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British
leave Baku
September 20, 1918
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On August 26 a determined
Turkish attack was beaten off by men of the North Staffords and Worcesters
who had, however, to give ground, though fighting gallantly
|
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Accessibility LinksSkip to content British leave Baku
On August 26 a determined Turkish attack was beaten off by men of the North Staffords and Worcesters who had, however, to give ground, though fighting gallantly
The British force sent from Persia across the Caspian Sea to Baku has been withdrawn owing to the defection of the local Armenian population, at whose urgent request it was sent. During the period of five or six weeks that it has been at Bala it has seen a good deal of heavy fighting, the Turks having made determined attempts to take the town. Owing to the feebleness of the local support its position became a perilous one, and the news that it has been able to effect its retreat has removed a feeling of considerable anxiety which prevailed among those who were aware of the circumstances.
The history of the expedition begins with the overthrow of the Bolshevists at Baku on the night of July 25. A new Government was set up, and sent a request for British aid, asking for the dispatch of Staff officers, instructors, and troops immediately. This aid was dispatched across the Caspian from Enzeli, whither the Bakti Government had sent transports for their embarcation. In the nature of things, however, it could only be a small force. General Marshall’s long line of communications, extending from the Caspian across Persia into the Mesopotamian plain and down the Tigris to Basra, was over 1,000 miles in length, and the force that he was able to send to Baku was only intended to provide a stiffening for the defence.
The local troops at Baku numbered about 7,500 Armenians and 3,000 Russians. Moreover, there was always a danger arising from the fact that the shipping on the Caspian was not under our control, and Baku is 200 miles from Enzeli. Loyal cooperation by the Russians controlling the shipping was necessary, and it appears at first to have been withheld by the newly formed Central Caspian Government, who appeared to think that no further effort was required after the arrival of the small British detachment. The Armenian troops also very soon proved unreliable, for on August 17 they refused to fight and dispersed to their homes, causing the failure of a local attack organized against a Turkish enveloping movement north of Baku. On August 26 a determined Turkish attack was beaten off by men of the North Staffords and Worcesters, who had, however, to give ground, though fighting gallantly, and a second attack on another sector was also repulsed.
ARMENIANS SAVED BY BRITISH By the end of August it was realized that the cooperation of the local Government and forces would not be sufficiently effective to justify the retention of our small detachment in Baku in the face of the numbers which the enemy would be able to collect with his superior communications, and on September I deSnite orders were issued for the evacuation of the British troops. But on the same day the Turks again attacked, and our Alliel again failed to cooperate, with the result that the Royal Warwickshire Regiment had to cover the Armenian and Russian retirement, and it is feared that they lost heavily. On September 2 the Russian General Bitcharakoff occupied Petrovsk, on the shores of the Caspia, 200 miles to the north, and promised to send reinforcements to Baku. Ships were sent from Baku to bring them. The first small detachment of Bitcharakoff’s troops actually arrived at Baku on September 9. The comparative inactivity of the enemy and this premise of reinforcements, while temporarily giving us breathing space, tended to improve the moral of our Allies, strengthening their wish to hold on to Baku, and induced the fleet, which was still in Russian hands, to refuse permission for a British evacuation. In the meanwhile the Armenians were negotiating to hand over the town to the enemy, which caused the fleet to train their guns on the Armenian quarter. The Turks have recently advanced 100 miles from Tabriz as far as Jemalabad, and our detachment which was watching them on this road has retired. |
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Turkey
surrenders
November 1, 1918
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Turkey did not surrender
in consequence of recent events in Europe. She hoisted the white flag because
she had been thoroughly and conclusively beaten in the field
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| At noon yesterday an armistice between the Allies and Turkey, signed on the previous evening at Mudros, came into operation and brought our campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia to a happy and victorious conclusion. The one has ended with the brilliant capture of Aleppo by General Allenby, and the other by General Marshal’s capture of the entire Turkish force opposed to him on the Tigris, on the very day on which the armistice was signed. Turkey, whose strength has been fast ebbing for some time, has thus yielded to an overwhelming military defeat in both the Eastern theatres of war. Her Palestine Army has been entirely destroyed and a similar fate has befallen the limited forces she was able to put into line in Mesopotamia. |
It is well that this point should be emphasized at once. Turkey did not primarily surrender in consequence of recent events in Europe, though the collapse of Bulgaria unquestionably hastened her decision, because it exposed her to imminent menace through Thrace. She hoisted the white flag because she had been thoroughly and conclusively beaten in the field, was utterly unable to continue fighting, and could look for no help from her defeated confederates. In its later stages her overthrow has been almost exclusively the work of Great Britain, and it was fitting that she should tender her submission to a British Admiral, for it is the dominant power of the Royal Navy which alone has made possible the splendid triumphs of the British and the Indian Arnies in the East.
The full terms of the armistice are not yet disclosed, but they include free passage for the Allied Fleets through the Bosporus to the Black Sea; occupation of the forts in the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus necessary to secure their passage; and immediate repatriation of all Allied prisoners of war. The number of British and Indian prisoners in Turkish hands is said to be between nine and ten thousand.
It must be observed once again that these terms of armistice should be carefully distinguished from the conditions of peace, which have still to be considered and will form part of the general settlement. The object of the armistice terms is to ensure that in no circumstances will Turkey be in a position to renew hostilities (which she has not the smallest desire to do), and to obtain freedom of action in Turkish waters and territory, where required, in order to dispose of enemies still bearing arms against the Allies. The seizure of the two straits, and the placing of Constantinople under the guns of the Allied Fleets, will sufficiently provide for the principal naval and military requirements of the Allies. Great Britain already holds Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia.
The hour of Rumania’s rescue is at hand, and the approaching Allied command of the Black Sea should sound the death-knell of the Bolshevist tyranny in Russia. Looking back, we doubt whether it would have been possible to avoid a rupture with Turkey. The gang of adventurers who had grasped power were determined to do Germany’s bidding, and Constantinople was saturated with German influence and intrigue.
We shall not discuss afresh here the question whether Great Britain and her Allies were right in attacking the Dardanelles, rather than some other point, such as Alexandretta, or than throwing their strength into Serbia early in the war. Clearly, however, they were entirely right in carrying hostilities into the East. France and Belgium have always been the principal and the definitive theatres, but the menace of Turkey could not be neglected, and had Turkey been defeated early, as she might have been, the war would probably have been greatly shortened, Russia might not have been permanently isolated, Bulgaria might not have taken the wrong turning, and Rumania might have been saved. Our broad mistake was that, having decided to attack in the East, we never did so in sufficient strength.
The mistakes of the Dardanelles campaign are familiar enough, but two points are worth recalling at the moment. The first is that there was a moment when, on Chunuk, Bair and Sari Bair, our immediate object was almost attained. The second is that, as we discovered in later years, the flower of the Turkish Army was broken at Gallipoli. Our men did not fall in vain on the beaches of death and at Anzac. We lost the campaign, but Turkey never recovered from it. As for the Mesopotamian enterprise, it was a strange blend of pathetic failure and shining success. We drifted into it almost unawares and we can now see that it would have served our purpose far better if we had simply seized the Tigris-Euphrates delta and thrown into Palestine the troops we locked up in Mesopotamia.
The Palestine campaign began badly, because at first it was not taken seriously. From the moment, however, that General Allenby began to march, he never once had to look back. He destroyed the Turkish Army by one of the finest examples of generalship eyer witnessed, and on the day that he cut the Baghdad Railway at Muslimie, Mesopotamia was lost to the Turks. One of the first consequences of Turkey’s submission may conceivably be a naval battle in the Black Sea. The Germans have seized the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which includes two Dreadnoughts of 22,500 tons, completed in 1914; seven older battleships and protected cruisers, mostly armed with 12-inch guns; ten destroyers, and some submarines. There is also the notorious Dreadnought Goeben, the possession of which gave Enver and his confederates the chance they sought. The Germans are said to have promised not to use the Russian warships for hostile purposes, but no German promise is more worthless than this.
Whether the vessels are now fit to go into battle, whether they are manned by German crews, are matters on which no public information is forthcoming. That they are doomed is certain, and we may leave the rest to the Allied fleets. That the doom of active German influence in the Near and Middle East was sealed at Mudros is almost equally certain. The Deutsche Bank significantly announced a few days ago that it had written down its Turkish engagements to £250,000. Herr Weitz, a German journalist of some repute and much experience in Turkish affairs, mournfully told his countrymen recently that “during these four precious years” nothing had been done at Stambul “to win the new sympathies that were necessary for us.” He saw the handwriting on the wall. The Pan-German plot in the East is shattered, we think forever. The Baghdad Railway is in Allied hands. The alternative route through the Black Sea is about to be barred. Whatever the future of Turkey maybe, it is unlikely that Germany will again have any part or lot in it.
We shall indulge in no speculations as yet regarding the peace conditions likely to be imposed upon the Turks. In certain respects they are already known and universally endorsed by the Allies. The opening of the Dardanelles to the ships and commerce of aU nations under international guarantees is part of President Wilson’s twelfth point. The liberation of the unhappy subject races of the Turk is already in great measure attained by force of arms. The peoples of Arabia, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria are delivered from the duress of centuries, and it is imperative that the remnant of the Armenian nation, whose past sufferings no words can tell, shall be given equally full freedom at once.
The full terms of the armistice are not yet disclosed, but they include free passage for the Allied Fleets through the Bosporus to the Black Sea; occupation of the forts in the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus necessary to secure their passage; and immediate repatriation of all Allied prisoners of war. The number of British and Indian prisoners in Turkish hands is said to be between nine and ten thousand.
It must be observed once again that these terms of armistice should be carefully distinguished from the conditions of peace, which have still to be considered and will form part of the general settlement. The object of the armistice terms is to ensure that in no circumstances will Turkey be in a position to renew hostilities (which she has not the smallest desire to do), and to obtain freedom of action in Turkish waters and territory, where required, in order to dispose of enemies still bearing arms against the Allies. The seizure of the two straits, and the placing of Constantinople under the guns of the Allied Fleets, will sufficiently provide for the principal naval and military requirements of the Allies. Great Britain already holds Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia.
The hour of Rumania’s rescue is at hand, and the approaching Allied command of the Black Sea should sound the death-knell of the Bolshevist tyranny in Russia. Looking back, we doubt whether it would have been possible to avoid a rupture with Turkey. The gang of adventurers who had grasped power were determined to do Germany’s bidding, and Constantinople was saturated with German influence and intrigue.
The mistakes of the Dardanelles campaign are familiar enough, but two points are worth recalling at the moment. The first is that there was a moment when, on Chunuk, Bair and Sari Bair, our immediate object was almost attained. The second is that, as we discovered in later years, the flower of the Turkish Army was broken at Gallipoli. Our men did not fall in vain on the beaches of death and at Anzac. We lost the campaign, but Turkey never recovered from it. As for the Mesopotamian enterprise, it was a strange blend of pathetic failure and shining success. We drifted into it almost unawares and we can now see that it would have served our purpose far better if we had simply seized the Tigris-Euphrates delta and thrown into Palestine the troops we locked up in Mesopotamia.
The Palestine campaign began badly, because at first it was not taken seriously. From the moment, however, that General Allenby began to march, he never once had to look back. He destroyed the Turkish Army by one of the finest examples of generalship eyer witnessed, and on the day that he cut the Baghdad Railway at Muslimie, Mesopotamia was lost to the Turks. One of the first consequences of Turkey’s submission may conceivably be a naval battle in the Black Sea. The Germans have seized the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which includes two Dreadnoughts of 22,500 tons, completed in 1914; seven older battleships and protected cruisers, mostly armed with 12-inch guns; ten destroyers, and some submarines. There is also the notorious Dreadnought Goeben, the possession of which gave Enver and his confederates the chance they sought. The Germans are said to have promised not to use the Russian warships for hostile purposes, but no German promise is more worthless than this.
Whether the vessels are now fit to go into battle, whether they are manned by German crews, are matters on which no public information is forthcoming. That they are doomed is certain, and we may leave the rest to the Allied fleets. That the doom of active German influence in the Near and Middle East was sealed at Mudros is almost equally certain. The Deutsche Bank significantly announced a few days ago that it had written down its Turkish engagements to £250,000. Herr Weitz, a German journalist of some repute and much experience in Turkish affairs, mournfully told his countrymen recently that “during these four precious years” nothing had been done at Stambul “to win the new sympathies that were necessary for us.” He saw the handwriting on the wall. The Pan-German plot in the East is shattered, we think forever. The Baghdad Railway is in Allied hands. The alternative route through the Black Sea is about to be barred. Whatever the future of Turkey maybe, it is unlikely that Germany will again have any part or lot in it.
We shall indulge in no speculations as yet regarding the peace conditions likely to be imposed upon the Turks. In certain respects they are already known and universally endorsed by the Allies. The opening of the Dardanelles to the ships and commerce of aU nations under international guarantees is part of President Wilson’s twelfth point. The liberation of the unhappy subject races of the Turk is already in great measure attained by force of arms. The peoples of Arabia, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria are delivered from the duress of centuries, and it is imperative that the remnant of the Armenian nation, whose past sufferings no words can tell, shall be given equally full freedom at once.
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The Allied
Fleets at Constantinople
November 14, 1918
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The failure of 1915 has
now been made good. The way into the Black Sea is clear, and great results
must quickly follow the appearance of the Allied Fleets off the Golden Horn
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| The Allied Fleets arrived off Constantinople yesterday morning, having passed through the Dardanelles on Tuesday. This is the fourth time in little more than a century that naval forces under the command of a British admiral have traversed the famous straits by right of arms. Admiral Duckworth forced the straits in 1807, and had to fight his way out again. The Turkish batteries chiefly fired stone cannon-balls, but so great is the natural strength of the channel that even this primitive artillery proved a serious factor on the return passage. Admiral Hornby steamed through in a snowstorm in 1878, and, though his fleet was not molested, the crews stood to their guns, and did not learn till afterwards that the Turks had decided not to fire. The failure of 1915 has now been made good. The way into the Black Sea is clear, and great results must quickly follow the appearance of the Allied Fleets off the Golden Horn. By opening up the Rumanian coast and the mouth of the Danube the Allies will complete the task of the liberation of Rumania, though in effect Rumania is free already, and her German garrison under Marshal von Mackensen is seeking a pathway home. When Admiral Calthorpe arrives off Odessa and Sebastopol the Allies will have a gateway into Russia, and our coming entry into the Baltic should help to lift the clouds which still lie heavy over Petrograd. |
The German route through the Black Sea to the Middle East has already vanished, with the collapse of our principal foe. The wheel has come full circle, and the tragic isolation of Russia is at an end. The announcement that British and Indian troops now garrison the Gallipoli forts, and paraded as the ships passed, closes the grim but glorious story which began in 1915. We believe, and are glad to know, that Anzac units were among the forces which witnessed from the shore this historic episode. If Great Britain recalls with mournful pride the heroic battle of the beaches, the blood-stained heights of Anzac will always be hallowed in the history of Australia and New Zealand.
Probably the earlier attempt to force the straits by an unsupported naval attack will remain a subject of acute controversy. That the actual passage could have been made at the moment Turkey went to war with us is reasonably clear. That a repetition of the naval attack of March 18 might have produced decisive results is a far less tenable proposition. What is undoubtedly true is that the land campaign at Gallipoli came within measurable distance of success on August 8. Had the storming of Chunuk Bair and the slopes of Sari Bair been adequately supported by the new sanding on the left flank, the Narrows might conceivably have been won. Only now, when all is over, can we fully see what immense possibilities lay behind the desperate struggles before Achi Baba and the Pasha Dagh; but we also know now that, though we failed, the men who fought at Gallipoli in 1915 broke the military strength of Turkey. She barred our path, but spent the flower of her Army in the effort, and never recovered from it.
Probably the earlier attempt to force the straits by an unsupported naval attack will remain a subject of acute controversy. That the actual passage could have been made at the moment Turkey went to war with us is reasonably clear. That a repetition of the naval attack of March 18 might have produced decisive results is a far less tenable proposition. What is undoubtedly true is that the land campaign at Gallipoli came within measurable distance of success on August 8. Had the storming of Chunuk Bair and the slopes of Sari Bair been adequately supported by the new sanding on the left flank, the Narrows might conceivably have been won. Only now, when all is over, can we fully see what immense possibilities lay behind the desperate struggles before Achi Baba and the Pasha Dagh; but we also know now that, though we failed, the men who fought at Gallipoli in 1915 broke the military strength of Turkey. She barred our path, but spent the flower of her Army in the effort, and never recovered from it.
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