching 33,000. Of these, 14,000 were placed in field battalions, while another 7,000 served in logistical and other non-combat units. Ailsby puts the number of Armenians in "the legions and replacement battalions" closer to 11,600. The other units included: 808th Battalion 809th Battalion "Zeytun" 810th Battalion 812th Engineering Battalion 813th Battalion 814th Battalion 815th Battalion 816th Battalion I / 125 Battalion I / 198 Battalion II / 9 Battalion In spite of Nazi Germany acknowledging

19321-451: Was to occupy without prejudicing the permanent border settlement. Armenia, in reaction to the "furor" among Allied circles caused by the treaty, stated that "In view of the extraordinary pressure exerted from all sides and the fact that the Armenian army was alone and heavily outnumbered, the government had accepted the temporary arrangement in order to win some time. Armenia would nonetheless maintain its firm anti-Bolshevik policies". After

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