How much worse could the war get? In just eight months we’d seen the frightening destructive
power of new artillery and modern machine guns, we’d seen the war in the skies and
beneath the seas develop, we’d seen gas and flamethrowers make their appearance, we’d
seen epidemic disease, and millions of refugees on the move. How much worse could it get?
I’ll tell you in one word: genocide.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week we saw the Austro-Hungarian army grimly trying to hold on against the Russian
juggernaut in the Carpathian Mountains. The war in the skies and the seas had claimed
new victims, Bulgarian Turks had invaded Serbia, and the Russian cavalry had held off its German
counterpart far to the north.
It was really in the mountains, though, that the worst of the fighting had been taking
place, and this week was no different.
The Third Austro-Hungarian winter Carpathian Offensive had ground to a halt in late March
and the Austrians were now playing defense, and not really playing it that well. The Russians
were pushing them back down toward the Hungarian plains, and things looked grim for Austria,
but just when it seemed darkest, German reinforcements finally arrived.
Here’s a quote from German General Erich Ludendorff: “In reading the deceitful reports
from the Austrian General Staff, the Austrians are not really fighting against numerical
superiority. The officer Corps is incapable of resistance, the Austrians retreat without battle.
We will support them, or be beaten, because of the Balkans we cannot allow them to be defeated.”
That was, by this time, a quite common German perception of the Austrian military. That
Germany was going to have to keep bailing out their ally if they wanted a victory of
any kind. And so the newly formed beskidenkorps, organized specifically to fight in the frozen
mountains, was sent to save Austria’s bacon, under the command of Georg von der Marwitz.
They truly arrived in the nick of time, for the Russians advanced along the entire front
on April 4th, Easter Sunday, penetrating the Rostoki Pass. Their front lines actually reached
Hungarian territory, five miles from the foot of the pass.
But 30 miles away, just south of the Carpathians, the Germans gathered, and on April 6th launched
their counter-offensive, capturing 6,000 Russian prisoners on the first day of battle (Story
of the Great War, Google books). The Russians were pushed out of the Virava valley, and
the Austrians had a few days of breathing space, but still, at the end of the week,
on April 9th, the Russians held the entire mountain crest from Dukla to Uszok, over 100
kilometers long and they were again pushing forward.
Here’s a side note: on Easter Sunday unarmed Russian troops climbed out of their trenches
on one of the Austrian fronts and presented gifts to their opponents. Some German troops
attempted the same thing on the western front but were warned off by the British. There
would be no Easter Truce on the Western Front.
Indeed, this week in the west saw the French make progress throughout the week east of
Verdun and in Alsace, and at the end of the week captured Les Eparges.
But while there was scattered action in the west and heavy action in the east, there was
important action this week on one of the home fronts, Vienna, where the Imperial court was
making overtures to Italy, offering territory in exchange for continuing Italian neutrality.
The Empire offered Rovereto, Riva, Tio ne, and the Borgo district up to Lavis for a guarantee.
Italy then demanded in addition: the Dalmatian Islands, Trentino, Gorizia, Gradisca, the
renunciation on all Austrian interests in Albania, recognition of Italian sovereignty
over Valona, Trieste to be an independent state, Italy would pay the Empire 200 million
Lira (how much was that in other currencies at the time?) and THEN Italy would not only
remain neutral, but would join the central powers actively in the war.
See, Austrian army chief of staff Conrad von Hotzendorf was really worried about Italy
invading by this point, and there was certainly not much chance of defending against Italy
or Romania as things stood with all of those Austrian troops under heavy and constant fire
on the Eastern Front. Who would do the defending? Conrad reportedly even made a threat to the
Germans that he might negotiate a peace with the Russians so he could deal with Italy,
and the Italian question grew and grew.
A peace with Russia might have been a lifesaving option for anyone at this point, for Russia
was also advancing on its most southerly front this week, defeating the Turks at Olty on
the 4th and entering Artvin on the 6th. Both of these towns lie in the Ottoman region of
Armenia, where things were getting ugly.
On April 8th (timeline book) the deportation and massacres of Armenian citizens of the
Ottoman Empire began. Most Armenians put the beginning of the Armenian genocide two weeks
later on the 24th, but this was the day when the deportations began in Zeitun in Cilicia.
The Turks were increasingly bitter about their continual losses of men and land against the
Russians in the Caucasus, especially the humiliation of the battle of Sarikamis. The Armenians
were not only a convenient scapegoat, but there were many thousands of ethnic Armenians
serving in the Russian army, and they were branded as traitors. Talat Pasha, Minister
of the Interior, and one of the three Pashas, together with Enver and Djemal who basically
ruled the Ottoman Empire during the war, had this to say in a coded telegram:
”The objective that the government expects to achieve by the expelling of the Armenians
from the areas in which they live and their transportation to other appointed areas is
to ensure that this community will no longer be able to undertake initiatives and actions
against the government, and that they will be brought to a state in which they will be
unable to pursue their national aspirations related to advocating a government of Armenia”
Two months earlier, after Sarikamis, Enver Pasha had blamed his army’s crushing defeat
on Armenian traitors and later that month had transferred all Armenian soldiers in the
Ottoman army into unarmed Labor Battalions.
You’d think that with the British and French obviously preparing for an invasion of Ottoman
territory the Pashas would need every soldier they could get, but there you have it. And
this week, on the 6th, both battleships and airplanes bombarded Smyrna, on the Anatolian west coast.
That was Asian territory, and the war was again hot on three continents this week, as
down in East Africa the Germans were defeated at Karunga and also in Southwest Africa, where
South African forces took Warmbad.
And that was the week. The French gaining ground in the west, the Austrians finally
being reinforced, but still trying to contain the Russians, who were themselves making headway
in the Caucasus. And the Ottoman triumvirate began a program intended as consolidation.
The Armenian community had been fairly autonomous under the leadership of its religious patriarch
within the Ottoman Empire, but they were and had been for centuries second-class citizens,
and their only real freedom was freedom of worship. Indeed, there had been massacres
of Armenians in the mid 1890s and again in 1909.
Actually, one cause of tension that’s often overlooked is the fact that the Ottoman Empire
lost virtually all of its European territory between 1878 and 1912. This resulted in over
three quarters of a million Muslim refugees from those territories coming to Turkish regions
that had a large Armenian Christian presence, who were well off compared to the new arrivals,
which fostered increasing resentment. And many adherents of the new nationalism, which
visualized a modern Turkish nation that didn’t look to the Arab world for guidance, but looked
rather to itself, did not see that nation including millions of Armenian Christians.
There were actually many intellectuals of the new movement who believed that all minorities,
Armenian, Greek, Circassian and so forth did belong in a modern Turkey, but they were not
the three Pashas. One of these three, Minister of War Enver Pasha, had brought the Empire
into the war and was in charge of the catastrophe at Sarikamis, but all three were guilty of
this, the death and deportation of thousands upon thousands of their own countrymen.
Just when you thought the war couldn’t get any worse; that there weren’t any more ways
to murder and maim; that it was bad enough when an enemy came at you with machine guns
and bombs, now you could be killed by your own government, just for existing. Welcome to Modern War.
At times this war was also created something surprisingly beautiful. And one of these stories happened on
Christmas 1914 where soldiers on the Western Front put down their guns for one night.
You can check out our special about the Christmas Truce right here.
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