The Caucasian front differed from the fronts of the western theater of the Great War in that it did not know defeat. At any time of the year, not a trench positional warfare was waged here, as in other places, but active hostilities were conducted with detours, envelopes, encirclements and decisive breakthroughs. The Cossacks accounted for up to half of the troops of this front. Baron Budberg wrote: “Numerically small, but strong in spirit, the Caucasian army in the hands of the talented and strong-willed leader General Yudenich became an unshakable wall on the path of the aggressive plans of Enver Pasha, who dreamed not only of conquering the Caucasus and Turkestan, but also of a further invasion of the eastern borders of Russia ". This dream of a "Turanian kingdom" from Kazan and Urumqi to Suez was carried by Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha throughout his life. Already being defeated, overthrown and expelled from Turkey, he tried to realize it, taking advantage of the civil war in Russia. He tossed between the red and white, nationalists and separatists, finally joined the Basmachi, but was killed by the blade of a red horseman and was buried in Tajikistan. However, first things first.
With the beginning of the war in the Ottoman Empire, there was no agreement - whether to enter the war or adhere to neutrality and, if you do, then on whose side. Most of the government was in favor of neutrality. However, in the unofficial Young Turkish triumvirate that personified the war party, Minister of War Enver Pasha and Minister of Internal Affairs Talaat Pasha were supporters of the Triple Alliance, but Jemal Pasha, the minister of public works, was a supporter of the Entente. However, the accession of Ottomania to the Entente was a complete chimera, and Dzhemal Pasha soon realized this. Indeed, for several centuries the anti-Turkish vector was the main one in European politics, and throughout the 19th century, the European powers were actively tearing Ottoman possessions to pieces. This was described in more detail in the article “Cossacks and the First World War. Part I, pre-war. " But the process of partitioning Ottomania was not completed and the Entente countries had plans for the Turkish "inheritance". England persistently planned to seize Mesopotamia, Arabia and Palestine, France laid claim to Cilicia, Syria and southern Armenia. Both of them resolutely wished not to give Russia anything, but were forced to reckon and sacrifice part of their interests in Turkey in the name of victory over Germany. Russia laid claim to the Black Sea straits and Turkish Armenia. Given the geopolitical impossibility of drawing the Ottoman Empire into the Entente, England and France did their best to postpone the start of Turkey's entry into the war, so that hostilities in the Caucasus would not distract Russian troops from the European theater of war, where the actions of the Russian army weakened Germany's main blow to the West. The Germans, on the other hand, tried to speed up Turkey's attack on Russia. Each side pulled in its own direction. On August 2, 1914, under the pressure of the Turkish Ministry of War, a German-Turkish allied treaty was signed, according to which the Turkish army was actually surrendered under the leadership of the German military mission. Mobilization was announced in the country. But at the same time, the Turkish government issued a declaration of neutrality. However, on August 10, the German cruisers Goeben and Breslau entered the Dardanelles, leaving the Mediterranean Sea from the pursuit of the British fleet. This almost detective story became a decisive moment in Turkey's entry into the war and requires some explanation. Formed in 1912, the Mediterranean squadron of the Kaiser's Navy under the command of Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon consisted of only two ships - the battle cruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau. In the event of the outbreak of war, the squadron, together with the Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleets, was supposed to prevent the transfer of French colonial troops from Algeria to France. On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. At this time, Souchon on board the "Goeben" was in the Adriatic Sea, in the town of Pola, where the cruiser was undergoing repairs of steam boilers. Learning about the beginning of the war and not wanting to be captured in the Adriatic, Souchon took the ship out to the Mediterranean Sea, without waiting for the completion of repair work. On August 1, the Goeben arrived in Brindisi, where Souchon was going to replenish coal supplies. However, the Italian authorities, contrary to their previous obligations, wished to remain neutral and refused not only to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers, but also to supply fuel for the German fleet. The Goeben sailed to Taranto, where the Breslau joined him, after which the squadron headed to Messina, where Souchon managed to get 2,000 tons of coal from German merchant ships. Souchon's position was extremely difficult. The Italian authorities insisted on the withdrawal of the German squadron from the port within 24 hours. News from Germany further aggravated the situation of the squadron. The commander-in-chief of the Kaiser's fleet, Admiral Tirpitz, reported that the Austrian fleet did not intend to start hostilities in the Mediterranean and that the Ottoman Empire continued to remain neutral, as a result of which Souchon should not undertake a campaign to Constantinople. Souchon left Messina and headed west. But the British Admiralty, fearing a breakthrough by the German squadron into the Atlantic, ordered its battlecruisers to head for Gibraltar and block the strait. Faced with the prospect of being locked up in the Adriatic until the end of the war, Souchon decided, no matter what, to follow to Constantinople. He set himself the goal: "… to force the Ottoman Empire, even against its will, to start military operations in the Black Sea against its primordial enemy - Russia." This forced improvisation of a simple German admiral had colossal negative consequences for both Turkey and Russia. The appearance of two powerful ships on the roadstead of Istanbul caused a stormy euphoria in Turkish society, equalized the forces of the Russian and Turkish fleets and finally tipped the scales in favor of the war party. In order to comply with legal formalities, the German cruisers "Goeben" and "Breslau" that entered the Black Sea were renamed and "sold" to the Turks, and the German sailors dressed fez and "became Turks". As a result, not only the Turkish army, but also the fleet were under the command of the Germans.
Fig.1 Battle cruiser "Goben" ("Sultan Selim the Terrible")
On September 9, a new unfriendly step followed, the Turkish government announced to all powers that it had decided to abolish the surrender regime (preferential legal status of foreign citizens), and on September 24, the government closed the straits to the Entente ships. This provoked a protest from all powers. Despite all this, most of the members of the Turkish government, including the grand vizier, still opposed the war. Moreover, at the beginning of the war, Turkey's neutrality suited Germany, which was counting on a quick victory. And the presence in the Sea of Marmara of such a powerful ship as the Goeben fettered a significant part of the forces of the British Mediterranean Fleet. However, after the defeat in the Battle of the Marne and the successful actions of Russian troops against Austria-Hungary in Galicia, Germany began to view the Ottoman Empire as a beneficial ally. She could quite realistically threaten the British colonial possessions in the East Indies and British and Russian interests in Persia. Back in 1907, an agreement was signed between England and Russia on the division of spheres of influence in Persia. For Russia, the border of influence extended in northern Persia to the line of the cities of Khanekin on the Turkish border, Yazd and the village of Zulfagar on the Afghan border. Then Enver Pasha, together with the German command, decided to start a war without the consent of the rest of the government, putting the country in front of a fait accompli. On October 21, Enver Pasha became the supreme commander in chief and received the rights of a dictator. With his first order, he instructed Admiral Souchon to bring the fleet out to sea and attack the Russians. Turkey has declared "jihad" (holy war) to the Entente countries. On October 29-30, the Turkish fleet under the command of the German admiral Sushon fired at Sevastopol, Odessa, Feodosia and Novorossiysk (in Russia this event received the unofficial name "Sevastopol wake-up call"). In response, on November 2, Russia declared war on Turkey. On November 5 and 6, England and France followed. At the same time, the usefulness of Turkey as an ally was greatly diminished by the fact that the Central Powers did not have communication with it either by land (between Turkey and Austria-Hungary was located Serbia, which had not yet been captured and so far neutral Bulgaria), or by sea (the Mediterranean Sea was controlled by the Entente). Despite this, in his memoirs, General Ludendorff believed that Turkey's entry into the war allowed the countries of the Triple Alliance to fight for two years longer. The involvement of Osmania in the world war entailed tragic consequences for it. As a result of the war, the Ottoman Empire lost all of its possessions outside Asia Minor, and then ceased to exist altogether. The breakthrough of "Goeben" and "Breslau" into Constantinople and the subsequent emotional entry of Turkey into the war entailed no less dramatic consequences for the Russian Empire. Turkey closed the Dardanelles to merchant ships of all countries. Even earlier, Germany closed the Danish straits in the Baltic to Russia. Thus, about 90% of the foreign trade turnover of the Russian Empire was blocked. Russia left two ports suitable for the transportation of a large amount of cargo - Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok, but the carrying capacity of the railways that approached these ports was low. Russia has become like a house, which can only be entered through a chimney. Cut off from the allies, deprived of the opportunity to export grain and import weapons, the Russian Empire gradually began to experience serious economic difficulties. It was the economic crisis provoked by the closure of the Black Sea and Danish straits that significantly influenced the creation of a “revolutionary situation” in Russia, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty, and then to the October Revolution.
This is how Turkey and Germany unleashed a war in the south of Russia. The Caucasian Front, 720 kilometers long, arose between Russia and Turkey, stretching from the Black Sea to Lake Urmia in Iran. Unlike the European fronts, there was no continuous line of trenches, ditches, barriers, military operations were concentrated along passes, narrow paths, mountain roads, often even goat paths, where most of the armed forces of the sides were concentrated. Both sides were preparing for this war. The Turkish plan of operations on the Caucasian Front, developed under the leadership of the Minister of War of Turkey Enver Pasha, together with German military specialists, provided for the invasion of Turkish troops into the Transcaucasus from the flanks through the Batum region and Iranian Azerbaijan, followed by the encirclement and destruction of Russian troops. The Turks expected to capture the entire Transcaucasia by the beginning of 1915 and, having roused the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus to revolt, to throw back the Russian troops beyond the Caucasian ridge. For this purpose, they had the 3rd army, consisting of 9, 10, 11 army corps, the 2nd regular cavalry division, four and a half irregular Kurdish cavalry divisions, border and gendarme units and two infantry divisions transferred from Mesopotamia. The Kurdish formations were poorly trained and poorly disciplined in terms of combat. The Turks treated the Kurds with great distrust and did not attach machine guns and artillery to these formations. In total, on the border with Russia, the Turks deployed forces of up to 170 thousand people with 300 guns and prepared offensive actions.
Since the main front for the Russian army was the Russian-Austro-German one, the Caucasian army was not planned for a deep offensive, but had to actively defend itself on the border mountain borders. Russian troops had the task of holding the roads to Vladikavkaz, Derbent, Baku and Tiflis, defending the most important industrial center of Baku and preventing the appearance of Turkish forces in the Caucasus. At the beginning of October 1914, the Separate Caucasian Army included: the 1st Caucasian Army Corps (consisting of 2 infantry divisions, 2 artillery brigades, 2 Kuban Plastun brigades, the 1st Caucasian Cossack division), 2 1st Turkestan Army Corps (consisting of 2 rifle brigades, 2 artillery divisions, 1st Transcaspian Cossack brigade). In addition, there were several separate units, brigades and divisions of Cossacks, militias, workers, border guards, police and gendarmes. Before the outbreak of hostilities, the Caucasian army was dispersed into several groups in accordance with the operational directions. There were two main ones: the Kara direction (Kars - Erzurum) in the region of Olta - Sarykamysh - Kagyzman and the Erivan direction (Erivan - Alashkert). The flanks were covered by detachments formed from border guards, Cossacks and the militia: the right flank - the direction along the Black Sea coast to Batum, and the left - against the Kurdish regions. In total, the army had 153 infantry battalions, 175 Cossack hundreds, 350 guns, 15 sapper companies, the total number reached 190 thousand people. But in the restless Transcaucasia, a significant part of this army was busy protecting the rear, communications, the coast, some parts of the Turkestan corps were still in the process of transferring. Therefore, there were 114 battalions, 127 hundreds and 304 guns at the front. On October 19 (November 2), 1914, Russian troops crossed the Turkish border and began to rapidly advance deep into Turkish territory. The Turks did not expect such a quick invasion, their regular units were concentrated in the rear bases. Only forward barriers and Kurdish militias entered the battle.
The Erivan detachment undertook a swift raid. The basis of the detachment was the 2nd Caucasian Cossack Division of General Abatsiev, and in the head was the 2nd Plastun Brigade of General Ivan Gulyga. Plastuns, the Cossack infantry, were at that time a kind of special-purpose units that carried out patrol, reconnaissance and sabotage tasks. They were famous for their exceptional endurance, they could move almost without stopping, roads, and on the marches sometimes they were ahead of the cavalry, they were distinguished by excellent possession of small arms and cold weapons. At night, they preferred to take the enemy with knives (bayonets), without firing shots, silently cutting out patrols and small enemy units. In battle, they were distinguished by cold fury and calmness, which terrified the enemy. Due to the constant marches and crawls, the Cossacks-scouts looked like ragamuffins, which was their privilege. As was customary among the Cossacks, the most important issues were discussed by the Plastuns in a circle. On November 4, the 2nd Caucasian Cossack Division and the Trans-Caspian Cossack Brigade reached Bayazet. It was a serious fortress that played a strategic role in past wars. However, the Turks did not manage to deploy a large garrison here. Seeing that Russian troops were approaching, the Ottoman garrison abandoned the fortress and fled. As a result, Bayazet was occupied without a fight. It was a major success. Then the Cossacks moved west, to the Diadin valley, in two battles swept away the Kurdish and Turkish barriers, and took the city of Diadin. Many prisoners, weapons and ammunition were captured. Abatsiev's Cossacks continued their successful offensive and entered the Alashkert Valley, where they united with the scouts of General Przhevalsky. Following the cavalry, the infantry advanced, which was consolidated on the occupied lines and passes. The Azerbaijani detachment of General Chernozubov, consisting of the 4th Caucasian Cossack Division and the 2nd Caucasian Rifle Brigade, defeated and drove out the Turkish-Kurdish forces that entered the western regions of Persia. Russian troops occupied the regions of Northern Persia, Tabriz and Urmia. On the Olta direction, Lieutenant General Istomin's 20th Infantry Division reached the Ardos - Id line. The Sarikamysh detachment, breaking the enemy's resistance, fought on October 24 to the outskirts of the Erzurum fortress. But Erzurum was the most powerful fortified area, and until November 20, the oncoming Keprikei battle took place here. In this direction, the Turkish army was able to repulse the offensive of the Sarikamysh detachment of General Berkhman. This inspired the German-Turkish command and gave them the determination to launch an offensive operation on Sarikamysh.
At the same time, on October 19 (November 2), Ottoman troops invaded the territory of the Batumi region of the Russian Empire and instigated an uprising there. On November 18, Russian troops left Artvin and retreated towards Batum. The situation was complicated by the fact that the Adjarians (part of the Georgian people professing Islam) rebelled against the Russian authorities. As a result, the Batumi region came under the control of Turkish troops, with the exception of the Mikhailovskaya fortress and the Upper Adjara section of the Batumi district, as well as the city of Ardagan in the Kara region and a significant part of the Ardahan district. In the occupied territories, the Turks, with the assistance of the Adjarians, carried out mass killings of the Armenian and Greek population.
Thus, the war on the Caucasian front began with offensive actions by both sides and the clashes took on a maneuverable character. The Caucasus became a battlefield for the Kuban, Terek, Siberian and Trans-Baikal Cossacks. With the onset of winter, which in these places is unpredictable and harsh, given the experience of past wars, the Russian command intended to go on the defensive. But the Turks unexpectedly launched a winter offensive with the aim of encircling and destroying the Separate Caucasian Army. Turkish troops invaded Russian territory. Despondency and panic reigned in Tiflis - only the lazy did not speak about the threefold superiority of the Turks in the forces in the Sarykamysh direction. Count Vorontsov-Dashkov, 76-year-old governor of the Caucasus, commander-in-chief of the troops of the Caucasian Military District and the military order ataman of the Caucasian Cossack troops, was a seasoned, respected and highly deserved man, but he was also in complete confusion. The fact is that in December, Minister of War Enver Pasha, dissatisfied with the slowness of the army command, himself arrived at the front and led the 3rd Turkish army, and on December 9 he launched an offensive on Sarikamysh. Enver Pasha had already heard a lot and wanted to repeat the experience of the 8th German army in defeating the 2nd Russian army in East Prussia in the Caucasus. But the plan had many weaknesses:
- Enver Pasha overestimated the combat readiness of his forces
- underestimated the complexity of the mountainous terrain and climate in winter conditions
- the time factor worked against the Turks (reinforcements constantly arrived to the Russians and any delay brought the plan to nothing)
- the Turks had almost no people familiar with the area, and the maps of the area were very bad
- the Turks had a poor organization of the rear and headquarters.
Therefore, terrible mistakes occurred: on December 10, two Turkish divisions (31 and 32) of the 10th corps, advancing in the Oltinsky direction, staged a battle between themselves (!). As stated in the memoirs of the commander of the 10th Turkish corps: “When the mistake was understood, people began to cry. It was a heartbreaking picture. We fought the 32nd division for four whole hours. 24 companies fought on both sides, casualties in killed and wounded amounted to about 2 thousand people.
According to the plan of the Turks from the front, the actions of the Sarikamysh detachment were to pin down the 11th Turkish corps, the 2nd cavalry division and the Kurdish cavalry corps, while the 9th and 10th Turkish corps on December 9 (22) began a roundabout maneuver through the Olty and Bardus, intending to go to the rear of the Sarykamysh detachment. The Turks drove out of Olta the detachment of General Istomin, which was significantly inferior in number, but he retreated and was not destroyed. On December 10 (23), the Sarykamysh detachment relatively easily repulsed the frontal attack of the 11th Turkish corps and the units attached to it. The Deputy Governor General Myshlaevsky took over the command of the army and, together with the chief of staff of the district, General Yudenich, were already at the front on the 11th and organized the defense of Sarykamysh. The combined garrison was so active in repelling the attacks of the Turkish corps that they stopped at the approaches to the city. Having already pulled up five divisions to the city, Enver Pasha could not even imagine that they were fighting with only two combined teams. However, at the most crucial moment, General Myshlaevsky became discouraged and began giving orders to retreat one after another, and on December 15 he abandoned his troops altogether and left for Tiflis. Yudenich and Berkhman took the lead in the defense and decided not to surrender the city under any circumstances. Russian troops were continuously receiving reinforcements. The Siberian Cossack brigade of General Kalitin (the 1st and 2nd regiments of the Siberian Cossack troops, who had stood before the war in the city of Dzharkent and passed, as further affairs showed, an excellent school of horse attacks in mountainous conditions), which arrived from Russian Turkestan, made a uniform defeat for the Turks under Ardagan. An eyewitness wrote: “The Siberian Cossack brigade, as if emerging from the ground, in a closed formation, with peaks at the ready, with a broad outline, almost like a quarry, attacked the Turks so unexpectedly and sharply that they did not have time to defend themselves. It was something special and even terrible, when we looked from the side and admired them, the Siberian Cossacks. They stabbed them with lances, trampled the Turks with horses, and took the rest into captivity. Nobody left them ….
Rice. 2 Wartime Poster
It is no coincidence that "valiant courage" on the poster is personified by the Cossack. It was the Cossacks who again became a force and a symbol of victory.
Rice. 3 Cossack lava, Caucasian front
In addition to receiving reinforcements, taking advantage of the weak pressure of the Turks in other sectors of the front, the Russians withdrew the strongest units from these sectors one after another and transferred them to Sarykamysh. To top it all, after the thaw with sleet frost hit, our eternal and faithful ally, friend and helper. Poorly dressed and drenched from head to toe, the Turkish army began to freeze in the most literal sense of the word, thousands of Turkish soldiers got frostbite due to wet shoes and clothes. This led to thousands of non-combat losses of the Turkish forces (in some units, losses reached 80% of the personnel). After Ardagan, the Siberians rushed to Sarykamysh, where a small number of Russian forces held the defense of the city and, together with the Kuban Cossacks and riflemen who arrived in time, lifted the siege. The reinforced Russian troops under the command of General Yudenich utterly defeated the enemy. On December 20 (January 2), Bardus was recaptured, and on December 22 (January 4), the entire 9th Turkish Corps was surrounded and captured. The remnants of the 10th corps were forced to retreat. Enver Pasha abandoned the troops defeated at Sarykamysh and tried to inflict a diversionary blow near Karaurgan, but the Russian 39th division, which later received the name "iron", shot and punctured almost all the remnants of the 11th Turkish corps. As a result, the Turks lost more than half of the 3rd army, 90,000 people killed, wounded and captured (including 30,000 people frozen), 60 guns. The Russian army also suffered significant losses - 20,000 killed and wounded and more than 6,000 frostbitten. The general pursuit, despite the strong weariness of the troops, continued until January 5 inclusive. By January 6, the situation at the front was restored and the Russian troops, due to losses and fatigue, stopped the pursuit. According to General Yudenich, the operation ended with the complete defeat of the Turkish 3rd Army, it practically ceased to exist, the Russian troops took an advantageous starting position for new operations, the territory of the Transcaucasus was cleared of the Turks, except for a small part of the Batumi region. As a result of this battle, the Russian Caucasian Army shifted military operations to the territory of Turkey for 30-40 kilometers and opened its way deep into Anatolia.
Rice. 4 Map of military operations of the Caucasian Front
The victory raised the morale of the troops, aroused admiration of the allies. The French ambassador to Russia, Maurice Paleologue, wrote: "The Russian Caucasian army performs amazing feats there every day." This victory also had an impact on Russia's allies in the Entente, the Turkish command was forced to withdraw forces from the Mesopotamian front, which eased the position of the British. In addition, England was alarmed by the successes of the Russian army and the English strategists were already imagining Russian Cossacks on the streets of Constantinople. They decided already on February 19, 1915 to begin the Dardanelles operation to seize the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits with the help of the Anglo-French fleet and landing forces.
The Sarikamysh operation is an example of a rather rare example of the struggle against the encirclement, which began in the situation of the Russian defense and ended in the conditions of an oncoming collision, with the rupture of the encirclement ring from the inside and outside and the pursuit of the remnants of the bypass wing of the Turks. This battle once again underlines the huge role in the war of a brave, proactive commander who is not afraid to make independent decisions. In this respect, the high command of the Turks and ours in the person of Enver Pasha and Myshlaevsky, who abandoned the main forces of their armies, which they considered already lost, give a sharply negative example. The Caucasian army was saved by the insistence of private commanders in carrying out decisions, while the senior commanders were at a loss and were ready to retreat behind the Kars fortress. They glorified their names in this battle: the commander of the Oltinsky detachment N. M. Istomin, the commander of the 1st Caucasian corps G. E. Berkhman, the commander of the 1st Kuban Plastun brigade, M. A. (cousin of the famous traveler), commander of the 3rd Caucasian Rifle Brigade Gabaev V. D. and many others. The great happiness of Russia was that an effective, wise, staunch, courageous and decisive military leader of the Suvorov type, Chief of Staff of the Caucasian Army Yudenich N. N. In addition to Suvorov's motto “beat, not count,” he possessed a rare property for a Russian person and the ability to turn the disadvantages of his position into advantages. For his success in the operation at Sarykamysh, Nicholas II promoted Yudenich to the rank of general from infantry and awarded him the Order of St. George, IV degree, and on January 24 he officially appointed him commander of the Caucasian army.
Rice. 5 General Yudenich N. N.
In 1915, the fighting was of a local nature. The Russian Caucasian army was strictly limited in shells ("shell hunger"). Also, the troops of the army were weakened by the transfer of part of its forces to the European theater. On the European front, the German-Austrian armies conducted a broad offensive, the Russian armies fiercely fought back with a retreat, the situation was very difficult. Therefore, despite the victory at Sarykamish, no offensive was planned on the Caucasian front. Fortified areas were created in the Russian rear - Sarykamysh, Ardagan, Akhalkhatsikh, Akhalkalakh, Alexandropol, Baku and Tiflis. They were armed with old guns from the army's reserves. This measure provided freedom of maneuver for units of the Caucasian army. In addition, an army reserve was created in the region of Sarykamish and Kars (maximum 20-30 battalions). All this made it possible to timely fend off the actions of the Turks in the Alashkert direction and to allocate Baratov's expeditionary corps for operations in Persia.
In general, it was not possible to sit out completely in 1915. On the other hand, the 3rd Turkish army was restored at the expense of parts of the 1st and 2nd Constantinople armies and the 4th Syrian and, although it had 167 battalions in its composition, after the defeat at Sarikamysh, it also did not plan a large offensive. The focus of the belligerents was on the struggle for the flanks. By the end of March, the Russian army with battles cleared southern Adjara and the entire Batumi region from the Turks, finally eliminating the threat of gazavat there. But the Turkish army, fulfilling the plan of the German-Turkish command to deploy the "jihad", sought to involve Persia and Afghanistan in an open attack against Russia and England and achieve the severance of the Baku oil-bearing region from Russia, and the oil-bearing regions of the Persian Gulf from England. At the end of April, Kurdish cavalry units of the Turkish army invaded Iran. To remedy the situation, the command undertakes a counterattack under the leadership of the head of the 1st Caucasian Cossack Division, Lieutenant General N. N. Baratova together with the Donskoy foot Cossack brigade. The combat fate of this Cossack brigade is very curious and I would like to dwell on this especially. The brigade was formed on the Don from a horseless Cossack rabble and recruits from other cities of the Don region. Service in the infantry on the Don was not prestigious, and the Cossack officers had to be lured there by hook or by crook, even by fraudulent means. For 3 centuries the Don Cossacks were predominantly horsemen, although until the end of the 17th century they were predominantly footmen, more precisely marines, in Russian “rook's army”. Then the restructuring of the Cossack military life took place under the influence of the decrees of Peter I, who strictly forbade the Cossacks to go to the Black Sea and wage the Bosporan War with the Turks during his Great Embassy, and then the Northern War. This reformatting of the Don Cossack troops was described in more detail in the article "Azov sitting and the transition of the Don army to Moscow service." Perestroika then was very difficult and was one of the reasons for the Bulavin uprising. It is not surprising that the Don Brigade on foot fought poorly at first and was characterized as “unstable”. But the blood and genes of the Cossack estate did their job. The situation began to change when the brigade was assigned to the 1st Caucasian Cossack Division of the Terek Ataman General N. N. Baratov. This warrior knew how to set accents and instill confidence and resilience in the troops. The brigade was soon regarded as "tough." But this unit covered itself with unfading glory later, in the battles for Erzurum and Erdzinjan, when the brigade earned the glory of “invincible”. Having acquired the specific experience of mountain warfare, multiplied by Cossack fortitude and valor, the brigade turned into a magnificent mountain rifle army. It is interesting that all this time, and the "unstable" and "persistent" and "invincible" brigade was commanded by the same person, General Pavlov.
In the course of the war in the Caucasus, the Armenian question became very aggravated and took on a catastrophic character, the consequences of which have not yet been settled. Already at the beginning of hostilities, the Turkish authorities began to evict the Armenian population from the front line. A terrible anti-Armenian hysteria unfolded in Turkey. Western Armenians were accused of mass desertion from the Turkish army, of organizing sabotage and uprisings in the rear of the Turkish troops. About 60 thousand Armenians, drafted into the Turkish army at the beginning of the war, were disarmed, sent to work in the rear, and then destroyed. Defeated at the front and retreating Turkish troops, joined by armed Kurdish gangs, deserters and marauders, under the pretext of “infidelity” of the Armenians and their sympathy for the Russians, ruthlessly massacred the Armenians, plundered their property, and ravaged Armenian settlements. The thugs acted in the most barbaric manner, having lost their human appearance. Eyewitnesses with horror and disgust describe the atrocities of the murderers. The great Armenian composer Komitas, who accidentally escaped death, could not stand the horrors he witnessed and lost his mind. Wild atrocities sparked uprisings. The largest center of resistance arose in the city of Van (Van self-defense), which was then the center of Armenian culture. The fighting in this area went down in history under the name of the Battle of Van.
Rice. 6 Armenian rebels defending Van
The approach of Russian troops and Armenian volunteers saved 350 thousand Armenians from inevitable death, who, after the withdrawal of the troops, moved to Eastern Armenia. To save the rebels, the Cossack regiments turned sharply to Van, organizing the evacuation of the population. An eyewitness wrote that women with children walked holding on to the stirrups and kissing the boots of the Cossacks. “Retreating in panic with huge herds of cattle, carts, women and children, these refugees, urged on by the sound of gunfire, wedged into the troops and brought incredible chaos into their ranks. Often the infantry and cavalry turned into just a cover for these screaming and crying people, who feared an attack by the Kurds, who massacred and raped stragglers and castrated Russian prisoners. For operations in this area, Yudenich formed a detachment (24 battalions and 31 hundred cavalry) under the command of the Terek ataman General Baratov (Baratashvili). The Kuban Plastuns, the Don Foot Brigade and the Trans-Baikal Cossacks also fought in this area.
Rice. 7 General Baratov with Terek horse artillery
The Kuban Cossack Fyodor Ivanovich Eliseev fought here, famous not only for his exploits (Rush wrote that his biography could be used to make a dozen films with a plot such as "White Sun of the Desert"), but also for the authorship of the book "Cossacks on the Caucasian Front."
Rice. 8 Dashing Kuban Cossack Fyodor Ivanovich Eliseev
It should be said that with the outbreak of the First World War, an active Armenian volunteer movement really developed in Transcaucasia. The Armenians pinned certain hopes on this war, counting on the liberation of Western Armenia with the help of Russian weapons. Therefore, the Armenian social and political forces and national parties declared this war just and declared the unconditional support of the Entente. The Armenian National Bureau in Tiflis was involved in the creation of Armenian squads (volunteer detachments). The total number of Armenian volunteers was up to 25 thousand people. They not only fought bravely at the front, but also took on the main burden in reconnaissance and sabotage activities. The first four volunteer detachments joined the ranks of the active army in various sectors of the Caucasian Front already in November 1914. Armenian volunteers distinguished themselves in the battles for Van, Dilman, Bitlis, Mush, Erzurum and other cities of Western Armenia. At the end of 1915, the Armenian volunteer detachments were disbanded, and on their basis, rifle battalions were created as part of the Russian units, which participated in hostilities until the end of the war. It is interesting to note that one of the warriors who participated in the battles was Anastas Mikoyan. In Kermanshah, another volunteer, the future Marshal of the USSR Ivan Baghramyan, received his baptism of fire. And in the 6th squad he heroically fought, and since 1915 it was commanded by the future legendary hero of the civil war Hayk Bzhishkyan (Gai).
Rice. 9 Armenian volunteers
By the fall, the situation in Persia (Iran) caused more and more concern among the Russian authorities. An extensive network of German agents operated in the country, who formed sabotage detachments, organized tribal uprisings and pushed Persia to war with Russia and England on the side of Germany. In this situation, the Stavka instructed Yudenich's troops to carry out an operation called Khamadan. On October 30, Russian units suddenly landed in the Iranian port of Anzali, conducted several expeditions inland. Baratov's detachment was transformed into a Persian corps, ¾ consisting of Cossacks. The task of the corps is to prevent neighboring Muslim states from entering the war on the side of Turkey. The corps took Kermanshah, went to the borders of Turkish Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), cut off Persia and Afghanistan from Turkey, and strengthened the security of Russian Turkestan. The curtain from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, created jointly by Russia and England, was strengthened. From the north the curtain was kept by the Semirechye Cossacks. But the attempt to organize a joint front with the British in Iraq was unsuccessful. The British were very passive and were more afraid of the penetration of the Russians into the oil-bearing region of Mosul than of the intrigues of the Germans and Turks. As a result of the actions of 1915, the total length of the Caucasian Front reached a colossal length of 2500 km, while the Austro-German front had a length of only 1200 km at that time. Under these conditions, the protection of communications acquired great importance, where individual Cossack hundreds of the third order were mainly used.
In October 1915, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov, appointed by the governor of the Caucasus, arrived at the front (a joke was born: the front of three Nikolaev Nikolaevichs - Romanov, Yudenich and Baratov). By this time, due to Bulgaria's entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers, the strategic situation had changed in favor of Turkey. A direct rail link appeared between Berlin and Istanbul, and a stream of weapons, ammunition and ammunition for the Turkish army went through the Bulgarian territory to the Ottoman Empire, and a whole army was freed from the Turkish command, which stood on the border with Bulgaria. In addition, the Dardanelles operation to seize the straits, which had been carried out by the allies since February 19, 1915, ended in failure and a decision was made to evacuate the troops. In geopolitical and military-strategic terms, this victory for Turkey was even beneficial to Russia, since the British were not going to concede the straits to St. Petersburg and undertook this operation to get ahead of the Russians. On the other hand, the Ottoman command was able to transfer the liberated troops to the Caucasian front. General Yudenich decided not to wait "near the sea for the weather" and to attack until the arrival of Turkish reinforcements. This is how the idea of breaking through the enemy front in the Erzurum area and seizing this strategic fortress, which blocked the way to the inner regions of the Ottoman Empire, was born. After the defeat of the 3rd Army and the capture of Erzurum, Yudenich planned to occupy the important port city of Trabzon (Trebizond). It was decided to attack at the end of December, when the Christmas holidays and the New Year are taking place in Russia, and the Turks least of all expect the offensive of the Caucasian army. Taking into account the intelligence unreliability of the Viceroy's headquarters, as well as the fact that Yudenich's enemies, Generals Yanushkevich and Khan Nakhichevansky, built a nest in it, he acted over his head and his plan was approved directly by the Headquarters. To the honor of the Governor, it should be said that he himself did not put a stick in the wheels, did not particularly interfere in matters, and limited his participation by placing all responsibility for success on Yudenich. But, as you know, this type of people does not upset at all, but rather stimulates.
In December 1915, the Caucasian army included 126 infantry battalions, 208 hundred cavalry, 52 militia squads, 20 sapper companies, 372 guns, 450 machine guns and 10 aircraft, a total of about 180 thousand bayonets and sabers. The 3rd Turkish army included 123 battalions, 122 field and 400 fortress guns, 40 cavalry squadrons, a total of about 135 thousand bayonets and sabers, and up to 10 thousand irregular Kurdish cavalry, divided into 20 detachments. The Caucasian army had some advantage in the field troops, but this advantage still had to be realized, and the Ottoman command had a powerful trump card - the Erzurum fortified area. Erzurum was a powerful fortress before. But with the help of German fortifiers, the Turks modernized the old fortifications, built new ones, and increased the number of artillery and machine-gun emplacements. As a result, by the end of 1915, Erzurum was a huge fortified area, where old and new fortifications were combined with natural factors (difficult to pass mountains), which made the fortress almost impregnable. It was a well-fortified "gateway" to the Passinskaya Valley and the Euphrates River Valley, Erzurum was the main command center and rear base of the 3rd Turkish Army. It was necessary to advance in a difficultly predictable mountain winter. Considering the sad experience of the Turkish attack on Sarikamish in December 1914, the offensive was prepared very carefully. The southern mountain winter could throw out any surprise, frosts and blizzards quickly gave way to thaw and rain. Each fighter received felt boots, warm footcloths, a short fur coat, quilted trousers, a hat with a turn-away cuff, mittens and an overcoat. In case of need, the troops received a significant number of white camouflage coats, white hats, galoshes and canvas cloaks. The personnel, who were to attack in the highlands, were given safety glasses. Since the area of the upcoming battle was mostly treeless, each soldier had to carry two logs with him, for cooking food and warmth at overnight stays. In addition, thick poles and boards for the device of crossings over ice-free mountain streams and rivulets became mandatory in the equipment of the infantry companies. This convoy ammunition greatly burdened the shooters, but this is the inevitable fate of the mountain units. They fight according to the principle: "I carry everything that I can, for when and where the baggage train will be is unknown." Great attention was paid to meteorological observation, and by the end of the year, 17 weather stations were deployed in the army. The weather forecast was entrusted to the artillery headquarters. In the army's rear, a great deal of road construction was unfolded. From Kars to Merdeken, since the summer of 1915, a narrow-gauge horse-drawn railway (horse-drawn tram) has been in operation. A narrow-gauge steam-powered railway was built from Sarykamysh to Karaurgan. Army carts were replenished with pack animals - horses and camels. Measures were taken to keep the regrouping of troops secret. The marching reinforcements crossed the mountain passes only at night, with observance of blackouts. In the sector where it was planned to carry out a breakthrough, they carried out a demonstrative withdrawal of troops - the battalions were taken to the rear during the day, and secretly returned at night. To misinform the enemy, rumors were spread about the preparation of an offensive operation of the Van detachment and Baratov's Persian corps together with British troops. To this end, large purchases of food were carried out in Persia - grain, livestock (for meat portions), fodder and camels for transportation. And a few days before the start of the Erzurum operation, an urgent unencrypted telegram was sent to the commander of the 4th Caucasian Rifle Division. It contained an "order" for the concentration of the division at Sarykamysh and the transfer of its troops to Persia. Moreover, the army headquarters began to distribute holidays to officers from the front, as well as to massively allow officers' wives to come to the theater of operations on the occasion of the New Year holidays. The ladies who arrived were demonstratively and noisily preparing festive skits. Until the very last moment, the content of the planned operation was not disclosed to the lower headquarters. A few days before the start of the offensive, the exit to all persons from the front-line zone was completely closed, which prevented the Ottoman agents from notifying the Turkish command of the full combat readiness of the Russian army and its preparations. As a result, the headquarters of the Caucasian army outplayed the Ottoman command, and the Russian offensive on Erzurum came as a complete surprise to the enemy. The Ottoman command did not expect the winter offensive of the Russian troops, believing that an inevitable operational pause had come on the Caucasian front in winter. Therefore, the first echelons of troops liberated in the Dardanelles began to be transferred to Iraq. Khalil-bey's corps was transferred there from the Russian front. In Istanbul, they hoped to defeat the British forces in Mesopotamia by the spring, and then with all their might attack the Russian army. The Turks were so calm that the commander of the 3rd Turkish Army left for the capital altogether. Yudenich decided to break through the enemy's defenses in three directions at once - Erzurum, Oltinsky and Bitlissky. Three corps of the Caucasian army were to take part in the offensive: the 2nd Turkestan, 1st and 2nd Caucasian. They included 20 regiments of Cossacks. The main blow was delivered in the direction of the village of Kepri-kei.
On December 28, 1915, the Russian army launched an offensive. Auxiliary strikes were delivered by the 4th Caucasian Corps in Persia and the Seaside Group with the support of the Batumi detachment of ships. With this, Yudenich thwarted a possible transfer of enemy forces from one direction to another and the supply of reinforcements through sea communications. The Turks desperately defended themselves, and put up the most staunch resistance in the Keprikei positions. But in the course of the battle, the Russians groped for a weakness among the Turks on the Mergemir Pass. In a severe blizzard, Russian soldiers from the vanguard detachments of General Voloshin-Petrichenko and Vorobyov broke through the enemy defenses. Yudenich threw Cossack cavalry into the breakthrough from his reserve. Kazakov did not stop either the 30-degree frost in the mountains, or the roads covered with snow. The defense collapsed, and the Turks, under the threat of encirclement and extermination, fled, burning villages and their own warehouses along the way. On January 5, the Siberian Cossack brigade, which rushed forward, and the 3rd Black Sea regiment of the Kubanians approached the Hasan-Kala fortress and took it, not allowing the enemy to recover. F. I. Eliseev wrote: "With prayers before battles, along" damn paths ", through deep snow and in frosts up to 30 degrees, the Cossack cavalry and scouts, following the breakthroughs of the Turkestan and Caucasian riflemen, went under the walls of Erzerum." The army achieved great success, and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich was already about to give the order to retreat to the starting lines. But General Yudenich convinced him of the need to take the fortress Erzurum, which seemed to many to be impenetrable, and once again took full responsibility upon himself. Of course, this was a big risk, but the risk was well-considered. According to Lieutenant Colonel B. A. Shteyfon (chief of intelligence and counterintelligence of the Caucasian army), General Yudenich was distinguished by the great rationality of his decisions: “In reality, every courageous maneuver of General Yudenich was the result of a deeply thought-out and precisely guessed situation … only to great commanders. " Yudenich understood that it was almost impossible to take the strongholds of Erzurum on the move, that for the assault it was necessary to conduct artillery preparation, with a significant expenditure of shells. Meanwhile, the remnants of the defeated 3rd Turkish army continued to flock to the fortress, the garrison reached 80 battalions. The total length of the Erzurum defensive positions was 40 km. Its most vulnerable spots were the rear lines. Russian troops launched an assault on Erzurum on January 29, 1916. Artillery preparation began at 2 o'clock. The 2nd Turkestan and 1st Caucasian corps took part in the assault, and the Siberian and 2nd Orenburg Cossack brigades were left in reserve. In total, up to 60 thousand soldiers, 166 field guns, 29 howitzers and a heavy battalion of 16 152 mm mortars took part in the operation. On February 1, a radical turning point occurred in the Battle of Erzurum. For two days, the soldiers of the assault groups of the 1st Turkestan corps took one stronghold of the enemy after another, capturing one impregnable fort after another. The Russian infantry reached the most powerful and last enemy bastion on the northern flank - Fort Taft. On February 2, the Kuban plastuns and riflemen of the Turkestan corps took the fort. The entire northern flank of the Ottoman fortification system was hacked and Russian troops began to go into the rear of the 3rd Army. Air reconnaissance reported about the withdrawal of the Turks from Erzurum. Then Yudenich gave the order to transfer the Cossack cavalry to the command of the commander of the Turkestan corps Przhevalsky. At the same time, Kalitin's 1st Caucasian Corps, in which the Don Foot Brigade fought bravely, increased pressure from the center. The Turkish resistance was finally broken, the Russian troops broke through to the deep rear, the still defended forts turned into traps. The Russian command sent part of the advancing column along the ridge of the Northern Armenian Taurus, where the "top-iol" road, laid by the Turks themselves during the war of 1877, ran. cannon road. Due to the frequent change of command, the Turks forgot about this road, while the Russians reconnoitred it in 1910 and mapped it. This circumstance helped the attackers. The remnants of the 3rd Army fled, those who did not have time to escape capitulated. The fortress fell on February 4. The Turks fled to Trebizond and Erzincan, which became the next targets of the offensive. 13 thousand people, 9 banners and 327 guns were captured.
Rice. 10 One of the captured weapons of the Erzurum fortress
By this time, the combat history of the Don Cossack Foot Brigade convincingly showed that there was a need and the possibility of turning it into a Cossack foot division (in fact, a mountain rifle division). But this proposal of the brigade command was painfully interpreted by the Don Cossack leadership as a signal for the gradual curtailment of the Cossack cavalry. Solomon's decision was made and the brigade was simply increased to 6 foot battalions, 1300 Cossacks in each (by state). Unlike the Plastun battalions, each Don foot battalion had 72 mounted scouts.
During the Erzurum operation, the Russian army threw the enemy back 100-150 km. The losses of the Turks amounted to 66 thousand people (half of the army). Our losses were 17,000. It is difficult to single out the most distinguished Cossack units in the Erzurum battle. Most often, researchers especially highlight the Siberian Cossack brigade. F. I. Eliseev wrote: “From the very beginning of the Erzurum operation in 1915, the Siberian Cossack brigade operated very successfully in the Khasan-Kala region as a shock cavalry group. Now she appeared in the rear of Erzurum, having arrived here before our regiment. It broke through at the junction of the Caucasian and Turkmen corps, bypassed the Turks and went into their rear. There is no end to the valor of this brigade of Siberian Cossacks on the Caucasian front. " But A. A. Kersnovsky: “The Siberian Cossack brigade … fought excellently on the Caucasian front. Especially famous are her attacks near Ardahan on December 24, 1914 and near Ilidzha behind Erzurum on February 4, 1916 - both in deep snow and both with the capture of enemy headquarters, banners and artillery. " The Erzurum victory sharply turned the attitude towards Russia on the part of the Western allies. After all, the Ottoman command was forced to urgently close the gap in the front, transfer troops from other fronts, thereby easing the pressure on the British in Mesopotamia. The transfer of units of the 2nd army from the straits began to the Caucasian front. Just a month after the capture of Erzurum, namely on March 4, 1916, an Anglo-French-Russian agreement was concluded on the goals of the Entente's war in Asia Minor. Russia was promised Constantinople, the Black Sea straits and the northern part of Turkish Armenia. This was the merit, first of all, of Yudenich. A. A. Kersnovsky wrote about Yudenich: “While in our Western theater of war, Russian military leaders, even the best ones, tried to act first“according to Moltke,”and then“according to Joffre,”a Russian commander was found in the Caucasus who wished to act according to -Russian, "after Suvorov".
After the capture of Erzurum by the Primorsky Detachment and the landing from the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Trebizond operation was carried out. All the forces of the detachment, both advancing by land and the landing force that struck from the side of the sea, were Kuban plastuns.
Rice. 11 Kuban Plastun Bombers (Grenadiers)
The detachment was commanded by General V. P. Lyakhov, who was the head of the Persian Cossack brigade before the war. This brigade was created in 1879 at the request of the Persian Shah on the model of the Terek Cossack units from the Kurds, Afghans, Turkmens and other peoples of Persia. In it, under the leadership of Vladimir Platonovich, the future Shah Reza Pahlavi began his military service. On April 1, the Primorsky detachment, supported by the fire of the Black Sea Fleet ships, broke through the defenses of the Turkish troops on the Karadere River and on April 5 occupied Trebizond (Trabzon). The garrison of the city fled across the surrounding mountains. Until mid-May, the Primorsky detachment expanded the captured territory, after strengthening it became the 5th Caucasian Corps and held the territory of Trabzon until the end of the war. As a result of the Trebizond operation, the supply of the 3rd Turkish Army by sea was interrupted, and the interaction of the Caucasian Army, the Black Sea Fleet and naval aviation was worked out in battle. In Trebizond, a base for the Black Sea Fleet and a supply base for the Caucasian army were created, which strengthened its position. On July 25, units of the Caucasian army triumphantly took Erzinjan, in the battles for which the Don Cossack Brigade, already in the 6 battalions, again proved to be excellent.
Baratov's Persian corps in the spring of 1916 fought its way into Mesopotamia to help the British troops surrounded in Al-Kut, but did not have time, the British troops surrendered there. But a hundred Kuban Cossacks, Esaul Gamaliya, reached the British. For the unprecedented rush and distraction of the Turkish forces from the British troops, which as a result were able to oust the Turks from the Tigris Valley, Gamalia received the Order of St. George of the 4th degree and the British order, officers were awarded the golden St. George's weapon, the lower ranks with St. George's crosses. This was the second time that St. George's awards were given to an entire unit (the first was the crew of the cruiser Varyag). In the summer, the corps suffered heavy losses from tropical diseases, and Baratov retreated to Persia. In the fall of 1916, the State Duma approved the government's decision on the allocation of financial resources for the creation and arrangement of the Euphrates Cossack army, mainly from Armenian volunteers. The Army Board was formed. The bishop of Urmia was appointed.
The results of the 1916 campaign of the year exceeded the wildest expectations of the Russian command. It would seem that Germany and Turkey, after the elimination of the Serbian front and the Dardanelles grouping of the British, had the opportunity to significantly strengthen the Turkish Caucasian front. But Russian troops successfully ground the Turkish reinforcements and advanced 250 km into Ottoman territory and captured the most important cities of Erzurum, Trebizond and Erzincan. In the course of several operations, they defeated not only the 3rd, but also the 2nd Turkish armies and successfully held a front with a length of more than 2600 km. However, the military merits of the "brave villagers of the Don foot brigade" and the "valiant scouts of the Kuban and Terek" almost played a cruel joke with the Cossack cavalry in general. In December 1916, a directive of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief appeared on the reduction of the Cossack regiments from 6 cavalry hundreds to 4 by dismounting. Two hundred dismounted and a foot division of two hundred appeared in each regiment. Usually Cossack regiments had 6 hundred 150 Cossacks each, about 1000 combat Cossacks in total, Cossack batteries had 180 Cossacks each. Despite the cancellation of this directive on February 23, 1917, it was not possible to stop the planned reform. The main activities have already been carried out. Objectively speaking, by this time the question of reformatting the cavalry, including the Cossack one, had already become urgent. His Majesty the machine gun finally and irrevocably became the master on the battlefield and the saber attacks in the equestrian system came to naught. But there was still no consensus on the nature of the restructuring of the cavalry, the discussions stretched out for many years and ended only by the end of World War II. One part of the commanders (mainly from the infantry) believed that the cavalry must be in a hurry. Cossack commanders, cavalrymen to the core, were looking for other solutions. For a deep breakthrough of the positional front, the idea of creating shock armies (in the Russian version of the mechanized cavalry groups) appeared. In the end, military practice ordered both of these paths. In the period between the First and Second World Wars, part of the cavalry was dismounted and turned into infantry, and part gradually turned into mechanized and tank units and formations. Until now, in some armies, these reformatted military formations are called armored cavalry.
So in the Russian army, for a radical strengthening of the Caucasian front at the end of 1916, the General Staff issued an order: "from the Cossack regiments of corps cavalry and individual Cossack hundreds of the Western theater of military operations, hastily form the 7th, 8th, 9th Don and 2nd Orenburg Cossack divisions." On March 9, 1917, a corresponding order appeared on this. The Cossack regiments, withdrawn from the front to rest in winter, gradually arrived in their native places and settled in new points of deployment. The headquarters of the 7th Don Cossack Division (21, 22, 34, 41 regiments) was located in the village of Uryupinskaya, 8th (35, 36, 39, 44 regiments) in Millerovo, 9th (45, 48, 51, 58 regiments) in the village of Aksayskaya. By the summer, the divisions were basically formed, only a part of the horse-machine-gun, horse-sapper, telephone and telegraph teams and field kitchens were missing. But there was no order to go to the Caucasus. There is already a lot of evidence that these cavalry divisions, in fact, were preparing for some other operation. One of the versions was written in the previous article “Cossacks and the First World War. Part IV, 1916 ", and the order to form these divisions to strengthen the Caucasian Front looks like disinformation. In mountainous Anatolia, there are too few places for the operations of the cavalry corps. As a result, the transfer of these divisions to the Caucasian front never took place, and these divisions remained in the Don and Urals until the end of the war, which greatly affected the development of events at the beginning of the civil war.
By the end of 1916, the Russian Transcaucasia was reliably defended. A temporary governor-general of Turkish Armenia was established in the occupied territories. The Russians began the economic development of the region by building several railways. But in 1917, the February Revolution took place, which stopped the victorious movement of the Caucasian army. Revolutionary ferment began, due to a general drop in discipline in the country, the supply of troops sharply deteriorated, and deserters appeared. The Russian Imperial Army, having ceased to be imperial, completely ceased to exist. In fact, the Provisional Government itself destroyed the army faster than external enemies. Years of hard work, the fruits of brilliant victories, blood, sweat and tears, everything fell apart. The Mosul operation planned for the summer of 1917 did not take place due to the unpreparedness of the rear services for large-scale hostilities and was postponed to the spring of 1918. However, on December 4, 1917, an armistice was concluded with Turkey in Erdzinjan. Both sides were no longer able to continue the war. But Russia, more than ever in the past, was close to receiving its share of the Turkish "inheritance". The favorable geopolitical situation in the Middle East made it possible to acquire the long-desired regions of the Transcaucasus and make the Caspian Sea an internal lake of the empire. Favorably for Russia, although not completely, the issue of the straits was resolved. The coming to power of the Bolsheviks inevitably led to huge territorial losses, which could not be returned even by the “iron Stalinist hand”. But that's a completely different story.
