Topic summary
Turkish invasion of Armenia
Ankara Government- 9th Caucasian Division
- 11th Division
- 12th Caucasian Division
- Attached militia auxilaries
- Total: ~25,500 men
- • 20,495 regular troops
- • 3,500–4,000 tribal auxiliaries
- • 1,500 militia
- 1,100+ soldiers killed
- 3,000+ prisoners
The Turkish invasion of Armenia, also known as the Turkish–Armenian War and known in Turkey as the Eastern Front (Turkish: Doğu cephesi) of the Turkish War of Independence, was a conflict fought between the recently established First Republic of Armenia and the Turkish National Movement, following the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The treaty transferred vast portions of eastern Anatolia from the Ottoman Empire to Armenia, including the towns of Trabzon, Erzurum and Van. While delegates of the Ottoman government reluctantly signed the treaty following their defeat in World War I, members of the Ottoman parliament refused to ratify it. The treaty greatly angered the Turkish Nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who refused to recognize it. In September 1920, remnants of the Ottoman Army's XV Corps under the command of Kâzım Karabekir, attacked Western Armenia with orders from the Ankara Government to "eliminate Armenia physically and politically".
One estimate places the number of Armenians massacred by the Turkish army during the invasion at 100,000—this is evident in the marked decline (−25.1%) of the population of modern-day Armenia from 961,677 in 1919 to 720,000 in 1920. The Turkish military victory was followed by the Soviet invasion of Armenia and the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Turkish invasion and occupation had drastic humanitarian impacts to Armenia's population, triggering condemnation from German and American officials. According to several historians, only Soviet intervention prevented the completion of the Armenian genocide.
The hostilities ended with the Treaty of Alexandropol and the effective partition of Armenia between Kemalist Turkey and the Soviet Union: most of Western Armenia was transferred to Turkey and Eastern Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Armenian Socialist Republic. This status was solidified by the annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres, and the ratification of the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921) and Treaty of Kars (October 1921) between Soviet Russia and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.