Imagine a massive sprawling battlefield. The
stakes are nothing less than the control of empires.
And when you picture that, you probably picture
brilliant tactical maneuvers. Sure, the deafening
roar of artillery. Exactly. Generals outsmarting
each other in this deadly high stakes game of
chess. But what if I told you about a campaign
that was decided not by bullets or brilliant
tactics, but by the sheer terrifying power of
winter. And an almost incomprehensible level
of human hubris. Yes. Welcome to this deep dive.
We are ready and humbled to explore this history
with you today. We've got an absolutely fascinating
and frankly deeply somber story to unpack. It
truly is a tragic study in command breakdown.
This campaign is, well, it's a definitive historical
example of how reality, specifically the environment,
can completely shatter even the most meticulously
drawn plans. Especially when leadership just
completely refuses to acknowledge the facts on
the ground. Exactly. So today we are unpacking
the historical records and accounts of the Battle
of Syracomish. Which was a massive confrontation.
Huge. It took place from December 1914 to January
1915, right at the dawn of the First World War.
We're going to take you through how a strategy
that looked utterly perfect on paper turned into
one of the most devastating military disasters
of the entire conflict. The goal here is to give
you a front row seat to exactly why logistics,
weather, and basic reality must always, always
trump grand ambitions. OK, so to really understand
how this disaster unfolded, we first need to
set the geopolitical stage for you. Yeah, if
we connect this to the bigger picture, you have
two massive empires colliding in the brutal terrain
of the Caucasus region. The Russian Empire and
the Ottoman Empire. Precisely. Now for Russia,
this front was actually secondary. Which is an
important distinction to make. Very. Their primary
focus and the vast majority of their trained
manpower and resources were deeply tied up in
the European theater against Germany and Austria
-Hungary. Right. But for the Ottoman Empire,
it was a totally different story. Yes. For the
Ottomans, the Caucasus was a primary vital front.
And the Ottomans had very specific, highly ambitious
goals here, didn't they? I mean, they weren't
just looking to hold a line in the snow. Far
from it. The Ottoman strategic objectives were
multi -layered and very aggressive. First, they
wanted to retake lost territories. Like where,
specifically? Specifically places like the fortress
city of Kars and the vital port of Batum. Oh,
right, which they had lost to the Russian Empire
decades earlier, back in 1877, I believe. That
is correct. But beyond simply reclaiming land,
they had their eyes firmly fixed on accessing
the extremely valuable hydrocarbon resources
situated around the Caspian Sea. Oil. It always
comes back to oil, doesn't it? It often does.
And on a broader, almost ideological level, they
hope a successful, lightning -fast offensive
might push all the way to Tbilisi and spark a
widespread Muslim revolt against Russian rule
throughout the entire Caucasus region. Okay,
let's unpack this strategy, because the man behind
it is crucial to understanding this whole tragedy.
We need to introduce the architect of this impending
disaster. The Ottoman Minister of War is Malenver
Pasha. Right. So picture this. Enver Pasha sits
in his warm office in Istanbul and draws up an
operational plan that is staggering in its ambition.
Staggering is the right word. He envisions a
highly complex single envelopment maneuver. Okay,
for those of you trying to visualize the map,
essentially this means pinning the rushy forces
in place with a frontal assault. While simultaneously
swinging a massive sweeping force around their
flank to cut off their retreat and trap them.
Like a giant pincer movement. And to do this,
he plans to utilize three entire Army Corps.
The I -X, X, and N -I Corps. We're talking about
an offensive force of roughly 90 ,000 men. It's
important to contextualize what kind of military
doctrine Enver Pasha was relying on here. His
strategy was heavily based on German military
principles of the era. The Schlieffen plan mindset,
right? Exactly. This is a doctrine that relies
on clockwork precision. It requires highly mobile
troops reaching very specific geographical objectives
at exact predetermined times. Which sounds great
on a drafting table. Right. But it demands perfect
coordination, seamless communication across vast
distances, and crucially, perfect environmental
conditions to execute successfully. And a plan
optimized for perfect conditions is a plan guaranteed
to fail in reality. Precisely. and the conditions
in the Caucasus in December were the exact opposite
of perfect. What's fascinating here is the sheer
scale of the disconnect between Enver Pasha's
paper map in Istanbul and the actual ground truth
of the Caucasus Mountains. The war zone was a
high -altitude plateau, averaging 1 ,500 to 2
,000 meters above sea level. That's what, over
6 ,000 feet? Around there, yes. At that elevation
in late December, you aren't just dealing with
cold weather. You're dealing with an actively
hostile frozen wasteland. Furthermore, the roads
on his map weren't really roads at all. Aside
from a few narrow mountain passes, they were
little more than impassable dirt tracks. Which
couldn't possibly support heavy artillery. Let
alone the massive supply wagons needed to feed
90 ,000 men. Which brings us to a staggering
detail from the historical accounts. It's something
that just drops your jaw when you read it. Let's
look at the contrast in preparation between the
two armies. It is a very stark contrast. On the
Russian side, you have troops equipped with heavy
winter gear. They have a well -organized medical
system established behind their lines. And most
importantly, they control the car's broad gauge
railway line. Right, running right to the terminal
at the town of Sarikamish. That railway is their
logistical nervous system. It's constantly bringing
them fresh supplies, reinforcements, and providing
a way to evacuate their wounded. And then you
look at the Ottoman side. The contrast is horrifying.
It honestly defies belief. Tens of thousands
of Ottoman soldiers were sent into a high -altitude
winter mountain campaign wearing standard -issue
summer uniforms. No heavy coats. No winter boots.
Nothing. And for rations. The records show they
were carrying just dry bread and olives. Dry
bread and olives. That is the caloric fuel they
were expected to survive on while hiking through
blizzards at 2 ,000 meters. Which is why the
non -combat casualty rate was catastrophic from
the very beginning. Even before the main battle
lines engaged, the Ottomans were losing approximately
500 soldiers a day in their field hospitals.
500 a day? Yes. With massive numbers succumbing
to typhus and severe frostbite, the environment
was decimating them before the Russians even
fired a shot. And yet Enver Pasha relentlessly
pushed forward. He did. But wait. If it was this
obvious that the conditions were unsurvivable,
someone must have spoken up, right? I mean, how
does an army just march into a frozen meat grinder
without the leadership sounding the alarm? There
was an alarm sounded, actually, loudly, by the
man actually on the ground. Oh really? Who was
that? The voice of reason in the scenario was
the initial Ottoman commander of the Third Army,
Hasan Izzet Pasha. He looked at the jagged terrain,
he looked at the sheer lack of infrastructure,
he looked at his men shivering in their summer
uniforms, and he saw the total disaster coming
from a mile away. So what did he do? On December
18th, he sent an urgent telegram directly to
Enver Pasha. He warned him that the grand outflanking
maneuver was far too risky. Did he propose an
alternative? He explained that the troops would
be in a terrible exposed position once they finally
came out of the mountains, and that a failure
would turn the entire expedition and the harsh
winter totally against them. He practically begged
to just take a defensive fortified posture and
wait out the winter. He did. And when Enver explicitly
refused to relent, demanding the offensive continue,
Hassan Izzet Pasha sent another telegram later
that same day. Let me guess. He effectively resigned
his command. Wow. He just quit. He stated he
lacked the strength and confidence to carry out
these impossible movements, citing that he was
disturbed by an extraordinary nervousness. Extraordinary
nervousness. That's a very polite way of saying
this is a suicide mission. Exactly. He chose
to step down rather than lead his men into what
he knew without a doubt was certain doom. You
know, you've probably seen this in your own life
or career. What happens when a leader falls so
in love with their own brilliant plan? that they
completely ignore the people on the ground telling
them it's impossible. It's a universal problem.
But if the commanding general resigns because
it's a suicide mission, you have to ask why the
other generals didn't mutiny. Right. How did
Enver Pasha command that much blind loyalty to
push this through? That comes down to the immense
political power Enver Pasha wielded at the time.
He wasn't just a military commander. He was a
political heavyweight. He was a core leader of
the Young Turk Revolution and effectively running
the empire as part of a triumvirate. He had built
a cult of personality and absolute authority.
So questioning him wasn't just military and subordination.
It was political treason. So when Hasan Izzet
Pasha resigns, Enver doesn't rethink the plan.
He travels to the front line himself, strips
away any dissenting voices, and simply assumes
direct personal command of the third army. It
is a terrifying historical lesson. When a leader
actively silences the experts, telling them the
physical laws of nature make a plan impossible,
the results are always devastating. Always. Only
here. The cost was measured in tens of thousands
of lives, and that rigid adherence to the timetable
immediately starts to unravel once the troops
actually step off into the snow. The initial
maneuvers are a tragic study in the fog of war.
You have exhausted, freezing men trying to navigate
impossible terrain, and the communication breakdown
is almost immediate. Let's trace this march into
the frozen hell because the blunders are systemic.
So it's December 23rd. The Ottoman X Corps advancing,
trying to position themselves for the great pincer
movement. Right. Due to the blinding weather,
the sheer cliffs and horrific communication lines,
the Ottoman 32nd Division spots movement in the
distance. Believing they've found the Russian
flank, they open up with heavy artillery and
concentrated rifle fire. The tragedy, of course,
being that they were firing on their own men.
The Ottoman 31st Division. Just imagine the psychological
toll of that. You are freezing. You are starving
on dry bread. suddenly you were under heavy bombardment
from your own side. Two entire Ottoman divisions
engaged in a brutal desperate firefight with
each other for two straight hours before anyone
realized the fatal mistake. Two hours. It perfectly
sets the tone for the absolute command breakdown
that defines this entire march. And the cascade
of fatal errors only accelerates from there.
Hafaz Haku, the commander of that same X Corps,
decides to deviate from Enver Pasha's meticulously
timed plan. Why would you do that? He spots a
retreating Russian brigade and makes the fateful
decision to pursue them, pushing his exhausted
troops into the town of Ultur. To boost his soldiers'
flagging morale, he allows them to pillage the
town. Which historically is a grim reality of
warfare. But in this specific logistical nightmare,
there was a massive tactical consequence to this
detour, wasn't there? A devastating one. By stopping
to pillage Oltu, the Ottoman tubes burned precious
time and calories. And worse, they destroyed
the local provisions. Wait, they destroyed the
food. They essentially ransacked and ruined the
very food, livestock, and supplies that could
have sustained their own army for the coming
days. Unbelievable. Furthermore, this unauthorized
detour extended the marching distance for his
forces by roughly 40 kilometers. 40 kilometers
in deep snow. In those mountains, 40 kilometers
is an eternity. It completely severed the physical
and telegraphic communication between the X Corps
and the IX Corps. So the entire left flank of
Enver's Grand Pincer movement was suddenly marching
blind. Blind, starving, and totally disconnected
from the main army. Which leads us to the emotional
and horrific core of this entire deep dive. It
is now December 25th and 26th. Despite the delays,
the lack of food, and the severed communications,
Enver orders the IX and X Corps to march directly
into the Alahook Burr Mountains to complete the
envelopment. The terrain they were ordered to
cross is incredibly rugged, characterized by
steep, jagged ascents entirely covered in deep,
treacherous snow. The soldiers are beyond exhausted.
They have no winter coats. Their summer uniforms
are soaked and freezing. And they are trying
to traverse mountain passes that require at least
19 hours of continuous grueling marching just
to cross a single ridge. And then the severe
snowstorm hits. We have to bring in the brutal
numbers from the historical records here to truly
grasp the scale of the devastation. Hafiz Haka's
X Corps went into those mountains with over 30
,000 men. Yes. When they finally staggered out
on the other side on the night of December 26th,
their numbers had been reduced to just 3 ,200.
Let that sink in for a moment. They lost roughly
90 percent of their fighting strength to the
elements before even engaging the main Russian
line. 90 percent. According to the chief of staff
of the I -X Corps, Sherif Eldin, an estimated
10 ,000 soldiers froze to death in the Alahoukber
mountains without ever firing a single shot at
the enemy. Men simply sat down in the snow from
exhaustion and never woke up. It is an unfathomable
level of suffering. It really is. And there is
one incredibly haunting detail from the source
text that really stuck with me. While these soldiers
were dying by the thousands, freezing to death
in ditches and off cliffs in the pitch black
of a blizzard. The officers? Yes. The records
indicate that division commanders and officers
managed to survive the night by huddling together
under oil cloths. It is a stark terrible representation
of the gap between the leadership making the
fatal decisions and the rank -and -file men paying
the ultimate price for those decisions. The commanders
survive under canvas while their army literally
freezes into the mountainside. Exactly. So the
shattered frostbitten remnants of this army finally
stumble out of the mountains and they set their
sights on their objective. The town of Sarah
Commish. This brings us to the actual siege,
which is a story of incredible contrasts. You
have to remember why Sarah Kamesh was the target.
It was the vital terminal of that Russian broad
gauge railway line. The logistical heart of the
Russian front. If the Ottomans captured the town
and the railyard, the entire Russian army in
the region would be cut off, starved to supplies
with no escape route. But the town itself was
incredibly vulnerable at the start of the siege.
Our sources show it was initially defended by
a makeshift force of just 2 ,000 men. Just 2
,000. We're talking railway workers, local militia,
and a few scattered reserve units. These weren't
elite infantry. If Enver's 90 ,000 troops hadn't
been absolutely decimated by the cold and his
terrible planning, they would have rolled over
Sarikamish in a matter of hours. That is the
great what -if of the entire campaign. Because
the Ottoman forces were so delayed, disjointed,
and physically weakened by the mountains, those
2 ,000 Russian defenders were able to hold the
line just long enough. It gave the Russian command
time to frantically funnel reinforcements down
that vital rail line. But what's truly revealing
here is the total contrast in leadership between
the two sides as the siege develops. Right. Let's
look at the Ottoman side first. Emre Pasha has
personally overseen the destruction of his own
army through exposure, but his hubris remains
completely intact. He refuses to see the reality
in front of him. He stubbornly issues direct
orders to attack without regard for casualties.
Even then. Yes. He forces his starving frostbitten
survivors, men who can barely hold their rifles
into relentless suicidal frontal assaults against
steadily reinforced Russian trench positions
in the snow. It's madness. He remains completely
pathologically detached from the physical limitations
of his remaining forces. But the Russian leadership
isn't exactly a picture of calm competence either,
at least initially. In fact, they almost handed
the victory to Enver through sheer panic. No,
they certainly didn't start strong. General Mishelievsky,
the Russian deputy commander of the Caucasus
army, was actually on the verge of total panic.
Despite holding the town? Yes, despite holding
the town, he genuinely believed the Turkish encirclement
was going to succeed and wipe them all out. OK,
here's where it gets really interesting. Why
was Mishlaevsky so terrified of an Ottoman army
that was already mostly frozen to death? It all
comes down to a massive, incredibly timed intelligence
coup. Right. On December 24th, just as the siege
was beginning to take shape, Russian patrols
managed to capture an Ottoman chief of staff
named Nisuhi Bey. And what did they find when
they searched his pockets? A complete translated
copy of Enver Pasha's exact overarching attack
orders. Exactly. Imagine you are General Mishelovsky,
you read these captured orders, and you see on
paper that two entire full -strength Ottoman
corps, the I -X and the X, representing tens
of thousands of men, are executing a massive
pincer movement designed to bear down on your
position at Serikamish. Which sounds terrifying.
The sheer scale of the written plan breaks his
nerve. He genuinely believes his forces are about
to be annihilated by nearly 70 ,000 men. So what
does he do? He flees, he outright abandons the
front, gets in a car, and runs all the way back
to Tbilisi, leaving the defense of the town with
no official supreme commander. He didn't realize
that those two terrifying Ottoman corps he read
about on the paper had already been effectively
wiped out by the weather in the mountains. The
paper didn't reflect reality. Precisely. The
map is not the territory. But his cowardly flight
leaves a massive leadership vacuum at the most
critical moment of the battle. is General Nikolay
Yudinich. Yes. Unlike Mishlyevsky, Yudinich doesn't
panic at the idea of the Ottoman plan. He looks
at the actual weakened state of the Ottoman troops
in front of him. He sees reality. He assumes
command, organizes a staunch layered defense
of Sarikamish, and brilliantly uses the railway
to steadily build up his troop numbers. He basically
bleeds the Ottoman assaults dry until he has
the strength to launch a devastating, highly
coordinated counteroffensive. Which leads to
to the total final collapse of the Ottoman forces.
The numbers at the end of this siege are just
agonizing to read. Let's trace the Ottoman IX
Corps. They started this campaign with a fighting
strength of roughly 28 ,000 men. By the time
Yudinich's counteroffensive surrounds them and
the siege officially ends on January 4th, the
entire IX Corps is forced to surrender. Out of
28 ,000 men, do you know how many were left standing
to surrender? It's a shocking figure. 104 soldiers
and 106 officers. From 28 ,000 men down to just
over 200, it is an almost unprecedented total
erasure of a modern military unit. And what happened
to Hafiz Haqqapasha, the commander who pillaged
ULTU? He only narrowly escaped capture himself
by jumping on a horse and fleeing into the snow
under heavy Russian fire. So what does this all
mean for us today? When the guns finally stop
firing, the blizzards clear and the silence returns
to the mountains. What is the final tally of
this horrific campaign? Let's unpack the aftermath
and the staggering tragic cost. Out of the roughly
90 ,000 Ottoman soldiers who began the offensive
with Enver Pasha, the casualties are difficult
to even comprehend. Up to 30 ,000 were killed
or wounded in actual combat during the sieges
and skirmishes. But the elements, as Hassan Izzet
Pasha predicted, were the true enemy. Approximately
25 ,000 men died strictly from the cold, freezing
to death in the mountains and forests before
ever seeing a Russian soldier. And the suffering
didn't end when they got off the mountain. The
historical records note that another 20 ,000
men died in the crowded, undersupplied field
hospitals behind the lines. Mostly from a massive
epidemic of typhus that swept through the severely
weakened survivors. And it's crucial to mention
that the Russians suffered terribly as well.
This wasn't a bloodless victory. No, not at all.
They lost up to 30 ,000 men to combat sickness
and severe frostbite during the defense. The
environment didn't play favorites even if the
Russians were better equipped and had the railway.
The caucus's winter exacted a massive toll on
everyone. But the darkest consequence of this
battle, the real historical poison pill, happens
after Enver Pasha abandons the shattered remnants
of his forces and flees back to the capital.
Because he realizes his grand Schlieffen -style
strategy has resulted in the total destruction
of his own army. Based strictly on the historical
records, Ember Pasha returned to Istanbul facing
a massive political crisis. But rather than taking
responsibility for the terrible planning, the
lack of winter supplies, and his insistence on
forced winter marches that doomed his men, he
desperately needed a scapegoat to protect his
absolute political position. And unfortunately,
he found one. He publicly blamed the Armenian
population for the defeat. He systematically
propagated the claim that Armenian soldiers and
civilians had actively conspired with the Russians,
engaged in sabotage, and caused the collapse
of the Ottoman lines. Wow. The source text explicitly
notes that this manufactured scapegoating over
the Serikamish disaster subsequently became a
direct prelude to the horrors of the Armenian
genocide. That is such a heavy, dark turn in
history. But I want you to think about this as
a listener. When leaders at the highest levels
refuse to be held accountable for massive systemic
failures, when their hubris completely prevents
them from admitting they were wrong, they will
almost always look to manufacture a scapegoat.
It's a pattern. And the consequences of that
lie, of trying to cover up their own incompetence,
can unleash something far more tragic and destructive
than the initial failure itself. It's a deeply
sobering historical lesson about the strict limits
of human ambition, the necessity of grounded
logistics, and the terrifying far -reaching cost
of unaccountable leadership. It really is. So
to summarize the core of this deep dive, the
Battle of Seryakamish stands as a definitive
historical example of what happens when rigid
military ideology and blind human hubris go up
against the unforgiving elements of nature. Enver
Pasha treated the rugged Caucasus mountains like
a flat paper map in a warm office in Istanbul.
He ignored the vital logistics of winter warfare.
He silenced and replaced his own experienced
commanders on the ground, and he entirely ignored
the very real physical limits of human endurance.
And tens of thousands of men on both sides paid
the ultimate price for his arrogance. This raises
an important question, something my co -host
and I would like to leave you with today to mull
over. Yes. We've spent this time looking at how
Enver Pasha's total refusal to accept the reality
of the terrain and the weather doomed tens of
thousands of his own men to freeze in the dark.
But consider this broader implication. When an
army of 90 ,000 men effectively vanishes into
the snow and the very leader who caused the disaster
controls the telegraph lines and the press back
home, How does a nation even begin to mourn a
disaster it isn't legally allowed to know the
truth about? Next time you read an official,
sanitized account of a historical crisis, ask
yourself who survived to write the telegram?
That is a phenomenal, haunting question to end
on. Thank you so much for joining my co -host
and me on this deep dive. We hope you walk away
with a deeper, more nuanced perspective on how
history is made, how vital the truth on the ground
really is, and sometimes how tragedy is frozen
in its tracks by the very people supposed to
lead. Until next time, stay curious.