Ardahan has about three thousand years behind it. On the Ministry of Culture's account the province took its name in AD 628, when it passed to the Arda Turks, a branch of the Khazars. Alp Arslan conquered it in 1068 and it came under the Seljuks, and Süleyman the Magnificent brought it into the Ottoman empire with the Treaty of Amasya, signed on 29 May 1555.
The 19th century took it away again. At the end of the Ottoman-Russian war of 1876-77 Ardahan was ceded to Russia as war indemnity, together with Kars and Batum, by the Treaty of Berlin of 13 July 1878.
Getting it back took three stages. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk returned the province to the homeland in 1918, but on 30 October 1918 the National Council government formed at Ardahan rejected the terms of the Armistice of Mudros. That government joined itself to the War of Independence, and the province was liberated on 23 February 1921 by the army under Kâzım Karabekir Paşa and Halit Paşa. Karabekir's phrase — that the straits are our throat and Kars and Ardahan our backbone — has passed into history and says what the province's position was worth.
