Dunsterville's Adventures
A Reappraisal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8966597 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Artin H Arslanian (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1980 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 199-216 |
| Publication date | 1980-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020743800000489 |
| OpenAlex | W2165397644 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 10 |
The fall of Baku to combined Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces on 15 September 1918 ended the British involvement in Transcaucasia during World War I and resulted in the death of thousands of Armenian civilians. The responsibility for the fall of the city has been hotly disputed since that fateful day. One view, held by General Lionel C. Dunsterville, the commander of British troops committed to the defense of Baku, blames the local forces, especially the Armenians. The Armenians were undisciplined, uncooperative, lazy, and unreliable in battle; they abandoned their positions as soon as they came under enemy fire. In short, with some exceptions, they were cowards who expected the British to do all the fighting. Under these conditions the small British contingent could not stop the enemy indefinitely. On the night of 14 September, when the local forces showed little inclination to resist a new attack, Dunsterville brought his men back to the safety of the Persian port of Enzeli, thus saving them from certain death. Another view, held by the leaders of the Baku Armenians, ascribes the fall of the city to British perfidy. These critics of British policy claim that Dunsterville did not keep his promise of a large British force for the defense of Baku. The effective British force did not exceed one thousand men and it was secretly withdrawn from the city in the heat of the battle, leaving the local troops, who were fighting valiantly, to their fate. This, the Armenians claim, was nothing less than treachery
Adventure · Adversary · Ancient history · Art history · Battle · Nothing · Political science · Archaeological Research and Protection · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Law · Philosophy · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
Popular Entertainment, Media and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Iran
Iranian Relations With Great Britain and British India, 1798–1921
Iranian Foreign Policy, 1921–1979
Iran
Iranian Relations With Russia and the Soviet Union, to 1921
The Pahlavī Autocracy
Religious Forces in Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century Iran
Iran Under the Later Qājārs, 1848–1922
The Cambridge History of Iran
Printing, the Press and Literature in Modern Iran
Upon the altar of British prestige
One hundred years on
Bravin in Tehran and the origins of Soviet policy in Iran
The Bolshevik revolution and the genesis of communism in Iran, 1917–1920
The battle for Baku (May‐September 1918)
The Baku Commune 1917-1918. Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution
Caucasian Battlefields
The Struggle for Transcaucasia (1917-21)
Mudros to Lausanne
Caucasian Battlefields-A History of the Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828-1921
Armenia on the Road to Independence
The Adventures of Dunsterforce
Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
| Citation span | 1991 - 2019 (29) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 15 |