The Erzerum Offensive
Kargar-bazar, across the Passan plain, and the heights of the Palan-teken to the valley of Khunus.[1] The line was some 130 miles long, and it had to be covered by two Army Corps and some detached forces. All the different sections of the line had to keep in touch with each other, and to advance over snow-bound plateau or icy mountain skree, whichever fell to their lot, thus gradually converging upon the great fortress, and threatening to surround it. The object of General Eudenitch, in this most ably conceived and brilliantly executed plan, was to force Abdulla Kerim Pasha either to evacuate Erzerum, or else to be locked up in it with no hope of relief. It is safe to say that the struggle was much greater in this operation with the natural enemies, cold and hunger, than it was with the Turks. The Russian troops had to cross mountain ranges with deep snow-drifts at 10,000 feet, and to go for at least three days cut off from supplies of food, with nothing but the few crusts of bread they could carry with them. No other race of human beings, except those accustomed to the cold of sub-arctic climates like that of Russia, could have performed this feat. The Anatolian Turk is in no degree inferior to the Russian in physical endurance, but he lacks the habit of husbanding his resources. The Russian, whenever he gets the smallest chance, sets himself down in some little hollow, and somehow or other makes himself a cup of tea by burning bits of grass or moss. But the Turkish soldier literally goes without anything for two or three days, and then eats a whole sheep or a perfect mountain of "pilaff," so that he cannot move for hours. Moreover, the Turkish army has in
- ↑ See Map.
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