Study One: <\/p>\n
The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915
\nEdward J. Erickson
\nWar in History 2008 15 (2) 141\u2013167 (27 pages)
\n10.1177\/0968344507087001 \u00a9 2008 SAGE Publications<\/p>\n
First page, first paragraph: <\/p>\n
\u201c Mainstream western scholarship maintains that the Armenian insurrection of
\n1915 was never an actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state in the First World War and that the relocation of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia was unnecessary. In truth, no study of the Armenian insurrection and its effect on Ottoman military policy has ever been conducted. This article examines the Ottoman army\u2019s lines of communications architecture and logistics posture in eastern Anatolia in 1915. Armenian threats to the logistics and security of the
\nOttoman armies in Caucasia and Palestine are overlaid on this system. Evolving and escalatory Ottoman military policies are then explained in terms of threat assessments and contemporary counter-insurgency strategy. The article seeks to inform the reader why the Ottomans reacted so vigorously and violently to the events of the spring of 1915 \u201c<\/p>\n
Last page, last paragraph: <\/p>\n
\u201c Nothing can justify the massacres of the Armenians nor can a case be made that the entire Armenian population of the six Anatolian provinces was an active and hostile threat to Ottoman national security. However, a case can be made that the Ottomans judged the Armenians to be a great threat to the 3rd and 4th Armies and that genuine intelligence and security concerns drove that decision. It may also be stated that the Ottoman reaction was escalatory and responsive rather than premeditated and pre-planned. In this context the
\nOttoman relocation decision becomes more understandable as a military solution to a military problem. While political and ideological imperatives perhaps drove the decision equally, if not harder, these do not negate the fact that the Armenians were a great military danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Study Two: <\/p>\n
Captain Larkin and the Turks: The Strategic Impact of the Operations of HMS Doris in Early 1915
\nEdward J. Erickson
\nMiddle Eastern Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1, 151\u2013162, January 2010<\/p>\n
Page 1, first paragraph: <\/p>\n
\u201c As the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War in November 1914 there were a
\nnumber of troubling events involving Armenians that served to convince the Turks
\nof impending Armenian insurgency. It is well known that in the Caucasus, numbers
\nof Armenian men fled to join the Czar\u2019s armies against the Ottoman Empire and
\nguerrilla warfare between Armenian bands and the Turks broke out on the frontier
\nnear the Black Sea. It is less well known that the Ottomans were also extremely
\nconcerned about Armenian activities in the area of Alexandretta (the modern
\nTurkish port of Iskenderun) particularly around D\u00f6rtyol, a tiny railway stop and
\nvillage close by the Mediterranean Sea. This concern was mainly the result of the
\noperations of the HMS Doris in December 1914 and January 1915. This article uses
\nBritish, German, and Turkish archival sources to focus on the ship\u2019s operations in
\nthe vicinity of D\u00f6rtyol and on the strategic affect these had on Ottoman perceptions
\nof threats to the empire and on actual Ottoman responses. The Doris figures
\nprominently in two critical strategic outcomes \u2013 the relocation of the Armenians in
\n1915 and in the activation of three Ottoman army divisions for coastal defence and
\ninternal security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last page, last paragraph:<\/p>\n
\u201c Arguably, in the end, Larkin\u2019s missions were a failure as the Ottoman lines of
\ncommunication were never seriously disrupted nor did the prospective British
\namphibious invasion at Alexandretta ever take place. Nevertheless, Captain Frank
\nLarkin\u2019s voyages in command of HMS Doris in the winter of 1914\u201315 had an effect
\nout of all proportion to their duration and scale. Larkin\u2019s activities were so actively
\nconsistent and aggressive that the Ottomans came to believe that a British
\namphibious invasion was being coordinated with and supported by an imminent
\nArmenian insurrection in the vicinity of Do\u00a8 rtyol. Unintentionally, Larkin played a
\nkey role in driving the Turks to some very poor decisions. It is problematic to
\nimagine that had Larkin actually been tasked to conduct deception operations or
\ndiversionary activities that his raiding would have been nearly as convincing as what
\nhe actually accomplished. In any case, there is no question that Larkin and HMS
\nDoris helped convince the Turks to make strategic decisions that diverted substantial
\nvaluable and scarce resources away from the war effort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Study One: The Armenians and Ottoman Military Policy, 1915 Edward J. Erickson War in History 2008 15 (2) 141\u2013167 (27 pages) 10.1177\/0968344507087001 \u00a9 2008 SAGE Publications First page, first paragraph: \u201c Mainstream western scholarship maintains that the Armenian insurrection of 1915 was never an actual threat to the security of the Ottoman state in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,41],"tags":[2695,2654,2692,2693,2653,2691,1099,151,2223,2650,2694,1423,2649,1105,2656,204,2648,2651,2652,2655,1098],"class_list":["post-17518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-azerbaijan","tag-2695","tag-6-ts","tag-armenian-insurrection","tag-captain-larkin","tag-dadrian","tag-edward-j-erickson","tag-ethocide","tag-genocide","tag-gustav-arellano","tag-h-res-252","tag-hms-doris","tag-hovannissian","tag-hr-252","tag-jda","tag-minsk","tag-nagorno-karabakh","tag-protocols","tag-resolution","tag-samantha-power","tag-six-ts","tag-tereset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}