CHAPTER II
THE ERZERUM OFFENSIVE
(February 1916)
We have seen in the last chapter that the war on the Asiatic front began unsuccessfully for Russia with the big Turkish advance at Sary-Kamish. Even after the defeat and capture of Ishkhan Pasha, the threat of Turkish invasion of the Caucasus was still imminent. But towards the Spring of 1915 the Caucasus army was strengthened by bringing the 2nd Caucasus Army Corps from the European front, where it had been sent on the first day of mobilization. Also by this time the formation of the 2nd Turkestan Army was completed; and this brought up the numbers of the Russians to about 70,000. But the Turks with their three Corps of the Armenian Army (9th, 10th, and 11th) numbering 80,000, and with 40,000 irregulars in the Van basin and near the Black Sea, were still in superior strength, and in a position to assume the offensive at any moment. This was done, as we have seen, by Halil Bey with his Constantinople division in North-west Persia during May, and later in the Van basin in July. Fear of an invasion of the Caucasus, and of the serious effect which this might produce in Asiatic Russia, was undoubtedly one of the motives which inspired the Anglo-French expedition to
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