situation was as follows. In the hilly country S. of Bitlis was the 5th Div., which had been driven from that town by the Russians, and the 8th Div. was in the hilly country S. of Mush. "Izzet formed them into the XVI. Corps. N.W. of them were only a few small detachments, holding the main roads as far as the Elmali valley, in which stood the nth Cav. Bde. as the extreme right wing of the III. Army.
'Izzet Pasha's intention was to assemble the main body of his II. Army at Diarbekr and the smaller part at Kharput, and only then to advance in the direction of Erzerum and the country to the E. of it. He knew that in front of him the reinforced IV. Caucasian Corps had taken over the task of guarding the flank of the Russian main army.
This plan, however, was hot carried out. The Turkish Supreme Command, in view of the disaster to the III. Army and the reports of constantly arriving Russian reinforcements, urged 'Izzet to attack before the assembly of his forces had been finished. 'Izzet had no option but to obey, though he was under no illusion as to the result. He wished at least to concentrate all his few available forces on the left wing of his area of deployment and to make a push into the district W. of Erzerum, in order to relieve the pressure on the III. Army. But this also proved beyond his powers. The ist, i4th and 53rd Divs., which had arrived at the end of July and the beginning of Aug., were pushed forward against the Russians, who were still being reinforced on the front opposite the II. Army; a few local successes were achieved, and 'Izzet Pasha on Aug. 10 decided to renounce a general offensive and to hold and fortify the line Kigi-Ognot heights S. of Mush.
Thus ended the geometrical strategy of the Turkish Supreme Command, which had from the first been based only on wishes and hopes rather than on definite realities. The administrative deficiencies in the II. Army had been, as usual in Turkey, so great as alone to ruin all hope of success. The army was sent forward into wild and mountainous country, in which only mountain artillery and columns of pack-animals could be moved, and it was supplied with only 18 mountain guns and with ox-wagons for transport and far from enough even of these. Figures as to the number of cattle in the deployment area were accepted without verification, and proved to be exaggerated some five fold. Those responsible for the supply services were, as ever in Turkish wars, quite incompetent to make the best of what turned up, and very disposed to steal the little that was available. Under such conditions the best plans are of no avail, for they can never be translated into actual practice.
Meanwhile Wahib Pasha was displaying praiseworthy energy in reorganizing the III. Turkish Army, of which the head- quarters were at Andria. Divisions were formed out of the old corps, regiments out of divisions, battalions out of regiments. The army was divided into two " Caucasian Corps," the I. and II., the former comprising the 5th, nth and 37th Caucasian Divisions. But even these combined divisions were very weak. The volunteer formations and other irregular bands proved wholly useless, and were soon broken up. German motor trans- port columns, established in the winter of 1916-7 on the line of communications of the III. Army between Ulu Kyshla and Sivas, prevented a threatened catastrophe due to starvation. All Wahib Pasha's efforts, however, could not restore the spirit of the III. Army and give back to it that confidence which was essential to the prosecution of a successful offensive.
The II. Army, when its concentration was completed, was composed of the XVI., II., IV. and III. Corps. Mustafa Kemal (later to become famous as leader of the Nationalist army) was the army commander. 'Izzet Pasha was entrusted with the gen- eral direction of the II. and III. Armies operating on the Ar- menian front, and moved his H.Q. to Kharput.
The II. Army, which had its H.Q. at Diarbekr, was experienc- ing even greater difficulties in the matter of its communications than was the III. In the winter, however, the strain was eased by both sides going into winter quarters, as in the old days. Only in the passes small observation detachments stood facing each other. In Nov. most of the troops were moved back into more sheltered districts, so that the Turkish and Russian winter
quarters were some 30 to 40 m. apart, about the equivalent o five days' march in this difficult country. The Turks, howevei were still short of food. As early as Nov. the men were get tin only one-third of their regular rations, the pack-animals ha< themselves to find what meagre pasturage they could, and t. find any was soon impossible on account of the deep snow the cavalry horses were getting only i| kilogrammes of oats Hundreds of animals died every day. Again and again outposts patrols and whole detachments of men were found starved o frozen to death in the holes of the rocks. In the terrible cold which when snowstorms ragsd might well chill to the bone evei the warmest clad men, the majority of the troops had only thei summer clothing. The percentage of sick grew higher day by day The sanitary arrangements were in the highest degree defective so that these miserable beings lived and died in boundlesl wretchedness. In the hospital at Kharput alone the averag. deaths in the winter of 1916-7 amounted to 900 per month Medical requisites were insufficient, and there were no means ol combating the plague lice and the epidemic of typhus whicq followed it. Of the III. Army 60,000 men perished between JuW 1916 and the spring of 1917, and in the autumn of the latter yea; barely 20,000 men remained at the front.
The strategic position in Armenia at the beginning of 1917 wa; extremely unfavourable to the Turks. The Russians, who ha< obtained undisputed control of the Black Sea, had massed surf strong forces in front of the II. and III. Armies that there coulc be no idea of a Turkish offensive. At the same time railways wera being built from Sarikamish by Hasan Kala to Erzerum and fronj Trebizond and Gumuschane, on the completion of which tha Russians in their turn would be in a position to resume th<| offensive without being hampered by transport difficulties. This offensive might be directed either against the front of one of th< two Turkish armies, or from Lake Urmia along the soutlurr shore of Lake Van against the almost unprotected flank of th III. Army. In view of the fact that a new English advance against Bagdad was in preparation, this latter seemed very probable, and Liman von Sanders did rightly in asking the Turkish Supreme Command, in the late autumn of 1916, to hold another army ready at Mosul. The proposal, however, was re- jected by Enver. It would also have been sound policy to have placed the II., III. and VI. Armies (the latter being at Bagdad)! under one command; for the transference of forces betweert Armenian and Bagdad fronts could not be carried out quickly enough from Constantinople, and a junction of the Russian and British fronts by an extension of the former by Urmia and the western frontier of Persia was shortly to bi expected. A Russian offensive from Persia against Mosul would certainly place both the III. and the VI. Turkish Army in a perilous position. The completion of the railway from Igdir by Bayazid to Kara Kilissa and its continuance by Tutak and Melassgirt seemed to indicatei the probability of a Russian offensive against the right of the II. Turkish Army. The offensive against Mosul did not in fact take place; but this omission was a serious error on the part of the Russians and a piece of good fortune for the Turks, on which they had no right to count. However, Liman von Sanders' request for the establishment of a single command was rejected by the Turkish Supreme Command. The relations between Enver and| Liman had in fact gradually become so strained, that Enver made a point of refusing anything that Liman wanted.
The Grand Duke Nicholas had, for his part, been making energetic preparations during the winter of 1916-7 for a powerful new offensive. The III. Turkish Army was opposed by the V. Caucasian, II. Turkestan, and I. Caucasian Corps; the II. Turkish Army by the VI. and IV. Caucasian Corps as far as Van. Thence to the W. of Lake Urmia came the II. Caucasian Cav. Corps and a number of detachments (fortress regiments from Kars, frontier guard units, Armenian and Assyrian irregu- lars). The VII. and I. Caucasian Cav. Corps prolonged the front from Sauj Bulak along the Persian frontier to W. of Kermanshah.
But the Grand Duke's plans, which in view of the wretched condition of the Turkish armies must have led to a complete
