Map Close  
Person info Close  
Information Close  
Source reference Close  
  Svenska
 
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

Previous page Page 345 Next page Smaller font Larger font Print friednly version  
Enver's Disastrous Winter Campaign of 1914

While the Tsar and the Armenians of Transcaucasia wooed one another, Enver Pasha travelled to Third Army headquarters in Erzurum and then proceeded to the front lines in December of 1914 to direct personally the military operations against the Caucasus. His strategy was to outflank the Russian forces, cut their lines of communication with the main supply base at Kars, and retrieve the territories ceded to Russia in 1878. Occupation of Kars, Ardahan, and Batum would facilitate the planned revolt of Caucasian Moslems against Russia and op en the routes to Tiflis and beyond. To realise this goal, the XI Corps of the Third Army, along with Kurdish ashirets, was to strike on a frontal attack against the major border fortress, Sarighamish. Simultaneously the IX Corps, crossing the border at Olti, would move toward Ardahan and Kars, sever the railway connections with Sarighamish, and participate in the outflanking manoeuvre. 27 The timing for such an operation seemed propitious, for the Russian High Command had transferred its most experienced divisions from Transcaucasia to the imperilled front in Europe. 28

The Turkish attack began on December 22, and five days later, despite heavy losses, Enver's forces had interrupted rail communication between Kars and Sarighamish and had nearly encircled the latter city. The Russian commander, General Myshlaevsky, fearing the complete annihilation of the Caucasus Army, fled to Tiflis and ordered a full retreat. That several other Russian generals refused to comply ultimately proved fortunate for the tsarist war effort. 29 In the last days of December, the opposing forces fought in pitched battles for possession of Sarighamish. Enver, with nearly half his army already on the casualty list, was still certain of success and planned his strategy to vanquish the great bastion of Kars and to seize Tiflis. 30

Partly justified in his appraisal of the disorganisation and inexperience of the Russian Army, Enver failed, nevertheless, to take precautions against the severe winters of the Armenian Plateau. The poorly uniformed and meagrely supplied Turkish soldiers succumbed en masse to the freezing weather. The Turkish War Minister denied his forces rest, insisting that the major objectives were in sight and should not be jeopardised by unnecessary halts. 31 When epidemics of typhus and cholera augmented the heavy casualties from exposure and combat, entire divisions of the IX and X corps vanished. By the start of the new year, the initiative passed to the Russian command. Generals Przhevalsky, commander at Sarighamish, Kalitin, at Ardahan, and Iudenich, facing the XI Turkish Corps, led the counteroffensive all along the front. 32 The Ottoman Army dissolved, and Enver, despite his yearning for rapid victory in the Caucasus, relinquished his command to Colonel Hakki Bey. Then, "on the 7th, Enver left for Erzurum en route for Istanbul, abandoning to the Armenian winter the shattered remnants of his ‘Pan-Turanian' army." 33 By January 12 the Russian troops had regained the pre-war boundary. Hakki Bey, unable to stem the rising tide of disaster, narrowly avoided capture, and, leaving behind additional thousands of dead, prisoners, and stragglers, also fled toward Erzurum. A week later the tsarist armies had advanced several kilometres into Ottoman territory to the positions held prior to the ill-fated "Sarighamish Operation." 34 That campaign cost the Third Army dearly. General Otto Lihman von Sanders, chief of the German Military Mission in Turkey, estimated that, of the ninety thousand men lost, only twelve thousand were taken prisoner. 35 According to Joseph Pomiankowski, the Austrian military attaché in Turkey, Enver's hundred-thousand-man force dwindled in two weeks to less than 15 percent of its original strength. 36