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Bible Encyclopedias
Turkish Campaigns
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or "TURKISH CAMPAIGNS. - Under this general heading the operations in the World War involving Turkey in (I) the Caucasus, (2) Mesopotamia, (3) the Sinai area, and (4) Syria, are described.
(I.) Operations On The Caucasus Front A firm grasp of the military-geographical conditions on the Russo-Turkish frontier is an essential preliminary to an understanding of the operations in the Caucasus. In this region war, though waged with modern weapons, must be conducted by very old-fashioned methods; for the absence of railways and the rarity of good roads on the Turkish side from the first militated against, and indeed largely precluded, strategic mobility. In the vast area, 600 m. long by 300 wide, bounded by the S. coast of the Black Sea, the Russo-Turkish frontier, Lake Urmia and a line thence by Urfa to Angora, not a single railway exists. The only roads are the steep mountain track from Trebizond to Erzerum, a somewhat easier main road from Angora by Sivas and Erzinjan to Erzerum, the very steep mountain road from Kharput to Erzerum which at Garib meets the road crossing the wild Armenian Taurus from Diarbekr, the highway MosulBitlis - Mush - Erzerum, and lastly the old caravan route from Erzerum by way of Bayazid into Persia. The only other means of communication are narrow tracks, made by use only and impossible to trace after a snowfall; they serve to indicate to the troops their lines of advance, but can in no sense be said to facilitate their march. Transport, apart from pack-animals, can only move in the few roads mentioned and even on these, which are all in bad condition, only with extreme difficulty. The rivers as a rule can only be crossed at the fords, as any bridges have long ago broken down, for in Turkey no attempt is made to keep up the roads, the high dues levied for this purpose disappearing into the pockets of the officials.
It must always be remembered that a Turkish army operating in the region of Erzerum has a line of communications over 600 in. long to the nearest railhead at Angora or Ulu Kyshla, from which points every shell has to be brought up by camel transport, taking six weeks in transit. It would, therefore, have been of urgent importance to the Turks, for this reason alone, to gain complete command of the Black Sea, which would have made it possible for them to send supplies for the army by sea from Constantinople to Trebizond and thence overland by the comparatively short route to Erzerum. However, they only succeeded for a short period at the beginning of the war, in asserting a sufficient superiority over the Russian Black Sea fleet to allow of safe transit by sea to Trebizond, and it became impossible to count on this. The present writer had in 1913 drawn up for the Turkish general staff a memorandum, in which he fully discussed and recommended the reconstruction of the wholly antiquated fortress of Erzerum, of which the newest works dated from 1864, the erection of barrier forts to secure the Trebizond road, and other measures aimed at facilitating future operations in this area. But this important problem received no attention, and the future theatre of war was left in such a condition as to render impossible the defence of the frontier against a resolute attack.
The main theatre of war of the eastern Anatolian campaigns of 1914-8 was Turkish Armenia. The geographical area of Armenia had no clearly defined limits, having become nothing more than a geographical term for the districts of Russia, Persia and Turkey, which were inhabited by people of Armenian nationality. The geographical limits of Armenia are clearly defined only in the Caucasian isthmus, where the boundary is formed by the little Caucasus, stretching south-eastward between Tiflis and Akhaltsikh. In Persia the Armenian population in the province of Azerbaijan melts gradually into the Persian from Lake Urmia eastward. To the S. the ethnographic boundary corresponds more or less with the line of the Armenian Taurus and the parts of the Taurus stretching from the Cilician frontier to the Euphrates gorge; but northern spurs of Kurdistan jut out into Armenian territory, e.g. especially in the region of Dersin, which extends with its population of Kurdish tribesmen, who have a mortal feud with the Armenians, to just S. of Erzinjan. In the W. conditions are the same as in Persia. As one goes towards Sivas, the Armenians melt away into the Turkish Mahommedan population, while to the N. Lazistan cuts off the Armenian highlands from the sea. The course of the Juroch may be taken as the frontier between Pontus and Lazistan on the one side and Armenia on the other. In all this " Armenia " there is no territory inhabited exclusively by Armenians. As against this, countless Armenians are dispersed all over Turkey, and these communities of the dispersion are frequently, as in Adana (Cilicia), numerically strong and economically predominant.
Turkish Armenia is in parts a fertile land, but the climate is most unfavourable from the military point of view. Long cold winters, with heavy and frequent snowfalls, render almost impossible all strategic movement, and large bodies of troops are always in danger of decimation by frost and hunger, while the short summer brings with it oppressive heat. Turkish Armenia, inside the stupendous mountain range which cuts it off from Russian Armenia, is a tangled mass of hills and valleys. The differences in height between the mountain ridges and the deep-cut gorges is very marked. The population is poor and scattered, so that in areas hundreds of square miles in extent there are neither tracks nor habitations to be found. Much of Turkish Armenia has never really been explored, and the representation of it on the maps is largely mere guesswork. Erzerum itself is one of the highest placed towns in the world; it stands over 6,000 ft. above sea-level. Its population was estimated (much too highly) at 120,000 in 1913.
For the Russians the strategic situation was much more favourable than for the Turks. Preparations for the eventuality of a war with Turkey had for some time been taken in hand by the Russian general staff. Russia fully realized the importance of possessing the Armenian plateau, with its Christian population and great mineral wealth. The frontier fortress of Kars, which with its whole district had passed to Russia in 1878, was modernized, placed in a permanent state of defence, and well provided with guns, ammunition and supplies. A lateral line through Transcaucasia from Baku by way of Tiflis to Poti on the Black Sea was constructed, from which branch lines led to the Turkish frontier. The network of roads was also carefully completed and the frontier area thus converted into an excellent base for strategical deployment.
From the first, then, the Russians had the better strategic position. In this country whichever side was nearest to its railways was bound to have a decisive strategical advantage over the other, especially if in addition it possessed a better network of roads. Enver Pasha, however, failed to realize this. As a strategist he was a hopeless amateur, who believed that his personal will in Constantinople could remedy in a moment the age-old defects of the Turkish military system and the Turkish general staff.
Long before Russia, in Nov. 1914, declared war on Turkey, Gen. Liman von Sanders had planned to create a diversion in favour of the German and Austrian armies in the eastern front by landing several Turkish corps near Odessa and advancing into the Ukraine, where he hoped to rally the numerous German colonists to his standards. This scheme may be considered to have been the one great strategic error which could be laid to the account of Liman von Sanders: for it violated all those canons of prudence, the disregard of which the general himself so often and vigorously censured in the projects of others.
Liman von Sanders earmarked for this operation the I., IV., V. and X. Corps, and proposed to lead the army in person. It is easy to understand that the Turkish High Command looked with disfavour on this plan, if only because it needed all its available forces for operations in the Turkish theatre of war. The project of effecting a landing at Odessa held out no promise of success; for the expedition could never have ventured far from its ships, and could therefore have exercised no effect on the general strategic situation. It might perhaps have served as a centre for a rising in the Ukraine, whose agents were in Constantinople. But, in view of the military strength of Russia at that time, the success of such a rising was more than doubtful. The adventurous scheme was finally abandoned on Sept. 18 1914, largely because the commander of the fleet considered it impossible to guarantee either the smooth disembarkation of the troops or the maintenance of the line of communications by sea between Odessa and Constantinople. The Corps comprising the I. Army were also needed for political reasons in the Adrianople area,where they were to be used to cover the rear of Bulgaria against a Rumanian attack, should the former commit herself to an offensive against Serbia.
For Liman von Sanders' scheme was now substituted Enver's great plan for an advance against Russia, to be carried out by the III. Army, assembling in Sept. and Oct. at Erzerum, under the incompetent Hasan `Izzet Pasha (not to be confused with the Ahmad `Izzet who later became commander-in-chief).
This army consisted of the IX. and XI. Corps, the 2nd Cay. Div. and the so-called 2nd Res. Ca y. Div. made up of Kurdish irregular bands. This reserve cavalry, useless for fighting purposes, showed great skill in massacring and plundering the defenceless Armenians whenever opportunity offered. In Nov. the X. Corps also joined the III. Army. The condition of the troops may be gathered from a report of the middle of Nov. 1914, according to which the X. Corps alone was short of 17,000 overcoats, 17,400 pairs of boots, 23,000 tents and 13,000 packs - and this just before the Armenian winter, in a country where bivouacking is unavoidable on account of the settlements being far too thinly scattered to allow the housing of large bodies of troops. The III. Army was brought up to strength by reserves from E. Anatolia; they were excellent military material, but shortage of clothing and food in the autumn soon caused them to desert in masses.
Enver's plan of operations involved a frontal advance by the XI. Corps along the Erzerum-Sarikamish road, combined with an attack against the Russian right flank by the two other corps moving to the left over the mountains in the direction of Olti, with the idea of cutting the Russians off from Kars and capturing that fortress. The present writer repeatedly told the Turkish High Command that the whole operation was impossible of execution, and Liman von Sanders endeavoured in a personal interview with Enver to dissuade him from carrying out his plan, which Was foredoomed to failure. The latter, who had an exaggerated idea of his own capacity, refused to listen to advice or to take warning. Not only would he not see that his scheme was impracticable, but he expressed to Liman von Sanders his ultimate intention of marching by way of Afghanistan against India. No better proof could be desired of Enver's incapacity to understand what strategy means.
As a matter of fact the scheme as it stood was never put into execution, for the Russians anticipated it by undertaking an advance on Erzerum with a Cossack division and a mixed bde. Hasan `Izzet attacked them at KOprii Keui on Nov. 8, and by the 12th he had succeeded in taking the Russian positions. Meanwhile, however, the I. Caucasian Corps had taken up a position in rear near Asap, which resisted all the efforts of the Turks to storm it, though they gained ground at certain points. The Turks were already running short of ammunition and the arrival of parts of the II. Turkestan Corps to reinforce the Russians seemed to indicate that the Turkish superiority in numbers would shortly be lost, if it had not already been so. Hasan `Izzet therefore withdrew the III. Army, gave up all idea of any further offensive, and turned his attention to completing the equipment and supply services of his troops, who were even now beginning to suffer privations. This wise decision must largely be attributed to the influence of his German chief of staff, Guse. The losses of the Turkish army in these first encounters amounted to 1,500 killed, 5,600 wounded - no inconsiderable proportion of the effective strength of the army, estimated at some 90,000 men.
At this point, however, Enver took the bit between his teeth. He ordered a detachment which had been assembled under a German officer at Haidar Pasha to be transported across the Black Sea and landed W. of Batum, and to advance thence into Russian territory - in fact, to attack Russia. The detachment pushed forward boldly to Ardahan, where it encountered overwhelming hostile forces and had to retire to the Russo-Turkish frontier. Enver himself, burning with impatience, and his German chief of staff, Bronsart von Schellendorf, who also was no strategist, sailed on board a warship for Trebizond. Leaving Constantinople on Dec. 6 he reached Erzerum on the 21st, and, taking over the command of the III. Army, set to work at once to carry into action his pet scheme outlined above. The various corps received the following missions. The IX. Corps was to drive the Russians from the pass between Erzerum and Olti and advance on the latter place. The X. Corps, moving from Erzerum northward, was to wheel round south-eastward in front of Olti in order to cut the line of retreat of the enemy in conjunction with the IX. Corps, marching parallel to it. The Russians would then be attacked frontally by the XI. Corps, as soon as the turning movement succeeded.
This scheme was a real piece of geometrical strategy, which in view of the bitter cold, the deep snow and the miserable equipment of the Turkish army was bound to turn out disastrously. Enver, however, persisted in his attempt to ape the deeds of Alexander the Great, and the operation proved a complete failure. The IX. Corps successfully forced the pass, but got utterly out of hand in the tangle of snowclad and pathless mountains. With its units inextricably mixed up it encountered near Sarikamish a superior and well-ordered enemy force, and suffered a complete defeat. The X. Corps, which had an even longer road to traverse, also arrived piecemeal on the battlefield on Jan. 4 1915, when the IX. Corps was already pouring back in complete disorder. The X. Corps shared its fate and retreated in disordered haste over the mountains. Enver attempted to retrieve the position by attacking with the XI.
Corps. Naturally enough, this isolated attack was broken without producing any effect beyond making it possible for the remnants of the IX. and X. Corps to escape to Erzerum.
The III. Army, which owing to the heavy snow had been unable to take its field artillery with it, had suffered appalling losses, which were due not so much to the fighting as to the fact that the troops had had to bivouac in the snow without tents and practically without food. An epidemic of typhus now broke out in its ranks. After the offensive the strength of the army had been reduced to the following totals: IX. Corps 2,000, X. Corps 2,400, XI. Corps 2,400, Artillery and 2nd Ca y. Div. 4,800; or 12,400 in all. The army had thus lost 86% of its effectives, and had suffered a disaster which for rapidity and completeness is without parallel in military history. The miserable survivors were in a pitiable condition. Enver Pasha, with Bronsart von Schellendorf, at once left the army, handing over the command to Havis Hakki Pasha, his brother-in-law, and returned to Constantinople; he never again during the World War attempted to conduct operations, though he often interfered with the decisions of the other army commanders with disastrous results. Thus, soon after the defeat E. of Erzerum, he ordered the despatch of the V. Corps to that theatre from Constantinople, and was only at the last moment persuaded by Liman von Sanders to cancel his instructions. During his return journey he also announced that no orders other than his own should be carried out by the troops, and instructions to this effect were sent to all the Turkish armies. The greatest confusion would have resulted had not the Grand Vizier cancelled this ridiculous order. Havis Hakki Pasha dying in Feb. of typhus, the command was given to Mahmud Kiamil, who knew next to nothing of strategy and owed his rise solely to political considerations and his influential connexions.
It was an undeserved piece of good fortune for Turkey that the Russian losses and the increasing severity of the weather forbade any pursuit, and that the situation on the Polish front was absorbing all the available Russian troops and preventing the despatch of reinforcements to the Caucasus. There ensued therefore a cessation of all activity in this quarter, and Mahmud Kiamil had time to reorganize his army. By occupying the Id and Olti passes he secured his left flank against any raids and surprise attacks which the Russians might be planning. Farther still to the left the small detachment which had carried out the push into Ardahan was wintering at Artvin in Russian territory. It consisted of 1,000 regulars, reinforced by volunteers raised in Constantinople by the Committee of National Defence with the assistance of the German military representatives. More of these somewhat inferior troops were sent to the detachment in Feb. and March, and it was resolved to attempt a coup de main against Batum. The fortifications of the town, however, though antiquated, were quite sufficient to repel the attack of these unorganized and half-trained men, and the enterprise was a complete failure. This was all the more unfortunate for Turkey, as she had found herself unable, despite the presence in the Black Sea of the " Goeben " and the " Breslau," which were manned by German crews but had been transferred to the Turkish fleet, to maintain uninterrupted command of that sea. During 1915 the two German ships, the only effective portion of the Turkish navy, were needed to cooperate in the defence of the Dardanelles; so the Russians were able once more to venture out to sea and shell the coal-mines of Zunguldak and Eregli and the town and harbour of Trebizond. Henceforward the line of communication of the III. Army by sea had to be given up, and it now ran overland along the railway from Haidar Pasha (opposite Constantinople) by Konia, to Ulu Kyshla (in the Taurus N.E. of Adana), where everything was loaded onto carts and camels, and proceeded by road via Kaisariyeh and Sivas to Erzinjan, there to be distributed. The length of this line from the railhead at Ulu Kyshla to the main depot at Erzinjan was some 475 miles.
Mahmud Kiamil, with the assistance of the German Lt.-Col. Guse, who was still chief of staff, succeeded during the winter months in bringing the strength of his army up to 3 5,000 men; most of the new recruits,however, had had little or no training. His small army had to hold a wide front of some 220 m. from the Black Sea to Lake Van, and in these circumstances Mahmud Kiamil kept the main body of his army concentrated round Erzerum, and protected the rest of the front only by small detachments. This was not difficult, particularly in winter, since few passable paths led over the frontier mountains, which are in places over 9,000 ft. high.
The Russians were not strong enough to fight a battle along the Sarikamish - Erzerum road. They therefore had recourse to wide turning movements, but not until May 1915, when the snow on the roads had melted. They first pressed the Turks back from the Olti pass and pushed on to Turtum. This village lies in a wild and precipitous valley in the midst of the high mountains, and here it was therefore possible for the Turkish reserves to stem the Russian advance. The Id pass was also occupied by the Russians. While the attention of the Turkish Higher Command was thus attracted to the N., far stronger Russian forces began, likewise in May, an offensive over the passes of the Aghri Dagh (W. of Bayazid) in the direction of Lake Van, capturing the weakly defended villages of Dutak and Melassgirt and threatening Van and Bitlis. At the same time the Armenian population rose in arms. A Turkish division, hurriedly despatched to Bitlis, suppressed the rebellion with awful savagery, but the Russians continued their advance from Melassgirt on Bitlis, and on July 13 drove its defenders out.
Again fortune favoured the Turks. The Russians, presumably too weak to venture forward, contented themselves with what they had gained. Before them to the W. of Bitlis lay the high plateau which stretches eastward from Diarbekr. Strong Russian forces might have either descended thence on Mosul and down the Tigris, thus facilitating the British operations against Bagdad, or might have pushed forward in the Euphrates valley on Kharput and turned the whole line held by Mahmud Kiamil's army, which was known to be in no fit state to offer serious resistance, and would have no alternative but to retire hurriedly on Erzinjan or to accept battle before Erzerum with its front facing S.W., with the certainty of complete destruction if it were defeated. However, nothing was done. A few detachments crossed into Persia (Azerbaijan) and occupied Urmia and a few other places W. of the lake of that name. Here, however, they were cut off by a belt of stupendous mountains over 'Is m. wide from the Mosul plain, so that this enterprise had no strategic effect and merely exercised some political influence in bringing over to the side of the Russians the Armenian and Persian population of that region.
Summer passed, and as early as Sept. the first snow fell. Mahmud Kiamil had now increased his army to a strength of 58,000 men, and had in addition assembled some 20,000 recruits in special training camps in Erzerum. The governor of Erzerum was a German, Gen. Posseldt, who exerted himself in every way to put the antiquated works of the fortress in a state of defence. Lack of all material, even wood, however, prevented the construction of anything except earth-works. Erzerum drew all its wood and fuel in peace-time from the Pontic Alps, whence it had to be carried for 115 m. in carts. The Russian bivouacs near Melassgirt were constructed of wood brought up all the way from the mountain forests W. of Kars.
Although Erzerum was by no means a strong fortress, some 60 guns in its outer works and some 40 in the inner line being out of date, it was of great importance as the only road junction in the whole theatre of operations, as the capital of an area disaffected towards Turkey and the central point d'appui of a weak army. In Oct. 1915 the situation in Mesopotamia appeared so serious that the Turkish Supreme Command, all being quiet at Erzerum, took away from Mahmud Kiamil two divisions (the 5th and 6th) and sent them to Bagdad. And just at this moment the Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command on the Russian Caucasus front, and brought with him not only reinforcements and material, but - still more important - the will to utilize them to the full.
Nicholas had no need to resort to turning movements, and decided to attack the centre of the Turkish front and break through to Erzerum. The offensive began on Jan. 11 1916, up the Aras valley, and by the 14th the Turkish positions E. of Erzerum had been carried. It was unfortunate for the Turks that at this moment Mahmud Kiamil had been called away to Constantinople, and that his German chief of staff, Col. Guse, was on sick leave after a severe attack of typhus. The temporary commander of the III. Army, `Abdul Kerim Pasha, was not equal to the situation. The Turkish forces, after losing heavily in a series of rearguard actions, took up a position on the heights N. and S. of Erzerum which had been hastily fortified. The Russians, who expected to overrun these defences at the first attack of their advanced guards, were checked for the moment; but a second assault, delivered by strong forces against the left of the Turkish line from Kara Gobek, proved decisive of the fate of the fortress, which fell into Russian hands on Feb. 15 1916, the troops of Gen. Yudenich advancing by surprise against the southern front, where no attack was expected.
The defenders of Erzerum had certainly put up a good fight, and the Russian claim to have captured in the fortress roo,000 prisoners, 437 guns in the inner and 374 guns in the outer forts and 200 field guns was certainly greatly exaggerated. The whole Turkish army, if we deduct the heavy losses suffered, was barely 50,000 strong, and the whole artillery of the fortress amounted to barely io% of the figures given by the Russians.
The Turks, however, whose communiqués were easily the most inaccurate of all those issued by the belligerents, sent home on Feb. 16 an entirely fanciful account of what had happened: " On the Caucasus front," it ran, " in the violent position fighting which has continued for the last three days despite the cold and snow, the enemy lost 5,000 dead and 60 prisoners." The loss of Erzerum was not even mentioned, and even the Sultan and his entourage only heard of it some months later; and even when the facts were finally announced to the world the importance of the place was minimized and its evacuation represented as being a voluntary withdrawal on the part of the Turks. The Grand Duke Nicholas, far from resting content with his victory, vigorously followed up the Turks in their disordered retreat, and occupied Mamakhatun. On Feb. 24 the remnant of the beaten army crossed the Euphrates at Kotur. Mahmud Kiamil, who had resumed his command, was now replaced by Wahib Pasha; the greater part of the artillery and material had been left behind in the retreat, and he only succeeded with great difficulty in getting his troops across the river, which here flows from N. to S., and into position on the right bank on the heights of Baiburt. The V. Corps, which was arriving in haste and piecemeal from European Turkey, assisted in checking the Russian advance. In the coastal sector the detachment at Artvin, though reinforced by some units of the V. Corps, was assailed by superior forces and compelled to fall back after stubborn fighting. Maj. Hunger, the German commander, succeeded in making a renewed stand 20 m. E. of Trebizond, but by the middle of April the Russian 123rd Div. forced him back once more and occupied Trebizond.
The Turkish strategic situation had now become serious. The possession of Trebizond allowed the Russians to open up a much shorter line of communications across the Black Sea from the Ukrainian and Crimean seaports, and gave them a base close behind their front. The disadvantage of having this base behind the right wing of their army could be compensated for by reinforcing this wing, so as to avoid any possibility of its being forced away from its line of communications, while the land route to Erzerum from Kars was still in use and would be available to supply the whole army if necessary.
The Turks, therefore, had to expect that in the forthcoming spring the Grand Duke Nicholas, whose forces were continually being reinforced from the Caucasus, would resume the offensive on a large scale. The Turkish Supreme Command was now freed of all anxiety from the side of the Dardanelles, but it still maintained three armies, the I. (Essad Pasha), the II. (Ahmad `Izzet Pasha) and the V. (Liman Pasha), massed in the Constantinople - Adrianople area, thousands of miles from the theatres of operations, in Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia.
The loss of Trebizond finally aroused Enver Pasha to a realization of the full extent of the strategic danger in the E., and in March the II. Army was directed to the E. Anatolian front. It was to deploy on the line Lake Van - Mush - Kigi, and advance against the Russian flank and rear in the general direction of Erzerum; it was to be brought up to a strength of io divisions by the addition of the forces already in the area of operations, and to be reorganized in four corps. The commander, Ahmad `Izzet Pasha, had been promoted commander-in-chief of the Turkish army after the Dec. armistice in the Balkan War.
The strategic plan adopted by the Turkish Supreme Command for the II. Army was as usual excellent in theory but impossible of execution. The idea of throwing a whole army on the flank and rear of the Russians must certainly have seemed seductive to anyone sitting over a map in Constantinople; for it seemed to promise a strategic encirclement, it followed famous precedents, and there was plenty of room for the manoeuvre. In practice, however, the plan paid no attention to the actual conditions of time and space. The II. Army was despatched in the spring by rail from Constantinople to Ulu Kyshla; the line, which was a single one, with enormous intervals between stations, was already serving as the line of communication for the Palestine and Mesopotamia armies, so that any rapid transport of the II. Army was out of the question. The Turkish Supreme Command made a grave miscalculation in assuming that the army would be assembled and ready for the advance in 40 days; the distance from the railhead at Ulu Kyshla to the area of concentration (some 400 m.), which had to be covered on foot, would itself have taken up all that time. The amateur strategists at Turkish H.Q. took no account of these matters, and were mightily surprised when the event disappointed their expectations. As a matter of fact by July 8 the leading troops of the II. Army (III. Corps 7th and i ith Div.) had barely passed Malatia, and the rest of the army was still on the railway in August.
Meanwhile the situation on the III. Army front was going from bad to worse. At the end of May it had carried out a few successful minor operations; Mamakhatun and Surmene (E. of Trebizond) had been occupied, and the army command, which was now at Gumuskhane, misconceiving the general situation, proposed to - carry out a powerful offensive S. of Trebizond early in July. For this purpose it suggested that the units of the II. Army already available should push forward without delay to the area S. of Erzerum - an advance which, with the weak forces which `Izzet Pasha had at his disposal, could only have been effective as a demonstration or a piece of bluff. But even this could hardly have succeeded, in view of the excellent intelligence as to the Turkish movements which the Russians were known to have, and `Izzet Pasha rightly declined to fall in with the scheme. As a matter of fact the Russians had full information as to these happenings, and especially the progress of the transport of the II. Army, and seized their chance to attack the III. Army in July, before the II. Army's menace to their flank could become effective. This was the best solution of their problem of operations on the inner line, and it met with complete success. On July 7 the Turkish III. Army was driven from Erzinjan and Baiburt with heavy losses in men, guns and material, and was able to make another stand only on the line Kemach (on the Euphrates 30 m. W. of Erzinjan) - Chadali Pass - Tireboli on the Black Sea. The most serious result of this defeat was the complete demoralization of the defeated troops; thousands of deserters, plundering and robbing, flooded all the country as far back as Sivas; columns and transport melted away in panic on the appearance of the Russian cavalry, who had broken through the Turkish line at two points and suddenly appeared in its rear. The III. Army reported in Aug. that 13,000 deserters had rejoined their units, but the governor of Sivas estimated that some 30,000 were still at large in his area. The fact that the Mahommedan population in the area evacuated by the Turkish army fled in terror before the advance of the Russians added to the indescribable confusion.
When `Izzet Pasha with the III. Corps advanced at the end of July into the zone of assembly allotted to the II. Army the situation was as follows. In the hilly country S. of Bitlis was the 5th Div., which had been driven from that town by the Russians, and the 8th Div. was in the hilly country S. of Mush. `Izzet formed them into the XVI. Corps. N.W. of them were only a few small detachments, holding the main roads as far as the Elmali valley, in which stood the i 1 th Ca y. Bde. as the extreme right wing of the III. Army.
`Izzet Pasha's intention was to assemble the main body of his II. Army at Diarbekr and the smaller part at Kharput, and only then to advance in the direction of Erzerum and the country to the E. of it. He knew that in front of him the reinforced IV. Caucasian Corps had taken over the task of guarding the flank of the Russian main army.
This plan, however, was not carried out. The Turkish Supreme Command, in view of the disaster to the III. Army and the reports of constantly arriving Russian reinforcements, urged `Izzet to attack before the assembly of his forces had been finished. `Izzet had no option but to obey, though he was under no illusion as to the result. He wished at least to concentrate all his few available forces on the left wing of his area of deployment and to make a push into the district W. of Erzerum, in order to relieve the pressure on the III. Army. But this also proved beyond his powers. The 1st, 14th and S3rd Divs., which had arrived at the end of July and the beginning of Aug., were pushed forward against the Russians, who were still being reinforced on the front opposite the II. Army; a few local successes were achieved, and `Izzet Pasha on Aug. 10 decided to renounce a general offensive and to hold and fortify the line Kigi-Ognot heights S. of Mush.
Thus ended the geometrical strategy of the Turkish Supreme Command, which had from the first been based only on wishes and hopes rather than on definite realities. The administrative deficiencies in the II. Army had been, as usual in Turkey, so great as alone to ruin all hope of success. The army was sent forward into wild and mountainous country, in which only mountain artillery and columns of pack-animals could be moved, and it was supplied with only 18 mountain guns and with ox-wagons for transport - and far from enough even of these. Figures as to the number of cattle in the deployment area were accepted without verification, and proved to be exaggerated some five fold. Those responsible for the supply services were, as ever in Turkish wars, quite incompetent to make the best of what turned up, and very disposed to steal the little that was available. Under such conditions the best plans are of no avail, for they can never be translated into actual practice.
Meanwhile Wahib Pasha was displaying praiseworthy energy in reorganizing the III. Turkish Army, of which the headquarters were at Andria. Divisions were formed out of the old corps, regiments out of divisions, battalions out of regiments. The army was divided into two " Caucasian Corps," the I. and II., the former comprising the 5th, 11th and 37th Caucasian Divisions. But even these combined divisions were very weak. The volunteer formations and other irregular bands proved wholly useless, and were soon broken up. German motor transport columns, established in the winter of 1916-7 on the line of communications of the III. Army between Ulu Kyshla and Sivas, prevented a threatened catastrophe due to starvation. All Wahib Pasha's efforts, however, could not restore the spirit of the III. Army and give back to it that confidence which was essential to the prosecution of a successful offensive.
The II. Army, when its concentration was completed, was composed of the XVI., II., IV. and III. Corps. Mustaf a Kemal (later to become famous as leader of the Nationalist army) was the army commander. `Izzet Pasha was entrusted with the general direction of the II. and III. Armies operating on the Armenian front, and moved his H.Q. to Kharput.
The II. Army, which had its H.Q. at Diarbekr, was experiencing even greater difficulties in the matter of its communications than was the III. In the winter, however, the strain was eased by both sides going into winter quarters, as in the old days. Only in the passes small observation detachments stood facing each other. In Nov. most of the troops were moved back into more sheltered districts, so that the Turkish and Russian winter quarters were some 30 to 40 m. apart, about the equivalent of five days' march in this difficult country. The Turks, however, were still short of food. As early as Nov. the men were getting only one-third of their regular rations, the pack-animals had themselves to find what meagre pasturage they could, and to find any was soon impossible on account of the deep snow; the cavalry horses were getting only II. kilogrammes of oats. Hundreds of animals died every day. Again and again outposts, patrols and whole detachments of men were found starved or frozen to death in the holes of the rocks. In the terrible cold, which when snowstorms raged might well chill to the bone even the warmest clad men, the majority of the troops had only their summer clothing. The percentage of sick grew higher day by day. The sanitary arrangements were in the highest degree defective, so that these miserable beings lived and died in boundless wretchedness. In the hospital at Kharput alone the average deaths in the winter of 1916-7 amounted to 900 per month. Medical requisites were insufficient, and there were no means of combating the plague lice and the epidemic of typhus which followed it. Of the III. Army 60,000 men perished between July 1916 and the spring of 1917, and in the autumn of the latter year barely 20,000 men remained at the front.
The strategic position in Armenia at the beginning of 1917 was extremely unfavourable to the Turks. The Russians, who had obtained undisputed control of the Black Sea, had massed such strong forces in front of the II. and III. Armies that there could be no idea of a Turkish offensive. At the same time railways were being built from Sarikamish by Hasan Kala to Erzerum and from Trebizond and Gumuschane, on the completion of which the Russians in their turn would be in a position to resume the offensive without being hampered by transport difficulties. This offensive might be directed either against the front of one of the two Turkish armies, or from Lake Urmia along the southern shore of Lake Van against the almost unprotected flank of the III. Army. In view of the fact that a new English advance against Bagdad was in preparation, this latter seemed very probable, and Liman von Sanders did rightly in asking the Turkish Supreme Command, in the late autumn of 1916, to hold another army ready at Mosul. The proposal, however, was rejected by Enver. It would also have been sound policy to have placed the II., III. and VI. Armies (the latter being at Bagdad) under one command; for the transference of forces between Armenian and Bagdad fronts could not be carried out quickly enough from Constantinople, and a junction of the Russian and British fronts by an extension of the former by Urmia and the western frontier of Persia was shortly to be expected. A Russian offensive from Persia against Mosul would certainly place both the III. and the VI. Turkish Army in a perilous position. The completion of the railway from Igdir by Bayazid to Kara Kilissa and its continuance by Tutak and Melassgirt seemed to indicate the probability of a Russian offensive against the right of the II. Turkish Army. The offensive against Mosul did not in fact take place; but this omission was a serious error on the part of the Russians and a piece of good fortune for the Turks, on which they had no right to count. However, Liman von Sanders' request for the establishment of a single command was rejected by the Turkish Supreme Command. The relations between Enver and Liman had in fact gradually become so strained, that Enver made a point of refusing anything that Liman wanted.
The Grand Duke Nicholas had, for his part, been making energetic preparations during the winter of 1916-7 for a powerful new offensive. The III. Turkish Army was opposed by the V. Caucasian, II. Turkestan, and I. Caucasian Corps; the II. Turkish Army by the VI. and IV. Caucasian Corps as far as Van. Thence to the W. of Lake Urmia came the II. Caucasian Ca y. Corps and a number of detachments (fortress regiments from Kars, frontier guard units, Armenian and Assyrian irregulars). The VII. and I. Caucasian Ca y. Corps prolonged the front from Sauj Bulak along the Persian frontier to W. of Kermanshah.
But the Grand Duke's plans, which in view of the wretched condition of the Turkish armies must have led to a complete victory and perhaps driven Turkey out of the war in the summer of 1917, were never carried out. This was in part due to the fact that all available Russian forces were being concentrated for Brussilov's great offensive in Volhynia, but mainly to the outbreak of the Russian revolution, which checked all large operations in Asia. When the revolution broke out in April the advance had not begun. In the course of the winter there had been nothing but local skirmishes for the possession of a hill or pass, which, whether they turned out to the advantage of Turks or Russians had no influence on the general strategic situation.
The outbreak of the revolution was taken by many of the Russian troops as a signal that the war was at an end, though there were formations which still maintained their cohesion and discipline. The Turks, however, were prevented partly by the general military situation of Turkey and partly by the peculiar difficulties of the II. and III. Armies, from seizing and exploiting their advantage as they might have been expected to do. The rapid progress of the English towards Bagdad had necessitated the despatch of reinforcements to that theatre, and the maintenance of the Palestine front also absorbed large forces, so that there were neither men nor material left over for the Caucasian front. The two armies, barely 40,000 strong in the spring of 1917, were now formed into the " Caucasian Army Group " under `Izzet Pasha, whose H.Q. were still at Kharput, and who had now been provided with a German chief of staff, Maj. von Falkenhausen. All this, however, did not in any way make it possible to resume operations. Typhus was still raging; in Feb. the II. Army lost 42 of its few doctors from this cause. There was so little wood that the delousing stations could not be heated. The deportation of the Armenian population had left the fields untilled, and the villages deserted and in ruins. Of the craftsmen who exhibit a multitudinous activity behind the armies on the European fronts there was not a sign, and even the workshops which had been busy in peace-time were deserted. The supply often broke down entirely. A shameless traffic in waggons went on on the single railway from Haidar Pasha to Ulu Kyshla, which served the Palestine, Mesopotamian and Caucasian fronts. These waggons, which should have been used for military purposes, were privately hired out by officers and officials to contractors and war profiteers at high prices, and on this railway an illicit carrying trade was developed on a gigantic scale. The higher authorities, who also took their quota of profit, were not inclined to interfere. So for the sake of these brutes thousands of brave Anatolian soldiers perished of cold and starvation without even knowing the true cause of their miserable death.
The reports of the hopeless military position in 1917, which were sent to Berlin by the Turkish Supreme Command, were from first to last lies, and served only to increase the exaggerated estimate of themselves which obsessed the minds of the German Supreme Command as well and caused the loss of every opportunity of arriving at peace of understanding.
When Bagdad fell to the English on the night of March 10-11, the chance offered itself of a successful Russian offensive on Mosul either westward from Lake Urmia or from the region of Lake Van southwards. Had it been carried out even by one good corps it could not have failed to be successful. During the whole of 1917 some 15 infantry and 22 cavalry divisions remained on the Russian front facing the Turks, but nothing important was undertaken. The front fromTrebizond to the Diala near Bagdad, where it connected with the English line in Mesopotamia, measured over 600 m. from flank to flank, and afforded far greater scope for free strategic manoeuvres than the narrow fronts in France, which were actually filled with guns and men. Warlike activity was only resumed in E. Anatolia, however, when Russia at the end of 1917 entered into negotiations with the Central Powers. The political event which decided the resumption of the offensive by the Turks, which took place early in 1918, was the notification by the Turkish plenipotentiaries at Brest Litovsk on Jan. 17 that a Russian retirement from all the area occupied by them in Asia Minor was an essential preliminary to the conclusion of peace. At the same time the Ukrainian delegates were asked by the Turkish delegates how far they were interested in the retention of the Caucasus by Russia. On their replying that they had no interests in the Caucasus, the Turks resolved to conquer it, and obtained Germany's consent to their doing so, though at the time they did not disclose to her all their ulterior designs.
The Russians retired at the end of Jan. 1917, and in Feb. the Turks advanced across the line Van - Erzerum - Trebizond. The Turkish armies, which together could muster only the strength of a weak army corps, were in such poor condition that even the small, unorganized Armenian bands, who opposed them, were able to give them greater trouble. Their communique's at this time were full of stories of great victories which never took place.
The forward march was carried out in two columns. The northern one, feeling its way very cautiously along the coast of the Black Sea, reentered Trebizond on Feb. 24; the other reached Erzinjan on the 14th, and moved thence by Mamakhatun on Erzerum. Nothing was seen of the Russians, who, as a matter of fact, had long since recrossed the frontier; only a few desperate Armenians endeavoured to dispute the reoccupation of their country by their hereditary tormentors. The Turks were held up for some time by these bands in front of Erzerum, which they only " recaptured " on March 11, and revenged themselves by the usual revolting barbarities on the unhappy Christian population.
While Erzerum was being taken, the left Turkish column advancing from Trebizond was approaching the frontier between Chopa and Magriali, and the political problem of the provinces of Kars, Ardahan and Batum, the occupation of which had been the motive of the advance, became acute. Their interest in these provinces caused the Turks to commit their last and decisive strategic blunder, the greatest of which they had been guilty since 1914. The Turkish Government considered these operations in the Caucasus to be of the first importance, although the true decisive theatre for Turkey in 1918 was Palestine. Instead of concentrating in Palestine the few troops it had available, the Supreme Command withdrew troops and war material from that front and despatched them to the " East Caucasian Group." Even the small German contingent, which formed the backbone of the Palestine army, was also sent to the Caucasus. Liman von Sanders' words to Count Bernstorff, the German ambassador in Constantinople, written in June 1918, were fully justified by events: " The Turks are sacrificing all Arabia, Palestine and Syria to these boundless undertakings of theirs in Trans-Caucasia. Germany will some day be burdened with the responsibility for this." Enver and the German High Command had, however, succeeded in completely deceiving the German ambassador as to the Turkish objective, for the latter, in reply to Liman von Sanders, wrote on June 21 that the German Jager battalion was being transferred from Palestine to Georgia, " not in response to Turkish wishes, but, on the contrary, for the purpose of restoring order in the Caucasus, so as to allow of the whole Turkish army being transferred thence to Mesopotamia by way of Urmia and Tabriz." This, of course, could have been done more quickly and easily if the Turkish army had never advanced from Armenia into the Caucasus. The motive of the Caucasus adventure lay deeper. Enver's idea of attacking India, childish as it was, had yet proved enticing to the German High Command, and the strategic base for an invasion of India by way of Persia was actually established in the Caucasus in the summer of 1918. And this at a time when the decision of the World War was ripening on the front in France!
Considerations of an economic nature, it is true, carried great weight in the minds of the German Supreme Command at this time. The output of the Rumanian oil wells was insufficient; and it was therefore thought necessary to occupy Baku, and to despatch petroleum thence to the Black Sea by the Tiflis railway. It has been necessary to mention these considerations in order to make clear the motives of the Turkish operations in 1918.
After the occupation of Erzerum the southern Turkish column reached Olti, the first objective of the Turks in the winter of 1914-5, on March 26. Meanwhile the coast column was moving on Batum. The Georgians, however, who, naturally enough, had little sympathy with the Turkish " restorers of order," banded themselves together to oppose their further advance. The latter were not even able to keep a firm hand on insurgent Armenia. Behind their backs Armenian bands even succeeded in occupying Erzerum for a time and thereby interrupting all movement on the Turkish line of communications. Meanwhile Georgian bands had occupied Batum. The Turks attacked the town and stormed the advanced positions on April 9; one fort fell on the loth, two others on the firth, and on the 14th the town surrendered. The Turkish Supreme Command seized the opportunity to telegraph to the world at large the most incredible stories of victory.
Early in April Nuri Pasha, who was now in command of the " East Caucasus " Army, pushed a strong column from Lake Van in the direction of Kars. Vostan, at the S.E. corner, and Arnis, at the N.E. corner of the lake, were occupied after violent conflicts with Armenian bands, who fought with the utmost fierceness. Van fell on April 7.
While this column was advancing on Kars by way of Kara Kilissa, the Erzerum column, which had been brought to a halt after the above-mentioned capture of Erzerum by Armenian bands, pushed forward by Sarikamish, and the two columns thus converged on Kars. As there was no strategically effective enemy to overcome, the operation was successful, despite the late arrival of the Van force. The Erzerum column approached Kars on April 5, after driving off some Armenian irregulars near Sarikamish; the Van column made slow progress through the revolted province of Bagasia, arriving at Kara Kilissa April 18.
On the 26th the Turkish communiqué reported the " storming " of the fortress of Kars (which was apparently undefended) with the capture of 860 guns. This number was considerably in excess of the truth. There is no doubt, however, that the provisions secured in the fortress considerably facilitated the further prosecution of the operations. The column advancing along the coast had meantime pushed on from Batum to Kobuleti and Ozurgeti on the edge of the Caucasus mountains.
The Turks now felt themselves to be masters of the situation, and their pretensions became so outrageous as to lead to serious controversies with the German Government, which, for the first time in the war, was compelled to protest energetically against their exorbitant claims. It had, however, only itself to blame for their exaggerated estimates of themselves.
In the middle of May the plenipotentiaries of the Government of Northern Caucasia addressed a note to all the Powers, announcing the formation of an independent state, separated from Russia. Transcaucasia, however, remained in a complete state of confusion, though the proclamation of the independence of the country by the assembly which met early in June at Baku was plainly directed against Turkey. What exactly was meant by Transcaucasia, however, must have been obscure even to the assembly, for a few days earlier there had been set up under Turkish auspices three independent states, known as the Georgian, Tartar (Azerbaijan) and Armenian Republics. Necessity had compelled all three to conclude treaties of perpetual amity and alliance with Turkey, who had every intention of annexing these weak states at the earliest possible moment.
Enver did everything to strengthen his political army in the Caucasus. Accelerated promotion and doubled pay were promised to the officers serving with it, with the result that many officers, who were urgently required in Palestine, got away from that theatre, where they received no pay at all.
In the summer the Caucasus Army was increased to six complete divisions, which were stronger than they had been at any time since 1914, numbering 9,000 men each. The transport of these troops, and their reserves, material and supplies absorbed all the fuel available, so that no trains could be sent to the Palestine Army, on whose fighting force the ultimate decision of the war depended. The Pan-Islamic idea, which had been propagated since the beginning of the war, had produced a complete confusion of mind and robbed Enver and his entourage of the last vestige of that strategic sobriety which alone could now save Turkey from ruin. Every week 14 coal trains were sent from Germany to Constantinople; of these seven - far more than were necessary - were kept for the use of the capital itself; 2,500 tons were shipped by way of the Black Sea to the E. Caucasian Army, and the rest was absorbed by the Anatolian railway - or in other words the war profiteers, who filled whole trains with their goods and paid out untold sums in bribes to the railway officials to give them priority of passage.
The E. Caucasian Army extended itself in Transcaucasia and N. Persia, from Lake Urmia to Arax, during the course of the summer, without troubling themselves in the least about the dangerous English offensive against Mosul, where 4,000-5,000 Turkish soldiers were posted in conditions of the utmost misery.
The few events that followed in Transcaucasia were of little military interest, and consisted mainly of a few petty scuffles without influence on the general situation, and unsuitable for inclusion in a strategic narrative. Even the despatch of a German division to Georgia in the summer of 1918 had no other object than the furtherance of those plans, on the futility of which we have already insisted.
Nuri. Pasha, with Bolshevik help, certainly succeeded in expelling from Baku a small British force which had crossed the Caspian and occupied the town on Aug. 12. This incident, however, had no effect on the strategic position. In Persia Nuri pushed forward to Tabriz.
The final conclusions as to the Transcaucasian operations may be summed up as follows. The position of Turkey and of the Central Powers in 1918 was such that a military victory was out of the question. This fact, however, was recognized neither by Ludendorff, who wasted the defensive strength of the German army in a purposeless spring offensive, nor by Enver, who was obsessed by his vast schemes for annexation of territory. The despatch of a strong German division to the Caucasus, and the operations of large German forces in the Ukraine in the summer of 1918, when the war was being lost in France, show the kind of strategic conception then prevalent. In the case of Turkey the theatres of war which had to be supplied with men and material were too numerous for the resources available. When the Russians collapsed in 1918 a wise strategy would have considered the elimination of one theatre of operations as a relief to be accepted with gratitude, and would have, as a natural consequence, transferred all the forces thus liberated to the Palestine front. Such a course would of itself have relieved the pressure on the Mesopotamian front, which could no longer be saved by direct means. The underlying idea ought to have been that a tenable military position in Palestine would have been more favourable, in the event of negotiations for peace, than any conquests in the Caucasus, which would have to be given up again in case of military defeat. Enver, and with him a whole series of Turkish and German military men, had never had that conception of the limits of the possible which is the prime characteristic of every great strategist. They mistook the elaboration of immense and impracticable schemes for genius, whereas true genius consists of getting the best possible results from the material available. The events on the E. Anatolian front also serve to prove very clearly that strategy is an art not to be mastered, even with the best will in the world, by a layman such as Enver, and that it is governed almost entirely by the geographical conditions of the theatre of operations. This should have been recognized by the office strategists of Constantinople, who had no clear grasp of the geographical conditions of the country in general or in detail, and failed to realize that strategical manoeuvres which seem highly promising on the map may be impossible of execution in practice. In the German schools of strategy, and also in Turkey, so-called military geography was before the war treated with complete contempt, as it was believed that it tended to limit freedom of strategic conception. The campaigns in the East proved that freedom of strategic conception, unless based on accurate geographical knowledge, is not only profitless but a fruitful cause of defeat. Finally, the war in Eastern Anatolia may teach us one valuable psychological lesson, which was insufficiently appreciated by the Turkish Supreme Command. The form of a strategic movement has of itself no driving force; the vital factor, in strategic force too, is the troops. Now the spirit of the troops depends mainly on their physical condition. An army called on, when insufficiently clad and underfed, to face the snows of winter soon loses its fighting value. If strategy depends on the efficiency of the troops, this in its turn depends on the efficiency of the supply and transport services, and the administration of the army in general. Only when this organization is in good order and working well can the leading strategic conception be, in the true sense of the word, free. On this simple truth the strategy of the Turks during the World War always suffered shipwreck, even when they had better leaders than those who appeared during the war in Armenia. (F. C. E.) (II.) Mesopotamian Operations The Anglo-Indian operations of 1914-8 in Mesopotamia, which ended in the military occupation of almost the whole of that extensive region, were in their initial stages conceived on comparatively modest lines. They were at the outset undertaken merely with the object of (r) protecting the Anglo-Persian oil installations of the Qarun; (2) occupying the greater part of the Basra vilayet, so as to secure possession of the Shatt al `Arab and to maintain control of the districts immediately round the head of the Persian Gulf; and (3) impressing the Arabs and others in this and neighbouring regions and influencing thereby the in-. habitants of the territories intervening between the Ottoman Empire and India. It was foreseen in London and at Simla that the Ottoman Government would be likely, under instigation from Berlin, to send troops in this direction, for the purpose of harassing the Indian executive by stirring up trouble in Persia and Afghanistan; and steps had been taken to deal with the contingency before relations between the Entente Powers and the Porte were actually broken off. The Poona Bde. of the 6th Indian Div. had been dispatched to an island near the head of the Persian Gulf in the middle of Oct., and on Nov. 7, two days after the British Government declared war on Turkey, these advanced troops appeared in their transports at the mouth of the Shatt al `Arab.
The fort guarding the entrance to the estuary was taken after a brief bombardment, and the brigade then disembarked and encamped some miles up-stream on the right bank. On learning this the Turks hurried all available forces down from Basra to bar the way to the invader; but, the rest of the 6th Div. under Sir A. Barrett having arrived, they were attacked on the r 7th and effectually overthrown. Basra fell on the 2rst. The vanquished Osmanlis for the most part retired to Qurna, at the junction of the Euphrates with the Tigris, the point where the water-way ceases to be navigable for ocean-going vessels proceeding upstream; but Barrett promptly pushed troops to a point higher up, and the place surrendered on Dec. 9. Considerable Ottoman reinforcements had, however, been on the way from Bagdad towards Basra since the arrival of the Anglo-Indian expeditionary force in the Shatt al `Arab, and these now began concentrating, partly in the direction of Ahwaz and menacing the oil-fields, and partly about Nasiriya on the Euphrates. Threatened in a measure on either flank, and necessarily dispersed owing to having many posts to hold, the 6th Div. was not comfortably situated; but, as the Turkish fighting forces which had come down from the N. were not as yet organized for active operations nor in an aggressive mood, the invaders were enabled to consolidate their position, and they were little interfered with during the first three months of 1915.
The Indian Government was, however, anxious to obtain a stronger hold upon the district already occupied, and so in March it was decided to raise the expeditionary force to the strength of an army corps. Early in April Sir J. Nixon took over command from Gen. Barrett, who with limited means had conducted the campaign with signal skill and judgment, and Gen. Townshend at the same time assumed charge of the 6th Division. The last units of the new division (the r 2th) had arrived by the middle of the month. These changes, as it turned out, synchronized with a marked increase of activity on the part of the Turks; for they appeared in some force near Qurna and also seriously threatened Ahwaz; they were, however, driven off with no great difficulty at both points. Encouraged by these successes, Nixon decided to assume the offensive and to occupy `Amara, a town of some importance 60 m. N. of Qurna on the Tigris, but considerably farther if following the sinuosities of the stream. This task was entrusted to Townshend, who carried it out by making free use of water-transport of all kinds for moving his troops. Aided by a naval flotilla, on May 31, he signally defeated a hostile force which tried to bar the way; and then, as the result of a bold stroke, on June 3 made himself master of `Amara, capturing 17 guns and 1,800 prisoners. This operation accomplished, Nixon resolved on a blow against Nasiriya. The heat was now intense; but, in spite of this, portions of the r2th Div., relying for mobility largely upon water transport, took possession of the town after some hard fighting on July 25, another 17 guns with r,000 prisoners being the prize of victory. The Anglo-Indian army which had descended upon this corner of the Ottoman Empire could then fairly claim that it had achieved the object for which the campaign had been originally undertaken.
Its triumph had been all the more creditable seeing how seriously it had suffered from want of transport, and taking the inadequacy of its administrative branches into consideration. It must be remembered that the Indian Government had accepted heavy commitments in other fields of military action. Two divisions had been dispatched to the western front. Large forces had been furnished for the protection of Egypt. The E. African campaign also at that stage was an Indian undertaking. The military organization of the great British Asiatic dependency had not in pre-war days been framed with the idea of prosecuting martial operations on an ambitious scale overseas. Large reserves of trained men did not exist to fill those gaps in the ranks that contests with well armed antagonists bring about in the present day. The available departmental services - notably the medical service - had been starved
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Turkish Campaigns'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/t/turkish-campaigns.html. 1910.
