although the Turks fought hard to
hold up this advance toward Diarbekr. This advance was the direct
result of the defeat which the Russians had inflicted on a Turkish
division at Bitlis as early as April 15, 1916. By April 23, 1916, the
Turks had again gathered some strength and were able to report that
they had repulsed Russian attacks south of Bitlis, west of Mush, east
of Baiburt, and south of Trebizond. From then on, however, the
Russians again advanced to the south of Bitlis as well as in the
direction of Erzingan. By the beginning of May, 1916, the Russian
official statements do not speak any longer of the "region south of
Bitlis," but mention instead "the front toward Diarbekr." This
important town is about 100 miles southwest of Bitlis, and apparently
had become, after the fall of Trebizond, together with Erzingan, one
of the immediate objectives of the Russian campaign.

Diarbekr is a town of 35,000 inhabitants, whose importance arises from
its being the meeting point of the roads from the Mediterranean via
Aleppo and Damascus from the Black Sea via Amasia-Kharput, and Erzerum
and from the Persian Gulf via Bagdad. Ras-el-Ain, the present railhead
of the Bagdad railway, is seventy miles south.

The stiffening of the Turkish defensive was being maintained as April,
1916, waned and May approached. The Russian campaign in the Caucasus
had resolved itself now into three distinctive parts: In the north its
chief objective, Trebizond, had been reached and gained. There further
progress, of course, would be attempted along the shore of the Black
Sea, and in a way it was easier to achieve progress here than at any
other part of the Caucasian front. For first of all the nature of the
ground along the coast of the Black Sea was much less difficult, and
then, too, the Russian naval forces could supply valuable assistance.
That progress was not made faster here by the Russians was due
entirely to the fact that the advance along the two other sectors was
more difficult and the Turkish resistance more desperate. And, of
course, if the front of any one sector was pushed considerably ahead
of the front of the other two, grave danger immediately arose that the
most advanced sector would be cut off from the rest of the Russian
armies by flank movements. For in a country such as Turkish Armenia,
without railroads and with only a few roads, it was of course
impossible to establish a continuous front line, such as was to be
formed