Russian troops land at Enzeli

The British chronology of the war records under 21 May 1915 the landing of a Russian expeditionary corps at Enzeli, today’s Bandar-e Anzali, the main Persian port on the Caspian Sea. This entry needs explaining. In the spring of 1915 the Russians did indeed bring new units into Persia across the Caspian Sea, but this was not yet the expeditionary corps that went down in history under that name. That one landed at Enzeli only in the autumn.

What is known about the May landing

The May landing was described by the British officer and historian Percy Sykes, a commander in southern Persia during the war. According to him, because of the danger in which the legations of the Entente powers in Tehran found themselves, Russian troops landed at Enzeli in May and were sent to Qazvin, which lies on the road from the coast to the capital, about 150 kilometres north-west of it. Studies give neither the strength of these units nor the exact day of their arrival. The British chronology links them to 21 May.

A Russian detachment had been stationed in Qazvin since 1909, brought into Persia during the civil war that accompanied the Constitutional Revolution. In the spring of 1915, however, the situation in the country became worrying for the Entente. In the north-west Ottoman troops were fighting, having only just been defeated at Dilman. In Tehran the influence of the legations of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey was growing, and some deputies of the Persian parliament, the Majlis, and some gendarmerie officers showed sympathy for the Central Powers. At the end of April, under pressure from Russia and Great Britain, the government changed, but this did not calm the situation. According to Sykes, the new units were above all to ensure the safety of the Allied legations, and in the autumn, when the situation in the capital became dangerous, they were moved from Qazvin to the Karaj river, about 40 kilometres from Tehran.

Baratov’s corps

The actual Russian expeditionary corps in Persia, made up mainly of Cossack cavalry, was formed only in the autumn of 1915, when the country was on the verge of entering the war on the side of the Central Powers. It was commanded by General Nikolai Baratov. Russian studies date the landing of the first units at Enzeli to 30 October (17 October in the Julian calendar then in use in Russia), while the British history of the Caucasian wars by Allen and Muratoff gives 12 November, when Baratov himself landed in the port with his staff and a Cossack advance guard. The troops marched to Qazvin and then to the vicinity of Tehran, which prompted the envoys of the Central Powers and some Persian politicians to flee the capital. The May landing was only a foretaste of a much larger intervention.

The term “expeditionary corps” used in the British chronology under the May date therefore fits Baratov’s troops better. What is certain is that from the spring of 1915 Russia used its army ever more openly to keep Persia on the side of the Entente, disregarding the neutrality proclaimed by the government in Tehran.