Southern Asia 1920: Turkish-Armenian War

Changes to the map 10 August 1920–28 November 1920

Turkish-Armenian War: Turkey has invaded Armenia, capturing Kars and Alexandropol. In eastern Armenia, the Soviets are in occupation of the disputed area between Armenia and Azerbaijan and beginning their movement into the Armenian heartland.

Greco-Turkish War: The Greeks have begun their next big push into Turkey, occupying Usak and Afyonkarahisar. At home, however, the Greek government has been undermined when King Alexander dies from a pet monkey bite and Prime Minister Venizelos falls from power.

Franco-Turkish War: The French have been forced to evacuate Saimbeyli and much of Cilicia in the face of Turkish Nationalist advances.

Jordan: The British have persuaded the Jordanian sheikdoms to accept their protection.

Bukhara: The Soviet have invaded Bukhara and helped create the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic, but the forces of the Emirate fight on in the southeast.

British Protectorates in the Persian Gulf

The British Residency of the Persian Gulf maintained British India’s influence in a number of Gulf states from the 19th Century until 1947. These states were nominally independent - and shown as such in most atlases from the period - but all signed treaties guaranteeing British control over their foreign affairs.

The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was the only one of these states with significant international relations, having obtained trade agreements with the US and France before it signed its treaty with Britain. Maps of the time often show Trucial Oman and even Qatar as regions of Oman.

Trucial Oman was the region to the west of Oman which collectively signed treaties with Britain. The sheikhdoms of this region were often called the Trucial States, and later became the United Arab Emirates. However at this time they had little unity, with no regional council until 1952.

Indian Empire

The British Indian Empire, also known as the British Raj, was comprised of a complex of presidencies, provinces, protectorates, and agencies. Only the top level subdivisions are shown here.

The area under direct British rule was known as British India and made up of presidencies and provinces - a presidency simply being the name for an older province.

Outside British India, but often included within the sphere of the presidencies/provinces, were the hundreds of protectorates or ‘princely states’. These were indirectly ruled states, the largest being Hyderabad, Kashmir, and Mysore. The others were either collected into agencies - which might in turn contain other smaller agencies - or fell under the sway of the provinces.