Battle of Bitlis 1915
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1915 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | Turkey | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | World War I | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Ottoman Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 38.4000, 42.1083 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Bitlis refers to a series of engagements in the summer of 1916 for the town of Bitlis and to a lesser extent nearby Muş, between Russian Imperial forces and their Ottoman counterparts. The town was the last stronghold of the Ottoman Empire preventing the Russians from entering Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
Part of the battle is known as Battle of Muş
The first military confrontation at Bitlis occurred in July 1915, when Russian troops launched an unsuccessful assault on the town's fortifications. The second confrontation began in February 1916 and ended with the capture of Bitlis by new Russian corps, which largely consisted of the 1st Battalion of the Armenian volunteer units under the command of Andranik Ozanian. The Allied withdrawal from Gallipoli gave opportunity for Turkish forces to redeploy to the Caucasus region. Russian commander Nikolai Yudenich intended to attack the Turks before they could organize their forces to launch an attack. After a series of clashes in Koprukoy, Erzurum, Muş, the Russian IV Caucasian Corps captured Bitlis on 2–3 March, 1,000 more prisoners were taken in the city.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Bitlis (revision 1371656249), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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All 138 battles of the World War I →
Browse more: battles in Turkey · Asia · World War I era battles