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The Russo-Turkish frontier from Cram's 1896 Railway Map of the Turkish Empire. The Black Sea is in the northwest, Persia to the southeast. The area had a large Armenian and Christian population, and was a principal site of the Armenian Genocide and of Russian military successes.
A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
Russian troops fleeing a solitary German soldier. The Russian First Army invaded Germany in August 1914, and defeated the Germans in the Battle of Gumbinnen on the 20th. In September the Germans drove them out of Russia in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. In September and October, a joint German, Austro-Hungarian offensive drove the Russians back almost to Warsaw. Illustration by E. H. Nunes.
With Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in October 1915 assuring the defeat of Serbia by the end of November, the Balkanzug — the Balkan Railway, shown in red — connected Berlin and Constantinople. By the second week of November, Turkey received ammunition and weapons from its allies.
Hanging on the wire: dead Russian soldiers entangled in barbed wire. Attacking infantry found it nearly impossible to overcome the combination of barbed wire and machine guns. Many died trying, some left hanging in the grip of the wire.
"On January 14 [1916] an unexpected Russian offensive began against the center of the [Turkish] Third Army. The attack began on the dominating heights of the Aras River, followed by further attacks in the sections adjoining on the south. For some reason the commander, Mahmud Kiamil Pasha, happened to be in Constantinople just then and the German chief of staff was absent in Germany to recover from a case of typhus. Abdul Kerim Pasha let the army.The Russians broke the center of the Third Army." ((1), more)
"January also was a month of back-breaking work. Each platoon began by removing the mud from the immediate vicinity of its dugout, by means of shovels, buckets, and pumps, and then, having firm ground underfoot once more, set about establishing communications with its neighbors. In the Adinfer forest, where our artillery was positioned, teams of woodcutters were set to strip the branches off young trees and split them into long struts. The trench walls were sloped off and entirely reveted with this material. Also, numerous culverts, drainage ditches and sumps were dug, so that things were once more made bearable. What really made a difference were those deep sumps that were dug through the surface clay and enabled water to drain into the absorptive chalk beneath." ((2), more)
"3rd January [Old Style]At any moment first aid work might be awaiting us in the trenches. The New Year has brought renewed hope. We trust implicitly in the loyalty and patriotism of our soldiers; we know that they are longing for an opportunity to win back all the fertile territory which the enemy has succeeded in wrenching from Russia. They are now rested and their ranks reinforced; the future seems reassuringly bright. 'Wait!' we tell each other. 'Wait! a little more patience and we shall see the victories which 1916 has in store for us.'" ((3), more)
"January 17, 1916, stands out as one of the big dates of the war. There was great rejoicing in Constantinople, for the first Balkan express — or, as the Germans called it, the Balkanzug — was due to arrive that afternoon! The railroad station was decorated with flags and flowers, and the whole German and Austrian population of Constantinople, including the Embassy staffs, assembled to welcome the incoming train. As it finally rolled into the station, thousands of 'hochs' went up from as many raucous throats.Since that January 17, 1916, the Balkanzug has run regularly from Berlin to Constantinople." ((4), more)
"— Over the last eighteen months the war has cost Europe 3,000 human lives every day, and an average of 350,000,000 francs. Nobody worries any longer about these astounding figures.— Despite the savage expectations of our patriotic madmen, soldiers still exchange friendly conversation between the trenches. Thus, one night, a German outpost asked a French sentry : 'Tell me, now, how does one go about it to establish a republic?'" ((5), more)
(1) Excerpt from the summary of events in 1916 on the Russo-Turkish front in the Caucasus Mountains by German General Liman von Sanders. With the failure of the Allied Gallipoli Campaign, Turkey was in a position to redeploy its troops to other fronts. Russia struck before the redeployment could complete. Sanders was chief of the German military mission to Turkey, and had commanded Turkish forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula prior to the Allied evacuation in January.
Five Years in Turkey by Liman von Sanders, page 124, publisher: The Battery Press with War and Peace Books, publication date: 1928 (originally)
(2) Sebastian Jünger on the improving the German trenches in January, 1916. Adinfer is west of the Arras-Péronne road. German Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn was fighting a defensive war on the Western Front. Allied troops were often shocked by the quality of German trenches.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 60, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, writing on January 16, 1916 (January 3 Old Style). On the same day, Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia, recorded that in the capital of Petrograd, and with the failure of the Allied Gallipoli Campaign, people had given up hope of capturing Constantinople,and with that possibility foreclosed, saw little point in continuing the war.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 167, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(4) Excerpt from the memoir of Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916. With the defeat of Serbia, trains could run from Berlin to Constantinople. In his memoir, Morgenthau writes that the Turkish government's 'destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for me a place of horror,' and he soon took the train to Berlin.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story by Henry Morgenthau, page 273, copyright © 1918, by Doubleday, Page & Company, publisher: Doubleday, Page & Company, publication date: 1918
(5) January 18, 1916 entries from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government who was repeatedly appalled by the savage attitudes of his fellow citizens, particularly those on the home front.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 134, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
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