Erzincan during the First World War, 1915-1917: The Farthest Caucasian Battlefront, Place of Armistice and a Site of Massacres

Erzincan was not only an important industrial and trade centre but also served as the headquarters for an Ottoman army during the First World War. From the winter of 1915 onward, Russia held the strategic initiative on the nearby Caucasus front. In May 1915, Turkish forces exterminated the local Armenian population, an episode in the genocide of Armenians whose loyalty to the Ottoman cause was supposedly suspect. When the Russian army reached the town on 25 July 1916 (Julian calendar), its farthest point of advance in the war, it captured a largely empty town in only two days. This battle was the last major combat action between Ottoman and tsarist Russian forces on this front. While the victory opened the way for the Russian military to the Ottoman interior, for it threatened Sivas and the main road to Angora (Ankara), the February Revolution of 1917 halted all Russian military operations. The subsequent departure of Russian troops gave the Turks the opportunity to recover their pre-war frontiers. On 18 December 1917 at Erzincan, they signed an armistice with the Transcaucasian Commissariat, which formally brought the fighting between Turks and Russians in the Caucasus to an end.