Treaty of Batum

Treaty of Batum was signed in Batum between the Ottoman Empire and 3 Trans-caucasus states — First Republic of Armenia, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Democratic Republic of Georgia on June 4, 1918. It was the first treaty of the First Republic of Armenia. It consisted of 14 articles.

Background
On December 5, 1917, the armistice of Erzincan was signed between the Russians and Ottomans in Erzincan. It ended the armed conflicts between Russia and Ottoman Empire in the Persian Campaign and Caucasus Campaign of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On March 3, 1918, the armistice of Erzincan followed up with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk marking Russia's exit from World War I. Between March 14 - April 1918 the Trabzon peace conference held between the Ottoman Empire and the delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet (Transcaucasian Sejm). Enver Pasha offered to surrender all ambitions in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the Ottoman reacquisition of the east Anatolian provinces at Brest-Litovsk at the end of the negotiations. On April 5, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a basis for more negotiations and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position. The mood prevailing in Tiflis was very different. The Armenians pressured the Republic to refuse. They acknowledged the existence of a state of war between themselves and the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities resumed and the Ottoman troops overran new lands to the east, reaching the pre-war borders.

Treaty
On May 11, a new peace conference opened at Batum. At this conference Ottomans extended their demands to include Tiflis as well as Alexandropol and Echmiadzin; they also wanted a railroad to be built to connect Kars and Julfa with Baku. The new Armenian state, through which this transport corridor would run, was to give free right of passage. The Armenian and Georgian members of the Republic’s delegation began to stall. Beginning on May 21, the Ottoman army moved ahead once again into areas of Russian Armenia that had not been under the sultan’s control since the seventeenth century. The conflict led to the Battle of Sardarapat (May 21–29), the Battle of Kara Killisse (1918) (May 24–28), and the Battle of Bash Abaran (May 21–24).

The treaty was signed while the Third Army held positions 7 kilometers from Yerevan and only 10 kilometers from Echmiadzin. The treaty needed to be examined and confirmed by the Central Powers. Fifteen days after the treaty, delegates from Armenia were asked to come to Constantinople. In the surrendered territories the majority of the 1,250,000 pre-war inhabitants had been Armenians, with more than 400,000 in the ceded sector of Yerevan province alone.

Aftermath
General Andranik had refused to accept the Treaty of Batum. Andranik continued resistance with the intention of declaring a new Armenian state to be called the Republic of Mountainous Armenia. During 1918, Andranik's activities were concentrated at the Karabakh-Zanghezur, the link between the Ottoman Empire and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.

Signatures
Ottoman side: Armenian side: Azerbaijanian side: Georgian side:
 * Halil Menteshe - Minister of Justice.
 * Wehib Pasha - commander of the Third Army during the Caucasus Campaign.
 * Avetis Aharonyan - Chairman of the Armenian National Council.
 * Alexander Khatisyan - Minister of Foreign Affairs.
 * M. Babachanian.
 * Ghorghanian.
 * Mammad Amin Rasulzade - President of Azerbaijani National Council.
 * Mammad Hasan Hajinski - Minister of Foreign Affairs.
 * Akaki Chkhenkeli - Foreign Minister.