First Republic of Armenia

The First Republic of Armenia, called at the time simply the Republic of Armenia, was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages, living from May 1918 to December 1920 on the high plateau the Russians had held. Born as the Ottoman armies rolled through the Caucasus campaign, it survived its first week because Armenian volunteers stopped the Turks at Sardarabad, Bash-Aparan and Karakilisa in the last days of May. The first winter killed hundreds of thousands of genocide refugees round Sevan from hunger and cold. Mudros opened the roads: Armenia took Kars and Nakhchivan with British guns behind it, fought Georgia over Javakheti, lost the new lands to Muslim risings in the summer of 1919, and held Zangezur against Azerbaijan into 1920. Sèvres in August drew a great Armenia of a hundred thousand square miles on defeated Turkey; Kemal's offensive and the Eleventh Army's arrival erased it, and the republic sovietised on 2 December 1920.