Ibrahim Osman, Zeynep Osman; Adventures in the East, A Memoir of a Naturalised Mohammedan: Palgrave Macmillan
Erzurum, July 1895
The war could have gone one of two ways. Either we were to hold the Russians at the Danube and the Caucasus for a few months, the European powers could have come to their senses, and we could have worked out some compromise agreement, or the Russians could have broken through and caused a disaster. We were holding them at the Danube, but when the Russians thrashed us at Kars in the East, we knew that things were not going our way.
Even those of us toward the bottom of the command structure cursed the incompetent Paşa who had commanded the troops at Kars. He had an excellent defensive position and could have tied down the Russians for weeks or even months in a siege. But as better military historians than I have noted, he foolishly fell for a Russian feint, leaving the fortress of Kars and falling right into their trap. We cursed the foolish Ali Bey, but regardless of his fault the Russians had secured their first fortress in Eastern Anatolia relatively easily, and this was before we had managed to properly mobilize.
Luckily, we were not in Kars. My unit had been stationed in Erzurum, not the best place to be due to the lack of a railway to supply us, but not the worst place to be either. We were around fifteen days march or so away from Kars, which meant that we still had ample time to receive reinforcements and dig ourselves in for the long struggle ahead. Our commander, Edhem Paşa, was an intelligent sort and had served Gazi Osman Pasha during the last war, which gave us officers some confidence in him. He was also from Eastern Anatolia, so he knew something of the unique climatic conditions, which he had explained to us officers. In his own words, we had to hold until the winter and “let those Ruskies freeze to death trying to besiege us”. With this in mind, I even slept soundly on the night that we received news of the fall of Kars.
Edhem Pasa, commander of the Ottoman forces in Erzururm
But of course, one does not sleep so soundly in a war without paying for it the morning after. I left my cot in search of some coffee to wake me up, to find a number of junior officers like myself grouped around.
“This looks like unhappy news”, I thought to myself as I approached and heard indistinct but worried murmuring. “What news of the front today?” I enquired to one of the men.
He replied in a rather sullen fashion, “Austria. Their soldiers have crossed over the border this morning.”
With this news, my heart sank. Certainly, we could hold the Russians in the Dobrudja with the numbers we had, but with the Austrians approaching from the West? I didn’t fancy these odds indeed, and now I began to curse myself for not absconding when our mobilization orders came through. It appeared that now our boys in the Balkans would be squeezed between the Austrians and the Russians, and who knows what else would come afterwards? Some amongst us officers had long theorized that the Christians were only waiting for the right time to band against us and split the empire between them. Was this the long-awaited time when the powers would walk upon the sick man in his bed and suffocate him with a pillow?
These were hardly the thoughts I wanted to have in my head, but it turned out that I was to receive far worse news that day. Some of the officers from my regiment were ordered into the tent of our commanding officer. Unfortunately, a capable commander has to act with the best interests of the army in mind, rather than merely the best interests of some of its members. And this showed itself when he briefed us with some rather unsettling news.
“We have received orders from Gazi Osman Pasha that he will march the Rumelian army south into the main part of Bulgaria to preserve it. We will not be receiving reinforcements in light of the change in the situation of Rumelia, and thus we will need more time to prepare our defences here and to aid whatever forces we have left near Kars. Your regimental commander has informed me that he would be willing to undertake this”
My heart suddenly felt as though it had sunk down to my belly. What he was telling us, in effect, was that our regimental commander had agreed for us to be a sacrificial lamb to cover for the stupidity of Ali Bey. In other words, he had signed our death warrant. And we were to move out later that day.
Never had I experienced such a frightful prospect ahead of me. Ambushing Dutchmen in a mosquito-ridden jungle or riding hard on the desert sands against the Wahabis of central Arabia was a fun jaunt, but this was modern warfare. The Russians were not likely to give us much quarter if they captured us, and ultimately, we would face either a quick death in battle or a drawn-out death in captivity. Happy thoughts indeed.
I moped back to my tent, wanting to get my things in order. I wrote a goodbye letter to my mother, explaining my position and my likely fate. I would not want her to wonder what had happened to her son. I gathered my things and prepared to deliver the orders to my men before we made our march off to our fate.
I did not know how else to explain it to them. I tried to keep a brave face and explain their orders as a matter of fact. All of them to a man looked on stoically, which pleased me greatly as I felt like breaking down and blubbering myself, I would not know how to deal with any of my men doing so. We were to march out the following morning to keep watch on one of the roads approaching Erzurum where elements of the Russian army may pass down. The implicit order was that we were to die in the process of delaying the enemy. My first thought was on how to abscond, as while I was not averse to a little bit of danger, a suicide mission was not something I wanted. But dejectedly, I and my boys marched out that following morning.
I would suppose that this was the only point in my life I walked on expecting that I would not live to see the following week. It’s a strange feeling, marching on knowing with certainty that you are going on to your death. But at any rate, you are probably wondering why I am still writing this.
We had dug in at the point on the map where we had our orders to hold, on a hill some twenty or so kilometres away from a small town called Sarıkamış. It was not a bad defensive position, surrounded by fields, but as it was elevated, we should be able to see any approach by the enemy, which was rather a good thing as I hadn’t the stomach for some Russians sneaking upon us. Any low-trajectory artillery would be deflected, we could see around for miles, but alone and without support, it was likely that we would die here.
The first day passed without incident, the second and the third. We organized as best as we could, taking count of our ammunition, cleaning our rifles, and getting some rest. But on the fourth day, we finally saw signs of the enemy. Rather than scouting us out first, it appeared that they were marching in columns, about half a regiment’s worth of men on horseback. And yet they still couldn’t see us! Well, this was an opportunity, as my company had a surprise. We had been given one of the few maxim guns they had at Erzurum and as it turned out, this was our saving grace. I told the men to hold as long as we could, and when the enemy was only around 400 yards from us, I yelled out the order to open fire.
Immediately, a blaze of rifle fire, as well as fire from the maxim gun, poured out from our trenches onto the Russians below. Immediately men fell, as the Russians scrambled off their horses to find whatever defensive cover they could, or else galloped away. But as I mentioned, they were mostly fielded below so the best that they could do was to lay prone in fields of wheat. A few brave souls charged toward us, but that merely made them a better target for us. Even for those trying to hide in the wheat, we still knew where they were. Perhaps their rifles were sighted incorrectly, as for the most part we only heard the whizzing of bullets, but for a few unfortunate men, they found their mark. The firefight was perhaps one of the most intense events of my life, but it was over all too quickly, as around ten minutes or so after we had opened fire, what remained of the Russian force began running back in the direction that they had come from.
We could not see how many men they left behind them, suffice to say that I think that their dead and wounded outnumbered my company even before our casualties. There were a few of my boys dead, about 10, and the same number of walking wounded. I did not know what to do with the men who were more severely wounded, however.
I called out for the lieutenant I trusted most. I had judged Orhan to be the dependable type and seeing his cool conduct under fire showed me that perhaps I have some instinct when it comes to judging men.
“Those Russians will be back”, I said.
He only grimly nodded in response, but I had to say what I was about to, “a group that large means there must be none of Ali Bey’s force remaining. Those Russians will be back in far greater numbers, storm our trenches and kill us all. And our orders were only to buy time”
“That is correct” he replied.
At this point, I wondered whether he was trying to drag my true thoughts out. But hey, death from Russian bayonets and death by a firing squad is, all the same, so I came out and said it. “We won’t buy any extra time if we stay put here. We have already bought them time, so is it not time to make ourselves scarce?”
He turned his head toward me, and my bowls began to turn into stone as I thought he was about to condemn me as a coward and a shirker. However, he just muttered his agreement. “So, we will retreat?” I confirmed. Once again, he just nodded. Dependable he may have been, but he wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
I yelled out to the men, “be proud. Look upon those bodies below and know that you have done your duty to your country. We will pull back and attempt to link up with the rest of the army where we can”. This was a lie. I did not want to be met with accusations of desertion, and my intention was to try and hideaway in the countryside until an opportunity arose to retreat someplace safe. Still, the die was cast.
* * * * * *
Author's notes - So we are starting to see the first actions of the war. Although the initial screw-up has been on the part of the Ottomans, it's a long way to Constantinople. But on the other hand, they cannot be blamed for the Austrians deciding to seize Bosnia. The Ottomans don't know it at this point, but the Austrians will only be going as far as Novi Pazar, but of course, if one other army is joining in on the gang-up, others may follow. The situation isn't as hopeless as it looks though. And just maybe Ibrahim Osman may survive too, as well as the empire.
