Caucasus mission he led, Von der Holtz betrays some
bitterness over his ultimate role as an oil bargainer, rather
than as a military conqueror.//
Germans in Tbilisi 1918.
On 20 October the first train, carrying seven tanker wagons filled with
our oil, left Baku for Tbilisi.
This matter began with a great amount of activity on our part but, in
the end, it would all come to naught because shortly afterwards
Germany was completely defeated. Yet when the decision was made
by the General Staff to send an expeditionary force to Transcaucasia no
one was able to foresee what the result would be.
So this decision should certainly not be thought of just as an example
of responding to a need with an ill-timed war deployment and the
consequent scattering of forces. On the contrary, it ought to be a
lesson for a military genius of today (1928) about the significant
effects of taking on a task to obtain required war material for strategic
aims without knowing anything about the mission beforehand.
As for myself, when I encountered the Caspian Sea, rather than feeling
like a forward commander in Alexander's army, I felt more like a mere
traveling merchant working for the German war industry.
This German map of Transcaucasia in the summer of 1918,
as edited in red by a Turkish source, shows the two
logistical links for Baku oil - the Baku-Tbilisi-Poti railway
(a) and the Baku-Vladıkavkaz-Novorossysk railway (b).
The area circled in red is the site of the Turkish-German
confrontation mentioned by Von der Holtz in Part III of
this series.
//END of PART IV/FINAL//
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