Seizure
In the context of the Ottoman front during World War I, the German government had initially opposed Turkish advances into the Caucasus region. However, due to their growing frustration with the actions of Trotsky, the Germans abandoned their previous objections and agreed in the final version of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty to the clearance of Russian troops from the districts of Ardahan, Kars, and Batum. [7]
Taking advantage of this shift in German policy, the reorganized Ottoman Third Army, which incorporated divisions from the disbanded Second Army, undertook an offensive to capture Trabzon. Vehip Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman Third Army, led this operation. [7]
On February 24, 1918, Trabzon was successfully seized by Ottoman forces. [8] However, the capture of the city was not without bloodshed. Approximately 600 individuals lost their lives, and 700 others were wounded, primarily due to an explosion in an ammunitions depot. The circumstances surrounding the explosion remain uncertain, as it is unclear whether it was an accident or an intentional act. The casualties included 1,050 Russians and 250 Greeks, [9] highlighting the diverse ethnic composition of the region. [7]
The Russo-Turkish War was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. Additional factors included the Russian goals of recovering territorial losses endured during the Crimean War of 1853–1856, re-establishing itself in the Black Sea and supporting the political movement attempting to free Balkan nations from the Ottoman Empire.
The First Balkan War lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and involved actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan states' combined armies overcame the initially numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies, achieving rapid success.
The Arab Revolt, also known as the Great Arab Revolt, was an armed uprising by the Hashemite-led Arabs of the Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire amidst the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
The Turkish War of Independence was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after the Ottoman Empire was occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, ending the Ottoman sultanate and the Ottoman caliphate, and establishing the Republic of Turkey. This resulted in the transfer of sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for nationalist revolutionary reform in Republican Turkey.
Trabzon Province is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Its area is 4,628 km2, and its population is 818,023 (2022). Located in a strategically important region, Trabzon is one of the oldest trade port cities in Anatolia. Neighbouring provinces are Giresun to the west, Gümüşhane to the southwest, Bayburt to the southeast and Rize to the east. Aziz Yıldırım was appointed Governor of the province in August 2023. The capital of the province is Trabzon.
The Battle of Sarikamish was an engagement between the Russian and Ottoman empires during World War I. It took place from December 22, 1914, to January 17, 1915, as part of the Caucasus campaign.
The Armistice of Mudros ended hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I. It was signed on 30 October 1918 by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey and British Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe, on board HMS Agamemnon in Moudros harbor on the Greek island of Lemnos, and it took effect at noon the next day.
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.
The Battle of Erzincan was a Russian victory over the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
The Islamic Army of the Caucasus was a military unit of the Ottoman Empire formed on July 10, 1918. The Ottoman Minister of War, Enver Pasha, ordered its establishment, and it played a major role during the Caucasus Campaign of World War I.
The Battle of Bitlis refers to a series of engagements in the summer of 1916 for the town of Bitlis and to a lesser extent nearby Muş, between Russian Imperial forces and their Ottoman counterparts. The town was the last stronghold of the Ottoman Empire preventing the Russians from entering Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Part of the battle is known as Battle of Muş
The Battle of Baku took place in August and September 1918 between the Ottoman–Azerbaijani coalition forces led by Nuri Pasha and Bolshevik–ARF Baku Soviet forces, later succeeded by the British–Armenian–White Russian forces led by Lionel Dunsterville and saw Soviet Russia briefly re-enter the war. The battle took place during World War I, was a conclusive part of the Caucasus Campaign, but a beginning of the Armenian–Azerbaijani War.
Wehib Pasha also known as Vehip Pasha, Mehmed Wehib Pasha, Mehmet Vehip Pasha, was a general in the Ottoman Army. He fought in the Balkan Wars and in several theatres of World War I. In his later years, Vehib Pasha volunteered to serve as a military advisor to the Ethiopian Army against Fascist Italy during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. He served as the chief of staff to Nasibu Zeamanuel, the Ethiopian Commander-in-Chief on the southern front.
The German Caucasus expedition was a military expedition sent in late May 1918, by the German Empire to the formerly Russian Transcaucasia during the Caucasus Campaign of World War I. Its prime aim was to stabilize the pro-German Democratic Republic of Georgia and to secure oil supplies for Germany by preventing the Ottoman Empire from gaining access to the oil reserves near Baku on the Absheron Peninsula.
The siege of Scutari, also referred to as the siege of Shkodër, known in Turkish as İşkodra Müdafaası(in Turkish) or İşkodra Savunması, took place from 28 October 1912 to 23 April 1913 when the army of the Kingdom of Montenegro defeated the forces of the Ottoman Empire and invaded Shkodër.
The Battle of Slobozia was fought between Russia and the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Napoleonic Wars during the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812. The primary battle occurred on the left bank of the Danube River near the small village of Slobozia in Wallachia. Four miles to the southeast on the right bank of the Danube was the Ottoman fortress at Rusçuk. The Russian investment of the Ottoman forces at Slobozia including the final battle lasted approximately two and half months from 28 August to 14 November 1811, ending when Russian Commander Mikhail Kutuzov ultimately accepted the surrender of the Ottoman forces commanded by Ahmed Pasha.
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.
Ottoman Empire 
Russian volunteers 
Pontic Greeks 
Armenian fedayi [4]