1 Mayıs 2019 Çarşamba

TNT Matchbox Diary: A Turkish POW in Russian Prison Camp (1915-1918)/Part LVI

//Ed. Note:  Fuad Bey has a dream that he will marry an
Austrian woman (it didn't come true.)  More tumult in
the Russian parliament, as fateful 1917 approaches. //

russian revolution 1916 ile ilgili görsel sonucu


3 December 1916 Sunday
The weather is cloudy all the time anymore. Today it’s colder than 
yesterday. News: a force coming from the Carpathians has met up with 
another one north of Bucharest. Since today is Sunday the priest gave 
a sermon at the church. He said ‘good news people! Peace has been
agreed upon. And in our favor. Pray to God. Come again next week and 
let’s pray for the souls of our brothers  who died in the war.’ We were 
glad to hear this news (because of peace) but we didn’t believe it…may 
God grant a beneficial peace soon. I had a dream at night. It seemed that 
a cavalry rider (my father) was coming along a road that dipped and rose 
suddenly. His horse was not a good one, sometimes lazy, sometimes wild. 
A train is coming but the engineer, seeing father struggling on his horse 
along the rail line, stops the train and waits for quite a while. At this time, 
father jumps off his horse. The horse runs away and the train starts to
move. The horse leaves the road and rolls down. The train passes. Then
 father comes down too. I followed him and we talked.

4 December 1916 Monday
The weather is cloudy. Cold. The newspapers are writing that the 
Russians have affirmed the Polish kingdom and accepted the annexation 
of Serbia Montenegro and Hungary to Austria. It is known that the 
Russians will make peace for sure since the other enemies have now made
it clear that they want war. In the afternoon Tahir, Nuri and Hasan came to 
visit us. After a while, Hasan, Hikmet, Mehmet Ağa and I went to the 
other houses together. I gave a German story to Hakkı there to be 
translated and I got back the ones I had previously given him. We 
understand that Russia has agreed to all demands but has reservations 
about reparations. Just before bedtime at night Salah was again 
whispering to Saffet. I pricked up my ears a bit. It was all against me; 
now and then I heard the words ‘Fuad’ and ‘Halis’. What does this dirty
lowdown fellow want from us?  Or does he suspect us of something else? 
Is he probably hatching another plan to separate us from one another? I’ll
tell Halis about this and recommend once again that he not converse with
these types (fellow townsmen though they may be). Enough of this 
whispering!...

5 December 1916 Tuesday
The weather is still cloudy, the bitterness of the cold is 17 degrees. News: 
Van is in Turkish hands.  The Russians have dropped their arms and run 
away. Some 17,000 Armenians are moving from one country to another. 
The Russian newspaper calls this the ‘Armenians’ third calamity’. Forces
have advanced to 12 kilometers from Bucharest. Five or six of us went to 
visit Tahir in the afternoon. We chatted for quite a while, drank tea. Halis 
and I discussed the whisperings against us and studied some words in the 
evening. We didn’t work on German very much this evening. A bit later 
we went to bed.

6 December 1916 Wednesday
The weather is cloudy. It’s cold, too. News: Betman Havlov said in his 
speech that although the whole world is helping our enemies God is still 
with us. Bucharest is under bombardment. We went to the Command after 
lunch and each of us got our 50 ruble salaries. I’ve gotten 490.5 rubles up
to now. Upon our return we paid the servants 16 rubles each for the table 
d’hote. We also settled some other small debts. At night, the fellows 
played national games and sang songs. We had a lot of fun. I worked on 
German by myself. According to a dream I had at night, I’ll marry an
Austrian.

7 December 1916 Thursday
The weather remains cloudy. The bitterness of the cold is increasing. The 
length of the daylight has shortened quite a bit. The sun rises at about 8 
o’clock and sets before 4 o’clock. When the weather is cloudy we get, at
 best, five or six hours of daylight. We got tobacco, matches and paper
from the market in the morning and in the afternoon we went to the main
 barracks bath. There were five of us and we got a good scrubbing with 
rough cloths. But we got tired and hot. We drank water and perspired. On 
the way back to the house we felt cold. We drank tea again. My head was 
thumping. I lay down until the evening meal. I got up but soon after the 
meal I lay down again and sweated. I got up again and sat until the late 
hours. News: a lot of tumult in the Russian Parliament. The leader of 
Parliament, Kogbur, and the Parliament which previously wanted peace, 
have rejected the Russian government’s proposal. One minister is saying 
that the war is lost and that the dream of seizing Istanbul from it’s 
thousand-year enemy the Turks has been extinguished. He added that
peace is now inevitable.

8 December 1916 Friday
The weather is cloudy. But compared to yesterday it’s not as cold. Şerif,
Sadık and Basri came to visit in the afternoon. Şerif said that he wouldn’t 
be able to pay back the 10 rubles he borrowed this month but that he 
would next month. News: Russian newspapers are writing that Bucharest
was abandoned by the Romanians on 6 December and that Romanian 
troops have joined with the Russian army to escape toward Boğdan. This 
means that we’re in Bucharest. Good…I got angry about a small thing in
the morning and as it was about to fade away it suddenly worsened. My
good mood evaporated and I became quiet. Halis didn’t come over to me, 
which made me feel bad and I went off to a corner. I passed the time by 
memorizing some words. Although all the other fellows played games and 
had fun at night, I was the only one who didn’t join in. I went to bed early. 
Saffet came over to me and asked why I was in a bad mood but regrettably
he couldn’t find out anything beyond ‘there’s nothing wrong.’ I was lost 
in thought during the night, mostly about the past and I fell asleep in this
fashion.

9 December 1916 Saturday
The weather is like it always is. It’s cold, too. Another strange thing 
happened: it was before noon. I was sitting on my bed, busy writing in 
my diary when Halis came by and left a paper. I didn’t pay it any mind 
and after I finished my work I read it. He wrote asking why I was so 
quiet and said that this would not have any effect on him. I took issue 
with some of his points and wrote a long note in reply. In it, after 
criticizing a number of things, I said that he ought not harbor such an 
attitude any more; that I didn’t hate him; that my intentions were only 
directed toward his welfare; that I didn’t have any problem and there’s 
nothing extant in this regard; that I wanted him to be happy and not
fret; that my sincerity for him was eternal; and that I would always be 
faithful. Evening came around. He was laying on his bed, feeling bad.
 I told him to get up. Franz came a bit later and four of us studied 
German. Then, a bit later, we went to bed. Before sleeping, Halis and 
I had a serious talk. I would bet that those who saw us would judge 
that our former closeness was continuing. But all of this is the irritating
consequence of captivity. I saw my mother and brother in a dream last 
night.

10 December 1916 Sunday
The sky is overcast. The cold is like it always is. There’s frost all over. 
There’s hope that Greece will join the war. Supposedly, the citizens of 
the Allied Powers’ nations are leaving Athens and heading for their 
respective countries. Four of us gave Franz five rubles in the evening 
and I handed it to him myself. He was pleased. We had a German lesson. 
I went to bed rather early tonight. The reason was the effect of a cigarette 
I smoked. First my head ached, then my stomach became nauseus. 
Consequently, a bit later I vomited. I lay down but I couldn’t sleep. Halis
and I had a long talk. Halis asked about my bad mood of the past couple 
of days and came up with an explanation for it. I Repeated what I had 
said yesterday and asked him not to bring up the subject again. I felt badly.
But it was no big deal.

//END of PART LVI//


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