Bergmann offensive

The Bergmann offensive was the first operation of Russian and Ottoman troops on the Caucasus front of the First World War. A few days after the Ottoman fleet’s attack on Russian ports on the Black Sea, units of the Russian Caucasus Army under General Georgy Bergmann crossed the border and advanced up the valley of the Aras towards Köprüköy, on the road to the fortress of Erzurum. After a few days of easy progress they ran into a strong counter-attack by the Ottoman Third Army. The Russians had to fall back almost to the border, and the Turks won their first victory of this war.

Name and dates

In Polish literature the operation is called the Bergmann offensive or the Köprüköy operation, in Turkish the battles of Köprüköy and Azap. The name of the Russian commander, a general of German descent, is written in Russian sources as Berchman.

On this page we use the dates 2–21 November 1914. On the night of 1–2 November (in Russia, where the Julian calendar was in force, this was the night of 19–20 October) Russian troops crossed the border. Some sources give 1 November, because the first units set off even before Russia formally declared war on Turkey. The end date, 21 November, is given by Turkish and English-language studies. On that day the commander of the Third Army broke off the attack and pulled his troops back a dozen or so kilometres. The Polish Wikipedia ends the operation earlier, on 16 November, without the fighting at Azap, which in Turkish historiography is its last stage.

The British chronology of the war on which this site is based states that the Russians crossed the border and took Azap on 4 November, captured Köprüköy on 6 November, and the Turks retook it on 14 November. These dates do not always agree with the studies. According to them the Russians crossed the border on 1–2 November, reached Köprüköy on 4–5 November and took the small town itself on 7 November. The Ottoman counter-attack began on 7 November and broke Russian resistance on 11–12 November. Some sources, including the Polish Wikipedia, claim that the Russians never managed to take Köprüköy at all.

Background

The Russo-Turkish border in the Caucasus ran through the high, almost impassable mountains of the Armenian Highlands. On the Russian side lay the fortress of Kars with the railway station at Sarikamish, on the Turkish side the great fortress of Erzurum. They were linked by a road through the valley of the upper Aras. At Köprüköy, roughly halfway between the border and Erzurum, it crossed the river by a stone bridge, the only one of its kind in the area.

Russia did not plan a major offensive in the Caucasus. The best corps of the Caucasus Army had been sent against Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914, leaving forces sufficient for defence. The nominal commander of the army was the aged Viceroy of the Caucasus, Count Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov, and its chief of staff was General Nikolai Yudenich. In the event of war with Turkey a short strike was envisaged to seize convenient defensive positions on the Turkish side of the border and prevent raids by irregular Kurdish cavalry.

Forces

The main Russian group was the Sarikamish detachment, based on General Bergmann’s I Caucasian Army Corps. It numbered several tens of thousands of infantry, Cossacks and artillery. In the south, towards Eleşkirt and Doğubayazıt, a weaker Erivan detachment operated. Four Armenian volunteer units, several thousand men in all, also fought on the Russian side, largely Armenians from the Turkish side of the border. The Ottoman authorities later presented Armenian participation on the Russian side as proof of the treachery of the entire Armenian population.

The Ottoman Third Army, defending the Caucasian border, was commanded by General Hasan İzzet Pasha. He had at his disposal IX and XI Corps, as well as divisions of regular and irregular cavalry, the latter composed mainly of Kurds. According to the most frequently quoted estimates his forces were somewhat more numerous than the Russian ones, but worse armed and supplied.

Course

2–5 November. The Russians crossed the border on a broad front. On the right a brigade headed for Id (today Narman), in the centre Bergmann’s main forces took the road to Köprüköy, and the cavalry advanced up the Eleşkirt valley in the south. Weak Turkish covering units withdrew almost without a fight. By 4 November the Russians had taken the heights near the village of Azap, about 25 kilometres inside Turkish territory, and had thus fulfilled the task set in the plan.

6–10 November. Bergmann judged that the Turks were weak and decided to push on towards Köprüköy. Meanwhile Hasan İzzet, who had at first intended to defend himself on prepared positions, received an order to counter-attack from the war minister, Enver Pasha. On 7 November XI Corps attacked the Russians, who on the same day, according to some sources, entered Köprüköy. Over the following days fighting went on in rain and snow on both banks of the Aras.

11–12 November. IX Corps entered the battle and came out on the flank of Bergmann’s troops. The Russians, threatened with encirclement, withdrew from Köprüköy to the positions taken on 4 November, in the Azap area. Meanwhile reinforcements arrived from the Caucasus, among them General Przhevalsky’s detachment, and stabilised the Russian flank.

13–21 November. At the northern end of the front, closer to the Black Sea, Turkish units and local volunteers harassed the Russians in the Çoruh valley, in the Artvin area (sources date the fighting for the town itself differently). Between 17 and 20 November the Third Army tried to encircle the Russians at Azap, but its exhausted and bled-white divisions could not break through the mountains. On 21 November Hasan İzzet, alarmed by reports of approaching Russian reinforcements, broke off the attack and fell back a dozen or so kilometres. Soon afterwards a snowstorm swept over the battlefield, in which many soldiers froze to death.

Losses

Estimates of both sides’ losses vary widely. According to figures quoted in English-language and Turkish studies the Russians lost about 6,000–7,000 men, including about 1,000 dead of exposure, and the Turks over 14,000, including about 3,000 taken prisoner and nearly 3,000 deserters. The Polish Wikipedia states the opposite, that Russian losses reached 40 per cent of the initial strength and were more than twice the Turkish ones.

Significance

The Russians halted about 25 kilometres beyond the old border, on the line taken at the beginning of November. They did not capture Köprüköy until January 1916, on the way to Erzurum. In Constantinople Bergmann’s retreat was celebrated as a great victory, the first after years of defeats. The success emboldened Enver Pasha, who concluded that the Russian army in the Caucasus was weak. In December, after the cautious Hasan İzzet left, he took command of the Third Army himself and led it on a winter march across the mountains to Sarikamish. It ended at the turn of December and January in one of the greatest defeats in the history of the Ottoman army.