AZERBAIJANI-BRITISH RELATIONS (1918-1920): FROM WAR TO COOPERATION

Abstract

This article examines Azerbaijani-British relations from 1918 to 1920 and explains how these relations, which began in wartime, gradually transformed into cooperation, as well as the reasons for this change. The author also briefly describes Azerbaijani-British relations from the Middle Ages to the present day, examining a broader timeframe.

A researcher who has addressed this topic, a subject studied for the first time in historiography, asserts that the military conflict between the English and Azerbaijani peoples (August-September 1918) arose not from direct relations between these peoples, but from the Caucasian policies of opposing imperialist alliances during World War I and their military-political struggle to bring the Caucasus into their spheres of influence. The author's historical facts, which characterize the gradual change in Azerbaijani-British relations in 1918-1920, as well as a brief chronological picture of relations between the Azerbaijani and English peoples (and the states they founded) from the Middle Ages to the present day, support the credibility of his main conclusion (expressed in the previous sentence).

While the main facts of the study, in accordance with the topic of the article, cover the relations between the People's Republic of Azerbaijan and Great Britain (1918-1920), a small amount of supporting historical evidence pertains to the relations between the Safavid state, founded by an Azeri (Turkic) dynasty in the Middle Ages, and Great Britain, and in the modern period, to the cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan (Caucasian Azerbaijan), which legally separated from the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. The author notes that, based on generally accepted historical data, the first capital of the Safavid Empire was Tabriz, originally founded on the territory of the modern Iranian province of Azerbaijan, and later covering the entire territory of Iran, the provinces of Baghdad and Mosul in Iraq, Western Afghanistan and Pakistan [1].