Staged) Fallen Ottoman soldier who froze to death during the Battle of Sarikamish, 1914



(Staged) Fallen Ottoman soldier who froze to death during the Battle of Sarikamish, 1914.

Today 109 years ago, on December 22, 1914, the Battle of Sarikamish (Sarıkamış) began, the bloodiest battle on the Caucasus Front, between the Ottomans and the Russians.

Having entered the war with the Central Powers in November 1914, Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha sought to recapture Ottoman territory lost to the Russians in the war of 1877 - 1878, most notable the cities of Kars and Sarikamish.

An offensive against the Russians would also help the Germans and Austro-Hungarians on the Eastern Front. A Russian defeat would have disastrous consequences, and the Germans supplied the Ottomans for this offensive.

The problem was the territory the Ottomans had to cross; cold, rocky mountains in the winter, with roads difficult for transporting resources and troops. Nevertheless, the offensive was carried out.

On December 22, 1914, the Ottoman 3rd Army of 118,000 soldiers, split into the 9th, 10th and 11th Army Corps, crossed the Caucasian mountains and headed for Sarikamish. The Russians at Sarikamish were 60,000 men strong.

Although the Ottoman soldiers did receive winter clothing, it wasn't sufficient to protect them from the cold conditions, and thousands of them suffered.

The 9th and 11th Corps pushed the Russians back from the mountains to Sarikamish itself, the Russians also suffering from the extreme cold. The 10th Corps was stuck in the cold mountains and thousands died in the cold.

On December 29, the 9th and 11th Corps attacked the Russians at Sarikamish itself, but were exhausted, starving, and short of ammunition too. The Ottoman assaults at Sarikamish completely failed, and they were pushed back by Russian counter-attacks, who were also being supplied with constant reinforcements. 

More Details

By this time, the Russians began an encircling maneuver on the Ottoman 9th Army Corps, and the encirclement was complete on January 6, as they captured the remains of the 9th Army Corps. The surviving Ottomans withdrew, and the Battle of Sarikamish was over.

Ottoman casualties in the Battle of Sarikamish have been a controversial topic over the years. Some say that out of the 118,000 Ottoman troops who went in, as well as the attempted relief forces, the Ottomans had suffered about 100,000 casualties, with the Russians claiming they found 30,000 frozen Ottoman bodies after the battle.

Others, namely Turks, say that these statistics have been exaggerated over the years, and that the Ottomans suffered more around 60,000 - 70,000 total casualties with 43,000 killed,  mostly to the cold.

The Russians suffered some 16,000 battle casualties and 12,000 casualties to the cold.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks

Image
  Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks War crimes experts say they have huge cache of photos documenting mass killing by Assad; Syrian FM arrives in Switzerland, says Assad's future a 'red line' In this June 12, 2011 photo during a government-organized tour for media, Syrian army soldiers show reporters dead bodies after they claimed that they are policemen who were killed by gunmen, near the city's Military Police building, in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus, Syria. (photo credit: AP/Bassem Tellawi) Syria’s conflict was sparked by an act of brutality — the detention and torture of schoolchildren who spray-painted anti-government graffiti in a southern city. In the three years since, the conflict has evolved into one of the most savage civil wars in decades. The atrocities have been relentless. Protesters gunned down in the streets. An opposition singer whose vocal cords were carved out. Beheadings and mass sectarian killings. Barrels f...
Read more

A horrific video of two women being paraded naked on a road by a group of men in Manipur

Image
 A horrific video of two women being paraded naked on a road by a group of men in Manipur has been shared widely on social media, drawing massive condemnation and calls for action. The two women were gang-raped in a field, a tribal organisation has alleged. The incident happened on May 4 in Kangpokpi district, some 35 km from state capital Imphal, according a statement by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF). A day before this on-camera horror, clashes broke out between the valley-majority Meitei and the hill-majority Kuki tribe over the Meiteis' demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status. When media contacted the women, she told them that "the mob assaulted us, asking them “to strip off our clothes”. “When we resisted, they told me: ‘if you don’t take off your clothes, we will kill you". "The horrifying ordeal suffered by these innocent women is amplified by the perpetrators' decision to share the video, which shows the identity of the victims, on s...
Read more

A man born without a penis just got a new 'bionic' one that will let him have sex for the first time ever.

Image
  A man born without a penis just got a new 'bionic' one that will let him have sex for the first time ever . Because of a rare birth defect, Andrew Wardle was born with his bladder outside his body — and without a penis. Last Friday, Wardle underwent the last in a series of surgeries that gave him a totally new penis, the Daily Mail reported. The new organ is made from some of his own tissue and an implant that will help him have erections.  After recovering, he will be able to have sex for the first time in his life.  INSIDER spoke to Wardle (and a doctor who's researched penile reconstruction) to learn more about the surgery.  Warning: this article contains language describing a suicide attempt and a graphic post-surgery photo.  Andrew Wardle is popularly known as the man born without a penis.  Because of a rare birth defect, Wardle was born with his bladder outside his body and with no penis. And for the past f...
Read more

The execution of women by the Nazis during World War II

Image
The execution of women by the Nazis during World War II This is a tribute to the amazing courage of so many young women during World War II who were put to death for plotting and fighting against the Nazis, as resistance fighters, partisans and activists in towns and concentration camps. It is estimated that more than 4,000 women of various ages were hanged by Nazi forces between 1939 and 1945. Many more were shot or guillotined and many were tortured before minimal or non-existent trials.  They could be sentenced to death by People's Courts and executed within prisons, by the commandants of concentration camps or by military commanders in the field and summarily executed, usually in public. Some of these "field" executions were documented and photographed.  A lot of the photographs were private snaps taken by individual soldiers and discovered after they had been captured or killed. Hanging was the preferred method for the execution for partisans as it produced more...
Read more

Davy Crockett's older sister, Effie Crockett was invited to help some mothers in the Muskogee Tribe.

Image
 Just a twist- Davy Crockett's older sister, Effie Crockett was invited to help some mothers in the Muskogee Tribe.  Once she arrived in camp, Effie laughed at what she saw. The Muskogee Tribe had a custom of cradling their pappooses among the swaying branches of birch trees. This protected their babies from ground insects, the sun, and wild animals.  After first finding it funny, she soon learned all the great reasons for this practice and marveled at the beauty of it.  Effie watched the swaying and soothing motion of the topmost branches of the trees. She loved how each baby enjoyed nature, how they listened to the songbirds, observed every ladybug, and smiled at the colors of a butterfly, every little breeze was felt and enjoyed by these young ones; each babe seemed perfectly content.  One of the Tribal mothers began to sing a song to the children in her native tongue. As the Muskogee mother sang, Miss Effie observed a small tear running down the mother’s che...
Read more

The capture of brave Russian officer Rosinski

Image
The capture of brave Russian officer Rosinski This is a shocking image and I apologize in advance for sharing it, but here’s one that truly got to me… in Belarus, 1918, after WWI had already ended, the brave Russian officer Rosinski was captured by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks tortured the captain, likely to get information out of the man, which he bravely refused to give. After that, they simply continued with the torture out of some sick sense of innate cruelty. He was ‘the enemy’ and he was at their mercy, so they brutally murdered their captive. The brave captain was emasculated. And anally impaled on a tree branch. All this while still alive. Alfred Savoir, the man who published the picture and was an eye witness to the death of the brave military officer, described "M. B.", who ordered this atrocity, thus: I knew him not long ago; he was a charming teenager with an ironic wit and joker. He was rubbed with French culture, he admired the novels of Barres and h...
Read more

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Image
 James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) with his mother, Lucille, in 1943. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music". Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bas...
Read more

The Nazi Occupation in Poland

Image
  The Nazi Occupation in Poland This picture has been taken by a German soldier... a "souvenir". W hen the German army invaded Poland in September 1939, the Nazis were determinated to transform Poland into a huge reserve of slave labor ready to be used by the German war industry. In order to reach this goal, the Nazis adopted a policy immediately: To exterminate the Polish elite (professors, lawyers, scientists, etc...). To exterminate any potential opponent. To close all places of education (school, college, universities) excepting professional schools. To forbid any cultural or political activities under death sentence. To create an exclusively German Zone by confiscating all private property and or simply killing the original Polish population. D uring the winter of 1939, the Polish elite and anybody who had a role in the cultural or scientific life in Poland is exterminated: "the slaves don't need culture". At the same time, the entire population of...
Read more

A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful

Image
  A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramović is the woman many credit as "the grandmother of performance art." She was featured on Sex and the City and collaborated with James Franco. Somehow, her celebrated 1988 art piece, "The Lovers: the Great Wall Walk" — in which she and her longtime lover and collaborator Ulay started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, to meet in the middle as a way of signaling the break up of their 12-year relationship — seems like something that happened over a million years ago now. In light of the events going on in the world today, her work may perhaps be more intensely important now than it ever has been before, particularly if you are either a woman or someone with a sincere interested in understanding the depth of what women experience. The premise was deceptively simple. Abramović announced that she would stan...
Read more

‘Father never spoke much about the war.’

Image
  ‘Father never spoke much about the war.’ Joe Wood enlisted in 1915 because he saw it as a chance to return to England to see his mother.  Rather, Joe found himself on the Western Front in 1916. He survived Fromelles, but near Ypres in 1917 he was severely wounded in the thigh. Joe pretended he was dead until he was rescued.  Attempts to save his leg failed, and it had to be amputated.  Returning to Australia in 1919, Joe did not receive a pension because authorities deemed he could still earn a living. He had to work in a small-arms factory in Lithgow to ‘make ends meet’.  Joe’s daughter, Nola, said her father possessed a wicked sense of humour, but never spoke about the war. ‘And he never complained even though often he was clearly in a lot of pain.’  Joe was issued a wooden leg but didn’t like to wear it - instead he used it was an umbrella stand. Or when first living in a boarding house, he would leave it in his unmade bed to scare the housekeeper....
Read more