Caucasus campaign: Difference between revisions

For the Caucasus Campaign of World War II, see Battle of Caucasus.

Caucasus Campaign
Part of Middle Eastern theatre (World War I)
The limit of the Russian advance into Anatolia
Date October 24, 1914 - October 30, 1918 Location Eastern Anatolia Result Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,Treaty of Batum Territorial changes Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire	Russian Empire Democratic Republic of Armenia Democratic Republic of Georgia
Commanders and leaders
Enver Pasha Vehip Pasha Kerim Pasha Mustafa Kemal Kazım Karabekir Kress von Kressenstein	Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov Nikolai Yudenich Andranik Ozanian Drastamat Kanayan Garegin Njdeh Movses Silikyan Lionel Dunsterville
Strength
3rd Army and 2nd Army	Armenian volunteer units

The Caucasus Campaign (1914-1918) was a historical phase of warfare between the Central Powers and the Allied Powers during World War I. The campaign extended from Caucasus to Eastern Anatolia and Iran, reaching as far as Trabzon, Bitlis, Mus and Van in the west and Tabriz in the east. The land warfare was accompanied by the attack of Russian and British navies in the Black Sea Region of Ottoman Empire.

Russian advance on the Caucasus front was halted in 1917 by the Russian Revolution, and the Russian forces at the front line were replaced by the forces of the newly-established Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA), comprising of the Armenian volunteer units and the Armenian irregular units. Along with Germany, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia, formally recognizing the Ottoman control of Ardahan, Kars, and Batum. The subsequent brief war between the Ottoman Empire and the DRA resulted in the latter's defeat and the signing of the Treaty of Batum. However, the effects of this arrangement were voided few months later, when the Ottoman Empire accepted its own defeat in World War I by signing the Armistice of Mudros.

The main objective of the Ottoman Empire was the recovery of its territories in Eastern Anatolia lost during the prior Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78. The Russian objective was voiced in March 1915, when the Russian foreign minister Sazonov impressed upon the British ambassador George Buchanan and French Ambassador Maurice Paléologue that a lasting postwar settlement demanded a full Russian possession of the city of Constantinople, the straights 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. Russian Tsarist regime planned to replace the Muslim population of Northern Anatolia and Istanbul with more reliable Cossack settlers ^[1] These documents were also made public in the Russian newspaper Izvestia by February 1917, in order to gain the support of Armenian public for the Russian revolution ^[2]

There were two armies in the region,3^rd Army and 2^nd Army. The total Ottoman military force was very large (estimates range from 100,000 to 190,000 men) but poorly equipped especially for the winter conditions they would soon face.

The Russian army was initially strong with some 100,000 men under the nominal command of the Governor General of the Caucusus Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov. The real commander was his chief of staff, General Nikolai Yudenich, Russia's best general of the First World War. Due to the defeats at the Battle of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, the Russians redeployed almost half their forces to the Prussian front, leaving behind just 60,000 troops to face the Ottoman army.

In 1917 the regular Russian regiments were deserting the frontline. In this situation, December 1917, the army corps (Armenian volunteer units) realigned themselves under the command of General Tovmas Nazarbekian, with Dro as a civilian commissioner. The frontline had three main divisions: Movses Silikyan, Adrianic and Mikhail Areshian. Another regular unit was under Colonel Korganian. There were Armenian partisian guerrilla detachments (more than 40,000^[3]) accompanying these main units. The line from Van to Erzincan was organized through these units. It was mentioned that Adrianic had 150,000^[3] men with a 300 mile frontline (a high mountain area, with specific passes). In 1918, the Dashnaks of Armenian national liberation movement declared the Democratic Republic of Armenia through the Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenians (unified form of Armenian National Councils) with the dissolution of Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. Tovmas Nazarbekian became the first Commander-in-chief of DRA. With the Tovmas Nazarbekian becoming the Commander-in-chief of the whole Armenian state, Andranik Toros Ozanian took command of war zone within Ottoman Empire.

Lionel Dunsterville was appointed at 1917 to lead an Allied force of under 1,000 Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand elite troops, accompanied by armoured cars. This unit worked with 3,000 Russian revolutionary troops to prevent Enver Pasha's goal to establish independent Trans-Caucasia and also support Centro Caspian Dictatorship.

The Ottoman generalship and organization were negligible when compared to the Allies ^[4]. However, a Caucasus front would have a distracting effect on Russia. By diverting Russian forces from the Polish and Galician fronts German advances there could bring final victory, even if the Ottomans lost. Germany supplied the missing resources and the Ottoman 3rd Army was used as a manpower source to achieve the distraction^[4]. In 1914, war minister Enver Pasha wanted to encircle the Russian armies between Sarikamis and Ardahan.

The Russians crossed the Russo-Turkish frontier first and captured Bayazid and Köprüköy^[4]. At the same time Enver's 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 wishes to withdraw. He stayed to defend Sarikamis. 3rd Army was in Ardahan on January 1. The German military mission disagree on launching an attack on this territory at thus time ^[4], since the German Army could give better support during spring and summer. Enver assumed the personal command of the 3rd Army and ordered it into battle against the Russian troops. The Battle of Sarikamis (December 29, 1914 - January 4, 1915) was a stunning defeat for the Ottoman 3rd Army. Only 10% of the 3rd army managed to retreat back to its starting position. Enver gave up command of the 3rd army.

A small Ottoman force from Van advanced into Persia. This force, meeting little opposition, briefly occupied Tabriz. Both the Russians and the British sent forces into northern Persia to expel the Ottoman units. Ottoman forces at Tabriz withdrew back along this frontier after the Sarikamis defeat.

In February, General Yudenich was praised for the victory and promoted to command over all Russian troops in the Caucasus. The Allies asked Russia to relieve the pressure on Western front. Russia asked the Allies to relieve in the Caucasus by a naval attack. (See also War in the Black Sea.) Operations on Dardanelles (Battle of Gallipoli) in the direction of the Ottoman capital helped the Russian Forces in this front during 1915^[4].

General Yudenich began an offensive into Turkish territory, heading towards Lake Van in Ottoman Armenia to relieve beleaguered Armenian residents of Van as Jevdet bey tried to liquidate them..

The Armenians turned over the city of Van to the Russians in May of 1915. The Russians captured Malazgirt, a few days later. At the time, General Yudenich, Commander the Russians, believed the Ottoman forces in the area were weak, just three of four divisions. In reality, Pasha Abdul Kerim, the Ottoman commander, had eight divisions with a steady supply of reinforcements. The Russian General in command at the front, Oganovski, was slow to exploit the Russian success. Oganovski did not leave Van until July.

During the Russian offensive into Armenia, Talat Pasha (the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire) ordered the forced deportation of all Armenians out of the region and to the south under the Tehcir Law, as he was worried that the Armenians would revolt. The law was not carried out fast enough, as the Armenians revolted in April.

In July the Russians, under Oganovski, launched an offence into the hills west of Malazgrit. The Russians underestimated the size of the Turkish arm, and were surprised by a large Turkish force at the counterattack. The Russians retreated, leaving Van.

On September 24, Grand Duke Nicholas, having been removed from the position as Supreme Commander of the Russian army, was put in charge of all Russian forces in the Caucasus. The Grand Duke left the actual conduct of the war in the hands of General Yudenich. This front was quiet from October till the end of the year.

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; but the Russian General Yudenich viewed this as an opportunity to take the Ottomans by surprise. In early January of 1916 his army secretly left its winter quarters and marched towards the major Ottoman fort at Erzurum. The Russians achieved total surprise and destroyed an Ottoman division that was in winter quarters at Battle of Koprukoy (January 16 - January 18).

Main article: Battle of Erzurum (1916)

While the Russian army and its heavy guns continued to march towards Erzurum, a second Ottoman division was destroyed at the town of Tafta (February 14) by another Russian force that attacked unexpectedly from the north. The Ottoman commander, Kerim Pasha, was either unprepared for a siege or, more likely, lost his nerve because instead of holding the fort, his army retreated on the 15th. The Russians marched into Erzurum unopposed on February 16.

General Yudenich's Caucasus army moved in two directions from Erzurum, part went north and captured the ancient port city of Trabzon in April. Other branch moved to Mush-Bitlis direction.

While Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich was in the north and pushing the Ottoman 3^rd Army, the Ottoman 2^nd Army was in the south facing the insurgency and the second branch of Russian army under General Tovmas Nazarbekian and the detachment Armenian volunteer units controlled by Andranik Toros Ozanian. These units pushed the 2^nd Army deep into Anatolia and captured Mush and Battle of Bitlis, driving the demoralized Ottoman army before it. The Bitlis was the last defense point for the Ottoman Army to prevent the Russians from moving into central Anatolia and Mesopotamia. After the capture, the Ottoman Army asked Mustafa Kemal to organize the defense in the region. When Mustafa Kemal was assigned to his post, the enemy forces were in constant advance. The only bright spot for the Ottomans was General Mustafa Kemal's reconquest of Mush and Bitlis in August of 1916. However the Russians drove Kemal's troops out of these towns at the end of the fall. Fighting around the east side of Lake Van continued throughout the summer but was inconclusive.

General Yudenich's Caucasus army captured the ancient port city of Trabzon in April. The Ottoman army, under a new leader, Vehip Pasha, was ordered to re-take Trabzon. A military force was gathered and sent marching along the coast in June of 1916 but the Russians held up its advance - by this point the Russian navy dominated the Black Sea. General Yudenich then countered the Ottoman attack with an offensive of his own towards Erzican (see the Battle of Erzincan). On July 2 Erzican was captured; the Ottoman offensive against Trabzon was halted as they tried to stabilize their front lines.

The Russians made plans for a renewed attack on the Turkish positions in 1917 but the chaos caused by the Russian Revolution put a stop to all Russian military operations. The new government removed the Grand Duke from his command and reassigned General Yudenich to a meaningless position in Central Asia (he then retired from the army). The Turks, under great pressure from the British in Palestine and Mesopotamia, withdrew the majority of their forces and sent them south. During the rest of 1917, the Russian army slowly disintegrated until there was no effective military force.

In the early months of 1918, the Russian army in the Caucasus was nothing more than a few thousand volunteers and some two hundred officers. A year earlier there had been 500,000 soldiers, now they were gone and Russia's vast southern territories were effectively unguarded.

The Grand vizier Talat Pasha signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk March 3 1918 with the Russian SFSR which stipulated that Bolshevik Russia cede Batum, Kars, and Ardahan to Ottoman Empire (all lands Russia had captured from the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878)). The treaty also stipulated that Transcaucasia was declared independant. This short-lived Federation broke up into three republics in May 1918: Democratic Republic of Georgia, Democratic Republic of Armenia, and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. On April 5 Akakii Chkhenli, the head of the Transcaucasian delegation, accepted the Treaty as a basis for negotiation and wired the governing bodies urging them to accept this position^[5]. The mood prevailing in Tiflis was very different, expressing greater determination. This united the Armeni-Georgian block to acknowledge the existence of a a state of war between themselves and theOttoman Empire^[5].

In April 1918, after a year of inactivity, the Ottoman 3th Army finally went on the offensive. The only resistance they faced came from the semi-organized militia of the Armenian Republic. Fighting few soldiers, the Ottoman army captured Trabzon, Erzurum, Kars, Van, and Batumi. In early May, 1918, the Ottoman army attacked the newly declared Democratic Republic of Armenia. The conflict led to the Battle of Sardarapat, the Battle of Kara Killisse (1918), and the Battle of Bash Abaran. Although the Armenians managed to inflict a defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Sardarapat, the Ottoman army won the later battle and scattered the Armenian army.

The Republic of Armenia was forced to sign the Treaty of Batum in June, 1918. However throughout the summer of 1918, Armenians in the mountainous Karabag region, under the leadership of Andranik Toros Ozanian, established the Republic of Mountainous Armenia and resisted the Ottoman 3th army^[6]. In August, they set up an independent government in Shushi, the administrative center of the region. Ottoman troops responded to General Andraniks defiance and pursued him between Mountainous Karabagh and Zangezur. In October, a detachment of 5000 soldiers from the Third Army found Andriank at the Shishi^[6]. The conflict was fierce, but indecisive. The Armenian militia under Adriancik'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. After the Armistice, the Ottoman Empire began to withdraw its forces and Armenian forces under Andranik seized Nagro-Karabagh^[7]. Armstice of Mudros brought General Adriank the chance to create a base for further expension eastward and form a strategic corridor extending into Nakhichevan^[7].

Enver Pasha had bigger goals than just reconquest of land lost 40 years ago by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. With the sudden success of his forces (against no real opposition) he revived his dream of Turkish domination over Central Asia and ordered the creation of a new army to be named the Army of Islam. This army, numbering between 14,000 and 25,000 strong, was composed entirely of Muslims, and most spoke Turkish. In July, he ordered the Army of Islam into Centrocaspian Dictatorship, with the goal of taking Baku on the Caspian Sea. This new offensive was strongly opposed by the Germans. Germany regarded all of southern Russia as theirs by right of conquest. The German army had inflicted defeats on the Russians while the Ottomans had been repeatedly defeated.

Worried by the prospect of an invasion by the victorious Ottoman army, the Democratic Republic of Georgia asked for German military support. The Germans, wanting to prevent the Ottoman Empire from taking even more territory, sent a military force to Georgia, almost certainly under the command of General Kress von Kressenstein.

Enver's Army of Islam avoided Georgia and marched to the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. They got as far as Baku on the Caspian Sea. They threw the British out in September of 1918 with the Battle of Baku.

The Armistice of Mudros was signed on October 30 and the Caucasus Campaign ended. By the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire, although it lost Persian Campaign, Sinai and Palestine Campaign and Mesopotamian Campaign, had re-captured all the territory which they lost to the Russians in Eastern Anatolia.

The Ottoman Empire lost the war to the Allies, but the borders in the Caucasus were not settled. The Georgian-Armenian War 1918 soon followed. Armenia and Azerbaijan engaged in the Armenian-Azerbaijani war (1918 - 1920). The Turkish War of Independence by the Turkish national movement headed by Mustafa Kemal which managed to retain much of this territory, first by Treaty of Alexandropol with Armenia and later with the Soviet Union in 1921 the Treaty of Kars (ratified in Yerevan on September 11 1922).

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. Treaty of Serves recognized "Wilsonian Armenia" but it was never actually implemented as part of Armenia.

Near East Relief Workers tried to soothe the pain inflicted upon the population of the regions devastated during the conflict.

• Strachan, Hew (2003). The First World War, pp 109-112. Viking (Published by the Penguin Group) (1914 operations)
• Falls, Cyril (1960). The Great War pp 158-160. (covers 1915 fighting)
• Pollard, A. F. (1920). A Short History of the Great War (chapter 10). (covers 1916 fighting)
• Fromkin, David (1989). A Peace to End All Peace, pp. 351-355. Avon Books. (covers 1918 operations)
• Harutyunian, The 1918 Turkish aggression in Transcaucasus, Yerevan, 1985. (covers conquest of Armenia, 1918)
• Russian Campaign in Turkey

• Armenian Genocide