Abstract:

One of the most tragic results of wars is that civilians living in war territories have to leave their settlements, that is, migration. The fate of the Caucasia was deeply influenced by these migrations as much as by the battles fought in the Caucasian Front in the First World War. Having begun in the first days of the war in 1914, migrations continued uninterruptedly until 1917. The Muslim population of the region where the Turkish-Russian conflict was experienced had to immigrate westwards in parallel to the Russian advancement. The number of migrants climaxed after the Russian occupation of Erzurum in 1916. Local people, all kinds of transportation means of whom had been seized by the Turkish army, retreated along with the army to the inner parts of Anatolia despite the freezing cold as they did not want to live under a yoke. Upon occupation of Trabzon in the same year, local people immigrated westwards over Ordu and Giresun. Mostly the sea route and boats were used during the immigration. The immigrants had to cope with gang attacks, epidemics and hunger along the path despite all kinds of precautions taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Governorships of Erzurum and Trabzon. Those who migrated through the Black Sea were attacked by the Russian Navy. The migration wave that started from Erzurum extended over Erzincan and Sivas to Kayseri, Niğde, Kırşehir and Çatalca. And those who immigrated southwards spread to a wide region up to Diyarbakır and Adana. This study examines the migration movements between 1915 and 1917 based on the Turkish General Staff’s Archive of Military History and Strategic Studies (ATASE), the Turkish Prime Ministry’s Ottoman Archive and memoirs.