royed by
fire. All the foreigners residing there were reported as safe. By June
6, 1915, the Russians had the whole Van region and part of the Sanjak
of Mush in their hands. They had practically annihilated Halil Bey's
original corps and cleared the Turkish troops out for many miles
around. A Turkish offensive in the Province of Azerbaijan ended in a
complete breakdown. On their right wing the Russians occupied Turkish
territory between the old frontier and the line of the rivers Chorokh
and Tortun and the mountain range of Tchakhir Baba. A violent
counterattack made by the Turks at Zinatcher was repulsed. In the
course of an engagement in the valley of Oltichai 200 Cossacks charged
on horseback to the trenches, where they dismounted. Leaving their
well-trained horses to look after themselves, the Cossacks dashed into
the Turks and put them to the sword. Two days later a Turkish official
report from Constantinople via wireless to Berlin and London very
briefly announced: "On the Caucasian front we occupied enemy positions
in the district of Olti, on the Russian border of Transcaucasia."

The operations in the Dardanelles apparently had but little effect on
Turkish activity in the Caucasus, for by June 19, 1915, they had
replaced the Ninth Army Corps which had been captured by the Russians
at Sarikamish, and had also restored and supplied with ammunition the
Tenth and Eleventh Corps, which were seriously reduced in numbers by
fighting and disease. The main Turkish concentration was taking place
about this time against Olti, Melo, and Kiskin, outside of which line
the First and Sixth Corps and the remainder of Halil Bey's army were
drawn up. Here the Turks undertook some cautious offensive maneuvers,
besides attempting to prevent the Russians from outflanking Erzerum.
Some of the Kurdish leaders who were responsible for the Armenian
massacres in the Van district voluntarily surrendered to the Russians
and were deported to the interior with their dependents.

On June 20, 1915, in a battle near Olti, fifty-five miles west of
Kars, 200 Russians were killed and prisoners and war materials were
taken. By June 24, 1915, the Russians had occupied Gob, a town
twenty-five miles north of Lake Van. A general movement of Russian
troops toward Bitlis, where the armies of two Turkish commanders were
concentrated, pointed to a favorable situation in the Caucasus from
the Russian standpoint. Gob and Bitlis are connected by several
comp