LAND AND WATER. 
January 16, 1915. 
upon January 3rd, drove them out of the town, and 
checked the Turkish advance on this extreme left 
for good and all. 
In those same days when the sweeping move- 
ment round by Ardahan was held up, that is, the 
days at the end of last year and at the beginning 
of this year, the main Turkish advance on the 
Erzerum-Kars road, and round upon the flanks of 
it was being pressed. The 11th Turkish Army 
Corps held the Russians firmly at Khorosan ; the 
9th and the 10th were successfully struggling 
across the mountain ridges and appeared upon the 
heights above Sarikamish about Christmas Day. 
They had been so far successful as to very nearly 
achieve their object ; they had very nearly en- 
veloped the Russians, and the position in the last 
v^^eek of the year may be grasped from the accom- 
panying map. 
Ast Corps injl^ht. 
i^'iOCh Corps 
K 
Corf>s taking vyofmsjffinstvc to 
relieve pressure on medcfkatcd 
10 di^ too late save the 9th* 
The 11th Turkish Army Corps holds the Rus- 
sians at Khorosan ; the 9th Turkish Army Corps is 
first above and then in Sarikamish itself; the 10th 
Turkish Army Corps to the left of the 9th is coming 
down upon the valley and the railway between 
Sarikamish and Kars. For three days, Boxing 
Day and the two days following, there was a 
violent struggle between the Twtks and the Rus- 
sians of which Sarikamish was the centre. The 
9th Turkish Army Corps was holding Sarikamish, 
the 10th was fighting for the railway beyond, ap- 
parently; whether it managed to reach it or not 
we have not been told. It seems to have been to- 
wards the end of the day December 29th that 
the struggle began to turn in favour of the Rus- 
sians, and New Year's Day and the day following 
must have seen the pushing back of the 10th Army 
Corps — for nothing else will account for what came 
immediately after, the isolation of the 9th. The 
position January 2nd would seem to have been 
much as on the following sketch. At any rate, 
on Sunday, January Srd, the same day which saw 
the victorious entry of the Russians into Ardahan, 
and the decisive check administered to the 1st 
Turkish Army Corps there, the 9th Corps still 
folding desperately to its position in the vallev at 
Sarikamish found itself isolated by the defeat of 
the 10th Corps upon its left and was wiped out. 
The 11th Army Corps up by Khorosan could do 
nothing. It had held up the head of the first Rus- 
sian advance, but it could not go. further— it had 
not moved since two days after Christmas. The 
9th Turkish Army Corps was therefore left en- 
tirely to itself as the 10th broke aw^ay northw-ard 
and the result was that this 9th Corps' lost, killed, 
Avounded, or captured, the whole of its effectives ; 
all its staff including the German officers present 
are prisoners on their way to the interior. All 
the artillery of the Corps has been taken and, in a 
word, the Turkish centre has ceased to exist. 
But the action has continued none the less 
during the week that has passed since that date, 
while the Russians continued their pursuit of the 
retreating 10th Corps, using, for that purpose it 
may be presumed, all the troops they originally 
had against the 10th Corps, and reinforcements 
from those who had just wiped out the 9th Corps. 
The 11th Turkish Corps began taking a vigorous 
offensive in order to relieve the pressure upon the 
retreating 10th. The 11th Corps pushed up be- 
yond Khorosan in what must have been a very 
vigorous offensive, to within a long day's march 
of Sarikamish, and the position at the end of this 
effort was much as it is upon the next sketch: 
With Sarikamish at S, the Turkish llth 
Corps is hitting hard at A (Karai Urgan, 
eighteen miles from Sarikamish) and trying 
by , so doing to bring the Russians back 
from their pursuit of the 10th Corps. 
Whether that 10th Corps will in the main get 
away or not only the future will show, but the total 
result of the operations is to leave the Turks upon 
this front in a position of marked inferiority as 
against the Russians and to put an end for the 
moment to any anxiety the Russians might have 
had for the safety of their Caucasian provinces, 
of their oil wells at Balcu, of their frontier strong- 
hold at Kars, of the integrity of their main force 
in this region, and of their railways and communi- 
cations. 
We must not exaggerate the magnitude of the 
event. The forces engaged were but a fraction of 
the total numbers that Turkey can put into the 
field, and the defeat though complete leaves two- 
thirds of the Turkish forces round Erzerum in 
being. Whether a new offensive will be attempted 
upon this same front by the Turks we cannot tell, 
but we can be certain that much time must elapse 
before it could develop in any strength. There 
are considerable forces in European Turkey from 
6» 
