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Updated: June 2, 2025
The Ninth and Tenth Corps moved out toward Olty to form an offensive ring, while the Eleventh Corps was to hold the Russian offensive on the Kars-Erzerum road. In case the Russians in the last named region were too strong for the Eleventh Corps to hold, it was to fall back slowly on the fortress of Erzerum, drawing the army of the Grand Duke Nicholas with it.
Not until now, for instance, do we hear of further advances toward Erzingan from the north. It will be recalled that as long ago as February 23, 1916, the Russians occupied the town of Ispir, some fifty miles northwest of Erzerum on the river Chorok.
On May 16, 1916, the Russians announced officially that they had occupied Mama Khatun, a small town on the western Euphrates, about fifty miles west of Erzerum and approximately the same distance from Erzingan.
When he chose he could cover country like an antelope. Soon he struck a big road full of transport. It was the road from Erzerum to the Palantuken pass, and he waited his chance and crossed it. After that the ground grew rough with boulders and patches of thorn-trees, splendid cover where he could move fast without worrying. Then he was pulled up suddenly on the bank of a river.
This is an Armenian town of considerable military importance, being the headquarters of the Fourth Turkish Army Corps. On March 16, 1916, an engagement took place about sixty miles west of Erzerum, resulting in the occupation by the Russians of the town of Mama Khatun, located on the western Euphrates and on the Erzerum-Erzingan-Sivas road.
Sandy's interest in ordinary things was beginning to flicker up again. He studied the map and began to measure distances. 'Peter's going to have a try for it. He thinks there's a sporting chance of his getting through the lines. If he does if he gets this map to the Grand Duke's staff then Stumm's goose is cooked. In three days the Cossacks will be in the streets of Erzerum.
The sight made me mad to get on faster, for I saw that big things were happening in the East. I had reckoned that four days would take us from Angora to Erzerum, but here was the second nearly over and we were not yet a third of the way. I pressed on recklessly, and that hurry was our undoing. I have said that the Studebaker was a rotten old car.
The Buzzards were shepherded in from north and east and south, and now the Muscovite is sitting down outside the forts of Erzerum.
The defences of Erzerum were crumbling like sand-castles, and it was a proof of the tenseness of my nerves that I seemed to be deaf to the sound. Stumm had seen us cross the parapet, and he started to sprinkle all the surroundings of the castrol. Blenkiron and I lay like a working-party between the lines caught by machine-guns, taking a pull on ourselves as best we could.
There were Kurds, long-nosed, lean-lipped and suspicious, who said very little, but hugged long knives as they passed back and forth among the swarming strangers. They said nothing at all, those Kurds, but listened a very great deal. Tall, mustached Circassians, with eighteen-inch Erzerum daggers at their waists, swaggered about as if they, and only they, were history's heirs.
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