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

Reconquest Ë 91

the Mountaineer Republic, riven by internal strife, was overrun by Denikin’s Volun-

teer Army. Those who claimed to represent the government moved to Tiis, where they

set up an émigré government (Medzlis). From Tiis, Bammat and others appealed to

European socialists and foreign countries for assistance.⁷⁵In June 1920, for example,

Bammat, “an unctuous gentleman of a sophistication remarkable in a representative

of Caucasian mountain tribes,” approached a British representative in Tiis for help.⁷⁶

But little or no help came from anywhere, including the British forces, which appealed

to the peoples of the Northern Caucasus to accept Denikin’s forces in the ght against

the Bolsheviks. Insurgency thus became the order of the day in that area, and the sit-

uation became so complex that it was dicult for anyone to assess.⁷⁷

The Soviet Red Army, however, succeeded in mobilizing the dissatised moun-

taineers to defeat the Volunteer Army, promising to honor the independence of the

Mountaineer Republic.⁷⁸Ultimately, like the peasants in Russia, many mountaineers

of the Caucasus may have regarded the Bolsheviks as the lesser evil, because the power

of Denikin and his White forces meant the restoration of the old regime, whereas Bol-

shevism promised its destruction. Moscow thus eectively divided the anti-Bolshevik

forces. The Volunteer Army’s defeat in spring 1920 by the Red Army did not, how-

ever, spell freedom. The Northern Caucasus virtually lost its independence with the

Bolshevik conquest. Only on the verge of its defeat did the White Army recognize the

Mountaineer Republic. It came too late.⁷⁹

Even after the Bolsheviks conquered Northern Caucasus and occupied Azerbai-

jan at the end of April 1920 (see p. 94), the mountaineers of the Caucasus did not

cease ghting. In September 1920, Georgia helped the insurrection of Colonel Kait-

maz Alikhanov in Dagestan and the military operations of Muhammad Said Shamil

(grandson of Imam Shamil) in Dagestan and Chechnia. Georgians, Azeris, and North-

ern Caucasians worked together to explore ways to ensure their political survival. All

options required outside military assistance. Working with the Georgians, the French

military mission in the Caucasus devised a grand plan of spreading insurrections to

other parts of the Caucasus and cutting links between Russia and the Southern Cauca-

sus along the Baku-Petrovsk (Makhachkala) line, where mountains soar sharply from

the Caspian shorelines. Weapons and ammunition were to be supplied by France via

75 SeeSoiuz ob”edinennykh gortsev, 321–327, 407–409.
76 See a memoir by Sir Harry Luke,Cities and Men: An Autobiography, vol. 2 (London: Georey Bles,
1953), 155. Luke added that “Bamakov” (Bammat) did not look to him as “the type to be a leader of
such a venture [military operations against the Bolsheviks].”
77 See Marshall,The Caucasus under Soviet Rule, 118–32.
78 Tiis did send a detachment of troops, under General Leo Kereselidze, to the Northern Caucasus
in August 1919 to ght the Denikin forces. See Leo Kereselidze, “Curriculum Vitae.”tanamemamule
(Tbilisi), 2007, No. 3(24), 16. The detachment was later recalled in the spring of 1920 when Tiis, with
the Azerbaijan government, sought to reach an agreement with Moscow.
79 See Bammat, “The Caucasus and the Russian Revolution,” 20–21.