Commanders of the Turkestan Red Army were G. V. Zinov′ev (11 March–22 May 1919), V. S. Raspopov (22–24 May 1919), and M. V. Frunze (24 May–15 June 1919). Its chiefs of staff were A. I. Mitin (acting, 23 March–11 April 1919), V. P. Raspopov (11 April–22 May 1919), and V. S. Lazarevich (24 May–15 June 1919).
TURKISH–ARMENIAN WAR. This conflict between the 30,000-strong army of the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the approximately 50,000-strong forces of the Turkish National Movement that were deployed in eastern Anatolia lasted from 24 September to 2 December 1920. The war was a consequence of Armenia’s disputing, as the Central Powers collapsed at the end of the First World War, the transfer to Turkey, under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) and the Treaty of Batumi (4 June 1918), of territories claimed by Turkey—notably the regions of Kars, Batumi, and Ardahan—the possession of which would have united the Armenian people and given their putative new state access to the sea.
There had already been armed conflict between the two sides in May 1918, prior to the Batumi agreement, but the situation was complicated in late 1918 by the declaration of an independent South-West Caucasian Democratic Republic, under Cihangirzade İbrahim Bey, claiming sovereignty over those areas ceded to the Ottoman Empire in the earlier treaties but evacuated by Turkish forces under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros, and by the occupation of the provinces of Lori and Javakheti and the Borchalo district by the Democratic Republic of Georgia (which resulted in the Georgian–Armenian War). Tensions grew over the following 18 months and broke into open conflict following Armenia’s partial occupation of the Otlu district in September 1920 (in the wake of hopes aroused in Yerevan by the Treaty of Sèvres, 10 August 1920). Turkish forces, commanded by Kazim Karabekir (Karabekir Pasha), reinforced by local Muslim militiamen, drove the Armenians out and pushed on into Armenian territory, prompting the Yerevan government to declare war on Turkey on 24 September 1920. The subsequent fighting was marked by the massacre and forced migration of civilians by the (semi-irregular) armies of both combatants, notably around Kars (which was occupied by the Turks on 30 October 1920) and Alexandropol (occupied by Turkey on 6 November 1920). As Turkish forces crossed the Araxi River, captured the strategic town of Agin, and prepared to advance on Yerevan, the Armenian government (which had been refused military assistance by the Allies and the Georgians) submitted to an armistice on 18 November 1920, and on 2 December 1920 signed the Treaty of Alexandropol, under which the Treaty of Sèvres and its promised Greater (“Wilsonian”) Armenia were renounced and almost all the disputed territories were ceded to Turkey.
Meanwhile, however, on 29 November 1920 the 11th Red Army had begun an invasion of Armenia from Azerbaijan, which quickly resulted in the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, meaning that the treaty was not ratified by the Armenian Republic. Nevertheless, Moscow’s desire to win the support of Turkey meant that the Alexandropol settlement was largely confirmed by the subsequent Treaty of Moscow (16 March 1921) and Treaty of Kars (13 October 1921), which bedevils Turkish–Armenian relations to this day, not least because the terms of those treaties allotted to Turkey lands in which lay two of the spiritual icons of the Armenian people: Mount Ararat and the ancient Armenian capital of Ani (Abnicum).
Turkul, Anton Vasil′evich (11 December 1892–20 August 1957). Colonel (1918), major general (April 1920). A famed commander of the White forces in South Russia (notably units of the Drozdovtsy), A. V. Turkul was born at Tiraspol′, into the nobility of Bessarabia guberniia, and attended school in Odessa (graduating in 1909). He volunteered for military service at the outbreak of the First World War and graduated from an officer training school (1914) to command a battalion of the 19th Infantry Division. He was wounded three times during the course of the war and was much decorated for bravery.
Turkul joined the Whites immediately after the October Revolution and participated in the 800-mile march from Jassy to Novocherkassk in the forces of General M. G. Drozdovskii (December 1917–May 1918). In the Volunteer Army, he participated in the 2nd Kuban (Ice) March, commanded a battalion (May 1918–September 1919), and was wounded on four more occasions. He was subsequently commander of the 1st Officers’ (Drozdovskii) Regiment (September 1919–June 1920) of the Armed Forces of South Russia and then the 3rd Drozdovskii Rifle Division in the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel (August–October 1920), before the evacuation of the Drozdovtsy from Crimea to the camps at Gallipoli.
In emigration, after leaving Turkey, Turkul lived at first in Bulgaria, as commander of the 2nd Officers (Drozdovskii) Rifle Regiment, and with General V. K. Vitkovskii participated in the crushing of the Communist rising in that country in September 1923. He then moved to France, where he was active in ROVS as a proponent of the continuation of the armed struggle against Soviet Russia and founded his own monarchist (and almost proto-fascist) organization, the Russian National Union of Participants in the War. He was expelled from France to Germany in 1938, and the following year, in the wake of the signing of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, went to live in Rome and then Sofia. During the Second World War, he collaborated with the Nazis and in 1945 took part in the formation of the Russian Liberation Army of General A. A. Vlasov in Austria, as commander of the Volunteer Brigade.
Turkul was arrested by the British authorities in Austria in May 1945 and was subsequently imprisoned and periodically interrogated until 1947. (The Allied intelligence services at first believed he was a Soviet agent, but concluded that he was innocently used by Moscow to feed misinformation to the Germans.) Thereafter, he lived in Munich, acting as chairman of the Committee of Russian Non-Returners and editor of the émigré newspaper Dobrovolets (“The Volunteer”). He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte- Geneviève-des-Bois in Paris.
TUVAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC. This polity, with its capital at Khem-Beldyr (formerly, until 1918, Belotsarsk, and subsequently renamed Kyzyl, meaning “Red” in Tuvan), was founded on 14 August 1921, on the territory of the former Russian protectorate of Tuva (also known as Uriankhaiskii krai), following the collapse of White forces in eastern Siberia and Soviet incursions into neighboring Mongolia. Until 1926, it was known as Tannu Tuva (the name adopted for their region, from 1911, by nationalist rebels who sought independence from their Chinese overlords). Its first prime minister was the former Lamaist monk Donduk Kuular of the pro-Bolshevik Tuvan People’s-Revolutionary Party. The Tuvan People’s Republic was nominally independent (although it was only recognized by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Mongolian People’s Republic) but was, in fact, controlled by Moscow. It was formally incorporated into the USSR as the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast′ on 11 October 1944.