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

//Ed. Note: This is the last entry in Fuad Bey's diary - an
unremarkable end to his incredible masterpiece.  He made 
no mention of any other diary and we only know of his
subsequent exploits thanks to his autobiography, written
in the 1950s.//

19 March 1917 Monday

The weather has improved. The sun has started to warm things up. 

News: yesterday’s news has been confirmed, the deposed Czar has been 

arrested. Our army’s attack and victory in the Caucasus; the Russians 

have been chased 25 miles from Van. In a statement written by the

Russians’ newly-established cabinet, the army has been reminded to 

stick to its duty henceforth.

In the afternoon I went to the photographer’s shop with Halis and Kazim. 

We had half-body photographs taken. It was 3 rubles 20 kopeks each, 

with the condition that a card be given to each of us. How expensive! 

The place where this Russian photographer’s shop was was not very nice

and the customer room was small. Although this fellow is an artist I 

didn’t see any good paintings. Wherever I looked I saw lacquered oil 

paintings of Jesus and his apostles painted in various sizes. The 

Russians’ fanatical religiousness has influenced even their paintings 

and photography. Again today 5-day bread was baked in the house oven. 

The Vetluga municipality has reduced the price of a funt of bread to 20 

kopeks. I went to bed a little after midnight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed. Note:  In his autobiography written in the 1950s, Fuad Bey 

recalled that he spent about 27 months at Vetluga, although his diary

ended after only about 9 months there.  Fuad Bey related that life

became increasingly difficult in the camp as the Russian Revolution

proceeded and about a month before his release he and his fellow

inmates were put into an abandoned wine factory and subjected to 

harsh treatment.

Finally, Fuad Bey was put on a ferry from Vetluga to Nizhny Novgorod

and from there by train to Moscow.  After a week in Moscow, Fuad Bey

went again by train to Warsaw, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia and then to

Istanbul, arriving there on 1 September 1918 - two months before the

end of World War I and the beginning of the British occupation of 

Istanbul. 

Starting from zero, Fuad Bey studied math and science to become an

engineer and had a very successful career with PTT, estblishing the 

first radio link between Istanbul and Ankara in the 1930s.  In 1950, 

Fuad Bey left PTT and began working  at Istanbul Radio.  

He married Halime hanım in 1924 and the second of their four children, 

the future Prof. Dr. Yılmaz Tokad, was born in 1927.  Yılmaz Bey 

and his children kept his father's diary in safekeeping until it was 

transcribed and translated between 2008 and 2011 but Prof. Tokad

 passed away in 2001 before he could read the transcription.  

Fuad Bey, who died in 1960, was a remarkable individual. The tiny 

diary he kept during his soldiering in eastern Turkey and then at 

Vetluga was written, according to his daughter, with a needle.  The

nearly error-free text seems to us mere mortals to be physically 

impossible to write, and especially on the battlefield and in a prison 

camp.  Yet, the two-notebook diary remains in tact more than 100 

years later. // 

//END of PART LXXV/FINAL//