23 Mart 2019 Cumartesi

TNT History Mini-Series: Brutal Turkish POW Reports from Russia (1914-1918)/Part III


İhsan Latif Paşa, commander of a Turkish
division at Sarıkamış, went to Siberia as a
prisoner but escaped in May 1915 and fled 
via China, Japan, America and Greece, 
arriving back in Istanbul in September 
1915.

6.       The report of Şerif Bey, who was captured on 22 December 
1914 at Sarıkamış:

Money was taken from the captured Army Corps staff officers, 
without a reciept being given in return, by a senior-ranking 
administrative staff officer  of either the Russian 1st Caucasus
 Army Corps or by one at the Sarıkamış station.  In 1915 and 
1916 our officers made many appeals to the Krasnoyarsk 
prisoner command in Siberia and these appeals got as far at 
the İrkutsk Army Corp Command but the money was not 
returned.   Plaston soldiers under the command of Perjovalski 
at Sarıkamış and Cossack horsemen of the Russian 1st 
Caucasus Army Corps seized the personal horses, saddles 
and riding gear of our commanders and officers, along with 
their overcoats, capes and other personal clothing.  Our 
officers were left nearly naked and suffered greatly on the 
road.  The total loss was at least 2,000 liras.  

Captain Kazlof, who was assigned to transport and guard the 
captured Army Corps Commander (İhsan Pasha) and his 
entourage, did not provide them with food for 3 days.   As 
our captured soldiers were transported from Kars to Siberia, 
packed like sardines in train cars, they were not even allowed 
to get out to relieve themselves.  All along the way, our 
prisoners were not given food nor bread and many of them 
died from weakness during the trip.  They suffocated in the 
filth.  With İhsan Pasha’s permission, I filed a complaint at 
the city of Rostov  with General Prince Oldenberg, who was
 the health inspector for all of Russia but the Prince did not
 take any action with regard to this calamity.  There were 
three separate theaters for captivity in Russia: the Caucasus, 
European Russia and Siberia. Besides the Moslems living 
in the Caucasus, there were Christians, comprised of 
Armenians, Georgians and Russian migrants, and they were 
all virulent enemies of Turks.  For this reason,  our captive 
officers and soldiers on Nargin Island suffered horrible 
treatment and their illness were not cared for. Our prisoners 
who were transported to European Russia and Siberia 
experienced great suffering along the way.

                                 *     *     *                                 

7.    The report of captured Dr. Captain Hakkı Mehmet Efendi 
of  the 86th Regiment, 3rd Battalion:

When I was taken prisoner the Russian Armenian soldiers were 
about to kill me but some Russian soldiers intervened in time to 
prevent this.  While I was being transported to Kars and in the 
hospital at Kars there were many injured Ottoman soldiers and 
I was assigned to care for them.  There was nothing even close
to cleanliness in the hospital.   The Russians gave our soldiers 
black bread as their diet and this caused many to die.  The sick 
soldiers lived in lice-ridden places.  My appeals for cleaning 
were ignored.  Many soldiers died from typhus.  Those who 
were convalescing were sent to Nargin Island, a barren, snake-
filled place with foul air and no water.  They sent me to Nargin 
Island, too, and I was ordered to live in a tent between the two 
shacks where the Russian murderers stayed.  The food was 
horrible.  The prisoners live in filthy places and many died from 
cholera on the island.  Afterwards, I was transported to Siberia
in a filthy train car.  In Siberia the Russian officers and soldiers
would insult our officers and soldiers at every opportunity.  
Because of the filth and lack of food in Siberia two-thirds of 
our soldiers died.
                                                                     
 central russia map ile ilgili görsel sonucu

                                           *     *     *

8.   The report of Captain Faik Efendi, who was captured in 
December 1914:

I was taken prisoner at Sarıkamış.  At night, the Russians 
transported us 3 at a time in two-wheeled garbage carts to the 
station at Selim village, where 150 of us officers were stuffed 
into this station’s small waiting room for two days.  Then, they 
shipped us, officers and soldiers alike, in animal train wagons.
At Tbilisi, the officers were put into other wagons – 13 
officers in a 4-person compartment.   For a month we traveled 
like this to Kamishlov station on the Siberian border (near 
Yekaterinburg).  Fever was rampant among us officers because 
of the filth and crowding.  And although the Russians were 
supposed to give officers  1.5 rubles a day, they only gve 75 
kopeks up to Kamishlov.  Just for a show for the local Russian 
populace, once every 3 days they permitted us to have a hot 
meal.  Our soldiers’ plight became evermore sad and regrettable.
Our soldiers were stuffed 50-60 into locked train wagons with 
a 30-person capacity, with no chance for the prisoners to relieve 
themselves.  In the course of the month-long train trip, our 
soldiers only had a hot meal 3 times.  Diarreha was rampant 
amid the filth and cold of the train wagons and it was impossible
 to even approach the wagons because of the stench.   Each day 
2 or 3 of our soldiers died in each wagon.  Complaints lodged 
with the Russian commander in charge of the transport by our 
senior officers were answered with the promise that the situation 
would be examined after a few more stations were passed but 
the calamity nevertheless continued.  

At İrkutsk In the middle of April 1918, I went to talk with Graf 
Lundrof, who was the representative of the Swedish Red Cross 
about our prisoners.   Londrof showed me a report he had written 
in German about the tragic condition of Turkish soldiers 
transported from Sarıkamış to Siberia in January 1915:

 “In the middle of January 1915, a long train with its wagons 
filled with Ottoman prisoners, stuffed on top of each other in 
locked wagons that were unapproachable because of the 
crowds and the filth, arrived at the İrkutsk station.  The 
prisoners inside looked un-human, weak and yellow from 
hunger, with sunken cheeks and  their cheek bones sticking 
through.  They were almost lifeless,  nearly without any 
clothes, in bare feet and appearing to be very ill.  Such a 
scene was a stain on humanity and heartbreaking to see.”    

When we arrived in Kamishlov, it was decided that the soldiers 
would be sent to Nermi and the officers to İrbit.  An Austrian 
doctor later told me that most of the soldiers sent to Nermi 
died of typhus. After  us officers were displayed for a week in
İrbit in front of  Moslems who came from Kazan, Orenburg, 
Samara, Ufa and Sibirsk, we were sent to Krasnoyarsk.  I was
ill so they put me in the hospital, which was a wine factory.  
Prisoners were dying from sickness that they could have 
withstood if only a modicum of care and treatment had been
given.   In March 1915, I was sent to Omsk, where the 
headquarters, named “Kerapus”, was a mold-ridden barracks
with a stone floor and murderous inmates.  The prisoners 
were bare-footed, left hungry or made to eat pork, which is 
forbidden by our religion.  The Russians answered complaints 
about with the response that the prisoners must eat the pork.  
They subsequently sent us to the town of İstronski in Siberia.

kerensky takes power ile ilgili görsel sonucu
Aleksandr Kerensky, headed the Russian provisional 
government from July to October 1917.

The trip from Omsk to here took 15 days and we stayed there
for 4 months.  The German POWs were on upper floor of the
barracks and we were below.  There was no concern for the
soldiers’ meals.  When we complained to the Russian officers
their response was “it’s our duty to look after the soldiers. 
You have no right nor any authority to complain.”   In July we
were transported from here to İrkutsk and we stayed there for 
3 years.  Although there was no proper clothing for the soldiers,
at least their meals were pretty good.  When the Kerensky 
regime came to power (July 1917) everything went to hell.  No
one paid any attention to the prisoners.  Because of the 
Bolsheviks,  any kind of amenity was taken away.  Anymore, 
we didn’t get any regular salary from the Russians.  Food 
scarcity made it impossible for us to fill our stomachs.  The 
Slovaks resumed their torture of prisoners.

                                 *     *     *
//END of PART III//

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