venth Corps.
Pressing their advantage the Russians pursued the beaten Turks toward
Erzerum, but the heavy snows prevented them gaining the full fruits of
their victory.

If the Eleventh Corps had not won a victory it had, however,
accomplished its object in that it had relieved the pressure on the
Tenth and enabled it to make good its escape to the north, where it
proceeded to effect a junction with the First Corps. The experience of
this First Corps had not been a happy one. We left it on Christmas
Day, 1914, overlooking Ardahan. A week later it entered the city and
prepared to carry out its role in the general offensive by advancing
upon the Russian right flank at Kars. It met serious opposition,
however, when it attempted to move out of Ardahan, was itself
compelled to retreat, and finally sought safety beyond the ridges to
the west. There, in the valley of the Choruk, it joined up with the
Tenth Corps. Together they continued their retreat upon Trebizond.
Subsequently they tried a new offensive in the Choruk valley which was
undecisive, however, and at the end of January, 1914, the situation
had developed into a deadlock.

The Turkish troops in their operation in the Caucasus appeared to have
suffered from the difficulty of keeping open their sea communications
with Constantinople. Lacking railways they relied too much upon
supplies arriving at Trebizond. The Russian fleet in the Black Sea was
active, however, and upset the Turkish calculations. In the first week
of January, 1915, at Sinope a Russian cruiser discovered the Turkish
cruiser _Medjidieh_ convoying a transport. After a short engagement
the _Medjidieh_ was put to flight, and the transport sunk.

On January 6, 1915, the Russian Black Sea fleet ran into the _Breslau_
and the _Hamidieh_ and damaged them both in a running fight. A week
later Russian torpedo boats sank several Turkish supply boats near
Sinope.

While this fighting was taking place in the north, farther to the
south toward the Persian frontier the Russians were attempting a
turning movement against the Turkish right flank. At the same time
that the Russian force in the north crossed the Turkish frontier the
Russian column entered Turkey fifty miles farther southeast. On
November 8, 1914, this force entered the Turkish town of Kara Kilissa.
A week later, making its way southwest for a distance of twenty miles,
it engaged, near the village of Dutukht, a Turkish force composed
largely of Ara