Russian landing at Atina

At dawn on 4 March 1916 two battalions of Russian plastuns, Kuban Cossack infantry, landed at Atina, a small fishing port on the coast of Lazistan, east of Rize. Today the town is called Pazar. The landing force came ashore behind a strong Turkish position that had for several weeks been holding up the advance of Russian troops along the coast towards Trebizond. The date of 4 March is given by the British chronology of the war and the British official history of the Mesopotamian campaign, and also by General Yevgeny Maslovsky, who writes of 20 February by the Julian calendar. In W.E.D. Allen and Paul Muratoff’s account, 4 March was the day of the bombardment from the sea, and the landing force went ashore the following morning.

On the coastal wing of the Caucasus Army operated the detachment of General Vladimir Lyakhov. When at the beginning of 1916 General Nikolai Yudenich attacked Erzurum, Lyakhov was to pin down the Turks on the coast and prevent reinforcements shipped by sea to Trebizond from going to the aid of the fortress. The coast of Lazistan, cut by steep valleys of rivers flowing down from the Pontic Mountains, favoured the defenders. Each successive valley was a ready-made line of defence. Lyakhov had learned, however, that the Turkish trenches could be smothered with fire from the sea. In February, with the support of the old battleship Rostislav, gunboats and destroyers of the Black Sea Fleet, his troops drove the Turks from their positions on the Arhavi and Vice rivers.

The retreating Turks, reinforced by battalions brought up from Trebizond, made a stand behind the Büyük Dere river, a few kilometres east of Atina. The position was very strong: the plateau fell away steeply above a deep ravine, and only one ford led across the river. Lyakhov decided to combine an outflanking move against the Turkish right wing through the mountains with a landing in the rear. To carry the troops, elpidifors were used: flat-bottomed coastal cargo vessels with their engine rooms aft, which could come close inshore. In the fleet they served as minesweepers. A trial at Batumi went well.

According to Maslovsky, throughout the day before the landing Rostislav, the gunboat Kubanets and destroyers shelled the Turkish position. In the evening minesweepers No. 18 and No. 65 left Batumi with two battalions of plastuns, almost 2,000 men in all, together with the transport Kornilov carrying artillery, machine guns and horses. Under destroyer escort they waited at Hopa until one in the morning and then sailed without lights to Atina. At about six in the morning the minesweepers put the troops ashore, one to the east and the other to the west of the town. According to Allen and Muratoff, unloading from the first ship took 25 minutes and from the second 15. The Turks opened a disorderly fire only towards the end of the landing.

The plastuns advanced into the rear of the Turkish position and took two companies prisoner. When news of the landing reached the Büyük Dere, the Turks abandoned their trenches and fled in disorder into the mountains, and the Russians entered Atina the same morning. Allen and Muratoff write that the operation did not cost the Russians a single man. Lyakhov at once repeated the manoeuvre and moved part of his troops by sea further west, to Mapavri: according to Maslovsky the very next night, according to Allen and Muratoff on the night of 6–7 March. On 8 March the Russians entered Rize, the first real port west of Batumi, to a 31-gun salute from the ships. They were about 50 kilometres from Trebizond. According to Allen and Muratoff, the whole advance from the border to Rize cost Lyakhov’s detachment fewer than 300 killed and wounded. Soon reinforcements for the attack on Trebizond began to be shipped by sea to Rize.