This murder of the leaders of Azerbaïjan, who carried on the war against the invaders of their country, served the Bolshevist cause, but aroused much resentment among the Moslems of Azerbaïjan and Georgia, who were exasperated by the Bolshevists’ frightful tyranny and now hated Bolshevism as much as they had formerly hated Tsardom.
The delegation of Azerbaïjan handed to the Spa Conference a note in which they drew its attention to the condition of their country. On the other hand, the members of the former Cabinet made energetic efforts to rid their country of the Bolshevist invasion. For this purpose they sent delegates to Daghestan and Northern Caucasus to plan a common resistance, as Daghestan, the tribes of the mountains of Northern Caucasus, and Azerbaïjan were on friendly terms and shared the same views. By this time a small part of the Red armies still occupied the Baku area, whence the Bolshevists sent reinforcements to the detachments fighting in Persia.
About the same time it was announced that Enver Pasha had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Bolshevist forces advancing towards India, and the Bolshevist troops in Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkistan had been put under his command. In this way the Soviets probably sought to compel England to make peace with Russia at once.
At Tabriz a separatist movement was beginning to make itself felt with a view to bringing about the union of Persian Azerbaïjan, of which this town is the centre, with the Republic of Azerbaïjan, the capital of which is Baku.
All this Bolshevist activity naturally caused much anxiety among those who closely watched the development of Eastern events, for Soviet Russia in another way and with different aims merely carried on the work of Russian imperialism both in order to hold Great Britain in check in the East and to give the whole world the benefit of the Soviet paradise. As the Allied policy with regard to Turkey had roused the whole of Islam, the union of the Bolshevist elements and the Turkish Nationalists seemed inevitable when the question of the future fate of Caucasus should be settled. It was only too much to be feared, after what had just taken place in Azerbaïjan, that Soviet Russia, feeling it necessary to get the start of the Turkish Nationalists, would try to take possession of Georgia now she held Azerbaïjan, as a guarantee both against the hostility of England and against the opposition that might sooner or later arise on the Turkish side. It then appeared that the Turkish Nationalists had come to a merely provisional agreement with the Russian Bolshevists to disengage themselves on the Russian side, and secure their help against Europe, which threatened Turkey; and that, on the contrary, the Angora Government, some members of which are Chechens and Ossetes, when brought face to face with the old historical necessities, would be one day compelled to resort to the old policy of defending the Moslem world against the Slavonic world. For notwithstanding the inherent incompatibility between the minds of these two peoples, the Allied policy, through its blunders, had achieved the paradoxical result of making a Russo-Turkish alliance temporarily possible, and to bring together the Moslems—so unresponsive as a rule to the idle verbiage and subversive tendencies of revolutionists—and the Bolshevist Slavs, who were still their political enemies. And so it turned out that the attitude assumed by the various European Powers in regard to the Turkish problem and the solution that was to eventuate were prominent factors in the future relations between each of those Powers and Asia. Now the Turks, who alone are able to bring about an understanding between the Moslems of Caucasus and those of Asia, are also the only people who can bring about a lasting peace in that part of the confines of Europe and Asia, and settle the relations between those Moslem populations and the West.
Footnote:
[44] Since the French edition of this book was published, Georgia was recognised, de jure, by the Supreme Council in January, 1921.