Meanwhile, along the Transcaucasian railways, German and Turkish troops were drawing closer to armed conflict. On June 1, even before the Batum treaties had been signed, Count von Schulenburg sent Halil a denunciation of the Turkish ultimatum aimed at controlling Georgia's transportation system. That privilege was reserved for Germany. His message was reinforced by the arrival of two German battalions at Poti. On June 5, General von Kress instructed the Georgian Minister of Military Affairs to deny the Turks any information concerning the operation of the railways. 69 Two days later, Ramishvili's cabinet received a cablegram from von Lossow in Berlin, outlining directives of the German High Command. In the event of a confrontation with Turkish forces, the Georgian and German troops were to behave in friendly manner, but at the same time were to announce that they were under orders to stand firm. Under no condition were they to relinquish their positions. 70 In the opposite camp, on June 2, General Vehib had commanded Shevki Pasha to occupy the Georgian railway and request any German soldiers his men might encounter to withdraw. If the Germans refused to yield or offered any resistance, they were to be taken prisoner and sent to Kars. 71 A clash was thus made inevitable by these two conflicting sets of orders. On June 10, units of the Turkish 9th Caucasian Division advanced along the rails from Gharakilisa into the Tiflis guberniia and fired on two companies of German station guards. Several of the guards were wounded and a number taken prisoner and send under escort toward Alexandropol. This "scandalous incident" threatened to disrupt the alliance. Infuriated, the German High Command demanded the release of the soldiers and the cessation of the Ottoman advance. If compliance were not instantaneous, the hundreds of Germans in the service of the Turkish government and army would be recalled. 72 Turkey could not endure such a crippling blow. Enver Pasha, still in Batum, was obliged to return the German prisoners. Apparently to appease Berlin, he also removed Mehmed Vehib Pasha from command of the Third Army. Having kept the Turks out of Tiflis, Germany softened its other stipulations, and compensated Enver by permitting Turkish forces an overland avenue to Ganja. On June 17, von Kress and Ottoman officials concluded a provisional agreement defining respective transit rights in Transcaucasia and delineating German and Turkish zones of influence in the area between the Yerevan and Tiflis guberniia. 73
Compelled to compromise on several issues because of German interventions, Enver was not at all deterred from pursuing with even greater determination his basic stratagem for the East. By the end of June, new divisions from the European theatre had arrived in the Caucasus, where three Ottoman armies awaited the instructions of Enver Pasha. The Third Army, now led by Essad Pasha, cousin of Vehib, and composed of the 3rd, 5th, 36th, and 37th Caucasian divisions, was charged with maintaining order in all territories acquired by the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Batum. The newly organised Ninth Army, made up of the 9th, 10th, and 11th Caucasian divisions and the 5th, 12th, and 15th Infantry divisions, was bestowed upon Yakub Shevki Pasha, whose temporary headquarters were in Alexandropol. Together the Ninth and the Sixth Army (the latter located in North Persia) constituted the Army Group of the East, under the supreme command of Enver's uncle, General Halil Pasha. The task of liberating Baku and expelling the British from Persia and Baghdad rested upon this Group. 74 Already, Mürsel Pasha's 5th Caucasian Division was in transit to Ganja, where it was to form the nucleus of Nuri's "Army of Islam" and bolster General Ali Agha Shikhlinsky's Azerbaijani forces. The Germans, having reached a preliminary understanding with their ally, withdrew their units to a line of villages north of the Kamenka River, thus allowing Mürsel's men to pass from Alexandropol and Gharakilisa into the Elisavetpol guberniia. Von Kress no counselled the Georgian government to let the Turks trespass in the southernmost uchastok of the Tiflis guberniia. 75 The district in question was Lori, the apple of discord between the republics of Georgia and Armenia.
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