A Small, But Significant Clarification or, When was the Treaty of Alexandropol Signed?

The exact day and time of the signing of the Treaty of Alexandropol is of extreme significance, as it depends directly on the full powers of the Armenian delegation at Alexandropol, and accordingly with the legal status of the treaty. Because any act, including the signing of international documents, which is carried out by a representative of a state while being beyond his authority or time-frame is considered to be an ultra vires act and, as such, it does not create any legal obligations for the state in question, and so the simple historical fact of the date of signing of the Treaty of Alexandropol has been rendered a fact with legal bearing in this case.

That is to say, the big question here is the following: did the Armenian delegation possess the relevant authority when the Treaty of Alexandropol was signed, or not? I must strongly emphasise that a negative answer would be only one reason for the invalidity of this treaty. The Treaty of Alexandropol is invalid for a number of other reasons, including not being ratified or enforced, as well as the fact of the sovereign of the Turkish state, Sultan Mehmed VI, not having bestowed, for his part, the corresponding authority on the Kemalists. It is necessary to emphasise as well that, until the 1st of November, 1922, no one – neither the international community, nor even the Kemalists – doubted the de jure sovereignty of the sultan, his constitutional authority and his legal supremacy.

The change in regime in Armenia in 1920 is a documented turn of events, and consequently its date and time is an unquestionable fact. The change in regime in the Republic of Armenia took place with the signing of a pertinent agreement between the authorities of the Republic of Armenia and Boris Legran, representative of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). That agreement was signed on the 2nd of December, 1920, in the morning, and was enforced the same day, at 6 pm.

As the issue of the change in regime is once and for all clear, it remains to be discovered when the Treaty of Alexandropol was signed, whether before the change in regime, or after.

Most often, and traditionally, the date of the signing of the Treaty of Alexandropol is given as the 2nd of December, 1920. This date is incorrect, since the facts bear witness otherwise. I believe that this mistake has been widespread as, although the treaty was signed on the 3rd of December, a previous date of “2 December, 1920” (or rather, by the Turkish calendar, “2 Aralık 1336”) remained on the document.

Let us take a look at what the direct and indirect participants of the signing of the Treaty of Alexandropol have to say. The head of the delegation of the Republic of Armenia, Alexander Khatisian, notes the following in his memoirs: “The fourth and final session of the peace conference took place at eight o’clock in the evening. … At two o’clock at night (past midnight, into the 3rd of December), the treaty was signed by the two delegations”. The head of the Turkish nationalists and future president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, said the following in his famous speech of 1927 when speaking of the Treaty of Alexandropol: “Peace negotiations began on the 26th November and ended on the 2nd December; during that night the treaty was signed at Gumru”.

There are many sources and studies which correctly indicate the date of the signing of the Treaty of Alexandropol as the 3rd of December, 1920. I shall not burden the reader with too many citations in this article. I shall only quote perhaps the most informed man of the time, Horace Rumbold, minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain at Constantinople, who mentioned in an intelligence briefing of the 16th of December, 1920 to foreign minister George Curzon, “Peace between the Turks and Armenians was actually signed at Alexandropol on the 3rd December”.

In sum, the following conclusion can be drawn. The Treaty of Alexandropol is invalid on a number of bases, one of which being the absence of the relevant authority of the delegations. When the Treaty of Alexandropol was signed, on the 3rd of December, 1920, neither delegation possessed the authority to represent their countries. The Armenian delegation was already no longer sent on behalf of the country’s leadership, and the Turkish (Kemalist) delegation was not representing the country’s leadership.

Ara Papian

Head, Modus Vivendi Centre

30 November 2010