Fuad Bey boards a train for transport to somewhere - he
hears it may be Moscow.//
Sarıkamış train station.
1 May 1916 Monday
We were sitting around after our sugarless
tea. The Georgian officer
said that we would go to the Command. After the meal and the change
of the guard we went. Şitabes Kaptiyan and Çerkes Mehmet were there.
I got 159 rubles as our
three-month allowance. I paid the restaurant-
keeper who was there my debt of 62 rubles (one
ruble per day).
They said that we would me moved tomorrow. We came back to the
room right
away. Three fellows went to the market. The Petersburg
Cossacks of yesterday came to the room
again. We gave them tea and
they left. I was quite annoyed when Juram showed reluctance to give
his
address. At night we chatted again. We collected some money for
Samun and Pantalimona who serve
us and settled our accounts. Kazim
left us and instead I was together with Zühdü. Kazim is
somewhat
unmannerly. When he gets money in his hand who knows what he
thinks, ‘Ah! I’ve got some
money!’
The route of Fuad's train went from Sarıkamış via Kars and
Aleksandropol to Tiflis (Tbilisi).
2 May 1916 Tuesday
We had finished tea and our meal. The
Petersburg Cossacks and the
duty officer said that now we would go to the Command. We got ready
and
shook the hands of the officer prisoners. We went to the Command.
All of the officers were here. Those who had
been at Hamamlı had
come too. I met and spoke with Ziya, the 8th
Company Commander,
who was taken prisoner on 5 February and Mustafa Remzi, who had
gone missing at
Katarkaya and who was the 4th Company Commander.
Ziya congratulated me on my promotion.
Anyway, they also gave us
travel pay (1.5 rubles per day for ranks up to major and 2.5 for majors
and above). So I got 3 rubles travel pay. In the Command garden a
Russian general inspected us and
asked about our complaints. Then
after we counted a few times we went in groups of six to the
station.
What a mess! Total disorganization. Some of us went to second class
rail cars and some to
4th class soldier rail cars because there weren’t
enough passenger rail cars. I was angry at
Çerkes Mehmet for his
thoughtlessness and crudeness here. If he had appealed to the Russian
Commander to look after us properly the scandal wouldn’t have
occurred.
The officers with families
then came. Artillery Major Osman’s
Hungarian wife was crying openly and we felt badly. The reason
was
that they thought that the wives of officers would be sent to a different
place but this didn’t
happen and they weren’t separated. They will go
together. We waited until evening but no movement. We
were annoyed.
Thinking that we’ll move tomorrow we went to sleep but one hour
after
midnight the train moved. We passed a number of stations and
at dawn we came to the Kars station. I was
with Zühdü. I gave a ruble
to the machine-gunner sergeant.
The Ancient Ottoman Fortress at Kars
3 May 1916 Wednesday
Our train didn’t stop for long at Kars and
since the city was somewhat
far away we didn’t see it. When the sun rose we moved. The land
before
coming to Kars and while passing through here is a plain.
There are meadows and quite a
number of villages. We saw some
old Ottoman forts. The villages here are not very developed.
Before
noon we came to Aleksandropol (Gümrü) station and our train stopped
here for a long while.
The city perimeter is fortified with fire
trenches and barbed wire fences. My understanding is that when
the
ferocious Turks first attacked Sarıkamış they put this fear in the
Russians.
We got something
to eat here and we were also happy to hear from the
correspondent of the 8H newspaper here that our army had killed
25,000 English
around Baghdad and taken 9,000 prisoners. Since the
city was somewhat far from the
station we couldn’t tour around but
from a distance it didn’t appear
to be very developed. Prior to coming
here we had passed through a three-kilometer (about,
approximately)-
long tunnel.
Nevertheless, it’s very flat here. The terrain after Hamamlı
station was mountainous. For the most part, we followed the cliff edges
and we saw frightening
views that would terrify a person. After halting
at Hamamlı for a few hours our train moved toward
morning (Hamamlı
evening). During the day we saw numerous villages on the plain and
we
passed many stations. Of course, we slept in the railcars at
night.
The railcars were made for night movements. In passenger
compartments during the day one sits of course and at
night one lies
down. There are four people in each compartment but the military
railcar that
I’m in is three-tiered so there are three people in each tier
for a total of nine people in the
railcar. And the beds are wooden. In
ours there is a stove, a latrine and a faucet. The
passenger railcars are
nicer of course. The engines aren’t particularly fast. Ours are better
than
these.
4 May 1916 Thursday
It was morning when we came to Sanail
station. The mountainous
nature of the terrain continued here, as well. Now and then we
passed
through small tunnels. The mountainous terrain went on until we
reached Sarahlu station. After that there was a flat plain which was
covered with spring flowers, meadows and
tree groves – a beautiful
view – and we continued on through it. There were quite a few
villages and stations on the plain.
Sometime after two o’clock our train came to a stop at one of
the
stations on Tbilisi’s perimeter. A bit later a Russian officer came and
told us to get some bread
and see to our other needs right away because
the train would be heading for Moscow. We got
ready but shortly
afterwards the train started toward Tbilisi and stopped near a hospital
about three kilometers away, where we had stopped earlier. There was
a platform here and we
started to walk around freely, realizing that we
wouldn’t move again today. Georgians came
and surrounded us. They
spoke Georgian a lot with Hurşid. They gave us some news –
our
soldiers have entered Batumi; Trabzon is about to be retaken and some
other things.
The Georgians don’t like the Russians because the
Russians killed 6,000 Georgians during
the Tbilisi uprising. There
are Iranians and Armenians here too, as well as Tatar Turks (not
many). We spent the night in the railcars here.
Tbilisi 1915
5 May 1916 Friday
In the morning when we got up our train was
four or five meters from
the platform, where there was another train carrying sick
and wounded
Russian soldiers. As they did yesterday, the women from the Georgian
hospital came to our train to talk. Because two officer prisoners went
into the city
without permission we were under tight supervision
and control. This lasted until midday when
we approached the platform.
At noon the Georgians at the hospital (there were many of them)
prepared a feast for us in the hospital dining hall. All the workers there
were girls. The meal
consisted of vermicelli soup and a rice dish but it
was good. We chatted with the girls and after
lunch we walked along
the platform freely. Then there was more friendly chattlng with the
girls.
This taste of freedom soothed my soul quite a bit. Many of the girls
liked our officers
and they exchanged addresses.
The officer prisoners who had come to Tbilisi previously joined us
for
transport. I spoke with Captain Arap Tevfik, the commander of the
Machine Gun 7th
Company, who had taken asylum on 30 January.
Our
railcars were changed again but we weren’t
quick enough and fell into
a third-class railcar. The others are passenger railcars. The railcars
have
wooden beds but the soldiers aren’t like clerks. Ther are four places in
the compartment. In
the afternoon those with shoes were examined
and given a pair of boots each. Since he
didn’t have any shoes, I gave
Kazim my long boots so I got myself new boots and I already had
galoshes. Some of us put shoes away for the future and some got boots.
The city of Tbilisi is
tucked into the end of a valley much like a gulf and
the rest of it is surrounded by high
mountains and on two sides by long
ridges. The station and the city are big but it didn’t matter
because we
couldn’t go into the city. We couldn’t tour around. There is electric
lighting here.
//END of PART XXIII//
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