This article is about the World War I military campaign. For the World War II military campaign, see Battle of the Caucasus. For the 19th century Russian invasion, see Caucasian War.
The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia or simply Russia, was an empire that extended across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917.
The Ottoman Empire, historically known in Western Europe as the Turkish Empire or simply Turkey, was a state that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Oghuz Turkish tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.
The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Democratic Republic of Armenia, was the first modern Armenian state since the loss of Armenian statehood in the Middle Ages.
On February 23, 1917, the Russian advance was halted following the Russian Revolution, and later the Russian Caucasus Army disintegrated and was replaced by the forces of the newly established Armenian state, comprising Armenian volunteer units and irregular units which had previously been part of the Russian Army. During 1918 the region also saw the establishment of the Central Caspian Dictatorship, the Republic of Mountainous Armenia and an Allied intervention force, nicknamed Dunsterforce, composed of troops drawn from the Mesopotamian and Western Fronts. The Ottoman Empire and the German Empire had a hot conflict at Batumi with the arrival of the German Caucasus Expedition whose prime aim was to secure oil supplies.
The Armenian volunteer units were units composed of Armenians within the Imperial Russian Army during World War I. Composed of several groups at battalion strength, its ranks were primarily made up of Armenians from the Russian Empire, though there were also a number of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire. The Russian-Armenian volunteer units took part in military activities in the Middle Eastern theater of World War I.
The Republic of Mountainous Armenia, also known as simply Mountainous Armenia, was an anti-Bolshevik Armenian state roughly corresponding with the territory that is now the present-day Armenian provinces of Vayots Dzor and Syunik, and some parts of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan. It was established by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak) forces under command of Garegin Nzhdeh, following the suppression of the February Uprising in April 1921. It was not recognised by any country but existed until mid-July, the same year.
Established in December 1917, Dunsterforce was an Allied military force named after its commander, General Lionel Dunsterville. The force had 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 southern Caucasus, to replace the Tsarist armies that had fought the Ottoman armies in Armenia. The Russians had also occupied northern Iran in co-operation with the British occupation of south Iran, to create a cordon to prevent German and Ottoman agents from reaching central Asia, Afghanistan and India.
On March 3, 1918, the campaign terminated between the Ottoman Empire and Russia with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and on June 4, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Batum with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. However, the armed conflicts continued as Ottoman Empire was still engaged with the Central Caspian Dictatorship, Republic of Mountainous Armenia and Dunsterforce of the British Empire until the Armistice of Mudros was signed on October 30, 1918.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918 between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers, that ended Russia's participation in World War I. The treaty was signed at German-controlled Brest-Litovsk, after two months of negotiations. The treaty was agreed upon by the Russians to stop further invasion. According to the treaty, Soviet Russia defaulted on all of Imperial Russia's commitments to the Allies and eleven nations became independent in Eastern Europe and western Asia.
The Treaty of Batum was signed in Batum on June 4, 1918, between the Ottoman Empire and the three Transcaucasian states: the First Republic of Armenia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the Democratic Republic of Georgia. It was the first treaty of the First Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and had 14 articles.
The Armistice of Mudros, concluded on 30 October 1918, ended the hostilities, at noon the next day, in the Middle Eastern theatre between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I. It was signed by the Ottoman Minister of Marine Affairs Rauf Bey and the British Admiral Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe, on board HMS Agamemnon in Moudros harbor on the Greek island of Lemnos.
The Armenian Genocide was carried out during the course of the campaign.
The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens within the Ottoman Empire. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople to the region of Angora (Ankara), 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases—the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other ethnic groups were similarly targeted for extermination in the Assyrian genocide and the Greek genocide, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.
Background
The main objective of the Ottoman Empire was the recovery of territory in the Caucasus, including regions captured by the Russian empire as a result of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–78. The strategic goals of the Caucasus Campaign for Ottoman Forces was to retake Artvin, Ardahan, Kars, and the port of Batum. A success in this region would mean a diversion of Russian forces to this front from the Polish and Galician fronts.[7] A Caucasus Campaign would have a distracting effect on Russian forces. The plan found sympathy with Germany. Germany supplied the missing resources and the Ottoman 3rd Army's manpower was used to achieve the desired distraction.[8] War Minister Enver Pasha hoped a success would facilitate opening the route to Tiflis and beyond with a revolt of Caucasian Muslims.[7] The Ottoman strategic goal was to cut Russian access to the hydrocarbon resources around the Caspian Sea.[9]
The Caucasus or Caucasia is an area situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and occupied by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus mountain range, which has historically been considered a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Artvin is a city in northeastern Turkey about 30 km inland from the Black Sea. It is located on a hill overlooking the Çoruh River near the Deriner Dam. It is a former bishopric and (vacant) Armenian Catholic titular see and the home of Artvin Çoruh University.
Ardahan is a city in northeastern Turkey, near the Georgian border.
Russia viewed the Caucasus front as secondary to the Eastern (European) front. The Eastern Front had the most Russian manpower and resources. Russia had taken the city of Kars from the Turks in 1877 and feared an Ottoman advance into the Caucasus aimed at retaking Kars and the port of Batum. In March 1915 the Russian foreign minister Sergey Sazonov stated in a meeting with British ambassador George Buchanan and French Ambassador Maurice Paléologue that a lasting postwar settlement demanded full Russian possession of Constantinople (the capital city of the Ottoman Empire), the straits of Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, southern Thrace up to the Enos-Midia line as well as parts of the Black Sea coast of Anatolia between the Bosphorus, the Sakarya River and an undetermined point near the Bay of Izmit.[10] The Russian Tsarist regime planned to replace the Muslim population of Northern Anatolia and Istanbul with more reliable Cossack settlers.[11]
The Eastern Front or Eastern Theater of World War I was a theater of operations that encompassed at its greatest extent the entire frontier between the Russian Empire and Romania on one side and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire on the other. It stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, involved most of Eastern Europe and stretched deep into Central Europe as well. The term contrasts with "Western Front", which was being fought in Belgium and France.
Kars is a city in northeast Turkey and the capital of Kars Province. With a population of 73,836 as of 2011, it is the largest city along Turkey's closed border with Armenia..
Sergei Dmitryevich Sazonov GCB was a Russian statesman and diplomat who served as Foreign Minister from November 1910 to July 1916. The degree of his involvement in the events leading up to the outbreak of World War I is a matter of keen debate, with some historians putting the blame for an early and provocative mobilization squarely on Sazonov's shoulders, and others maintaining that his chief preoccupation was "to reduce the temperature of international relations, especially in the Balkans".
The British worked with Russian revolutionary troops to prevent Enver Pasha's goal of establishing an independent Transcaucasia. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was in the proposed path of Ottoman ambitions, and owned the exclusive rights to work petroleum deposits throughout the Persian Empire except in the provinces of Azerbaijan, Ghilan, Mazendaran, Asdrabad and Khorasan.[9] In 1914, before the war, the British government had contracted with the company for the supply of oil-fuel for the navy.[9]
Forces
Ottomans
The Ottomans had one army based in the region, the 3rd Army. In 1916 they sent reinforcements and formed the 2nd Army. At the beginning of the conflict, the combined forces of the Ottomans ranged from 100,000 to 190,000 men. Many were poorly equipped.
Russia
Before the war, Russia had the Russian Caucasus Army stationed here, with 100,000 men under the nominal command of the Governor General of the Caucasus Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov. The real commander was his chief of staff General Nikolai Yudenich. At the onset of the Caucasus Campaign, the Russians had to redeploy almost half of their forces to the Prussian front due to the defeats at the Battle of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, leaving behind just 60,000 troops. However, This Army had lots of Armenian support. It had Armenian generals Nazarbekov, Silikian, and Pirumov who stayed in Caucasia. The Russian Caucasus Army dissipated in 1917 as the regular Russian regiments deserted the front line after the revolution. By 1917, when the Russian Caucasus Army disintegrated, there were 110,000–120,000 soldiers of Armenian ethnicity.[12] This number approached to 150,000 for the total Armenians (including other Allied forces) for Near East where opposing to Ottoman forces.[13]
Armenia
In the summer of 1914, Armenian volunteer units were established under the Russian Armed forces. It was initially established as detachment units (rather than part of Russian Caucasus Command) under the Viceroyalty of the Caucasus. These forces were commanded by Andranik Ozanian. Other leaders included Drastamat Kanayan, Hamazasp Srvandztyan, Arshak Gafavian, and Sargis Mehrabyan. An Ottoman representative Karekin Bastermadjian (Armen Karo) was also united to this force. Initially they had 20,000 men, but throughout the conflicts it was reported that their number increased. At the turn of 1916, Nikolai Yudenich decided to either merge these units under the Russian Caucasus Army or dismantle them.
By the beginning of 1918, the Armenian National Army (made up of 17,000 former troops of the Russian army augmented by 4,000 local volunteers) numbered some 20,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, according to Allen and Muratoff. Contrary to initial Turkish opinion, the Armenian force was actually rather well-equipped and trained. The infantry were made up of veteran soldiers of the Druzhiny units which had fought alongside the Russians for almost four years, and the Armenians were allowed to recover the best of the equipment left behind by the decaying Russian Army. Alternative estimates given by the Ottoman Army state that the Armenian army numbered 50,000 men by the beginning of 1918, while post-war Russian sources put Armenia's strength as two veteran rifle divisions, three brigades of volunteers, and one brigade of cavalry.[15]
Others
Lionel Dunsterville was appointed in 1917 to lead an Allied force of under 1,000 Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand troops, accompanied by armored cars.
On November 1, in the Bergmann Offensive, Russians crossed the frontier first. They planned to capture Doğubeyazıt and Köprüköy.[8] The official Russian declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire came on November 2.[16] The established force for this goal was 25 infantry battalions, 37 cavalry units and 120 artillery guns. It had two wings. On the right wing, the Russian I Corps crossed the border and moved from Sarikamish toward the direction of Köprüköy. They reached Köprüköy on November 4. On the left wing, the Russian IV Corps moved from Yerevan to Pasinler Plains. The commander of 3rd Army, Hasan Izzet was not in favor of an offensive action in the harsh winter conditions. His plan was to remain in defense and launch a counterattack at the right time. This was overridden by the War Minister Enver Pasha. On November 7, the Turkish 3rd Army commenced its offensive with the participation of the XI Corps and all cavalry units. This force was supported by a Kurdish Tribal Regiment. The cavalry failed to execute the encirclement and the Kurdish Tribal Regiment proved to be unreliable. The Russians gained territory after the withdrawal of the 18th and the 30th Divisions. Ottoman forces managed to maintain their positions at Köprüköy. By November 12, the Turkish IX Corps with Ahmet Fevzi Pasha had reinforced the XI Corps on the left flank. The 3rd Army began to push the Russians back with the support of the cavalry. The 3rd Infantry Regiment managed to invade Köprüköy after the Azap Offensive between November 17 and 20. By the end of November, the front had stabilized, with the Russians clinging to a salient 25 kilometers into the Ottoman Empire along the Erzurum-Sarikamish axis. There was Russian success along the southern shoulders of the offensive where Armenian volunteers were effective and took Karaköse and Doğubeyazıt.[17] Doğubeyazıt was the northern neighbor of Van Province. Ottoman casualties were high: 9000 killed, 3000 taken prisoner and 2800 deserters.
From all countries Armenians are hurrying to enter the ranks of the glorious Russian Army, with their blood to serve the victory of the Russian Army... Let the Russian flag wave freely over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, Let your will the peoples [Armenian] remaining under the Turkish yoke receive freedom. Let the Armenian people of Turkey who have suffered for the faith of Christ received resurrection for a new free life...[18]
—Nicholas II of Russia
On December 15, 1914, at the Battle of Ardahan, the city was captured by the Turks. This was an operation commanded by the German Lt. Col. Stange. The mission of Stange Bey Detachment was to conduct highly visible operations to distract and pin down Russian units. Stange Bey's initial mission was to operate in the Chorok region. The unit was materially assisted by the rebellious Adjars of the country, who seized the road. Later Enver modified the original plan toward supporting the Battle of Sarikamish.[19] Stange Bey Detachment was ordered to cut the Russian support link to Sarikamish-Kars line. On January 1, this unit was in Ardahan.
On December 22, at the Battle of Sarikamish, the 3rd Army received the order to advance towards Kars. In the face of the 3rd Army's advance, Governor Vorontsov planned to pull the Russian Caucasus Army back to Kars. Yudenich ignored Vorontsov's wish to withdraw. He stayed to defend Sarikamis. Enver Pasha assumed personal command of the 3rd Army and ordered it into battle against the Russian troops.
1915
On January 6, the 3rd Army headquarters found itself under fire. Hafiz Hakki Pasha ordered a total retreat. On January 7, the remaining forces began their march towards Erzurum. The resulting Battle of Sarikamish became a stunning defeat. Only 10% of the Army managed to retreat back to its starting position. After this, Enver gave up command. The Armenian volunteer units were definitely a factor in their defeat, as they challenged the Ottoman operations during critical times,[20] and his experience may have been one of the catalysts that led the Three Pashas, of which one was Enver, to their decision to conduct the Armenian Genocide only a few months later.[21] After his return to Constantinople, Enver blamed this defeat on Armenians living in the region actively siding with the Russians .[22]
On January 18, 1915, the Lt. Col. Stange's Turkish unit was recalled from the area around Ardahan. It was to stay behind the lines in the region; only on March 1, 1915 did it regain its initial position.
In February, General Yudenich was praised for the victory and promoted to commander-in-chief of all Russian troops in the Caucasus. The Allies (British and France) asked Russia to relieve the pressure on the Western front. In return, Russia asked the Allies to relieve pressure in the Caucasus by a naval attack. The resulting operations in the Black Sea gave the Russians some respite to replenish their forces. Additionally, actions at the Battle of Gallipoli which aimed at capturing the Ottoman capital helped the Russian forces on this front.[8] On February 12, the commander of the 3rd Army Hafiz Hakki Pasha died of typhus and was replaced by Brigadier General Mahmut Kamil Pasha. Kamil faced the daunting task of putting the Ottoman army back in order. The military planners back in Istanbul were scared of the Russians advancing deeper into the mainland.
During March the strategic situation remained stable. The completely devastated 3rd Army received new blood through reinforcements from the 1st and 2nd Armies, although these supplements were not stronger than a division. The Battle of Gallipoli was draining every Ottoman resource. Meanwhile, the Russians were holding the towns of Eleşkirt, Ağrı and Doğubeyazıt in the south. Military action never escalated above small-scale skirmishes—the Ottomans simply did not have enough forces to secure the whole East Anatolian region.
Siege of Van, Armenian troops holding a defense line against Ottoman forces in the walled city of Van in May 1915
On April 20, the resistance at the city of Van began. The Armenian defenders protecting 30,000 residents and 15,000 refugees with 1,500 able bodied riflemen who were supplied with 300 rifles and 1,000 pistols and antique weapons. The conflict lasted more than three weeks until General Yudenich's force came to rescue them. General Yudenich began an offensive (May 6) moving into Ottoman territory. One wing of this offensive headed towards Lake Van to relieve the Armenian residents of Van. A brigade of Trans-Baikal Cossacks under General Trukhin, and some Armenian volunteers advanced towards Van.[23]
1915, After the Defense of Van behind the retreating Russian forces, 250,000 Armenian refugees fled to the Caucasus
On April 24, Interior minister Mehmed Talat passed the order of April 24 (known by the Armenians as Red Sunday), claimed that the Armenians in this region organized under the leadership of the Russians and rebelled against his government. He claimed the defense of Van from Ottoman massacres to be an example. This was the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
On May 6, the Russian advance began through the Tortum Valley towards Erzurum. The Ottoman 29th and 30th Divisions managed to stop this assault. The Ottoman X Corps counter-attacked the Russian forces. But on the southern part of this advance, Ottoman forces were not as successful as they have been in the north. On May 11 the town of Manzikert had fallen. On May 17, Russian forces entered the town of Van. On May 21, General Yudenich arrived in the city, received the keys to the city and citadel and confirmed the Armenian provisional government in office, with Aram Manukian as governor. The Fedayee turned over the city of Van. With Van secure, fighting shifted farther west for the rest of the summer.[23] Ottoman forces continued to be pushed back. The region south of Lake Van was extremely vulnerable. The Turks had to defend a line of more than 600 kilometers with only 50,000 men and 130 pieces of artillery. They were clearly outnumbered by the Russians. The region was mountainous, thus difficult to attack or defend.
Rafael de Nogales Méndez, a Venezuelan officer who served in the Ottoman army, participated in the Siege of Van and after the war wrote one of the best accounts of the battle and its aftermath.
On May 27, during the Russian offensive, the interior minister of Talat Pasha ordered a forced deportation of all Armenians out of region with the Tehcir Law to the Syria and Mosul.
By June 13, Russian units were back to their starting line. On June 19, the Russians launched another offensive; this time northwest of Lake Van. The Russians, under Oganovski, launched an attack into the hills west of Manzikert. The Russians underestimated the size of the Ottoman army, and were surprised by a large Turkish force which counterattacked. Russian forces began to march from Manzikert towards Mush. However, they were not aware of the fact that the Turkish IX Corps, together with the 17th and 28th Divisions was moving to Mush as well. Although the conditions were extremely difficult, the Turks were executing a very efficient reorganization. 1st and 5th Expeditionary Forces were positioned to the south of the Russian offensive force and a "Right Wing Group" was established under the command of Brigadier General Abdülkerim Paşa. This group was independent from the Third Army and Abdülkerim Paşa was directly reporting to Enver Paşa. The Turks were ready to face the Russian attacks.
On September 24, Grand Duke Nicholas was promoted to being in charge of all Russian forces in the Caucasus. In reality, he was removed from being Supreme Commander of the Russian Caucasus Army which was the highest executive position [actual conduct of the war] for the Caucasus Campaign. His replacement was General Yudenich. This front was quiet from October till the end of the year. Yudenich used this period to reorganize. Around the start of 1916, Russian forces reached a level of 200,000 men and 380 pieces of artillery. On the other side the situation was very different; the Ottoman High Command failed to make up the losses during this period. The war in Gallipoli was sucking all the resources and manpower. The IX, X and XI Corps could not be reinforced and in addition to that the 1st and 5th Expeditionary Forces were deployed to Mesopotamia. Enver Pasha, after not achieving his ambitions or recognizing the dire situation on other fronts, decided that the region was of secondary importance. As of January 1916, Ottoman forces were 126,000 men, only 50,539 being combatants. There were 74,057 rifles, 77 machine guns and 180 pieces of artillery. Ottoman force in Caucasus Campaign was big on the paper, but not on the ground. The Ottomans assumed that the Russians would not bother to attack. This assumption turned out to be false.
In early January, Yudenich secretly left his winter quarters and marched towards the major Ottoman fort at Erzurum. The winter is not normally a time for military activity in this part of the world. The bitter cold and terrible roads contributed greatly to the annihilation of Enver Pasha's 3rd Army in the previous year. The Russian General Yudenich viewed this as an opportunity to take the Ottomans by surprise. The Russians achieved total surprise and destroyed an Ottoman division that was in winter quarters in the Battle of Koprukoy (January 10–18).
On February 16, Mahmut Kamil was forced to order the 3rd Army to retreat from the city, as Yudenich had a numerical advantage over the Ottoman army. The difference was not big enough to be decisive, so Yudenich's plan was to attack the center of the Ottoman defenses, with the key attack falling in a weakly held sector. While diversionary attacks held the attention of Mahmut Kamil near the Deve-Boyun ridge, Russian forces broke through at Forts Kara-gobek and Tafet.[25] The result was that both rings of the cities' defenses had been penetrated.
In April, the Caucasus army moved in two directions from Erzurum. Part went north and captured the ancient port city of Trabzon. The other part moved in the direction of Mush and Bitlis .These units pushed the 2nd Army deep into Anatolia and defeated the Turks in the Battles of Mush and Bitlis (March 2 – August 24), driving the Ottoman army before it. Bitlis was the last defence point for the Ottoman Army to prevent the Russians from moving into central Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
During July, General Yudenich then countered the Ottoman attack with an offensive of his own towards Erzican. This was the Battle of Erzincan (July 2–25). On July 2, Erzincan was captured. The Ottoman offensive against Trabzon was halted as they tried to stabilize their front lines to prevent the Russians from entering Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
After their defeat, the Ottoman Army gave Mustafa Kemal the organization of the defense of the region in August. The region was controlled by the 2nd Army. When Mustafa Kemal was assigned to his post, the enemy forces were in constant advance. Fighting around the east side of Lake Van continued throughout the summer but was inconclusive. In the earlier periods of the campaign, the XVI Corps managed to take Bitlis and Mush. Ahmet İzzet Paşa decided to attack one week after the conclusion of the Russian offensive. A military force was gathered and sent marching along the coast. The Second Army advanced on August 2. While Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich was in the north and pushing the Ottoman 3rd Army, the Ottoman 2nd Army was in the south facing the insurgency and the second branch of the Russian army under General Tovmas Nazarbekian and a detachment of Armenian volunteer units led by Andranik Ozanian. After fighting from 1–9 August 1916, the Ottoman Army was overwhelmed and the entire region fell to the Russian Empire and Armenian volunteers, and thus an assault on Van was prevented.
The area of Russian occupation of that region in summer 1916 (Russian map).
By the late September, the Ottoman attack ended. The cost for the 2nd Army was 30,000 killed and wounded. The Russians strengthened their lines. They were strong enough to respond with counteroffensives in two weeks after the launch of the Ottoman offensive. The Russians held up the advance.
From September towards the Russian Revolution, the Russian Navy still dominated the Black Sea.
The rest of the year 1916 was spent by the Turks making organizational and operational changes in the Caucasian front. Fortunately for the Ottoman commanders, the Russians were quiet during this period. The winter of 1916–17 was extremely harsh, which made fighting nearly impossible.
1917
Western Armenia territory under Russian control as of September 1917
The military situation did not change during the spring of 1917. The Russian plans for a renewed attack never substantiated. Meanwhile, Russia was in political and social turmoil. It was also influencing the army ranks. The chaos caused by the Russian Revolution put a stop to all Russian military operations. The Russian forces began to conduct withdrawals. Neither the Russian soldiers nor the Russian people wanted to continue the war. The Russian army slowly disintegrated. Starting from the spring of 1917, the situation was completely disadvantageous as a renewed typhus, scurvy and similar problems resulting from hygiene and food, became very common in the Caucasian army.[26]
Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Ottoman Empire's possible operation in Caucasia could not be imagined. After the Battle of Sarikamish, the Ottoman units were "almost always" in a disastrous situation trying to hold onto regions in the occupied Ottoman lands. The Ottoman forces could not take advantage of the chaotic situation during 1917, as their units were not in good shape. Enver moved five divisions out of the region because of the pressure from the British in Palestine and Mesopotamia.
On March 1, the order "Number–1" published by Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies included paragraphs envisioning democratization of the army. This written command enabled military units to elect their representatives. On March 9, 1917, a Special Transcaucasian Committee was established with Member of the State Duma V. A. Kharlamov as the Chairman to replace the Imperial Viceroy Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929) by the Russian Provisional Government as the highest organ of civil administrative body in Transcaucasia. The new government reassigned General Yudenich to a position in Central Asia. General Yudenich retired from the army following the assignment.
During the summer, during the occupation of Turkish Armenia the Russians sponsored a conference to consider emergency measures and adopted plans to form a twenty-thousand-man militia under Andranik to be ready in December 1917. Civilian commissioner Dr. Hakob Zavriev promoted Andranik to Major General. The 1st brigade of Andranik's division was composed of the Erzinjan and Erzurum regiments. The 2nd brigade was composed of the Khnus and Alashkert regiments. The 3rd brigade was of the Van and mounted Zeytoun regiments.
An Armenian mother beside the corpses of her five children
On September 14, 1917, the Russian army in the region, which was about to completely disintegrate, lost commanding authority, and the tendency of the villagers for plundering had increased. Towards the end of autumn, the Chief General of the Caucasus Front Przhevalskii had already ordered the establishment of national Armenian and Georgian forces within the Army to slow down the disintegration. The problems of demobilization of Russian Army (on all fronts Russians had the same problems) would in a way bring the end of the Russian government and help the Bolsheviks to come into power easily. In November 1917, the first government of the independent Transcaucasia was created in Tbilisi as the "Transcaucasian Commissariat (Transcaucasian Sejm)" replaced "Transcaucasian Committee" following the Bolshevik seizure of power in St. Petersburg.
Transcaucasian Sejm was headed by a Georgian Menshevik Nikolay Chkheidze. But Transcaucasian Sejm did not stop the degradation of forces in the region into smaller national forces. While Armenians sending representatives to Transcaucasian Sejm, at the same time the Eastern Armenian leaders at Erivan tried to established an Armenian Army Corps. Armenians had planned to keep their existence based on a political strategy in the way of being supporting the Allies and Russia and to establish their national army with Russian support.[27]General Nazarbekov was selected as the Commanding Officer. Erivan assigned 1st Division under General Christophor Araratov into 1st Erzurum and Erzinjan regiment, 2nd Khnus Regiment, 3rd Yerevan Regiment, and 4th Erzinjan and Yerevan Regiments. Erivan also assigned Colonel Movses Silikyan to 2nd Division with 5th Van Regiment, 6th Yerevan Regiment, 7th and 8th Alexandropol Regiments. The Chief of Staff of the Armenian Corps was General Vickinski. The divisions which comprised four regiments each, had also three regular and one depot regiment. Their total strength was 32,000 enlisted men. Besides these regular structures able men were also armed. A 40 to 50 thousand strong force formed from this armed civilian population. Baku alone, Russian army left 160 cannons, 180 machine guns, and 160million cartridges to Armenians.[28]
On October 23, during the October Revolution the Ottoman Third Army was protecting the 190km area from Munzur Mountains to the Black Sea with 66 battalions consisting of 30,000 combatants each, 177 machine guns, and 157 cannons. The number of machine guns, of animals, supply, transportation and clothing were all problematic. Russia had strengthened Erzurum and Trabzon. Russia had 9; the Ottomans had 3 planes. The Russian forces were in a line from the west of Trabzon, along the Erzincan-Kemah passage, passing through south of Tunceli and Murat waters to Lake Van and to Baskale". On this line, the Russian army against the Third Army had 86,000 combatants and 146 cannons. The situation was a stalemate.[29]
On December 5, 1917, the armistice of Erzincan (Erzincan Cease-fire Agreement) was signed by the Russians and Ottomans in Erzincan. It ended the fighting between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.[30] Between December and February 7 the regiments of the Armenian Corps were immediately hustled off to the front. They created a spectacle en route, for, to the amazement of the homeward-bound Russian soldiers, they were moving toward, not away from, the forward lines. Russian soldiers left equipment and guns to the newly constructed Armenian national army soldiers. After the nationalization (or "democratization" in some sources) of these left over forces throughout 1917, there was no effective Russian military force by the end of 1917 in the region.
At the turn of 1918, Allied Powers, Cossacks in the south, Georgians, Pontic Greeks, and Armenians were willing to build a resistance line against the Ottomans through gathering in the region. In case of an agreement between Russia and Ottoman Empire, this was the only strategy to continue fighting against the Ottomans.[31] The Armenians that kept their position in the region after the withdrawal of the Russian soldiers from the Caucasian front had taken support of 1 million rubles from Britain.[32]
1918
The Bolshevik revolution left Russia's vast southern territories unguarded, except for a few thousand Armenian volunteers equipped with castoff Russian arms, commanded by Tovmas Nazarbekian and an even smaller force of refugees from western Anatolia led by Andranik Ozanian, spread along a line extending from Yerevan to Van and Erzinjan. The Third Army's offense headed by Vehib Pasha began on February 5. The Ottoman forces moved through east of the line between Tirebolu and Bitlis and took Kelkit on February 7, Erzincan on February 13, Bayburt on February 19, Tercan on February 22, the Black Sea port of Trabzon on February 24. The incoming sea-borne reinforcements began to debark at Trabzon. Manzikert, Hınıs, Oltu, Köprüköy and Tortum followed over the following two weeks. By March 24 the Ottoman forces were crossing the 1914 frontier into what had been Russian Empire territory.[33]
During 1918 General Andranik made it possible for the Armenian population of Van to escape from the Ottoman Army to Eastern Armenia. He and his troops fought between Mountainous Karabagh and Zangezur where the Republic of Mountainous Armenia was declared.
On March 3, the Grand vizier Talat Pasha signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russian SFSR. Bolshevik Russia ceded Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, which the Russians had captured during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). The treaty also stipulated that Transcaucasia was to be declared independent. In addition to these provisions, a secret clause was inserted which obliged the Russians to demobilize Armenian national forces.[34]
Collection of civilian corpses from Erzinzan
Then a peace conference between The Ottomans and a delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet convened on March 14. Enver Pasha offered to surrender all claims in the Caucasus in return for recognition of the Ottoman re-acquisition of the east Anatolian provinces as agreed to at Brest-Litovsk.[35] On April 5, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a basis for more negotiations and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position.[36] The mood prevailing in Tiflis was very different. Tiflis acknowledge the existence of a state of war between themselves and the Ottoman Empire.[36]
On 14 April, the Ottomans with 10,000-12,000 troops[37] captured the port of Batumi and its garrison of 3,000 troops after two days of light fighting.[38] On April 23, 1918 the Ottomans laid siege to the fortress city of Kars, now under the effective control of Armenian and non-Bolshevik Russian troops. The fortress had been strengthened considerably by the Russians since its capture in 1877, and the garrison was strong and well-stocked. The garrison numbered some 10,000 men, and they had at their disposal 154 fixed artillery pieces, 67 reserve artillery pieces, 46 fortress machine guns, 20 reserve machine guns, and 11,000 rifles.[39]
Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic foreign minister Akaki Chkhenkeli had previously ordered the city to surrender at first contact with the Ottomans, doing so without the notice of the Armenian members of his coalition government; while not followed, the order threw the defenders into confusion and partly caused the exodus of thousands of civilians before and during the siege. Independent of this, it was clear to all involved that the Armenians, surrounded, outnumbered, and cut off from relief, could not hold the city indefinitely. As a result, the garrison scrambled for a way to negotiate their way out without having to fight for the city. The Ottomans agreed to let the garrison peacefully exit the city, but only if they would surrender the entire fortress and its armory intact. General Nazarbekov, the Armenian Corps Commander based in Yerevan acting through a French intermediary, agreed to the surrender of the city and its garrison on April 25, 1918. At the same time the batteries surrounding the city were occupied and in the evening a regiment from the Ottoman I Caucasian Corps entered into the city and took it under control. The Ottomans obtained 11,000 rifles, 2 million bullets, 67 cannons, and 19 machine guns from the surrender.[40]
On May 11, a new peace conference opened at Batum,[35] at which the Ottomans extended their demands to include Tiflis as well as Alexandropol and Echmiadzin. The Armenian and Georgian members of the Republic’s delegation stalled. The Ottoman army moved once again on May 21, leading to the Battle of Sardarapat (May 21–29), the Battle of Kara Killisse (1918) (May 24–28), and the Battle of Bash Abaran (May 21–24). Although the Armenians managed to inflict a defeat on the Ottomans, the Armenian army was scattered. Meanwhile, there was a fruitless German-mediated peace conference between the Ottoman and Transcaucasian governments at Batumi, which closed on May 24, 1918. Two days later, Georgia withdrew from the federation and declared itself a separate republic, encouraged by the German mission led by Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein and Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg: the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia was proclaimed, formalized by the treaty of Poti, which Ottoman expansion. [clarification needed]On the same day the First Republic of Armenia declared its independence, followed by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
On June 4, the First Republic of Armenia was forced to sign the Treaty of Batum. However under the leadership of Andranik Ozanian Armenians in the mountainous Karabag region resisted the Ottoman 3rd army throughout the summer and established the Republic of Mountainous Armenia.[41] In August, they set up an independent government in Shusha, the administrative center of the region.
In June, German troops arrived to compete with the Ottomans for Caucasian influence and resources, notably the oilfields at Baku.[42] Early in June, the Ottoman army under Vehip Pasha renewed its offensive on the main road to Tiflis, where they confronted a joint German-Georgian force. On June 10, the 3rd Army attacked and took many prisoners, leading to an official threat from Berlin to withdraw all of its troops and support from Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government had to concede to German pressure and to halt, for the moment, a further advance into Georgia, reorienting its strategic direction towards Azerbaijan and Iran.[43] A Georgian delegation composed of Chkhenkeli, Zurab Avalishvili, and Niko Nikoladze, went to Berlin to negotiate a treaty — which was aborted by the German collapse in November.
Armenian defenders during the Battle of Baku.Kars shopping district
Enver Pasha had created a new force in March, named the Army of Islam, although it only had somewhere between 14,000 and 25,000 men. All were Muslims and most spoke Turkish. In July, he ordered them into the Centrocaspian Dictatorship, with the goal of occupying Baku, which they took from the British in September.
In October, Ottoman troops pursued General Andranik's Armenian forces into mountainous Karabagh and Zangezur. The conflict was fierce, but indecisive. The Armenian militia under Andranik's command decimated an Ottoman unit trying to advance to the Varanda River. The armed conflicts between these units continued until the Armistice of Mudros was signed on October 30. By then the Ottomans had re-captured all the territory which they lost to the Russians in Eastern Anatolia. The Armistice enabled General Andranik to create a base for further advancing eastward and to form a strategic corridor extending into Nakhichevan.[44]
Casualties
Russian casualties are hard to estimate. There were 50,000 irrecoverable losses in the period of June–September 1916 alone, mostly from non-combat causes.[3] The Ottomans took 15,728 Russian soldiers prisoner up until the collapse of the Russian Empire: 9,216 in the Caucasus and 6,512 in Romania.[45]
Ottoman casualties are also cryptic, but clearer. Using records from the Ottoman Archives, American historian Edward J. Erickson was able to estimate Ottoman losses in this campaign by battle/phase. Not including non-combat deaths/injuries or non-critical wounds, Ottoman battle casualties were as follows:[46]
A total of 235,733 permanent casualties (83,083 killed, 113,570 critically wounded, 39,080 prisoners). Disease deaths overwhelmingly outnumbered combat deaths for Ottoman forces however, with over twice as many Ottoman troops dying of disease in the war than combat. Assuming the same trend held true in the Caucasus, Ottoman disease deaths would number ~ 170,000, and total deaths would number ~253,000. Additionally, total woundings were x2.5 greater than critical ones overall. If this average also held true in the Caucasus, total wounded would number 284,000.[47] Altogether, total Ottoman losses would be around 576,000 (284,000 dead, 253,000 wounded, 39,000 prisoners), over a third of total Ottoman casualties in World War I.
Historian Uğur Ümit Üngör, the author of Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property, noted that during the Russian invasion of the Ottoman Empire, many atrocities were carried out against the local Turks and Kurds by the Russian army and its Armenian volunteer units.[48] A large part of the local Muslim Turks and Kurds fled west after the Russian invasion of 1916.[49]
Armenian Genocide
During the Caucasus Campaign, Ottoman Armenia was depopulated of much of the entire Christian Armenian population as part of the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian population was either forced on long death marches to camps in the middle of the Syrian desert to die of disease, abuse by guards, massacres, Kurdish raids along the way, and starvation or, if they refused, be indiscriminately massacred. Both scenarios accomplished the goal of the Ottoman Turks, removal of Armenians from their homelands to continue their occupation of Western Armenia. The ethnic cleansings and massacres resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians, with other estimates being between 800,000 and 1,800,000, the destruction of thousands of years of Armenian heritage in the form of monasteries, churches, cemeteries, houses, schools, and other buildings, a massive expansion of the Armenian diaspora in countries like France and the United States, and the continuous 100-year long contention between the modern day states of Turkey and Armenia.[50][51]
The Ottoman Empire lost the war to the Allies, but the borders in the Caucasus were not settled. Two years after the armistice, a peace treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers and Ottoman Empire at Sèvres on August 10, 1920.
On April 27, 1920, the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) received a notice that the Soviet army was about to cross the northern border and invade the ADR. In the west, there was a war over Karbakh with Armenia; in the east, the local Azeri communists were rebelling against the government; and to the north the Russian Red Army was steadily moving southward having defeated Denikin's White Russian forces. ADR officially surrendered to the Soviets, but many generals and local Azeri militias kept resisting the advance of the Soviet forces and it took a while for the Soviets to stabilize the newly proclaimed Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. On December 4, 1920, the government of the First Republic of Armenia effectively surrendered. On December 5, the Armenian Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) made up of mostly Armenians from mountainous Karabakh entered the city. On December 6, Felix Dzerzhinsky's dreaded secret police, Cheka entered Yerevan, thus effectively ending all existence of the ADR.[52] The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed, under the leadership of Aleksandr Miasnikyan. On February 25, 1921, the Soviet destruction of the Democratic Republic of Georgia happened.
1 2 Fleet, Kate; Faroqhi, Suraiya; Kasaba, Reşat (2006). Turkey in the Modern World. The Cambridge History of Turkey. 4. Cambridge University Press. p.94. ISBN0-521-62096-1.
↑ Erickson, Edward J. (2007). Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I: a comparative study. Taylor & Francis. p.154. ISBN0-415-77099-8.
1 2 Allen, W. E. D.; Muratoff, Paul (1999). Caucasian Battlefields: A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828–1921. Nashville: Battery Press. p. 439. "Losses" for the Caucasus Army for June–September 1916 are given as 50,000, including Baratov's, which were mostly from sickness.
↑ "Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire" (London: HMSO, 1920). Page 778. Note: British Indian Army only. Details for British Indian Army personnel in Dunsterforce: unknown officers, 158 other ranks, and 23 followers dead from all causes. Unknown followers and officers and 15 other ranks wounded.
↑ Allen, W. E. D.; Muratoff, Paul (1999). Caucasian Battlefields: A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828–1921. Nashville: Battery Press. p. 439. Includes losses from sickness and desertion.
1 2 Hinterhoff, Eugene (1984). Persia: The Stepping Stone To India. Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I. 4. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. pp.499–503. ISBN0-86307-181-3.
1 2 3 Pollard, A. F. (1920). "The first winter of the war". A Short History of the Great War. London: Methuen.
1 2 3 The Encyclopedia Americana. 28. 1920. p.403.
↑ Bobroff, Ronald Park (2006). Roads to glory – Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits. London: I.B. Tauris. p.131. ISBN1-84511-142-7.
↑ Hovannisian, R. G. (1967). Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. p.59.
↑ Kayaloff, Jacques (1973). The Battle of Sardarabad. Near and Middle East Monographs. 10. Paris: Mouton. p.73. ISBN3-11-169459-3.
↑ Nansen, Fridtjof (1976). Armenia and the Near East. Middle East in the Twentieth Century. New York: Da Capo Press. p.310. ISBN0-306-70760-8.
↑ Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. New York: HarperCollins. p.200. ISBN0-06-019840-0.
1 2 Hinterhoff, Eugene. Persia: The Stepping Stone To India. Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I, vol iv. pp.1153–1157.
↑ Safrastian, A. S. (January 1916). "Narrative of Van 1915". Journal Ararat. London.
↑ Allen, W. E. D.; Muratoff, Paul (1999). Caucasian Battlefields: A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828–1921. Nashville: Battery Press. pp.361–363. ISBN0-89839-296-9.
↑ Serge, Victor (1972). Year One of The Russian Revolution. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p.193. ISBN0-7139-0135-7.
↑ Allen, W. E. D.; Muratoff, Paul (1999). Caucasian Battlefields: A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828–1921. Nashville: Battery Press. p.458. ISBN0-89839-296-9.
↑ Chalabian, Antranig (1988). General Andranik and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement. Southfield, MI. p.318.[self-published source?]
↑ Swietochowski, Tadeusz (1985). Russian Azerbaijan 1905–1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community. New York: Cambridge University Press. p.119. ISBN0-521-26310-7.
↑ Gökay, Bülent (1997). A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism, 1918–1923. London: Tauris Academic Studies. p.12. ISBN1-86064-117-2.
↑ Çaglayan, Kaya Tuncer (2004). British Policy Towards Transcaucasia 1917–1921. Istanbul: Isis Press. p.52. ISBN975-428-290-0.
↑ Richard G. Hovannisian. The Republic of Armenia: The first year, 1918–1919. Page 27.
↑ Malkasian, Mark (1996). Gha-Ra-Bagh!: The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p.22. ISBN0-8143-2604-8.
↑ Busch, Briton Cooper (1976). Mudros to Lausanne: Britain’s Frontier in West Asia, 1918–1923. Albany: SUNY Press. p.22. ISBN0-87395-265-0.
↑ Malik, Hafeez (1994). Central Asia: Its Strategic Importance and Future Prospects. New York: St. Martin's Press. p.145. ISBN0-312-10370-0.
↑ Arslan, Nebahat Oran: Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Türkiye’de Rus Savaş Esirleri [Russian Prisoners of War in Turkey During World War One], Istanbul 2008, pp. 112-113
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 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. Ottoman forces, in winter quarters, suffered a series of unexpected reverses that led to a Russian victory.
The Middle Eastern theatre of World War I saw action between 29 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, the Russians and the French from among the Allied Powers. There were five main campaigns: the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the Mesopotamian Campaign, the Caucasus Campaign, the Persian Campaign, and the Gallipoli Campaign. There were also several minor campaigns: the Senussi Campaign, Arab Campaign, and South Arabia Campaign.
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.
Sarıkamış is a town and a district of Kars Province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Its population was 17,860 in 2010. The town sits in a valley and is surrounded by mountains, many of which are covered with pine forests. It has a subalpine climate, with average of 7–8 ft/2.1m-2.4m of snowfall; it has very long winters and short, dry summers. In recent years Sarıkamış has developed as a winter skiing resort, with one of the world's longest tracks.
The Defense of Van (also known as the Siege of Van or Van Resistance to the Armenians was a battle between forces of the Ottoman army against the inhabitants of the strategically located city of Van. The resistance broke out during the Caucasus Campaign, in which the Dashnak militias were supported by the Imperial Russian army to oppose the Ottomans. Such measures had not been intended or planned by the Armenians. Several contemporaneous observers and later historians have concluded that the Ottoman government deliberately instigated the armed Armenian resistance by enforcing the conditions on their subjects and then used this insurgency as a main pretext to justify the forced deportations of Armenians from all over the empire. However, the decisions of deportation and extermination were made before the Van resistance.
The Armenian resistance is a name given to the military and political activities of the Armenians under the Armenian political parties of Henchak, Armenakan, Dashnaktsutiun against the Ottoman Empire during World War I, considered a struggle for freedom and resistance to the Armenian Genocide by the Armenian combatants, but high treason by the Ottoman Empire. These Armenian national organizations established Armenian fedayeen generally referred to as Armenian irregular units and the Russian Empire formed Armenian volunteer units, which recruited Ottoman Armenians from behind the Ottoman lines, to help the Russian Caucasus Army against the Ottoman Empire. During this period the Siege of Van on April 20, 1915, and consequent establishment of the Administration for Western Armenia were significant events. The Ottoman Minister of Interior Mehmed Talat Pasha considered the Armenian population a fifth column within the Empire, blaming the rise of the Armenian national liberation movement for the overall unrest inside the Empire in his order on April 24, 1915 that ended with arrests in Red Sunday.
The Battle of Baku also known as the Liberation of Baku was a battle in World War I that took place between August–September 1918 between the Ottoman–Azerbaijani coalition forces led by Nuri Pasha and Bolshevik–Dashnak Baku Soviet forces, later succeeded by the British–Armenian–White Russian forces led by Lionel Dunsterville and saw briefly Soviet Russia re-enter the war. The battle was fought as a conclusive part of the Caucasus Campaign, but as a beginning of the Armenian–Azerbaijani War.
The Third Army was originally established in the Balkans and later defended the northeastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Its initial headquarters was at Salonica, where it formed the core of the military forces that supported the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Many of its officers who participated in the Revolution, including Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, rose to fame and power.
The Treaty of Poti was a provisional agreement between the German Empire and the Democratic Republic of Georgia in which the latter accepted German protection and recognition. The agreement was signed, on May 28, 1918, by General Otto von Lossow for Germany and by Prime Minister Noe Ramishvili and Foreign Minister Akaki Chkhenkeli for Georgia at the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti.
The Persian Campaign or Invasion of Persia also known as Invasion of Iran was a series of engagements in Iranian Azerbaijan and western Iran (Persia) involving the forces of the Ottoman Empire against those of the British Empire and Russian Empire, and also involving local population elements, beginning in December 1914 and ending with the Armistice of Mudros on October 30, 1918 as part of Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
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 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 Abşeron peninsula.
The Bergmann Offensive was the first engagement of the Caucasus Campaign during World War I. General Georgy Bergmann, commander of I Caucasian Army Corps, took the initiative against the Ottoman Empire.
The Armistice of Erzincan was an agreement to suspend hostilities during World War I signed by the Ottoman Empire and Transcaucasian Commissariat in Erzincan on 18 December 1917. The armistice brought temporary peace to the Caucasian and Persian Fronts until 12 February, when the fighting was resumed.
The Trebizond Peace Conference was a conference held between March and April 1918 in Trebizond between the Ottoman Empire and a delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet and government. The opening session was on 14 March 1918. The representatives were Rear-Admiral Rauf Bey for the Ottoman Empire, and Akaki Chkhenkeli, A. Pepinov as the Transcaucasian delegation.
The Ottoman Empire participated in World War I as one of the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire entered the war by carrying out a surprise attack on Russia's Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914, with Russia responding by declaring war on 5 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 1921.
References
Falls, Cyril (1960). The Great War pp.158–160. (covers 1915 fighting)
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