The Turkish offensive in the Caucasus, as we found in Volume II, began in the middle of December, 1914, and reached its farthest point toward the end of the year. Although it was subsequently broken by Russia, its renewal was expected when the weather became more favorable. That it was not renewed during the summer of 1915, and that Tiflis was in consequence relieved from further menace, was due entirely to the British attack on the Dardanelles, to which all available Turkish troops were immediately dispatched. Russia had her hands full enough at the time to maintain her long front of 900 miles—from the Baltic through the Polish salient and through the Carpathian line of Galicia. She could therefore ill afford to spare any considerable part of her forces for an extended Transcaucasian campaign.
Turkey's first plan of action in the Great War appears to have been an attempt to recover Ardahan and Kars, both of which places, as well as Batum, had been taken from Turkey and handed over to Russia by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. To forestall any such aspirations Russian troops had entered Asia Minor on November 4, 1914, and advanced for seventeen miles along the road to Erzerum in Armenia, and on November 8 they successfully resisted an attack by the Turks, armed with heavy German artillery, at Kuprikeui, from which place several mountain paths lead to Erzerum. Further attacks had also been made by the Turks during the rest of the month and in December likewise in the Euphrates Valley without any notable result, until they had reached Ardahan and Sarikamish in an attempt to regain Kars.
In a three days' battle with the Russians, January 1-4, 1915, they were driven back with enormous losses, the whole of one Turkish army corps (the Ninth) surrendering. (See Volume II, Turkey in the War.) The Turks did not get within thirty miles of Kars. In numerical strength the Turks were estimated at three to one against the Russians. Fighting in the deep snow at altitudes of 8,000 to 10,000 feet in a severe winter is an enormously difficult undertaking for the attacking side, and it is evident that the Turkish forces suffered terrible hardships in their attempt to retain a footing on Russian territory.
At the end of January and the beginning of February furious fighting raged in the neighborhood of Sarikamish, when the Russians inflicted another defeat on the Turks. During a blinding snowstorm the former had crossed a mountain and, after heavy fighting, captured the commanding general and the staff of the Thirtieth Turkish Division and a large quantity of war material. The roaring of the wind was so great that the Russian approach could not be heard, while the thickly blowing snow rendered the troops invisible.
At the same time the Russian squadron bombarded the Turkish barracks at Trebizond and Rizah from the Black Sea, also sinking some Turkish sailing vessels used as transports. Under the superintendence of German engineers the Turks hurriedly set about constructing a branch railroad from Angora to Sivas, Asia Minor, intended to replace the Trebizond water route as a line of communication for the Turkish troops on the Caucasus front. Meanwhile another Russian column pushed out from Julfa along the Tabriz road to force battle upon the Turkish army invading the Persian province of Azerbaijan. The Turks advanced northward from Tabriz to Marand, where a stubborn battle was fought. They were commanded by Djevet Pasha, who was considered one of their best tacticians and most aggressive fighters, but after a series of unsuccessful frontal onslaughts his army broke in disorder, abandoning cannon, colors (standards), and all their dead and wounded. To the Russians the victory was more of political than military value, for it dealt a severe blow at Turkish and German influence in Persia.
On February 8, 1915, the Turkish cruiser Midirli (formerly the German warship Breslau) fired upon the Russian port of Jalta on the Crimean Peninsula, opposite Balaklava. The Russian fleet retaliated by again bombarding Trebizond on the other side of the Black Sea.
About February 20-21, 1915, several small engagements were fought in the vicinity of Chorokh, as a result of which the Turks were driven beyond the river.
On February 22, 1915, news came from Petrograd to the effect that the Turks had indulged in cruel atrocities during their occupation of Ardanuten in Transcaucasia, near the Armenian frontier. The Tiflis correspondent of the "Russkoye Slovo" (the "Russian Word") stated that at first the Turks confined themselves to pillage and killed only fifteen civilians, but that after December 30, 1914, when news of the Russian occupation of Ardaham was received, the local Mussulmans had organized a systematic massacre. A hundred and fifty Armenians were led out into the streets and killed.
Fifty Armenians were removed from prisons, stripped naked, and compelled to leap into the abyss of Jenemdere, the "Devil's Gap," until one victim carried a Turk with him, when the remainder were shot. At Tamvot 250 Armenians were massacred and the women carried into captivity. The Turks did not permit the burial of the corpses, which were left to be devoured by dogs till the arrival of the Russians. Again, it was reported from Urumiah, northwestern Persia, that prior to the evacuation of towns between Julfa and Tabriz the Turks and Kurds, who were retiring before the Russian advance, plundered and burned the villages and put to death some of the inhabitants. At Salnac, Pagaduk, and Sarna orders were said to have been given by the Turkish commissioner for the destruction of the towns. All the Armenian inhabitants of Antvat were collected and, according to this message, 600 males were put to death, and the women, after being compelled to embrace the Islamic faith, were divided into parties and sent to various interior towns.
On March 19, 1915, the Armenian Red Cross fund in London issued some details supplied by an Armenian doctor named Derderian, who testified that the whole plain of Alashgerd was virtually covered with the bodies of men, women, and children. When the Russian forces had retreated from this district the Kurds fell upon the helpless people and shut them up in mosques. The men were killed and the women were carried away to the mountains. The Armenian Red Cross fund stated that there were 120,000 destitute Armenians in the Caucasus at that time.