Defense of the Urmia region

As a result of the successful completion of the Urmian operation in June 1915, the Turkish units were driven out of Iranian Azerbaijan and retreated to the area south of Lake Van , and the warlike Kurds, impressed by the Charpentier raid , temporarily stopped partisan raids.

This made it possible to transfer the infantry units of the Azerbaijan detachment to the 4th Caucasian AK for an attack on the Manzikert . After the defeat in the Battle of Manzikert, in the autumn of 1915, the Turks were active only south of Lake Van, where the Van detachment of General I. E. Trukhin acted against them ^[1] . Since this area was separated from the site of the 4th Caucasus Corps, the Trukhin detachment was subordinate to the Azerbaijani detachment, called Van-Azerbaijan. In September - November, Trukhin fought with varying success, and on November 16 (29) after a two-day stubborn battle he shot down the enemy in the vicinity of the village of Vartanis, threw him to the western tip of the lake and found himself in one passage from Bitlis ^[2] .

At the Persian Theater in the autumn of 1915, the Turks resumed their advance from Mosul to Urmia . The Assyrians , who had been fighting the Turks in the Hakkari Mountains for several months, led by Patriarch Mar-Shimun XIX, retreated under the pressure of the enemy into the Urmia region. At the end of the year, a small reconnaissance team was formed from them, headed by the contingent dragoman of the Russian consulate in Urmia, Aga-Petros ^[3] .

The offensive of the larger Turkish forces through Ravanduz to Souch-Bulag, which began in December, required the transfer of General AE Kruten ^[4] to reinforce the Van-Azerbaijan detachment of the 4th Kuban Plastun Brigade ^[4] .

It became known that 4 German officers and 200 soldiers arrived in Mosul from Bitlis ^[5] . F.G. Chernozubov on December 12 (25) ordered the combined detachment of General K.N. Stoyanovsky ^[6] to keep the area south of Lake Urmia until reinforcements arrived.

On December 16 (29), Turks and Kurds attacked a detachment of the Kuban military foreman Zakharov in the Miandoab area and forced him to retreat to the crossing, which was covered by two hundred of the 1st Nerchinsk Cossack Regiment . The Nerchins hit the advancing enemy on the flank, and then, together with the Kuban, threw the Turks back to Amirabad, clearing the valley of the Tatava River. To strengthen the detachment from Tauris , the remaining four hundred Nerchins were sent ^[7] .

To clarify the position of the enemy, an intensive reconnaissance was undertaken in the Oshnevie region (southwest of Lake Urmia). A detachment of military foreman Kuklin, consisting of two hundred Upper Udinians, two infantry companies, and an Armenian squad, made two columns to the west. The right marching column of Prince Ukhtomsky, leaving the village of Gyalas, and moving along the ridge of the Rubar-Ushnue River on the right ridge, attacked the enemy, capturing in battle three of the four lines of the enemy trenches on the outskirts of Oshnevie ^[8] .

The left column of Tserelnikov’s poddesaul in front of the village of Imam shot down a screen of 60 dismounted Kurds, then repelled the attack of two Turkish squadrons. After that, Kuklin sent 2 machine guns and a hundred horses from the Armenian squad to support the right column. With their help, Prince Ukhtomsky forced the Turks to retreat to the village of Girdkashan ^[9] .

The troops approached Oshnevie, but due to lack of ammunition and the appearance on the flanks of a significant enemy cavalry they did not storm it. At the height of Mola-Isa, which controlled the passage to Oshnevie and the river valley, a company of Armenian warriors was left. Two days later, two companies of the Turks, with the support of several hundred Kurds, attacked the Armenians. They repelled the Turks with rifle fire, but a Kurdish detour from the flank forced the company to retreat; in hand-to-hand combat, part of her died. The units of the 3rd Verkhneudinsky regiment that came to the rescue discarded the enemy ^[10] .

On December 23 (January 5), about 500 Kurds tried to cross the Dzhigota in the area east of Lake Urmia, but were driven back by the Nerchins. The next day, the Cossacks knocked out the Kurds from Miandoaba, but they received reinforcements, and the Nerchins retreated to the village of Kara-Topa, losing 7 people killed and 8 wounded ^[10] .

Not having achieved success by military means, the Turks, through their agents, tried to cause panic in the Russian rear. On the night of December 23 (January 5), leaflets were posted in Urmia announcing the imminent entry of the Khalil-Bey and Heidar-Pasha detachments into the city. The first of these commanders was known as the organizer of the massacres of Armenians in the Van region, so residents began to leave the city in a hurry ^[11] .

The Russian command organized the patrolling of roads and mountain trails by Cossack patrols, which detained and disarmed suspicious persons and destroyed Turkish agents. Counterintelligence found out that Persian telegraphists supply information to the enemy. To prevent leakage of information, all telegraph apparatuses in Geogan and Merag were removed, and then telegraph lines on the passes were destroyed ^[12] .

In January, the passes were finally covered with snow, the Kurdish militia went home and all military activity ceased until spring.

• Maslovsky E.V. World War on the Caucasian Front. - Paris: Renaissance, 1933
• Shishov A.V. Persian Front (1909-1918). Undeservedly forgotten victories. - M .: Veche, 2010. - (Military secrets of the XX century). - ISBN 978-5-9533-4866-9