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Fall of Kars, 1920: the fortress that fell without a fight

Turkish-Armenian War · 1920 · Turkey vs Armenia · ~5 min read · Updated October 2026

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Dark locator map of eastern Turkey and the Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, with large lakes and a gold star at Kars, with a small world map inset.

Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain).

At a glance

Turkish national government (Ankara)Kâzım Karabekir, commander of the Eastern Front
vs
Republic of ArmeniaGen. Daniel Bek-Pirumian in Kars; Gen. Silikian, Kars front
Date
30 October 1920
Location
Kars, a fortress city in the southern Caucasus (today northeastern Turkey)
War
Turkish-Armenian War, autumn 1920
Prisoners
About 1,500 to 2,000 Armenian officers and men, with several generals and a minister (Hakobyan, Yalanuzyan)
Outcome
Turkish capture of Kars; Armenia sued for peace and signed the Treaty of Alexandropol
Quick answer

What happened at Kars on 30 October 1920?

On 30 October 1920 the Turkish army of Kâzım Karabekir took Kars, a heavily fortified city of the Republic of Armenia, almost without a fight. Several generals, a government minister and between 1,500 and 2,000 soldiers were captured. The loss broke Armenia's defense, and within five weeks Armenia signed the Treaty of Alexandropol.1

Kars should have been hard to take. Eddie Arnavoudian calls it naturally almost impregnable, heavily fortified and well equipped, and in the autumn of 1920 it was the great western bastion of the young Republic of Armenia. It fell in a matter of days. How it fell still divides Armenian historians, and the day itself is remembered in opposite ways in Turkey and in Armenia.2

Background: a frontier fortress between empires

The city sits on a high plateau above the Kars River, crowned by a citadel on a rocky crag. Russia took it in the war of 1877 and 1878 and held it for forty years.3 › Greatest battles of the Ottoman Empire

Dark locator map of the southern Caucasus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, with Lake Sevan, Lake Van and a gold star in a glowing circle at Kars
Kars on its plateau between the Black Sea and the Caspian: in 1920 it was the western bastion of the Republic of Armenia, with the old Russian frontier and the Turkish army just beyond it. Drawn for this article from Natural Earth data, with no modern borders. Location map: © Echoes of Battle (data: Natural Earth, public domain)

The World War I turned the frontier upside down. When revolutionary Russia made peace at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, it had to give up Kars, and the Ottoman army marched back in that April as the Russian front dissolved. Armenia, independent from 28 May 1918, was forced on 4 June to accept the Treaty of Batum and the old frontier of 1878.4 › Greatest battles of the First World War

Black and white drawing of soldiers in fur hats storming earthworks below a rocky hill crowned by a citadel, with bodies, a large fortress gun and horsemen in the foreground
Fighting for Kars in 1918, as the Austrian illustrator Fritz Neumann drew it for a wartime magazine. The citadel on its crag is the same one the Turkish army entered again two years later. Fritz Neumann, Fighting for Kars, 1918, from Der Krieg 1914/19 in Wort und Bild, issue 220. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ottoman defeat reversed it all again. The armistice of Mudros in October 1918 obliged the Ottoman army to fall back to the frontier of 1914, Kars was evacuated, and in April 1919 the city and its province passed to the Armenian republic.5

In 1920 the stakes rose. On 10 August Armenia signed the Treaty of Sèvres, under which the Ottoman government recognized it as a free and independent state, with a promise of wide lands in the east of Anatolia. The nationalist government in Ankara under Mustafa Kemal rejected the treaty, and Tatul Hakobyan describes the invasion that followed as its answer to Sèvres.6

The balance of power around Armenia had also shifted. In April 1920 the Red Army entered Azerbaijan and Soviet Russia was back in the Caucasus. Moscow and Ankara, at war only three years earlier, now shared an enemy in the Western Allies and saw a large Armenia under Western patronage as a threat; both Hakobyan and Mikael Yalanuzyan describe their cooperation against the Armenian republic.7

Armies and commanders

The Turkish Eastern Front was led by Kâzım Karabekir, the general who in 1919 had commanded the XV Army Corps at Erzurum and had put his troops at the disposal of Mustafa Kemal when Kemal had no official standing. He had pressed for action in the east, and on 20 September 1920 Ankara authorized him to advance into the province of Kars, with the destruction of the Armenian army as the main aim.8

Front page of an Ottoman Turkish illustrated weekly with the masthead in Arabic script and a large oval portrait of a moustached general in a high-collared uniform
Kâzım Karabekir on the front page of the Istanbul weekly Resimli Gazete in September 1923, three years after he took Kars. Resimli Gazete, front page with a portrait of Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, 15 September 1923, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatürk Library. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On the Armenian side, General Movses Silikian was given command of the Kars front with the powers of a commander in chief, while Generals Daniel Bek-Pirumian and Artyom Hovsepian held the fortress region. South of the Aras, on the Surmalu front around Igdir, the partisan commander Dro led a separate force.9

The command did not pull together. The military leaders quarreled among themselves and with the irregular commander Sepuh, and the civil governor of Kars, Stepan Ghorghanyan, sent Yerevan repeated reports about the negligence of the generals that brought no action. The historian Ashot Hayruni argues that the generals were shielded by the defense minister and so left in place.10

The troops were worse still. Units at Kars had joined the Bolshevik rising against the government in May 1920, and Bolshevik propaganda kept eating at discipline; Hayruni puts the demoralization of the army at the root of the defeat. The mobilization of the autumn brought in men, but desertion thinned the ranks faster than they could be filled.11

The ruined stone citadel of Kars on a rocky hill above a town of flat-roofed houses, with a footbridge over a shallow river and rubble in the foreground, September 1919
The citadel above Kars, photographed by Sergeant Barnes of the US Army Signal Corps on 27 September 1919, when the city was held by the Republic of Armenia. Sgt. Barnes, US Army Signal Corps, Old fort at Kars, Armenia, overlooking the city of Kars, photograph no. 67349, 27 September 1919, US National Archives. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The battle in phases

Olti, September. The first blow fell on Olti and its coal mines, which the Armenian army had occupied in June 1920. In the middle of September Turkish troops took the district back, and the Armenian units fell back.12

The main offensive. Karabekir's general advance began in the last days of September: Arnavoudian dates it to 24 September, the TDV encyclopedia of Islam to 28 September. Sarıkamış and Kağızman were lost within days.13

Mobilization. Yerevan declared a state of siege and called up its men. The sources disagree on the age limit: Hakobyan writes that on 30 September the government mobilized men up to 35 and brought in stern measures against desertion, while Yalanuzyan gives an age of 27 and a death sentence for deserters. Help from outside never came; the Allies offered sympathy, not troops.14

Back to the fortress. Through October the Armenian forces fell back on Kars. Turkish troops reached the city on 24 October, according to Arnavoudian; Yalanuzyan dates the final Armenian withdrawal into the fortress to 25 October, after a new Turkish attack.15

Turning point: 30 October

On 30 October the fortress fell. The sources agree on how little fighting there was: Hakobyan writes that the city was occupied almost without resistance, Arnavoudian that it was captured almost without a shot, and Yalanuzyan that inside the city the Turks met no resistance at all. Arnavoudian blames desertions that had melted the ranks and a leadership paralyzed by incompetence.16

The prisoners included Generals Bek-Pirumian, Araratian and Kazarian, Colonel Vekilov and the minister Artashes Babalyan. Hakobyan puts the number of junior officers and men taken at about 2,000; Yalanuzyan gives 1,500 to 2,000, according to different sources.17

Even the men who were there disagreed about why. The minister Simon Vratsyan insisted that parts of the army had fought with great courage, above all on the Surmalu front; his colleague Babalyan, taken prisoner in the city, put the blame on its commanders, whom he called pro-Russian in one account and incompetent and dishonest in another.18

Arnavoudian calls the surrender the greatest Armenian military disaster of the twentieth century. Safrastyan, who studied the Turkish documents of those weeks, sees the capture of Kars as the event that decided Armenia's defeat in the war; what followed was settled at the negotiating table.19

Aftermath: Alexandropol and the end of the republic

With Kars gone, the road into Armenia lay open. Turkish forces took Alexandropol, today Gyumri, by 7 November. Only on the Surmalu front did the Armenians hold: Dro's troops kept the Turks back until the fall of Kars forced them to withdraw.20

Peace came after about a month of talks. The Treaty of Alexandropol is dated 2 December 1920 by Britannica and Safrastyan and 3 December by the TDV encyclopedia and Yalanuzyan. Armenia gave up Kars, renounced the gains of Sèvres and accepted a tiny army: 1,500 men in Arnavoudian's account, 1,200 in Yalanuzyan's.21

The government that signed it was already handing over power. Soviet rule was proclaimed in Armenia at the end of November, and on 2 December a new government in Yerevan declared a Soviet republic. Yalanuzyan points out that the treaty was signed with a state that, by then, had ceased to exist.22

Soviet Russia and Ankara then drew the border themselves. The Treaty of Moscow of 16 March 1921 confirmed Turkey's gains in the east, and Turkish troops left Alexandropol in April 1921 under its terms. The Treaty of Kars, signed on 13 October 1921 by Turkey and the three Soviet republics of the Caucasus, kept Kars in Turkey and placed Nakhichevan, as an autonomous territory, under Azerbaijan. That is the border between Turkey and Armenia today.23

Legacy and memory

In Turkey 30 October is remembered as the day Kars was saved and returned to the Turkish homeland. Each year the city marks the anniversary of its liberation with ceremonies, and deputies for Kars recall it in the Grand National Assembly.24

For Armenians the same day is a wound that has never closed. Arnavoudian argues that the catastrophe was self-inflicted, laid at the feet of the Armenian army and state. Yalanuzyan sees a mix of military failings, disorder and short-sighted politics, and notes the legends of betrayal that grew around the fortress's fall; after the loss of Shushi in 2020, Armenians began to compare the two fortress cities.25

Visiting Kars today

Kars is a provincial capital in northeastern Turkey, near the Armenian border. The citadel still overhangs the river, rebuilt many times since the Saltukid vizier Firuz raised it in 1153, and the ruins of Ani, the medieval Armenian capital, lie a short drive to the east, on the frontier.26 › 30 October in military history

The domed cathedral of Kars, a medieval Armenian church with a conical roof and a cross on top, figures at its base and a minaret behind on the left
The cathedral of Kars, a medieval Armenian church with a conical dome, as the art historian Josef Strzygowski published it in 1918. Josef Strzygowski, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa, vol. 1, p. 81, Vienna, 1918. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Notes

A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.

  1. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Ruben Safrastyan, “The War of Turkey against Armenia: analyzing the Turkish documents (November 1920)”. ↩
  2. Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Kars”; Tufan Gündüz, “Kars”; Serhat Development Agency, “Kars: History”. ↩
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; Tufan Gündüz, “Kars”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”. ↩
  5. Tufan Gündüz, “Kars”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”. ↩
  6. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  7. Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”. ↩
  8. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kâzım Karabekir”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Kâzim Karabekir”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”. ↩
  9. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”. ↩
  10. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”. ↩
  11. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”. ↩
  12. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  13. Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kâzım Karabekir”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  14. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”. ↩
  15. Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  16. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  17. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  18. Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”. ↩
  19. Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Ruben Safrastyan, “The War of Turkey against Armenia: analyzing the Turkish documents (November 1920)”. ↩
  20. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kâzım Karabekir”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Tatul Hakobyan, “The Fall of Kars: October 30, 1920”. ↩
  21. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; Ruben Safrastyan, “The War of Turkey against Armenia: analyzing the Turkish documents (November 1920)”; TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kâzım Karabekir”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”. ↩
  22. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Calamitous 1921 Treaty of Kars”. ↩
  23. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Treaty of Alexandropol”; Tufan Gündüz, “Kars”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Calamitous 1921 Treaty of Kars”; Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Armenia: The republic of Armenia”. ↩
  24. Serhat Development Agency, “Kars: History”; TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, “Kâzım Karabekir”; Volkan Karabağ, DHA, “Kars’ın düşman işgalinden kurtuluşunun 105’inci yılı kutlandı”; Grand National Assembly of Turkey, “Adem Çalkın, Kars’ın düşman işgalinden kurtuluşunun 103’üncü yıl dönümüne ilişkin gündem dışı konuşması”. ↩
  25. Eddie Arnavoudian, “On the collapse of the 1918 First Armenian Republic and the 1921 Russo-Turkish Treaty of Kars, part two”; Mikael Yalanuzyan, “The Fall of Kars: A Look to the Past”; Ashot Hayruni, “The Lessons of 1920 and the Imperative of Comprehending them”. ↩
  26. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Kars”; Serhat Development Agency, “Kars: Places to be seen”; Tufan Gündüz, “Kars”. ↩

Sources

Frequently asked questions

When did Kars fall in 1920?

On 30 October 1920, during the Turkish-Armenian War, about a week after Turkish troops reached the city.

Who captured Kars in 1920?

The Turkish Eastern Front of the Ankara government, commanded by Kâzım Karabekir.

Why did Kars fall so quickly?

Armenian historians point to desertion, Bolshevik propaganda, demoralized troops and a quarreling, paralyzed command; the city was taken almost without resistance.

How many Armenians were captured at Kars?

Between 1,500 and 2,000 officers and men, by Hakobyan's and Yalanuzyan's counts, besides several generals and the minister Artashes Babalyan.

What treaty followed the fall of Kars?

The Treaty of Alexandropol of 2 or 3 December 1920, and then the Treaty of Kars of 13 October 1921, which fixed the border that still stands.

Why did Turkey attack Armenia in 1920?

The Ankara government rejected the Treaty of Sèvres, which promised Armenia lands in eastern Anatolia, and wanted Kars back; Soviet Russia shared its hostility to the Western-backed Armenian republic.

Is Kars in Turkey or Armenia today?

In Turkey. The Treaty of Kars of 1921 left the city in Turkey, close to the border with Armenia.

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