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Battle of Kop Mountain was the defensive battles that took place in the Kop Mountain passes and the surrounding mountain range against the Russian attacks from the direction of Aşkale for the last remaining Ottoman territory in the Caucasus Bayburt after the fall of Erzurum and Trebizond by the Russian Caucasian Army.

Fevzi Pasha commented on the battles as "the defense of Bayburt should be considered a successful Plevne."

Background

In the battles following the Battle of Sarikamish, the Ottoman 3rd Army was gradually losing strength and was retreating. The fact that the Gallipoli campaign kept a large number of units on the peninsula, some divisions were transferred to Iraq to protect Baghdad and the logistical difficulties of Eastern Anatolia, which lacked a railway, had crippled the 3rd Army.

The Russians had entered Erzurum on February 16, 1916, and Trabzon on April 18, 1916. In the resulting situation, the 3rd Army was gradually losing its strength, while Bayburt was in the position of a natural defense line surrounded by the enemy due to the mountain ranges around it.

On February 5, 1916, while the Russians were pushing the Aşkale area, some of the troops under the command of Deli Halid Pasha started making defensive preparations by establishing fortifications in the region.

Battle

On 8 February 1916, a Russian battalion sent in the direction of Bayburt retreated after encountering more resistance than expected. The Turkish forces, which managed to hold their positions in the 5-day fierce battles at the beginning of March, were ordered to form the Çoruh Detachment with the participation of Reşit Bey's units and defend the region between Kop Mountain and Soğanlı Mountain. Despite suffering heavy losses in the attacks that continued fiercely throughout March and April, the Turkish side managed to repel the numerically superior Russian forces and retake the hills they had lost. May was relatively quiet, and the Russians could not achieve any results from their attacks at the beginning of June.

Although fighting continued here and there, Vehip Pasha, who saw the lull and whose confidence increased with the newly arrived reinforcements, started preparations for an attack to retake Trabzon in June and withdrew some units from the fortified positions in the passes to the Northern line for this attack. Taking advantage of the gap, General Yudenich gave the order to attack the Russian 4th Hunter Division at the beginning of July. While the Kop Front troops, who had no more strength to defend, were retreating, the Russian Cavalry, who entered Bayburt on July 15, set the city on fire. Grand Duke Nikolay heard the news of the fall of the city Nicholas II "The stubbornly defended Bayburt has been taken" he conveyed.

Results

In the first half of 1916, when the divisions leaving Çanakkale had not yet arrived and the 2nd Army had no chance of counterattacking, they missed the opportunity to force the Sivas-Kayseri line and to occupy the junction points of the railway lines feeding the Sinai and Palestine campaign and Mesopotamian campaign. In the following process, the 3rd Army was saved from annihilation, while the 2nd Army launched a counterattack with the reinforcements it received.

References

1. Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, Eastern Front Movements in the Great War, Gen. Staff Printing House, Ankara- 1936.
2. ^ Ayhan Doğan Kop Defense Unpublished Master's Thesis Konya 1992.
3. For the biography of Halit (Karsıalan) Pasha (Major General), see 3rd Or. K. Lieutenant Colonel Refik Tulga, Biography of Gn. Halit Karsıalan, Erzurum -1963. See also Commanders Mentioned in Turkish War History Lessons, Harp Akademileri K. publications, İstanbul- 1983, p. 455-461.

• Conflicts in 1916
• Battles of the Caucasus Campaign
• Battles of World War I involving the Ottoman Empire
• Battles of World War I involving Russia
• 1916 in the Russian Empire
• 1916 in the Ottoman Empire