Was There Any Effort To Recruit Indian POW's?

[animal]

I've been checking out the threads about the Germans recruiting Irish POW's, and was wondering if any similiar effort was made to recruit Indians, either by the Germans or their allies. One would think that at least the Turks might've considered trying to recruit among the Muslims serving in the Indian Army held in their camps.

[BeppoSapone]

I've been checking out the threads about the Germans recruiting Irish POW's, and was wondering if any similiar effort was made to recruit Indians, either by the Germans or their allies. One would think that at least the Turks might've considered trying to recruit among the Muslims serving in the Indian Army held in their camps.

They did try, although not as much as in WW2, and with less success.

There is at least passing mention of it in Philip Mason's "A Matter of Honour", which is a history of the Indian Army.

[SimonM]

They did try, although not as much as in WW2, and with less success.

There is at least passing mention of it in Philip Mason's "A Matter of Honour", which is a history of the Indian Army.

Muslim soldiers were targetted during the siege of Kut in Mesopotamia and encouraged to cross the lines, with promises of land etc. Those who did had a rude suprise. British PoWs after the fall of Kut recall seeing groups of these Sepoys, who were shunned equally by bothe the British and their Turkish masters.

cheers

Simon Moody

[infantry]

There was a deliberate policy to recruit Muslim POWs. The Ottoman special operations detachment "Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa" planned and launched a propaganda campaign targetting Muslim nations under Western dominations -i.e. Algerians, Indian Muslims and Central Asians- before the war. But as far as I understand from the available sources it was the German General Staff who created a relatively good organization to conduct this operation more effectively. They first recruitted respectible religious leaders and used them to convince Muslim POWs to fight against their colonial masters.

What was the rate of success? Unfortunately there was no study -as I know of- about this subject. My personal opinion is it worked in some Muslim groups -especially Algerians and Azeris- but not in all of them. I know various individuals but I can not give you a satisfactory answer.

By the way the Brits also tried to recruit POWs but this time Ottoman Arabs. It did not work. Only a small percentage of the Arab POWs convinced to serve within Sherifian Army against Ottomans.

[Doug Johnson]

Extract from "In the Prison camps of Germany; a Narrative of "Y" Service among Prisoners of War" Conrad Hoffman; 1920

At Zossen, two propaganda camps for Mohammedans were established. One known as Weinberg, was reserved for Mohammedans from Russia; the other at Wunstorf (sic) was given up to Mohammedans from northern Africa and India. In this latter camp special quarters were also provided for the Sikhs, Gurkhas,Hindus, and similar races found among the Captured. In both these camps diligent and subtle efforts were made by a process of compulsary volunteering to secure recruits for the German army, in the hope of sending such Mohammedans into Palestine and Macedonia to incite the inhabitants to take up arms in the so-termed "holy war." ..........I was told that some 15,000 Mohammedans from those camps were thus recruited, disciplined, goose-stepped, equipped with German uniforms, and sent to Macedonia and Palestine to supplement the German and Turkish armies there.

Doug

[centurion]

I suspect that Herr Hoffman is repeating war time propoganda - the number seems unreasonably large given that in WW2 the Germans failed miserably to achieve any real numbers of Indians recruited and I don't think that the Japanese manged to get Bose's Springing Tigers up to that sort of number and that at a time when Indian nationalism was much more developed than in WW1

I also suspect that that sort of number turning up in Palestine might have been noticed and commented upon, especially by those Indian army units serving in Palestine

A last question is asuming that the number who switched sides was just a proportion of the Indian prisoners held by the Germans- where did they all come from?. If the Germans 'turned ' say 10% (which seems high) then they had 150,000 Indian prisoners (and given the usual proportion of soldiers who became POWs in the first place there would have had to be more Indian soldiers in France in 1914/15 than served in the Indian Army as a whole!)

To misquote some well known words "does not compute captain"

[Doug Johnson]

Mr Conrad Hoffman was an American citizen and was sent to work with the YMCA in Germany from 1915. He was unique in being allowed to continue doing so even after America entered the war and visited some 90 camps in all. (although the YMCA operated quite freely in the camps in Germany, Russia and most of Britain throughout the war they never given permission to visit those on the Isle of Man!) From what I can see, the majority of those who joined the German army were Russians from Weinberg and he actually visited the camp and witnessed several companies of such men. Turning them was not too hard, with many Russians starving to death they put the new recruits eating establishment within sight of those in the camp who had not volunteered and of course the new recruits were exceptionally well fed. He very deliberately states that he was told the number of 15 000 and he makes no comment on it so you can draw your own conclusion as to how valid it is. However I suspect that he felt, from what he had witnessed, that it was possible that a considerable number were recruited even if 15 000 was an exaggeration. In essence he confirms that there was a concerted effort to recruit Indian and other similar troops and whilst he confirms that Mohammedans were recruited he does not actually state that any Indians were recruited.

Doug

[centurion]

I don't know what the role of the YMCA in the prison camps was but it doesn't sound as if it can have had much to do with prisoners welfare and ensuring that they were properly and correctly treated if he could be so relaxed about starvation being used as a means of recruiting POWs to change sides - I suspect that it breaks most of the rules in the book. Indeed for a neutral and then a member of an Allied belligerant nation he sounds in tone strangely enthusiastic about the German approach. Not quite an independant witness perhaps?

[infantry]

I completely agree with Centurion. Up to now I did not come across let alone big numbers even decent numbers like 1,000, or even 500. Individuals yes! But groups no! 15,000 is a number that only the inventors of this project might saw it in their dreams!

[James Blonde]

Mr Conrad Hoffman was an American citizen and was sent to work with the YMCA in Germany from 1915. He was unique in being allowed to continue doing so even after America entered the war and visited some 90 camps in all. (although the YMCA operated quite freely in the camps in Germany, Russia and most of Britain throughout the war they never given permission to visit those on the Isle of Man!) From what I can see, the majority of those who joined the German army were Russians from Weinberg and he actually visited the camp and witnessed several companies of such men. Turning them was not too hard, with many Russians starving to death they put the new recruits eating establishment within sight of those in the camp who had not volunteered and of course the new recruits were exceptionally well fed. He very deliberately states that he was told the number of 15 000 and he makes no comment on it so you can draw your own conclusion as to how valid it is. However I suspect that he felt, from what he had witnessed, that it was possible that a considerable number were recruited even if 15 000 was an exaggeration. In essence he confirms that there was a concerted effort to recruit Indian and other similar troops and whilst he confirms that Mohammedans were recruited he does not actually state that any Indians were recruited.

Doug

Hallo Gents,

With a name like Conrad Hoffman (or maybe Konrad Hoffmann)

I would suspect a close family link to Prussia or the former German States, therefore it is not unreasonable to assume he had some fraternal bonds to the German side of the family.

Just my zwie pfennigs worth. . . .

Connaught Ranger

[Doug Johnson]

Daniel McCarthy, an American Camp Inspector, wrote that there were unconfirmed rumours in diplomatic circles that some 2 000 Mohammedans had been recruited and sent to Turkey.

Some comments on the above;

Firstly Mr McCarthy is an American and does not seem to have any allegiance to Ireland.

Secondly there is no indication of nationality of these prisoners. Although the comment is made in connection with a visit to Wunsdorf it is not necessarily connected to it. The numbers at Wunsdorf were quite small so Weinberg seems more likely in which case they were probably from Russian territories.

Thirdly these are 1916 rumours so it is possible that more were recruited later. Also the figure only includes those shipped to Turkey so presumably more than that would have been recruited even in 1916.

The Germans invited various members of the Turkish Government to visit the Zossen camps including Mustapha Redin Bey who made a stirring speech of which McCathy included a translation in his book.

Doug

[Doug Johnson]

More on the recruitment of Mohammedans is contained in "To Make Men Traitors - Germany's attempt to Seduce Her Prisoners-of-War" Hodder and Stoughton, 1918.

The book is based on German documents which arrived in Switzerland and were published in 1917. According to these documents, the first trainload of 200 French Mohammedans from Zossen was sent to Turkey in January 1916 under the command of First Lieutenant Wetzel assisted by 1 interpreter and 1 ambulance subaltern together with a detachment of 1 subaltern and 10 men. a second batch was to be sent in February 1916 consisting of the remainder of the "French volunteers", Indian Mohammedan volunteers and Russian Mohammedans from Weinberg to make up 900 men under the command of Major Freiherr von Nadeln, Reserve Lieutenant Grobba, 1 doctor, 4 interpreters and a detachment of 2 subalterns, 20 men and 1 bugler. more were to be sent later the same month consisting of 900 Russians under First Lietenant Böhlau, assisted by Reserve Lieutenant Beermann, 1 doctor and 4 interpreters, and a detachment of 2 subalters, 20 men and 1 bugler.

Further information indicates that Enver Pasha considered breaking up the "battalion" but was persuaded not to.

This is the first reference so far to Indian recruits.

If these documents were genuine then a figure of 15 000 recruits by the end of the war seems possible, even if they were not all sent.

There is no information relating to what happened to them after being sent to Turkey.

Doug

[JMcCulloch]

I have a small booklet published by the A.O.K. 6 (Nov. 1915) by Signals Officer Luebcke entitled: "Die Indischen Truppen in Frankreich". It makes fascinating reading as it shows both German intelligence knowledge (quite extensive) of the British Indian Army in France 9down to Regimantal commanders and their biographies) as well as the "new" theories of anthropological study being used to determine the troops cultural and political outlook.

See below for a small excerpt regarding the Islamic POWs: