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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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Occupation and Administration of the Armenian Plateau, 1916

In January, 1916, General Iudenich ordered an offensive along the entire Turkish front. The IV Corps and attached Armenian groups advanced steadily toward , 1916Bitlis and Moush, while the other major Russian column struck from Kars toward Erzurum. Hasankala, gateway to Erzurum, was occupied in mid-January, but the Russians did not besiege the fortress city until the beginning of February when artillery support arrived from Kars. 118 The Third Army, having lost, in one month alone, sixty thousand men and two-thirds of its effective strength, could not with the remaining eighteen thousand troops withstand the Russian divisions, which entered Erzurum on February 16. 117 Turkish Commander Mahmoud Kiamil retreated hastily toward Erzinjan, where he attempted to regroup his shabby, demoralised forces. When Kiamil was replaced in March by General Mehmet Vehib Pasha, the Russian forward lines extended from a point west of Rize on the Black Sea southward across the main routes between Erzurum and Bayberout-Mamakhatoun and then curved to the south-east, passing below Moush and along the southern shore of Lake Van into North Persia. 120

Alarmed by the Russian threat, Enver Pasha transferred the ten divisions of the Second Army to the Malatya-Diyarbakir-Kharpout area, the staging ground for a powerful counteroffensive. 121 This army, led by Ahmed Izzet Pasha, former Minister of War and Commander in Chief, was high-spirited after its participation in the heroic Gallipoli defence, which had foiled Entente schemes to vanquish the Ottoman Empire by capturing Constantinople. 122 Enver now planned to recover Erzurum and expel the Russian armies from the Plateau by a coordinated operation of the Second and Third armies, but, repeating the mistake of the Sarighamish campaign, he gave insufficient consideration to logistics. Because motored transport was totally inadequate, movement of the Second Army consumed weeks of valuable time, and because the Armenians of these regions had been deported or massacred, Ahmed Izzet's forces were deprived of essential local economic resources. Thousands of Turkish troops died of famine and exposure in this ravaged land. Furthermore, collaboration between the two Ottoman armies was impeded by formidable mountain ranges.

Understanding the purpose of the Turkish concentration, General Iudenich seized the initiative by ordering a new offensive toward Trabizond. Capture of the vital seaport by General V. Liakhov's two divisions on April 18 allowed the Russian fleet to supply and bolster the land forces more effectively. 123 Because of the Russian assault, Vehib Pasha was unable to delay his operations until the Second Army was prepared to move and therefore countered the enemy offensive with a drive aimed at Erzurum. After four weeks of bloody pitched battles, he was forced to yield in the face of hundred thousand enemy troops. The Russian I Corps, including First Armenian Rifle Battalion, advanced over Mamakhatoun into Erzinjan on July 24 and occupied the western areas of the Armenian Plateau and the strategic crossroad between Erzurum and Sivas (Sebastia). 124