Kafkas İslam Ordusu: Kuruluş, Teşkilatlanma ve Operasyonlar

Abstract

The reflections of the Russian revolutions in 1917 on the Caucasus, the efforts of Caucasian Turks for the new political order and the military policy pursued by the Ottoman Empire in overcoming the difficulties are the principal research subject of this work. The archival documents related to the subject, primary sources, memoirs and published documents collections constitute the main resource inventory of the research. The subject was analyzed with the comparative history method and the text was written with an interrogative style. According to the findings reached as a result of studies, theoretical resolutions on the salvation of Turks in the nearby territories put forward by Ottoman intellectual life prior to the First World War turned into the comprehensive Caucasus policy of the Ottoman Empire after the Russian revolutions. The organization which was brought to the agenda in the frame of the new policy had gone through two phases, being irregular and regular. The irregular organization established by Major Hasan Rusheni, who was sent to the Caucasus, with the participation of Turkish officers who escaped from captivity, had been unsuccessful in the struggle against the Bolsheviks and Tashnaks throughout the Baku Province (December 1917-March 1918). The regular organization, which the constitution was accelerated by the invitation of delegates sent from Caucasia, went through the phases of formation, operations and discharge (March 1918-January 1919). The headquarters of the regular organization together with its three divisions were formed during the formation period in Istanbul and Nuri Pasha, brother of Enver Pasha, was appointed as the commander of the organization (March-May 1918). Since the local organization was still in the formation phase when Nuri Pasha went to the field with his general staff, three reinforcement divisions were sent to Azerbaijan in five groups (June-September 1918). The operations, which were undertaken with the participation of the divisions in question, had been in three phases. In the first phase, they fought against the Red Corps formed by the Bolsheviks together with the Tashnaks and Gokchay, Kuba, Cevat and Shamakhi districts were liberated (June-July 1918). In the second phase, they fought against the Dictatorship Army formed by the Tashnaks together with the British-supported right-winged revolutionary organizations and the Baku district and the town center was returned to the real owners (August-September 1918). In the third phase, the dangerous situation in Qarabagh was partially taken under control. There was not enough time to stop the Russian settlers in the south and to prevent the Armenian expansionism in Zengezur. As a result, by the 11th and 15th articles of the armistice, signed as the price of being on the side of the defeated in the First World War, the gains in the Baku front were completely abandoned and the Turkish troops in the Caucasus gradually returned home (November 1918-January 1919).