Britain’s involvement in mass murder
In an interview with the editors of the Research Institute for Mezalim (FEM), Irish historian Dr. Pat Walsh strongly criticizes Britain for being complicit in the violent crimes committed on 31 March 1918 against Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian militias. Despite overwhelming evidence, the British government failed to take action against those responsible at the time.
March 31 is approaching, which Azerbaijanis around the world commemorate as the anniversary of the murder of tens of thousands of their countrymen. The events are considered as the bloodiest chapter in Azerbaijan’s history. Can you briefly tell us about the background?
At the end of March 1918 forces of the Baku Soviet, led by Stefan Shaumyan, launched a surprise attack on the political representatives of the Muslim population. Baku was “a Soviet island in an anti-Soviet sea” at the time and Shaumyan, an old Armenian Bolshevik close to Lenin, was determined to assert and maintain Bolshevik control of the city and its great oil fields, which were indispensable to the Soviets in Russia.
On March 29 the Bolsheviks attempted to disarm the crew on board the steamship Evelina in Baku who had returned with 40 members of the Tsar’s “Muslim Division” of Mountaineers to bury the son of a local Azerbaijani oil entrepreneur. The sight of armed Muslims was taken as a provocation by the small minority that ran the Baku Soviet and their Armenian allies. It signaled what might be to come, so they decided to prevent the future democracy through a massacre of the majority. The event was used as the trigger for the March events in the city.
“The Armenian forces, however, then used the opportunity to carry out a large massacre of the Muslim population, including terrible barbarities against women and children.”
When demonstrations by Muslims occurred, demanding the return of arms to the Mountaineers, the Baku Soviet demanded “absolute obedience to its authority” and threatened war, with the consequences resting with the Musavat, the political representatives of the Muslim population. Mensheviks and Cadets combined with the Bolsheviks against the Musavat. The out-gunned Azerbaijanis, who had accepted an earlier declaration of Armenian neutrality in good faith, were taken by surprise by the turn about in their position. After gunboats from the Caspian Fleet, loyal to the Social Revolutionary faction, decimated the Muslim quarters of the city, Lenin urged Shaumyan to call a ceasefire. The Armenian forces, however, then used the opportunity to carry out a large massacre of the Muslim population, including terrible barbarities against women and children.
British Foreign Office reports note that the Armenians, availed of the Bolshevik assault on the Musavat, to kill over 8,000 Muslims in Baku and then massacre 18,000 in Elizavetpol. It was reported that the Tatars/Azerbaijanis had suffered substantial losses and a large proportion had been driven out of Baku. The actual figure of Azerbaijanis killed in the March events is probably around 12,000. Baku was not the only area in which massacres took place in March 1918. Shaumyan had dispatched forces to Shamakhi and Quba from Baku. In Shamakhi city the mainly Armenian troops destroyed the Muslim quarter, killing over 3000 people. 400 women and children were slaughtered, seeking protection in a mosque, one of 13 destroyed. A further 4000 people were killed in other nearby settlements. In the Quba district 2000 perished, including many of the historic Mountain Jewish community, at the hands of the Armenian/Soviet forces.
In your book “Great Britain against Russia in the Caucasus,” published by Manzara in 2020, you already hint in the subtitle that the region of the southern Caucasus has become the target of the warring great powers. How did this come about?
It came about as a result of the Great War of 1914 which the Allied Powers waged against Germany and the Ottoman Empire. What transformed things, however, was a great British strategic reorientation which occurred earlier as a result of Sir Edward Grey’s policy of building a grand coalition against Germany between 1904 and 1907, which could be activated in the event of a European war. In this Britain made arrangements with its two former principle enemies in the world, Russia and France, to surround Germany and make a British naval blockade effective during wartime. When this European war broke out in July 1914 Grey made it known to the Tsar that in return for the “Russian Steamroller” that could bear down on Berlin from the east, Britain would no longer stand in his way to Constantinople/Istanbul. The British Foreign Policy dictum of generations, “the Russians shall not have Constantinople” was reversed.
However, although the Tsar was funded heavily by the British Exchequer, his “Steamroller” proved inadequate against the efficiency of the German Army. Revolution took hold in February 1918 and when the Kerensky government continued to fight the war and mount offensives, Russian lines began to collapse, aided by Lenin’s call for the peasants to desert the imperialist war and take their land. This led to a problem for the British as the Russian lines in the Caucasus began to collapse. What had previously been seen as a Russian sphere of influence suddenly demanded Western, and particularly British, attention.
“Britain formed a front with the Armenians and others against the Ottoman Empire”
British armies surged north into the Russian zone of influence in Persia, just south of Baku, connecting up with the Indian Army’s Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force to the west. British agents in the Caucasus made contacts with the Armenians and anyone else who was willing to form a front against the Ottoman armies, which now pressed eastward toward Baku, in the absence of a Russian force and with Dashnaks massacring Turks and Azerbaijanis. Finally, an assortment of Russian revolutionaries, including Bolsheviks holding Baku, determined to maintain the Russian presence in the Caucasus to secure the area and its vital oil fields for a future Soviet state.
In your book, you describe an overlap of interests between Bolshevik Russia and Great Britain in early 1918, resulting in the alliance between the United Kingdom, the Bolsheviks, and the ultra-nationalist Armenian Dashnaks. Can you elaborate on this curious constellation?
As early as October and November 1917 the Armenians were identified by London as the most likely element who could be mustered for a new Caucasus army to replace the collapsing Russians. The British believed there to be around 150,000 Armenians in the Russian Army although only 35,000 were at that moment on the Caucasus front. General Barter was instructed by the British General Staff to get the Russian command to transfer the rest to the Caucasus.
“Armenians were the most militarized people in the region”.
The British Foreign Office also approached James Malcolm, on the Armenian National Council in Britain, who advised contact with Boghos Nubar, head of the Armenian National Delegation in Europe, who in turn wrote to the Catholicos, the head of the Armenian Church, urging him to help mobilize the Armenians to the front. The Armenians were most useful because not only were they probably willing to fight but they were the most militarized people in the region. The Armenians, therefore, were the primary material for a reconstructed front for Britain. They had numbers, were militarily trained, armed and had a will to fight the Ottomans, now lacking in the Russian peasants.
They were the first objects for financial and material support by Britain in late 1917. The British War Cabinet decided to provide financial assistance to Armenian forces at its meeting on 7 December. Instructions were sent to Sir G. Marling, British representative in Tehran, and Consul Stevens in Batum, to authorize Armenian chief authorities to purchase arms, material and transport from the departing Russians and to tell the Armenians that Britain was prepared to organize and train them to fight the Turks. In case the Armenians were not compliant they were told that the arms would go to the Kurds and Tartars (Azerbaijanis) instead.
“Armenian forces were supported by Britain with weapons, ammunition and financially.”
British Military Intelligence asked General Shore, in Tbilisi, to provide the money required for the organization of these forces. General Shore met with General Andranik to discuss the logistics of this process and reported that he would be able to set up a force of 10,000 from Ottoman Armenians and this would require a sum of 5 to 10 million rubles. Andranik told Shore that if Britain and Russia supplied weapons and munitions, he would be able to expand the Armenian force to 20,000. General Shore was then authorized by his superiors to promise the leaders of Armenian forces the necessary arms, ammunition and financial support. Ranald MacDonell, a British Intelligence Officer who led the British Mission in Baku became paymaster to the Armenians, transporting personally millions of rubles via Baku from Tehran to Tbilisi over a period of months, to pay the Armenian forces.
Whilst the British Government refused to recognize Bolshevik authority in Baku Britain maintained relations with the Bolshevik regime, because Lenin was willing to continue the War there. Britain, being a primarily maritime power and having been severely stretched by three years of warfare, could not send military forces of any size to the Caucasus to pursue its policy. It had to rely not only on the Armenians, but also on its ideological enemy, the Bolsheviks, to construct a temporary alliance of convenience in maintaining the front, which Lenin reconstructed for his own interest – that of the oil fields and proletarian center of Baku.
Both the British and the Bolsheviks had a common use for the Armenians in this situation. The Bolsheviks themselves brought back and armed 100,000 Armenians to resist the Ottoman advance that had been triggered by Lenin’s revolutionary defeatism. The Russian army of the Caucasus, which had numbered around 320,000, left the vast bulk stores of its weapons and ammunition to the Armenians, under the command of General Andranik.
We can see here that Armenian units in particular chummed up to the expanding British hegemonic power in the southern Caucasus. What promises were made to the Armenian side?
The promises given to the Armenians by the British were deliberately vague. The Armenian revolutionaries joined the Allied war effort against the Ottomans on the basis that an Armenian state would be imposed. It became clear to people like Pasdermadjian, during the war, that they were going to be let down by the Russians, their main hope for a territory in eastern Anatolia and the south Caucasus. The Russians wanted “Armenia without the Armenians” he says in one of his publications. So the Armenians, after late 1917 and the Russian collapse, concentrated on exacting promises from the British.
“The Armenian Dashnaks had their own fundamental objective of clearing territory of Muslims to establish their Greater Armenia and the fact cannot be avoided that the British facilitated them in this, in pursuance of what MacDonell himself called ‘the common cause’.”
The British State is a multi-dimensional entity. Its liberal, moralizing element were always pushing for an Armenian state, since the time of James Bryce, writing in the 1880s. However, the realists at the head of the state, like Prime Minister Lloyd George were ruthless with Armenian demands. They led the Armenians to believe they were going to obtain a state and in fact some attempts were made in this direction when the Bolsheviks appeared in the south Caucasus. However, ultimately Britain was not willing to impose its will on the local inhabitants once resistance appeared and British strategic interests altered.
Britain bears some of the blame for the excesses of violence against Muslim civilians in Baku. Some accuse the British administration of a grossly negligent policy, in that they, the British, should have seen the coming disaster. Can you briefly comment on this?
Britain was in a desperate situation by late 1916, which lasted until the Armistice in November 1918. The Germans and Ottomans had proved much more formidable foes than had been anticipated and Britain had been forced into raising massive conscript armies of millions, borrowing heavily from the United States and enlarging the war to a great many fronts. But all had been in vain and now it’s allies were buckling or collapsing. Only American intervention could save the British in this European war they should have avoided in the interests of the Empire, but which they had made into a global conflict by their participation.
“And this was a war that Britain had to win, no matter what the consequences for humanity. Here lies the reason for the terrible things that happened.”
Out of this desperation came a recklessness in which any force, however malevolent, was supported if it aided the war effort so that victory could be achieved, at whatever cost. Really, whole peoples became chess pieces on the chess board of world conflict. And this was a war that Britain had to win, no matter what the consequences for humanity. Here lies the reason for the terrible things that happened. More astute people, on the ground, saw the possible consequences but those in London who directed the chess board played for higher stakes than the lives of ordinary people who were caught up in the catastrophe.
What was the reaction of British officials on the ground to the seeping atrocities of the Armenian militias? Were any measures taken? Have those responsible been held accountable?
Ranald MacDonell, the British vice-consul in Baku, sent his view of the March events in a report for General Dunsterville:
“… trouble started between the Bolsheviks and Musselman over the disarmament of a Musselman ship and culminated in the March massacres. The Armenians joined hands with the Bolsheviks and the Musselman was practically turned out of Baku, not a single Musselman of any importance remaining. As may be imagined this added fresh fuel to the hostile feeling felt against us by the Musselman of the Caucasus. Even Russian officers asked us, half in jest, how much the British Government paid to carry out such a successful campaign and rid Baku of the Turkophile elements. At the time I protested before the Armenian National Council, and still maintain that they made one of the biggest mistakes in their history when they supported the Bolsheviks against the Musselman. The whole of the blame for this policy must be laid at the door of the Armenian Political Society known as the Dashnachtsasoun… Without Armenian support the Bolsheviks in those days could never have dared to take action against the reactionary Musselman.”
Later MacDonell, who had witnessed the earlier massacres of Muslims in Baku in 1905-6, described his recollections of the March Days in his Memoirs:
“…The Baku cauldron boiled over. The Fleet threw in its lot with the Armenians and Bolsheviks, and war against all Muslims raged in Baku for four days. The slaughter was incredible; the fleet bombarded the Tartar quarter day and night, doing most effective damage to the native buildings. For three days it was touch and go as to who would get the upper hand. At last the Tartars and Savage Division were beaten back, and on the fifth day not a single Muslim of any importance was left in the town, and few of their houses were left standing. Of all the incidents which involved killing that was the worst I saw during my years in Baku.”
“But whilst British courts pursued Ottomans on charges relating to the Armenian relocations of 1915 and Nuri Pasha, after revenge killings conducted after the fall of Baku to the Ottomans/Azerbaijanis later in 1918, no attempt was ever made to bring Armenians to justice for what happened.”
Although MacDonell was truthful in his allocating blame for the massacre of 12,000 people to the Armenian Dashnaks he was being disingenuous in avoiding responsibly on behalf of his own government. It could not have been believed, given the record of the Dashnaks, that the British Government could use them as mere instruments of a policy. The Armenian Dashnaks had their own fundamental objective of clearing territory of Muslims to establish their Greater Armenia and the fact cannot be avoided that the British facilitated them in this, in pursuance of what MacDonell himself called “the common cause”.
The British never took action against those responsible for the March events, despite a wealth of evidence available to them. Many, of course, were later killed in the battle for Baku in September. Shaumyan and his Commissars were murdered by persons unknown (probably British agents) on the shores of the Caspian. But whilst British courts pursued Ottomans on charges relating to the Armenian relocations of 1915 and Nuri Pasha, after revenge killings conducted after the fall of Baku to the Ottomans/Azerbaijanis later in 1918, no attempt was ever made to bring Armenians to justice for what happened.
Immediately after the massacres in March, the events were reviewed by a specially appointed commission. The evidence was nothing short of staggering. Why has this great massacre of Muslims in Azerbaijan, which very much borders on genocide, not found any resonance in the public perception of the Western world?
The details of the March massacres were later exhaustively investigated and documented by a Special Investigation Commission of the Azerbaijan Government, from June 1918 until April 1920. This Investigation resulted in 36 volumes and 3,500 pages of eyewitness testimony from survivors, documentation of events and harrowing photographs of the death and destruction visited upon Muslim communities. It was not war propaganda, like much of the atrocity stories that made their way into the Anglosphere through the efforts of Armenians, Christian lobby groups and some servants of the British State. It is therefore an obscure, but factual event, little known about in the West.
“There was an interest from the British point of view to cover up the massacres”
A number of British officers like Ranald MacDonnell and Claude Stokes made their government aware of these events but there was a political interest to cover them up. The massacres were assigned to the category of “inter-ethnic violence” routinely engaged in by people who were seen to be below the level of civilization of the British. Meanwhile Armenian accusations against the Turks, which made for good war propaganda, was distributed as factual, even though they were known to be false or exaggerated by those who dispensed them to a world-wide audience. Because the British were desperate to engage US power in the war and this type of propaganda was very effective in Christian fundamentalist America it was ruthlessly used against the Turks and Azerbaijanis, cancelling out real atrocities committed against Muslims. Unfortunately that which is used as war propaganda tends to remain in the public consciousness for generations, negating the true, historical, picture.
“Most of that killing and destruction, visited on the Azerbaijanis, was done by Armenian forces bent on carving out a great Armenian state at the expense of the Muslim population that already resided on that territory.”
To what extent did the mass violent crimes against Muslim civilians influence the history, or the nation-building of Azerbaijan?
Nations are often built in relation to external threats to a people. Azerbaijan celebrated its centenary on May 28th 2018. That is the founding date of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic in 1918.
During the couple of years of its initial existence the state proclaimed by the Azerbaijani government struggled to exercise territorial integrity and independence in the conditions of the Great War that engulfed it. However, it was also born as a result of that War, out of the sheer necessity of organizing a people into nationhood to ensure their survival, as killing and destruction raged all around them. Most of that killing and destruction, visited on the Azerbaijanis, was done by Armenian forces bent on carving out a great Armenian state at the expense of the Muslim population that already resided on that territory.
That is how nations often come about – in adversity, in now or never moments of decision. And nations often are made not fully formed, with much more to be done to ensure their survival and development. It is not a process that can be modelled or systematized. It is the actual chain of historical events that create national consciousness and cohere peoples into nations.
The Azerbaijani nation is still in the course of development and this can be seen in recent events. From 1920 until the late 1980s Azerbaijan’s national development took place within the Soviet Union, which was actually a developer of nations within the socialist state. However, with the collapse of this state Armenians, in seizing Karabakh and the surrounding territories of Azerbaijan, amounting to around 18 per cent of its population, and ethnically cleansing 750,000 Muslims from the occupied territories, again prompted the national development of Azerbaijan. This terrible scar on the nation activated a national development under the Aliyevs, which saw the return of the national territories after the defeat of Armenia in November 2020. This 44 Day war and its results was another stage in Azerbaijan’s national development, again provoked by Armenian aggression and irredentism.