Battle of Sarikamish

Battle of Sarikamish
Сражение при Сарыкамыше-Srazhenie pri Sarykamyshe
Sarıkamış Muharebesi
Սարիկամիշի Ճակատամարտ
Part of the Caucasus campaign of the Middle Eastern theatre in World War I

Russian trenches in the forests of Sarikamish.
DateDecember 22, 1914 – January 17, 1915
Location40°20′17″N 42°34′23″E / 40.3381°N 42.573°E / 40.3381; 42.573
Result Russian victory
Territorial
changes
Russia returns lands to Transcaucasia, as well as invades the border areas of the Ottoman Empire
Belligerents

Russia Russian Empire

 Ottoman Empire
Supported by:
German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Russia Vorontsov-Dashkov
Russia Nikolai Yudenich
Russia General Bergmann
Russia Myshlayevsky
Ottoman Empire Enver Pasha
Ottoman Empire Hafiz Hakki Pasha
Bronsart Pasha
Ottoman Empire Ali İhsan Pasha (POW)
Feldmann Bey
Ottoman Empire Yusuf Izzet Pasha
Ottoman Empire Galip Pasha
Ottoman Empire Şerif Bey (POW)
Ottoman Empire Ziya Bey (POW)
Ottoman Empire Arif Bey (POW)
Units involved

Russian Caucasus Army

  • Russian Sarikamish Group
  • Russian Oltu Group
3rd Army
Strength
78,000[1] Turkish estimate:
100,000[2][3]
Russian estimate:
90,000[4] – 150,000[5] people and 244 guns in battle
190,000 people and 300 guns in total[6]
Casualties and losses
Russo-English sources:
20,000–28,000[7][8][a] killed, wounded, and frostbitten
Turkish-German sources:
60,000[9]–78,000[10] killed, wounded, frostbitten, and captured[4]
Russian–French sources:
90,000 casualties[11][12]
including: 28,000 KIA and 18,000 POWs[b]

The Battle of Sarikamish[c] was an engagement between the Russian and Ottoman empires during World War I. It took place from December 22, 1914, to January 17, 1915, as part of the Caucasus campaign.

The battle resulted in a Russian victory. The Ottomans employed a strategy which demanded highly mobile troops, capable of arriving at specified objectives at precise times. This approach was based both on German and Napoleonic tactics. The Ottoman troops, ill-prepared for winter conditions, suffered major casualties in the Allahuekber Mountains. Around 25,000 Ottoman soldiers froze to death before the start of the battle.[8]

After the battle, Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha, who had planned the Ottoman strategy in Sarikamish, blamed his defeat on the Armenians and the battle served as a prelude to the Armenian genocide.[15][16]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Muratoff252 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Aydın, Nurhan (2015). Sarikamish Operation (in Turkish). p. 40.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ozdemir444 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c "САРЫКАМЫШСКАЯ ОПЕРАЦИЯ 1914–15 • Great Russian Encyclopedia – Electronic version". old.bigenc.ru. 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  5. ^ Масловский Е.В. Мировая война на Кавказском фронте 1914-1917 гг. Стратегически очерк.– Париж,1933.С.133 “By the beginning of January, there were no more than 12,000 combat-ready soldiers in the ranks of the Ottoman Army, and this was out of 150,000 who started the operation»
  6. ^ Олейников 2016, p. 84.
  7. ^ Muratoff, Paul; Allen, W. E. D. (1953). Caucasian Battlefields... p. 284.
  8. ^ a b Joshua A. Sanborn. Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. Oxford University Press. 2014. P. 88
  9. ^ Çakmak, Fevzi (1935). Operations on the Eastern Front in the First World War (in Turkish). pp. 73–74.
  10. ^ Sander, Liman von (1927) [1919]. Five Years in Turkey. Annapolis, Maryland: The United States Naval Constitute. ISBN 978-1-78149-197-3.
  11. ^ Масловский Е.В. Мировая война на Кавказском фронте 1914-1917 гг. Стратегически очерк.– Париж,1933.С.133
  12. ^ Commandant M. Larcher. La guerre turque dans la guerre mondiale. P. 389.
  13. ^ Неприятельские потери на нашем южном и юго-западном фронтах//Нива.1915.номер 10
  14. ^ Олейников 2016, p. 250-251.
  15. ^ Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. New York: HarperCollins. p. 178. ISBN 0-06-019840-0.
  16. ^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (2015). "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide. Princeton University Press. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-4008-6558-1.


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