When the Soviets scuttled back to the negotiating table at Brest in the first week of March, Turkey demanded not only the border of 1913 but all of the territory taken by the Tsars since the 1870s. With hundreds of thousands of terror-stricken Armenians fleeing before General Enver Pasha’s army, even this was no longer enough. Since the resumption of hostilities, Turkish blood had been spilled. There had been massacres of Muslim villagers too. If the Transcaucasian Republic wanted peace, it would have to purchase it at the price of Armenian territory.
