GEORGIA; WORLD WAR I - BAXTER, W.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

In Batoum 1918-19. First edition of this rare book of satirical sketches showing British forces and the locals during the occupation of Batumi, an oft-overlooked conflict in the final year of the war. There are cartoons of Gurkhas, Chinese, Punjabis, Turks, and Cossacks, reflecting the wide diversity of people involved in the conflict. We have traced only two other copies, at the Imperial War Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.Batumi, the capital of the region of Adjara in southwest Georgia, changed hands multiple times in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. First, it was controlled by the Russian Empire until the October Revolution, where the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk transferred the region to the Ottomans. However, the Transcaucasian Federation opposed this deal and Ottoman forces proceeded to invade in April 1918. After the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the First World War, 3,000 men from one British and two Indian battalions, part of the Army of the Black Sea, were sent to supervise their withdrawal in December 1918. The 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders were present in this conflict as part of the 27th Division and the large number of Scottish soldiers pictured in these cartoons indicate that perhaps Baxley was one of them. The region was eventually ceded to the newly independent state of Georgia in 1920.The loosely inserted photographs show a cafe in Batumi, the Bosporus, a farewell party among soldiers of the Royal Flying Corps, the British Army HQ in a bo

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