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95 
 
region with the military formations organized by Ordzhonikidze
257
, the Ottomans 
were organizing a Caucasian Army or the ‘Army of Islam’.
258
 Nuri Paşa, the 
brother of the Enver Paşa, was appointed commander of this new Army and 
stationed in Gence. Moreover, a Circassian Ottoman, Yusuf İzzet Paşa who was 
one of the most prominent members of the North Caucasian Association, was 
appointed both military and political representative of the Ottoman government to 
the North Caucasian Republic.
259
 
 
B-Bicherakhov and the British Forces: 
In the meantime, an important new factor, the Allied Powers, especially the 
British, entered into events. The rapprochement between the Bolsheviks and the 
Germans, and the advance of Turkish troops towards the Caucasus, forced the 
allied governments to establish contact with anti-Bolshevik elements in the 
Caucasus. The British had tried to be influential by using a native actor: an ex-
Tsarist officer Colonel Lazar Bicherakhov. 
On 14 January 1918, Major-General Dunsterville was appointed Chief of 
the British Mission to the Caucasus and British representative at Tiflis. His sphere 
of operation was to extend over all Russian and Turkish territory, south of the main 
chain of the Caucasus over with the Transcaucasian Commissariat claimed 
                                                 
257
 Blank, “Soviet North Caucasus,” 13-14. 
258
 For a detailed information on the composition and the structure of the Army of Islam see İ. 
Berkuk, “15. Fırkanın Harekâtı”, 7 and Allen and Muratoff, p.468. 
259
 In addition to Yusuf İzzet Paşa, some other Circassian officers of the Ottoman Army, as such 
İsmail Berkuk (or Berkok), also send to the region with an official duty of establishing North 
Caucasian Army. In addition to the above-mentioned article of Berkuk see Kaymakam Mehmed 
Tevfik [Bıyıklıoğlu], 1927. “Şimalî Kafkas Muharebeleri,” Askerî Mecmua, (İstanbul), 64: 129-157. 
E. Kur. Yb. Süleyman İzzet, October 1936. “Büyük Harpte (1334-1918) 15. Piyade Tümeninin 
Azerbaycan ve Şimali Kafkasya’daki Hareket ve Muharebeleri,” 103 Sayılı Askerî Mecmua’nın 

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control.
260
 Dunsterville took the command of a spearhead force of some 12 officers, 
41 men, and 41 Fords that left Baghdad on 27 January 1918
261
 and arrived in 
Enzeli, the port city at the south of Caspian Sea, on 17 February 1918. There, he 
met with Bicherakhov and decided to co-operate with him to ease his introduction 
to the Caucasus, primarily Baku. As a result, on 5 July, Bicherakhov landed with 
his Cossacks at Alyat, a point some 40 miles south of Baku.
262
 Because of the 
presence of the Turkish Army, he changed his plan and instead heading towards 
Baku, turned northward towards Derbent, the gate to the North Caucasus. He 
captured the city on 12 August and was stationed in Petrovsk by the beginning of 
September. Meanwhile, although Dunsterville, with an incomplete brigade, had 
arrived in Baku he decided in desperation that further efforts to hold Baku would 
be a waste of time and of British lives. He left the city before the Turkish forces 
captured it. Thus, by September 1918, Bicherakhov became the only remaining 
British foothold in the region.
263
 
 
This internationalization of the Caucasus made the North Caucasus 
uncontrollable. The initiators of the Congresses and the Alliance were diffused and 
the leading cadre of the newly established Republic was far from controlling the 
region. Moreover they had to move outside the territory of the Republic and they 
                                                                                                                                        
Tarih Kısmı, (İstanbul), 44. Halil Bal, 1997. “Kuzey Kafkasya’nın İstiklâli ve Türkiye’nin Askeri 
Yardımı, 1917-1918,”Kafkas Araştırmaları III, (İstanbul,), 29-91. 
260
 Richard H. Ullman, 1961. Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921: Intervention and War, Vol.I, 
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 305. 
261
 For the mission and the operation of the Dunsterforce see, L.C. Dunsterville, 1920. The 
Adventures of Dunsterforce, London: Edward Arnold. 
262
 He had an army of 1200 Cossacks and six guns. Allen and Muratoff, 488. 
263
 For the telegram on Bicherakhov dated 7 September 1917, from the North Caucasian Command 
to the Caucasian Islam Army see Erşan, 90-94.  

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tried to reclaim their state from Tiflis and other cities outside the North 
Caucasus.
264
 
This openly caused the emergence of local rulers. Some of the names, who 
had played an active part in the events of 1917, lacked information on the activities 
of the representatives of the Mountaineer Republic outside. They started to explore 
the possibilities of establishing their own authority. As such, in Dagestan Nuh Bey 
Tarkovskiy, with the support of Ali Hasanov and Colonel Resul Kaytbekov 
declared himself dictator in the city of Temir Khan Shura. His declaration was 
made in collaboration with the Turks, but with the arrival of the Bicherakhov he 
changed his stance without any hesitation. After the talks, Tarkovskiy and 
Bicherakhov agreed to share authority over Dagestan whereby Bicherakhov would 
control the coast and Tarkovskiy the interior. The British hoped to use 
Tarkovskiy’s bands to put an end to Bolshevism in Dagestan and pronounced 
Prince Tarkovskiy the provisional military dictator of Dagestan.
265
 In the beginning 
Tarkovskiy did not upset his allies and in compliance with this agreement, clashed 
with the Bolsheviks and killed one of their most prominent members who was a 
participant in the North Caucasian Conference in May, Dakhadayev.
266
 
 
                                                 
264
 “This happened, -wrote Sergei Kirov,- when the so-called Mountaineers’ Government (or the 
government of the ‘Orient’ hotel) upon selling North Caucasus to Vehid [Vehib] Pasha under a 
treaty of ‘Peace and Friendship’, was brought in on the bayonets of the Turkish askars aimed against 
revolutionary Dagestan, and, trampling upon the dead bodies of revolutionary mountaineers headed 
by comrade Dakhadayev, set itself up in Temir-Khan-Shura.” M. A. Daniyalov, 1982. Soviet 
Daghestan in Foreign Historiography, Moscow: Nauka Publishing Hause, 27. 
265
 Brinkley, Allied Intervention, 69-70. 
266
 Daniyalov (33), quoted from the letter to Ordzhonikidze from Lenin dated 12 October 1918. 
“Bicherakhov on British orders is retaining the coast of the Caspian Sea, including Derbent and 
Port-Petrovsk. The officer bands of Bicherakhov-Tarkovsky brutally tortured and murdered the 
most popular Soviet functionary in Dagestan engineer Dakhadayev. Socialist Dagestan has suffered 
a grave loss.” 

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