Battle of Dilman

On 1 May 1915 at Dilman, the main town of the Salmas plain north of Lake Urmia, the decisive battle of the Ottoman spring expedition into north-western Persia was fought. Halil Bey’s troops attacked the positions of General Tovmas Nazarbekian’s Russian detachment all day, but were repulsed with heavy losses, and during the night of 1–2 May they withdrew. Dilman is today the town of Salmas.

Halil’s expedition

Halil Bey, the uncle of the War Minister Enver Pasha, was leading the so-called 1st Expeditionary Corps into Persia, which was to drive the Russians out of Persian Azerbaijan and threaten their Caucasus front from the south. In mid-April his leading units reached Urmia, and from there they moved north, towards Salmas. The Russians had few troops in this part of Persia. General Fyodor Chernozubov, commanding in Azerbaijan, had dispersed his forces among garrisons and, because of supply difficulties, had sent part of his infantry back to Julfa on the Aras. According to the historians W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, there was only one infantry battalion, an Armenian volunteer druzhina and six guns at Dilman.

The fighting

According to Allen and Muratoff, Halil attacked Dilman on 29 April. After sharp fighting the weak Russian detachment withdrew from the town. Within a day, however, General Nazarbekian, an Armenian in Russian service, gathered reinforcements a few kilometres north of Dilman: six infantry battalions, two Cossack regiments and an artillery battery. Russian studies list a total of about eight and a half battalions, twelve sotnias of Cossacks and twelve guns. Armenian volunteers also fought on the Russian side, according to most accounts including the druzhina of the legendary Andranik, as did Assyrian volunteers from the surrounding villages.

At dawn on 1 May Halil attacked on a broad front, trying to outflank the Russians. According to Allen and Muratoff he had about 10,000 infantry and several thousand mounted Kurds. The Russians repulsed five successive attacks. Almost a thousand dead Turks were left on the battlefield, and most of the Kurdish horsemen deserted. During the night of 1–2 May Halil, fearing a Russian counter-attack, withdrew towards the Ottoman border. Total Ottoman losses in the fighting at Dilman are uncertain. Some studies speak of about 3,500 killed, others of several thousand killed and wounded.

Differing dates

The dates of the battle given in the literature vary. A British chronology of the war records it under 1 May, while Allen and Muratoff describe the fighting of 29 April – 1 May. Russian sources, which counted time by the Julian calendar, then 13 days behind, date the main battle to 18 April, which corresponds to 1 May in the Gregorian calendar. Some studies also give the date 15 April, which is hard to reconcile with the fact that, according to eyewitness accounts, Halil reached Urmia only in mid-April.

Consequences

The defeat at Dilman wrecked the plan to seize Persian Azerbaijan. General Nazarbekian, however, did not pursue the enemy and contented himself with recovering Dilman. The commander of the Caucasus Army, General Nikolai Yudenich, was later very dissatisfied with his slow operations, which allowed Halil to escape without a fight. The beaten corps withdrew across the Ottoman border towards Başkale, south of Van, where since 20 April the Armenians had been defending themselves against the troops of the governor Cevdet Bey. According to contemporary accounts and later research, the retreat of the Ottoman troops was marked by massacres of Christians. Halil blamed the Armenians and Assyrians for the defeat, and according to German witnesses several hundred soldiers and officers of these nationalities serving in his units were disarmed and killed.