The British administration of Batum was a control of the former Batum oblast by the British Empire through a military government from 1918 to 1920. In aftermath of the Caucasus campaign of the First World War, the British troops were deployed to the Caucasus to supervise the Ottoman and German withdrawal and supply the anti-Bolsheviks forces in the Russian Civil War. The British played the dominant role among the Allies in the Caucasus per the Anglo-French Convention of 1917. The strategically important province of Batum became the only Transcaucasian province to be directly administrated by the British Empire. Its plans towards Batum varied throughout the military occupation, with some suggestions to turn Batum into the Danzig-style free city under the protection of the League of Nations. However, this led to the strong protests by the newly established Democratic Republic of Georgia, which claimed the ownership over the territory. Although the Allies declared the Free City of Batum in April 1920, the Soviet invasion of Azerbaijan and Anzali Operation raised questions among the British officials whether they would be able to defend the province while the British forces were already overstretched across the globe. Moreover, the Anglo-Soviet trade negotiations in 1920 shifted the British strategy of engaging with Bolsheviks from military intervention to the economic dealings, while the Soviets signed the treaty with Georgia in May 1920, recognizing its independence in exchange for the foreign troops hostile to Russia leaving all Georgian territories. In July 1920, the British withdrew from Batum and handed its control to the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
History Background Former Batum oblast of the Russian Empire changed hands several times after the October Revolution and the collapse of the central authority in Russia. The province, located at the frontlines of the Caucasus campaign of the First World War, was initially controlled by the Transcaucasian Federation which emerged after the Russian Revolution. However, the peace treaty between the Soviet Russia and Central Powers signed on 3 March at Brest-Litovsk envisioned the transfer of three provinces of Russian Transcaucasia — including Batum — to the Ottomans. The Transcaucasian Federation refused to observe this treaty, which led to the Ottomans renewing their offensive in late March 1918 and capturing Batum on 1 April. However, the Ottomans did not stop, and they proceeded to continue their push towards the towns of Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki. Meanwhile, the growing disagreements within the Transcaucasian Federation led to its collapse on 26 May 1918, when Georgia declared its independence, seeking an alliance with the German Empire which was not content with granting too much leeway to its Ottoman ally in the Caucasus. Although the German support helped to secure the Georgian independence, the peace treaty signed between Georgia and the Ottoman Empire on 4 June 1918 at Batum still provided that the province would remain under the Ottoman control.
The Ottoman rule would be short-lived. The defeat of the Central Powers in the First World War meant that the Ottoman and German troops would have to withdraw from the South Caucasus. Instead, the British troops were deployed to the region to supervise their withdrawal. The Allies also agreed on intervention into the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks, and according to the treaty signed between the United Kingdom and France on 23 December 1917, the Caucasus was designated as the British "sphere of activity". British deployment British officers arrived to the port city of Batum on 4 and 12 December 1918, while the British ships dispatched first round of British troops and the head of the British mission General William Montgomerie Thomson on 15 December. By this point, 40,000 Ottoman troops had left the province but there were 12,000 of them still remaining. The Georgian government, hoping for cooperation with the Allies, agreed to the deployment of the British troops to Tiflis on 24 December 1918. In a meeting with the British and American representatives in Batum, Georgian parliamentary deputy Diomid Topuridze and General Aleksandr Gedevanishvili expressed their desire to support the Allied efforts against the Bolsheviks. The Britain first established control over Batum and it served as a disembarkation point for the British troops to spread out across Georgia. The British also met with the Mayor of Batum, who welcomed them and lamented the decline of the city under the Ottoman occupation.
Batum would become the only province to be administrated directly by the British authorities under the Military Governor James Cooke-Collis. This could be attributed to the several factors: the port was strategically important, as it served as a "key to the Caucasus". Also, its ownership was highly contested between various parties and the Baku oil flowed through the pipeline to the port of Batum. The British troops could also be swiftly withdrawn if necessary from the port. Similarly to Riga, the British established the national council in Batum under the Military Governor James Cooke-Collis. It was composed of the representatives of different nationalities in the province. The body was called Council for the Administration of Batoum and its Region and was officially inaugurated in late December. It included two Russians, two Georgians and one Greek. Prilidian Maslov, Russian Constitutional Democrat, was appointed as the head of the council, which was protested by the Georgian representatives. On 30 December, the Ottoman administration of the city handed formal power to the council. The British military authorities and the council exercised the dual authority.
The British military authority and the Batum city duma requisitioned 27 buildings in the city by mid-January of 1919 for the placement of the council and the British troops, which occasionally drew protests. The council reorganized the sewage system in the city, as the city fell into the unsanitary condition during the Ottoman occupation and typhus ravaged across Batum. The council would forward the requests for requisitioning the buildings, material, and supplies to the military authorities, but the council itself was not entitled to carry out these measures. Eventually, the council was disbanded by the military authorities on 15-16 April 1919. The British took over its functions, such as the police authority and nearly all aspects of the governance. They would issue proclamations in English, Russian, Georgian, Ottoman Turkish, and Armenian languages. For example, the British ordered the registration of all motor cars in the Batum city and regulated the selling of the alcohol. Some of the measures enacted by the British military authorities to maintain law and order were draconian, reminiscent of other post-war occupations. The violation of the British regulations would result in being tried by court-martial under the military law if the wrongdoing caused an injury or death. In some cases the British set the fixed prices to prevent speculation. British withdrawal Throughout the British presence, the British policymakers debated the issue of the Transcaucasus. Some perceived the Transcaucasus as the outfield of the Great Game, while others were worried about the overstretching of the Empirial forces and were more concerned about more traditional British spheres of influence amidst the instability in Ireland, Egypt, India, Afghainstan and Turkey. Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Henry Wilson, was one of the principal opponents of the Transcaucasian policy. Because of this, the British government ordered the British withdrawal from the Caucasus on 3 July 1919. However, George Milne, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Black Sea, raised questions about the implications of the withdrawal from Batum, arguing for the continued British presence to maintain order until the fate of the province would be decided at the Paris Peace Conference. His position was shared by George Curzon, British Foreign Secretary, who argued for maintaininig a small garrison in Batum. The Foreign Office argued that the British withdrawal would cause the port to become an object of strife between Georgia and the Denikin's forces, while Azerbaijan and Armenia could also attempt to claim the province, which would destabilize the region. Curzon saw Batum as a prestigious base which could be of great use for the Britain to influence whole Middle East, while the withdrawal could cause instability which would negatively impact the British interests in the Middle East and possibly also India. Henry Wilson and the War Office, on the other hand, argued that small garrison would not be able to defend against any attack and that the British forces were spread thin.
By September 1919, the British evacuated the Caucasus except Batum, which the British cabinet decided to keep to prevent the scramble for the port and to shift the focus of all parties on fighting Bolsheviks instead. Wilson also agreed to maintain the troops for the short amount of time. However, this compromise would be challenged by the defeat of the Denikin's troops in the Northern Caucasus in January 1920, which led to the meeting of the Supreme Council of Allied Powers over their future policy in the Caucasus. They decided that they would sent material aid to the Transcaucasian republics against the Bolsheviks, but no additional troops. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was also convinced that the Bolsheviks would not threaten Mesopotamia and the British India, despite the attempts by Curzon to change his opinion. Curzon and the Foreign Office were still trying to maintain the British presence in Batum, which by this time amounted to 3,000 troops. On 14 January, the British cabinet ordered to withdraw from Batum when there would be appropriate "military grounds", but this led to disagreements over the interpretation.