In October 1914, Enver Pasha ordered the Turkish battleship "Yavos" to make a surprise attack on the Black Sea ports of Sestopol and Odessa, opening the prelude to Turkey's entry into World War I.
Enver Pasha was the Ottoman War Minister of the Allied Powers of World War I and the leader of the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire.
At the beginning of World War I, Enver Pasha was the head of the Ottoman Triumvirate, and at this time his position was unrivaled in the Ottoman Empire. Originally, the Ottoman Empire had not decided to join any camp, but because the British Admiralty Winston Churchill thought that the Ottoman Empire's accession to the Central Powers would not have much impact, he privately confiscated the two ** ordered by the Turkish State and did not give any explanation. This event angered Enver and pushed the Ottomans into the Central Powers. The Ottoman Empire officially entered the war after taking in the German Goeben and Breslau** incidents and intervening on the Middle East front.
In December 1914, despite the advice of General von Zanders, the head of the German mission, Enver Pasha marched into the Caucasus, which was entangled with the country. ** 100,000 Russian troops under the command of General Vorontsov, deployed near Kars to stop Enver's advance. The Russian army tried to preemptively attack Armenia in Turkey in order to crush the Turkish army's offensive plan.
Armenia, a small country in the Caucasus region at the junction of Europe and Asia, covers an area of about 30,000 square kilometers, and has always been under the occupation of Turkey in its history, and is a disputed area between Russia and Turkey.
The Salkammish detachment, the main force of the Caucasian Army of the Russian Army, crossed the Russian-Turkish border, and in the snowy climatic conditions, launched a fierce battle with the Turkish army, repelled the Turkish advance force in one fell swoop, and attacked the front line of Maslahat, Yuzwellan and Aldi in early December.
Enver Pasha commanded the Turkish Third Army, which planned to pin down the Russians from the front with the Eleventh Army.
9. The 10th Army made a far-reaching detour to the Russian Salkamosh detachment north through Ortu and Valdez, cut off its connection with the logistics supply base, annihilated it in the Salkamosh area, and then seized Kars and Georgia.
At this time, the Turkish army had a total of 150,000 men and nearly 300 artillery pieces, while the Russian army had about 100,000 men and 300 artillery pieces, and the Turkish army had an advantage in numbers.
But the Turkish army was extremely poorly prepared for winter operations, and before the start of the battle, due to frostbite and desertion, Enver's forces lost at least 150,000 people.
On December 22, 1914, the Turkish army launched an offensive against the Russian army, and the Turkish 9th and 10th armies won a small victory in the initial battle, repulsing the Russian Ortu detachment, and three days later captured Valdez, penetrating deep into the rear of the main Russian army.
Under the assault of the 11th Army of the Turkish Army, the Russian Salkamersh detachment retreated to the border line and sent additional reinforcements to strengthen the defense of the Salkamersh area. Due to the rugged mountain roads in the Caucasus, the wind and snow, the abnormal cold, and the poor command, it was impossible to coordinate the operation at all, and under the counterattack of the Russian army, the Turkish army, which penetrated deep into the rear of the Russian army, suffered great losses.
From the 29th, the Russian army began to carry out counterattacks, which stabilized the situation on the battlefield by the end of the month and forced the Turkish army to begin to retreat two days later. At this time, it was January 3, 1915, and the Turkish army tried to encircle the two flanks of the Russian army, but was stopped by the Russian army, and the Turkish army was routed. The Russian army launched ** on the whole front, encircled and annihilated the remnants of the Turkish Ninth Army, and repelled the Turkish army to its original starting position in more than ten days.
The Russian army, under the command of Vorontsov, stopped and repulsed the advance of the Turkish army towards Kars and subjected it to a major **. The Turkish army lost more than 30,000 casualties and thousands of people froze to death during the withdrawal, with only about 20,000 active combatants arriving in Erzurum. The Russian army annihilated more than 90,000 Turkish troops at the cost of less than 30,000 people, and created favorable conditions for further advance into Turkish territory.
At the end of the battle, Enver relinquished command of the battlefield and returned to Constantinople. The Russian general Vorontsov, who failed to take advantage of the victory to defeat the retreating Turkish army, was soon transferred, and his post was replaced by the more proactive General Yudenich.
The fighting in the Caucasus from December 1914 to January 1915, the Ottoman Empire led by Enver suffered a crushing defeat, and he suppressed it under the pretext of Armenian collusion**, which led to the death of a large number of Armenians due to starvation, lack of water, exposure to the sun, and kleptocratic plunder, which made him infamous in the Western world. It was only after the Ottoman Empire repelled the Allied invasion at the Battle of Gallipoli in 1916 that Enver's reputation and influence were restored.
After the end of World War I, Enver Pasha was charged with war crimes and sentenced to death in absentia. He first fled to Germany, where the Communist Party helped him to travel to the Soviet Union. In 1921 he traveled to Central Asia and joined the Basmachi uprising. He was killed by the Soviet Red Army on August 4, 1922, in the Pamirs, at the age of 40, ending his controversial life. On August 4, 1996, Turkey held a state funeral on the 74th anniversary of his death and was buried in the Martyrs' Cemetery in Istanbul.
Relive the Russo-Turkish War of World War I and look for the experience of great power struggles in the history of war