army of Iberian mercenaries, entered it and established himself as sovereign. In 1461 Trebizond was taken by Mohammed II, after it had for two centuries been the capital of an empire, having defied all attacks, principally by virtue of its isolated position, between a barrier of rugged mountains of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet and the sea.

As far as capturing important ports of the Turkish left wing was concerned, the victory of Trebizond was an empty one. For the Turks evacuated the town apparently a day or two before the Russians occupied it. The latter, therefore, had only the capture of "some 6-inch guns" to report. This quick evacuation, at any rate, was fortunate for the town and its inhabitants, for it saved them from a bombardment and the town did not suffer at all as a result of the military operations.

The campaign resulting in the fall of Trebizond did really not begin until after the fall of Erzerum on February 16, 1916. Up to that time the Russian Caucasian army had apparently been satisfied to maintain strong defensive positions along the Turkish border. But since the occupation of Erzerum a definite plan of a well-developed offensive was followed looking toward the acquisition of Turkish territory which had long been coveted by Russia.

With the fall of Trebizond Russia became the possessor, at least temporarily, of a strip of territory approximately 125 miles wide along a front of almost 250 miles length, or of an area of 31,250 square miles. In the north this valuable acquisition was bounded by that part of the south shore of the Black Sea that stretches from Batum in Russian Transcaucasia to Trebizond. In the south it practically reached the Turko-Persian frontier, while in the west it almost reached the rough line formed by the upper Euphrates and the upper Tigris. It thus comprised the larger part of Armenia. As soon as the Russians had found out that the Turks had a start of almost two days, they began an energetic pursuit. The very first day of it, April 19, 1916, brought them into contact with Turkish rear guards and resulted in the capture of a considerable number of them. The retreat of the Turks took a southwesterly direction toward

Baiburt along the Trebizond-Erzerum road and toward Erzingan, to which a road branches off the Trebizond-Erzerum road. Baiburt was held by the Turks with a force strong enough to make it impossible for the Russians to cut off the Trebizond garrison. Along the coast the Russians found only comparatively weak resistance, so that they were able to land fresh forces west of Trebizond and occupy the town of Peatana, about ten miles to the west on the Black Sea.

A desperate struggle, however, developed for the possession of the Trebizond-Erzerum road. The Russians had been astride this road for some time as far as Madan Khan and Kop, both about fifty miles northwest of Erzerum and just this side of Baiburt. There the Turks put up a determined resistance and succeeded in holding up the Russian advance. Although they were not equally successful farther north, the Russians managed to advance along this road to the south of Trebizond only as far as Jeyizlik-about sixteen miles south of Trebizondwhere they were forced into the mountains toward the Kara Dere River. This left still the larger part of the entire road in possession of the Turks, and especially that part from which another road branched off to Erzingan.

In the Mush and Bitlis region the Russians had made satisfactory progress in the meantime. On April 19, 1916, progress was reported to the south of Bitlis toward Sert, although the Turks fought hard to hold up this advance toward Diarbekr. This advance was the direct result of the defeat which the Russians had inflicted on a Turkish division at Bitlis as early as April 15, 1916. By April 23, 1916, the Turks had again gathered some strength and were able to report that they had repulsed Russian attacks south of Bitlis, west of Mush, east of Baiburt, and south of Trebizond. From then on, however, the Russians again advanced to the south of Bitlis as well as in the direction of Erzingan. By the beginning of May, 1916, the Russian official statements do not speak any longer of the "region south of Bitlis," but mention instead "the front toward Diarbekr." This important town is about 100 miles southwest of Bitlis, and apparently had become, after the fall of Trebizond, together with

Erzingan, one of the immediate objectives of the Russian campaign.

Diarbekr is a town of 35,000 inhabitants, whose importance arises from its being the meeting point of the roads from the Mediterranean via Aleppo and Damascus from the Black Sea via Amasia-Kharput, and Erzerum and from the Persian Gulf via Bagdad. Ras-el-Ain, the present railhead of the Bagdad railway, is seventy miles south.

The stiffening of the Turkish defensive was being maintained as April, 1916, waned and May approached. The Russian campaign in the Caucasus had resolved itself now into three distinctive parts: In the north its chief objective, Trebizond, had been reached and gained. There further progress, of course, would be attempted along the shore of the Black Sea, and in a way it was easier to achieve progress here than at any other part of the Caucasian front. For first of all the nature of the ground along the coast of the Black Sea was much less difficult, and then, too, the Russian naval forces could supply valuable assistance. That progress was not made faster here by the Russians was due entirely to the fact that the advance along the two other sectors was more difficult and the Turkish resistance more desperate. And, of course, if the front of any one sector was pushed considerably ahead of the front of the other two, grave danger immediately arose that the most advanced sector would be cut off from the rest of the Russian armies by flank movements. For in a country such as Turkish Armenia, without railroads and with only a few roads, it was of course impossible to establish a continuous front line, such as was to be formed on the European battle fields both in the east and west. This explains why by May 1, 1916, the Russian front had been pushed less than twentyfive miles west of Trebizond, even though almost two weeks had elapsed since the fall of Trebizond.

In the center sector the immediate objective of the Russians was Erzingan. Beyond that they undoubtedly hoped to advance to Swas, an important Turkish base. Toward this objective two distinct lines of offensive had developed by now-one along the valley of the river Oborok and the other along the Erzerum

Erzingan road and the valley of the western Euphrates. The latter was somewhat more successful than the former, chiefly because it did not offer so many natural means of defense. But to both of these offensives the Turks now offered a most determined resistance, and the Russians, though making progress continuously, did so only very slowly.

In the southern sector conditions were very similar. Here, too, two separate offensives had developed, although they were more closely correlated than in the center. One was directed in a southwestern direction from Mush, and the other in the same direction from Bitlis. Both had as their objective Diarbekr, an important trading center on the Tigris and a future station on the unfinished part of the Bagdad railroad. Here, too, Russian progress was fairly continuous but very slow.

Some interesting details regarding the tremendous difficulties which nature put in the way of any advancing army, and which were utilized by the Turks to their fullest possibility, may be gleaned from the following extracts from letters written by Russian officers serving at the Caucasian front:

"We have traveled sixty miles in two days, and never have we been out of sight of the place from whence we started. South and north we have scouted until we have come into touch with the cavalry of the Corps of the vedettes which the CosBrigade. Sometimes

sacks of the Don furnished for the it is wholly impossible to ride. The slopes of these hills are covered with huge bowlders, behind any of which half a company of the enemy might be lurking. That has been our experience, and poor K- was shot dead while leading his squadron across a quite innocent-looking plateau from which we thought the enemy had been driven.

"As it turned out, a long line of bowlders, which he thought were too small to hide anything but a sniper, in reality marked a rough trench line which a Kurdish regiment was holding in strength, K― was shot down, as also was his lieutenant, and half the squadron were left on the ground. Fortunately, at the foot of the road leading down to the plateau, the sergeant who led the men out of action found one of our Caucasian regi

ments who are used to dealing with the fezzes, and they came up at the double, and after two hours' fighting were reenforced by another two companies and carried the trench.

"Farther back we found the enemy in a stronger plateau. Almost within sight of the enemy we made tea and rested before attempting to push forward to the fight.

"An officer of the staff who does not understand the Caucasian way reproved the colonel for delaying, but he took a very philosophical view, and pointed out that it was extremely doubtful whether he even now had men enough to carry the enormous position, and that he certainly could not do so with exhausted troops. So we had the extraordinary spectacle of our men lying down flat, blowing their fires and drinking their tea and laughing and joking as though they were at a picnic, but when they had finished and had formed up they made short work of the fellows in the trench. But think of what would have happened if we had left this plateau unsearched!"

"On the Baiburt road," writes another Russian officer, "there was one small pass which had been roughly reconnoitered, and through this we were moving some of the heavy guns, not imagining that there were any Turks within ten miles, when a heavy fire was opened from a fir wood a thousand feet above us. The limbers of the guns were a long way in the rear, and there was no way of shelling this enemy from his aerie. There was nothing to do but for the battalion which was acting as escort to the guns to move up the slope under a terrific machine-gun and rifle fire and investigate the strength of the attack. The guns were left on the road, and mules and horses were taken to whatever cover could be found, and an urgent message was sent back to the effect that the convoy was held up, but the majority of the infantry had already passed the danger point. Two mountain batteries were commandeered, however, and these came into action, firing incendiary shells into the wood, which was soon blazing at several points.

"The battle which then began between the Turks who had been ejected from the wood and the gun escort lasted for the greater part of the afternoon. It was not until sunset that two of our