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What if...
The TDFR survived


So first, some
Background

Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR) was a, well.. a Federative, Democratic, Republic (duh), situated in the Caucasus. In 1918, during the final years of WW1. Combining the Republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan

If you're wondering yes, the dotted lines are all territorial disputes ;w;

It came to be after the Russian civil war. After the October revolution, where the Caucasians denounced Lenin's regime, and (temporarily) seceded (They were still loyal to Russia and had plans to rejoin once Lenin was out)

The Turks immediately invaded. Armenian militias did resist, and even stopped their advances, but Azerbaijan was worryingly backing The Ottomans throughout this. They tried to negotiate, but failed. Georgia, Realising that there’s ethnic tension, Azerbaijanis still back the Ottomans and there are Bolsheviks controlling Baku (yes, real) Georgia saw no hope in the Republic and seceded. Now obviously nothing is binding Armenia and Azerbaijan together so they were next to secede. Marking the end of the TDFR...

But what if this changed? And the 3 states remained together?

How to make this happen

The key issue here are the Ottomans, they, no matter how much the TDFR negotiated, always kept attacking. So how do we achieve peace? The TDFR was invited to the Brest-Litovsk treaty as a sovereign nation, but they refused. Since they didn’t want to be an independent state yet. When the Brest-Litovsk treaty concluded TDFR had to secede some territories. Of course, the republic declined (since they didn’t even attend the fucking treaty), giving the Turks a perfect reason to invade, upon which they demanded even more (ALL of Armenia)

So we need the TDFR to decide sooner that they are a sovereign, independent state, and need to attend and negotiate in Brest-Litovsk. That’s the change. In the treaty we likely see TDFR lose overall less territory and become an Ottoman vassal. This is what we need, Ottoman protection and glue to stick the TDFR together until they reform internally

Alternate Brest-Litovsk
Pink is lost territory

Now this vassaldom won’t continue for a long time as Ottomans will fall shortly due to WW1. And now TDFR will seek a new guarantor, in the form of Britain

In our timeline, after the TDFR dissolved, Britain occupied Batumi, and even sent some troops to Tbilisi. Then offered security guarantees to Georgia. We will make this happen here too, after the Ottomans fall. Although I doubt Britain will actually intervene in a war. If TDFR lasts long enough against, say, a Soviet invasion they might start supplying the nation, which is good. And generally any risk of British involvement will make any nation reconsider invasion

Now let's look inwards: How does the TDFR work? It’s a parliamentary republic, the parliament is called the Seim, with its capital being Tiflis (aka Tbilisi). it's mostly dominated by 3 parties, representing each ethnicity: Georgian Menshevik parties, Azerbaijani Musavat party and Armenian Revolutionary Federation, (or Dashnaktsutyun). The Seim had no power unless all national councils approved its ideas. So basically a Caucasian EU

Now the military. There’s not much information about the military, so I’ll just use the later republics' data. So I’ll use later data from the DRG (Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918-1921), RA (Republic of Armenia 1918-1920) and DRA (Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan 1918-1920) and combine them. First let’s start with the leadership. The generals, especially from the Armenian side were quite competent (Andranik, for example, basically Armenian Guiseppe Garibaldi) and there were also competent experienced veteran generals in Georgia, who were left over from the Russian Civil war and the Caucasus Campaign. Azerbaijan was... also... there... As for the army, Georgia had access to over 200,000 experienced, veteran soldiers again left over from the Russian Civil war and the Caucasus Campaign. Armenia at its peak had mobilised over 40,000. Georgia, by some estimates was capable of mobilising 80,000 soldiers, but they scaled it down to just 27,000 (Because they were lazy). Azerbaijan meanwhile... had... 2 infantry battalions and cavalry... Ok I’ll stop dunking on Azerbaijan but they didn’t have that big of a military and weren’t willing to fight as they were quite pro Bolshevik and pro Ottoman/Turk. So in total, we get around 300,000 standing soldiers. If we assume Azerbaijan contributes and Georgia properly mobilises, we get around 350,000 to 400,000. Which is quite impressive. But that’s just the soldier count, what about GUNS?? Georgia had 56 fighter aircraft, 46 artillery pieces, a couple of armoured cars, 4 armoured trains, hundreds of machine guns, and telegraph platoons. While Armenia had brought 25,000 Ross rifles, 440 Vickers machine guns and 1077 medical supplies from the British. Meanwhile Azerbaijan had... uh...

As for the navy, Georgia was the only non-landlocked country (Caspian sea = lake) so they had all the navy. Which consisted of 1 destroyer, 4 torpedo boats and 10 steam boats

So in conclusion, we, actually, have a very impressive and modern army. I’m not saying that it can be mobilised there immediately, but rather I’m just showing you the potential of TDFR

So in this timeline, if we want the TDFR to survive, we need a joint military, or just a military at that. I will admit reform is unlikely as if the Seim decides to reform, it could be easily blocked by Azerbaijani national councils, fearing Armenian and Georgian domination. So how do we do it? Well...

In Azerbaijan, after the Seim was established and the national council was getting set up, Bolsheviks took power. So we now need to use this excuse, to create a military. The Seim denounces the Bolsheviks' seize of power, and passes a bill creating a "temporary" (unified) army, ignoring Bolshevik Azerbaijani objections. With a newfound military, TDFR coups the Bolsheviks. Followed by a ban of the Bolshevik party. And places Azerbaijani Mensheviks in charge, or holds a re-election. Russia might get slightly pissed about this, but they are in deep civil war so they can’t do anything about it

Anyway, is this realistic? I mean... I think so! it might breach the nature of the federation and democracy and require some strong leadership from all sides involved, but also frig Bolsheviks is a pretty decent justification (That’s why the republic was created in the first place!). So now we have a unified army, and Azerbaijan is slightly more cooperative and Bolsheviks are gone, replaced with Mensheviks/Musavats, who are happy to seize power. This doesn’t eliminate the Azerbaijani people though, who are quite pro Bolshevik but in the short term, this is fine

Now for ethnic tensions and territorial disputes... This is another key to keeping the union together, there’s not much unifying them currently, other than joint Bolshevik hatred (which isn’t even that prominent in Azerbaijan) so we need to create a common identity. Joint "Caucasian" ethnicity/identity is a good start, as even if you're Georgian, or Armenian, or Azerbaijani, you can still be Caucasian too. This will take time, but often, when there’s no dominant ethnicity, a common identity is forged if they stay together long enough

As for territorial disputes they are much harder. As, again, the national councils can just veto whatever. For example, Karabakh! If Seim proposes it goes to say, Azerbaijan, Armenian national council will simply decline and vice versa, so this leads to nowhere. And we can’t just keep couping, as this would set dangerous precedents and lead to instability without a good reason. What I propose is neutral zones, like the Lori neutral zone, that one time when Armenia and Georgia negotiated. Or Seim/national control over the territory. Or even joint control. I think national control is the best way, but it might get some pushback, but hopefully, Karabakh, Lori, Zaqatala etc. come under their control

The perfect scenario
...If you're wondering the lost lands will be reclaimed after Turkey falls

That finishes the internal reforms, although this is unlikely, it’s still possible, especially when they have 4-5 YEARS to do it, as Turkey is fighting for their survival and Russia is distracted with a civil war. So it’s possible with that much time to look inwards and not worry about the outside, they reform at least somewhat. This is the only way I could think of for TDFR to survive long enough for this to become interesting

Anyway but that’s the internal parts, what about externally?

Soviet invasion + bad timeline

There’s only one thing threatening the republic currently, the Soviets. Once they win the civil war, they will invade. As mentioned, TDFR has 4 years of peace time to sort everything out. But when 1920 or 1921 come around, things are going to get dicey. So lets explore 2 scenarios, where TDFR reforms successfully, leading to their victory against the Soviets, and another one where TDFR fails to reform, and simply gets absorbed into the Soviet Union

Alternate Soviet invasion plan

Let’s start with the bad ending. Soviets invade, reason isn’t even that important, maybe a counter government gets set up, TDFR crushes it, and Soviets fabricate that as an excuse, and invade. Azerbaijan quickly capitulates, while Armenia and Georgia scramble for defences. It’s possible they finally reform now, but it’s too late, the Bolsheviks have already advanced deep into Armenia. It’s possible Georgia holds out a little more, but it’s obvious to everyone that this is the end. Now this does have some profound impacts, Bolsheviks, in our timeline, invade each state one by one. Here, it falls at the same time. Not only that, initially, the Soviets, in our timeline, combined the 3 states into one entity, Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (What a mouthful). But in 1936, it split up into 3 as we know it. Here, seeing the 3 states remain together for so long, it’s possible the Soviets, keep this union, thinking it's more centralisation

After that nothing really happens, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, where Transcaucasia secedes as one state. If Soviet policy was successful, and the 3 states remain relatively unified, we might see a Transcaucasia in our modern day, likely unstable, but it exists

If it fails, which is more likely, we see a violent dissolution, like in Yugoslavia, likely due to Armenian and Azerbaijani tensions over Karabakh, or Russian pressure from the north. In which case, everything falls into chaos. This could have A TON of outcomes depending on soviet policy: if the entire state was divided and the idea of armenia and georgia and azerbaijan completely erased in favour of even more centralisation of the region, then the dissolution is extremely violent, since the borders arn’t decided at all and each state fight to the death and we could see radically different borders

This is one of many possible outcomes

But that’s unlikely there’s no precedent on Soviets wanting to mash ethnicities together in a federation THIS much (Chechnia, Adyghe, Baskortostan, Tatarstan, part of Russia but still have the republic status for example). So it’s like the Soviets do federalise the Caucasus states into a single republic but still maintain the ideas of Azerbaijan Georgia and Armenia. And this can have A TON of different outcomes after Soviet Union falls:

One is that the Soviets decide the borders disputes like in our timeline and when the USSR and Transcaucasia fall everything goes back looking like the modern day

But not only is that boring, but also not the least likely option. It’s possible the territorial disputes are handled differently by the Soviets:

An obvious example being Nagorno Karabakh, maybe the Soviets decide Armenia should have it in this timeline?

Or Zaqatala in Azerbaijan for example, historically Georgian, inhabited by Georgians, the only difference being that they were Muslim. Azerbaijan did heavy propaganda to convert Georgians there into Azerbaijanis. And it worked! But it’s possible that the TDFR was a thing this program never happens or is much milder in which case, it’s possible the Soviets give the region back to Georgia

And so much more (Javakheti, Lori, Kura etc.) The Caucasus can look radically different

But that’s the bad timeline, going back, what if the TDFR successfully reforms?

Soviet invasion + good timeline

Now let’s say the TDFR successfully reforms, as we talked about in the first part, then what? We already saw the military capabilities, so let’s see what happens. Around 1920, the Bolsheviks start poking the TDFR. Setting up counter governments, skirmishes etc. Maybe even a limited invasion, just to test them out. This is actually a good thing, as the Seim now has the perfect excuse to mobilise or reform if they haven’t done it by this point, fearing a Soviet invasion everyone prepares for war. Now it’s possible the Bolsheviks simply talk it out, like the Moscow treaty in our timeline, between Russia and Georgia

Before we discuss the Soviets though, we need to discuss another important player: Turkey. They have finished their war for independence, and are now looking east, wanting the Muslim majority regions of Armenia and Georgia. Now we need to satisfy them so they don’t wage war. Early support for the Turks, and voluntarily giving up territories if they stay neutral, likely the Turkish/Muslim majority regions, while Laz people and Georgians and Armenians stay in the union. Is this likely? Absolutely not, as it again would require insane foresight from the government, which they don’t have. But even if Turkey invades it's not that big of a deal. Because Turkey’s goal, unlike the Soviet’s, isn’t the complete destruction of Mensheviks and the union, but rather simple territorial expansion, so even if they invade, we will simply secede and negotiate more territorial losses for them to quit

Anyway now for the juicy part: Soviet invasion. So let’s look at what happens, even a reformed TDFR doesn’t have a 100% win chance, but there is significant hope. So again, Soviets invade, for whatever reason. Their plan as we saw in our timeline is simple: send the Red army while encouraging local Bolsheviks to stage unrest. In our timeline this worked perfectly in Azerbaijan, decently in Armenia, but completely failed in Georgia. So something similar will happen here, eastern Azerbaijan, quickly folds, with other flatlands too, while Armenia and Georgia plug the Caucasian chokeholds. Now the Bolsheviks will have a hard time getting through, as the mountains prevent fast movements and the Georgian and Armenian forces only need to hold the choke points. Let’s take the Soviet invasion of Georgia of our timeline as an example:

As said previously, even with an inefficient and politicised army, Georgia still managed to win at Tbilisi, inflict losses and kick back the Soviets, same in the Abkhazian front. But when the Soviets tried to take Tiflis again and succeeded, Georgia folded since the parliament couldn’t control the army anymore. So any meaningful resistance was gone. But this does prove a point: Soviets can be defeated and pushed back, even by minor powers

Something similar will happen here but even better and without the military being under parliament control BS. Battling is mostly happening on Armenian and Azerbaijani soil, with minor operations in the north by the Soviets, in Samachablo and Abkhazia. So even if Armenia completely falls (which is unlikely), Georgia is still capable of holding out until it becomes too costly to continue. Especially when considering that at the same time, the Bolsheviks are also fighting costly and difficult wars in Poland and Ukraine, so the Bosheviks will eventually give up and negotiate

In the peace deal, we likely see Georgia give up claims to Russian land (Dvaleti), Russia likely gains parts of Azerbaijan, maybe along the Kura and Araz rivers? The Bolshevik party is legalised but now their main support base is only in Azerbaijan

Alternate treaty of Kars
Pink is lost territory
Yeah you lose but the flatlands were undefendable anyway so...

Now this leaves the TDFR in an amazing state, the disloyal Azerbaijanis are mostly gone, and the war was a success, so the centralisation continues harder and the concept of joint Caucasian unity is enforced, seeing its success. British aid likely comes around seeing optimism and a good buffer and counter to the Soviets

Overall most of the instability sources are gone, and the Transcaucasian experiment is looking pretty good. TDFR remains a strong British ally in the Caucasus, again I doubt Britain will actually intervene, but they still supply the nation

Again peace remains, but the Soviets will absolutely invade in the future, the TDFR is an ideological thorn (a successful Menshevik state, and a multi ethnic one at that) and Caucasus is an important part of Russia. As without it, it’s just a flatland in the south, leaving it slightly vulnerable. And Georgia’s black sea access is a good addition. So we might see a re-run of the invasion. Likely when Stalin takes charge

There’s also another butterfly effect to consider: Stalin was Georgian. And without Georgia in the Soviet Union, it’s likely he’s cast as a foreigner. And Trotsky would likely also take advantage of this. But meanwhile his rise to power isn’t fundamentally changed, so I assume other than a slightly better Trotsky campaign, Stalin still comes to power

And, after consolidation, Stalin launches the invasion of the TDFR. But in my opinion, if they haven’t messed anything up, haven’t relaxed their senses it’s likely TDFR, AGAIN embarrasses the Soviets, as the key dynamics are unchanged and even strengthened: No more disloyal Azerbaijan and more faithful people and army. And let’s consider another thing: this is the Red army after Stalin’s purges, and most of the competent generals are gone. So in conclusion TDFR likely wins... again. TDFR gets some border corrections, if the Bolsheviks have been banned again, it might be re-legalised yet again, but the status quo mostly remains

This surprisingly has again some impacts. Stalin realised the need for reform after the Winter War, this likely happens earlier, as Stalin becomes less extreme for the time being and starts recruiting more generals. In alternate Winter war, if the Soviets ever break through Finnish lines, we likely see Finland re-absorbed into the Soviet Union, or an even harsher peace deal on Finland

And that concludes pre WW2, but what happens next?

WORLD. WAR. 2!

Again, now TDFR has another moment to chill, as Stalin becomes busy in Eastern Europe and the yk who comes into power and launches the invasion of the Soviet Union

Now you might think TDFR launches an invasion of the Soviet Union as well, takes back Azerbaijan, and helps Nazi Germany, but I consider that unlikely. First of all, TDFR was still Menshevik by this point and Socialism is the complete opposite ideology of Germany. While it’s somewhat possible, it’s still extremely unlikely, they might attack the Soviets out of spite, but they will not join the Axis in any shape or form

Now you might in turn also think that without the Caucasus, the Soviets are weaker but that’s also wrong. The Caucasus isn’t that valuable for the Soviets in this specific war. They aren't rich in resources (except for Baku, which remember the Soviets seized it back) nor man-power. So expect the same dynamics here, Soviets push back the Nazis and the Allies win the war. And even then Mr. dictator was always doomed from the start

But now we move on to the next chapter, the Cold War. Transcaucasia likely enters the western camp, as they are themselves anti Soviet and have experienced many invasions from them. But Soviets might not allow this, a pro-western democracy right at their doorstep? They would try to remove as much western influence as possible, but this goes against the Western and generally post WW2 ideals, so it’s likely TDFR remains pro western, but doesn’t join organisations like NATO or EU

Now there’s another thing to consider: instead of putting missiles in Turkey, America might just put them in Transcaucasia. This is unlikely but possible, as it offers greater reach to the Soviets. But that would be unacceptable to the Soviets and the missile crisis might actually lead to a war

But again that’s a bit extreme, and it’s likely they still opt for Turkey as in this case it’s even more appealing with the TDFR buffer

Now the Soviets collapse, what’s next? Would Azerbaijan rejoin? If they secede from the Soviets at all? It’s possible especially when there were no conflicts and a long time has passed, but unlikely Armenia would still decline as there are just too many Azeris. If Transcaucasia lasted this long though, it’s possible a shared Caucasian identity is really developed, and it’s far more centralised. This republic likely backs the Chechens in their war, being sympathetic to them, they might lean to the West quicker, and generally it’s a much better timeline for the Caucasus

But there’s also a distant possibility of a peaceful secession, like in Czechoslovakia. In which case we again enter a more peaceful timeline, Georgia and Armenia are slightly expanded, there’s more stability and the new Caucasian republics lean towards the west earlier and Russian influence is weakened

Dark Red - Georgia
Yellow - Armenia
Cyan - West Azerbaijan
Green - East Azerbaijan

But this is where I’ll end the timeline, as I have managed to discuss everything I wanted

Anti climactic ending as usual


Sources:
Wikipedia (TDFR) Wikipedia (26 Baku Commissars) Wikipedia (DRG) Wikipedia (First RA) Wikipedia (ADR)