Caucasus (IAC) focused on Baku, elements of its Northern
Caucasus Command (NCC) headed to southern Dagestan
to fight alongside local Moslems against the Bolsheviks,
then in control of the main towns and the railway there.//
İsmail Hakkı Bey spent 5 days in Akhty and established security there.
After taking the necessary measures to gather forces against Koba, on
28 June 1918 he headed toward Gunib, where he set up his operation.
His choice of Gunib as the center of operations stemmed from the
following observations: Gunib is a point between Chechnya and
Dagestan and it is the center of the Avar tribe, which is the strongest
and most determined tribe of the Dagestan people. It was the last place
of refuge for the late Shaikh Şamil. From here it would be easier to
influence the whole of the northern Caucasus and to threaten Demirhan
Şura. Additionally, it would be an effective place vis-a-vis the seizure
of the rumored and supposedly plentiful arms and ammunition to be
found in the Gunib and Hunzak fortresses.
In order to establish the organizations and measures required for the
fronts mentioned above and to make contact with the leaders there,
İsmail Hakkı Bey abandoned the Akhty-Gazi Kumuk shortcut and
decided to follow the road from Akhty through Kasum Kent, the
Derbent front, Mecalis (Madzhalis), Kazi Kumuk, Lavaşa, Gazi
Kumuk and on to Gunib. As he inspected the Kasum Kent, Derbent
and Kızılyar fronts he was greeted with enthusiasm by the local
forces and the village and town populace as a commander of the
Turkish Government. The exceptions were the populations of Dargu
and Lavaşa, who had been poisoned with the subversion of Mamalı
Ali Hacı and who continued to avoid the struggle against the
Bolsheviks, despite the advice and threats of İsmail Hakkı Bey.
Mamalı Ali Hacı was asserting that the Bolsheviks strength made
it mandatory for him to seek peace with them. Yet, in fact,
compared to the population of the people of Dagestan and the
weapons they possessed, the Bolsheviks were not very strong
at all. Necmeddin Molla, who declared an imamate, mobilized
against Mamalı Ali Hacı because of the personal animosity and
competition between them.
İsmail Hakkı Bey arrived in Gunib on 8 July 1918 amid a joyful
welcome from the people there. Gunib was not just a town. It was
a fortified military base with walls that surrounded a palace built
in the name of Czar Alexander II. The importance of Gunib in the
history of Dagestan is quite significant. The late Shaikh Şamil
defended Gunib Mountain for three years and the Russians touted
its ultimate fall as a great victory. After seizing Gunib, the Russians
outfitted the village at the top of the mountain and built a monument
at the place where Shaikh Şamil had been held prisoner. Dagestan’s
İslamic will was unfortunately extinguished with the fall of Gunib in
August 1859. İsmail Hakkı Bey gained the trust of Azın Hayri, who
was influential in the area, and the entirety of the battlefront was turned
over to İsmail Hakkı Bey.
Shaikh Şamil
İsmail Hakkı Bey gathered forces from the vicinity of Erkaz in order
to establish a front close enough to threaten Demirhan Şura and
appointed Dagestan’s Cavalry Colonel Hacı Murad Bey to command
the Kızılyar and Erkaz fronts. İsmail Hakkı Bey wanted to give native
Moslem officers command of the fronts in order to restore and raise
their personal dignity. Since he knew that the local populace in
Dagestan could only be influenced by the ulema, he thought it would be
sensible to call a congress of the ulema and have the populace
instructed through the resulting proclamations. Thanks to this approach,
İsmail Hakkı Bey he was able to gather the required forces to confront
the Bolsheviks and he successfully arranged for their care and feeding,
as well.
News that reached Gunib on the evening of 12 July 1918 created quite
a stir and put İsmail Hakkı Bey in a difficult position. The Bolsheviks
had advanced from Demirhan Şura with cannon and a force of 500 men
and were shelling the village of ?Geçri?, 30 kilometers southwest of
Demirhan Şura. There was also intelligence to the effect that the
Bolsheviks, after having bolstered their forces with men from ?Onsikol?
village, which they had taken for themselves, were planning to attack
Hunzak. ?Geçri? village was the village of the late Shaikh Şamil and,
consequently, opposed to the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, ?Onsikol?
village was the village of the chief engineer of the Dagestan
Bolsheviks Muhac Daharif and so it was linked to the Bolsheviks,
whose aim was to seize Hunzak, where the late Hacı Murad had been
the chief, and dominate Dagestan.
Petrovsk is 'Makhachkala' today. Buynaksk was
'Demirhan Şura' in 1918.
A large amount of arms and ammunition were stored at Hunzak, whose
people were fierce opponents of Molla Necmeddin and inclined toward
the Bolsheviks. İsmail Hakkı Bey took some available forces from the
Kızılyar and Erkaz fronts and ordered Dagestan’s Cavalry Colonel Hacı
Murad Bey, the commander of those fronts, to threaten the Bolsheviks’
advance and to initiate an attack in the direction of Arkani, while also
ordering forces from Gunib and Gazi Kumuk districts to move on
Hunzak. İsmail Hakkı Bey himself set out for Hunzak on the morning
of 13 July. The Bolsheviks were able to advance as far as Nisatatik
village, 15 kilometers north of Hunzak. Only Necmeddin’s brother-in-law
Saullah marched against the enemy. The cannon and machine guns at
Hunzak had not be brought forward but İsmail Hakkı Bey had two
mountain cannon and two machine guns, along with a sufficient amount
of ammunition, brought foward and placed across from the Bolsheviks
on 14 July. Faced with this sudden and orderly opposition, the
Bolsheviks withdrew from the front they had occupied on 15 July 1918
and returned to Demirhan Şura. İsmail Hakkı Bey had been able to
gather a force of 5,000 men, armed and unarmed, for this attack. The
Bolshevik village of ?Onsikol? was hit with some shells and surrendered.
This success degraded Bolshevik influence and assuaged tension in the
area. In order to properly understand the ongoing fighting in Dagestan,
one must be award of the noteworthy situation presented below.
Anti-Bolshevik volunteers in south Russia, 1918.
Dagestan is divided into the mountain people – the Evras (Avars) - and
the plains people, who are known as “Kumuk” and “?tabsir ilis?”
waterside coastal residents and those who live around Demirhan Şura.
Whereas the coastal and Demirhan Şura populace can be easily
subdued by sea or land, the mountain people present quite a hostile
challenge to foreign occupation because of the difficult, inaccessible
terrain. Over time, the Kumuks in Dagestan came to appear to be like
Russians, whereas the Avars were enraged by their annexation to the
Bolsheviks. One should also confess that the actions of the Kumuks
were dictated solely by their geography. Those among the Kumuks
who wholely embraced Bolshevism were few to nonexistent. The
Kumuks were either forced to accept Bolshevism or did so out of
ignorance.
Since the Russian Bolsheviks knew about the mutual aversion between
the Kumuks and the Evras (Avars), they were able to easily steer the
Kumuks toward Bolshevism and thereby multiply their own forces with
Moslem fighters. The two neighboring Moslem tribes were then incited
to destroy one another, under the influence of a foreign power. İsmail
Hakkı Bey tried to reduce the enimity between the two and hoped to
have the Moslem Bolsheviks remain neutral during an attack on Demirhan
Şura. In order to win over the Moslem Bolsheviks, who made up the bulk
of Bolshevik forces, he favored nationalism and localism for those under
Bolshevism. According to İsmail Hakkı Bey’s idea, as in every
revolution, the Bolsheviks had overreached and lost sight of their target.
He issued various declarations to the populace and the ulema about the
aspects of Bolshevism that were appropriate for Islam and those that were
not. Dagestan was poor and, consequently, it was necessary that the broad
and fertile land that had been appropriated by the Russian Kazahks
(Cossacks) in Koban and Türk provinces had to be reclaimed in order for
their to be wealth created. İsmail Hakkı Bey was trying to establish a
proper Islamic foundation in Dagestan that would have the essential
elements of Islam, in place of Russian Bolshevism, which had pitted
Moslems against each other. İsmail Hakkı Bey’s ideas were openly
accepted at the ulema congress he convened in Gunib at the beginning
of August. Mamalı Ali Hacı did not attend thie gathering.
The Unsuccessful Attack on Demirhan Şura
When the Bolsheviks launched their attack on Hunzak, İsmail Hakkı
Bey successfully gathered together local forces but these forces did not
stay at the front for long. In order to help the Ottoman detachments
advancing toward Baku it was necessary to occupy Demirhan Şura
and, subsequently, to attack the Bolsheviks’ stronghold at Petrovsk
(Makhaçkale), as well as various points along the Baku-Derbent-
Petrovsk rail line. The decision was made to advance on Demirhan Şura
with the accumulated forces. The Bolshevik Moslems were persuaded
to not use their arms against us. The central force advancing from Erkaz
came within 10 kilometers of Demirhan Şura on 31 July 1918 but in the
face of an attack by a small Bolshevik detachment the central force
withdrew without a fight and dispersed. The Azin Hacı partisans at
Kızılyar panicked during the Bolshevik attack on 1 August 334 and left
3 cannon there.
//End of Part II//
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