#28: The Caucasus campaign (1914-16)
All the military movement from our region and recruiting
post was in the direction of the Russian Caucasus frontier,
a far 400 miles away. There was no railroad and the Black Sea
shores were dominated by the Russian fleet. Horse-wagons were
used for all transport until the horses were decimated by the
strain, then two-wheeled ox-carts were pressed into service.
But the patient cattle had such heavy loads and such scanty
fodder, that they dropped by the way and farmers commandeered
with their cattle, abandoned oxen, carts and loads along the
road, and stole back home in dreadful fear of penalties for
desertion. Then the camels were drafted. They endured snow
and cold as well as sand and heat, and American children in
the happy days gone by would often count 500 camels in a
day's ride across the beautiful Anatolian plains and mountain
ridges. Now, however, we heard, as an example, of one train
starting with 900 camels of which only 36 reached the front.
Then the military authorities called for the donkeys and then
our neighbors in Marsovan shed tears, not that they were
unwilling to do their bit, but they knew that poor Jack and
Jenny from their little stalls under the house could not
carry food enough to feed themselves all the way to the
distant battle front, let alone reaching there with loads
of military supplies.
Soldiers recruited and sent forward in frequent convoys
marched all the way on foot and some of our young graduates,
found to be capable and reliable as well as educated, were
appointed subaltern officers and placed in charge of such
groups of men for the long march to the war front. A convoy
of recruits would reach a village toward evening and the
officer in charge would requisition lodging and supplies
for the night. Most of the men were away doing their own
soldier service, and the village women with their children
and others would neither dare to refuse their uninvited
guests nor remain in their homes over night when soldiers
were camping in their village. So the village families
would go out to the fields or forests to pass the night
and return cold and miserable in the morning to find that
their hungry visitors had eaten what there was to eat;
had burned what there was to burn; had carried away what
there was to wear; and had left behind them a half-wrecked
village. A few days later, the experience would be repeated,
and this time one or more of the soldiers would be left
behind sick with smallpox when the rest marched away, and
soon the village cemetery would be crowded with fresh
graves. Some villages were almost or entirely wiped out
by such experiences. The atmosphere around us and around
everybody in the country was quivering with excitement.
This was war.
NEXT: The first exodus (1916)
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