on Batum. The Georgians, however, who, naturally enough, had little sympathy with the Turkish " restorers of order," banded themselves together to oppose their further advance. The latter were not even able to keep a firm hand on insurgent Armenia. Behind their backs Armenian bands even succeeded in occupying Erzerum for a time and thereby interrupting all movement on the Turkish line of communications. Meanwhile Georgian bands had occupied Batum. The Turks attacked the town and stormed the advanced positions on April 9; one fort fell on the loth, two others on the nth, and on the I4th the town surrendered. The Turkish Supreme Command seized the opportunity to telegraph to the world at large the most incredi- ble stories of victory.
Early in April Nuri Pasha, who was now in command of the " East Caucasus " Army, pushed a strong column from Lake Van in the direction of Rare. Vostan, at the S.E. corner, and Amis, at the N.E. corner of the lake, were occupied after violent conflicts with Armenian bands, who fought with the utmost fierceness. Van fell on April 7.
While this column was advancing on Kars by way of Kara Ki- lissa, the Erzerum column, which had been brought to a halt after the above-mentioned capture of Erzerum by Armenian bands, pushed forward by Sarikamish, and the two columns thus converged on Kars. As there was no strategically effective enemy to overcome, the operation was successful, despite the late arrival of the Van force. The Erzerum column approached Kars on April 5, after driving off some Armenian irregulars near Sarikamish; the Van column made slow progress through the revolted province of Bagasia, arriving at Kara Kilissa April 18.
On the z6th the Turkish communiqui reported 'the " storm- ing " of the fortress of Kars (which was apparently undefended) with the capture of 860 guns. This number was considerably in excess of the truth. There is no doubt, however, that the provisions secured in the fortress considerably facilitated the further prosecution of the operations. The column advancing along the coast had meantime pushed on from Batum to Kobu- leti and Ozurgeti on the edge of the Caucasus mountains.
The Turks now felt themselves to be masters of the situation, and their pretensions became so outrageous as to lead to serious controversies with the German Government, which, for the first time in the war, was compelled to protest energetically against their exorbitant claims. It had, however, only itself to blame for their exaggerated estimates of themselves.
In the middle of May the plenipotentiaries of the Govern- ment of Northern Caucasia addressed a note to all the Powers, announcing the formation of an independent state, separated from Russia. Transcaucasia, however, remained in a com- plete state of confusion, though the proclamation of the inde- pendence of the country by the assembly which met early in June at Baku was plainly directed against Turkey. What exactly was meant by Transcaucasia, however, must have been, obscure even to the assembly, for a few days earlier there had been set up under Turkish auspices three independent states, known as the Georgian, Tartar (Azerbaijan) and Armenian Republics. Necessity had compelled all three to conclude treaties of perpetual amity and alliance with Turkey, who had every intention of annexing these weak states at the earliest possible moment.
Enver did everything to strengthen his political army in the Caucasus. Accelerated promotion and doubled pay were prom- ised to the officers serving with it, with the result that many officers, who were urgently required in Palestine, got away from that theatre, where they received no pay at all.
In the summer the Caucasus Army was increased to six complete divisions, which were stronger than they had been at any time since 1914, numbering 9,000 men each. The trans- port of these troops, and their reserves, material and supplies absorbed all the fuel available, so that no trains could be sent to the Palestine Army, on whose fighting force the ultimate decision of the war depended. The Pan-Islamic idea, which had been propagated since the beginning of the war, had produced a com- plete confusion of mind and robbed Enver and his entourage of
the last vestige of that strategic sobriety which alone could no^ save Turkey from ruin. Every week 14 coal trains were sen from Germany to Constantinople; of these seven far more thai were necessary were kept for the use of the capital itself 2,500 tons were shipped by way of the Black Sea to the E Caucasian Army, and the rest was absorbed by the Anatoliai railway or in other words the war profiteers, who filled who! trains with their goods and paid out untold sums in bribes ti the railway officials to give them priority of passage.
The E. Caucasian Army extended itself in Transcaucasi; and N. Persia, from Lake Urmia to Arax, during the course o the summer, without troubling themselves in the least about thi dangerous English offensive against Mosul, where 4,000-5, oo< Turkish soldiers were posted in conditions of the utmost misery
The few events that followed in Transcaucasia were of little military interest, and consisted mainly of a few petty scuffle; without influence on the general situation, and unsuitable foi inclusion in a strategic narrative. Even the despatch of a German division to Georgia in the summer of 1918 had no other objecj than the furtherance of those plans, on the futility of which we have already insisted.
Nuri Pasha, with Bolshevik help, certainly succeeded in expelling from Baku a small British force which had crossed tha Caspian and occupied the town on Aug. 12. This incident however, had no effect on the strategic position. In Persia Nun pushed forward to Tabriz.
The final conclusions as to the Transcaucasian operations may be summed up as follows. The position of Turkey and of tha Central Powers in 1918 was such that a military victory was out of the question. This fact, however, was recognized neither by Ludendorff, who wasted the defensive strength of the German army in a purposeless spring offensive, nor by Enver, who was obsessed by his vast schemes for annexation of territory. The despatch of a strong German division to the Caucasus, and the operations of large German forces in the Ukraine in the summer of 1918, when the war was being lost in France, show the kind of strategic conception then prevalent. In the case of Turkey the theatres of war which had to be supplied with men and material were too numerous for the resources available. When the Rus- sians collapsed in 1918 a wise strategy would have considered the elimination of one theatre of operations as a relief to be) accepted with gratitude, and would have, as a natural conse- quence, transferred all the forces thus liberated to the Palestine front. Such a course would of itself have relieved the pressure on the Mesopotamian front, which could no longer be saved by di- rect means. The underlying idea ought to have been that a I tenable military position in Palestine would have been more favourable, in the event of negotiations for peace, than any conquests in the Caucasus, which would have to be given up again in case of military defeat. Enver, and with him a whole series of Turkish and German military men, had never had that conception of the limits of the possible which is the prime characteristic of every great strategist. They mistook the elabo- ration of immense and impracticable schemes for genius, whereas true genius consists of getting the best possible results from the material available. The events on the E. Anatolian front also 'serve to prove very clearly that strategy is an art not to be mas- tered, even with the best will in the world, by a layman such as Enver, and that it is governed almost entirely by the geograph- ical conditions of the theatre of operations. This should have been recognized by the office strategists of Constantinople, who had no clear grasp of the geographical conditions of the coun- try in general or in detail, and failed to realize that strategical manoeuvres which seem highly promising on the map may be impossible of execution in practice. In the German schools of strategy, and also in Turkey, so-called military geography was before the war treated with complete contempt, as it was be- lieved that it tended to limit freedom of strategic conception. The campaigns in the East proved that freedom of strategic conception, unless based on accurate geographical knowledge, is not only profitless but a fruitful cause of defeat. Finally, the war in Eastern Anatolia may teach us one valuable psychological
