Early Stages of the Campaign
that no operations were possible here with safety, unless both sides had secured themselves against flanking movements of the enemy in the depressions on each side of the plateau.[1] To the North lay the depression of the Chorokh valleys, through which a Turkish army could pass by a short cut into the valleys of the upper Kura and the fertile lands of Georgia, thus cutting off the Caucasian army at Kars from Tiflis. To the South lay the broken country of the Mush and Bitlis vilayets, across which a low range runs parallel with the Taurus and Anti-Taurus. This South Armenian volcanic plateau is much broken up by dykes and irregular outpourings of lava to the North and West of Lake Van.[1] To the South rises the great barrier of the Taurus, passage through which is only possible by the defiles caused by faults and fractures. But a Turkish army, once established in this South Armenian plateau, would be able to break through into the depression of the lower Araxes, and so outflank from the south-east the Russian base on the high plateau at Kars. On the other hand, it is clear that both these depressions, the Chorokh and the South Armenian plateau, could be used by the Russians (as they actually were) to turn the left and right flanks of the Turkish army, based on the highest plateau at Erzerum. The outflanking of the fortress-bases of their enemies was therefore the main problem before the Russian and Turkish Staffs in Greater Armenia.
Farther to the East, on the extreme Russian left and Turkish right, is the relative depression of the north-west Iranian table-land. Azairbijan extends between the basin of the lower Kura in Eastern Trans-Caucasus,
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