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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[1]
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
Feldmann Bey
Ottoman Empire Yusuf Izzet Pasha
Ottoman Empire Galip Pasha
Ottoman Empire İhsan Bey Surrendered
Ottoman Empire Şerif Bey Surrendered
Ottoman Empire Ziya Bey Surrendered
Ottoman Empire Arif Bey Surrendered
Units involved

Russian Caucasus Army

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

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]

Some sources estimate the significance of the battle as one of the most important in the company, as a result of which the 3rd army was so defeated that it was forced to stop fighting for a while.[17]

  1. ^ Spencer Tucker, The Great War, 1914-1918, (University College London Press, 1998), p.178
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Muratoff252 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Aydın, Nurhan (2015). Sarikamish Operation (in Turkish). p. 40.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ozdemir444 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b c "САРЫКАМЫШСКАЯ ОПЕРАЦИЯ 1914–15 • Great Russian Encyclopedia – Electronic version". old.bigenc.ru. 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  6. ^ a b Maslovsky 1933, p. 133.
  7. ^ Oleynikov 2016, p. 84.
  8. ^ Muratoff, Paul; Allen, W. E. D. (1953). Caucasian Battlefields... p. 284.
  9. ^ a b Joshua A. Sanborn. Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. Oxford University Press. 2014. P. 88
  10. ^ Çakmak, Fevzi (1935). Operations on the Eastern Front in the First World War (in Turkish). pp. 73–74.
  11. ^ Sander, Liman von (1927) [1919]. Five Years in Turkey. Annapolis, Maryland: The United States Naval Constitute. ISBN 978-1-78149-197-3.
  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. ^ Oleynikov 2016, pp. 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.
  17. ^ Oleynikov 2016, pp. 84–85.


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