Turkish POWs at Nargın Island.
3.
The report of regular army officer candidate
Ahmed Ziya Efendi,
who was the commander of the 57th Regiment’s bomb artillery.
He
was held prisoner in Russia and returned to Turkey in March 1334
(1918):
While I was held prisoner the
Russians seized by valuables. I
suffered horrible insults from the Russian Cossacks. During the
transport of 700 of our soldiers who were being held on Nargin
Island (off Baku) to Tambuk, 176 of them died. No one paid
attention to their feeding.
The most notorious of Russian POW camps was on Nargın
Island, off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan.
* * *
4. The report of First Lieutenant Arslan Efendi of Erzincan:
In the course of my captivity I stayed in various prison camps in
Kars, Tbilisi, Nargın Island, Siberia’s Manchurian region, and in
Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod and St. Petersburg in European Russia.
Generally, our prisoner officers and soldiers were not left to just
look at the sky. They passed the time engaged in chores of
unacceptable distress and difficulty. The officers cooked their own
food, cut their own wood for heating and even got their own water.
After sunset all lamps and electric lights had to be turned off. In
the summer, windows were kept shut. The Russian soldiers
continuously cursed at our prisoners and hit them with rifle butts
and whips, adding to this with relentless scorn. For fun, the
Cossack soldiers fired their guns into the barracks. Since officer
salaries were paid only intermittantly, we often had to make do
with dry bread. Our prisoners lay on bare cement for long periods
with only a cloak to wear in freezing cold of minus 40-45 degrees.
Thanks to a lack of food and care, our men became weak and
contracted tuberculosis. The Russians gave the soldiers no money
and their meals consisted of soup made of water with hardly any oil
and meat in it, along with coal-black bitter bread. Toward the end,
they only gave half of this. Our soldiers had essentially nothing to
wear on their backs and their feet were bare. With great difficulty,
one time only they received some underwear. The prisoner soldiers
lived in unheated barracks in minus 45 degree cold and worked on
the roads in misery under the threat of bayonets. Many of our
soldiers lost their hands and feet to the cold. Those with fever were
made to sleep like sardines, without any separation at all.
Their wounds are not looked at for days, no one visits the sick ones,
the doctor doesn’t inquire about them. In short, the sick have no one
to talk to about their problems. Other than soup, the meals are the
same all the time. Because of the lack of food, the sick ones’ hands
and feet swell up and they die a painful death. Seriously ill invalid
patients are made to clean the dirty plates of the hospital. Those who
complain are cursed and berated. When our soldiers enter the
hospital their money is forceably taken away from them by the
Russians and not returned to them when they are discharged. What’s
more, their lives are even threatened. When the officers complained
about this to the head doctor at the hospital the response they got was
“you’re prisoners so we can treat you however we want to.” At
Sarıkamış and Oltu 4,000 of our soldiers were taken prisoner and sent
to Kars. But most were killed en route by the Cossaks, as witnessed
along the way by Tatars and Greeks, and only 400 survived.
* * *
5. The report of İhsan Pasha, who was captured at Sarıkamış:
In minus- 35-40 degree cold, in the dead of winter’s tyranny, the
crushed Ottoman soldiers were stripped of their clothes and most
of them died spread out on the ground from the effects of the cold.
The Moscovites were deaf to the suffering of our officers and
soldiers and most of these poor souls died in torment out in the open.
The prisoners were loaded into rail cars like sardines and died from
starvation and thirst. For 3 or 4 days the bodies were left in the cars
as the journey continued.
At a station named Tiza (Tisa/Tofa, just west of İrkutsk), two rail
cars, each containing 40-50 Ottoman prisoners, were shunted off to
a remote corner of the station, with the doors locked. Those trapped
inside were left to their own devices for days without food or water.
No one showed the least bit of compassion regarding their cries of
torment and so most of them died horrible deaths.
Ottoman Turkish prisoner officers and soldiers were sent to the most
remote and bitterest parts of Siberia, all of them sent in 4th class train
cars. The trip from the Caucasus to Siberia’s various locations took
at least two months. Conditions were miserable, hunger prevailed
and there was no concern for health whatsoever. Consequently, 50%
of the prisoners died en route to their places of banishment. Among
the Ottoman prisoners there were also young Moslem children and
elderly men and women living in the Ottoman border area who were
all taken to various corners of Siberia, as well.
The Muscovites had no concept of dignity and military honor and
they showed none of this toward Ottoman prisoners, in particular.
Even our most senior ranking officers among the prisoners were
treated like common criminals, put into 4th class train cars and given
50 kopeks to make do with for subsistence. They were housed in jails
and fithy places in their exile sites. All of the senior German and
Austrian officer prisoners were held in big cities in European Russia
but, without exception, all the Ottoman officer prisoners were
banished to Siberia. There was no ceremony at all for our officers
who died of various diseases in captivity, as they were simply swept
away. A portion of the Ottoman prisoners were thrown into prison
called “Kerios” in Siberia’s Tomsk city, with officers put in one area
and soldiers held in another.
It was impossible not to cry at the sight of 20 sick Ottoman soldiers
stripped nearly naked and lying on wooden boards in filth and
desperation. And although our co-religionists in Russia wanted to
openly and humanely help the Ottoman prisoners in Muscovite hands
with food and clothing, they were officially and sternly prevented from
doing so. Because every Muscovite wanted an Ottoman son to die.
Moreover, our prisoners were denied sufficient food and even bread
necessary for life, or given none at all. Almost every day most of our
prisoner soldiers held in these dark, filthy and soiled places of
banishment were lashed with whips made from telegraph wires. They
were beaten and otherwise inhumanely mistreated by the Muscovite
soldiers for no reason.
Ottoman officer and soldier prisoners were held in filthy, locked
places with many guards, who violently prevented them from getting
outside for a breath of air. The Russians absolutely forbade the local
populace to have any contact with the prisoners. All local shopkeepers
we prohibited from selling clothes, books, maps and other items to
prisoners, under penalty of 5 years in prison and a 3,000 ruble cash fine.
The Muscovites put a senior -ranking officer and 3 low-ranking
officers in a buried earthen shack, with no light or heat, on the rail line
4 kilometers away from the Tomsk station, in February’s minus 40
degree cold. The prisoners were held here for 12 hours, the pretext
being that they had to wait for a train that would take them to another
site further to the east in Siberia. Actually, it was nothing other than
additional torture.
suffered horrible insults from the Russian Cossacks. During the
transport of 700 of our soldiers who were being held on Nargin
Island (off Baku) to Tambuk, 176 of them died. No one paid
attention to their feeding.
The most notorious of Russian POW camps was on Nargın
Island, off the coast of Baku, Azerbaijan.
* * *
4. The report of First Lieutenant Arslan Efendi of Erzincan:
In the course of my captivity I stayed in various prison camps in
Kars, Tbilisi, Nargın Island, Siberia’s Manchurian region, and in
Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod and St. Petersburg in European Russia.
Generally, our prisoner officers and soldiers were not left to just
look at the sky. They passed the time engaged in chores of
unacceptable distress and difficulty. The officers cooked their own
food, cut their own wood for heating and even got their own water.
After sunset all lamps and electric lights had to be turned off. In
the summer, windows were kept shut. The Russian soldiers
continuously cursed at our prisoners and hit them with rifle butts
and whips, adding to this with relentless scorn. For fun, the
Cossack soldiers fired their guns into the barracks. Since officer
salaries were paid only intermittantly, we often had to make do
with dry bread. Our prisoners lay on bare cement for long periods
with only a cloak to wear in freezing cold of minus 40-45 degrees.
Thanks to a lack of food and care, our men became weak and
contracted tuberculosis. The Russians gave the soldiers no money
and their meals consisted of soup made of water with hardly any oil
and meat in it, along with coal-black bitter bread. Toward the end,
they only gave half of this. Our soldiers had essentially nothing to
wear on their backs and their feet were bare. With great difficulty,
one time only they received some underwear. The prisoner soldiers
lived in unheated barracks in minus 45 degree cold and worked on
the roads in misery under the threat of bayonets. Many of our
soldiers lost their hands and feet to the cold. Those with fever were
made to sleep like sardines, without any separation at all.
Their wounds are not looked at for days, no one visits the sick ones,
the doctor doesn’t inquire about them. In short, the sick have no one
to talk to about their problems. Other than soup, the meals are the
same all the time. Because of the lack of food, the sick ones’ hands
and feet swell up and they die a painful death. Seriously ill invalid
patients are made to clean the dirty plates of the hospital. Those who
complain are cursed and berated. When our soldiers enter the
hospital their money is forceably taken away from them by the
Russians and not returned to them when they are discharged. What’s
more, their lives are even threatened. When the officers complained
about this to the head doctor at the hospital the response they got was
“you’re prisoners so we can treat you however we want to.” At
Sarıkamış and Oltu 4,000 of our soldiers were taken prisoner and sent
to Kars. But most were killed en route by the Cossaks, as witnessed
along the way by Tatars and Greeks, and only 400 survived.
* * *
5. The report of İhsan Pasha, who was captured at Sarıkamış:
In minus- 35-40 degree cold, in the dead of winter’s tyranny, the
crushed Ottoman soldiers were stripped of their clothes and most
of them died spread out on the ground from the effects of the cold.
The Moscovites were deaf to the suffering of our officers and
soldiers and most of these poor souls died in torment out in the open.
The prisoners were loaded into rail cars like sardines and died from
starvation and thirst. For 3 or 4 days the bodies were left in the cars
as the journey continued.
At a station named Tiza (Tisa/Tofa, just west of İrkutsk), two rail
cars, each containing 40-50 Ottoman prisoners, were shunted off to
a remote corner of the station, with the doors locked. Those trapped
inside were left to their own devices for days without food or water.
No one showed the least bit of compassion regarding their cries of
torment and so most of them died horrible deaths.
Ottoman Turkish prisoner officers and soldiers were sent to the most
remote and bitterest parts of Siberia, all of them sent in 4th class train
cars. The trip from the Caucasus to Siberia’s various locations took
at least two months. Conditions were miserable, hunger prevailed
and there was no concern for health whatsoever. Consequently, 50%
of the prisoners died en route to their places of banishment. Among
the Ottoman prisoners there were also young Moslem children and
elderly men and women living in the Ottoman border area who were
all taken to various corners of Siberia, as well.
The Muscovites had no concept of dignity and military honor and
they showed none of this toward Ottoman prisoners, in particular.
Even our most senior ranking officers among the prisoners were
treated like common criminals, put into 4th class train cars and given
50 kopeks to make do with for subsistence. They were housed in jails
and fithy places in their exile sites. All of the senior German and
Austrian officer prisoners were held in big cities in European Russia
but, without exception, all the Ottoman officer prisoners were
banished to Siberia. There was no ceremony at all for our officers
who died of various diseases in captivity, as they were simply swept
away. A portion of the Ottoman prisoners were thrown into prison
called “Kerios” in Siberia’s Tomsk city, with officers put in one area
and soldiers held in another.
It was impossible not to cry at the sight of 20 sick Ottoman soldiers
stripped nearly naked and lying on wooden boards in filth and
desperation. And although our co-religionists in Russia wanted to
openly and humanely help the Ottoman prisoners in Muscovite hands
with food and clothing, they were officially and sternly prevented from
doing so. Because every Muscovite wanted an Ottoman son to die.
Moreover, our prisoners were denied sufficient food and even bread
necessary for life, or given none at all. Almost every day most of our
prisoner soldiers held in these dark, filthy and soiled places of
banishment were lashed with whips made from telegraph wires. They
were beaten and otherwise inhumanely mistreated by the Muscovite
soldiers for no reason.
Ottoman officer and soldier prisoners were held in filthy, locked
places with many guards, who violently prevented them from getting
outside for a breath of air. The Russians absolutely forbade the local
populace to have any contact with the prisoners. All local shopkeepers
we prohibited from selling clothes, books, maps and other items to
prisoners, under penalty of 5 years in prison and a 3,000 ruble cash fine.
The Muscovites put a senior -ranking officer and 3 low-ranking
officers in a buried earthen shack, with no light or heat, on the rail line
4 kilometers away from the Tomsk station, in February’s minus 40
degree cold. The prisoners were held here for 12 hours, the pretext
being that they had to wait for a train that would take them to another
site further to the east in Siberia. Actually, it was nothing other than
additional torture.
* * *
//END of PART II//
//END of PART II//
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