Journal of General Turkish History Research

Abstract

One of the events that marked the last century of the Ottoman Empire was the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War. The weakening dominance of the empire in the Balkans during the 19th century was largely eliminated at the end of this war. A large region including Kars, Ardahan and Batum on the Caucasian border passed under Russian rule. The war took place on two fronts, the Rumelian and the Caucasian Fronts, and the center of gravity of the war was the Rumelian Front. The operation on the Rumeli Front started with the rapid advance of the Russian army and in a short time many critical positions were captured by the Russians. On the other hand, the Ottoman resistance in Pleven stopped the Russian operation for five months and prevented a defeat that could come much earlier. However, with the arrival of the Russian army in front of Istanbul at the beginning of 1878, the defeat was finalized and the Empire had to accept a peace under very harsh conditions.
The course of the war in the Caucasus Front was different and the initiative remained on the Ottoman side for a long time. The Russian forward operation, which started at the end of April 1877, was stopped by the Ottoman troops under the command of Gazi Ahmet Muhtar Pasha at the end of June. And the Russian army was driven back to the border line. In the Battles of Yahniler and Gedikler, which took place in the east of Kars, the Ottoman army was victorious and maintained its superiority. However, Ahmet Muhtar Pasha, who was defeated in the Battle of Alacadağ in October, had to retreat to Erzurum. In the Battle of Deveboynu, which took place in front of Erzurum, the Russian forces were victorious and the Ottoman army could only hold on to the Erzurum fortifications. The Russians captured Kars in mid-November and began to prepare for the siege of Erzurum. In the meantime, an armistice was signed and the war ended.
What happened in the Caucasus Front in the Ottoman-Russian War has been the subject of some memoirs and studies. One of them is the work titled "Başımıza Gelenler" by Mehmed Arif Bey. Although Mehmet Arif Bey was not a soldier, he was an important witness of the events in terms of the position he occupied throughout the war. Mehmed Arif Bey, who served as Ahmet Muhtar Pasha's chief clerk, witnessed the war events closely and all the official correspondence of the front commander passed through his hands. Mehmed Arif Bey served in Ahmet Muhtar Pasha's entourage for many years after the war.
While Mehmet Arif Bey's memoir describes the war events in the Caucasus Front, it also offers important observations about the Ottoman army. These observations focused on the army organization, command level, human resources, logistics system and the weaknesses of the army. Mehmed Arif Bey's work also contains valuable information about the life of the people of the region and their situation during the war years. While conveying his observations, the author approached the events quite critically and did not hesitate to look for the reasons for the defeat. In this context, Mehmet Arif Bey's memoirs constituted an indispensable resource in order to evaluate the Caucasian Front in the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War. The aim of this study is to evaluate the events in the Caucasian Front in the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-1878, through the memoirs of Mehmet Arif Bey.