The Eurasian Triangle. Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945

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192 Ë War and Dénouement


Fig. 7.4.Haidar Bammat and Alikhan Kantemir, behind whom stands a portrait of Shigeki Usui, Lau-
sanne, Switzerland, August 1945.


had warned the Balkans of domination by Moscow after the war and predicted the


Allies would solicit Moscow’s participation in annihilating Japan.⁹¹


Although Japan, and particularly its army, never abandoned the possibility of war


against the Soviet Union, that prospect was becoming ever more remote as the Pacic


War turned decisively against it by 1943. Whatever plans Japan may have had in store


for the Caucasus were likely known to Moscow in any event for two reasons. First, some


Caucasian émigré groups had been penetrated by Soviet agents (including “Omeri,”


who in fact was Berishvili). And second, Japan’s diplomatic cipher correspondence


had been broken by Moscow, thanks to K ̄oz ̄o Izumi, a Japanese diplomat turned Soviet


agent stationed in Soa in Bulgaria and Istanbul during the war.⁹²


91 Georges Rivoire (H. Bammat), “La position de la Turquie.”Le mois suisse: Littéraire et politique.
Revue nationale et Européenne(Montreux), no. 52 (1943), 34–37, 45, 49. See also Mamoulia,Les combats
indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 234–35.
92 See Kuromiya and Pepłoński, “Koz ̄o Izumi.” ̄

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