One of the most controversial regions for Russia and Turkey, of course, was Persia, in which, in fact, the British expected to become full masters. Before the start of the First World War, Persian Azerbaijan was recognized as a territory where the economic interests of the powers collided, and most importantly, it was considered by the parties as a convenient base for concentrating flank armed forces.
On November 6, 1914, Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov notified Count Benckendorff, his representative in London, that Russian troops in the course of hostilities against the Turks would be forced to violate Persia's neutrality. But the British opposed this Russian initiative and, through diplomatic channels, expressed their fear that Russia's invasion of a neutral Muslim country could cause unrest among the Muslims of the East, directed against the Entente.
The fact that England has its own views on Persia, which was seen as an outpost holding Russia back in its Asian aspirations, and fears that a Persian offensive by Russian troops could develop on the territory of Mesopotamia, was prudently silent. And to Russian diplomats, official London hinted just in case: if Russia does not quit its aggressive appetites, England will be forced to send "superior forces" to the East, which could lead to unwanted clashes.
The tactics of threats and promises (to give Russia the straits) led to the fact that the Russian Headquarters abandoned the Persian campaign. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov commented on the motives for refusal in his memoirs: in order to achieve recognition of the Russian claims regarding the straits, "I realized that … I had to offer some compensation."
Whatever the diplomatic endeavors of Russian and British diplomacy, it was not possible to avoid the war in Persia. Turkey, which declared jihad to the Entente countries, had great views on its wealth, and Russia, together with Britain, had to defend on the battlefields what had previously been able to get their hands on it.
By 1914, the Russian and British Empires had divided oil-rich Iran in two. The north went to Russia, and the south to Britain. Germany, with the help of Turkey, sought to destroy these spheres of influence, pulling over to its side the Muslim countries of Central Asia - Iran, Azerbaijan, the northwestern part of India (Pakistan) and connecting Egypt to them. So the fears of the British about the possible creation of a united Muslim front against the Entente were quite real.
Crown Prince Iseddin and most of the ministers, including Grand Vizier Dzhemal, driven primarily by fear of the great Russian Empire, which apparently overshadowed the hatred for it, adhered to a position of neutrality to the last. However, the policy of "prolonged neutrality" chosen by the triumvirate of the Young Turkish Pasha did not create illusions for the Russian Headquarters, which, not without reason, considered the steps taken by the top of the Ottoman Empire "very suspicious."
Meanwhile, after the events in Galicia and on the Marne, Berlin was forced to push Turkey to active hostilities and insisted that the Turkish fleet challenge the Russian tsarist fleet. An agreement was made about this at breakfast at the Wangenheim embassy.
As a result, the modern German cruisers "Goeben" and "Breslau", together with Turkish cruisers and destroyers, left the Bosphorus and on October 29-30, without declaring war, they fired on Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk and Feodosia. This was followed by the official declaration of war on Russia, but it was the Black Sea campaign of the Turkish ships that marked the beginning of the end of the arrogant program of Pan-Turkism.
The battle cruiser Goeben / Jawus and the light cruiser Breslau / Midilli parked in Stenia
Military operations against Russia in the East began on November 8, 1914, when units of the third Turkish army, reinforced by militant Kurds, invaded Iranian Azerbaijan. They were opposed by a small grouping of Russian troops under the command of General Nazarbekov.
The Turks took the city of Urmia by storm and captured about a thousand Russian soldiers. This was the end of the major military failures of the Russians in the East, although on the whole the Caucasian company against Russia in the first weeks developed quite favorably for Turkey. And this even caused a short-term panic in Tiflis, where the imperial governor of the Caucasus, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, settled.
However, soon the Russian Caucasian army under the command of General N. N. Yudenich seized the initiative and inflicted several sensitive defeats on the Turks, having significantly moved to the territory of the Ottoman Empire … In the course of the war, it became clear even to the Young Turks that Turkey was gaining nothing, but, on the contrary, was losing what belonged to it in the Mediterranean. Only as a harbinger of a national catastrophe, the country perceived a secret Russian memorandum addressed to the allies, about which Turkish intelligence became aware.
It was handed over to the Ambassadors of France and England in Russia, Maurice Paleologue and George Buchanan, on March 4, 1915, by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov. It required that “the city of Constantinople, the western coast of the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, as well as southern Thrace to the Enos-Media line … part of the Asian coastline between the Bosphorus, the Sakaria River and the point to be determined on the shore of the Ismid Gulf, the island of the Sea of Marmara and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos "were" finally "included in the royal empire (5). These requirements were squeaky, but approved by the allies.
Islands of Imbros and Tenedos
Historians studying the events associated with the First World War are unanimous in the opinion that S. Sazonov's great diplomatic success was the agreement concluded after this with England and France in 1915, according to which, after the victorious end of hostilities, Russia was to receive the Black Sea straits and Constantinople … But this required real military operations, in other words, the Black Sea Fleet's campaign against Constantinople. Otherwise, the agreement turned into a simple piece of paper.
In general, this is how it happened: from February 1917, Russia was simply not up to the straits and Constantinople, she had to sort out her revolutionary situations, which England was quick to take advantage of. Having carried out in the last campaign of the war at once a number of naval and land operations on the territory of Turkey, she brought Constantinople and the straits under her complete control, leaving her allies with a duplicate administrative role.
In the spring of 1920, the British occupied the most important government offices in Constantinople with their military troops, arrested the most ardent Turkish nationalists and sent them to Malta. The Sultan and his government were at the complete disposal of the British. Then Turkey had to endure a short occupation of almost all of Asia Minor by Greece, which in its unexpectedly aggressive claims was fully supported by England and France.
However, soon the Turkish army, which, with the participation of military advisers from Soviet Russia, was promptly reformed by Kemal Ataturk, defeated the Greeks on Smyrna, after which the Entente troops hurried to leave Constantinople. Subsequently, the now Soviet government at international conferences defended Turkey's right to independence and the need to demilitarize the straits.
Kemal Ataturk with the Ambassador of the RSFSR S. Aralov and the commanders of the Red Army. Turkey. 1920s
One can only regret that Russia in the end was left without straits, this strategically important territory. Currently, in the event of a military situation developing, enemy squadrons will be able to freely approach the southern Russian coast, favorable conditions for this are created by Ukraine with its increasing dependence on the United States.
The events on the battlefields of the First World War are widely known and arouse constant interest, but no less interesting is the diplomatic war waged by the "third enemy of Russia" in order to, if not deal with it, then at least harm it. However, the tsarist diplomats did not remain in debt.
Some Western researchers, in particular, the progressive English historian V. V. Gottlieb, defining the essence of the Black Sea policy of Russia in the First World War, traditionally cite the "Memorandum" of the official of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs N. A. Basili, which he sent to his boss S. D. Sazonov in November 1914.
“The traditional closure of the straits,” he wrote, “not only prevented sea-going ships from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the oceans of the world, but paralyzed the movement of warships from the southern ports to the Baltic Sea and the Far East and back, it limited the use of the Black Sea shipyards. in Odessa and Novorossiysk by local needs and did not allow to strengthen its fleet in case of emergency.
Constantinople and the Straits. Collection of classified documents
Gaining control over the straits blocked by the Turks meant only the beginning of solving a strategic problem: "It was pointless to consider the Dardanelles without the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, which dominate the mouth of the strait, and Lemnos and Samothrace, which occupy a dominant position over the spaces in front of the strait."
The capture of Constantinople was supposed to keep the Turkish Sultan in fear, who from his palace would see the guns of Russian ships every day, in fear and obedience. And most importantly, Russia was to become a "common political center" for the peoples living in the Balkans.
They dreamed of Russian Constantinople not only in the royal chambers and offices, from the first days of the war, Russian soldiers knew that they were going to defend this national idea, which literally seethed in society. "Only the prospect of" Constantinople "- the alpha and omega of all religious and political agitation - made it possible for Nicholas II to keep the" men "in the trenches," wrote Sir Winston Churchill, referring to the Russian contribution to the miraculous victory of the Allies on the Marne.
The straits were for Russia not only a military, but also an economic necessity. Powerful reserves of coal and iron, which were developed in Ukraine, its grain, the development of resource reserves of Transcaucasia and Persia, and even dairy products of Western Siberia literally "asked" for export by cheap sea routes. Land transport for all this was either not at all adapted, or would have cost 25 times more …
Note that a third of the total export of Russian goods went in 1911 through the straits. It is quite understandable that the temporary closure of the outlet to the sea by Turkey during its war with Italy in 1911 and with the Balkan states in 1912-1913 had a very painful effect on the Russian military economy, which provoked a violent reaction from the Russian bourgeoisie, which demanded that the country return “the vital nerve of the whole economic life.
Russians fought in Persia until the February Revolution of 1917. They successfully fought against the Turks, but more often they rescued the clumsy English units that were regularly surrounded. Let us recall at least the brilliant operation of the North Caucasus Corps under the command of General Nikolai Baratov, who, having landed troops on the coast of the Caspian Sea, quickly unblocked British units in Mesopotamia, defeating large detachments of the Turkish army.
British and Russian officers in Mesopotamia, 1916
But then almost all Russian units, with the exception of those that were fully incorporated into the White armies, were disbanded, and the British ended the war against the Turks alone.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the proud Turkish society deeply experienced defeat in the First World War, regretted that it was not possible to maintain neutrality in it, seemingly not realizing that it would also lead to collapse in one way or another. The "national ideal" still roamed in the minds, but these minds, together with hatred, were increasingly overwhelmed by the fear of the great neighbor.
Therefore, it did not become a sensation that from the beginning of World War II until February 1945, Turkey maintained strict neutrality, as many Turkish historians write about. Only in February 1945 did she declare war on Germany and Japan in order to profit from the remains of her former ally.
But in the assertion of Turkish historians about the constant concern of their government to maintain strict neutrality there is a certain amount of guile. Their opponents, Soviet and Russian experts, directly argue that Turkey was ready to declare war on the USSR and side with the Axis countries in the fall of 1942, as soon as Stalingrad fell. The counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Stalingrad and its liberation thwarted the militaristic plans of the Turks, again, like in the First World War, waiting for their traditional enemy to become the most weakened. And the desired was so close …
