and conservatives. Problems with the Armenian grocer
persist. Rumors of a movement for the captives circulate
but they remain in Sarıkamış for now.//
8 April 1916 Saturday
The weather is nice. In place of black
clouds there’s sunshine. Today
passed in destitution. I passed the time by looking outside. Then
it
grew dark but there’s no snow. Today we heard that we wil be moved
to a village
near Kars. Another strange incident this evening: we were
going to drink tea and since Fahri
didn’t have any sugar he asked
Hurşid for some. But Hurşid refused, saying something rude.
At this
time one of the Russian soldiers, a Greek, entered the room, saw the
situation and
immediately pulled four pieces of sugar from his pocket,
giving them to Fahri. Fahri, and in
particular the rest of us, got angry
at this…anyway, a bit later Fahri took out a money purse
and had to
say that he would sell it. Then there were no strangers left in the room.
Tahir
demanded to know why if Fahri had to sell his purse did he sell
it to a Russian soldier and he said:
‘I do whatever the hell I want to.’
Really, I couldn’t bear such a crude statement. Intervening
forcefully,
I shut him up. Afterwards we scolded that bigot Hurşid for shaming
us in front of the
Russians. That low-life Mustafa, who understood
that the seriousness of the words spoken
were especially directed
toward him, said that such things should not be said about Hurşid but
I screamed at him threateningly. So he had to keep quiet. And even
though Hurşid seemed to
want to jump into the conversation at this
point, Zühdü shut him up. After this that
two-faced Rıfkı became
friends with these creeps. Zühdü and I defended the forlorn Fahri.
What a
shameful situation.
9 April 1916 Sunday
Morning came. Yesterday’s regrettable
incident has split us into two
camps. On
one side there’s me, Zühdü, Kazim and Fahri and on
the
other side are Hurşid, Mustafa, Tahir and Rıfkı. In our group everyone
except me is a
graduate of Darülmuallim (Teachers Training College),
although Kazim is still in the
last year. In the othe group, they’re
graduates of Medrese-I Mahsuni (Muslim Theological School) High
School and
Darülmuallım but they’re all ignorant, blind bigots. All
their actions are completely ridiculous in
terms of time and situation.
In the morning we didn’t drink
tea because there was no sugar. I went
to the Command with Kazim and Fahri. He didn’t ask
anything at night.
We waited quite a while and finally the aide came. I said that the new
grocer didn’t give us
anything and I wanted to know what we should do.
This time he
changed the address of the ‘raspika’ and for the third time
we went to the designated grocer
who accepted us. We got some
chocolate, sugar, matches, cigarettes, cocoa and tea.
Upon our return,
Fahri went to the grocer with three fellows from the other group. Good,
we’ve reconciled somewhat.
Today the artillery officer who had taken over the outpost said
that
Mülteci (turncoat) Refet had caused the rapid fall of Erzurum and he
added that
Trabzon had fallen, too. We didn’t belive either one. The
weather is nice. At night we
commiserated with each other.
Many Armenian Stores and Shops in Sarıkamış
10 April 1916 Monday
Weather is good. We spent the day walking
around outside. In the
morning everyone from the other group except Mustafa went to the
grocer. Zühdü, Kazim and Tahir went in the afternoon but the grocer
was reluctant to
give them anything. He is an Armenian named
Mihçiyan.
There are quite a few Armenian stores and shops in
Sarıkamış. Few
Muslims. Again today the other group did
something
that bothered me. Since they have money they were
able to get sugar from the
trading post. They put it out in front of
us as if they were going to divide it up but this was
just a show
against us. At this point Aksenti was in our room. He sensed that
something was
wrong, that there was a coolness among us and
he said something like ‘four here, four
there.’…regrettable things
…again today we wrote sort of a petition about our need for shoes
and sent it to the Commander. Also today I wrote a letter to my
father and one to Hacı
Mustafa and I sent them.
11 April 1916 Tuesday
The weather in the morning was calm but
after a while it darkened.
All of a sudden there was a storm. Clouds gathered and snow fell,
everywhere turned white. This continued until late in the afternoon.
By evening the
clouds started to break up. The snow in the open
areas melted.
In the evening our group
gathered together on my bed. First, Kazim
told us about a flirtation he had with a girl when he was
young –
the year 1327 (1911). Then the discussion turned to family life. Zühdü,
who has a
profession, and I talked about how I will establish a family
life around the profession I
envision. This was a great discussion.
We were all refreshed and spiritually invigorated by it. Tonight
was
a rare night in captivity. After this discussion we sang songs and then
slept soundly.
12 April 1916 Wednesday
I had another argument with Hurşid in the
morning (the reason was
probably the teapot) but it didn’t last long. I felt bad about
it. We
pass the time looking at the forest and smelling the aromas of Spring.
I am just about out
of cigarettes. We gathered together at night at
my bed again. I related some details about
my past and my difficult
days. I went to bed.
13 April 1916 Thursday
Time passes with aggravation. We’re not
free and our needs are great.
Fleas are
still on me. The restaurant keeper is offering us
cocoa with
milk once a week. Although we wanted permission to tell the
Commander that the
grocer wouldn’t give us anything, the duty
officer put us off by saying ‘siças’
(‘right away’). The Commander
here is a creep, leaving us in such difficulty…Zühdü and I chatted
at
night and went to bed late.
14 April 1916 Friday
With the aim of easing our difficulties, we
somehow were able to get
permission and in the morning
Fahri, Kazim and I went to the
Command. We told them to designate a good grocer or give us an
amount of money.
The Commander had one of his men go to the grocer
and say that we could get
whatever we wanted from his store. This man
told us that we would be given an abundant
amount of money within
ten days and that our accounts were already being prepared. Again, the
grocer wouldn’t give us anything. We cursed him and went back to our
place. We
stopped to see Basri on our way back and spoke with others
there, as well. This
situation made everyone angry.
Today I finished the pants I started to make out of my cape
a week ago.
A Cossack officer named Simon told us that Rize had fallen. We were
angry
about this. Again in the evening our group gathered together at
my bed for a
discussion. We heard that the army has
gone on the
attack near Bitlis.
15 April 1916 Saturday
After drinking sugarless tea we went to the
Commander to ask for
money but we couldn’t find him.
We went to see our other officer
candidate friends and chatted with
them. On the way back we saw
Şerif. This time we went to
the Command again and we were able
to see the aide. We told the Armenian who had
translated for us
yesterday what we wanted but who knows how he translated it.
The word
‘niyeset’ could be heard floating around.
We insisted.
The translator then disappeared.
Cursing him, we came back to
the room. During the noon meal Gendarmerie First Lieutenant
Çerkez Mehmet and the Command Secretary came to our room.
They wrote down our
names, to whom and how much we owed
and theysaid that we would be moved on 17 April,
but to where
was unsaid. Çerkez said
that our army had launched an attack
from the sea and
that Verdun had been taken by the Germans. We
were glad to hear this. We got together in
the evening and talked.
//END of PART XX//
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