Turks take Tabriz
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- Middle East
- Date:
- 8 January 1915
- Author:
- Łukasz Skowroń
- Tags:
- Persia, Ottoman Empire, Russia, jihad
On Friday 8 January 1915 Kurdish and Turkish units marched into Tabriz. Three days earlier the Russian troops had left the city; they had been occupying northern Persia since 1909.
Who took the city
The forces that entered Tabriz were not a regular army. Their main part consisted of Kurds, recruited by the Turks on both sides of the border, supported by small detachments of Ottoman gendarmerie and volunteers. According to some sources they were commanded by Ahmad Mukhtar Bey Shamkhal. According to other studies, the so-called Mosul group of Ömer Fevzi entered Tabriz, while Ömer Naci’s volunteers had earlier entered Urmia. The expedition was part of the Ottoman plans to use the holy war, proclaimed in November by the sultan-caliph, to stir up the Muslims in the Entente states and around them.
The date of 8 January is given both by the British chronology of the war and by the American missionary Frederick Jessup, who lived through the occupation in the city. Some Russian studies give a later day, 14 January (1 January in the Julian calendar).
Three weeks of occupation
There were no massacres in the city like those suffered in the same days by the Christian villages around Lake Urmia. Most of the Armenians had managed to flee, and those who stayed went into hiding. Several hundred people, Armenians, Assyrians and Europeans, sheltered in the buildings of the American mission. According to the missionaries, a great part was played by the American consul, Gordon Paddock. He worked together with the German consul, who had earlier himself been under American protection in the mission hospital. Together they managed to protect the inhabitants from killings and largely from looting. Even so, extortion and robbery by Kurdish fighters grew week by week.
The return of the Russians
The occupation did not last long. After the victory at Sarikamish the Russians were able to turn their attention to Persia again. Their troops under General Fyodor Chernozubov defeated the Turks and Kurds at the end of January at Sufian, north-west of the city. On 30 January Russian troops entered Tabriz again. The Kurds, cut off from the city, had no time to plunder it during their retreat. Turkish and Kurdish units nevertheless held out for months afterwards in Urmia and in the south of Persian Azerbaijan.
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Related events
(04)The same battle, people or subject.
- 5 January 1915 · Middle EastRussians leave TabrizOn 5 January 1915 the last Russian troops left Tabriz, capital of Persian Azerbaijan, held since 1909. Most of the Armenians fled with them.
- 2 January 1915 · Middle EastRussians abandon UrmiaOn 2 January 1915 Russian troops withdrew from Urmia in northern Persia. Thousands of Assyrians and Armenians fled with them; Kurds and Turks took the town.
- 30 January 1915 · Middle EastRussians retake TabrizOn 30 January 1915 General Chernozubov's troops, after fighting at Sufian, entered Tabriz again. The Turkish and Kurdish occupation had lasted three weeks.
- 11 November 1914 · Middle EastSheikh ul-Islam issues fatwas on holy warOn 11 November 1914 the Sheikh ul-Islam Mustafa Hayri issued five fatwas declaring the war with Russia, Britain and France a jihad, the duty of every Muslim.