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

//Ed. Note: TNT has been sharing the diary of Turkish POW
M. Fuad Tokad, who was held in Vetluga, Russia, under
fairly humane conditions during WW I. But Fuad Bey's 
situation seems like more of the exception when other POW 
reports are read.  TNT's crack Ottoman transcription staff
recently transcribed and translated 36 of these POW 
reports, which were published by Ottoman officials 
probably in late 1918 or early 1919.//

Information Regarding Our Prisoners in Russia

The horrific ill-treatment suffered by our prisoners during the crisis of 

battle and when they were taken prisoner, as presented in the summaries 

written below about the treatment they received in Russia, has 

essentially never been discussed.   What has been discussed has been 

the lives they led from the time they entered under military 

administration, as recorded in official records.  Herewith are the 

original reports.

Since Ottoman prisoners have not yet returned there are no published 

statistics at all about the total loses.  Similarly, only after all the soldiers 

have returned from captivity will the conditions they experienced 

become known.  However, it is certain from the reports in the file 

that the Ottoman prisoners experienced cruelty and treatment that was 

outside of humane norms.  This situation continued during Czarist 

Russia, Republican Russia and Bolshevik Russia and it is very likely 

continuing today.

The documents discussed here are the personal reports of the officers, 

reports and stories of Germans and Austrians, newspaper articles from 

various countries, individuals from neutral countries, Russians and 

members of the Red Cross.  Consequently, these reports have not been

taken as a whole.  They show for a fact that the Ottoman prisoners were

deprived of means (food, clothing, shelter, treatment) while under the 

control of Russian authority.

                                                 *     *     *

1.       The report of Captain Abdullah Efendi, 49th Regiment, 

1st Battalion, 3rd Company Commander, who was taken prisoner 

in December 1914: 

I was injured when taken prisoner and my 

soldier carried me on his back.  A Russian Armenian soldier 

attacked me and tore out my hair and mustache.  The Russian 

and Russian Armenian soldiers spat in my face and cursed me 

up and down. The wounds of our injured soldiers were not looked 

after. They were left to die on the snow and about 85% of them 

died.  I was transported to the hospital in Tblisi where surgeon 

Dr. Beradof, two Moslem doctors and two Armenian doctors 

operated on me.  The Moslem doctors tried to prevent my foot 

from being amputated but Dr. Beradof flew into a rage when the 

Moslem doctors resisted and he ruined my heel by cutting the 

veins.  With the incitement of Dr. Captain Sarkis, our injured 

officers and soldiers were subjected to various atrocities.  

Women and girls in Russian-occupied areas were raped en route

to Tblisi and the girls lost their virginity.  When Hüsnü Cemal 

Hanım and the esteemed Ömer Faik Efendi in Tblisi heard about 

this they applied to the Governor.

                                                  *     *     *   

2.   The report of Dr. Captain Remzi Efendi of the 85th Regiment,

1st Battalion, who was taken prisoner in December 1914:

I was taken prisoner along with the division commander.  

Together  with our horses and soldiers we were transported to a 

rear location and, upon the order of the Russian commander, our 

valuables and other items were confiscated.  Although we were 

given receipts, despite repeated requests, our items were not 

returned to us. They were stolen by the Russians.  In Yeni Selim 

village we went hungry for 24 hours.  Officers and soldiers alike

were loaded into train wagons, 40 to a car.  In the locked train 

cars the poor soldiers had no way to relieve themselves so they 

had to do this inside the wagon, resulting in many cases of 

diarrhea and deaths.  The ill soldiers were put into flea-ridden 

wagons in Tbilisi and the cars remained locked until arrival in 

Kamişlova, some 4,668 kilometers from Sarıkamış.  Each day, 

usually 4, but no less than 3, soldiers died along the way.  The 

bodies either remained inside the cars or were thrown out onto 

the road.

We finally arrived in Krasnoyarsk but while coming  we lost 

between 2 and 5 officers each day to fever, diarrhea and freezing.  

When we left Tbilisi, Captain Nuri Bey, the commander of the 

85th Regiment’s 1st Battalion, had his head cut open by a rock 

thrown by a Russian soldier.  In February 1330 (sic 1331/1915),

in Krasnoyarsk our soldiers were being devastated by fever and 

lay on hard wooden boards.  One of our young officers was killed 

by a Russian soldier’s bayonet but the Russians claimed that this 

murder was an accident.  I was assigned by the Russians to the 

Sirenetski Garrison 3,000 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk to look 

after patients there. 

Dr. Remzi was sent by the Russians another 3,000 kilometers

east of Krasnoyarsk to the Sirenetski garrison to look after 

patients there.

Meanwhile, in Krasnoyarsk our soldiers were housed in summer 

bungalows in below-freezing temperatures and, of course, fever,

erysipelas (skin disease) and scarlet fever were rampant.  In the 

cold, the soldiers bundled with each other to keep warm.  There 

were no blankets and no medicines in the Russian hospital, as the

 Russians resisted obtaining medicines from elsewhere.     By 

August 1917 the number of our prisoners who died in Russia 

from typhus was estimated at 64,000.  A Russian doctor named

Dr. Brem used to curse and swear about the hospitals he inspected

where our soldiers died from freezing and he noted that the 

Russians had left 200 people hungry for 4 days in one barracks

used for patients, based on some minor pretext.

                                      *     *     *

//END of PART I//