How the collapse of empires ignited a brutal two-year war in the South Caucasus
Between 1918 and 1920, the power vacuum left by the Russian Revolution and the Ottoman collapse triggered a fierce conflict between the newly formed Armenian and Azerbaijani republics. Driven by competing territorial claims and ethnic tensions, the war reshaped the region's demographics through massacres and forced displacements before Soviet intervention.
The conflict emerged as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the Republic of Armenia sought to define their borders in the South Caucasus. Both nations supported local militias to secure disputed territories, particularly in Karabakh, Zangezur, and Nakhichevan. This period was marked by extreme violence, including the March Days in 1918, where up to 12,000 Azerbaijanis died, and the September Days, which saw between 10,000 and 20,000 Armenians killed in Baku. These events were not isolated; they were part of a broader cycle of ethnic cleansing that fundamentally altered the region's population distribution.
International involvement proved ineffective at curbing the violence. British forces, led by figures like General W. Thomson, attempted to manage the region after the Armistice of Mudros in October 1918. They appointed Khosrov bey Sultanov as governor-general of Karabakh, a move that exacerbated tensions. Despite attempts to resolve disputes at the Paris Peace Conference, the diplomatic process failed to provide a lasting solution. By 1920, the situation had deteriorated into a series of botched uprisings and border skirmishes, including the massacre of Armenians in Shusha following a failed revolt in March 1920.
The war concluded not through local diplomacy, but through the overwhelming force of the Soviet 11th Army. By late 1920, both Azerbaijan and Armenia had been sovietized. The Bolsheviks imposed a new administrative structure, with the Kavbiuro, chaired by Joseph Stalin, deciding in July 1921 that the mountainous part of Karabakh would remain under Azerbaijani jurisdiction. This decision led to the 1923 creation of the Nagorny Karabakh Autonomous Region. Final stability was eventually codified in the 1921 Treaty of Kars, which settled borders between the Soviet republics and Turkey, effectively ending the chaotic transition that had defined the post-World War I era in the Caucasus.
