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interviews with the delegates.
240
 In Istanbul the delegates, A. Chermoev, 
Muhammed Kadı, and Haydar Bammat met with the Grand Vizier Talat Paşa and 
Ministers of War, Enver Paşa and Naval Minister, Colonel Hüseyin Rauf Bey. The 
declared mission of the delegation was to conclude an agreement of cooperation 
and friendship with the Ottomans. In response, as Bammat stressed, the Sublime 
Porte gave its assurance that Porte was ready to recognize the independence of the 
Caucasian peoples and would take the necessary steps to obtain the same 
recognition from its allies. Then, after all these talks in İstanbul, the Union of the 
North Caucasian Mountaineers declared its independence by giving a diplomatic 
note to the world from İstanbul, on 11 May 1918. 
 
“We, the plenipotentiary representatives of the government of the Union 
of the Native Peoples of the North Caucasus [Şimalî Kafkasya Ahali-i 
Asliyyesi İttihadı]
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 who have undersigned have the honour to declare these 
following points to the attention of all governments. 
The peoples of the North Caucasus have elected a national assembly in 
concurrence with the appropriate procedures. This national assembly, which 
was gathered in May, and September 1917 had proclaimed the foundation 
of the Union of the Native Peoples of the North Caucasus, and delegated 
the executive powers to the current government whose members include the 
signatories below. The government of the Union of the Native Peoples of 
the North Caucasus, in the presence of prevailing anarchy in Russia, had 
acknowledged below-mentioned particulars relying on the right of 
determination of its own political future freely for the nations of Tsarist 
Empire which was affirmed by the Petrograd government: 
1. The Union of the Native Peoples of the North Caucasus determined to 
separate from Russia and to establish an independent state of its own. 
                                                 
240
 For the activities of the North Caucasian delegation and reflections to the Turkish media see A. 
Hazer Hızal’s serial article “Kuzey Kafkasya İstiklâli ve Türkiye Matbuatı, (1918),” published in a 
periodical Birleşik Kafkasya’s, (İstanbul), nos. 2-12, between 1964-1967 and A. Hazer Hızal, 1961. 
Kuzey Kafkasya: Hürriyet ve İstiklâl Davası, Ankara: Orkun Yayınları. To check the published 
articles see the newspapers Tanin, Tasvir-i Efkar, Vakıt, and Atî between 26 April and 30 May 1918. 
241
 In general, this Republic was known as the North Caucasian Mountaineer Republic. Although 
these representatives, most of the time, used the name North Caucasian Mountaineer Republic 
[Şimali Kafkas Cibaliyyun Ittihadı Cumhuriyeti] in their correspondence with the Ottoman 
government, in this case they preferred this title. 

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2. The borders of the newly established state, in the north, will be the 
boundaries of the provinces and districts of Dagestan, Terek, and Stavropol 
of the former Russian Empire. The western and the eastern borders will be 
the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea respectively. The southern borders will 
be determined in compliance with further talks with the Transcaucasian 
government. 
3. The plenipotentiary representatives, who have the signatures below, 
have been authorised to declare these above mentioned points and the 
foundation of the Union of the Native Peoples of the North Caucasus to the 
knowledge of all governments with this notification. In consequence, 
thereof, the undersigned proclaim that as of this date the Independent State 
of the North Caucasus has been duly established.”
242
 
 
This declaration, in the words of Haydar Bammat, “was the logical 
consequence of and gave official sanction to the historical process which began 
with the century long fight for independence” against the Russian Empire, and by 
this declaration the peoples of the North Caucasus had “at last obtained tangible 
results” of their struggle.
243
 Within a year of this declaration, the Mountaineers, in 
order to survive as a sovereign entity on the North Caucasian geography, 
revitalised the idea of unification and the need to establish a single political body. 
 
The Bolshevik government protested about the Ottoman policy in the 
Caucasus in a note dated 23 May. In this note the main concern was the Turkish 
Army and its operations. Later, the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs 
submitted another diplomatic note, on 30 May 1918, concerning the Mountaineers’ 
declaration of independence. In this note, Chicherin, the Commissar for Foreign 
Affairs, denied the Alliance and the Mountaineer Government and thus the 
representatives who had signed the declaration. He mentioned the leaders of the 
                                                 
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 This notification was signed by Abdulmejid Chermoyev and Haydar Bammatov and, published 
in the newspaper Tasvir-i Efkar and Vakıt on 14 May 1918 in Istanbul. For the Russian text see 
Kurtatag, “Zadachi II”, 4. 

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Alliance as the ‘adventurous and deceitful gang’ and stressed that they could not 
have any legal right to represent the Mountaineers population.
244
 
In addition, in order to prevent possible German acceptance of the new 
Republic, Chicherin sent a telegram, in which he reported the situation, to the 
ambassador of the RSFSR to Berlin on 31 May.
245
 The real protesting note 
however, was passed on almost half a year later, on 15 February 1919, to the last 
Ottoman ambassador to Moscow, Galip Kemali [Soylemezoglu] Bey.
246
 In all these 
documents, the leaders of the Mountaineer Republic were accepted as counter-
revolutionaries and the Republic was defined as baseless. According to Moscow, 
the peoples of the North Caucasus have never accepted this so-called Republic and 
have even opposed it. It is interesting to note that the Turkish government, 
however, never replied any of these Bolshevik notes. Instead, Enver Paşa send a 
directive to Galip Kemali Bey on 19 July 1918 and asked for efforts to obtain 
Bolshevik acceptance for these new Republics. But this never happened and both 
of Ottoman and Bolshevik governments began their own operations in the region. 
 
The course of events in the Caucasus, interestingly enough, disturbed first 
and foremost the Germans, the biggest ally of the Ottomans. The basic reason 
behind this German upset was closely related to pre-war German plans to exploit 
the region economically. The region’s ores, oil, cotton, wool, and cereals, and in 
                                                                                                                                        
243
 Haidar Bammate, “The Caucasus,” 15. 
244
 Documents No 211 and 213 in Dokumentiy Vneshniy Politiki SSSR, 1957. Vol 1, Moscow: 
Gosudarstvennoy Izdatel’stva, respectively 335-338 and 338-9. Also see Galip Kemali 
Söylemezoğlu, 1953. 30 Senelik Hatıralarımın Üçüncü Cildi 1918-1922, İstanbul: Ülkü Yayınları, 
49-50. 
245
 Söylemezoğlu, 49-50. 
246
 Söylemezoğlu, 59-65. 

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