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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
57 
empire. By March they had bottled up Denikin’s forces in the Crimea. They ignored 
Curzon’s proposal, reminiscent of attempts to square the circle on Smyrna, in July 
for the Crimea to be a neutral zone and went on to conquer it in November
94
. In 
April they took over Azerbaijan but failed to do the same in Armenia in May
95.
From 
Ankara, meanwhile, the nationalists had out of a common interest in opposing the 
western powers initiated contact in April and despatched an emissary to Moscow in 
May; a treaty of cooperation was initialled on 24 August
96
. Haggling continued over 
the eventual frontier but this was settled by military operations conducted by Kâzım 
Karabekir against the still independent Armenia between 24 September and 18 
November. Signature of the treaty of Gümrü, which fixed what is still the frontier 
between Armenia and Turkey, was signed on the very day, 2 December, that 
Armenia was proclaimed a Soviet Republic
97
. There was henceforth no threat to the 
nationalists from the northeast and they now shared a border with the Bolsheviks. 
Independent Georgia would stand between them until the Soviet conquest in 
February 1921; the Treaty of Moscow of 16 March 1921 would settle the frontier 
there too with the Turks keeping Kars and Ardahan and ceding Batum. This treaty, 
which recognised Turkey as the territory claimed by the National Pact and provided 
for Soviet military and financial aid, was also a diplomatic landmark as the first 
between nationalist Turkey and a major power
98
. 
94
Kotkin, 356,358, 379 
95
Mango, 288 
96
Gawrych, 113-114. 
97
Gawrych 122-124. 
98
Gawrych, 129-130. 

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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
58 
The other principal factor which changed the strategic balance was the change of 
government in Greece. With Sèvres achieved, on 7 September Venizelos fulfilled an 
earlier pledge by calling parliamentary elections for 7 November; he faced a united 
opposition which had been assembled earlier in the year by all his principal 
opponents on the royalist side of the national schism
99
. An unexpected twist was 
given to the election campaign by the action of a monkey, which on 30 September 
bit King Alexander and through the resulting sepsis brought about his death on 25 
October
100
. This event has become a 
locus classicus 
for those who emphasise the 
workings of chance in history, Churchill, for example, being stirred to write that “it 
is perhaps no exaggeration to remark that a quarter of a million persons died of this 
monkey’s bite”. Despite Churchill, serious students are disinclined to regard the 
defeat at the polls of Venizelos, the return of King Constantine and the Asia Minor 
Disaster as the work of the monkey
101
. Venizelos lost the elections, which were 
postponed following Alexander’s death by only a week, by so large a margin overall 
and by so overwhelming a margin in “old Greece” as to render implausible the idea 
that he would have won, had Alexander still lived
102
; the opposition had always 
stood for the return of Constantine both before and after Alexander’s death
103
; and 
Greece faced the same strategic problem in Asia Minor on the morrow of the 
election as it did on its eve.
99
Llewellyn Smith, 135, 143-4. 
100
Llewellyn Smith, 138 
101
Pace Fromkin, 432. Cf. Llewellyn Smith, 159 
102
Llewellyn Smith, 150-152 
103
Ploumidis, 247, 267 n. 82; Llewellyn Smith, 147-148

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