10 Mayıs 2019 Cuma

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

//Ed. Note: Russia's fateful 1917 begins. In the midst of his
normal routine of buying bread and studying German, Fuad
Bey talks of becoming an electrical engineer - the profession
he and his son Yılmaz would ultimately work in with great 
success.//

fuad tokad ile ilgili görsel sonucu
Fuad Bey's book on long-distance telephone
circuits, published in the 1930s.



Year 1333- 1917

Start of the New Year the Turkish Government Recently Agreed to 
Observe

1 January 1917 Monday
The weather is bad. The snow outside is two handlengths high. Snow is 
falling now and then. In the early afternoon we went outside and walked 
up to the beer factories on the right-hand side of the city. We came back
via Lebedof. My feet got cold. We spent theday writing German and we
had a lesson at night, too. We were going to get flour to bake bread 
tomorrow but the stores wouldn’t give us any. Even though it shows on 
our food-ration  card that  we’re to be given one and a half funt (funt = 
12 oz./409.5 gram) of flour per person they gave us a hard time by 
demanding a permit. What inhumane jerks they are! They’re lowdown 
men! These numerous, disjointed actions have engendered such a hunger 
for revenge in me that I’ll do whatever harm I can to the Russians from 
now on. Because they say and write that the Turks are their centuries-old 
enemy and they proclaim the fall of Istanbul to be their greatest desire. 
Friendship with them would be an eternal wrong.

2 January 1917 Tuesday
The weather is still bad. The cold is getting ever harsher. The snow 
exceeds two hand-lengths. After lunch we went to the kazarma (main 
barracks)  and got the 50 rubles appropriated for each of us. Up to now 
I’ve gotten 540.5 rubles frm the Russian government. Upon return we 
paid the requisite money for table d’hote and other things. News: the 
Russian Koyesledof wrote, in what seemed to be a mocking tone, about 
the Turks wanting Egypt, Tripoli, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the 
Caucasus. Today while we were getting our salaries we spoke with the 
four Turkish soldiers who were taken prisoner on the Galicia b order. 
One was a student at Galatasaray. They had been at Çanakkale and they 
said that there were few battles as violent as Çanakkale anywhere in the
world, let alone in Galicia. They had gone to Galicia as a battalion army. 
They said there’s one of our army corps on the Romanian front, too. Poor
Istanbul is getting very expensive, they said. We worked on our lessons at 
night. Today we had to buy the bread from the market. White bread has
jumped to 20 kopeks per funt.

3 January 1917 Wednesday
The weather is like it has been. Rather cold, too. We got bread from 
outside again. We got the middle one again. This time it was cooked 
very poorly, the color was jet black, it was like dough. I got annoyed 
about something tonight. The reason and the problem: in the evening I 
asked Burhan for a photograph he had taken as a memento of friendship. 
I wanted this gesture of mine to serve as  more or less a rememberance 
and I was expecting this as a sign of our friendship. Unfortunately, I 
was confronted with an unforeseen reply. I felt very badly. But Halis
consoled me and soothed my discomfort with some nice words. We 
didn’t have a lesson tonight. Uzun Hakkı sent us a German book. We 
finished writing the newspaper today and it was read. The humorous 
section was very funny.

4 January 1917 Thursday
The weather is the same. There’s cold , too. We went to the bath before 
noon. We got a good scrubbing.  But this time we didn’t get so tired out. 
When we returned we drank a lot of tea. We ate our food, as well. The 
charge for the bath is 75 kopeks. The baths here have a system like
everywhere else we’ve seen. News: one of the ministers who is on the 
government side and a member of the palace was killed by the people 
because he was in favor of war. His body was thrown under the ice of 
the Neva River. No one knows what happened to the body. These 
incidents are happening in St. Petersburg and a Russian newspaper is 
writing about them. While we were at the bath Çerkes Mehmet and 
Major Haydar Bey had an argument. Haydar Bey used nice, severe 
language in giving Çerkes a dressing down. The reason for the 
argument was a remark about Major Mehmet Bey of the other house 
moving to this house. We didn’t have a lesson today.

5 January 1917 Friday
Cloudy again today. Bitter cold, too. News: Russian troops have 
withdrawn to their own lands after  the Germans occupied Tolçu and 
Isakçı. I didn’t work at all today, I loafed. I passed the time by making 
chits. At night I wrote random chits for each one of the Turkish letters. 
We had a lesson from Franz at night but it wasn’t productive. We each 
gave Franz one ruble. The German and Austrian committees are about 
to cut off their relations with Vetluga. Although we tried to get flour, 
beans and other things from there, it didn’t happen. In any event, it’s 
impossible to do anything in Russia as a prisoner.

6 January1917 Saturday
The weather is maintaining the status quo…we were able to get three 
sacks of flour from the market today and thanks to Osman Bey in the 
other house we were able to procure four more sacks of flour from the 
committee, with the permission of the Commander. Still, we bought
today’s and tomorrow’s bread from the market. It was 20 kopeks per 
funt. We didn’t have a lesson at night. I didn’t learn one work of German 
today because there’s lots of aggravation. At night, Zühdü told me about
his goal for the future and that he would like to work together with me in 
some way. Like this: in the future a school will be formed under the name
‘open air school’. The founder is Zühdü. By this time I will have 
completed my education and will be an electrical engineer. I’ll teach 
young people of the nation about science at this school. Later this will be
wonderful. I’ll build an electric factory there and I’ll train many 
electricians  – novices and experts – for the nation. In this way, we’ll live 
a happy, pleasant life after having fulfilled our desire. In a dream tonight 
I saw a calamity befalling my friend Halis, whom I love like my soul. I 
felt very badly. In fact, I cried.

7 January 1917 Sunday
The weather has opened up a bit. Now and then the sun peeks through. 
It’s not as cold as it has been. News: German and allied troops have 
seized the cities of Irail and Ismail on the Russian border. The attack 
continues. In the evening we studied German but, what’s the use,
without a teacher  it’s impossible to get anything worthwhile out of it. 
Again today, I asked Süleyman Efendi to teach us. He said it would 
have to be delayed for a while.

//END of PART LX//


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