396 
THE WAR BETWEEN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 
Left 'Flank Detachment. 
Major-General Duchovski. 
Major-General Scheremetieff. 
12 sotnias. 
§ Cossack Battery. 
Against Forts Mekhrab 
and Diuz. 
4th Battalion, 16th Grenadiers. 
Against Fort Akhali. A 
2 nd Battalion, 16th Grenadiers. 
3rd Sapper Battalion. 
From the Giilawerdi Hill against Fort Singher. 
General Hermann. 
Left Wing. 
1st & 2nd Battns., 153rd Regt. 
Fight Wing. 
1 st, 2nd, and 4th Battalions, 
13th Grenadiers. 
4th Comp., 1st Sapper Battn. 
Deserve. 
3rd Battalion, 13th Grenadiers. 
lst&3rd Btn., 15th Grenadiers. 
General DevePs column made a demonstration from the left bank 
against Fort Ramazan. At 6 a.m. the four columns advanced against 
the forts, none of whose garrisons tried to oppose the bayonet attack. 
The Turks fled to the town in the greatest confusion, with the Russian 
battalions on their heels. In the narrow streets of the town and on 
both bridges of the Kur, the upper of which was shelled by 
Scheremetieff s artillery, a fierce fight raged, during which the citadel 
was captured by the Russians. At 8 p.m., after the Russian battalions 
had been rallied, everything, as far as Fort Ramazan, was in their 
possession; but their cavalry, on account of the darkness, could only 
keep up a feeble pursuit of the fugitives, who fled in all directions. 
Fort Ramazan was evacuated on the night before the 18th without 
General Bevel noticing it, so that on the morning of this day the whole 
fortress was in the power of General Loris-Melikoff. The loss of the 
Russians on the 17th was 300 men, while the Turkish dead found in 
the works numbered 1750; the further losses were not known. 
By the taking of Ardahan, from which no important operations to the 
south-west could be undertaken before the capture of Kars, the greater 
part of the Akhaltzikh Column was made available for further 
operations, and set out for Zaim with the troops of the Alexandropol 
Column on the 21st and 22nd May, a sufficiently strong garrison 
having been left in Ardahan under Colonel Komaroffi 
Komaroff razed the fortifications to the ground, and after he had 
been strengthened by the 152nd Regiment, and sent four battalions to 
the siege-corps at Kars, extended his patrols to the south and south¬ 
west. In the last days of May, Pennek—80 kils. south-west on the 
Olti-Erzeroum road—was reported ungarrisoned, upon which Komaroff, 
pushing forward a strong detachment on the Ardahan-Olti road on the 
1st, occupied it on the 2nd June. About 4000 Turks had left the place 
when he approached, and retreated to Erzeroum, so on the 4th and 5th 
June he returned to Ardahan. The oppression of the Christian 
inhabitants in the districts of Ardanutsch and Artwin, 65 and 95 kils. 
from Ardahan, necessitated the despatch of a column of 1700 men to 
the former place. On the 27th June the advanced guard, four sotnias 
strong, was attacked at Khaut, 5 kils. from Ardanutsch, while on the 
28th of June a Turkish force of 3000 men took up a position between 
Khaut and their line of retreat. The detachment concentrated next 
day, and by an attack on both flanks of the Turks succeeded in forcing 
them to withdraw northwards towards the Botza, and. cut them oS 
