Sarıkamış

Sarikamish market in March 1916

An important battle took place between the armies of the Ottoman and Russian empires in and around the city in late December 1914-January 1915 as part of the Caucasus Campaign of World War I.

Enver Pasha, the leader of the Ittihat ve Terakki party in Istanbul, personally led the army along with Hafiz Hakki Pasha, who was his brother in-law, to scale the Mount Allahu Ekber and afterwards attack the Russian army in Sarikamish. Enver Pasha intended to occupy the town in order to halt logistic support to the city of Kars, which the Turks lost to the Russians in 1878, and which he was planning to reoccupy.

In mid December, Enver Pasha entered the Caucasus region through Armenia. Enver ordered his forces to attack along many routes with the goal of arriving suddenly at Sarikamis at the same time. The chief German military advisor, Liman von Sanders strongly argued against this plan but was ignored. Governor General Vorontsov planned to withdraw his forces to the city of Kars. But General Yudenich, in charge of the defense of the area, ignored Vorontsov's wishes to withdraw and instead stayed to defend Sarikamis.[9]

Enver's forces lost touch with one another and arrived at Sarakamis at different times from December 29 through 3 January. The first divisions to arrive briefly took control of the barracks in the western part of the city but were driven off. In the following days, as more Ottoman forces arrived at the battle, they attacked without coordination and the Russians under the skillful command of Yudenich fought off the attacks one by one. The battle finally ended on January 4 and the Ottoman army retreated in complete disorganization back through the mountains in the middle of winter.

The number of Turkish losses is estimated to be 60,000-80,000 dead out of an army of 90,000. It is very likely that the majority of Turkish soldiers died because of inadequate winter clothing and field shelters during the attack and retreat. In any event, this was an extraordinarily costly defeat for the Turks; in losses this was the worst single defeat they suffered in the entire war. Turkish soldiers reached their targets but they were too weak to win. The Russian casualties were estimated at 35,000.[10]

As one German officer attached to the army wrote later, the Ottoman 3rd army had "suffered a disaster which for rapidity and completeness is without parallel in military history."[11]