February 24, 1916. 
LAND AND WATER. 
CAPTURE OF ERZEROUM. 
Absence abroad upon work, the results of wliich 
appear in the preceding article, compels me to 
complete my notes of this week twenty-four hours 
earlier than usual. I am writing them upon the Monday, 
instead of the Tuesdaj', and the telcgrartis upon which 
they are based carry me no further than those received 
in Paris by three o'clock of the same Monday afternoon, 
the twenty-first of Februai-y. 
Erzeroum was fortified, mainly by German engineers 
in a fashion of which the elements appear in the accom- 
panjdng sketch. 
Erzeroum is covered on the East, the South, and the 
West by high ranges. 
There is high land also to the West of the town, but 
it does not concern the system of fortification, as no 
works seem to have been erected upon it. To the Nortli 
this small enclosed plain in which Erzeroum stands 
lies open ; it is protected only by a marsh tl^rough which 
and from which flows the western Euphrates, the upper 
waters and sources of that river. 
In such a district an army, especially an army 
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and the South. 
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since outbreak, of 
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operating in winter, and more especially an army de- 
pendent for its success upon some kind of siege train 
[we are not told of what calibre were the largest present 
with the Russian forces, but it may be doubted whether 
anything very heavy was present] is tied to roads. 
Three roads lead through the Southern and Eastern 
Ranges covering Erzeroum. One from Oltv, ultimately 
from Batoum and the Russian Black Sea httoral, takers 
advantage of the gorge at A , the Gurgi Boghar, to pass 
the mountains. 
The second— by far the best to-day and the great 
main road of in\-asion at all epochs — comes through the 
Eastern range by the " Camel's Pass " at B : the Bcoe 
Boyonn. Its summit is but a few hundred feet above 
Erzeroum, the town itself standing some 6,000 feet above 
the sea. Not only is this road by far the best of the 
three, but it also leads to the Russian railhead some 
70 miles off, from which a further light railway may 
have been built in the last few months. It is far the 
best avenue of communication and could supply munition- 
ment more rapidly than either of the other roads. 
A third road comes in from the South, crossing the 
very high ridge of that range (it has summits of over 
9,000 feet) by a pass at C, which is the nearest of the 
three to the city. 
It was clear to those who designed the defences of 
Erzeroum that on these three gaps or " gates " in the 
hills were the very points of any system of fortification. 
Each was guarded by a system of its own. 
Supposing the main one of these three gaps to be 
forced— that of the Deve Boyoun, which was most in 
peril, from its leading directly to the Russian bases, a 
rather inexplicable inner series of works had been con- 
trived of which it is difficult to see the ultimate use, and 
which appear to have done nothing to help the place, 
during the recent fighting. 
At T there is a sort of rocky horseshoe of high hills, 
precipitous to the east and south— that is towards the 
Deve Boyoun Pass, and the main road— but sloping 
away gradually down to the north. This height is called 
the " Top " Mountain : the " Top-Dagh," 'and on its 
escarpment a whole line of works were stretched— r, 2. 
and 3 are called the " Azizie " works, i and 3 closed 
works, 2, the middle one, open. 4 and 5 two isolated 
closed forts facing south. Lastly, on an isolated hill at 
D, enfilading the valley east of the Top-Dagh and com- 
manding the high road is the fort called Ahkali. 
I have said that it is not very easy to see why these 
inner works were constructed at all : at any rate, under 
modern conditions of range and observation. For if 
the Deve Boyoun at B is forced and the heights on each 
side occupied these dominate T and D and master all 
the plain below. 
Lastly, there has been constructed — still more 
puzzling and apparently equally useless in these last 
few days — a continuous line of ditch and rampart all 
round the town at E, E, E, from a quarter to half a mile 
outside the built-on area and nearly eight miles in 
perimeter. 
None of these inner works appear to have had effect 
last Aveek. The hills covering the town appear to have 
been mastered first by a force carrying the northernmost 
gap at A, the Gurdji Boghaz, and then, by an almost 
simultaneous successful attack on B. 
It was this attack along the main road, delivered 
with all the advantage of a neighbouring railhead and a 
good road for the artillery (so far as that could count in 
the depth of the snow) which decided the affair. 
The point B on sketch I is, as we have said, the pass 
called Deve Boyoun. It has been much more strongly 
fortified than either of the other two " gates " through 
the moimtains and was thought to be impregnable. 
Let us examine the details of this piece of ground. 
The fortifications 01 tne Deve lioyouii pass cuiisist 
in four groups of works. 
To the north of the pass (which at its summit runs 
through a very narrow gorge) rises very steeply a height 
called the Tafta. The escarpment is towards the gorge 
and road. From the summit northwards the ground 
slips away and downwards till it rises again in another 
escarpment which we will describe in a moment. 
On these Tafta heights which flank the north of the 
pass are three works which we may call the first group. 
I have numbered them on sketch II. : i, 2, and 3. i is 
a very important closed work and sweeps with its fire 
the whole of the road rising up to the summit of the pass, 
2, and 3 are open works which serve merely as supports 
to the principal fort i, and help it to sweep the approaches 
towards the summit of the pass, and to prevent the 
principal fort i from being turned by its Eastern flank, 
where there is a certain amount of dead ground. 
This first group of works is the one demanding our 
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chief attention because, as we shall see in a moment, it is 
the master-group of the whole system. 
Behind it and further to the north lies what may be 
called the second group, which I have marked upon 
sketch II, with the numbers : 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, g. This gro'^p 
of six works contains one closed work. No. 5, the others 
are all open batteries. 7, 8, and 9 are advanced works 
