British Occupation Regimes in Georgia and the South Caucasus, 1918-1921

• In Event: Occupation and Liberation, 1916-1922

Abstract

This paper examines British civil and military occupation regimes in the Caucasus after the First World War, focusing on the British presence in independent Georgia. Based on research in archives in Georgia, Russia, and the UK, the paper conducts a close reading of the establishment and unfolding of British power in the Black Sea port of Batumi, the Georgian capital Tiflis (Tbilisi), and along the vital strategic corridor of the Georgian Military Highway. Nearly 20,000 British troops were deployed to Georgia in 1919. The use of fresh archives and local records breathes life into this forgotten episode of the extension of British imperial power after the First World War.
The years after the Armistice were characterized by British imperial expansion across the former Ottoman and Russian empires. This paper will detail how British officials interacted with the Georgian government and its representatives, local leaders, and ethnic minorities through occupation regimes. In addition to broader military considerations, British occupations dealt with currency, supply, and housing, and took on the responsibilities of local administration. Ultimately, this paper will argue that British postwar occupations in the Caucasus were primarily concerned with maintaining social order within independent Georgia and using Georgian territory as a military backstop against the Soviet state and the threat of revolution. The sovietization of Georgia in 1921 imposed a new political order self-consciously oriented against the past and potential future of British occupation.

Author

• Samuel Coggeshall, UNC at Wilmington