Russians retake Kermanshah

On 11 March 1917 (26 February by the Julian calendar) the Russian troops of General Nikolai Baratov occupied Kermanshah, the main town of western Persia. The date of 11 March is given by the British chronology of the war. It is confirmed by F.J. Moberly’s British official history of the Mesopotamian campaign, according to which the Ottoman 2nd Division, with irregulars and a cavalry brigade attached to it, fought the Russians near Kermanshah that day and in this way prevented them from entering the town earlier. The history of the Caucasian wars by W.E.D. Allen and Paul Muratoff states more generally that the Russian column reached Kermanshah “by 10 March”. In London the capture of the town was learned of on 14 March from an unofficial dispatch.

Through Kangavar and Bisotun

The Russians had been advancing on Kermanshah since the beginning of March, when they recovered Hamadan, abandoned by the retreating Turkish XIII Corps. Moberly describes four Russian columns advancing on a front more than 250 miles (about 400 kilometres) wide. The main one, setting out from Hamadan, numbered 29 squadrons, seven and a half battalions and 32 guns. After several skirmishes with the Turkish rearguard it took in turn the Asadabad pass, Kangavar and Sahneh, on 8 March occupied Bisotun, and three days later entered Kermanshah. Allen and Muratoff write that the core of this column was formed by the Frontier Brigade and six regiments of dragoons and Cossacks under General Radatz. The second column, setting out from Bijar, took Senneh, today’s Sanandaj, after two days of fighting and turned south to cut the Turks’ lines of retreat. The third, sent from the area of Saqqez towards Baneh, got stuck in the snow, and the fourth advanced on Kangavar from the direction of Borujerd.

The march was hard. According to Moberly deep snow and roads destroyed by the retreating Turks hampered the advance of all the columns, and communication between them broke down completely. Ali Ihsan Bey, commander of XIII Corps, did not intend to defend Kermanshah. According to Turkish figures cited by Moberly, the head of his corps had already reached Kerend on 9 March, and only a rearguard of the 2nd Division remained near Kermanshah, which the British estimated at about 4,500 rifles and 34 guns plus 1,500 irregular horsemen.

On the day Baghdad fell

On the same day, 11 March, the British entered Baghdad. The commander of the Ottoman Sixth Army, Halil Pasha (Halil Kut), had hoped to link up in time with the corps returning from Persia, but it was still far away in the mountains. Now XIII Corps had to fight its way through to Khanaqin, and from there northwards, before the Russians and the British closed in on it from two sides. Allen and Muratoff note that neither the Turks nor the Russians coming from Persia arrived in time for the battle for Baghdad.

In London close cooperation between the two allies was hoped for. On 9 March the Chief of the British Imperial General Staff informed General Frederick Stanley Maude that Baratov had been ordered to push on to Khanaqin to establish contact with the British. The Chief of Staff himself expected, however, that the Russians would get there only at the end of the month and that the Turkish 6th Division would manage to slip away from them. Maude could at most try to cut off part of the 2nd Division.

News from Petrograd

Kermanshah changed hands for the third time within a year. The Russians had first taken it in February 1916, and in July the Turks retook it. This time the victory coincided with events that were to undermine the strength of the Russian army. In Petrograd strikes and demonstrations were already under way, and the next day they turned into revolution. Allen and Muratoff write that the news of the revolution quickly reached Kermanshah, at first only the staff and a few days later the soldiers. Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, exiled to Persia for his part in the murder of Rasputin, was then with Baratov’s corps, and many officers greeted him with enthusiasm. Baratov himself reportedly made no secret of his sympathies. The Cossacks and the frontier regiments long kept their discipline, but among the dragoons and in the rear services revolutionary moods spread quickly, which soon affected the pace of the march towards the border.