THE SARIKAMIS FRONT

The Ottoman Empire chose to join Germany against the Anglo-French alliance. Britain, France and Russia were on the same side this time, as their interests were united against German expansion. When the First World War erupted, fronts were opened up on Ottoman territory and one of them was the Caucasus - Sarikamis Front.

Russia’s Caucasian army moved its center to Tbilisi, but many corps and divisions were directed towards Kars and the surrounding area. At the Sarikamis Front, the Ottomans were defeated, largely due to poor timing and the army’s unpreparedness for winter conditions. This defeat enabled Russia to occupy the whole of eastern Anatolia, including Erzurum.

The Kazak regiment and the Armenian Drujinas of the Russian army in Kars and Sarikamis forced the Muslim population out of the area. They also joined the battle behind the front: the two Armenian Drujinas located in Sarikamis were a part of the Dasnak Party.

Local people unable to bear their treatment at the hands of Armenian drujinas complained to the Russian military. The Russian General Deyef, based in Sarikamis, responded by moving some of these drujinalas out of the center. General Deyef was at the same time a member of the Bolshevik Party. Another Bolshevik, the Armenian Mihail Arzumanov, opposed the coercion applied by the Dasnak Armenians in the region and set up an organization to oppose them.

The Ottoman state declared its withdrawal from the war at the Erzincan meetings of 1916 and in 1917 the Bolshevik revolution took place, with a massive public rebellion. Tsarism was destroyed, and the Bolshevik administration announced its withdrawal from the war in the name of Russia.

These developments resulted in a vacuum in authority in the Caucasus region. A Turkish intellectual, Fahrettin Erdogan, who was in exile in Russia came to Kars around that time and met Esat Oktay (Gaziyev), who had studied in Russia and also came to Kars. They held meetings with the Armenian Tatos Efendi and Greek Stefan Vafyadis about political issues.

The oblast administration ended in 1917, and the people of Kars formed a temporary administration and ruled themselves. It was a mixed administration with representatives of the Muslims, Armenians and Greeks. Alihan Kantemirov, representing the Muslims, became governor, Halil Beyzade Ali Bey and Mutasarrif Cihangirzade Aziz Bey became commissar and mayor.

When the new government in Russia asked for Muslim representatives, Fahrettin Erdogan gathered 300 delegates. Meanwhile soldiers from the Russian army asked the temporary government in Kars to take over arms depots around the city, and also asked for posts in the Kars army that was to be established. A few depots in Kars and Sarikamis were taken over after this. The Kars army was initially made up of an infantry regiment of 4,000 troops.

According to the fourth article of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Russia was to leave the Ottoman soil it had occupied and return it to the Ottomans. The 15th army corps commanded by Kazim Karabekir Pasha entered Kars and appointed a new temporary mayor, but this situation did not last long.

Another agreement, the Mondros Treaty signed in 30 October 1918, required the Ottoman army to retreat back to its 1916 boundaries. When the army was leaving, people asked Yakup Sevket Pasha not to go; he explained the necessity but left some arms behind.