Evaluation of the strategic and tactical of Sarıkamış operation plan of the Caucasian front in the First World War

The majority of the arguments related to the Sarıkamış Operation reveal that the topographic, logistical, and climatic structure of the region is the main factor in this defeat. But the main problem was that the commanders who guided the plan, strategy, and tactics of the operation, rather than the physical conditions, manipulated the main plan on their initiative. In this context, since the research focuses on the impact of command errors on the defeat, the strategic and tactical error dimension of the commanders formed the main theme of the study. The study aims to illuminate the incomplete and dark parts of the operation, how and in what way the decisions were made on the way to the result, and in the process, military tactics and strategies can be applied. In this context, all biased or neutral sources were examined with a critical point of view in the study, and with this point of view, in accordance with the thesis title the operation plan, the implementation process, the reasons for the defeat, and the strategic and tactical mistakes that led to the defeat were analyzed in accordance with the historiography of warfare. The qualitative research method was used in the study and on from through dialectical hypotheses original study was revealed by revealing the strategic and tactical error dimension, which was not taken into much research, in articles focus than the loss and balance sheet dimension of the operation. In this context, the turning points and breaking points of the operation have been analyzed in light of the orders, reports, archive, war newspapers, memoirs, diaries, official documents, and academic sources of that day. Eventually the commanders who changed the main plan in the Sarıkamış operation according to their initiatives determined the fate of the operation. With the loss of the sudden and dominant tactic in the main plan, the speed strategy has lost its importance and the operation plan has become a victim of strategy and tactics. Keywords: Enver Pasha, Hafiz Hakkı Pasha, Sarikamis Operation, Caucasian Front, 3rd Army.