Only after the rout of Vehib's Army did Izzet Pasha attack the Russian positions along the Kighi-Ognot-Moush line. During August the Second Army's II, III, IV, and XVI 125 corps attained their initial objectives, but then they too were stalled and repelled. Enver's strategy had failed; was spared further losses only by a Russian halt owing to the early snows of the 1916-1917 winter season. 126 Grand Duke Nicholas and General Iudenich, encouraged by the successes of the Turkish front, planed a spring offensive over Kharpout, Sivas, and along the Black Sea coast toward Constantinople to force the Ottomans to capitulate. Such an eventuality in 1917 would not have been unlikely were it not for the March Revolution in Russia.
As the two opposing armies dug in for the winter, Turcophobe agitation by Armenians in America and Europe swelled. Many men had already departed for the Caucasus to enlist as volunteers, while in November, 1916, a new outlet for the revenge-hungry Armenians was provided by the French government. Negotiations of Poghos Nubar with French political and military authorities culminated in the formation of the Légion d'Orient, an auxiliary force made up of Armenians and Syrians of Ottoman origin. Ninety-five percent Armenian in composition, the Légion included refugees, former prisoners of war, and permanent residents of Egypt, America, and Europe. Under the command of General Edmund Allenby, the Légion, fighting in Palestine, Syria, and finally in Cilicia, won the plaudits of Clemenceau's government and its Entente allies. The legionnaires, like the volunteers in Transcaucasia, considered both the official declarations about Armenian indemnification and the bestowal of medals and certificates of valour equivalent to bona fide Allied commitments. Ironically, the Entente already had confirmed the secret agreements that partitioned the Armenian Plateau, Cilicia, and much more of Asiatic Turkey among themselves. 127
In light of the guarded negotiations of the Allies during 1915-1916, the change of the official Russian disposition toward the Armenians, their volunteer units, and their political aspirations is more comprehensible, and the tsarist decree concerning the government of Western Armenia is especially significant. Signed in June, 1916, by Chief of Staff General M. V. Alekseev, the "Rules for the Temporary Administration of Areas of Turkey Occupied by the Right of War" transformed the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire into a military governor-generalship for the purpose of maintaining order and assisting the war effort. The governor-general, his chief assistants, and the administrators of the various territorial subdivisions were all to be officers of rank, while minor posts might be filled by civilians of rank. Use of confiscated enemy goods and lands, which were at the disposal of the governor-general, was reserved solely for the military forces. "Armenia" or "Armenians" were terms not found in the decree, which was worded so that it might apply to any territory occupied in time of war. 128 In place of the autonomy envisaged by the Armenians, the eighth article of the "Rules" instructed the officials of the governor-generalship "…to re-establish and uphold law and order, to protect the life, honour, property, religious-civil liberties of the inhabitants, to consider all nationalities equal before the Russian government, and to guarantee these inhabitants the possibility of free and tranquil labour, on condition that they submit in tote to the suzerainty of Russia." 129 Appointed governor-general in the summer of 1916, General Peshkov began preparations for the direct and unconditional annexation of the Armenian Plateau to the vast Romanov Empire. 130
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