Russia declares war on Turkey

On 2 November 1914, or 20 October according to the Julian calendar then in force in Russia, Emperor Nicholas II signed at Tsarskoye Selo a manifesto declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. It was the answer to the attack by the Turco-German fleet on Russian ports on the Black Sea. Some Western chronologies give the date as 1 November, but the manifesto is dated 20 October Old Style, that is, 2 November. Russia, which had been fighting Germany and Austria-Hungary for three months, now had one more enemy.

The Tsar’s manifesto

The manifesto was short. In it the Tsar informed his subjects that Germany and Austria-Hungary, unable to defeat Russia, had turned to the Ottoman government for help and drawn into the war “Turkey, blinded by them”. The Turkish fleet under German command had “dared treacherously to attack” Russia’s Black Sea coast, and the Tsar had at once ordered his ambassador to leave Turkey. Russia was to meet this move by “the old oppressor of the Christian faith and of all the Slav peoples” calmly and with trust in God’s help. The manifesto recalled that Russian arms had more than once defeated the Turks.

The most important thing, however, was the last sentence. The Tsar expressed his conviction that Turkey’s “rash intervention” in the war would only hasten the course of events fatal for it and would open to Russia the way to solving the “historic tasks on the shores of the Black Sea” bequeathed to it by its forefathers. Everyone in Russia understood what this meant: Constantinople and the Black Sea Straits.

A war Russia did not seek

Paradoxically, in the summer of 1914 Russia did not want war with Turkey at all. Its armies were engaged in East Prussia, in Galicia and in the Kingdom of Poland, and a new front meant dispersing its forces. The foreign minister, Sergey Sazonov, together with the allies, therefore worked to keep Turkey neutral, and the Entente was even ready to guarantee the inviolability of Turkey’s borders. The raid of 29 October put an end to these efforts. The Russian ambassador, Mikhail Girs, asked for his passports the very next day, and on 31 October left Constantinople.

For Russia, however, the war with Turkey also had another side. A large part of Russian exports passed out through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, above all grain from Ukraine and southern Russia. At the end of September the Turks closed the Dardanelles to shipping, and the empire’s economy felt it at once. Control of the Straits, for which Russia had fought wars with Turkey since the 18th century, most recently in 1877–1878, once again became a real aim. This time Russia was fighting alongside Britain and France, which in the 19th century had defended Turkey against Russian expansion.

A new front

The declaration of war opened a front in the Caucasus, along the Russo-Turkish border in the mountains of Armenia. The Russian Caucasus Army, weakened by sending part of its troops to the German and Austrian fronts, was above all to defend Russian Transcaucasia. In the first days of November, however, its corps under General Georgy Bergmann crossed the border and advanced towards Erzurum, the most important Turkish fortress in the region. Sources differ on whether this happened on 1 or 2 November.

On the Black Sea the Russian fleet now had to reckon with the battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, formerly the Goeben, stronger than any of its battleships. On 5 November Britain and France declared war on Turkey, and Russia’s allies soon began to discuss the fate of the Straits. A few days later London assured Petrograd that the question of Constantinople and the Straits would be settled in accordance with Russian wishes.