an easy opponent,
comparatively speaking, despite the frightful difficulties of large
military operations in the roadless and railless mountain passes of
the Trans-caucasus.

[Illustration: The Turkish Empire.]

Furthermore, the military pressure was becoming steadily easier on
Russia. The great German drive was drawing to its close. With its
front established in a straight line from just south of Riga on the
north, to the Rumanian frontier on the south, the Austro-German army
decided to abandon the offensive for the time being and be content
with holding that front; and devote its energies to the Serbian and
French theatres of war. This promised to provide a very welcome
breathing spell for Russia, permitting her to reorganize her military
forces, remedy her deplorable shortage of munitions and incidentally
to turn her attentions to the Turks.

Finally, once in the war, the whole of Russian official opinion tended
toward a settlement, once and for all, of her age-long dream of
Constantinople. The consolidation of the Balkans on a Slav,
pro-Russian basis, important as it appeared to be and furnishing the
ostensible causes of the war, was but incidental to the Russian
dominion over and control of Constantinople, the gate to the warm
waters of the Mediterranean.

From the viewpoint of the Entente Powers as a whole there were cogent
reasons why a Russian offensive against the Turkish Caucasus front
would be highly desirable. It would, for instance, relieve the
pressure, not only on the Gallipoli front, but as well on the British
forces in Mesopotamia. In the latter field, of course, Great Britain,
with a miniature army of not more than 40,000, was attempting to reach
Bagdad, but was being hard pressed by the Ottoman forces. Furthermore,
an eventual junction of the Russian columns from the Caucasus and the
British troops from the Persian Gulf, and the establishment of an
impregnable line, would provide against any future drive of a
German-Austro-Turkish army toward India.

These, then, were the considerations that influenced the preparations
for a resumption of the Russian offensive against Erzerum and beyond,
which had been more or less quiescent since the smashing defeat of the
Turkish army on the frontier in December, 1914.

Undoubtedly this state of affairs had much to do with the transfer of
the Grand Duke Nicholas to the Caucasus command when it became
apparent that the German offensive in the north was neari