Caucasus Front (First World War)

This article explains the Caucasus Front in World War I, for the Caucasus Front in World War II see North Caucasian Operation .

Caucasus Front

Part of: First World War

Above: the destroyed city of Erzurum; Center left: Russian troops; Bottom left: Wounded Muslim refugees; Middle right: Ottoman troops ; Bottom right: Armenian refugees.

date	October 24, 1914 to October 30, 1918
place	Caucasus , Anatolia
output	Dissolution of the Russian and Ottoman empires
consequences	Establishment of new states in the Caucasus
Peace treaty	Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty Treaty of Sèvres Treaty of Poti Treaty of Batumi

Parties to the conflict
Ottoman Empire Azerbaijan German Empire	Russia United Kingdom Armenia Commune of Baku Central ASpian dictatorship
Commander
Enver Pascha Vehib Pascha Abdülkerim Pascha Hafız Hakkı Pascha Mahmut Kamil Pascha Hasan İzzet Pascha Samad bey Mehmandarov Ali-Agha Schichlinski Djafargulu Khan Nakhcivanski Von Kressenstein	Illarion Voronzow-Daschkow Nikolai Judenitsch Michail Prschewalski Andranik Ozanian Drastamat Kanajan Garegin Nschdeh Mowses Silikjan Stepan Schahumjan Lionel Dunsterville
Troop strength
Ottoman 2nd Army, Ottoman 3rd Army , Army of Islam, Azərbaycan Silahlı Qüvvələri , German Caucasus Expedition	Russian Caucasus Army, Armenian volunteers, Dunsterforce, Armenian irregulars from the Central Aspian dictatorship and from the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

The Caucasus Front was a secondary theater of the First World War . The war front opened when Russian troops crossed the border with Turkey in the Caucasus on November 1, 1914 . The Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire formed the main conflicting parties in the fighting in the Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea . In 1917/18 Russia withdrew from the war. Subsequently, new parties entered the conflict with Azerbaijan , Great Britain , Armenia , the Baku Commune and the Central Aspi dictatorship .

The Russian Empire dominated this theater of war in the early years. The Ottoman Empire suffered a devastating defeat at the turn of the year 1914/1915 in the Battle of Sarıkamış . In the subsequent Russian counter-offensive, the Ottomans suffered great losses of territory in Eastern Anatolia. The Russian advance came to a standstill after February 23, 1917 because of the effects of the February Revolution . The Russian Caucasus Army dissolved in the wake of the turmoil of the revolution. They were replaced by units consisting of Armenian volunteers, irregulars and soldiers from the newly formed Armenian state. In 1918 soldiers of the Entente , who came from the fronts in the west and in Mesopotamia , under the high command of General Lionel Dunsterville , joined this theater of war. This unit was called the Dunsterforce . The German Empire , allied with the Ottoman Empire, also sent soldiers to the region with the German Caucasus Expedition to secure oil supplies.

The conflict, which was accompanied in the background by the genocide of the Armenians , ended on March 3, 1918 with the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the treaty of Batumi of June 4, 1918. Nevertheless, there were still some clashes between the Ottomans, the Central Aspi Dictatorship, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic , the Dunsterforce and the British Empire. These conflicts finally ended on October 30, 1918 with the Mudros armistice .

background

The main goal of the Ottoman Empire was to reclaim the territories it had lost in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877/78 . To this end, the cities of Artvin , Ardahan , Kars and Batumi should be retaken. An Ottoman engagement in this theater of war made it necessary to relocate Russian troops from the Eastern Front . This enabled important Russian associations to be bound. The German Empire therefore provided the Ottomans with a lack of resources. The forces of the Ottoman Third Army were supposed to implement the war aims of the Ottomans. War Minister Enver Pasha hoped that success in the Caucasus would ease the way to Tbilisi and spark a revolt of Muslim Caucasians against Russia. The strategic goal of the Ottomans and the Germans was to cut off the Russians from the oil fields on the Caspian Sea . Russia viewed the Caucasus Front as less important than the Eastern Front. This tied up most of the Russian troops and resources. But Russia feared that the Ottomans would try to conquer Kars and Batumi. At a meeting of the Russian Foreign Minister Sasonov with the British Ambassador Buchanan and the French Ambassador Paléologue in March 1915, Sasonov said that the Russians had visited the Ottoman capital, the Bosporus , the Dardanelles , the Sea of ​​Marmara , South Thrace as far as Enos - Midia , the Black Sea coast from Claim the Bosporus as far as the Sakarya River and beyond the Bay of İzmit (→  Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits ). The Tsarist regime planned to swap the Muslim population of northern Anatolia and Istanbul for the more reliable Cossacks .

The Armenian national liberation movement wanted to establish an Armenian republic, which it succeeded in May 1918. But before that - in 1915 - the administration of Western Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic were founded. The Central Aspic dictatorship was founded with the participation of the Armenians. None of these three structures lasted long.

The British supported the Russians in order to prevent the separation of the Caucasus from the Russian Empire. The Ottomans' goals would also have endangered the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), which had the right to produce oil in all of Persia except in the north. Before the start of the war in August 1914, the British government negotiated an agreement with the APOC to supply the sea fleet with fuel.

Troop strength

Image collage about the war in the Caucasus

Ottomans

The Ottomans had their 3rd Army stationed there. In 1916 the troops were reinforced by the transfer of the 2nd Army . Compared with the Allies, the Ottoman General Staff under the German General Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf and the organization were inferior. At the beginning of the conflict the Ottomans had 100,000 to 190,000 men, many of whom were poorly equipped.

Russians

Before the war, the Russian Caucasus Army had 100,000 men under the nominal command of the Governor General of the Caucasus Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov . The actual commander was its chief of staff, General Nikolai Yudenich . Shortly before the start of the Caucasus campaign, however, the Russians had to relocate more than half of their soldiers to the East Prussian front due to the defeats in the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 and the Battle of the Masurian Lakes . Only 60,000 men remained in the Caucasus, commanded by the Armenian generals Towmas Nazarbekjan , Mowses Silikjan and Daniel Bek-Pirumyan . In 1917, the Caucasus Army disbanded after the October Revolution . When the Russians withdrew from Eastern Anatolia, Armenian soldiers held positions against the Ottomans. There were around 110,000 to 120,000 Armenian fighters initially. A total of 150,000 Armenians fought against the Ottomans in various allied armies.

Armenians

In the summer of 1914, units of Armenian volunteers were set up in the Russian army . These units did not consist of Armenian residents of the tsarist empire, because they were already deployed on the Eastern Front. They are made up of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire and were commanded by Andranik Ozanian , Drastamat Kanajan , Arshak Gafawjan and Sargis Mehrabjan . Initially their number was around 20,000 and they were outside the Russian military command structures. Over time, their number grew and General Yudenich decided in 1916 to unite the Armenian units with the Russian Caucasus Army or to dissolve them.

Other Armenian militias were composed of so-called fedayeen and gathered around well-known leaders such as Murad of Sebasteia ( Armenian Սեբաստացի Մուրատ ). According to Boghos Nubar Pasha, these partisan units made up the largest part of the Armenian units. In December 1917 the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Daschnak) established military associations with the permission of the Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenia. The corps was under the command of General Towmas Nazarbekyan. Drastamat Kanajan was appointed civil commissioner. The corps was divided into three divisions, which were led by Mowses Silikjan, Andranik Osanian and Michail Areschian. Another unit was under the command of Colonel Korganian. The front line from Van to Erzincan was held by these Armenian associations. Ozanian is said to have had 150,000 men available. After the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Armenia, Nazarbekian became the country's first commander in chief.

Other

There were also Kurdish militias who fought partly for the Ottomans and partly for the Russians.

Lionel Dunsterville was appointed in 1917 to command the Dunster Force, which consisted of 1,000 Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand soldiers. The Dunsterforce also had armored vehicles at their disposal.

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  Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Judenitsch (1862–1933)

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  Lionel Dunsterville (1865-1946)

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  Enver Pascha (1881-1922)

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  The Russian Caucasus Army at Sarıkamış 1914

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  Armenian volunteers in 1914

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  Ottoman 3rd Army with winter equipment 1914

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  Kurdish cavalrymen 1915

Operations

foreplay

In July 1914, an Armenian Congress took place in Erzurum , at which the Armenians wanted to define their strategy in the event of war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The ruling Committee for Unity and Progress in Istanbul sent Naci Bey and Bahaeddin Şakir to the Congress. The committee wanted the Armenians on the side of the Ottomans. The Armenians affirmed their loyalty to the empire, but wanted to act independently of the Ottoman government. The government in Istanbul concluded that the Armenians had detailed plans to work with the Russians and would fight the Ottomans in the event of war.

1914

After the Ottoman Empire entered the war, the Russian army crossed the border on November 1, 1914 and started the offensive towards Pasinler and Eleşkirt . She planned to take Doğubeyazıt and Köprüköy . Russia officially declared war on the Ottomans on November 2nd. The Russians attacked with 25 infantry battalions, 37 cavalry units and 120 artillery pieces. The troops moved in the form of two wings. The right wing, which consisted of the 1st Caucasian Corps, moved from Sarıkamış towards Köprüköy, which they reached on November 4th. The 4th Russian Corps moved from Yerevan to the Pasinler plain. The commander of the Ottoman 3rd Army Hasan İzzet Pascha did not want to go on the offensive because of the harsh winter, but instead wanted to stay defensive and attack at the right time. But it was overruled by Minister of War Enver Pascha and started on November 7th with the XI. Corps and the entire cavalry his offensive. This was supported by Kurdish tribal warriors. However, the cavalry failed to encircle the Russians and the Kurds proved unreliable. The Russians gained new territory, but the Ottomans kept their positions outside of Köprüköy. On November 12, Ahmet Fevzi Pasha reinforced with his IX. Corps the XI. Corps on the left flank. The 3rd Army pushed the Russians back and, after the Azap offensive, took back Köprüköy between November 17th and 20th. At the end of November the front had stabilized and the Russians were 25 km deep in the opposing country on a line from Erzurum to Sarıkamış . The Russian success on the southern front was also achieved with the help of the Armenian volunteers who took the places Karaköse (now Ağrı ) and Doğubeyazıt (north of the province of Van ). The Ottoman losses were high: 9,000 dead, 3,000 prisoners and 2,800 deserters.

In December 1914, Tsar Nicholas II visited the front. He received the Chairman of the Armenian Church together with the President of the Armenian National Council in Tbilisi, Alexander Khatisyan . The tsar said to them:

"The Armenians flock here from all countries to join the glorious Russian army and to use their blood to serve the victory of the Russian army ... Let the Russian flag fly freely on the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, Let your will the people [Armenians] who live under the Turkish yoke receive freedom. Let the Armenian people of Turkey, who suffered for believing in Christ, receive the resurrection for a new free life ... "

- Nicholas II

On December 15, 1914, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Stange, who was called Stange Bey, the Ottomans captured the Russian Ardahan after the Battle of Ardahan . Stange's initial mission was to operate in the Coruhre region . He was supported by rebellious ajars . Enver Pascha changed Stange's mission so that the troops could fight the Russians at Sarıkamış.

In December 1914, the Ottoman armies attacked Sarıkamış. Governor Vorontsov planned to withdraw the army to Kars in the event of an attack by the Ottomans, but Yudenich refused the order and defended Sarıkamış. The battle of Sarıkamış turned into a catastrophe for the Ottomans.

1915

1915, Muslim refugees from Hasankale

Armenian militias in a defensive trench during the battle for Van in May 1915.

1915, Some of the 250,000 Armenian refugees who followed the retreating Russians.

On January 6th, 3rd Army headquarters was under fire. Hafız Hakkı Pasha ordered a complete withdrawal. On January 7, the remaining troops marched to Erzurum. After the battle of Sarıkamış only 10% of the soldiers remained and Enver Pasha resigned from command. The Armenian units played a not insignificant part in the defeat, as they gave the Russians time to concentrate their troops in Sarıkamış. After his return to Istanbul, Enver Pasha blamed the defeat in Sarıkamış on the Armenians of the region, who had actively cooperated with the Russians. Lieutenant Colonel Stange also withdrew from Ardahan on January 18 and returned to his starting positions by March 1, 1915.

Yudenich was celebrated for his victory in Sarıkamış and was proposed as commander of the Russian army throughout the Caucasus. The Allies now expected the Russians to relieve the Western Front , while the Russians asked for an attack across the Black Sea to relieve the Caucasus Front . The attacks from sea gave the Russians the opportunity to renew their forces. The Battle of Gallipoli , which began in spring 1915, also relieved Russia in the east. Hafız Hakkı Pasha died of typhus on February 12, 1915 and was replaced by Brigadier General Mahmut Kamil Pasha .

March passed quietly and the 3rd Army was reinforced by soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Armies, but the reinforcement was no more than one division . The Battle of Gallipoli devoured Ottoman resources. The Russians held the cities of Eleşkirt , Ağrı and Doğubeyazıt. There were little skirmishes. The Ottomans did not have enough troops to secure the entire region.

The battle for Van began on April 20th . Armenian gunmen defended the city's 30,000 residents and 15,000 refugees. They had 1,500 men under arms. Their equipment consisted of 300 rifles, 1,000 pistols and other ancient weapons. The conflict lasted more than three weeks before General Yudenich was able to relieve the city. Part of his army, consisting of a Cossack brigade under General Truchin and some volunteer Armenian fighters, moved to Van. Yudenich reached the city on May 21st and confirmed the provisional Armenian government with Governor Aram Manougian in office. With Van as the new location, the fighting shifted further west.

On April 24, 1915, Interior Minister Talat Pascha sent a letter to the high command. In it he accused the Armenians of collaborating with the Russian invaders and of betraying the Ottoman Empire. Talat Pasha gave the example of the Armenian uprising in Van.

On May 6th, Russian troops advanced through the Tortum valley towards Erzurum. The 29th and 30th Ottoman divisions were able to repel this attack and the X. Ottoman Corps went over to the counterattack. But the Ottomans were not so successful on the southern section of the Russian line and on May 11th the city of Malazgirt fell to the Russians. On May 17, the Russians entered the city of Van and the Ottoman forces were pushed back further. The Ottomans also got into trouble due to the Armenian uprisings, so that the supply lines were interrupted. The mountainous region south of Lake Van was very vulnerable because the Ottomans had to defend a front of 600 kilometers with only 50,000 men and 130 artillery pieces.

During the Russian offensive, Talat Pasha ordered the deportation of the region's Armenians to the southern provinces of Syria and Mosul on May 27 . On June 13, the Russians returned to their original lines. On June 19, they launched a new offensive northwest of Lake Van. Russian forces under Oganovsky launched an attack in the hills west of Malazgirt. However, they underestimated the number of Ottoman troops on site and lost the battle at Malazgirt. The Russians then moved to Mus , without knowing that the Ottoman IX. Corps and the 17th and 28th Divisions also moved to Mus. Although the circumstances were difficult for the Ottomans, a reorganization succeeded. The 1st and 5th Expeditionary Forces were set up south of the Russian lines and a force independent of the 3rd Army was set up under Brigadier General Abdülkerim Pascha . Abdülkerim Pascha was in direct contact with Enver Pascha. The Ottomans were prepared.

On September 24, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich Romanov replaced Illarion Vorontsov-Daschkov as commander of all Russian armies in the Caucasus. In reality, however, General Yudenich continued to command the Russian troops, while the Grand Duke was only nominally commander-in-chief. At the front, things remained calm from October until the end of the year. Yudenich used this time to reorganize the army. At the turn of 1916 the Russians had 200,000 men under arms and 380 artillery pieces. On the other hand, the Ottoman high command failed to make up for the losses. The Battle of Gallipoli had tied up most of the troops and resources, so that the missing men of the IX., X. and XI. Corps could not be replaced. In addition, the 1st and 5th Expeditionary Forces were transferred to the front in Mesopotamia. The Ottoman High Command decided, due to the situation on the other fronts, that this region was not first-rate.

In January 1916 the Ottomans were 126,000 strong, of which only 50,539 were battle-tested soldiers. There were 74,057 rifles, 77 machine guns and 180 pieces of artillery. On paper, the Ottoman army in the Caucasus was large, but the combat strength was low, many soldiers malnourished and poorly equipped. The Ottomans hoped that the Russians would not launch any new offensives, but those hopes proved false.

1916

Mustafa Kemal in Bitlis

A captured gun after the Russian capture of Erzurum , 1916

Murad von Sebastia was one of the resistance fighters in Sivas in 1915. He took part in the Battle of Erzincan in 1916 and died in the Battle of Baku in 1918.

At the beginning of January Yudenich's army secretly left the winter quarters and marched against the city of Erzurum . Winter in this part of Anatolia is long and harsh, making it an unsuitable time for military operations. The Ottomans had already lost many soldiers in 1914 due to the weather. But Yudenitsch saw this as an opportunity to surprise the Ottomans. So the Ottoman troops at Köprüköy were taken by surprise and quickly defeated.

The Russian forces were numerically not particularly superior to the Ottomans, so Yudenich had to attack the weakest point on the front. While the Ottoman commander of the third army, Mahmut Kamil Pasha, was staying with his men in the hills of Deve-Boyun near Erzurum, the Russians broke through at Kara-Göbek and Tafet. This enabled the Russians to break through the two rings of defense around the city and take Erzurum. The Ottomans withdrew from the city on February 16. In February the commander of the 3rd Army Mahmut Kamil Pascha was replaced by Vehib Pascha . On February 24th, Rize was occupied by the Russian fleet.

In April, the Russians moved in two directions from Erzurum. One part moved north and in mid-April took Trabzon , which had been bombarded by sea since January 23, while the second part moved towards Bitlis and Mus . The Russians harassed the 2nd Ottoman Army and defeated them in the battles of Bitlis and Mus. Bitlis was the last line of defense designed to prevent the Russians from advancing into Central Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Ottomans went on the offensive, but Yudenich responded with a counterattack in the direction of Erzincan . The city of Erzincan fell on July 2nd and Trabzon was held against the Ottomans.

On August 7, Mustafa Kemal , who had fought successfully at Gallipoli in 1915 and was transferred to the Caucasus Front in March 1916, was able to join the XVI. 2nd Army Corps to recapture the cities of Bitlis and Mus. The fighting east of Lake Van continued during the summer but was unsuccessful.

The commander of the 2nd Army Ahmed İzzet Pasha decided to attack after the end of the Russian offensive. A military group of three corps was formed and marched along the coast. The 2nd Army advanced on August 2nd. While Yudenich was busy with the 3rd Army in the north, the 2nd Army in the south fought against the second part of the Russian army and the Armenian volunteers under General Towmas Nazarbekjan. But the initial success did not bring victory. The 2nd Army suffered from supply shortages and logistical problems. Nazarbekian pushed Mustafa Kemal's troops out of the cities of Bitlis and Mus.

The Ottoman attacks ended at the end of September. The 2nd Army had 30,000 dead and injured. The Russians were able to hold and strengthen the front. The rest of the year the Ottomans reorganized their troops, while the Russians kept quiet. The winter of 1916/17 was very hard and made fighting almost impossible.

1917

The Russian plans for new offensives were never implemented because of political and social crises in Russia. There was also unrest within the army. This situation led to the February Revolution in the Tsarist Empire . Many Russian soldiers refused to obey and deserted because neither the Russian people nor the Russian army wanted to wage war any longer. According to Fevzi Çakmak , 100,000 Russian soldiers left the Caucasus Front, but the Ottomans were still facing 250,000 Russians. In addition, there was a typhoid epidemic among the Caucasus Army , cases of scurvy and other diseases due to poor diet and hygiene.

An Ottoman offensive was unrealistic until the February Revolution. After the battle of Sarıkamış, the Ottomans had great problems defending the area. They could not take advantage of the February Revolution, among other things because Enver Pasha transferred five divisions from the Caucasus to the front in Mesopotamia and Palestine .

On March 1, announced the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies the no. 1 Command , which provided, among other things, the democratization of the army. So the soldiers should be able to choose their own representatives. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich was replaced on March 9, 1917 by the Special Transcaucasian Committee . The new Provisional Government wanted to transfer General Yudenich to Central Asia, but the latter resigned from his military posts.

In the summer of 1917, the Western Armenian administration called a conference to take quick action and to set up a militia of 20,000 men under Andranik's command by the end of 1917 . Civil Commissioner Hakob Zavriev appointed Andranik major general. The 1st Brigade from Andranik consisted of the regiments from Erzincan and Erzurum, the 2nd Brigade from the regiments from Hınıs and Eleşkirt and the 3rd Brigade from the regiments from Van and Zeyton (today Süleymanlı in Kahramanmaraş).

Ottoman soldiers bury Muslim civilians.

On September 14, 1917, the Russian army was on the verge of complete dissolution. Authority within the command structure was lost and looting increased. Towards the end of autumn, the incumbent general of the Caucasus Front, Prschewalsky, wanted to deploy Georgian and Armenian units within the Russian army to prevent the army from disintegrating.

On October 23rd - during the October Revolution - the military situation was as follows: The 3rd Ottoman Army stood with 66 battalions of 30,000 men, 177 machine guns and 157 cannons on a 190 km line from the Black Sea to the Munzur Mountains . The Ottomans had difficulties with supplies and equipment for the army. Russia strengthened its positions in Erzurum and Trabzon. The Russian line extended west of Trabzon along the Erzincan- Kemah -Passage through the south of Dersim towards Lake Van and Başkale . Along this line the Russians had 86,000 fighters and 146 cannons. The situation was stable.

In response to the Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Russia, the Transcaucasian Commissariat was established in Tbilisi in November 1917 . The Georgian Menshevik Nikolos Cheidze was the chairman of the Sejm (Senate). But the Sejm could not prevent the military power in the Caucasus from splitting into smaller national groups. Because although the Armenians were also part of the Federation, they wanted to build their own national army with the help of the Russians. The Armenian national groups in Yerevan declared General Nazarbekian as their commander-in-chief. The Armenian troops consisted of: The 1st Division under General Christophor Araratov with the 1st Erzurum-Erzincan Regiment, the 2nd Hınıs Regiment, the 3rd Yerevan Regiment and the 4th Erzincan-Yerevan Regiment. Colonel Movses Silikyan commanded the 2nd Division, which consisted of the 5th Van Regiment, the 6th Yerevan Regiment and the 7th and 8th Alexandropol Regiments. Chief of Staff of the Armenian Corps was General Vickinski. The divisions, each consisting of four regiments, had three regular and one replacement regiment. The Armenians had a total of 32,000 men. In addition to these regular troops, 40 to 50,000 civilians were under arms. In Baku alone, the Russians gave the Armenians 160 cannons, 180 machine guns and 160 million rounds of ammunition.

On December 5, 1917, the Russians and Ottomans signed the Erzincan Armistice , which ended the conflict between the two sides. Between December 1917 and February 1918, to the astonishment of the retreating Russians, Armenian troops moved to the front. The Armenians took the positions of the Russians at the front and took over the Russian equipment they had left behind. Thus by the end of 1917 there was no longer any effective Russian military power in the region.

At the turn of 1918 the Allied forces, the Cossacks, the Georgians and the Armenians were willing to offer resistance to the Ottomans. In the event of an agreement between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, this would be the only strategy to continue fighting the Ottomans. The Armenians, who held their positions after the Russians withdrew, were supported by the British with a million rubles.

1918

Armenian troops during March days

Collecting dead Muslim civilians

General Andranik made it possible for the Armenian population of Van to escape from the Ottoman army in 1918. He fought with his men in the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh and Sangesur .

Armenian soldiers during the Battle of Baku

Destroyed shopping street in Kars

In 1918 the Ottomans sought an agreement with the new rulers in Russia. Now that the Russians had withdrawn, the southern areas were practically unprotected. At the end of January Nazarbekian's divisions occupied the important positions between Yerevan and Van and Erzincan. From February, Nazarbekian commanded the Armenian troops in the former Russian Caucasus, while Ozanian took command of the Armenians in the Ottoman region. These troops consisted of only a few thousand volunteers and about two hundred officers. The 3rd Ottoman Army began its offensive on February 5th. It moved east of the line between Tirebolu and Bitlis and recaptured the Ottoman territories from the Armenians. Kelkit was recaptured on February 7, Erzincan on February 13, Bayburt on February 19 , Tercan on February 22 and Trabzon on February 25. Now the Ottoman troops could be strengthened and supplied by sea at Trabzon. The Armenians tried to hold Erzurum, but were defeated on March 12th by the 1st Caucasus Corps. The places Malazgirt , Hınıs , Oltu , Köprüköy and Tortum were conquered in the following two weeks.

On March 3, Grand Vizier Talât Pasha signed the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Soviet Russia . The treaty stipulated that Russia ceded the areas of Batumi, Kars and Ardahan, which had been conquered in 1877/1878, to the Ottomans. Furthermore, the Transcaucasus should become independent. In a secret clause it was agreed that Russia should demobilize the national Armenian troops.

Between March 14 and April 1918, peace negotiations between the Ottomans and the Transcaucasian Sejm took place in Trabzon. Enver Pasha offered an end to Ottoman ambitions in the Caucasus if the Sejm recognized the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On April 5, the chairman of the Sejm delegation Akaki Chkhenkeli accepted the Brest-Litovsk Treaty as the basis for further negotiations. He advised the government in Tbilisi to follow his example. But the atmosphere in Tbilisi was different, because the government there saw itself at war with the Ottoman Empire.

On May 11th there was a new conference in Batumi. Now the Ottomans demanded more and wanted to annex the areas of Tbilisi, Alexandropol and Etschmiadzin . They wanted to connect Kars to Baku with a railway line via Culfa . The Armenian and Georgian delegates then withdrew. On May 21st, the Ottomans began their offensive and fought against the Armenians in the battles of Sardarapat (May 21-29 ), Kara Kilise (May 24-28) and Bash Abaran (May 21-24 ). The Armenians won at Sardapat and were able to avert the conquest of Yerevan. The Batumi negotiations were fruitless and ended on May 24th. On May 26th, the Georgians declared their withdrawal from the federation and on May 28th they founded the Democratic Republic of Georgia . They were sponsored by the German Reich, which was represented on site by officers Friedrich Freiherr Kreß von Kressenstein and Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg . The Georgians were followed on May 28 by the Azerbaijanis with the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan and the Armenians with the Democratic Republic of Armenia .

On June 4th, the Democratic Republic of Armenia had to sign the Treaty of Batumi with the Ottomans. But in Nagorno-Karabakh Andranik successfully resisted the 3rd Ottoman Army all summer . In August 1918, Andranik set up a government in Shusha . With the arrival of German troops in Georgia, relations between the allies Germany and the Ottoman Empire deteriorated. The Germans wanted to control the raw materials of the region, especially the Baku oil fields. In June 1918 Vehib Pasha met a German-Georgian army on the way to Tbilisi. His victory on June 10th meant that Berlin Istanbul threatened the capping of all aid and the withdrawal of German troops from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government then stopped all military operations in the direction of Georgia. For the moment, the Ottomans' attention turned to Iran and Azerbaijan. The German military advisers left Georgia for Constanța and took a Georgian delegation, consisting of Akaki Chkhenkeli, Zurab Awalishvili and Niko Nikoladze, with them to conclude an agreement in Berlin. But due to the defeat of the Germans in November 1918, no more contracts were signed.

Enver Pascha had long since not only had the reconquest of Ottoman territories in mind, but an Ottoman expansion towards the Caspian Sea and Central Asia . To do this, he had set up the Army of Islam in March 1918 . This army was no larger than a corps and consisted of about 14,000 to 25,000 men. It consisted entirely of Muslims, most of whom spoke Turkish. In July, Enver Pasha ordered the army of Islam to invade the Central Aspic dictatorship to conquer Baku. This new offensive met with great resistance from the Germans, who viewed southern Russia as their spoils of war. In the Battle of Baku in September 1918, the Army of Islam defeated the British forces in Baku.

In October the Ottomans launched an attack against Andranik, who was resisting between Nagorno-Karabakh and Sangesur . Andranik was captured by the 3rd Army at Schischi. After a fierce battle, the Armenians were able to repel the Ottomans and prevent them from advancing to the Varanda River. The fighting between Ottomans and Armenians continued until the Mudros armistice . After this armistice, the Ottoman troops had to withdraw and the Armenians took Nagorno-Karabakh again. Andranik had such a base to expand further east and form a corridor to Naxçıvan .

With the armistice of Mudros on October 30, the conflict on the Caucasus front ended. At the end of the war, despite the defeats on the other fronts in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia ( First World War in Persia ) and Sinai , the Ottomans had regained territories in eastern Anatolia.

aftermath

Dunsterforce positions (marked as British on the map) after the armistice

The Soviet 11th Red Army entered Yerevan in 1920

With the end of the world war, the situation in the region changed significantly. With the October Revolution and the defeat of the Ottomans, two great empires came to an end. With the loss of Russian tsarist rule in the Caucasus, several new national states were established, but they only existed for a short time. As a loser, the Ottoman Empire had to sign the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, which limited the empire to Anatolia and de facto disempowered the Sultan.

Succession Wars

In the vacuum of the October Revolution, the Transcaucasian Democratic-Federal Republic was formed in the Caucasus , but after a few months it split up into the states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Central Aspian dictatorship. In the year the World War ended, a war between Georgia and Armenia over disputed territories began. Armenia fought against Azerbaijan in another war from 1918 to 1920. On the other hand, the Turks under Mustafa Kemal started the Turkish War of Independence , which culminated in the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 . After the Turkish-Armenian War , the Turks were able to regain most of Eastern Anatolia through the Treaty of Alexandropol . Another short-lived state was the Southwest Caucasian Republic .

Sovietization of the Caucasus

On April 27, 1920, the Azerbaijan government received notification that the Red Army had crossed the northern border. In the west, Armenia had occupied large parts of the country, while in the east, Azerbaijani communists rebelled against the government. The government capitulated to the Red Army, but some generals and militias resisted the Soviets, so it took some time before control was established and the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed. On December 4, 1920, Armenia also capitulated to the Soviets. The next day, the Armenian Revolutionary Committee, which consisted mostly of Azerbaijani Armenians, entered the city. On December 6th, the Cheka entered Yerevan. The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was then proclaimed under Aleksandr Miasnikyan . Georgia was last occupied by the Soviets in February 1921.

On October 23, 1921 the fighting between the Turkish national movement and the Soviet states in the Caucasus ended with the Treaty of Kars . The Treaty of Kars was the successor agreement to the Treaty of Moscow of March 1921. On 30 December 1922 founded the Soviet states to the Union Treaty, the Soviet Union .

See also

• Chronology of the First World War

literature

• Wolfdieter Bihl : The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. Böhlau, Vienna:
  • Part 1: Your basis in the politics of the Orient and your actions 1914-1917 . 1975, ISBN 3-205-08564-7 (also habilitation thesis at the University of Vienna).
  • Part 2: The period of attempted Caucasian statehood (1917-1918). (= Publications of the Commission for Modern History of Austria, 81) 1992, ISBN 3-205-05517-9 .
• Edward J. Erickson: Ordered to Die. A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War . Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, ISBN 0-313-09558-2 .
• Eugene Hinterhoff: Persia: The Stepping Stone To India. Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I . tape IV . Marshall Cavendish Corporation, New York 1984, ISBN 0-86307-181-3 .
• AF Pollard: A Short History Of The Great War . Xlibris Corporation, 2008, ISBN 978-0-554-31690-1 .
• Hew Strachan: The First World War. Viking / Penguin Group, 2003, pp. 109-112.
• Cyril Falls: The Great War. 1960, pp. 158-160.
• AFPollard: A Short History of the Great War. 1920, chapter 10.
• David Fromkin : A Peace to End All Peace. Avon Books, 1989, pp. 351-355.

Web links

Commons : Caucasus Campaign  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Turkey in the First World War in the Caucasus (English) ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hinterhoff: Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia. Pp. 499-503.
2. ^ ^{A b c d} A. F. Pollard: A Short History Of The Great War. Chapter VI: The first winter of the war.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The Encyclopedia Americana. 1920, v.28, p. 403.
4. ↑ Ronald Park Bobroff: Roads to glory - Late Imperial Russia and the Turkish Straits. 2006, p. 131.
5. ^ RG Hovannisian: Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967, p. 59.
6. ↑ Jacques Kayaloff: The Battle of Sardarabad. Mouton Publishers, Paris 1973, p. 73.
7. ^ Fridtjof Nansen: Armenia and the Near East. New York 1976, p. 310.
8. ↑ Boghos Nubar, President of the Armenian National Assembly, mentioned this during the subsequent peace negotiations in Paris in December 1918.
9. ^ Richard G. Hovannisian: The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. P. 244.
10. ^ Edward J. Erickson: Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. P. 97.
11. ↑ Erickson, p. 54.
12. ↑ Ezel Kural Shaw: History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Pp. 314-315.
13. ^ Spencer Tucker: The European Powers in the First World War. P. 174.
14. ↑ AS Safrastian: Narrative of Van 1915. Journal Ararat, London, January, 1916th
15. ↑ ^{a b} Pasdermadjian, p. 22.
16. ^ Peter Balakian : The Burning Tigris , p. 200.
17. ^ ^{A b} Eugene Hinterhoff: Persia. The Stepping Stone To India. In: Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War I. Volume 4, pp. 1153-1157.
18. ↑ WED Allen, Paul Muratoff: Caucasian Battlefields. A History of Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828-1921. ISBN 0-89839-296-9 , pp. 361-363.
19. ↑ Fevzi Çakmak: Büyük Harpte Sark Cephesi Hareketleri: Sark Vilayetlerimizde, Kafkasya'da ve Iran'da 1935 de Akademide Verilen Konferanslar. Ankara 1936, p. 260.
20. ^ Victor Serge: Year One of The Russian Revolution. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Chicago 1972, p. 193.
21. ↑ Stefanos Yerasimos: Kurtulus Savası'nda Türk-sovyet ilişkileri 1917-1923. Istanbul 2000, p. 11.
22. ↑ WED Allen P. Muratoff: Caucasian Battlefields: A History of The Wars on The Turco-Caucasian Border 1828-1921. Cambridge 1953, p. 458.
23. ↑ Antranig Chalabian: General Andranik and the Armenian Revolutionary Movement. Melrose, 1988, p. 318.
24. ^ Tadeusz Swietochowski: Russian Azerbaijan 1905–1920. P. 119.
25. ^ Bülent Gökay: A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism, 1918–1923. London 1997, p. 12.
26. ↑ Çaglayan: British Policy Towards Transcaucasia 1917-1921. P. 52.
27. ^ Hovannisian: Armenia's Road to Independence. ISBN 1-4039-6422-X , pp. 288 f.
28. ^ ^{A b} Ezel Kural Shaw: History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. P. 326.
29. ^ ^{A b} Richard Hovannisian: The Armenian people from ancient to modern times. P. 292 f.
30. ↑ ^{a b} Mark Malkasian: Gha-ra-bagh! the emergence of the national democratic movement in Armenia. Wayne State University Press, ISBN 978-0-8143-2604-6 , p. 22.
31. ^ Briton Cooper Busch: Mudros to Lausanne: Britain's Frontier in West Asia, 1918–1923. State University of New York Press, 1976, ISBN 0-87395-265-0 , p. 22.
32. ↑ Erickson (2000), p. 187.
33. ^ Hafeez Malik: Central Asia: Its Strategic Importance and Future Prospects. P. 145.
34. ^ Robert H. Hewsen: Armenia: A Historical Atlas. ISBN 0-226-33228-4 , p. 237.
35. ^ English translation of the Treaty of Kars