ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

The Wars o f the Republic o f Armenia
The Georgians became the young Armenian Republic's
first victim. The origins o f the Georgian-Armenian conflict
go all the way back to the beginning o f the Armenian
immigration in the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C. Wars
and feuds between Georgians and Armenians had broken
out again and again.
A preliminary climax was reached in 1920 when the Armenians
pushed beyond Alaverdi and advanced all the
way to the northern Iori region. If the Georgians had
given in to the Armenian demands, it would have meant
the end o f Georgia . . . the Georgian capital would have
been completely surrounded by "Armenian" territory. The
claims to the Iori region were as extravagant as the claims
to Kars, Erzurum, and Adana, but they were even more
disturbing because they affected a weak neighbor who
was already struggling with a thousand problems as a
newly independent state.
For certain regions along the Iori, the ruling Dashnaks
had at least a small excuse - there were indeed a few
Armenians north o f Tiflis. But ju st like everyplace else
where Moslems had once ruled, the Armenians here were
a minority among majorities. No legitimate claims could
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grow out o f such a situation.
The Armenian army under General Dor did not, however,
even restrict itself to "incorporating" Armenian farms and
villages. It pushed its way directly into areas in which
there were no longer any Armenians at all. Armenian
units advanced right into the precincts o f Tiflis. It was not
until this critical stage o f the war that the Georgians final­
ly managed to rouse themselves to determined resistance
and repel the Armenian invasion.
At any rate, the Armenian advance on Tiflis had opened
the eyes o f the now astonished world public. For the first
time, people realized that the neighbors o f the Armenians
were not dealing with a "persecuted, innocent, unarmed,
pacifist, Christian" nation, but rather with an unfortunate
people in the hands o f a terrorist organization. This organ­
ization, the Dashnaktsutiun, fought indefatigably for
power and land, without regard for the boundaries o f the
areas in which Armenians actually lived. It was un­
doubtedly this same excessiveness which eventually
destroyed all the Greater Armenian dreams - first in east­
ern then in soutern Anatolia, and finally in the Caucasus.