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The Sayfo, also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass murder and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during World War I.
The Erzurum offensive or Battle of Erzurum was a major winter offensive by the Imperial Russian Army on the Caucasus Campaign, during the First World War that led to the capture of the strategic city of Erzurum. The Ottoman forces, in winter quarters, suffered a series of unexpected reverses, which led to a Russian victory.
The Mesopotamian campaign or Mesopotamian front was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I fought between the Allies represented by the British Empire, troops from Britain, Australia and the vast majority from British Raj, against the Central Powers, mostly the Ottoman Empire. It started after British amphibious landings in 1914 which sought to protect Anglo-Persian oil fields in Khuzestan and the Shatt al-Arab. However, the front later evolved into a larger campaign that sought to capture the key city of Baghdad and divert Ottoman forces from other fronts. It ended with the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, leading to the cession of Iraq and further partition of the Ottoman Empire.
The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 30 October 1914 and 30 October 1918. The combatants were, on one side, the Ottoman Empire, with some assistance from the other Central Powers; and on the other side, the British as well as troops from the British Dominions of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the Russians, and the French from among the Allied Powers. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamian, Caucasus, Persian, and Gallipoli campaigns.
The Caucasus campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, later including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, the German Empire, the Central Caspian Dictatorship, and the British Empire, as part of the Middle Eastern theatre during World War I. The Caucasus campaign extended from the South Caucasus to the Armenian Highlands region, reaching as far as Trabzon, Bitlis, Mush and Van. The land warfare was accompanied by naval engagements in the Black Sea.
Halil Kut, also known as Halil Pasha, was an Ottoman military commander and politician. He served in the Ottoman Army during World War I, notably taking part in the military campaigns against Russia in the Caucasus and the British in Mesopotamia.
The Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 was one of the many wars between the Persian Empire and Imperial Russia, and, like many of their other conflicts, began as a territorial dispute. The new Persian king, Fath Ali Shah Qajar, wanted to consolidate the northernmost reaches of his kingdom—modern-day Georgia—which had been annexed by Tsar Paul I several years after the Russo-Persian War of 1796. Like his Persian counterpart, the Tsar Alexander I was also new to the throne and equally determined to control the disputed territories.
Dunsterforce was an Allied military force, established in December 1917 and named after its commander, Major-General Lionel Dunsterville. The force comprised fewer than 350 Australian, New Zealand, British and Canadian officers and NCOs, who were drawn from the Western and Mesopotamian fronts. The force was intended to organise local units in northern Iran (Persia) and South Caucasus, to replace the Tsarist army that had fought the Ottoman armies in Armenia. The Russians had also occupied northern Iran in co-operation with the British occupation of southern Iran, to create a cordon to prevent German and Ottoman agents from reaching Central Asia, Afghanistan and India.
The defense of Van and in Russian Van operation was the armed resistance of the Armenian population of Van and Russian army against the Ottoman Empire's attempts to massacre the Ottoman Armenian population of the Van Vilayet in the 1915 Armenian genocide. Several contemporaneous observers and later historians have concluded that the Ottoman government deliberately instigated an armed Armenian resistance in the city and then used this insurgency as the main pretext to justify beginning the deportation and slaughter of Armenians throughout the empire. Witness reports agree that the Armenian posture at Van was defensive and an act of resistance to massacre. The self-defense action is frequently cited in Armenian genocide denial literature; it has become "the alpha and omega of the plea of 'military necessity'" to excuse the genocide and portray the persecution of Armenians as justified.
Movses Silikyan or Silikov was an Armenian general who served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and later in the army of the First Republic of Armenia. He is regarded as a national hero in Armenia for his role in the Armenian victory at the Battle of Sardarabad.
The early military history of Armenia is defined by the situation of the Armenian Highland between the Hellenistic states, and later the Byzantine Empire, in the west and the Persian Empire to the east. The Kingdom of Armenia had a series of repeated struggles against Persia or Rome, followed by renewed conquests into either of the neighboring empires. The period after the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, up to the late 15th century, was mostly marked by invasions by other empires, such as by the successive Arab Caliphates, the Seljuk Empire, the Ilkhanate, the Timurid Empire and the Ak Koyunlu and Kara Koyunlu, amongst others. Some periods of greater military independence were, intermittently, achieved under the Bagratids and, albeit located outside the Armenian Highlands, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
Armenian resistance included military, political, and humanitarian efforts to counter Ottoman forces and mitigate the Armenian genocide during the first World War. Early in World War I, the Ottoman Empire commenced efforts to eradicate Armenian culture and eliminate Armenian life, through acts of killing and death marches into uninhabitable deserts and mountain regions. The result was the homogenisation of the Ottoman Empire and elimination of 90% of the Armenian Ottoman population.
The Persian campaign or invasion of Iran was a series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire, British Empire and Russian Empire in various areas of what was then neutral Qajar Iran, beginning in December 1914 and ending with the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, as part of the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War I. The fighting also involved local Persian units, who fought against the Entente and Ottoman forces in Iran. The conflict proved to be a devastating experience for Persia. Over 2 million Persian civilians died in the conflict, mostly due to the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman regime and Persian famine of 1917–1919, influenced by British and Russian actions. The Qajar government's inability to maintain the country's sovereignty during and immediately after the First World War led to a coup d'état in 1921 and Reza Shah's establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty.
The Russian Caucasus Army of World War I was the Russian field army that fought in the Caucasus Campaign and Persian Campaign of World War I. It was renowned for inflicting heavy casualties on the opposing forces of the Ottoman Empire, particularly at the Battle of Sarikamish. It was also known for its extremely diverse ethnic composition, consisting of units from throughout the Russian Empire and both soldiers and officers from the many ethnic communities settled since the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War in the militarily administered Kars Oblast in the Russian Transcaucasus. These included Georgians, Caucasus Greeks, and Armenians - the latter in particular strongly represented among both the soldiers and senior officers - as well as ethnic Russians and Ukrainians.
The Battle of Ardahan was fought between 25 December 1914 and 18 January 1915 and was an Ottoman military operation commanded by German Lt. Col. Stange to capture the city of Ardahan and cut the Russian link to Sarikamish–Kars line, supporting the Battle of Sarikamish. By 3 January 1915, Vorontsov-Dashkov achieved a decisive victory over the Ottoman forces at Ardahan.
The Assyrian independence movement is a political movement and ethno-nationalist desire of ethnic Assyrians to live in their indigenous Assyrian homeland in northern Mesopotamia under the self-governance of an Assyrian State.
The Battle of Yeghevārd, also known as the Battle of Baghavard or Morad Tapeh, was the final major engagement of the Perso-Ottoman War of 1730–1735 where the principal Ottoman army in the Caucasus theatre under Koprulu Pasha's command was utterly destroyed by only the advance guard of Nader's army before the main Persian army could enter into the fray. The complete rout of Koprulu Pasha's forces led to a number of besieged Ottoman strongholds in the theatre surrendering as any hope of relief proved ephemeral in light of the crushing defeat at Yeghevārd. One of Nader's most impressive battlefield victories, in which he decimated a force four or five times the size of his own, it helped establish his reputation as a military genius and stands alongside many of his other great triumphs such as at Karnal, Mihmandoost or Kirkuk.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the Central Powers of World War I, allied with the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria. It entered the war on 29 October 1914 with a small surprise attack on the Black Sea coast of Russia, which prompted Russia to declare war on 2 November 1914. Ottoman forces fought the Entente in the Balkans and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The Ottoman Empire's defeat in the war in 1918 was crucial in the eventual dissolution of the empire in 1922.
During World War I, several Kurdish rebellions took place within the Ottoman Empire. The rebellions were preceded by the emergence of early Kurdish nationalism and Kurdish revolts in Bitlis in 1907 and early 1914. The primary Kurdish war aim was the creation of an independent Kurdish state, a goal that Britain and Russia promised to fulfil in order to incite Kurdish resistance. Other reasons for resistance include a fear that they would suffer the same fate as the Armenians, the desire for more autonomy, and according to Ottoman sources, banditry.
The Assyrian volunteers were an ethnic Assyrian military force during WW1, led mainly by General Agha Petros Elia of Baz and several tribal leaders known as Maliks under the spiritual leadership of the Catholicos-Patriarch Mar Shimun Benyamin allied with the Entente Powers described by the English pastor and author William A. Wigram as Our Smallest Ally. The Assyrian volunteers were described as “the Christian army of Revenge” by the British Major E.W.C. Noel.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Ottoman Treatment of the Assyrians, David Gaunt, A Question of Genocide, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Muge Gocek, Norman M. Naimark, (Oxford University Press, 2011), 255;"In size, Halil's was definitely the superior force, but his army was badly mauled in a decisive battle near Dilman that left thousands of casualties on the battlefield."
- ↑ World War I and the End of the Ottomans, ed. Hans-Lukas Kieser, Kerem Oktem and Maurus Reinkowski, (I.B. Tauris, 2015),42;"The Ottoman forces were decisively defeated in the battle of Dilman in mid April."
- ↑ Trapped between the map and reality. Geography and perceptions of Kurdistan. Maria T. O'Shea. Routledge 2004. ISBN 0-415-94766-9 p. 95
- ↑ America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, p. 95 by Jay Murray Winter
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