The siege of Kut-al-Amara 1915-1916

[charlie962]

Whilst it never excuses bad ( this an understatement) treatment of prisoners I do agree with much of the comment above and that from what I have read

-the Turks treated their own men appalingly, and their maltreatment of prisoners was as much deliberate neglect as physical assault (there are some descriptions of young soldiers being shamefully treated by Turkish officers)

-the Arabs were even worse and from written accounts seemed to enjoy beating etc the prisoners..

- the Germans did make efforts on a number of occasions to improve matters,

-certain British officers (incl Melliss) tried hard to assist and intervene but with little success

Clearly a huge cultural divide. But as I say this doesn't make it excusable.

 

Did the Other Ranks ever complain they felt let down or abandoned by their Officers?

 

There are some good previous threads on Kut which expand on the above, with some of the same members contributing

 

It would be interesting to know what happened to Lady Neave's records as well as Braddon's

 

Charlie962

[David Filsell]

Seajane,

I have had experience of trying to find source  material for two dead writers whose subject was the Great War. In these cases no one knew. Probably simply junked as the author moved I suspect. Good luck!

[seaJane]

I haven't time to go hunting, alas. But I suppose Russell Braddon's papers may be somewhere; I wonder if he made transcripts?

[michaeldr]

With too much time to spare today, whilst looking for something else on the 'Mapping the Front – Gallipoli' disc [WFA & IWM] I strayed into the 'indexmaps' section and found this, which I had never seen before and it may prove equally interesting to others.

Specifically, it is 'index30.jpg'

The WFA/IWM disc should still be available if you need it: see http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/the-great-war/great-war-mapping/mapping-the-front-great-war-maps-dvd/1205-mapping-the-front-three-new-dvds-released.html#sthash.LjfwyeXd.dpbs 

[MaureenE]

Thanks for posting Michael. That seems to be the best map I have seen of the POW Camps, showing them situated along the railway. Unfortunately the map part is a bit small for me to read, but the information at the bottom of the map is very interesting.

 

Cheers

Maureen

[michaeldr]

The Bavarian Squadron 304 traversed the Ottoman empire to get to the Palestine front with their valuable aeroplanes. Their photographers recorded the country through which they passed and today the Bavarian State Archives hold that collection, part of which is available on-line.

Of particular interest here is that part of their route which took them through the Taurus and Amanus mountains.

Photographs are available of the mountain passes which the Kut PoWs had to traverse by road,

the tunnels and viaducts upon which many PoWs worked

and Karapuna, where one of the camps was located (per the list on the map above)

 

Go to http://www.gda-old.bayern.de/findmittel/ead/index.php?fb=478

and at the very bottom of the left-hand list click on

05.1.2.5 Bodenaufnahmen (413 Einträge)

 

This will bring up a page listing all the photograph in this sub-section

Two-thirds of the way down the list click on Im Amanus-Gebirge

which will bring up the first photograph of interest and there follows some c.32 others which might also be worth looking at in this context.

[MaureenE]

Thanks for posting Michael. What a harsh terrain to be building a railway.

 

The following link will take you to the first photograph mentioned by Michael, Im Amanus-Gebirge

http://www.gda-old.bayern.de/findmittel/ead/findbuch.php?fb=478&lft=49860&rgt=58181&alft=56260&argt=56279#ae

 

Cheers

Maureen

[Ghazala]

The Arab Bureau was filled with mavericks. Prominent among them were intelligence officers like the enigmatic, and almost blind, Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert.

He called Lawrence ‘an odd gnome, half cad – with a touch of genius’. He travelled with him to Kut-al-Amara in Mesopotamia in an effort to negotiate the repatriation of some 6,500 Anglo-Indian soldiers, when their commander, Major-General Charles Townshend, was on the brink of surrendering the town to Ottoman forces.

Fluent in Turkish and Albanian, Herbert was dispatched on a number of strategic missions during the war. When it ended, he was Chief of the British Mission attached to the Italian Army in Albania, and would be instrumental in the establishment of Albania as an independent state.

[michaeldr]

 

Albania became independent of the Ottoman empire in 1912 and I believe that I read somewhere or other that there was a proposal to make Aubrey Herbert the monarch of that country, but I cannot now find the reference.

 

What has turned up is the delightful description of him during his sick leave on Tenedos, given by Compton Mackenzie in his book Gallipoli Memories

 

“He was wearing a uniform of faded canary yellow. I had never seen that shade of khaki before and commented on the attractive novelty.

'It was made from some stuff my wife got,' he told me vaguely, though whether for casement curtains or uniform he did not add. There were only three buttons left on the tunic, two being the proper ones of his regiment, the Welsh Guards, the other like one of the brown crinkly variety of sweets known as burnt almonds. One shoulder strap had the three stars of his rank as captain, but the other one bore only the single star of a second-lieutenant. He had no belt, and instead of wearing boots he shuffled along in a pair of red Turkish slippers. His sun helmet had received a heavy dent somewhere which gave it a rather the look of a dissolute and bloated Homburg hat, and as a final contribution to the unusual in his military equipment he was not wearing a tie.

'Is that your luggage?' I asked, eyeing the small battered case he was carrying.

'No, no, that's somewhere. I think my man Christo is looking after it probably. This is only my typewriter.'”

[michaeldr]

 

3 hours ago, Ghazala said:

The Arab Bureau was filled with mavericks.

A couple of the others from the Arab Bureau are seen here

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205022225

Lawrence with Hogarth & Dawney

[Ghazala]

Thanks Michael... 

The man Lawrence seems to have appreciated most was Colonel Alan Dawnay, the Chief (GSO1) of the Hijaz Operational Staff or ‘Hedgehog’. When Allenby appointed him as liaison to Lawrence in February 1918, Dawnay became the senior British officer on the scene. Of him, Lawrence said: ‘Dawnay was Allenby’s greatest gift to us – greater than thousands of baggage camels … He married war and rebellion in himself.’

Dawnay was a true conventional soldier, first commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1909, and Lawrence first worried that Dawnay was ‘a regular fighting his first guerrilla battle’ and perhaps not up to the task.

But he was. He was able to use his superior skills as a military planner and organiser to turn a rabble into an effective force. Importantly, although he did not speak Arabic, he was a first-rate diplomat, well able to negotiate with Feisal. Dawnay convinced Feisal to slow his operations down – over the objections of tribal leaders – until a necessary re-organisation was complete.

Dawnay exquisitely planned a successful attack on Tell Shahm Station and followed up with deception operations that convinced the Turks they were dealing with a much larger force. He later repeated that effort at Mudawwara. It was Dawnay’s meticulousness that ensured Lawrence’s force was able to contribute to Allenby’s final autumn 1918 offensive.

After the war, Dawnay proof-read the first manuscript of Seven Pillars – the one lost at Reading Station. He went on to command 1st Battalion, the Coldstream Guards, and reached the rank of major-general before his premature passing in 1938.

[charlie962]

Wasn't it FE Smith for King of Albania?

[michaeldr]

No, it was Aubrey Herbert

I still cannot find my ref

but apparently it crops up here too

http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Biography True Stories/Biography general/Biography historical political military/Albanias Greatest Friend Aubrey Herbert and the Making of Modern Albania.aspx?menuitem={4DDAA395-210D-4C82-9DD2-B471F75AE114}

[michaeldr]

Following on from the map & index to camps shown above

the BM have a 19 page report from 1918 on some aspects of Allied PoWs life while in the hands of the Turks

see https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-treatment-of-british-prisoners-of-war-in-turkey

 

[bob lembke]

Not an expert here; one British officer insisted on remaining with his men rather than experience a better experience with the other officers. I have posted before about how the German officers in Istanbul complained to the Turks after seeing Townshend feted about town in the best restaurants. My father's company of volunteer Pioniere was marching from Gallipoli back to Istanbul for medical rehabilitation when they encountered wounded prisoners on the roadside in dreadful condition, they stopped, applied medical care, and gave them all of their food, to the astonishment of the Turks. 

[charlie962]

Bob, A fascinating account. I have read your previous thread. I think the Europeans were generally horrified by the Turkish attitude of complete disregard (at best) for their own soldiers' well-being let alone enemy O.R. prisoners. In the various accounts there are often mentions of sympathetic treatment when Germans came across the British prisoners. But there are also adverse accounts, I believe,on the railway construction camps, where the construction companies were German enterprises? But nothing compares to the savagery of the Arab and Kurdish guards and their Turkish masters on the long marches.

 

Michaeldr,  There is a summary of prisoners taken, split British/Indian. I am trying to find a sub-split by British unit but have not come across anything yet. An analysis I have done of published casualty lists gets me quite close but I am sure there must be some back-up papers to the Parliamentary figures. Do you know of anything?

 

Charlie

Edited 19 March , 2017 by charlie962

[seaJane]

On 18/03/2017 at 13:47, bob lembke said:

Not an expert here; one British officer insisted on remaining with his men rather than experience a better experience with the other officers

I think that may have been General Mellish but I'm not 100% sure. I've certainly read of the officer in question.

[seaJane]

On 05/11/2016 at 19:56, michaeldr said:

 

No, it was Aubrey Herbert

I still cannot find my ref

 

Could it be in Margaret Fitzherbert's The Man Who Was Greenmantle?

 

sJ

[bob lembke]

2 hours ago, seaJane said:

I think that may have been General Mellish but I'm not 100% sure. I've certainly read of the officer in question.

 

I would have been astonished to see a general mentioned. I think a captain or thereabout. A 50 or 60 year old man

would not have half a chance. 

[charlie962]

Mellish certainly tried to (with mixed success) intervene early on but his own health deteriorated to such an extent that he was unable to continue. The senior Turks refused to believe there could be any problems. Indifference was the rule.

 

Even the regimental medical officers were not allowed to remain with their units in the beginning. It may be one or some of them who nevertheless managed to make contact?

Edited 19 March , 2017 by charlie962

[seaJane]

The name I was looking for was Charles Melliss, VC, 52 at the time.

"Melliss was allowed a traveling party and better than average supplies. Along the way, they encountered dead and dying enlisted men who had fallen behind one of the columns of British and Indian prisoners. Melliss took any survivors he found with him; at each stop he insisted that the men he had rescued from the desert be put into hospital."

 

That said, I now think he wasn't the officer in question - I'll keep looking.

[charlie962]

and for the obvious reason the Turks changed the route by which the officers travelled!

 

[michaeldr]

On 3/19/2017 at 14:46, charlie962 said:

Michaeldr,  There is a summary of prisoners taken, split British/Indian. I am trying to find a sub-split by British unit but have not come across anything yet. An analysis I have done of published casualty lists gets me quite close but I am sure there must be some back-up papers to the Parliamentary figures. Do you know of anything?

 

Very sorry Charlie,

can't help you there

 

regards

Michael

[seaJane]

Possibly Parliamentary Paper, Cmd 9208, Nov. 1918 - if you can get to a local university, they may have access to Parliamentary Papers Online; otherwise the House of Commons Library may be able to advise.

[charlie962]

Thank you both for the replies. I suspect the answer may lie in the FO files that have previously been listed on one of these threads. That will have to wait for a visit to UK (if they allow me back in post-Brexit) let alone a local University!

Charlie