Description

This extremely rare, large format, separately issued map depicts the historical region of Cilicia, which in late Ottoman times approximated the territory of the Adana Vilayet, and today roughly comprises Turkish provinces of Adana, Mersin, Osamniye and Hatay.  The map appeared in late 1918, in the immediate wake of World War I, when the political fate of Cilicia was an open question.  Cilicia had special significance to the Armenian people, as during the medieval times, it was home to the last independent Armenian state.  The map was made by the leading Armenian nationalist intellectual Karapet J. Basmadjian to advance the then credible possibility that Cilicia could become an Armenian state under French protection.

Predicated upon the most recent scientific surveys, the map accurately expresses the incredibly rugged topography of a great swathe of south-central Anatolia, extending from ‘Konia’ (Konya) and ‘Adalia’ (Anatalya), in the west, over to ‘Haleb’ (Aleppo, Syria) and Euphrates Valley in the east, with the map centred upon Cilicia’s main city, Adana.  While the map features toponymy mostly in French, the title is translated into Armenian, while the most important cities, often home to large Armenian populations, are likewise translated.  The Taurus Mountains rise steeply to the north, while the Amanus chain separates Anatolia from Syria.   Of note, the Baghdad Railway, the ambitious Ottoman-German project to connect Istanbul to the heart of Iraq, is shown to run across the Taurus and along the coastal plain past Adana, before rising up over the Amanus to Aleppo and beyond.  By late 1918, the railway was nearly completed in the region, save for two small, but stubborn, gaps in the mountains.  While the partially completed line dramatically improved the Ottoman-German logistical abilities in the Middle East, the fact the it was not finished in time hindered their martial ambitions.

The map is a clever piece of cartographic propaganda, in that it shows Cilicia to be a distinct entity with a very clear Armenian identity.  It was a key part of Basmadjian’s grander strategy to convince the Entente Powers in the wake of World War I to advance Armenians national claims, both in Eastern Anatolia (the traditional Armenian heartland) and Cilicia.

In good part due to the lobbing of Basmadjian and his associates, the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) formally designated Cilicia as a French mandate, separating it from the Turkish territories. Yet the future of Cilicia, which was occupied by an alliance of French military and Armenian militia forces, remained in flux.  While France was naturally inclined to support the national claims of their fellow Christians, who had suffered so horrendously during the Armenian Genocide, cleaving Cilicia from the Turkish realm would prove more difficult than originally anticipated.  As events turned out, Turkish nationalist forces under Mustafa Kemal (later ‘Atatürk’) would invade Cilicia, conquering the region in 1921.  This caused France to abandon its support for the Armenian cause in Cilicia, and the region was integrated into the new Republic of Turkey, while most of what remained of its ancient Armenian communities were forced into exile.

The present map is the finest and important cartographic artefact of the brief, but very intense flowering of Armenian nationalism in Cilicia.  As such, it is one of the more elaborate of the many invitations to the ‘paths not taken’ in the wake of the Great War.

 

A Note on Rarity

The present map is extremely rare.  This is not surprising at it is essentially an unusually large broadside printed on fragile paper, that was sold for ‘5 Francs’ (see lower left corner of the map) to raise funds in France for the Armenian national cause.  It was an ephemeral piece intended for the moment, with a very low survival rate.  Considering this, the present example is preserved in remarkably fine condition.

We can trace only 4 institutional examples, held by Bibliothèque nationale de France (2 examples); the Bibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin; and the University of California – Berkeley.  Moreover, we are not aware of any other examples as having appeared on the market.

 

Karapet Basmadjian: Intellectual Advocate for an Independent Armenia

The author of the present map, Karapet J. Basmadjian (1864 – 1942), was a leading Armenian exile, intellectual and activist for the cause of his people.  It should be noted that his biography is sometimes difficult to research in Western European languages, as his name had been transliterated from Armenian into Latin script in a bewildering variety of ways, such that he is often alternatively known as ‘Garabed Basmadjian’, ‘K.Y. Basmadjian’, ‘K.Y. Bamachian’, and even ‘Bamachean’.

Basmadjian was long an outspoken advocate of Armenian independence and as a result found himself no longer welcome in either Ottoman or Russian controlled lands; he was based in Paris for most of his life.

He was a historian, archeologist and numismatist of estimable reputation, with most of his works focusing on research that revived and confirmed the significance of the historical Armenian kingdoms and their origins.  These include Inscriptions cunéiformes vanniques de Manazgert (Venice, 1897); Lewon V. verjin T‘agawor Hayots‘ (Paris, 1908), a work on King Leo V, the last ruler of the Cilician Kingdom; Les Inscriptions arméniennes d‘Ani, de Bagnaïr et de Marmachên (Paris, 1931); and Manuel de numismatique orientale de l’antiquité et du moyen age (Paris, 1932-6), amongst others.

Even more prominent than his scholarly works, however, were his patriotic tracts and maps that justified the reestablishment of an independent Armenian state with ample territory, predicated upon its historical grandeur.  His defining text in this regard was Le Droit arménien depuis l‘origine jusqu‘à nos jours, mémoire présenté au congrès international d‘histoire comparée (Paris, 1900).

During World War I, as the notion of an independent Armenia emerged as a realistic possibility, Basmadjian was one of the protagonists of the Paris-based group of Armenian intellectuals lobbying the Western powers to back their cause.  In addition to the present map, he produced two other cartographic works that supported historical Armenian claims, Carte de l’Arménie ancienne (Paris, 1916) and Arménie, revendications arméniennes dressée par K. J. Basmadjian (Paris, 1919), a map depicting the maximal territorial claims of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia (1918-20).  Even long after the collapse of the First Republic, Basmadjian worked tirelessly to reassert Armenian self-determination.

 

The Armenian Revival in Cilicia and the Bigger Picture  

The Armenian Civilization is one of the great cultures of the Near East, and it occupied a variety of different territories during its long history.  At its height, the ancient Kingdom of Armenia Major, which existed from 321 to 428 AD, controlled a vast swath of territory from the Levant to the Caspian Sea.  Following that time, the Armenian territory was invaded and dissected into different parts.  The independent Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia existed from 884 to 1045 in what is now modern day Armenia and Eastern Anatolia.

From 1080 to 1375, the Armenian Principality (from 1198, raided to a ‘Kingdom’) of Cilicia, sometimes referred to as ‘New Armenia’, flourished in what is now the southeastern coastal region of Anatolia.  The country became immensely wealthy, as the nexus of the Silk Road and Mediterranean trade.  However, the kingdom fell in 1375, causing most its leadership to go into the diaspora, while the remaining Armenians continued to live under varying degrees of repression.

From 1375 to 1918, the Armenian civilization was entirely occupied by foreign powers.  In the generations up to World War I, the majority of the traditional Armenian territories were under Turkish domination, as ‘Ottoman Armenia’, while the northeastern areas were under the rule of Russia, so-called ‘Russian Armenia’.

In the late 19^th Century the Ottoman repression of the Armenians become more orchestrated, and in Cilicia Turkish-Armenian tensions erupted into the Adana Massacre (April 1909), whereby 20-30,000 Armenians were killed, and their quarter of the city torched.  During this same period, Paris became the most important intellectual centre of the Armenian diaspora, home to key figures such as Karapet Basmadjian.

During World War I, Cilicia was considered to be of prime strategic importance as it hosted a key stretch of the partially completed Baghdad Railway, the Ottoman-German transport lifeline from Istanbul to the Middle East.  Importantly, by October 1918, the Baghdad Railway was completed through all of Anatolia, save for two gaps; the German engineers could not complete the passages across the Taurus Mountains and the Amanus (Nur) Mountains, the latter being in Hatay.  Moreover, the Adana area represented the only place where the Baghdad Railway ran near the coast, making it vulnerable to attack by Britain’s Royal Navy (the line was only 13 miles for the sea at the nearest point!).

The British mounted espionage missions in the Adana area; British-controlled Cyprus proved an ideal base for monitoring the Ottoman coasts, and throughout the war the Royal Navy sent reconnaissance craft (and allegedly small landing parties of spies) to Cilicia.  The British were especially interested in the progress and security of the Baghdad Railway, which despite the fact that it remained unfinished, allowed the Ottoman-German side to rush troops from Istanbul to the Mesopotamian Front in only 21 days (instead of an odyssey that formerly took three months!).  The Royal Navy considered landing a large invasion force near Adana to sever the railway, or to mount sabotage missions against the engineering works building the line across the Taurus.  While some ‘low grade’ interference may have occurred, the British, who feared spreading themselves too thin, never mounted such an operation in the end.

Meanwhile, the Sykes–Picot Agreement (January 3, 1916), a secret Anglo-French accord to divide up the Ottoman Empire in the event that Entente side won the war, called for Cilicia to be given to France as a zone of military occupation and political influence.

Returning to the fate of the Armenians, World War I and its immediate aftermath marked a period of unparalleled tragedy.  As the ailing Ottoman Empire began to collapse under the weight of the conflict, the Turkish leadership targeted the Armenian people as a scapegoat for their own frustrations.  Beginning in 1915, and lasting until 1923, the Turkish imperial and post-imperial regimes murdered over 1.5 Armenians in what has become known as the Armenian Genocide.

However, out of the tragedy and chaos, there appeared, albeit fleetingly, rays of hope that Armenia could regain its independence after almost 550 years.  By late 1917, the Ottoman Empire was in a state of collapse, unable to control even its core territories in Anatolia.  Meanwhile, the October Revolution in Russia caused the fall of the Czarist Regime, and as the Bolsheviks were preoccupied with gaining control over Russia, a power vacuum developed in the Armenian Highlands.

The Armenian independence movement on the ground was led by the Armenian Revolutionary Front (ARF or Dashnaktsutyun), which managed to gain control over most of the former Russian Armenia by the early months of 1918.  The ARF‘s civilian political command, the Armenian Council, declared the creation of the (First) Republic of Armenia in Yerevan on May 28, 1918.  For the very first time since 1375, Armenians governed their own sovereign state.  While the new nation only controlled 70,000 square kilometres of territory, a small fraction of the historical Armenian lands, it was hoped that this would be the basis for further territorial gains in the period following World War I.

Turning to events in the south, in what became known as the Franco-Turkish War, or the Cilicia Campaign (December 1918 – October 1921), France formed an army of survivors of the Armenian Genocide into the French Armenian Legion, with the objective of conquering Cilicia and presumably making it into an Armenian client state of France.  The Franco-Armenian force, with the backing of the Royal Navy, landed 15,000 men at Mersin on November 7, 1918, and quickly took Adana, but encountered stiff Turkish resistance in the mountains beyond.  With great difficulty they managed to expand their zone of control as far as Urfa, deep into the interior to the east.

It was believed that the fate of Armenia’s territorial claims would be decided by the Western powers at a treaty conference, likely to be convened at some point in 1920.  The Armenian exile leaders, including Karapet Basmadjian, prepared numerous well-researched newspaper articles, essays and pamphlets, along with a handful of maps, that advanced the Armenian position, all geared towards convincing the Western powers to grant the most favourable possible terms to Armenia, with the present map focusing upon the their ambitions in Cilicia.

The Armenian public relations campaign proved to be a resounding success.  At the long-awaited conference, which manifested itself as the Treaty of Sèvres (August 10, 1920), Armenia was awarded 174,000 square kilometres of territory, expanding it holdings westward to include Lake Van, Erzerum and a lengthy coastline along the Black Sea, including the key port of Trabzon.  While falling far short of Armenia’s maximal claims, it was more than enough territory to form the basis of viable nation.   The support of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson caused the proposed treaty state to be referred to as ‘Wilsonian Armenia’.

Meanwhile, France’s control of Cilicia maintained the hope that the Armenian realm could one day extend down to the Mediterranean, creating a grand territory of vast resources and an ideal strategic location, so reviving Armenia’s ancient glory.

Unfortunately for the Armenians, the dream was not to be, as the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres were never realized.  The First Armenian Republic was plagued by internal problems and external enemies, the consequences of living in a ‘rough neighborhood’.  The Turks, led by Mustafa Kemal (later ‘Atatürk’), managed to regroup from their earlier implosion, regaining control of eastern Anatolia, including the Armenian-designated lands extending from Lake Van up to Trabzon.  Meanwhile, the Soviet Red Army successfully invaded the territory of the Republic.  Thus, the first independent Armenian nation since 1375 lasted barely 2 years.  The Soviets formally incorporated the northeastern Armenian lands into the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922.

Returning to the fate of Cilicia, Atatürk’s prime concern was driving Greece out of Western Anatolia, while France hoped to force him to divide his stretched armies between the west and the south.  However, in 1919, the Greek side faltered, leaving the French-Armenian forces in Cilicia to face strong Turkish opposition.

At the brutal 22-day long Battle of Marash (January 21 – February 13, 1920), the Franco-Armenian side was throttled, forcing it into a gradual retreat towards the Adana region.  In the fall of 1921, France resolved to abandon its Armenian allies and any hope of controlling Cilicia.  It decided to make peace with Ataturk, seeing him as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, which was viewed as the ultimate threat to French (and all Western) interests in the Middle East, signing the Armistice of Mudanya (October 14, 1921) to this effect.  The Adana region, and all of Cilicia was incorporated into the new Republic of Turkey in 1923.

The Armenian people would have to wait another 69 years, until 1991, to regain their own independent state (on roughly the same territory as held by the First Republic).

References: Bibliothèque nationale de France (2 examples), GE C-4679 and GED-7548; Bibliothek der Freien Universität Berlin: EW 290 / Rairissima 26; University of California – Berkeley: G7430 1918 .B3; OCLC: 918071875, 494839985; Adrien Jean Quentin BEUCHOT, Bibliographie de la France (Paris, 1920), p. 136; Journal asiatique, Band 194 (Paris, 1919), p. 535; Bedros A. TEKEYAN, Bibliography of Armenia (2006), p. 36; Bedros A. TEKEYAN, Bibliographie de la Cilicie Armenienne (2001), p. 114.